Milestones
As far as Phillip Hawthorne was concerned, Bluebell and Konohana were pretty much the same in a lot of ways. Despite their vastly different layouts, cultures, and trades, both villages were peaceful and scenic. Most everyone was very friendly - even the furry and the yandere - if not a little too invested in some meaningless rivalry that mostly consisted of pathetic attempts at trash talk. Both towns had survived an attempted murder at the hands of a higher power over their stupid rivalry and still hadn't learned shit.
Both towns housed shameless equiphiles, and the number of households that had dead or absent spouses or parents was suspiciously high on both sides, considering their combined populations just barely crested forty people. Phillip had a sneaking suspicion that it was only a matter of time before the Mayor of Bluebell either murdered or was murdered by his wife, as if to honor some unspoken rule.
On top of all that, Phillip - who currently lived in Konohana - considered himself counterpart to Bluebell's florist, in that both were the only ones who dared do any work while it was raining. Everyone else shut down all operations immediately, as though the appearance of horrible sky-water meant that a malevolent force would pass through each town and kill any residents who dared conduct indoor business under such conditions.
But there was one commonality they held above all else. Something shared between them that sent a prickling sensation down the back of his neck. Something that made his flesh crawl and his fists clench.
No, not something.
Someone.
And she only had eyes for him.
"Dum-da-da-DAA!"
She'd appeared in a flash of white to him one day, scaring him out of his wits halfway up the mountain. As he'd peeked cautiously around the trunk of the tree behind which he'd jumped, he saw the strange, green-haired woman wave to him.
"You've walked one thousand steps!" she shouted, a cheerful smile on her face at the fact. What, did she think he needed to lose weight or something? Bitch. "Keep up the good work! Toodles!"
And off she fucked, in another flash of light, while Phillip stood rooted to his spot in shock and fear. How had she known that, anyway?! And only one thousand? He was twenty years old! He'd walked far more steps than that in his life.
The next time she'd gotten the drop on him, he'd been catching fish.
"Dum-da-da-DAA!"
"-AAAAHH!" Phillip finished, landing flat on his ass and sending the rest of the nearby fish into hiding. "Leave me alone!"
"You just caught your thirtieth Smelt!" the woman - the Harvest Goddess - informed him, blowing on a noisemaker and wiggling her hips in a victory dance. Said smelt quickly wriggled out of Phillip's grasp and landed with a splash in the shallow water, darting away to join its brethren. "You haven't caught that many yet, though! There are many different kinds of fish to catch, you know! Gotta catch 'em all! Well, toodles!"
And she'd left the poor, startled farmer with an aching tailbone and soaked clothes, and without his hard-won fish. He sneezed.
The third time, he'd been in mid-jump to catch a butterfly. She hadn't even waited for his feet to touch the ground.
"You just caught your thirtieth Small White!" she crowed, throwing confetti in a sweeping arc as Phillip shrieked and tumbled down the incline to an awkward landing, spraining his ankle horribly when his foot caught on a gnarled tree root. "Did you know there's a large variety of critters to catch on the mountainside?" she went on, oblivious as Phillip cried and groaned below, the butterfly flapping away while he clutched his ankle. "Keep up the good work!" she finished. Phillip simply glared at her through his tears, his face red. "Toodles!"
"FUCK YOU!" he screamed into thin air.
Yet, the intrusions continued unabated.
"Dum-da-da-DAA!"
Phillip yelled and his hands went flying into the air instinctively, heedless of the bowl of udon that went sailing in a sloppy arc above him, only to crash and shatter on his stovetop.
"You've cooked fifty different recipes!"
Helplessly looking back-and-forth between the intruder and his ruined dinner, Phillip screeched and stomped his feet in a frustrated tantrum, drowning out the rest of her stupid speech. She vanished with another wave, and a toot on a noisemaker. He contemplated buying a gun.
The months and seasons passed, and the news of his utterly inane "milestones" continued to interrupt and inconvenience his daily life - "You've pulled your underwear out of your butt fifty times!" she'd yelled into his open window one day, causing Phillip to give himself an accidental wedgie in his fright as she showed him a Polaroid of that magical moment. Always, always, the announcements (which were becoming far too creepy and personal, in his opinion) were accompanied by that detestable fanfare - as though Phillip had opened up a treasure chest and found a map or a hookshot. Once, he'd tearfully asked her why she was doing this to him. She'd simply kept on yakking at him and vanished, as though he'd never spoken.
The interruptions gradually cut into his sleep cycle ("You've nocturnally ejaculated twenty times! Are you having nasty dreams about somebody, Phillip?"), eventually altering his work habits and causing him to become stressed and paranoid.
Hiro Otsuka caught him smoking by the shipping bin one Friday. Aghast, he planted himself before the farmer, hands on his hips and head cocked to the side with a little huff. "Good lord! You know full well that that's a very unhealthy habit, Phillip!" He jabbed an accusing finger forward, in full doctor mode now. "I know you're dealing with a lot of stress right now, but honestly! As your best friend, I see fit to inform you that-"
"-Yeah, yeah," Phillip rasped, cutting the nineteen-year-old off with a dismissive wave and dropping the cigarette on the ground. He dug the heel of his boot into it and blew the last of the smoke out, cutting his friend a hard stare with his eyebrows raised. "You got anything healthier that I could smoke, then, Chihiro?"
