Was it all a dream? Or was it an illusion? We met Princess Millerna, (who thus far is turning out to be a royal pain in the ass), and Van ran into his brother Folken again, although their meeting didn't really go all that well.

Hitomi: Oh, and big surprise, I had to save Van's life again, although I don't know if I really did him all that big a favor, since it now looks as if he's about to be brutally killed in an arena battle with three battle-hardened guymelef warriors.

Sajimas, Bounty Hunter and Mercenary: Allright! What a deal! We get money for fighting some wet-behind-the-ears kid!

Van: That's only if you beat me.

Sajimas, Bounty Hunter and Mercenary: How could we lose? We're big, ugly, powerful, experienced, and we outnumber you.

Van: I've got 3 words and a paranthesied abbreviation for you: THIS IS ANIME (tm)

Sajimas, Bounty Hunter and Mercenary: Oh shit. That's right. We're dead.

Van: *SLASH* *DISARM*

Enemy Sword: FWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITA

Van: *SMASH* *crunch* *ASSKICK* *SWISSHHH* *THUD* *CRUNCH* *THWACK*

Enemy Sword: FWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITA

Van: *CRUSSSHHH* SLLLASSSHHHH!!! *CLANG* *POW* *THWOCK* CRASSSHHH!!!!

Enemy Sword: FWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITAFWOOPITA---THOK!!!

Merle: Yaaaayyyy! Lord Van did it! He WON!!!

King Aston: Eeeeeexcellent. *Mr. Burns finger twiddle*

Hitomi: Your Majesty! That wasn't fa--

Allen: --I'LL handle this, little missy! Ahem. Your Majesty! That wasn't fair!

Hitomi: (Yeah, Allen. I can really see why I needed you to handle that for me...)

Van: Chill, Allen. It's okay. Sometimes, even in ANIME™, a warrior has to fight in battles where he's outnumbered. (Fortunately, thanks to the Anime Law of Militaristic Unreliability, such battles usually don't turn out to be much of a problem for us scruffy hero types, as you've just seen.)

Meiden: *drool* I can see now why Zaibach wants to get their hands on that thing. If we could sell it, I bet it'd be worth some serious scratch...

King Aston: No shit, Shylock...

LATER THAT NIGHT, AT DINNER

King Aston: To Escaflowne! The purdiest mecha in the entire world!

Meiden: Yes, but it's purdiness cannot match that of your two lovely, unmarried, and extremely elligible daughters!

Millerna: Oh Meiden... You endearing little toady...

Advisor #1: Uhh, Your Majesty, perhaps we should ide-hay the echa-may so that aibach-Zay doesn't catch wind of it being in our ands-hay.

King Aston: Right. Any suggestions?

Advisor #2: Let's disguise it as one of ours.

King Aston: No. Wait. I've got an even better idea! We'll disguise it as one of ours!

Advisor #2: Uhh..... Brilliant plan, sire.

King Aston: What do you think of my brilliant plan, T-Shirt Boy?

Van: S'okay, I guess. I'm goin' for a walk.

Meiden: You. Your name's Hitomi, isn't it? I heard that you're Allen's... uh...good friend. Where ya from?

Hitomi: Um...

Millerna: I know! She's from an undiscovered, far away country called Wierdsylvania.

Hitomi: You're just begging me to come over there and smash my silken-gloved fist in your face, aren't you, Princess? *sip* Whoa. This Gaean wine is the shit! (As is the fact that this planet apparently has no drinking age.)

Eries: Hey, Allen. Got news for you: Millerna's just been betrothed to Meiden's eldest son.

Hitomi: Whoa. A WASP-y royal family that's freely allowing the son of a Jew (or the Gaean equivalent of a Jew) to marry into it? This IS a fantasy world!.... Hey waitaminute. If Millerna's marrying Meiden's son, then she can't marry Allen! Woo hoo! I am IN like Flynn!

Dilandau: In case this fact hasn't been established already, I'm nuttier than a shithouse rat. Okay. I'm through abusing innocent wine bottles already. I wanna go kill the Dragon!

Folken: Patience, my pet.

Gatti: I bring you a message from General Adelphos, one of the Four Big Cheeses in charge of Emperor Dornkirk's Army. "We've been ordered to put the smackdown on Freid, so I'll be bringing my army this a-way soon. Capture the Dragon before it has a chance to fuck up our plans."

