Jadali: Hey, guess what I just found?
Elspeth: Oh no…not again…
Jadali: Yup. Just to prove you wrong when you said you hadn’t come across a bad Dark Angel fic, I went out specifically and found one.
Elspeth: Oh. Great. Skip-a-dee-dee-dee.
Jadali: Just be glad I didn’t pick the one with thirty chapters of pure author’s self-inserted personal bliss.
Elspeth: *sweatdrop*
Unicorn
Elspeth: It doesn’t sound too bad yet.
Jadali: Patience is a virtue. It’ll get worse. They always do.
When Zack was young he pushed the person he love's away now she's back. And she need's help only Max Zack Logan and Zack's love can give.
Jadali: All hail Princess Apostrophe.
Elspeth: Shame they’re in the wrong spots, huh? ’Cept for that one in Zack’s name and the ‘she’s’.
Jadali: Zack… she’s going to bastardise poor innocent *cough* Zack! (wails) NOOOOO!
Chapter 1: How it all started
Jadali: Defining the end from the beginning is always a good start.
Zack watched Harmony’s smile spread across her face like a
Elspeth: Cat squashed under a forty-tonne truck’s tyres?
Jadali: Nasty case of herpes?
breeze.
Both: Oh.
He wished she’d smile at him like that but she never did anymore.
Jadali: But didn’t she just…
Elspeth: I know. I’m confused already.
She used to smile at him like that but back then he was young and she got on his nerves badly.
Elspeth: I’m assuming this is post-Manticore young.
Jadali: Has to be. When they were there, they were meant to have the personality of a brick.
Now she never smiled at him only at Max Logan Cindy or Bling sometimes she’d look his way and her eyes would go dead but that was rare well not rare but it didn’t happen to often.
Jadali: …and a frantic run-on sentence to prove the author’s sincerity.
Elspeth: Come on, Ice Princess. Don’t make me do the comma rain dance thing again.
"Zack come here for a sec" Logan yelled out "coming" Zack called back to his brother-in-law.
Jadali: Um, who exactly is doing the ‘coming’ here?
Elspeth: And since when is Zack at Logan’s beck-and-call?
Jadali: Egads, the corruption has begun.
Zack walked into the living room and sat down on the couch
Jadali: …and then turned around and left the room, in search of a full stop.
Logan turned around and started talking. "You know Zack I was doing some thinking and I thought about you and Harmony. I looked up poems about people who were in love yet were somehow alone they tried to act happy but weren’t. And I came up with this one it’s by a writer named Chandra .L. Rice it’s called Unicorn I think you might like it" Logan said handing Zack a piece of paper.
Elspeth: Alrighty – what’s wrong with this block?
Jadali: Zack and Logan don’t exactly strike one as problem-sharing buddies.
Elspeth: Logan talking in a run-on sentence? I thought he was too smart for that.
Jadali: Maybe he’s just talking quickly so Zack won’t get the gist of it and pound him for butting into his personal life.
Elspeth: Zack ain’t exactly the ‘love-poem reading’ type, either.
Jadali: More like the ‘love-poem burning’ type.
Zack started reading out-loud
"You hide behind your tears
A smile covers a thousand fears.
The brilliance in your eyes
Hides the way your soul cries.
In the stillness of the night
You dream of the battles you must fight.
I can tell you feel forlorn
The only unicorn.
You spend the night hours awake
Pondering the happiness you must fake.
You barely keep up your hopes
Refusing the truth of how your heart copes.
There's a sadness deep inside
Held captive by your foolish pride.
You hide your unique horn
The only unicorn.
You never were like the rest
Never thinking you should be the best.
But wisdom came so young
From the thin thread of childhood you hung.
And now all I see is an empty hole
Where there was once the most beautiful of any soul.
For your innocence I mourn
The only unicorn."
As Zack sat the paper down his voice trembled as he spoke again.
Elspeth: And where did the outpouring of emotion from the attitude-on-legs come from? Zack’s voice ‘trembling’? They pumped him full of drugs, stuck a laser in his eye, probably beat the crap outta him at Manticore, and that didn’t have any effect whatsoever on him.
Jadali: I think I’m gonna be sick…
"Logan if I tell you why Harmony hates me will you not hate me to and you promise not to say anything to Max?" He asked "I promise" Logan told him
Jadali: I’m assuming this is a sentence of sorts. But the question remains: HUH?
