*HxH Disclaimer*
Author's Notes: Upon perusing the Election Arc, it dawned to me that I have yet another OTP (The Rhythm Pair and Emitter Pair being first in line). Yep, send the heart confetti to Rat and Dog, aka the Chairman Pair. xDD I've read up a bit that in the Chinese Zodiac, those born under the year of the rat and those born under the dog year have good enough compatibility; in fact, they are a "lively pair."
SO YEA let the liveliness begin. :P
This piece of weirdness happens a bit after the events of the Election (with apparently AU properties), with the thoughts of Pariston's threat/challenge slipping into Cheadle's mind every now and then… or more often than not. xD
This three-shot is submitted as my second entry for the FF Hetero Contest. Enjoy. :3
Challenge Accepted
By: DW-chan
One: Strange Tidings
"Cheadle, if I ever see your organization become boring… Then I'll be back to play. For real this time."
-Pariston to Cheadle, Chapter 335
It was a balmy, otherwise uneventful morning when Beans barged into the Hunter Association Chairman's office. He had with him a stack of folders, and his round face and legume eyes mirrored a rather puzzling disaster. He knew the news would place his position on the line, but this bit of news was rather unheard of—or at least, had not surfaced again—until now.
"Chairperson Cheadle!" he breathed in his piping voice.
A petite woman, dressed in dog-ears, a green capelet, and something ghastly that resembled a nun's habit draped with lace, regarded the agitated assistant with her bespectacled canine-like gaze. She seemed a tad surprised and a tad annoyed; Beans' whirlwind of an entry had placed some of her books, lined up very neatly by brass bookends on her desk, in slight disarray. Something pricked at the back of her neck as she itched to poke her misaligned volumes back to their snug formation.
Instead, she resigned to the urgency of the predicament, and said, "Yes, Beans?"
"Aliens!" cried Beans, flinging the stacks of folders into the air, and they landed on her desk, topsy-turvy. Cheadle flinched again. Beans was usually neat, but the late Chairman Netero—bless his soul—seemed to have sprinkled a bit of his good-natured chaos onto his assistants as of late. But, then, she was not quite sure if she heard the little man correctly.
"I beg your pardon—"
"Aliens, Chairperson, aliens!" repeated the beleaguered Beans. He opened a folder. He opened two. He opened three—
"Thank you, Beans, I shall take it from here," said Cheadle, trying to politely stop the little man from opening the fourth folder and having their contents spill all over the place.
Adjusting her spectacles more comfortably over her dog-like nose, she surveyed the objects of tumult. She saw pictures of ordinary people, civilians even, in their flesh-and-pink obviously human bodies, wearing everyday clothes, doing everyday things, like eating ice cream or going to a pub, or going up the steps to work. She looked up at Beans for a moment, feeling a smidgen of suspicion, checking if the little man wasn't playing a trick on her, on behalf of someone.
Beans stood there, round eyes rounder, furrowed brows furrowing further.
Cheadle tilted her head a little, an eyebrow tilting with it, as if giving him a small signal to say, What am I supposed to be looking at here?
The people in the photographs looked nothing like aliens.
Beans seemed to have understood after a while. "They're in disguise," he pointed out. "Disguised as humans." His voice suddenly sounded arcane. "And they are among us."
Cheadle wanted to roll her eyes and grab a cup of tea to smoothen her nerves. Less than two weeks as the 14th Chairperson of the Hunter Association, and these ridiculous things were already popping up. She had always known that a certain Rat would like to ruffle her fur immensely every now and then, but even so, she couldn't credit him for aiming low as to hand her a child's horror story and thoroughly take her for a fool.
"Beans—"
"I've received these photographs from Double-Star Hunters all over the world! They know!"
Cheadle decided to humor the little man a bit more, and she patiently waited for him to finish his wild story.
Beans' voice dropped again. "And now that they know that we know, they'll come for us—"
"Beans, even if these were aliens, had they done any remote harm to any humans so far?"
Beans thought for a while. "There… were no reports yet, Chairperson."
"Ah," said Cheadle. "So it seems that they aren't a threat."
"But the Double-Star Hunters—"
"Just give me their names, and they can talk to me," further humored the canine-like woman. "Besides," she continued, "I don't recall anyone appointing themselves as a Extraterrestrial Hunter, did they?"
"Um," said Beans. "I believe there's no such title yet—"
"Also," interrupted Cheadle, "Such matters aren't for the Hunters Association to handle. There is the government, the military, the Space Frontier Society… if you get my drift, Beans."
"But, but…" insisted Beans helplessly. "Aliens."
"Thank you, Beans, that will be all." She promptly gathered the folders herself, and handed them over the little suited man. The legume-like fellow looked as though a hundred tiny boulders had pattered on his shoulders.
