You Get Off Here
Notes: This idea has been kicking around my head since Shot 9 came out, and in an effort to cheer myself up after a difficult week, I finally crystallized it enough to write it out. Warnings for crack, humor, silliness, and a big knock on the Fourth Wall. Minor spoilers for current events. The title is inspired by a certain line of dialogue from Kouten 4, Shot 9, as was the whole story. Enjoy!
Nii was buried, utterly drowning in the bosom of his lover-slash-employer, when he heard it. Someone or something was rapping at the door to the throne room, tapping hard enough to rattle some of the crimson and ochre tapestries and disrupting Gyokumen Koushu's ecstasy. He tried to ignore it, and instead pushed his face back between her breasts and shook his face around in an act that could only be described as "motorboating." She groaned, as the knocking sound resounded through the room again.
"Stop that." She pushed on his face, deliberately pressing her thumb against his sewn-shut eyelid. He grunted at the little pain, but eased back from where he lay against her chest. Gyokumen pursed her lips in obvious irritation. "Go see who's knocking at the chamber door."
Nii sighed and dropped down onto her chest again, pushing her into the chair. "Nevermore."
She slapped his back with her palm. "Quit talking nonsense and go find out who's there so we can get back to business!"
This got him hopping to his feet and half-bowing. "Your faithful servant, evermore." He grinned lasciviously and strode towards the door, as she groused of his insolence and slumped into her throne, arms folded. Nii expected he'd have to shoo whatever foolish servant had interrupted them off as he unlocked the bolt, and threw both doors wide. "You sure are brave, interrupting the mistress during-"
Nii hardly had time to realize he was staring down the headlights of an iron vehicle, a green Jeep, before the Jeep blared its horn as loud as it could and plowed into him. He tumbled ass-over-teakettle into a wall, as the Jeep tore through the room, honking as it swept around the room and tore down every hanging tapestry. It battered the pillars and bruised the walls, all while honking its horn like a mad dog barked. Helpless as ever, Gyokumen Koushu shrieked from her chair, "Nii, you incompetent buffoon, stop that crazy thing!"
Nii, bruised and groaning, staggered to his feet just in time for the Jeep to roar past him again, clouding him with thick exhaust. This time, though, he got a look inside and saw that nobody was driving. The Jeep wheeled around, skidding to a halt facing Gyokumen's throne. She squeaked and clung to her pillows, as the Jeep revved low, sounding like it was growling, then blared its horn in a fanfare and charged again. She screamed and dove for cover as the Jeep drove right up to the throne and knocked through it, crushing the brittle wood against its grill and into the wall, then backed up and ran over the splintered legs again for good measure. Gyokumen tried to hide under one of the tattered tapestries, as Nii struggled to get his bearings and checked himself for injuries, but instead, the Jeep vanished, and a little white dragon flapped in midair in its place.
"Kyuu!" The dragon announced to the world, cocking his head back and spreading his wings wide, then he tore off into the castle. Nii spun to watch him leave, as Gyokumen flailed an arm.
"It's heading for the laboratory! Stop that terrible thing!"
Nii put a hand to his mouth to cover a cackle, but took off after the dragon as it whipped its way through Houtou Castle and down the stairs. Still aching from the first impact, his legs slowed him down, but he got to the basement laboratory just in time to see the dragon transform back into the Jeep in the middle of the room. Then, it floored its own gas pedal and screeched around the room, clipping every file cabinet, desk, and computer in the room. Hwang, returning from the server room, shrieked and bolted, while Wang watched from his chair until the Jeep careened towards him and sent him running for the door past Nii. He stopped only for a second to pat his shoulder.
"Good luck, boy." And then, he ran as fast as his withered old legs could carry him, as Nii gaped at the ruined laboratory room in horror. The Jeep skidded to a halt in the center of the tiles, then transformed back into the dragon. This time, the dragon landed on one of the toppled file cabinets and stretched its wings. Nii smirked.
"I suppose you're intelligent enough to know exactly what you're doing. Let's hope you're not intelligent enough to-"
As Nii was gloating, the dragon scratched at the papers spilling from the cabinet like a bird pulling at grass for its nest, but once it had gotten a decent little pile, he arched his long and let out a massive pelt of fire. The paper caught blaze and spread, and Nii gawked and swore, bolting to try to find the lab's fire extinguisher, as the dragon took wing again, belching fire at papers, at sparking husks of computers, at the creaky wooden desks and anything it could find. Nii found the extinguisher in the server room, but the laboratory was starting to get hot and smoky, fast.
"Have you caught that awful thing?" Gyokumen Koushu staggered down the stairs, tottering on her heels, only to stumble to a halt to find the room ablaze and Nii, stuck somewhere between laughter and apoplexy, with the extinguisher shaking in his hand. She stomped her foot. "Quit staring and do something!"
"Lady," Nii finally laughed, his voice breaking. "What do you want me to do?" The dragon, however, merely squealed at them again:
"Kyuuuuuuuu!" Then, it turned tail and flew into the next room, and Gyokumen shrieked.
"HE'S HEADING FOR THE RESURRECTION CHAMBER!"
Nii, of course, gave chase.
Jeep stared at the massive shadow in the glass container, his red eyes pensive for a long moment. This was his still-unseen foe, the thing he'd been made to travel towards. He had heard the noisy ones who rode on his back discuss it here and there, but they hadn't gotten this close. Just as he went to make his move, he heard Dr. Nii behind him, and perched on the control panel, wings tucked close, watching the man closely.
