Einigkeit Macht Stark
Author's Notes- Three chapters of this stuff somehow wrote itself while I was supposed to be working on an assignment the other day. It's been a long time since I wrote any humour, but any constructive criticism is welcome :s
Warnings- Do I really need to say some characters might be a bit less than heterosexual? Probably swearing, no real character bashing or anything like that, more making fun of how they're stereotypically represented.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. This is non-profit and written purely for fun. No copyright infringement is intended.
"..And so, for now you will now be working with Schwarz," Birman concluded, beaming at the speechless assassins. It was actually the seventh or eighth time she had gone through the speech and concluded it with that very sentence, but she was mildly worried that they all seemed to be completely frozen. Finally, there was a small movement. Omi waved his hand frantically.
"Since we're temporarily joining together and all, do we get a cool new team name?" Omi asked after a long pause. Birman raised an eyebrow. He was taking this remarkably well. Not many men would put on such a brave face when being forced to work alongside an equally-sexy-and-dangerous team of assassins.
"Oooh!" Ken bounced in his chair. "I've got it! Grau! Because they're black, and we're white, and..."
"Yes, Ken, we're all way ahead of you," Youji sighed. He'd already thought of this, when he'd idly considered working alongside Schwarz. Which absolutely wasn't most nights.
"We were thinking of something a little more original," Birman said tactfully. "We decided on Lila,"
"Lila?" Aya had to temporarily cease lurking in the background looking all stoic and mysterious to speak up.
"It's German for purple. It seems all the good colours are already used up by all those mysterious all-girl psychic assassin teams that just sprout up out of nowhere and attempt to get into your pants," Birman shrugged. "Originally we were going to take the 'Sch' from Schwarz and the 'Eiss' from Weiss and rename the team Scheisse, and then thankfully we cleared it with Schuldig first. Turns out it means.. well, someone in Marketing is really going to get it for that one!" She laughed nervously. "Just be thankful you're not posted over in America. We've got teams Magenta, Puce and Peagreen working over there. The drug dealers and evil corporate overlords just can't keep a straight face while they're being mercilessly hunted down and denied their collective tomorrows,"
"Hn," Aya straightened up. Always leaning casually against the wall during mission briefs was murder on his back, even if it did make him look at least 20 percent more menacing. Combined with his favourite comfy orange sweater and "Cherry Passion" hairdye, it was surely a lethal look that struck fear into the heart of any nearby Dark Beast. "Then I suppose there's nothing to say about it,"
"Nothing?" Birman looked doubtful. "You're not going to storm off again? Leave the team?"
"Nope," Omi cut in. "He isn't. Absolutely nothing we can do. We're screwed. Got to join them. When do we start?"
"Er, they're moving in tomorrow for some reason that will not be explained," Birman said as she began discreetly backing up the stairs. Omi really was taking this far too well.
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"Are you sure this is where Schwarz live?" Ken asked doubtfully. Two flower baskets filled with lilacs hung over the (pink) door of the small apartment. A name plate announced this was 'Honeysuckle Cottage', a somewhat misleading name for a small inner city apartment on the sixth floor. A ceramic garden gnome waved cheerfully at him from next to a 'Welcome!' mat. When he pressed the doorbell, it played what sounded suspiciously like the tune to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". For some reason, Omi had insisted they help Schwarz move their things over to the flower shop. But fortunately it looked like he'd got the wrong address.
"Hey, is that doorbell playing-" Omi began
"Yes. Yes, it is," Schuldig snapped, opening the door. "Crawford insisted we keep a low profile, alright? Like anyone who runs a flower shop has any room to talk-" This was clearly a sore point for Schuldig. Bringing ladies back home to Honeysuckle Cottage.. well, it would get to anyone after a while.
"Well, come in and make yourselves useful," Schuldig sighed, waving his hand in the general direction of the apartment. "Mind the boxes and don't pat Farfarello. He bites,"
The flat was almost empty, with boxes stacked around the bare kitchen and neatly labelled with colour-coordinated stickers, courtesy of Crawford. There was what definitely appeared to be a reward chart stuck on the fridge door, with small sticky gold stars next to Schuldig, Farfarello and Nagi's names, each written in a different colour. Ken looked closer at the latest stars.
'Today Schuldig didn't make Nagi think it was a good idea to eat Crawford's socks. Good work, Schuldig!'
'Nagi didn't telekinetically force Schuldig into a dress once today. Well done, Nagi!'
'Farfarello let Schuldig watch Father Ted reruns without a lecture in theology. Keep it up, Farfarello! Even if you were actually sedated and straitjacketed at the time'
"Yeah, well. Crawford'll make you a star chart and house rules too," Schuldig said sourly, having blurred into the room with remarkable speed and nearly collided with an enormous stack of boxes, all filled with burned CDs which Nagi had labelled as "Homework", "More Homework", "Really Boring Homework You Don't Want To Look At, Especially You Schuldig". He worried about that boy sometimes. It really wasn't healthy to use up all their bandwidth and burn ten discs a day downloading files on "Atomic, molecular and optical physics".
"House.. rules?" Omi said blankly. "In our house?"
"Only if you want to stay alive," Schuldig scowled. "You're living with four easily-aggravated bad guys. One of whom can turn you inside by thinking about it, another who can kill you six different ways before you hit the floor, a third who can implant various lewd and/or hilarious suggestions in your mind, and a fourth who... well, Crawford might flash his shiny glasses at you," Schuldig ended somewhat lamely. "Or if it's going to rain, he might not tell you to take an umbrella! So if the homo superior tell you to keep the milk in the fridge or squeeze the toothpaste from the end, not the middle... well, I suggest you do it," Damn, that sounded menacing. He preened a little.
"Homo superior," Ken giggled.
"Did you nick that from X-Men?" Omi asked suspiciously. Schuldig stiffened.
"Oh, hello," Farfarello said amicably, wandering into the room and depositing a pile of boxes on the floor. "Can I paint my cell a different colour this time? I'm getting bored of Asylum White and I've got some lovely wallpaper samples.." He wandered back out, stepping aside to let Nagi past as the boy idly strolled out the apartment and down to the van, apparantly unconcerned by carrying two or three times his own weight in boxes. Omi looked on adoringly.
"Bloody telekinetic showoffs," Schuldig said moodily, staggering under Farfarello's knife collection and a suitcase filled with some of Crawford's spare extra-shiny glasses. "Wait one minute.."
"Oh, don't trouble yourself with those big heavy boxes," Ken said suddenly, a blank look in his eyes. "Here, let me.."
Schuldig sniggered to himself as the others set off downstairs carrying most of Schwarz's posessions between them. He glanced around the empty apartment, and set off, locking up behind himself.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Schwarz moving in was surprisingly uneventful. Well, apart from Nagi disappearing for an hour, but thankfully he explained he'd took the wrong turn, got lost in Omi's room and couldn't find the way out. The poor boy was all out of breath from navigating the uncharted wilds of Omi's bedroom, bless him. Schuldig was beginning to get worried. Now that all teammates were encountered for, Schu was sat comfortably in the Weiss kitchen having a nice cup of tea and being suspiciously un-suspicious. He had to be up to something.
"Where are the others?" Aya asked, wondering what he could be up to.
"Nagi and Omi are doing homework in Omi's room," Schuldig said. "Atomic, molecular and optical physics, apparently. Funny, that, since they're in different grades and there's a perfectly good computer right there," He shrugged. "Crawford apparently Saw a 50 percent off sale starting in ten minutes on his favourite anti-anti-glare glasses and Farfarello is either out stabbing things or thinking about things to stab,"
"Speaking of which, we're running low on priests here. I think he's already used them all up," Omi said worriedly, as he came wandering in. He looked awfully tired. Schuldig shook his head sadly. Atomic, molecular and optical physics always had that effect on Nagi too. "Is there not anything else he'd be interested in stabbing? Specifically, things that aren't us?"
"Probably," Schuldig shrugged. "Though, come to think about it... for the purposes of staying alive, Siberian, you're now Hindu. Balinese is a Satanist, Bombay is pagan and Abyssinian here is a devout followerer of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,"
"The what?" Aya asked flatly.
"I dunno, it's your religion," Schuldig shrugged. "I'd go build a shrine just to be on the safe side,"
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Some hours later, Omi walked past Aya, who was grumpily attempting to build a sculpture entirely out of cold spaghetti in the corner of his room. He paused to watch Aya's attempts. The entire structure slowly slid back into a formless heap. He sniggered.
"Please do not question my beliefs," Aya said coolly, turning the Shi-ne look up full force. "The Flying Spaghetti Monster is most vengeful towards those who insult his followers,"
On the other hand, Yohji was having the time of his life flipping through the Satanist bible. "Everything's allowed!" he said gleefully. "Hey, look- 'if a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy'. It goes against my religion to be nice to Schwarz," He went back into the kitchen to find Schuldig and tell him the good news.
All of Schwarz were already there, eating. Yohji had always had the impression Farfarello would eat some sort of small animal. Perhaps toasted on a stick until it stopped squirming, if he was in polite company. Instead, he was currently nibbling his way through a small salad.
"Vegans hurt God!" Farfarello said proudly, pointing to his Meat Is Murder tshirt. He pointed to his Bible. Just under a reference to God giving humans custody over all animals, Farfarello had drawn a little smiling cow and a grumpy looking face with a knife stuck through it.
"God really hates people washing up dishes," Schuldig said hopefully.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness," Farfarello retaliated, dumping Nagi's juice on the floor to illustrate his point.
"Luckily, he was quite happy to shower when we started buying strawberry-scented sparkly pink shower gel," Crawford observed. "Nor effeminate shall inherit the kingdom of God,"
"That's why I like Schuldig!" Farfarello crowed. "I'm going to go get pretty," And with that, the Schwarz madman left the table.
"It's okay. I 'forgot' to pack Farfarello's collection of pretty dresses," Nagi said, telekinetically floating a new glass of juice over to himself. "It's really quite difficult to convince your clients that you're Very Evil Indeed when your Beserker is simpering around in a pretty blouse and a nice skirt,"
Crawford looked as though he had a migraine coming on. "You two go.. do whatever kids do!" He snapped, attempting to waft Omi and Nagi out of the apartment. The two assassins shrugged, and wandered outside.
"What do kids our age do anyway?" Nagi asked doubtfully.
"I dunno," Omi shrugged. "When I was your age, it was mostly learning how to infiltrate government buildings or lessons in how to kill a man eight different ways using any of the commonly-found objects in your average living room. You wouldn't believe what I can do with a bowl of ornamental wax fruit, a potted rubber plant and a framed photograph of the grandchildren,"
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Their very first mission together came up that night. Nothing too unusual, just the sort of night's work that they were used to - killing some dealer of drugs, or a creator of tentacled beasts, raiser of Rosenkreuz deities, stabber of innocent passing nuns.. all much the same thing after a while. They had already managed to get into the target's garden and were currently lurking behind a flowerbed deciding where to go from here.
"Wait! We won't let you!" A voice cried out. One that managed to at once be spunky and yet incredibly feminine. This was never a good sign. The team turned around. A drop-dead beautiful woman was facing them down. Floor-length hair swirled around her, turning from black at the roots to lilac at the very tips. Her sparkling amythest orbs (the EXACT colour of Aya's!) surveyed the teams, one hand upon her hip and the other easily wielding an eight foot long sword that instantly made Aya feel inadequate. To her side was a somewhat more angsty looking girl with black hair, streaked with dye to resemble flames. Her emerald eyes were heavily lined in black and six piercings adorned her perfect features, which were only enhanced by a single delicate little scar just over her eye. Her twin daggers were coated with blood and Farfarello felt mildly jealous that for the fifth time this month, he'd been out-crazied by some random female assassin who had just burst out of the woodwork. The last girl had sapphire orbs, scarlet ringlets, the smallest outfit of the lot and was brandishing a chain whip. Every one of them had curves in all the right places and miniscule outfits to show them off.
"Yeah!" The first girl cried triumphantly. "We're not going to let Lila kill these targets. What do you think of THAT, an all-female assassin grou-"
"What, like Schreient?" Omi asked, perplexed.
"Oh, shut up!" A frown crossed her stunning features as she raised her sword with ease, despite weighing around a hundred pounds (and most of that weight adorning the perfect orbs upon her chest). "Prepare to die, Lila-"
Omi shot her.
"I don't get it," Ken said, bemused, slicing up AngstGirl as she leapt on him with a war cry. "Why do they always think we'll be shocked at a team of female assassins? This is the third team we've met in under a week. Where the hell do they keep coming from? I reckon Farfarello has the right idea about God hating us. Someone up there certainly does,"
"Who knows?" Aya shrugged, decapitating the wounded amethyst-orbed girl as she bit him in the ankle. It was getting awfully tedious having to keep putting a fresh edge on his katana from cutting up too many stunning, psychic assassins. Yohji was busily sawing his wire through the redhead's throat, apparently quite unmoved by her exotic, ethereal beauty and really massive norks.
"What a mess," Omi scrunched his nose up at the bits of lady-assassin strewn all over the lawn. "Let's get on with finding the target. Me and Nagi'll check the bedrooms,"
"OK," Schuldig said, oblivious. "The first floor.. Ken and Farfarello. You both like stabbing things, you'll get on great. Crawford can go check the garden with Aya, because Aya's hair will clash terribly with mine. Me and Yohji will take the ground floor,"
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Once everyone else had slipped away, Crawford began squelching his way through a row of petunias while Aya carefully scrutinized the tomatoes for any signs of hiding drug dealers.
"Nothing here. Crawford, go check out that compost heap,"
"I see no criminals hiding behind the compost heap in the nearby future," Crawford replied serenely. "The Oracle sees all," Also, the Oracle does not want to go squishing around in rotting potato peelings.
"Then where are criminals hiding in the nearby future?" There was silence. Aya resisted the urge to stick his tongue out.
"..The future works in mysterious ways" Crawford replied. "But I can tell you that Ken's going to be all out of clean socks tomorrow, and if I hadn't warned you, you'd have confused Schuldig's 'Tangerine Dream' dye for 'Cherry Passion' next time you touched up your roots,"
"..." Aya shot his most dangerous shi-ne look.
..Crawford countered with his deadliest glasses-flash.
The sky darkened, there was a crack of thunder above and several rows of pansies instantly wilted under the combined strength of the shin-ne face and the shiny glasses.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ken and Farfarello had finished checking the top floor and found nothing more sentient than a small pot plant, which Farfarello had decapitated just to be sure. Since there was no word from the others, they moved down to the next floor.
Farfarello suddenly sniggered.
"What's funny?" Ken asked.
"Schuldig just sent me an image of Yohji finding out he'd replaced his wire with dental floss," He paused, then winced. "Ouch, that's got to hurt. Not that I'd know and all,"
"What's your special power anyway?" Ken asked the Beserker as they entered what looked like a small art gallery.
"I beserk," Farfarello replied politely, effectively killing the conversation as they checked the place was clear.
"How exquisite!" Farfarello said admiringly, stopping in front of a painting. "An elegant juxtaposition of European neo-expressionism and Harlem renaissance,". Ken looked deeply confused.
"Sorry," Farfarello said apologetically. "I'll try again,". He licked his knife and leapt out the nearest window with a "Yiyiyiyiyiyi!" noise.