Like a mouse doused in water, he slowly slinked out of the office.
Cheadle sighed in exasperation and sank into her huge, cushioned chair and closed her eyes. The chair swiveled a little when pushed by her weight, so that when she opened her eyes, the framed photograph of the late Chairman Netero, hanging on a wall next to framed photographs of former Chairpersons, was grinning at her.
She had always been fond of the old man. She wouldn't be part of the Zodiac Twelve if she simply were a brainless pawn for Netero to play with, even if the old man indulged himself with their company every now and then. He chose them for their unique traits, and they chose to be devoted to him for his unique traits.
All Twelve Zodiac.
All twelve.
Even that Rat.
Especially that Rat.
His words boring organization hit her more than his I'll be back to play for real. Scheming, conniving, little rodent. Once more, it seemed that he had her in his little puppet arena. She knew that whatever action she did as Chairperson would be the direct effect of his words on her. If she stepped up her game and un-boring-ize the Association, it would be all because he said so. If she remained "boring" in order to spite him, he'll simply come for her anyway. And the last thing she needed was to see his face again, which made her want to rip a continent off the world map with her bare paws and fling it at him.
Still… it never left her mind.
Boring organization.
She felt fingernails claw on a board at the back of her head.
Boring organization.
She looked at her desk, and once again the disarrayed books came to her sight. She reached out, laid her paw-like hands on the books, and flung them face-down. Now there was a visible gap among her well-arranged hardcovers that seemed to sneer at her with airy eyes.
Boring, eh?
She grit her teeth.
"Hell no," she said aloud, and for a moment she thought she saw Ex-Chairman Netero's grin grow wider.
"Haven't had anything interesting going on for a while," said Saiyu, the Monkey, absently scratching the back of his head and feasting on a bowl of peanuts. He yawned to punctuate his point.
"Well, there's the Pazifik Expedition and their findings—" attempted Mizaistom, the Ox.
There was a slurping sound from the other end of the table. Ginta, the Sheep, seemed to be enjoying his bowl of ramen.
"That's all? I've heard the Pazifik Expedition story a gazillion times already," complained Kanzai, the Tiger. "There's gotta be something else out there than the same old shit."
"Something's bound to come up soon," said Sacchou, the Horse, quietly, as he got up from their dining table and made his way to the water station. He was turning on the tap over his water cup.
"Cheadle better come up with something better than just same old expeditions," informed Saiyu, purposely checking his nails.
"Well, I don't see why you aren't out there doing your stupendously exciting Hunter duties instead of staying here with the rest of the Zodiac and moaning about it," intoned Mizai, his voice belying his growing irritation for the Monkey.
"Well, aren't we supposed to stay for a bit more until Chairperson Cheadle gets settled into her new position?" said Sacchou. He had drunk a cup and was filling it once more. "And didn't we all volunteer to stay?"
"Fuh," grumbled Saiyu. He made a face, but didn't say anything more.
There seemed to be a commotion outside. The perimeter of their dining area was surrounded by a wall of fiber glass, and around the glass were offices of other Association departments, and past the Security Department was the Chairperson's Office, down the hall.
Botobai, the Dragon, suddenly barged into their dining premises in such force that the glass dangerously rattled. Mizai tentatively reached out to still the quaking glass and watched as the senior member of the Zodiac heaved, and then bellowed in a voice that suited his person: "POSSESSED."
"Say what?" asked Kanzai, hand on his cheek, looking bored despite the racket.
"The scrolls were right," the Dragon boomed on, his fiery whiskers quivering. "The Apocalypse is near!"
"You serious?" said Saiyu.
"POSSESSED!" chanted Botobai, but he looked more flustered than frightened… because, well, nothing can really frighten a Zodiac until—
"Mother of Tender Mercies!" It was Ginta, finishing his seventh helping of noodles, who swore. His watery pan-like eyes seemed like they were about pop out of their sockets. He looked like an untidy large child with some noodle strings still dangling from his half-open mouth. He was looking through the glass wall, behind Botobai.
Everyone followed his gaze.
And then they saw it. Or rather, her.
Chairperson Cheadle had emerged from her office.
She no longer had her encumbering bonnet on, and she had gotten rid of the shroud of a cape that wrapped her like an egg roll, so her shoulders were freed and nearly bare.
Saiyu had been eating peanuts. Now the peanuts were missing their mark and were rolling all over him instead of into his mouth.
Cheadle still wore her dog-ear headband, but her honey-colored hair was up on a ponytail, and it bounced like fatal fire behind her. Now, without her hair and the bonnet shadowing her face, that's when they realized that she no longer wore her glasses. Her cobalt-blue eyes shone fiercely for the world to see.
And was that… a pretty shade of lipstick on?
