Single Serving Tenchi By Karlmarks ---------------------Notes-------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: I don't own the Tenchi Muyo characters or the Fight Club concept. Property of Pioneer and Fox (since I've based the fic off the movie of Fight Club), respectively. Watching Fight Club is recommended, but not necessary. A common view of many Tenchi Muyo fans is that Tenchi should be a bit...tougher. Not so much physically as mentally. Fight Club was *made* for people like him. This fic explores, in a style similar to the movie, Tenchi's experience. After I was about half-done writing this story, it came to my attention that there was already a Fight Club crossover of sorts in existence: Pirate Club, by Aaron Bastin. I greatly enjoyed reading that fic, and I suggest you check it out. I don't see why there can't be two stories based on the mixing of the same two universes, and mine is quite a bit different from Pirate Club. While Pirate Club seems to me an excellent, lighthearted remake of Fight Club set in the Tenchi Muyo universe, Single Serving Tenchi is a seriously intended crossover fic with Tenchi inhabiting the Fight Club univerrse. Think of this as a "slightly-alternate-universe" fic. Tenchi isn't an evil emperor, Kiyone isn't dead, but I've changed the characters a bit, mostly in personality, to fit with the story's worldview. This isn't my interpretation of the Tenchi Muyo universe, but it's an interpretation I had fun writing. Hope you have fun reading it! --------------------On to the story!------------------- I don't miss the old me. The way things used to be no longer appeals to me. Thinking back brings flashes of revulsion, wonderment at how I could have survived the way I did. But none of that matters anymore. In three minutes, my life will have reached fullfillment. Some say everything happens for a reason. My reason was Tyler Durden. *** "Back off!" This was Ryoko. She meant something to me, once. No, this wasn't a warning to me; she was yelling at Aeka. A Jurian princess; beautiful, unapproachable, and pissed off. The subject of their conflict? Me. "I merely sought to safeguard Lord Tenchi against your ridiculous advances, you vile person! He does not approve of such behavior!" As always, I shrunk from the imminent fight. I found myself hiding behind the couch as explosions rocked my house. Strange as it may sound, these people were my guests. Only after the altercation had ended, unresolved as always, did I emerge from my hiding place. Ryoko latched on to me, her tits pressed deliberately into my face. Blood flowing from my nose, I tried to ignore her. "See, he likes it!" Ryoko's confident voice grated on my nerves, but still I didn't reply. Couldn't reply. Aeka was ever prepared to renew the conflict. "He most certainly does not!" she exclaimed, her shield sparking menacingly. I was barely able to speak under this pressure. "I would REALLY appreciate it if you could stop fighting for once!" I yelled. Believe it or not, this passed for "enraged," coming from me. My voice wavered as I spoke. But this isn't the important part, the good part. Let's skip ahead a bit. *** "I say, 'Let me never be complete!'" I guess this is the important part. These words were shouted by a man standing on a bench in the park. Not unusual to see some doomsday church or ecstasy cult preaching at this location. But this was different. This was true. "I say, 'Let me never be content!' I say, 'Deliver me from Swedish furniture!' I say, 'Deliver me from clever art!'" I was fairly well-off. I didn't have everything, but I had quite a bit. My house was a consumer nirvana. The tasteful couch. The artistic coffee table. My dad's job as an architect provided, and I used. In my Paradise Of Stuff, I was close to completeness. But not complete. "I say, 'Deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth!' I say, 'Evolve, and let the chips fall where they may!'" When the man left, I joined the people wandering aimlessly where he had stood. Most were what you'd expect at such a rally: curious consumer junkies, political fanatics, rebels-looking-for-a-cause, the usual. But a few stood out. Moving through the crowd with a sort of newfound conviction. Oddly enough, they were all fairly similar to Your Humble Narrator. Young, unenthusiastic people with...purpose. One of them handed me a paper. I stuffed it in my jacket and walked off. *** My house had been my refuge. Amid the fields of Stuff, the vast repository of Goods and Items, I was secure. I felt comfortable drifting off to sleep anywhere in its comforting confines, surrounded by all that was good and pure and valuable. Quality Product Utopia. Had been. Now it was a blasted-out shell, surrounded by flaming wreckage. Ryoko's tits in my face again. "Tenchi! See what Aeka did?" she cried. Her guilt was so obvious it barely deserves mention. "Lord Tenchi! Thank goodness you've returned! I was sure that devil woman would kill us all!" Her Royal Highness glared at Ryoko. "And cease your harassment of Lord Tenchi!" My Stuff. My life. It was all gone. Something made me reach into my jacket. I withdrew the paper. That simple