Nii dropped the forgotten fire extinguisher, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he stared down Jeep. The dim, greenish light behind the tank cast his face in shadows, from those crooked glasses over a slimy smirk, to the pitch hollow of his empty eye socket. "See, there's no further you can go. What did you think you could do? Just scare us and burn it all down? You don't think we have back-ups of our information?" Jeep hissed, and Nii smirked a little wider. "I admit, this has been fun, but I have no clue what you thought you were going to accomplish. I can only ask: where do you get off?"
Nii reached for Jeep's neck, and Jeep belched another weal of fire at his hand and lurched forward on the control panel. Nii jumped back to dodge, but his face only changed when Jeep moved on the controls - still smirking, but his confidence had wavered. "Hold still, you winged rat! Damn, can't let it mess with that."
Mess with what? Jeep looked down, and realized he was perched directly next to a lever. Oh, you mean this? Jeep fastened his claw on the lever, and Nii's eyes widened. "Don't you do that."
Oh. Jeep had come to understand enough human speech to know that surely that means, "Mess with it now." Jeep stared Nii right in the face, claw on the lever. Nii lunged for him, muttering "No, no, no," which surely meant "Yes, yes, yes!" Obedient as could be, Jeep yanked the lever, then transformed back into the car when the klaxons started to sound.
A massive amount of electric current began to run through the tank, as Nii stood staring, face frozen in a horrified smile that did not disguise that he was screaming on the inside, as the formless shape within twisted and writhed. Jeep, however, got back as far as he could in the room and rammed the glass, breaking it with a single clean hit and transforming back into a dragon as the nasty fluid gushed out in a putrid-smelling flood. Nii shouted and bolted back into the hallways. "Evacuate! The tank's been breached, and if that stuff catches fire we'll all be sky-high!"
That was it! "KYUU!" Jeep, squealing his delight, dragged his tail in the rushing flood of yuck that the Demon King had been sitting in and dragged it into the lab with him. Gyokumen Koushu, putting the fire out with her skirt, screamed as Jeep flew past her, his tail still dripping green, and he stopped only to belch one last weal of fire in her direction. He could hear them chasing him, but he couldn't care! He was faster, smarter, better, and he was going to win! He could hear the hiss of fire and acid behind him, and the second he got out of the narrow passage, he transformed back into the Jeep, rubber side down, and sped out as fast as his wheels could carry him.
When the acid and the electrified, liquified remains of the Demon King met the fire Jeep had left in the lab, Houtou Castle was caught in an explosion the likes of which had never been seen in this world, and in seconds, Nii, Gyokumen Koushu, and all the wicked youkai were buried in the rubble of the castle and their own hubris. The rocks exploded in chunks, and the sky was lit green by sparkling flame. Out in front of it all, though, one happy little white dragon yipped and barked his victory - his victory, all his! - and blew fire at the sky in celebration.
Because the Minus Wave would stop, and everything would go back to normal, and everything and everyone would be okay. The day was saved...
"... Thanks to Jeep!" Goku finished his tale with a flourish, and Jeep, elated, launched himself off of Goku's shoulder and turned figure-eights and corkscrews in the air, chirping and whistling and blowing little bursts of flame with glee. He laughed and clapped, his voice echoing out in the dry desert air, while a few yards away on the cracked, flat plain, Hakkai, Gojyo, and Sanzo had been smoking cigarettes and listening. Hakkai, crouched on a rock, had put his hand over his mouth and was quaking with withheld laughter, Sanzo was digging his feet into the dust pinching his brow and keeping his lips sealed tight, and Gojyo was smothering laughter into his sleeve. Goku bounced next to Jeep, grinning. "Yup! That's exactly what you'd do!"
"Goku," Sanzo interrupted sharply, choked up and tense. "I have a few... questions about this scenario. First, how do you know Ukoku Sanzo and Dr. Nii Jianyi are the same person?"
"Huh?" Goku cocked his head. "Well, you said so to the Sanbutsushin like three chapters ago, and I have no idea how you knew that 'cause nobody told you, but nobody said crap to you about it, so..."
"Second," Sanzo went on quickly, as Gojyo made a noise like a cat choking on a hairball and wheezed so hard he must have died a little in the process, "Why was Ukoku motorboating the demon queen? I'm not going to ask where you learned the term 'motorboating' because I know-" he punctuated it with a kick at the dust in Gojyo's general direction, which Gojyo only answered with an aborted guffaw- "where you learned that, but how was that important to the story?"
"I guess I just figured he'd have no other really good reason to hang out with her unless she had nice boobies." Goku made squishing motions in front of his chest. Gojyo made that same dying-cat noise and Hakkai dropped his cigarette to cover his mouth with both hands, and Sanzo turned crimson.
"Third." Sanzo bit the word off, then stomped his foot, as Hakkai failed to maintain mere polite interest and broke into a giggle fit, and Gojyo finally doubled over laughing out loud. "Third!" Jeep was still turning cartwheels in the air and happily kicking his feet as he flew. "Third- Ugh, fine! Go on without us, then!" Sanzo kicked dust towards the little dragon, and Jeep whipped around and buzzed him (causing Sanzo to swear a blue streak and storm off to light a fresh cigarette) before returning to flying celebratory circles around Goku. Goku laughed to himself.
"Nah, he doesn't have to. We all already know who the real hero of the story is."
Jeep, for emphasis, crowed and breathed another lick of flames towards the sky. "Kyuu!"
He wouldn't insist, not today, anyway. After all, he knew he could do it. He'd just let these four losers have one more chance first.