This fic is purely for my pleasure lol. A shoutout to my awesome peeps at the Zombie Squad ;)
...
"Seems like there's been a lot of fighting outbreaks like this, the last few days," Meiko sleepily entered the kitchen, her arms stretched out over her head at an angle. Kaito smiled sideways, indulgently at her.
"Master will scold you if you take too many naps in the middle of the day, and end up staying up too late at night, you know," The bluenette scolded mildly as he continued to rummage through the freezer for his favourite snack of ice cream.
Meiko snorted in an unladylike fashion, then flashed a grin at Kaito. "Master will scold /you/ if he finds out that you ate all the ice cream once again," she teased back. Kaito froze mid-motion, sweatdropped, and laughed a little awkwardly, but it didn't stop him from triumphantly pulling out a small container of Haagen Daaz with a delighted look on his face.
"So, where was the 'outbreak' this time, Mei-chan?" Kaito mumbled, still trying to be polite even with a spoonful of icecream solidly inside his mouth.
"News says it's at the mall this time. I guess it's pretty big, too," Meiko shrugged, as if it didn't concern her. "They had police all around the building, from what I could see, and people were even fighting /them./ What is the world coming to?"
Meiko turned her eyes lazily back to Kaito, who was frozen there. She frowned. Kaito swallowed his icecream and hurridly asked,
"Wait, what? /Our/ mall?" His voice was high. "Right /now/?"
"Uh, yeah," Meiko replied, still frowning. "What's wrong, Kaito?"
"That's where Master took Lily. They're still out!" Kaito spoke quickly, alarmed. He set the ice cream down on the counter and rushed to the living room to take in the news broadcast with an appalled, worried expression on his normally calm face.
The fake-excited news anchor was rattling on about a riot overtaking the local mall, how their news crew had been told by police they were now required to move back from the scene, but that the broadcast station would keep their viewers up to date with any and all updates in the breaking story.
Kaito turned wide, stricken blue eyes to Meiko. "We need to go find them! What if they're in trouble or got hurt?"
Meiko shook her head, also unnerved and rattled. "No, wait, Kaito. We shouldn't. Listen, if we go, and Master and Lily already got out okay, we'll only be making more trouble for them, getting ourselves into a dangerous situation too. Besides, I don't think we can get through that police barrier, even if they /are/ still inside. We should wait here for them to come back."
Kaito didn't like that, but he listened to Meiko. He turned his distressed eyes back to the news screen, where the announcer was now talking about some celebrity gossip. He sat down quietly on the couch with a clouded, worried expression.
"I know. I hate it too," Meiko offered very quietly and sat next to Kaito. Twin pairs of eyes anxiously watched the TV for more updates that didn't come, and kept one of each set of eyes on the front door.
...
A car door slamming from out in front of the house had Kaito leaping up from the couch in an instant. The bluenette ran to the door to open it, but Master appeared first, his hand on the doorknob, and a haunted expression on his normally cheerful face. Kaito craned his head around Master's shoulder, but Lily was nowhere in sight. The bluenette opened his frowning, worried mouth to speak, but Master pushed past him somewhat rudely.
"Master? Are you okay? The news- Where's Lily?" Kaito asked Master's back as the man walked inside of the house and focused his eyes on Meiko, who had also come out to see.
Master's complex expression returned to Kaito's face. "I lost her. Listen, you two, I don't have much time to explain things to you, but we need to pack up some things and leave town. Right now. I promise I'll explain on the way."
Meiko and Kaito exchanged wide-eyed glances.
"What about Lily?" Meiko asked.
Master shook his head, and his face looked very troubled. "We can't wait. If you saw the news, you know what was going on in the mall?" Master paused and his two remaining Vocaloids nodded obediently. "It's not just at the mall. It's started happening all over. And the people... there's something really wrong with them. We need to leave before the roads get blocked off. I know you're worried about Lily. I am, too. But I'm also worried about you two. And right now, you two are the only ones here for me to protect. So just do as I tell you for now, and we'll figure out things later, once we're safely away. Do you understand?"
Again, two silent nods, somewhat slower in coming this time. Master sighed and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair.
"Okay, good. Listen. We need... uh, we need food, and toiletries. And clothes. Kaito, you get the small safe from under my bed. It has my gun and some money in it that we might need. Then get our toiletries. Meiko, you grab clothes that we might need. I'll pack up what food we can manage, and the two of you can help me lug everything out to the car. Do it fast. I want to be out of here ten minutes ago. Got it?" Master rattled off the long list, feeling his own head whirlwinding, hoping he wasn't forgetting something critical.
"Should I leave a note for Lily? In case she comes back? Telling her where we're going?" Meiko asked quietly. Master nodded after a second.
"Be quick, though. I don't know yet quite where we're headed, but I /do/ know that it's not safe to be in this city right now." Master replied tensely, then turned and went into the kitchen to start grabbing foodstuffs, not wasting a moment of time.
Kaito and Meiko exchanged worried glances, but swiftly went their two ways as well.
Meiko moved quickly, opening dresser drawers and starting to grab clothes at random before her common sense kicked in, and she wondered how many clothes to take. After a brief frozen pause, a pair of Kaito's underwear in her clenched hand, she decided that speed was more important than quantity, and that they could always wash out dirty clothes. She grabbed two sets of clothing for each of them; choosing comfortable and durable over fashionable, and grabbed extra sets of socks and underwear.
Noticing a big roll of duct tape on Master's dresser, Meiko grabbed it and just taped the whole mess of clothes together into one manageable bundle. Placing the rest of the tape on top seemed like a good idea. Duct tape was a many useful thing, after all. She started back towards the front door, but paused at the bathroom, and went inside, despite knowing that it was Kaito's job to get the toiletries.
The shampoo and deodorants were already gone, but the toilet paper roll was still on its cradle. Meiko put the clothing bundle down and hurridly grabbed the trashcan from the side of the toilet, flinging the bag inside, trash and all, haphazardly into the tub of the shower.
Armed with an empty basket, she tossed the toilet paper inside, then opened the medicine cabinet and swept everything she could reach from inside into the small trashcan. Bandaids, antibiotic cream, muscle cream, tylenol, aspirin, and antacids, among other small things they rarely used all spilled into the empty can, and Meiko did a quick visual sweep before turning, grabbing the clothes bundle in her other hand, and hurrying to rejoin the others.
Master's eyes fell briefly on the wastebasket, and nodded at Meiko. "Good thinking, Meiko. I know there are probably a lot of other things here we could use, but we need to go. We'll worry about the replacable stuff later. Kaito's already helping bring stuff out to the car. You help, too."
Master grabbed a trashbag full of foodstuffs in one hand and Meiko's recently purchased pack of beer in the other hand and balanced the two things awkwardly as he went quickly to the door. Meiko raised her eyebrows that Master was taking her beer along, but it made sense: fluids plus calories. Besides, beer was practically her second food group.
Checking to make sure the note for Lily was still on the counter, Meiko followed Master closely from behind.