action changed everything. FIGHT CLUB. 10 TONIGHT. It had an address. *** Four hours later I was listening more closely than I'd ever listened in my life. "The first rule of fight club is -- you do not talk about fight club. The second rule of fight club is -- you do not talk about fight club. The third rule of fight club -- someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule -- only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule - one fight at a time fellows. Sixth rule -- no shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule -- fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule -- if this is your first night at fight club, you *have* to fight." It was my first night of fight club. Jake was a confused kid. His American parents did their best to prevent him from fitting in, and, when he fought, he was fighting a life of casual hatred. It didn't help him. I fought for *myself*. As I felt his ribs pop against my left fist, I knew I wasn't solving anything, curing anything. But it didn't matter. When he surrendered, face hideous from repeated impacts with the concrete floor, I was alive. And so was he. It's not the winning, it's not the losing, it's not what you believe in, it's not what you're "fighting" for. "Fighting." Until today, I hadn't even known what the word meant. It meant washing away everything in a surge of conflict. And when the conflict passed, you were at peace. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." I couldn't help laughing when I thought about that phrase. Other fights stained already blood-brown floors before the evening was through. We yelled in encouragement as two strangers brought their emotions to the ultimate logical extreme. The man who had brought meaning to my life was still in the room. But it didn't matter. As great as he was, he was one of us. "Tyler Durden." The name was whispered between us, carrying the full weight of our reverence for our common savior. *** At breakfast the next morning, the obvious questions popped up. "Did that vile Ryoko assault you, Lord Tenchi?" Aeka asked, always eager to create conflict. Ryoko, always unwilling to leave bad enough alone, had to make it worse. "Oh, he enjoyed it..." she said, winking at me suggestively. Why did I let this continue? I got to my feet. "Ryoko has nothing to do with my current appearance." Simple enough. But not good enough. "Is that *your* blood, Tenchi?" asked Dad from across the table. "Some of it," I replied, nonchalantly. My face must have demanded such questions, so I had prepared for them. I faced Ryoko and Aeka. "I really don't approve of your fighting," I continued, calmly. Nearly the same words as yesterday, but today I was...forceful. In control. Better. Fight Club was the best thing that ever happened in my life. Ryoko and Aeka kept their disputes to angry glances for the first week or so. Walking through Tokyo, I would often catch a quick look from a fellow member, but, remembering the First Rule, we kept silent. I moved into a condemned building on the outskirts of the city. Aeka left after 10 days of my absence. I didn't find myself missing her. The next day, Ryoko showed up at my door. No explanation. She seemed slightly drunk, but coherent. "Can I stay with you a while?" she asked expectantly. I let her come in. Finding none of the expected warmth, hoped-for outpouring of my heart, she collapsed on the floor in sleep. It was four in the afternoon. When I returned that night, she was awake. Barely. A bottle of Xanax lay empty on the floor, accompanied by a similarly drained unlabeled bottle that gave off a strong alcoholic scent. "Hey...Tenchi!" she exclaimed with a kind of hollow enthusiasm. "I'm sure I'm just doing this to teach you...a lesson." She continued in a voice that was a mockery of stern lecture, "You never appreciated poor Ryoko. You *made* her die. It's all your fault." She giggled and threw the childproof cap at me. I wasn't too worried; her physiology gave her a fair chance of surviving the drug interaction, and, if she didn't, she *was* specifically asking for death. But she had other plans. This was one of those "cry for help" things. And she got the help she wanted. I fucked her. In the morning I left before she awoke. Project Mayhem's first meeting was more important than her. It began, as always, with a "motivational" speech. "This isn't a seminar! This isn't a weekend retreat. Where you are now, you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only when you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart." This was me. In Tyler's absence I had become what amounted to the leader of Tokyo Fight Club. I wasn't the best at combat, I wasn't the best speaker, but I had...something. A conviction to be without conviction. It drew them to me as I slowly became their god. When their bruised and attentive faces focused on me without the slightest distraction, I knew why I was alive. I read off the paper I had received the previous day. "First rule of Project Mayhem -- YOU DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT PROJECT MAYHEM!" They donated themselves to my service without question. Several of them had already begun living in the decrepit concrete structure we now used as Fight Club Headquarters. I had an army to do my bidding. And my bidding, straight from Tyler himself, was Project Mayhem. Our first target was a Starbucks, naturally enough. With the help of a Project member on the volunteer firefighter force, we *acquired* a fire truck, mixed in sufficient portions of instant powder, and ripped the store apart with thousands of high-pressure gallons of Their Very Own Quality Instant Coffee. Project Mayhem would have been a lot easier with Ryoko's powers, but something about the interaction of Xanax and everclear had blocked the gems' supply of energy, maybe permanently. I probably should have done something about her suicide attempt. Oh well. Ryoko. She drifted in and out of my life like a fog. Every few days she would show up in my house. She'd stay for a few days and leave. I never knew when, or if, she would return. I used her, she used me, it was a sort of mutually beneficial relationship. She seemed to be doing alright in her new state, but if not, it was nothing to me. *** The next time I saw Ryoko was at Fight Club. She came there from time to time; even without her powers she could often demolish her opponent. Tonight, that opponent was me. She bashed my face with her forehead as we rolled across the floor in a violent perversion of the only other activity we shared. I see the fury in her eyes. Not only in her eyes, but in her. Through every part of her being. In her hair as it flashed cyan under bad fluorescent lighting. In her fingers as they sped toward my face. In her blood as it seeped from wounds on her face. "Bastard...you would've let me die there!" She drew on anger and hatred from memory to fuel herself in combat. I simply fought. It wasn't about what you thought of you opponent; it wasn't about what you wanted to do to your opponent; it wasn't about your opponent. It was about you. And this was about me. I spat blood in her face. When she reached up to wipe her eyes, I kneed her in the side of her stomach, about where a human's kidneys would be. Alien or no, it hurt her badly. She groaned and tapped out. "It was...good..." she remarked, catching her breath. "Always." I answered. *** And now I stand at the edge of my destiny. All of my life had been leading up to this moment. Tokyo Fight Club was going to make a difference. Orders had come in yesterday, straight from Tyler Durden himself. We were going to wipe out the debt record by destroying its source in the form of a major credit card company's headquarters. I stand here on the roof of my house, watching the skyline. Soon it will be changed forever, starting the chain of events that will force a restructuring of humankind. And Tyler Durden is my reason. Three skyscrapers are now empty. Project Mayhem members have deserted their jobs, leaving behind homemade explosives attached to specific, planned supports in the buildings' basements. 30 seconds until my experience is complete. Ryoko stands beside me, her head on my shoulder. This is a unique experience; we've never before touched without an element of violence. The scene in front of us provides all the release we need. And it begins. Orange fire mixes with the neon lights of Tokyo as Project Mayhem's targets begin their implosion. Decades of financial corruption erased in seconds. And we will rebuild. Rebuild differently, better. Humanity, once free, will triumph. Ryoko looks up and kisses me as the sky glows pale gray with the dawn. -----------More notes--------------- First, the title. This is a reference to the song "Single Serving Jack" by the Dust Brothers, which can be found on the Fight Club soundtrack. The song title is a reference to the "single serving friends" the narrator of Fight Club meets. Just clearing that up. Additionally--this has *nothing* to do with Perfect Circle, my current main project. This worldview and these personalities are *completely* different from those I will use in the next chapter (shameless self-promotion!). If you liked my writing here, that's what to look for. If you hated it, please don't eat my relatives. You can have my neighbours, though. Well...this was, to put it simply, rather quickly written. It took from 1 to 6 AM on Tuesday, October 10, 2000, but I was talking in #tenchiff at the same time. I was made aware of the existence of Pirate Club when half-done with this story; I don't find my work in conflict with Pirate Club. Pirate Club is somewhat a "What if Fight Club was based in the Tenchi Muyo! universe?" question. Single Serving Tenchi is more a "What if Tenchi Masaki was in the Fight Club universe?" question. I consider Single Serving Tenchi and Pirate Club to be as different as any two crossovers involving the same two universes can be. Interesting bit of synchronicity-Pirate Club was written by an author who'd gone 35 hours without sleep. I've gone 62, as of right now. Maybe there's something about sleep deprivation, Fight Club, Tenchi Muyo, and fan fiction? Something to ponder Please give me any comments you have. My email is markskarl@hotmail.com --Peace out --Karlmarks