Dilandau: Woo hoo! "Capture the Dragon!" That's my cue! Time for more gratuitous violence! Hooray!

Gatti: Uh, there's a P.S. It says "Ask Pyro Boy to please lighten up on the gratuitous violence."

Dilandau: *SLAP!!*

Gatti: Uh, that's a "no" then, I take it, sir...

Folken: You'd better make it a "yes," Dilandau. We kind of need Asturia to be on our side if our plans are to work and your trashing and carbonizing huge portions of it isn't going to help our relations with them any.

Dilandau: I'll make a deal with you. I agree to behave and you agree to let me have my revenge on Van once you've done with him.

Folken: Okay, why not? I sold out my own kingdom. What's fucking over a brother in comparison to that?

Allen: Atta girl. To bed with you now...

Hitomi: snnufflle *yawn* Ha ha, Millerna .I come from a country where there are no arranged marriages...zzzzzzzzzz......well... at least not for piddly middle class people like me anyway...zzzzzzzzzzz *snort*

Eries: I wanna talk to you, Allen.

Allen: Wassup, princess? Lovely hobbleskirt you're wearing.

Eries: Don't be coy! I know you have the hots for my sister Millerna! And that the only reason you like her is because you're confusing her with my other sister Marlene, whom you once also had the hots for! And we all know how THAT affair ended, don't we?

Allen: Don't sweat it, princess.
I tell myself, I'm through with love/
And I want nothing more to do with love...

Eries: Shyeah, right! I saw you puttin' the moves on Pinky over there earlier tonight! Take my advice: Steer clear of Millerna. (Also, if you ever have to make a dramatic exit from a room, make sure you don't wear a hobbleskirt. *stepstepstepstep* ....Unh... Enh... *stepstepstepstepstepstep* )

Van: The moon's up. Now would be a great time for a Kung Fu-style workout scene. Yah! *swing* Ha!*swoop* David Carradine, eat your heart out!

Allen: Need a sparring partner?

Van: Sure, our rivallry seems to be a well-established subplot now. One which we seem to have been neglecting lately.

Allen: Yes, and this anime could use some more "yaoi-fodder" so... let's rock!

*SWING* *SLASH* *FIGHT*

Allen: Well, Van. You DO seem to have gotten better. But you're swinging your sword around like a turbo-charged weed-whipper, which is only going to get you killed. Or humiliated again. Like so: *DISARM* *CLATTER*

Van: Shit. I suck.

Millerna: Nice sword-slinging, Allen! *golf clap*

Van: I think I just became a third wheel. I'm outta here.

Millerna: Allen, let me lay my cards out on the table for you: I wanna be YOUR ho! I know I'm engaged to another man but I had nothing to do with that!

Allen: This saddens me...(Although I cannot say that it surprises me.)

Van: That Allen. All he ever does is humiliate me and think about sex, sex, se--Oh. Hi, Hitomi. I wouldn't go up on the roof now if I were you...

Hitomi: Well, you're NOT me. And I feel hot so nyeah!...Sheesh. That Van. The way he was talking, you'd think there was something unpleasant going on up he--

Millerna: I love you, Allen! I KNOW that, with just a little work, I could become the sort of spineless, helpless, idealized female a chivalrous type like YOU could really dig!

Allen: Sorry. It wouldn't work. You're a princess and I'm just a lowly ol' knight... A devilishly handsome one, but a lowly one, nonetheless...

Hitomi: Oh no! I've walked right into a dramatic shoujo-style love scene between Princess Bitch and the man of my dreams! (But I've seen enough shoujo anime to know that what I think is going on, probably isn't what's going on, so if I watch long enough, maybe I'll discover that what I think may be happening, isn't happening...)

Millerna: (What's this? That weird foreign girl is spying on us from behind that column. I'll show 'er!) Oh Allen! I want you! I'd even be willing to ditch my country and give up my cozy lifestyle for you! Take me! Take me now!

Allen Weeeelllllllllll, when you put it THAT way... Okay. *SMOOCH*

Hitomi: Waaaaaaahhhh! What I think is going on, IS going on after all! *sob* *runs out*

Merle: Hey, what happened, Hitomi? Why are you crying? What is it? Huh? Tell me! Telletellmetellmetellmetellme!

Hitomi: Get lost! I've just had my heart ripped in half. The last thing I want is to be annoyed by the comic relief! *THWAP*

Merle: Fine, bitch. I'll take my concern elsewhere.

Hitomi: Do that. I'll just sit here alone with my thoughts... and my loneliness... and with the three creepy beast-men who just dropped from my ceiling. Hunh? Three creepy beast-men? AIEEEEEE---**MMRFFFLLE**

Geckomen: Woo hoo! Okay. let's get this purdy young thang to Meiden, toot sweet!

Merle: Uh-oh. Hitomi's been kidnapped by geckomen. Well, good riddance I say. Who needs a bitch like her around anyway? ......Then again....*sigh*....Damn. Having a conscience sucks.

Hitomi: ...Not as much as being trussed up like a Christmas turkey and forced to ride around in a minisub with three smelly lizard-men. I sure hope I get rescued soon!

King Aston: Well, we're doing all we can to locate Escaflowne. It's not MY fault I inherited such a big-ass kingdom. What do you guys want with Escaflowne anyway?

Folken: Sore wa ...himitsu desu!

Zaibach Soldier: Knock knock. Oh, Master Folken. The Dragon Has Landed...

Merle: Hurry up Lord Van! Her kidnappers went that-a-way!

Van: So now it's finally time for me to save HER ass for a change. Hmm. Suddenly we're in Venice now. Low bridge. Uh-oh! The fey Asturian military getup my guymelef is wearing has just gotten torn.

Zaibach Soldier: A watchman took this picture of Escaflowne.

Folken: Nice. I'll take a couple of 8 x 10's. Hmmm. So King Aston, it seems our little Dragon has been playing dress-up. How might an Asturian military uniform have wound up on it, I wonder?

King Aston: Uhhh. I'm gonna pull a Reagan and say "I don't recall".

Folken: You expect my people to accept a lame excuse like that?

King Aston: Not really. How about we just step back and let you take the dragon in exchange for you not.... y'know.... destroying our country?

Folken: Your spinelessness impresses me, King Aston. You're just the type of ruler this wussy little kingdom of yours deserves... Welp. Looks like we have a job for Pyro Boy. Time to wake him up.

Zaibach Soldier: Pyro Boy is already awake, sir.

Dilandau: And I'm already on the job! Heheheheheh.

Merle: I can hear the sub! *points*

Van: Well, I hope so, with ears like that. Oops. Looks like they've seen us and have gone underwater. Time to go for a dive... Unh. You might want to swim to shore, Merle, unless you're one of those cats that likes water...

Geckomen: Ha. We rule. That guymelef can't catch us.

Van: Allow me to disprove that hypothesis. *grab* RRRIIPPPP!!!

Hitomii: It's Allen! He came to rescue me! I knew he'd eventually come round to choosing me over that royal flooz---Oh. It's Van.

Van: Sheesh. Try not to look TOO overjoyed now...

Merle: Yay! Lord Van rescued you. Not that an easily-kidnappable ditz like you deserved it or anything.

Dilandau: Gee. Did I come late to the party? I'm sorry. *SHOOT* *SWIPE* *DESTROY*

Van: Oh no! Not YOU again! You're like a bad gidaru. You keep turning up over and over again.

Dilandau: Welcome to my barbecue! Uwee hee hee! Burn! BUUURRRNNN!!!!!! Ha-ha! Kekfa, eat your heart out!

Van: Cut it out, you psycho! Don't you realize the city is burning?

Dilandau: It's your fault! The city is burning because YOU are in it!

Van: That's funny. I thought it was burning because some thoughtless asshole set it on fire! Fine, if this is how you want to be, I'm leaving. Hitomi, Merle, hold on tight!

Dilandau: Grr! No fair! You can't get away THAT easily!

Allen: HALT, Dilandau! I hereby order you to cease and desist your wanton slaughter of generic RPG townspeople!

Dilandau: Allen Schezar.. You goody two-shoes... You're now number THREE on the list of people whose charred remains I will be dancing upon later...

Van: Welp. This is our cue to skiddoo it seems. Oh well. I found Palas to be kind of over-crowded and tourist-y anyway.

Hitomi: Well, it probably won't be after THIS... *Sigh* Well, it looks like it's time to say sayonara to Allen. Damn. And time for another cliffhanger too. Double Damn.

Episode 8: The Day the Angel Flew

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