Warning

This fic will feature canon characters acting out of character and imply sexually suggestive overtures between minors. Also beware of the Author childishly indulging himself in power-tripping.


Now, on with the play!


Part Three

Plight of the Princess


"Despite what you may initially think, there IS a difference between the title of this chapter and the previous. 'Flight' is different from 'Plight'. The previous chapter was about Princess Claes escaping her evil stepmother's insidious plot to murder her. This chapter is about her troubles at her new home."


"Rolito…"

"(Language is a very complex thing, Mireille. One must always make himself clear on wordplay, especially with homonyms.)"

"You're obsessive, aren't you?"

"(Masakari has told me that, yes. Then again, she was an obsessive-compulsive type.)"


"Claes found the cottage rather different from the sanctuary she had faintly hoped for."


Terra sneered. "Listen up well, slave. You will wake up at two A.M., prepare the clothes, prepare our morning bath, wake us all up, prepare breakfast while we bathe, serve us while we eat, clear the dishes, fix our beds, wash the dirty laundry by hand–"

"There's a Laundromat not half a kilometer down the road," Claes pointed out. "It would be easier if I brought the dirty laundry there."

"What, and waste money when we can have you do it for us for free? And don't interrupt me while I'm talking! Now, where was I– argh!" Terra grimaced. "Look what you've done! You've made me forget what I was saying!"

"Wash the laundry by hand," Claes helpfully suggested.

"Oh, yeah, right, that. Wash the laundry by hand, hang them up to dry in the sun, prepare lunch at exactly twelve noon, wait for us to arrive, serve us while we eat, clear away the dishes, clean the house while we are on our afternoon shift, take in the dried laundry, put it away, prepare our evening baths, prepare our food while we bathe, serve us while we eat, clear the dishes, lock up the house." Terra inhaled and then exhaled. "Those are your established chores."

Claes blinked. "Established chores?"

"Each of us has her own specific requirements."

Terra spent an inordinate amount of time elaborating on such minor details as the difference in temperature of her morning and evening baths (the difference being in the negative 20th power, somewhere around the molecular level.) And when she had run out of ideas, Petruska put in her two cents worth, the redhead mostly concerning procedures that would keep her looks radiant and her Sandro compliant to her will.

"How about using a steam press to smoothen the laundry?" Claes interjected just for variety.

"Why would we want reporters here?"


"Claes meant a 'steam iron1', you English-challenged savage," Rolito grumbled from inside his still-invisible Venom robot.


For the next five minutes, Claes scurried about the whole stage tending all manner of orders from Terra and Petrushka. Rico would have happily helped her, but Terra told her off on the grounds that "it's realism".

And Rolito seethed. The man was somewhat of an obsessive control freak (a trait frequently found in housewives, overprotective fathers and directors). Additionally, he hated people ruining a perfectly good script of his just because they felt like it. That it was some hothead kid who upstaged him only galled him further.

And to tell the truth, he liked Claes. Not in a disturbing way as some people would automatically think– and yes, I mean you, Wallez, among others such as Alessandro and Gino and maybe Jose and maybe Hilshire, too, Rolito grimly thought.

Anyway, Claes impressed him as an adult in all but body. To see such a worthy girl being run over roughshod, enduring the abuse quietly without complaint– it touched his heart in some places and inflamed it in others.

You see, the last item in his mental itinerary was that Rolito absolutely hated bullies, having been bullied a lot before he finally learned how to use a sword and cut short the torment– both literally and figuratively.

Well, Terra, let's see how your improvising stands up to my improving.


Minutes later, a cell phone began ringing shrilly.

And when I feel that I can feel once again, let me stay awhile... soak it in a while… if we hold on, we can see what is wrong… wait a little while… for this head of mine…2

Biting down a curse and ignoring the laughter of the audience, narrator Marco tucked the monstrously heavy tome he used as a prop and pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket. "Yes?"

Whatever he heard, it did not make him happy. He knew better than to argue aloud, and he did turn off his mike to engage in a heated but hushed discussion.

Rico, however, could read lips even at her disadvantageous spot backstage. So could Jean, who taught her the skill in the first place and who was now standing next to Mireille with a clear view of Marco's red face. "It's Rolito. That Amalgam bastard is up to something no good."

Grumbling, Marco ended the call. Fifteen seconds later, his cell phone beeped.

"SMS?" Mireille wondered. "A text message?"

Marco flicked his mike on and read his text message aloud.


"That night, while Princess Claes lay upon her rude bedding to get some rest, she felt someone approach."


That wasn't in the script. Being a good girl, though, Claes sat up from her nest of shredded paper– straw and hay being in short supply in Italy, Chief Lorenzo supplied a ton of useless documents for the menacing paper shredder– and looked about the "stall".

"Freda," a woman's voice called out from off stage.

Claes stared. What did she call me?

So did Mireille, who further gaped in shock and almost gasped aloud.