Eyes wider than normal, Hiro sucked in a quick breath and twisted anxiously at the hem of his polo shirt. This wasn't quite how he'd imagined it finally happening, but the offer was on the table now, was it not? And it was for a good cause! Right? "I... I do believe I might," he breathed quietly, swallowing hard. Hard, indeed. "Sh-shall we... find out?"
Phillip's derisive glare turned into a comical gape at the unexpected response, and he nodded dumbly, eventually motioning without another word for Hiro to follow him back to his farm.
Three slightly-less hellish weeks later, the tangle of sheets in Phillip's darkened farmhouse once again moved with a steady thrusting motion, drawing out pleased cries from underneath.
And as Phillip tossed his head back, shouted Hiro's name, and spent himself into the eager doctor-in-training for the second time that night, he missed the all-too-familiar white flash until it was too late.
"Dum-da-da-DAA!"
His eyes snapped open, and he and Hiro latched onto each other with startled yells, all the romance and passion quickly forgotten. "NO," he croaked, seeing her reflection in the glass that covered the painting above his headboard.
"Dear God, Phillip, what on Earth is that thing?!"
"You've slept with Hiro thirty times!" the Harvest Goddess announced merrily, holding out a massive layer cake covered in thirty candles that were all blazing as brightly as Hiro and Phillip's mortified faces. The edible cake topper depicted a miniature Hiro nailing a miniature Phillip on the kitchen counter. It was a disturbingly accurate depiction, considering that they'd only done that particular deed two hours ago, at most. "That's a lot of sexual intercourse! Have you tried all the different positions yet?"
"W-WE WERE GETTING TO IT!" Hiro protested defensively, burying his face in Phillip's chest in sheer mortification. So what if they preferred missionary? Did she have a problem with that?!
On the other hand, at least she hadn't asked Phillip if he'd tried having sex with other people yet.
"Get a motherfucking life!" Phillip added in a hoarse roar, stroking Hiro's disheveled brown hair protectively and searching around for something to throw at his unwanted visitor.
She didn't seem to hear him, the heavy bedside lamp sailing right over her head and crashing noisily through the front window. "Keep up the good work! Toodles!"
And the cake dropped to the floor with a splat as Harvest Goddess vanished once more, leaving the lovers trembling with rage and humiliation.
And that was when Phillip decided that she had to die.
A few painfully abstinent weeks and a series of shady, under-the-table deals later, the denizens of Bluebell and Konohana alike - the former crowd present due to the fully-expanded tunnel linking the towns completely - watched curiously from the Konohana mountainside as Phillip marched up, up, up, towards the summit.
He was decked out in camo-print pants, a Kevlar vest over a bulky sweater, and an alarming array of automatic and semi-automatic firearms, with numerous ammunition belts feeding into them. Grenades were strapped around his waist and thighs, his face was painted and badly in need of shaving, his normally-unruly red hair was tied back by a camo band, and his blue eyes were wide and bloodshot. At Hiro's insistence, a toothpick was clenched between his teeth in lieu of a much-wanted cigarette. A single, ragged boot - an offering - was clutched in his free hand, the other helping an AK-47 rest upon his shoulder.
He looked utterly unhinged.
"Wh-where on Earth did he obtain all of those firearms?!" Hiro muttered, arms wrapped about his midsection in roiling worry. Beside him, Dr. Ayame Nishino kept her hands in the pockets of her coat and remained silent, only a knowing smile betraying her thoughts.
"Ohhhh, this is just toooo JUICY!" Howard Pendleton squealed, beefy fists balled up beneath his broad, square chin. Phillip suddenly began to run back and forth in short bursts instead of continuing up to the spring atop the mountain, confusing everyone even further. "Ohhhh, I can't watch, but I just can't look away! This is better than Real Housewives!"
"What's he doing now?"
"Succumbing to insanity, I fear..."
"Yeahhh, I think that train's already well and gone from the station..."
The whispers and murmurs increased until the bright flash and the horribly-familiar declaration snapped across the mountainside. Phillip's personal stalker had popped into view, rustling a pair of green pom poms, and ready to act as his invasive pedometer once more.
Phillip spat out the toothpick and grit his teeth, a demented chuckle rumbling low in his chest.
"Dum-da-da-d-"
"DUM-DA-DA-MOTHERFUCKING-DAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! YOU GODDAMN LIFE-RUINING, PERSISTENT BITCH!" Phllip interrupted in a throat-shredding scream, the deafening sound of gunfire drowning out any further noise anyone could have made. The sprays of red and the jerking motions weren't lost to anyone despite the blinding flares and clouds of smoke. Grenades sent plumes of earth and fire into the air, large chunks raining down as everyone else took cover behind the nearby trees, rocks, and logs. A sharp whistle and a jabbing index finger from the mad redhead called a massive dum-da-da-motherfucking airstrike upon the Harvest Goddess next. The townsfolk cringed as she was carpet-bombed (with startling accuracy), they screamed, and when the smoke cleared...
