Interview with the Snake

Who Framed Roger Rabbit...but with an anime twist. An interview with Vicious turns deadly. Multi-series crossover.

I love the title because it's cheesy as hell. If you don't love it too, well...bah. XD


Prologue

The man was as cold in person as he was on screen.

For Liz, who was less used to the Japanese generated toons, it was strange and disorienting. She was still a little worried about insane manipulations of physics and logic, when what she should have been worried about was the fact that the man was not actually much different from his on-screen persona and that meant he was very, very dangerous.

She leaned forward, checking for the upteenth time that the dictation machine was working and on.

Vicious watched her silently, unsmiling.

"So...what's the Toon Town in Japan like?" she asked.

For a moment she perceived his real reaction in his eyes: incredulity, and an instant sense of dislike towards her for asking such a vapid question. Then it faded; it had only been an instantaneous thing and she had barely caught it.

"Japanese toons don't rely quite as much on manipulations of physics," she explained, feeling very nervous under that icy stare. "And...I have to admit it's a little weird for me, since you...don't. It's more like...a real person gone 2-D. I mean, you are. A lot of them have huge googly-type eyes, and...so...what's it like?"

Vicious continued to stare at her, and Liz sat back.

"You agreed to this interview," she pointed out slowly. It felt to her like that alone crossed boundaries, so she fell silent, trying to think of a way to mitigate the damage. She needed to stick this.

"Animachi."

She blinked, startled. She shivered just slightly. Jesus Christ, that sounded creepy.

"I'm...excuse me?" she said, as politely as possible.

"The Japanese call their Toon Town Animachi."

She'd be damned if she didn't hear contempt dripping from his quiet, frigid voice.

Well, you deserve it, idiot, if you come to interview someone and you don't know the first thing about anything, she thought, and coughed, using that as an excuse to lower her head to hide the flush of embarrassment.

Good God, was her career worth this?


You get it, right? Animachi? Anime (durr) + Machi (town) = Animachi. They do that a lot, it seems like.