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Nagi and Omi stealthily crept throughout the house, making their way towards the living room. Yet another all-girl assassin team had shown up just as they were checking the bathroom for hiding drug lords. They had managed to get away safely and relatively unmolested, although Omi has lost his crossbow when he'd ended up chucking it at one of the girls in despair after she began running after him, ranting about how a crooked politician had her entire family burned alive, stabbed with the business end of teaspoons and then run over with steam rollers, just to get to her and her magical pyrokinetic powers that had caused her nothing but misery.
"I think we lost them," Nagi said nervously, wishing they could just encounter some armed security guards or mutated tentacled monster-things like they usually did.
"Wait! I hear something!" Omi hissed, diving dramatically across the corridor, rolling and hiding himself behind a small, ornamental coffee table. Nagi struck a pose next to a statue of an armless, naked lady and hoped no one would notice he wasn't made of marble.
"Through there," Omi whispered, indicating a door. They crept towards it stealthily to overhear what shady deals were going on inside. At least that was the idea, since Omi tripped over his shoe laces and the pair of them fell straight through it.
"Meep!" cried the drug lord in a startled manner, popcorn flying everywhere as he jumped to his feet. In the background, Come Home Lassie continued playing on an enormous cinema-size TV screen that dominated the cosy, tastefully decorated living room.
"Are you sure this is the right house?" Nagi asked, untangling himself from Omi with some reluctance. "Oh no, sorry, that's your left buttock-"
"Yes, it is," Omi replied, feeling around reflexively for his crossbow and grabbing Nagi instead. "Er, yes to both my left buttock and the right house. There was that meth lab in the basement, that crazy junkie who tried to steal your pants.. not to mention we had to climb over a thirty-foot electrified fence surrounded by genetically modified rabid dinosaurs just to get in,"
"You've lost your weapons!" The man said triumphantly, pulling out his gun. "Prepare to di-"
Blood sprayed everywhere as Omi proceeded to kill the man using a bowl of ornamental wax fruit, a potted rubber plant and a framed photograph of the grandchildren.
Nagi looked on, admiringly. A second later there was an enormous explosion as a bomb went off upstairs.
"Oh no!" Omi cried. "The building's falling in!" The two boys hugged each other as the world began crashing in around them.
"It's okay," Nagi whispered. "I don't mind dying.. so long as it's with you,"
"Oh, Nagi!" Omi's eyes filled with tears. "I've always loved you. I'm just glad I got to say this one time before we... wait, you're a bloody telekinetic!"
"Oh yeah," Nagi said sheepishly, and stopped an enormous piece of ceiling before it squashed the pair of them. He casually flung it into the corner of the room. "Better go check on the others," The pair of them skipped out through the falling debris, holding hands.
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After clearing their areas, the rest of Lila had made their way into the house, just in time to get caught in the explosion as the bomb went off. Aya swore in a decidedly not-stoic-and-mysterious manner as an enormous piece of ceiling nearly took off the tip of his nose. Ken leapt across an enormous chasm that was opening up in the floor underneath them. Part of the ceiling had already caved in, closing off escape down the stairs. "Hold me!" Schuldig screeched, leaping into Yohji's arms as a second explosion blasted him out of one of the rooms. Crawford came running out after him, dragging a furious Farfarello along by his collar.
"Farfarello wants to kill things!" Farfarello shouted indignantly, squirming in his grasp. Crawford smacked him across the nose with a rolled-up newspaper he apparantly carried around in his pocket.
Then they all fell silent, instinctively covering their heads as there was an enormous rumble above them. Dust began to rain down as cracks raced across the walls. Schuldig permitted himself one last, girly scream as the entire ceiling began to crumble..
And stopped, held up by something. Something long and noodly and surrounded by a serene white glow..
"Saved!" Aya cried in rapture. "By his noodly appendage! Oh, Flying Spaghetti Monster, thank you for your mercy towards the faithful-"
"Your God is real," Farfarello said, awed as Nagi telekinetically cleared the debris and allowed Lila to escape the crumbling building.
Mission complete.