...All fell silent.
Phillip was on one knee now, his breathing hard and ragged. Across from him, laying prostrate on the decimated landscape, was the burnt and bullet-riddled form of the Harvest Goddess. She coughed weakly, producing a thick red spatter that stained a lone patch of grass before her. Her pom poms lay in smoking ruins a few feet behind her.
She looked up at him, eyes full of pain, lips trembling. Twin trickles of blood ran from the corners of her mouth and down her chin, and the braided buns on either side of her head had come loose. Her clothing was torn, and everyone present - in their unified horror - could see how heavily her pale skin had been painted scarlet.
Phillip's throat tightened at the sight of the mangled wreck before him, a deity who had been brought millimeters from death's door, all by the tools of mere mortals who had disturbing connections to underground arms dealers, and his own lust for vengeance. He felt sick. His eyes stung from more than just the smoke, and he felt the apology ready to roll from his lips-
"D... d... d-umm...da... da daa-aa," the Harvest Goddess wheezed, her voice cracking at the very end, and another wet cough splattering more blood on the ground. "Y-you... you... sh-sh-shot me... f...five... hun... f-"
Phillip's eyes widened once more with instinctive rage, and the final crack of a pistol rang out before the Harvest Goddess could finish. She flopped onto her side, a neat bullet hole smoking right between her eyes.
He threw the gun aside and collapsed, body wracked with anguished sobs as Hiro rushed forward to comfort him.
Ayame continued watching, with that knowing smile upon her face the whole time.
Four weeks had passed since Phillip had brutally murdered the local deity in front of the local populace. A mountaintop burial was held, he had to see a therapist twice a week, and his life was once more becoming... peaceful. Uninterrupted. Slowly coming back together.
The snow fell outside one night as he and Hiro lounged before his roaring fireplace, cuddling happily under a blanket. Christmas was moments away, now, and Sinatra was singing "Silent Night" on the radio. All was calm, all was bright.
"I can't believe we got together because you caught me smoking," Phillip murmured, rubbing Hiro's arm. "Best bad decision ever. Well, second-best," he amended thoughtfully, feeling Hiro poke him in the ribs. "Ow."
"You suffered a severe psychotic break and engaged in full-on warfare, Phillip," Hiro scolded lightly, frowning up at him. "And I'm not even sure how you got that airstrike to happen, but I'd hardly call that whole incident a personal highlight of your life thus far, if you ask me. At least you stopped smoking, though..."
Phillip rolled his eyes and pulled Hiro in closer, stroking his straight, neatly-combed hair. "I know, I know... but it's been so nice, not having to deal with-"
Midnight.
"-all that, and-"
The horribly familiar white flash cut him off with his words dying on a squeak, and he sucked in a sharp breath as the sickening, dreaded sight popped into view before him. It couldn't be, it couldn't be, it couldn't fucking be!
"No," he breathed thickly, Hiro clutching him tighter and looking up with equally abject horror. "No! NO! I killed you!" He shot to his feet, pointing accusingly at the bloodied, bullet-riddled spectre before him. "I KILLED YOU! I FUCKING KILLED YOU!"
"Leave us alone!" Hiro added desperately, scooting back as he watched Phillip grab the Harvest Goddess by the shoulders and start to shake her violently, screaming into her face without any further words forming.
Heedless of the rough handling, the nigh-sociopathic deity smiled and waved, her neck whipping back-and-forth until it finally snapped as abruptly as Phillip's hard-won sanity. "Dum-da-da-DAAaAaAaaAAAa! Iiiit's be-e-e-en a moooonth si-i-i-ince you mu-ur-ur-urdered me-e-e-e!" she squealed, head now flopping about in a sickening manner as Phillip shrieked and let go. She crumpled to the floor like a sack of wet cement. "Have you tried murdering other people yet?" she continued in a much steadier voice, making Hiro turn away and vomit. "Keep up the good work! Toodles!"
And away she went, leaving Phillip to drop to his knees and sob hysterically, with Hiro helpless to console him.
She was probably counting his emotional breakdowns, too.
Author's Notes: Well, this got mega-dark. Like a sister story to Call the Locksmith!, kind of. Guess who has two thumbs and has recently been trying to play Tale of Two Towns? This guy! I promise, I actually do have two thumbs. Also, I think Marvelous was trying to make the Harvest Goddess as horrifically unbearable in this game as humanly possible, because Jesus Christ. Like the rainy-day shop closures and the horribly low FP gains weren't bad enough. Even Howard couldn't make up for those. The DS games were just dark times. Nice designs, though.
Also, yes, Hiro. Because Hiro. He's like Elli as a dude, and I just tend to like characters with that name.
Well, feel free to leave a review, if you'd like! Don't worry, I won't pop up like a stalker and tell you how many reviews you've left thus far. I'll just thank you. And if anyone knows a cheat code to actually kill the Harvest Goddess in-game - ideally, making her burst into flames with a thought - that'd be fantastic too. Thanks to Show The Cook Some Love for the pre-read!
TOODLES... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA...