Spook, Charlie, and Fuzzball Save the Day- er, Night
by the Blue Spanch
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A/N: Sorry for lateness yet again. Work likes to randomly change my schedule. The idea behind this one is my fault, as I used to collect dolls once upon a time. It should be noted that dollfies were not known to the US at this point, so the viewpoints used here are definitely out of date. However, since Spanch did all the typing and reigning in of my insane ravings, she got all the credit for this short. It seemed only fair.
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A stitch and tuck, tack and tie, gather, knot, and stitch again. Such small artistry to turn the thinnest ribbon into a rose fine enough to grace the headdress of an Empress. A rose of blood-red velvet, and another of pink-tipped cream, great beauty is added by the smallest of details. How is it, Van thought as he worked, that the human eye is most attracted by ostentation? Far better the subtle shades of brown and cream on the wings of a moth than half the stuff being worn by the teenagers who came into his shop... Oh, well. The human eye is attracted to bright, showy colors, even though such beauty spelled pain and death on this and on many other worlds. And yet still they persisted upon decking themselves out in the most threatening and titillating patterns. Vanguard had come to this system to learn its peoples, its worlds, and their ways; the demons and gods were easy enough, but the humans... Gah! Such a convoluted melange of conflicting signals! Sometimes he despaired of ever figuring them out. Still, his Motherboard had set him this task, and he would not leave until he had accomplished it.
Van reached for the tunic of cherry-blossom-patterned silk that he had made for this doll some time earlier and encountered a ball of ginger fuzz instead. "Queep!"
Van started at the reproachful squeak, and settled for tapping his fingers irritably on the table. "Norkie," he said, "you are getting fur all over the robes of royalty."
The small strange furry thing shrugged and moved aside, allowing Van to retrieve the diminutive garment.
"You really shouldn't be here, you know," Van continued as he dressed the doll, "Even if I claimed that you were a dwarf mutant Pomeranian puppy, people would still be suspicious about the red bandanna and the sprite sword."
"Queep! Fizz yah queep queep!"
"Yes, I know that you are a creature of mist and darkness, O mighty Ninja Norkie. Unfortunately for creatures of mist and darkness, today has been quite clear and sunny, and the sunset will not occur for a couple of hours yet. Now stop shedding on the velours."
"Thbbbbppppptttt!"
"So's yer old man, fuzzball."
The chimes on the door jingled merrily as a pair of customers walked into the shop, interrupting their discussion. Van looked up from his work and greeted them with a smile as Norkie zipped out of sight beneath a heap of folded satins. They were a father and young daughter, the man looking quite distinguished in his business suit, horn-rim glasses reflecting the light of the late afternoon sun. The little girl was as cute as a button in a frilly pink dress decorated with a pattern of cream-colored flowers, and her long black hair held back with a ribbon. In her free hand she held a doll, a common Barbie doll imported from the USA. It was battered, worn, and somewhat threadbare, but there were signs that the child loved that doll. The tears in its clothes had been stitched up with a child's painstaking if clumsy stitches, the blonde hair had been carefully brushed and braided, and though it was smudged, none of the limbs were missing.
"Good afternoon," Van said, "May I help you with anything?" Late customers, these. Very likely the last of the day.
"Yes," the man replied, releasing his daughter's hand so that she could look around the shop, "I'm looking for an anniversary present for my wife."
Van smiled sadly, holding up the half-finished Empress. "Ah, if only I had begun this one sooner... What the heck. Feel free to look around for something appropriate. It's all right to pick them up for a closer look."
The man nodded his thanks and moved off to look at the displays. Van returned to his work, occasionally looking up to watch the little girl as she gazed wonderingly at a dragon formed of glittering fabric and whispered to her Barbie. A few minutes later, Van looked up sharply when she let out a delighted squeal. "Daddy! Daddy! Lookit this doll! She's so pretty!"
Her father walked over to investigate her find, and could only agree with his daughter's choice. When they brought the doll to the counter, Van smiled once more. The doll was indeed very beautiful. It was a pale, dark-haired woman robed in a hundred shades of blue and sea-green, wearing a crown of peacock feathers set in gold. Pearls and coral adorned her clothes, and she stood, smiling gently, with a phoenix perched on one hand and the other resting on the head of a river dragon. "Oh, yes, an excellent choice." He told them as he rung the figurine up on the cash register. "Do you know who she is?" He asked the little girl.
"Who?" She asked, eyes alight.
"Her name is Corelaine, Queen of the Living Waters. She is the lifespring of the oceans and streams, and a mother to the dragons who live in them. Her knowledge runs as deep as the depths of the pacific ocean, where even submarines may not go. Her power is very great, but very slow. She creates incredible works of art over the course of centuries. Have you ever seen the cliffs at the edges of the islands? The beautiful formations of coral reefs on TV? That's her work."
"Oooohh." The little girl breathed, delighted, while her father smiled indulgently and paid for the doll.
She waved to him, as she and her father left the shop, and Van waved back. Corelaine, eh? Van remembered her with some fondness. It had been a thousand years since that mostly-forgotten Sea Queen had been worshipped by the primitive ancestors of these people, but that grand old girl could still throw one whopper of a beach party!
It was time to close up shop now, so he turned the "open" sign in the window to "closed", locked the doors, barred the windows, and made to leave out the back. On his way, something on one of the display tables caught Van's eye; the little girl's battered Barbie doll. "Oh, dear," he murmured, picking it up gently. "Your little girl will miss you tonight, won't she? She and her father will pick you up in the morning, never fear. Until then, you'll be in good company."
He put the doll back down on the table and continued on his way. Just as he was locking the back door, Van realized that he had been talking to an inanimate object. He shook his head. I have got to change back to my proper form tonight and do a thorough bug-fix. He said to himself. I'm starting to pick up human psychoses. What next, the flu? All the same, there had been something about that Barbie doll, a whisper of that vital force that the Makai folk called ki, a faint breath of life gifted it by its owner. Van had seen this phenomenon before, but always on stranger worlds than this. Preoccupied with these thoughts, Van had forgotten entirely about a certain ginger fuzzball...
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Norkie awoke with a start, finding himself alone in the darkened shop. Queeping disgustedly to himself, he untangled himself from the pile of fabric he'd been snoozing in and looked around. Drat. No true Ninja Norkie would have allowed himself to pass out in a heap of satin without waking up at closing time. Then again, he was the only Ninja Norkie in all three worlds, so how was he to know what a true one acted like? Heck with it. Let's see about getting out of here.
Norkie bounced easily to the floor and checked the front door. Nope, no luck. The door was too solid to cut a hole in, securely locked, and the mail slot was too slim to let him slip through. How 'bout the windows, then?
A quick check proved futile as well; double-glazed and heavily grated. The back door was a repeat of the front one. Damn Van for his thoroughness! Norkie fizzled to himself for a few minutes, wishing the curse of the rabid rust mites on the big robot. Then he sighed and resigned himself to a night of wandering around a doll shop. Could be worse. What with all the customers wandering around the store and bullying Van into making yet another Kurama doll, he hadn't had much time to look around himself. Even as annoyed as he was at Van, he could not fault his art. Every figurine was absolutely perfect. The armor on the samurai dolls was even accurate- made of leather and lacquered wood, with painstakingly formed helmets of some sort of metal. There was an excellent replica of Kemuri, Hiei's dragon, on the same table, posed most regally on a stone that had smoky quartz crystals growing all over it. On the table closest by, a doll of Yakumo, too much of a jerk to be left out of anything, stood arrogantly upon a simple wooden stand while holding a red-tinted marble in one fist. And there on the floor was a glint of plastic wrapping. Hey, hadn't he seen someone drop a candy bar on the floor near one of the display tables? A quick check proved him right, and he was rewarded with a stick of chocolate and caramel bigger than he was. Ah, bliss! Nothing like a bit of caffeine and sugar to give the ol' brain a boot in the butt for after-hours adventuring.
He had finished the candy bar and was grooming caramel off of his fuzz when he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. It was very soft and considerably smaller than before, but instantly recognizable.
Something moved in the shadows to his far left, and it laughed again. High, cruel, metallic laughter. What in the name of the Seventeen Spam-Flavored Hells was a Hunter doing here?
"Queep?" He said nervously.