Yuumura Kirika walked on stage. She donned the outfit she wore back during that terrible day at The Manor3: the white chemise that reached just halfway down her thighs, crimson twirls around her wrists and shins, and that look on her face that silently asked why she could not feel anything when she killed. Borne in her right hand with the unease of someone unused to carrying anything other than a weapon was a thin rod with a bright yellow star at its tip4. Precariously perched on her right shoulder was a cute white kitten. All in all Kirika looked lost and rather small and admittedly cute.

"Noir!" squealed a very familiar voice from the very back of the audience. "Here! Over here!"

An equally familiar man in a long-tailed coat grabbed the enthusiastic redhead and pulled her back down into the shadows. A ruckus sounded.

"Stay out of sight, woman!"

"Jeremy! Let me go! That child is there! I have to go to her!"


Somehow Mireille managed to keep her voice down even as she snarled into her radio. "Rolito! What is the meaning of this?"

"(Watch a while longer. You'll see.)"


Kirika approached Claes. "Freda my child," the Japanese girl announced in her quiet voice while waving her wand once. "I am your fairy godmother."


"I don't remember a fairy godmother in Snow White," Mireille said.

"(There isn't.)"

"Then why did you make Kirika one?"

"(Creative license.)"

The Corsican beauty was beginning to seriously wonder if Rolito was either merely erratic or what the Japanese called an otaku.


While everyone else were staring at the unexpected addition to the play, Claes was staring at the very-familiar looking kitten balancing itself on Kirika's shoulder. "Liora?"

Her pet fluffball mewled.

"I'm sorry," Kirika whispered. "I couldn't find Prince Mishkin5. I asked that blonde man over there–" she pointed at Jean "–If there was a cat I could borrow. He gave me this kitten."


Mireille turned her scolding on Jean. "Jean! Why did you put Liora in such a position?"

"Your friend asked politely. It would have been rude of me to refuse."

"(Wise choice, Jean,)" Rolito praised over the radio.

"Thank you, Rolito."

Mireille felt like stomping her foot pettily. Men!


"Why did you need a cat?" Claes asked her senior fellow assassin.

"It's for my character. Fairy godmothers are supposed to have familiars."

"Witches are the ones with familiars, not fairy godmothers."

Kirika blinked. "I didn't know that."

"Don't you know anything about fairy tales?"

"What are those?"

And they say we cyborgs have been deprived of a normal childhood, Claes thought grimly.


"Princess Claes was surprised and awed by the appearance of her fairy godmother."


Claes assumed as astonished an air as she could. "So why have you come here, my fairy godmother?"

"I have come to aid you in your troubles." Kirika gestured with her wand.

A Japanese teenager in a junior high school summer uniform entered the stage. He wore a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek, a stern expression on his face and a stubby grenade launcher in his arms. He marched to where Claes and Kirika stood, stood straight and saluted the both of them.

"Sir, Sergeant Sagara Sousuke, reporting for duty as ordered, sir!"

"Sergeant Sagara is my paladin," Kirika explained. "He will help you in your troubles."

"Why are you doing this for me?" Claes asked.

"You are a blessed girl, Freda my child."

"Why do you call me Freda?"

"Freda is your secret and true name. It is the name of your destiny."

"Destiny? What kind of destiny?"

"It is the destiny to lift the enchantment that the evil sorceress, your stepmother, has cast upon your kingdom. You are the only hope of your homeland."

"But I have no power," Claes protested. "Otherwise, I could have stopped all of this from happening."

"Destiny and power are separate things. You may have overwhelming power, but it may be that your ultimate destiny is to fail. Or it may be that you have no power, but your destiny is to triumph. Yours is to rule and live long and kindly and happily."

"I do not know if I should believe this," Claes murmured.

"You are a wise girl. Your mind is clear and your heart is kind. Listen to your mind and your heart. Then decide. Believe."

"Will you give me some time to think it over, fairy godmother?"

"Yes. But do not wait too long. And always be careful. The queen has a long arm. You must always be wary."

"I will. Thank you for your kindness."

"It is nothing." Kirika looked at Sagara. "Parting with you pains me deeply. Take good care of Freda. And take care of yourself."

Sagara's stern face actually softened.


"No," Mireille murmured in astonishment.

"(Yes,)" Rolito countered.

"When did that happen?"

"(In the future crossover fan fiction between Noir and Full Metal planned by Sheo Darren, that's when.)" 6

"Stop spouting mysterious gibberish!"

"(It's not gibberish. It's breaking the Fourth Wall.)"

"I don't know whether or not you're crazy."

"(It's called eccentricity. And that's only because I'm rich.)"


It wasn't fun anymore. Whenever Terra gave Claes an order, Sagara did the job. And it wasn't like Terra could intimidate Sagara. It was difficult to intimidate a man who carried a grenade launcher everywhere he went and who was used to fighting thirty-foot-tall robots– like the invisible Venom Arm Slave that a very pleased Rolito, enjoying the turn-around he'd engineered, sat inside.


"(I love it when a plan comes together.)"7

"You're power-tripping again."

"(I also hear your chant playing again.)"

Mireille rolled her eyes but did not deign to retort.


"Meanwhile…"


"Get him!"

Pinocchio frantically dodged and fended off the hands grabbing for him. No! I won't be caught!

Triela couldn't stay on his lap forever. While the blonde girl was taking a brief restroom break to freshen up, Pino recovered enough of his wits to make a break for it.

Of course, escape involved running a gauntlet of cyborgs.

But Pino was driven by something his opponents lacked. Not quite self-preservation. It was shame. It was mortification. It was the thought of having that horribly handsome harridan within a hundred feet of him– no, more so, her feminine figure hunched over him, the softness of her bottom plunked upon his laps, her sneering, bewitchingly beautiful face almost in his, rosy lips daring to be crushed so passionately, making him think wrong thing, feel all so wrong–

Not again. Never again. Never! I won't fall for you! You'll never take me alive!

And then Pino tripped and fell flat on his face, stunned.

A silvery human-shaped outline coalesced over him. The now-visible Giuseppe grinned at the prostrate Pinocchio. His kukri rested over his right shoulder.

"Were we going anywhere?"


"Why, Pinocchio. I missed you so much. You weren't going to leave me, now, were you?" Triela smiled foxily. "Well, just to preclude that…"

She held up a bale of rope. Her smile was sweetly wicked.

Pino began to earnestly pray at this point.


"The evil Queen was enjoying herself."


Back in her comfy seat (a.k.a. Pino's lap, the boy now tied to the throne), Triela snapped her fingers. Meir rushed on stage. This time, instead of the huge wooden frame from earlier, he carried a smaller frame about the side of his head with a handle.


"(I have to get one of the actors or actresses to trip Meir in one of these scenes. Then I can insert a joke about getting seven years bad luck.)" 8

"Rolito! That's cruel!"

"(Yes. At times I can be crueler than Jean was in the first two volumes of the manga.)"

"…You really are an otaku, aren't you?"

"(…I resent that.)"


"Mirror, Mirror, mounted on a handle, who's the fairest within this Kingdom?"

"Why, it isss you, Your Hissinesss!"

"Excellent!"


"But the evil Queen was vain beyond belief."


"But tell me, Mirror, who is the fairest of them all?"

"Princesss Claesss."

"Of course–" Triela froze. "What? Wait a minute! What did you say?"

"I said, Princesss Claesss."

"Claes is dead!"

"No, Your Cruelnesss. Ssshe'sss very much alive and well."

"Show me!"

"Okay…"

A video projector threw a picture of Claes surrounded by Spirites across the wall. Sagara hovered over her left shoulder like a second shadow.


"And how do you justify that?"

"(Magic is merely badly-understood science and technology that appears ahead of its time.)"

The craziest thing was that it made sense. Mireille shook her head.


"Never send a soft-hearted Hunter to do an evil stepmother's job," Triela muttered. "Okay, Claes. Let's dance."


"Looks like Triela will not stop until Claes is dead for real. But just what evils does our blond temptress have in store? Not just for Claes, but also for the audience and especially Pino?

"Well, have you ever heard of sadomasochistic pleasures? Yes, Mr. Wallez, you well know what we're up to in the next chapter of…"


Snow Claes And The Seven Cyborg Sprites


A Gunslinger Girl Christmas Presentation


Disclaimer

Neither Rolito nor Sheo owns Gunslinger Girl, Noir or Full Metal Panic. OCs used here with permission from their respective creators. This is a fan fiction and a parody. Please do not sue.


"And now for the expected "Learned Commentaries By Victor 'Hilshire' Hartman"- as promised after making 'Etta run around with bananas on her fingers in Oddity's fic."


"I hate you, Rolito."


Today's List:

1. The word "press" can mean a) a hot iron used to dry clothes and b) a general term for journalists or reporters.

2. Anyone who's watched the anime of "Gunslinger Girl" knows what this song is. :)

3. See the last few episodes of the anime Noir for Kirika's costume.

4. Person with many aliases, Lone Wolf NEO, you know where this came from.

5. Prince Mishkin is a kitten that Kirika kept as a pet from an episode of Noir.

6. This is a direct quote from the Author. "Honest! I'm really making it! I've already begun on the first chapter!"

7. A quote from the 80s television show A-Team. Damn, but Mr. T sure can throw far...

8. The usual "break a mirror and you get seven years bad luck". Incidentally, if you fix a mirror, is the reverse true?


"This can't get any worse," Hilshire mournfully decided.


"Mister Superior? This is Handsome Pearl. We've found Crazy Horse."

"(Good. Keep an eye on him. The rest of the Teams are en route…)"

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Leon?"

"Stay put, Matilda. We'll get our shot at this bastard soon enough."

"Yes, Mr. Leon."

Click, went a big Magnum revolver.