Grimdark Battlefield Rhapsody

"Kyon! Pay attention to me!"

Ah. The bane of my existence was feeling needy. What joy. I might have though that she might have been happy that we were stuck in some alien world with giant ravening alien bug-things. Seriously, how do the bug things get that big? I do know something about biology, and insects have those breathing holes in the side which don't work if they get too big. Something about a relationship between squares and cubes.

"Kyon! This is what we're going to do."

She pointed the infeasibly large gun she was carrying, covered in skull-marks in a shockingly bad example of taste, towards the alien horde that covered the opposing horizon. I noticed the fact that all the soldier-people around us were recoiling from us somewhat. Sensible people. Haruhi was acting rather crazy, even by her standards, and the fact that she had somehow obtained a wide-brimmed hat with an ][ symbol on it meant that everyone around us was sucking up to her more than Koizumi on a bad day.

Of course, the power was going to her head, and we were getting into a horrible feedback loop, which was only going to end with her promotion to ruler of the universe if she had anything to say about it.

Sadly, she did.

At least she seemed to think it was a dream. That was the one saving feature of this entire escapade. Koizumi was even more on edge than usual, wearing some kind of dirty robe, and carrying some big staff with some kind of bird on the top. The general appearance was incongruous with his perpetual half-closed eyes and superior smile. Stop smirking, you bastard. It's your fault we're in this situation, as you were stupid enough to let her see that book about dark blasphemers or something. I don't care about the fact that you wanted to try a different type of game from our usual board games; you should have remembered what happened during the filming of the film.

That last sentence didn't really come out as I wanted.

Evidently, Haruhi had grown bored with talking at me, and had decided to switch targets.

"Brigade Deputy-Commander! What do you sense?"

Koizumi cleared his throat. "My mind fears of great pain," he said, shrugging. He rolled his eyes at me, once her gaze had passed on.

"Excellent," Haruhi declared. "We're going to kill them all and make them suffer for their crimes against humanity. Tech-Priestess Yuki, pass me the loudspeaker!"

Soundlessly, Nagato passed the clunky device. It was covered in skulls, too, and seemed to be venting steam. What kind of idiot would design something like that? It was just meant to be a microphone, for goodness sake!

Of course, Nagato wasn't in much of a better state aesthetically. She was more machine than man. Well, girl. Well, technically she wasn't a girl (or at least a human girl) in the first place. The point was, a truly gratuitous number of mechanical tentacles surrounded her body, like some kind of American comic supervillan, and random pieces of machinery protruded from below her red robe. Just standing there, she whirred.

Not that she seemed to object to the transformation in any way. Indeed, she seemed to be somewhat fascinated by her new form. Several times, I had caught her flexing her tentacle-things, stretching them and waving around them, eyes like pools of liquid helium fixed on the interplay of machinery. There was a cyborg thing flapping around her head too; a baby-like creature with a full pair of wings. I didn't want to look too closely at it, though, as the mane of blue hair it had looked far too familiar, and the way that it was carrying a knife just heightened my suspicions.

Haruhi, of course, was enjoying herself. Well, of course she would. The entire army was listening to her, with a mixture of rapt attention and fully justified fear.

"All right, I'll tell you, so open up those big ears and listen well! Leader of of the SOS Brigade... With an unbreakable soul and a strong back, a tenacious demon... The great Inquisitor Lady Haruhi... Is ME! When they talk about its indomitable leader, the woman of indomitable spirit and genius, they're talking about me! The Mighty Haruhi!"

Yes, yes. Keep on aggrandising yourself. Perhaps you can recruit these armies to join the SOS Brigade, although I really rather that you didn't. There won't be room in the clubhouse.

"And so, we're going to kill those alien bugs! We're going to charge straight at them, and we're going to kill them all! That won't be hard. I have eaten crab, and the hardest thing about crab is getting it out of the shell! And, really, bugs are just like crabs!"

No. They're really not.

Worst. Motivational. Speech. Ever.

"Don't believe in yourself. Believe in me, who believes in you!"

That doesn't even make any sense at all. Whatsoever. Look, belief won't help us. Those things have big claws that can tear you right in two. I like my body as it is right now, even if for some reason I'm in a less fancy version of whatever Haruhi's wearing, and she didn't even give me a hat.

There was a whimper from behind me, from the real goddess of our group. She may have been somewhat deficient in reality warping powers compared to the other female members of the SOS Brigade, but she more than made up for it with her radiant beauty and perfect temperament.

Of course, a lesser being would have been angry about the fact that she was currently only wearing about enough fabric to make a handtowel, the rest covered up with parchment which Haruhi had "decorated". Asahina-san had been wearing some functional armour when we had awoken here, but Haruhi had almost immediately decided that she had been naughty and needed to repent.

Hence the clothing which beat even the bunny-girl outfits with regards to Haruhi's depravity, and the fact that the transcendent Asahina-san was being forced to drag a massive chainsaw sword about as tall as she was around.

Yes. A chainsaw sword. What kind of madmen would build a chainsaw sword?

Well, the sort of madman who would cover everything in skulls, and then build a chainsaw axe, come to think of it. We had actually seen one of those things.

Anyway, the charming Asahina-san hadn't even turned it on, since the first time. In all honesty, the noise was pretty terrifying, and I could easily forgive the fact that it had almost sliced off one of Koizumi's arms when she dropped it.

"Are you... sure?" she asked, truly brave to challenge the Ultra-Inquisitor herself.

"Of course, I am, Mikuru-chan!" Haruhi declared, wrapping her arms around the parchment-clad Asahina-san. "It was a really good idea, this." She looked up at the sky. "And it looks like it's going to rain, too," she added with a wicked grin. "Let's get the battle finished and totally annihilate the rest the enemy army before Mikuru-chan gets too wet or muddy."

She picked up the hellish microphone thing again.

"Charge!" she shouted into it, and then dropped it, breaking into a headlong run towards the bugs who seemed to have been provoked by the noise. With a roar, the rest of the army followed her.

I groaned.

This was the fourth time she had done this already. And she was just having too much damn fun to wake up.

I, too, was forced to break into a run. I didn't want to be landed with some kind of fine for battlefield cowardice or whatever charge Haruhi could rig against me.