It came out of the darkness into a patch of moonlight. The silhouette was unmistakable, if severely shrunken. A Hunter, but one that was only twelve inches tall. Norkie experienced a sinking feeling in his belly; he'd heard Van talking to the Reikai Tante about this thing. A doll made far too real- that was as bloodthirsty as the genuine article.
"Oh, queep." Norkie said, and then ran for it.
It started after him instantly with a malicious whoop of mirth, sending Norkie queeping with terror across the shop. No matter how Norkie tried, he couldn't shake the dratted thing. Up the tablecloths, down the curtains, three times around the counter he scampered, with the Hunter barely a body length behind him. Abruptly, he pulled himself up short. Hey, just who was the fearless, valiant Ninja Norkie around here?! Norkie spun around, sword at the ready. Hunter or no Hunter, the thing was still just a doll. A few well-placed slashes would empty its stuffings all over the floor. The Hunter either didn't know this or just didn't care; it cannoned right into the sword, slamming Norkie back against a table leg with the blade stuck solidly in its gut. There was a dazed moment as they both recovered from the impact and tried to figure out what to do next. Norkie shook his numbed paw and rather gingerly pulled the sword out. There was no stuffing inside the Hunter. Instead, he was treated to the sight of moonlight on steely bone before the wound closed up. The Hunter cackled viciously and lunged for a handful of Norkie's fur. It missed, of course; Norkie was already halfway across the shop, streaking along like a hamster on speed and queeping to raise the dead.
It took another three circuits around the room before the Hunter finally cornered the frantic fuzzball. Ninja Norkie raised his sword, vowing not to give up his life easily to this soulless, blood-hungry maniac. The Hunter loomed in for the kill...
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?!"
The Hunter staggered, caught off balance by the new voice, and watched its owner come sliding down the tablecloth to their right. It was female, and rather blatantly so- nothing with that much front extension could be called anything else.
"Queep?" Norkie said.
"Whaddaya mean, 'queep'?!" The virago bellowed. "How's a girl supposed to get her beauty sleep if a couple of blithering idiots are running around and making enough hooraw to break the windows?"
"Uh, queep?" Norkie hazarded.
"They don't make earplugs in my size, Fuzzball. Even if they did, the damned things would probably be that fucking pink color, just like the rest of the accessories!"
She continued to rant at them, venting her spleen most vehemently. As she did so, she stepped into the beam of moonlight. Norkie was aghast at the sight of her. His epic last-stand type battle had been cancelled by a Barbie doll. Ah, but no ordinary Barbie! This one had gained considerably in personality, among other things. She wore drawstring sweatpants that had to have been handmade, and her shirt showed signs of having a lot of pink glitter removed. Her somewhat frazzled and grubby blonde hair had been braided with great care, and a little, somewhat crooked plastic cocktail stick in the shape of a cutlass had been tied to her waist with a bit of yarn. Norkie also noticed that her eyes were no longer that vapid baby-blue; they had been painted over into a cunning, evil-looking yellow. This was a veritable Amazon of girl's dolls, and not to be messed with!
This Amazon took one look at the Hunter and did not approve. "And just what are you leering at, Spook?" She growled, jabbing at its breastbone with one finger.
The Hunter staggered back with a nervous giggle, seemingly unable to decide what to do. To tell the truth, the Hunter was at war with itself. It had made a dreadful mistake without even realizing what it had done. It remembered that Van had dropped it off back at Golganoth some time ago, and that it had not liked being left alone by its chosen pack-leader. So, by means that it itself had not fully understood, it had channeled what it was into a much more appropriate place, i.e., near Van. It had guarded Van's territory without hesitation nor fear of failure, and had already claimed one invader. Yet here was its undoing- an invader that it didn't want to kill. Something that wasn't part of the pack, and it didn't want to kill it. Hunter had run into one of the lesser Laws of the Way Things Work. Dolls are a purely human invention, and have rules just like everything else. One of the most important Laws of Dollness is that:
A male doll has no other purpose but to (a) Be An Action Figure, (b) Hang Around Female Dolls And Look Cool/Sexy/Eligible, and (c) Get Married To Aforesaid Female Doll. Hunter could by no means be considered anything other than a male doll.
The Hunter's mind, such as it was, was being forced into unfamiliar shapes. It had this terrible feeling that the woman in front of it was the most Beautiful/Sexy thing in the whole universe.
Have you any idea how hard it is for a parthenogenetically-spawned killing machine to understand the true meaning of "Hot damn, what a babe!"?
The Barbie took a second look at the Hunter and underwent a similar series of thoughts. Aside from a brief fling with a vintage G.I. Joe in an antiques store some weeks ago, she had no significant other, and the Laws stated that Any Female Doll That Is Not A Baby Or A Small Child Must Have A Boyfriend. She became aware of just how darkly attractive the Hunter really was, like a spy or a sniper or a secret agent terrorist or something. Those broad shoulders, the powerful arms, the strong body built for speed and strength. It had no face, but that just increased the aura of mystery and delicious danger. Drooly! She wondered if that mottled-grey leather look it wore was its skin or a full-body suit...
"Oh, hey, baby," she cooed, stepping forward until she had cornered the Hunter against the wall right beside Norkie. "What's a good-looking guy like you doing in a dump like this? My name's Charlotte, but my really close friends call me Charlie."
The Hunter dithered, close to panic. It wasn't built for this sort of thing. Certain new and strange parts of its mind were telling it just what those bumps on her front were for...
"So what's your name, sugar?" Charlie crooned, tickling it under the chin.
The Hunter gave a frantic gurgle.
"Queep." Ninja Norkie informed her.
"Hunter, huh?" Charlie smiled in a way that was carefully calculated to curdle the libido. "I like it. It fits. I think I'll just call you Spook, though, like a nickname. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Eep." The Hunter replied, and then gave in.
What the hell; if it could accept a seven-foot-tall robot who wore his knees on backwards as its pack leader, it could accept a... er, female-type humanoid (with an enormous front!) as its pack member. Holy smoke, she was even more attractive than a pack of bandits trapped in a dead-end alley...
"Queep?" Norkie said to Charlie, who ignored him.
"Queep?! He tried Hunter with the same result.
Norkie suddenly had the feeling that he was quite alone. His two companions were so busy gazing adoringly into each other's faces (or lack thereof) that the sun could have gone nova and they wouldn't have noticed. Just his luck that the scariest thing in the world and one of the most familiar things in the world would decide to cancel each other out right in front of him. Sigh. No epic battles today.
With a sharp crack, one of the windows broke and a small, evil face peered slyly through the hole.
...And then again, Norkie thought, testing the edge of his sword.
An extremely small demon wiggled its way through the iron grating and paused on the windowsill for a look around. Norkie very carefully got the attention of Charlie and the Hunter and directed it at the invader.
"What's that?" Charlie asked.
Hunter growled softly with anticipation.
The demon gave a high-pitched giggle and hopped down onto a nearby display table. "Oh, this is too perfect!" It squeaked with glee. "What to be, what to be? A slinky, sexy dancing girl, perhaps? A ninja? A samurai? Or even, heavens forfend, Emperor?" It laughed shrilly, making a face at a particularly constipated-looking figurine of a nobleman.
"It doesn't matter, not at all. Such artistry! Oh, come to me, my beauties," The little demon leered foully at a group of geishas, "such pretty girls. One of you lucky ladies will conceal me within your silken breast, to carry me away with you to the house of some poor idiot of a human. And then," the demon licked its lips, "my work begins. Such misery we will bring, my lovely ladies!"
Ninja Norkie nudged Hunter in the knee with one elbow. "Queep?"
Hunter's only reply was a bloodthirsty giggle.
"You said it, Fuzzball." Charlie growled, drawing her fearsome cocktail sword. "Let's show this scaly little bastard what he can do with his evil plots."
"Woop! Nark!" Hunter barked and tore off in the demon's direction.
Charlie was right beside it. "Chaaaaarrrrge!"
"Queeeeep!" Ninja Norkie shouted, raising his sword on high and scampering after them.
The demon looked up sharply at this weird array of noises, and then nearly wet its loincloth at the sight of what hauled themselves up over the edge of the table: A distilled nightmare, an amazon, and the same ball of ginger fur that had neatly deballed one of the most powerful sorcerers in the Makai. The demon considered hopping back out of the hole it had made in the window, but the woman moved quickly to block that retreat, stepping into the light as she did so. "Hold it right there, freak!" She snarled. "No way am I letting you get away with this!"
A doll! She was nothing but a doll. The demon bared its teeth at her. "And no way am I going to let a tatty bitch like you stop me!"
So saying, it leaped into a nearby samurai doll, which came to life and drew its swords. It would have been more impressive if Charlie hadn't cannoned into it, shrieking with rage. "I am not tatty!" She howled, ripping its head off.
Norkie asked the Hunter if it really wanted her as a girlfriend. Hunter nodded enthusiastically and chuckled with appreciation as Charlie kicked the samurai in places that would cause most males to wince.
The demon scrambled frantically out of the disintegrating doll and slid into the nearest ninja, bringing it to life. "Let's make things more interesting!" It said, and waved a hand at the rest of the ninjas on the stand. Obediently the ninjas jerked into motion, weapons gleaming in the moonlight. Hunter plowed into them laughing like a maniac, Ninja Norkie coming in from one side to challenge the demon himself. The demon-doll parried his slash easily, and once again Norkie had to both admire and curse Van's attention to detail; the ninja's katana was as real as his own. Their blades clanged together like very small militant bells as they fought along the tabletop. The demon was quite a good swordsman, but Norkie had learned from a young fighter whose sword had been the key to survival for centuries. In a quick sequence of strokes, Norkie split the ninja doll cleanly down the middle, sending stuffings flying everywhere. "That's it!" The demon shrilled, hauling itself out of the ruined doll and bounding away across the tables. "No more Mister Nice Guy!"
The valiant three didn't give a damn for the demon's cheesy threats and thundered after it, knocking the displays flying in their hot pursuit. The demon kept ahead of them for three tables, then dodged into a patch of deep and angular shadow. "Come out of there and fight like a.. a... whatever the hell you are!" Charlie shouted.
"Queep!" Norkie agreed, sword ready.
"Grrr." Hunter added.
The hidden demon let out a curiously metallic cackle, as though it was speaking into a tin bucket. "You asked for it." It said, and then came out.
"Oh, shit." Charlie said.
This was not your average doll. This thing was easily twice their size and it gleamed in the darkness. Van had gotten bored with fabric and thread for a short time, and had built something out of steel for a change. It was fully articulate and functional, and the eyes gleamed greenly out of its helmeted head. The blade on the scythe was merely a piece of cut glass, but this was small comfort. Norkie recognized it from a cartoon he'd seen on television some time ago, and his fur stood on end.
Apparently, Charlie had seen it too. "Shinagami! What's that thing doing here?"
"Sealing your doom!" The demon cried, swinging its weapon at her.
She wasn't quite quick enough to dodge the blow, and it knocked her over the edge of the table with a yelp of fear. At the sight of this, Hunter flew into a howling fury and rushed the robot, hell-bent on avenging its packmate. Norkie carefully worked his way around the pair, not wishing to get caught by the flailing scythe; Hunter was busily ripping the plating off of the robot, and the demon inside of it was objecting strenuously to this treatment. There was a clink as the blade snapped in half, leaving the greater part of itself stuck in Hunter's shoulder. It popped back out a few seconds later- Hunter had had worse things happen to it. The demon took a few steps backwards to give itself room to maneuver and tripped over Norkie, who jammed his sword into its hip joint and pushed it off the table. Van may have built the figure as true to the original as he could, but he didn't include the booster jets; the replica hit the floor with an almighty crash, momentarily stunning its occupant. Without hesitation, Hunter hopped over the edge after it, and Norkie followed him by sliding down the tablecloth. The robot was attempting to get back onto its feet with not much success; it still had Norkie's sword stuck in it. Looking around frantically, it saw Charlie sitting nearby, popping her left arm back into its socket and muttering curses against all disgustingly huge robots. The demon lunged and grabbed Charlie by the neck, clamping its other hand on her head. "One more move and I rip it off!" The demon shrieked desperately.