Elspeth (Todd Flanders): That sentence hurts my freakin’ ears.
FLASHBACK:
Jadali: Why the heck do people do this? Can’t they just change their format a little and place some faith in that if the reader has enough innate intelligence to have connected to the internet and navigated to this delightful piece of work, they’d have enough sense to recognise a flashback when they saw one?
Elspeth: That’s a bitter point with you, huh? It doesn’t really hurt to define different bits. If it hadn’t been done, you still would’ve been mad about it.
Jadali: True. But there’s got to be a better way. Maybe even saying something like "Manticore: 2009". It couldn’t hurt.
A 10 year old Zack walked the halls of Manticore "Harmony were are you" he called out.
Jadali: Mm-hm. He’s really going to go around Manticore screaming out names they’re not supposed to have. And what’s this ‘were’ crap?
Elspeth: Maybe Harmony is a were-cat?
Jadali: Could be. But at least she didn’t say ‘wear’.
No one answered just then he heard a sound he spun around and came face to face with Harmony "Zack" she giggled looking up at him with caring eyes. Zack just looked down at her he hadn’t heard from her all day he was worried and scared if anything happened to her he couldn’t go on.
Jadali: Can I just point out to the uninformed that at this point in time Zack is their CO. He is also very much ‘big brother’. He’d get on just fine.
Elspeth: Yeah. I mean, Jack being butchered didn’t exactly crush his will to live, and Eva being shot prompted him to start the escape. No ‘can’t go on’ detectable. Sorry.
But he was a soldier he had to put her in her place because she was under his command plus if he even tried to date her he would be in big trouble. He wasn’t aloud to date officers under his command but she rattled him she made want to do things he shouldn’t do.
Jadali: As if Cardcaptors porn isn’t bad enough, for crying out loud, he’s TEN. No ten-year-old dates, seriously. Especially if that ten-year-old is the CO of a band of genetically engineered killing machines with bad hairdos.
Elspeth: Hey, that wasn’t their fault.
Jadali: I know. When good taste was handed out, the military was still hanging around the camouflage fatigues booth.
She smiled up at him and he wanted more then anything to kiss her but he clamped down on those thoughts hard. "Harmony were have you been" he growled "I was looking for you Zack" she said in a small voice he then regretted yelling at her
Elspeth: But didn’t he ‘growl’ at her?
Jadali: Don’t worry, I’m scared too.
"Harmony I’m sorry I yelled at you do you forgive me" he asked. "Yes Zack I forgive you" she told him he looked down at her they were so close together from were he’d gotten close to ask her forgiveness. He could feel the heat of her body through her cloths she looked up at him with a smile that would put the sun to shame and he couldn’t resist any longer he put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She looked up at him surprised just before he crushed her mouth beneath his. Zack knew he should pull away but Harmony put her arms around his neck and kissed him back. He took his tongue and used it to trace her lips, which opened for his tongue. He put his tongue in her mouth to taste her mouth one of his hands went from around her waist to running up and down her back. His other free hand traveled from her waist to her head, which he moved just enough to kiss her better. Part of his mind screamed to stop if they were caught they’d both be in trouble, but another part told him not to stop that this was what was right so it shouldn’t stop.
Elspeth: Yup. You can really see this going on in the halls of Manticore.
Jadali: Considering this nearly made me puke, I’ll summarise this in two words: STATUTORY RAPE.
In the end the first voice won out "I’m sorry Harmony I shouldn’t have done that can we just forget about please?" He asked a hurt look came across her face then was gone "sure Zack what ever you say" she told him in a cold tone. From then on she only talked to Zack when she had to and then in a cold tone.
Elspeth: I can really picture Zack saying that. Since when does he apologise?
Jadali: "There is no ‘sorry,’ just actions and consequences."
END OF FLASHBACK
Jadali: Good to know. We couldn’t have just differentiated that by changing the style of the font, could we?
Elspeth: You’ve been there, bitched about that and bought the t-shirt. Let it go.
"Zack I don’t know what to say" Logan told him "I know from then on she’s never smiled at me. I was just trying to keep her out of trouble but it blew up in my face.
Elspeth: Um, mini-Zack was ‘trying to keep her out of trouble’?
Jadali: Sounds more like he was trying to jump her bones.
Elspeth: We’ve gotta do something about this…
Jadali: Call in the cavalry?
Elspeth: Yup. *pulls Max and Zack out of hammerspace*
Jadali: How the hell do you keep doing that?!
Elspeth: Dunno. I’m gifted.
Max: What the…?
Zack: *non-committal grunt*
Jadali: Alrighty. This horrible author is doing nasty things to Zack. We thought you’d want a chance at retribution.
Zack: Um, what exactly is she doing to me?
Elspeth: Making you and Logan buddies who give each other love-advice.
Jadali: Writing herself in as your love interest.
Elspeth: Giving you the sudden ability to growl and yell at the same time.
Max: Ha! Suck, big bro’.
Jadali: Oh, and she made your voice ‘tremble.’
Zack: That bitch dies. NOW!
Elspeth: She also gave you a taste for sappy love-poems.
Zack: (choking sound – apparently some kind of overload) *swoons*
Both: Oops.
Did you know she’s the one who thought about jumping out the windows when we left? Of course not but she was.
Jadali: Sounds like more of an Eva-or-Zack thing to me. Tactical planning and all.
Elspeth: Yeah. What she said.
I loved her after I kissed her I wouldn’t go any were near her but I watched her.
Jadali: I think that’s the first time I’ve seen the word ‘her’ written four times in an unpunctuated sentence. It’s starting to lose meaning.
Elspeth: What about ‘replied’?
Jadali: (shudders and hits the decks, mumbling incoherently)
Max: What’s up with her?
Elspeth: Bad experience with a word we had to blot out sixty-something times. You oughtta offer it to Renfro as a new type of torture. It actually sent one of our guest MSTers unconscious.
Jadali: Speaking of unconscious…will someone wake him up? *nudges Zack with her boot*
Zack: (sleepily) Wha…? *looks up* ‘Loved’? ‘Kissed’? four ‘hers’? I am so out of here.
Elspeth: (wielding taser) Oh no you’re not, soldier-boy. Now take a seat or we’ll dig up a slash of you and Lydecker.
Zack: (looking positively green, wisely sits down)
Max: Um, can I go?
Jadali: Not unless you want us to pull up Zack and Logan slash.
Max: Sitting now.
I wanted to kill Zane when she smiled at him he used to tell her jokes and she’d laugh and smile.
Jadali: I remember back in second grade when we used to get sentences like this…
Elspeth: Uh-huh. And what’d we do with them?
Both: PUNCTUATED!
Max & Zack: *sweatdrop*
It used to make me so mad jealous I guess. Lydecker used to tell me Zack your anger will get you killed then he asked me why I was so angry I couldn’t very well tell him.
Jadali: Hey, Zack – I bet I know why you’re angry here!
Zack: I’ll humour you. Why?
Jadali: I’d be pissed off too if some thirteen-year-old rabid fangirl was putting words in my mouth I’d never say.
Zack: Valid. And Zane can have her, I don’t care.
Elspeth: Hmm, ‘valid’. Unlike the punctuation in that sentence…
Max: You’re actually having fun here, aren’t you?
J & E: Yes. Yes we are.
Max: Great, now I’m stuck here with the grammar police and some dimwitted author trying to scr—
Zack: Don’t say it or I’ll disown you, Maxie!
I was mad because one of my brothers was flirting with my sister whom I loved so I didn’t tell him at all. Dumb huh?" Zack asked with a slight smile
Jadali: Actually, I’d be slightly squicked about the fact that my brother was flirting with my sister. You know how I am about incest.
Zack: No, how are you about incest? If you’re going to make me read this crap, you’re getting your own back.
Jadali: (hands Zack a copy of Little Manga Neko’s "Dreams and Secrets" series)
Zack: (flicking through pages) Oh…my…god…
Elspeth: That’s what we said. We haven’t worked up the guts to MST it yet. It’s way too gross.
Max: (tapping foot impatiently) Um, hello? Aren’t we a little off-track here?
All: Sorry.
Zack: That’s it?
Elspeth: *evil smirk* For this chapter.
Max: And how many more are you planning on subjecting us to?
Jadali: (counts on fingers) There’s only another six.
Max: Ugh.
Jadali: And just think, you missed the irritating out-of-character part. She made Logan sound like an idiot.
Max: She what?! Where is she?! I’ll F*&^ –
Zack: Down, baby sister.