The Power of U-DO
by Akai Kuu
Dedicated to Mr. David Bowie, who will always hold a special place in our hearts and ill-fitting trousers.
The Dammurung was a ship the size of a nation, yet against the infinite backdrop of black and stars it seemed tiny...until you drew close. It slid through oblivion in silence, its massive engines muted by the vacuum of space. This was because space was behaving itself this week: its contract stated that every other week and alternating Thursdays, it had to allow sound for dramatic effect, but today was the second Tuesday of the month so our imagery will work nicely here. It's a good system, really, although it can give rise to some nasty scheduling issues for epic space battles, particularly if your wife demands you wipe out no less than six Federation Fleets with your own projectile excrement by next payday or she's leaving you, and taking the polyp with her.
But the domestic affairs of poor, working-class Gnosis were, as ever, far from CEO Wilhelm's mind. Currently, while waiting for a certain pawn to arrive for her appointment with him, he was absently worrying about whether his subordinates in the corporation were beginning to suspect his... evility. He'd thought he'd done a good job hiding it: what kind of evil mastermind type listens to Wagnerian opera twenty-four seven? The Testaments had told him that perhaps red contact lenses had been a bad choice, but what did they know? He thought they were lovely. And Sellers' habit of leaping out of his wheelchair and addressing him as "mein fuhrer" was nothing more than a harmless term of endearment. It always made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and now they were trying to tell him to make Sellers be more "restrained." Well they could just go soak their beaked Biblical heads. What did they know about being evil, anyway?
Pouting faintly, Wilhelm sunk lower into his Rolling Chair of Supremely Evil Black Upholstery and gave the Compass of Order an idle twirl. He was still squinting intently at it when the doors to his office opened, and a bewildered Ms. Shion Uzuki took a few hesitant steps inside.
Shion blinked. Her boss appeared to be completely enraptured by the spinning of the ...thing on his desk. She cleared her throat.
"Erm.. CEO Wilhel--"
"Shhh!" The silver-haired (which by no means denotes evil) executive murmured urgently; the needle was coming to a halt. When at last it settled, his eyes squinted further, then glinted as an almost seductively satisfied smile curled at his lips. "Right foot... green," Wilhelm purred.
Shion blinked again. "I'm sorry, what?"
Wilhelm nearly started clean out of His Chair, having been absorbed in the mental cries of anguish from another plane of existance. He coughed self-consciously, straightening his tie. "Uhm, yes, Ms. Uzuki..." Shion was looking at him oddly. Oh, poops, he thought nervously, his eyes darting from side to side again. There I go again, being all evil and everything..
There was, however, a more precise reason for Shion's intent stare. Suddenly, something about Wilhelm seemed very... familiar. Maybe it was the hair, or the frame, or the shape of his face, but in her mind's eye she was drawing up a mental comparison chart between him and another enigmatic, attractive-if-slightly-effeminate young man who, in a world where one can obtain a PhD in logic and physics by mastering the art of the Smile'n'Nod, always seemed to know exactly what was going on, even if that something was a "consciousness" which no one could definite any further than "it's bad."
"You remind me of the babe," Shion said suddenly. It was Wilhelm's turn to blink, now, as his brows furrowed vaguely in confusion.
"What babe?" Wasn't that a movie Nephilim had made him watch about some talking bacon and its friends?
"The babe with the power," she shot back immediately. chaos probably would have been more easily identifiable to Wilhelm if she'd given his alias, That-Guy-Who-Used-to-Stuff-a-Zucchini-In-His-Shorts-Until-Tony-Started-Coming-Onto-Him.
"What power?" Wilhelm's eyes widened.
"The power of U-DO!"
"Who do!"
"You do!"
"Do what?"
Shion folded her arms crossly. "Remind me of the babe."
"Sir," interjected Wilhelm's secretary over the intercom, "there's an entourage of Muppets here to see you. Shall I send them in?"
And just then, somewhere in the vast, currently-silent reaches of space, chaos started crying... as hard as babe could cry.
Fin.
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Disclaimer: I don't own Xenosaga. I don't own Labyrinth, beyond the soundtrack and the DVD where you can use the pause feature to get a crystal-sharp image of David Bowie with his finger up his nose during "Magic Dance." I do happe to own a very nice copy of Twister: The Face-in-Crotch Game TM. At least, I think I do; it's probably buried in my closet somewhere.
Apologies for this, but from the first time Helmer over-dramatically intoned the words OOOOOOOOOO-DOOOOOOOOO in Episode I, this was all I can think of. Blame the 80s, please. I always swear off of fanfiction, but come back briefly every time I play a reeeeeeally good game. Oh well. Stay tuned for the next installment, inspired by the revealations about chaos' character that sure shocked the shit outta me at the end of the second game : Xenosaga, Episode III: Jesus Lays the Smackdown.
...maybe?