Norkie froze, but Hunter sped up. Moving so fast that it was little more than a blur, it laid hold of the robot's wrists and tore them clean off. Then it went for the throat. With a howl of triumph it ripped the robot open, exposing the terrified demon within.
What Hunter did to the demon after that was horrible, disgusting, and incredibly graphic.
Charlie sat up, rubbed her neck, and stared with admiring eyes at the bloodsoaked monster giggling unpleasantly in the wreckage. "You saved my life." She half-whispered. "My Hero!"
Norkie rolled his eyes and very carefully retrieved his sword while Hunter was busy getting its facial area plastered with ardent kisses.
ooooo
When Vanguard unlocked his shop the next morning, a dreadful scene met his eye. The display tables were all in disarray, there were dolls and mangled doll parts strewn everywhere, and his painstaking replica of Duo's Mobile Suit lay in pieces in the middle of the floor, smeared all over with purplish goo. Norkie was sprawled sloppily and snoring on the sewing table in a nest of expensive fabrics, and the Hunter doll and the little girl's Barbie were cuddling next to the dead steel figure. There was also a gaping hole in the window, but the grate had not been disturbed. Van prodded Norkie awake. "What happened here?"
"Queeph." Norkie said shortly and went back to sleep.
An invader? Come to think of it, there were bits of something very like bone in the rather squidgy mess inside the Shinagami figure... Van's gaze fell onto Hunter and Charlie again. The Barbie had a plastic cocktail sword in one hand, and her partner was clutching what looked very much like a tiny scalp in its left fist. "Oh. That explains it." Van said, picked the couple up and carefully placed them on the closest table.
Then he saw about cleaning the rest of the shop up before opening time.
ooooo
Around noon, the bell on the door jingled, heralding the arrival of customers. Van looked up from cleaning the gunk out of Shinagami's innards to see the little girl and her father from yesterday. "Excuse me," the man said, "but my daughter left her doll here yesterday. Is it still here?"
Van nodded. "I put it on the table over there. How did your wife like her gift?"
The little girl ambled off to find her doll while Van and her father made polite conversation.
"Charlotte!" The girl's delighted voice echoed through the shop. "Daddy, I've found her, and she's got a boyfriend! Come see!"
Smiling apologies at Van for the interruption, the girl's father walked over to see what she'd found. Probably a folk hero or a ninja or samurai or- "Good god!"
Van stepped over to see what the outburst was about. "Is there a problem?"
"Isn't he handsome?" The girl squealed.
Her father didn't think so. "Come on, Kimi, pick up you doll so we can go finish our errands."
"Can we get him? Please, Daddy?" Kimi pleaded.
"Um, I don't know, sweetheart..."
"But they're in love!" Kimi unleashed the full force of her Bambi Eyes Attack on her hapless parent.
"But it doesn't have a face!"
Kimi turned up the voltage. "But they love each other!"
Van wanted to either laugh or cry, and couldn't decide which was appropriate, so he settled on standing quietly and waiting while Kimi's father dithered helplessly in the face of such winsome cuteness.
"Oh, all right. Just how much is that one, sir?" The father sighed.
"Hooray!" Kimi exulted, triumphant.
Van chuckled and shook his head. "The best things in life are free, and that includes love, I suppose. He's yours, kid."
Kimi took off dancing with joy and singing "Here Comes the Bride", hugging her dolls tightly.
"Just what is that thing, anyway?" The poor man hissed, looking askance at his daughter's newest acquisition. "It gives me the creeps."
Van smiled reassuringly. "It's a rather obscure monster called a Hunter. That one, at least, is bloody murderous death to the forces of evil. It's not as if it'll come to life and rip your socks off in the middle of the night, so why worry?"
"Yayyy!" Kimi chirped. "Charlie and Hunter sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage!"
Kimi's father gave Van a faintly embarrassed smile, thanked him for the gift, and then dragged his still-chirping daughter out of the shop.
Van stood very still until he was sure they were out of sight. Then he slowly sat back down at his sewing table and laid his head down in his arms. "'Baby in the baby carriage'. Oh, sweet Motherboard, if only he knew! What am I talking about? He'll find out eventually, anyway." Van whimpered.
"Queep." Norkie said sympathetically.
"At least they won't have to worry about burglars ever again."
The End