Mizai didn't realize that he had dropped the sandwich he was unwrapping just a moment ago. Egg slices and lettuce leaves were on his pantaloons.
Sacchou was filling an already overflowing cup. His finger stayed on the tap. His mouth was agape.
Kanzai watched closely in apparent delight. His eyes were also platter-wide but then he nudged the thoroughly discombobulated Mizaistom with saucy intrigue.
"There's this cliché that girls with glasses are really hot chicks waiting to be hatched," he scratchily offered, still delighted.
Mizaistom made a sound of a dying pig.
Kanzai pounded his friend Ox's back in fond amazement. "Well, those farking cliché's can fark themselves. I'll be damned coz they're true."
Saiyu suddenly sprang to action and was about to dial a number on his cell phone when Kanzai had enough consciousness in him to ask, "Oi, Monkey, what's up?"
"I'm calling my loved ones," said Saiyu, looking rather intent and serious. "Botobai is right; let's evacuate the planet because the world is ending."
"Oh for the—"
Kanzai stopped on his tracks. They all then realized the Cheadle was walking towards them.
They immediately shuffled and made themselves presentable; Botobai cleared his throat and was apparently red in the face.
She walked with a different grace. She walked as though she brought the haze of the night with her. She wore a dark green blouse that emphasized the smallness of her waist and the shapely mounds on her chest that sent even Ginta searing like the lamb chop he was. She wore a pair of linen pants that draped the length of her legs. On her throat hung a cross, set on a beaded choker. She strode into the Zodiac men's dining quarters with a different kind of confidence; with a simple, "come hither" motion of a finger, her face rather expressionless save for a brow that twitched with expressed command, she beckoned the six Zodiac men to follow her.
"Meeting," said Mizai superfluously, and like a bunch of crazed teenage schoolboys, they scrambled out of the dining quarters and pitter-pattered at the wake of a Cheadle Yorkshire they have yet to better recognize.
Earlier that day, about three hours before the proposed meeting, Cheadle had requested Clook, the Rooster (or rather, Chicken) to join her in the office. She should have asked for the presence of Piyon and Ghel as well, but she wanted the opinion of one female Zodiac first. Besides, she liked Clook's openness and straightforward aim to anyone's ego without crushing it to smithereens.
"Well, yes, girl," said Clook, observing her prim and proper friend. "I've always thought you needed an overhaul, but ya know, I also respect other people's tastes. Can't blame yours if you've been raised that way."
Cheadle held up a hand. "I think we can stop with you saying that I need an overhaul." She blinked at the slim, feathered woman before her. Cheadle had departed from her desk so she and Clook were settled comfortably at the office lounge. The other woman was still scrutinizing her, a bright folded feathered fan on her chin.
"Well, if you're all for it, Cheadle, I can give you something preliminary. Let's start with that outfit, right, hon?"
Cheadle absently held on to her capelet. "Well…"
"Can't force anyone, see," Clook expressed. She smiled knowingly. "But there's always a compromise."
"Like what?"
"You can start by simply taking off that capelet thing—" And the other woman simply reached out and unfastened the garment off Cheadle's shoulders. "And voila! All set till the clock strikes twelve."
Cheadle gasped and covered her shoulders, as though Clook had stripped her naked, when she was still in another thick layer of clothing. Clook gave her a slightly disapproving look, and clicked her tongue.
"Girl, give me a yes, or give me a no," offered Clook. "You want that overhaul, or don't you?"
Cheadle's hands slowly fell to her lap, where she lightly grasped at her skirt. It took Clook a bit by storm when the young Dog woman stood up, peeled the bonnet off her head, let her hair loose; then with a simultaneous stroke, she peeled the spectacles off her nose as well. When that was done, she presented herself for Clook's approval.
"Oh, woman, there's a minx in you that we can work on yet," Clook chirped, visibly pleased.
But then, Cheadle had ruffled her hair, and with a swift stroke, tied it in a ponytail.
"I'll need some contact lenses," she proclaimed. There was a glass shelf nearby that faintly reflected anything on it, and Cheadle pored over her drabness on the glass. She smoothed her hands over her waist.
"Maybe a cinch?" she went on.
"Well, yes, but Cheadle, hon…"
"No, not a cinch. I'll look like a tethered balloon." She took off for a moment to fetch a magazine, and returned. She pointed at a dozen photos on the glossy pages. "I'm not certain why the Ex-Chairman had these magazines lying around, but this," she pointed to a picture. "And this, and this," she pointed some more. "They look great, don't you think?"
"Yes, girl, but you see—"
"Oh, I still like green, I'm sure we can get this in green soon enough…"
"Hon, it usually takes a day to ship—"
"Oh, only an hour for those with a Hunter license."
"Oh… all right, sweetie, but don't you think you're going a little too—"
"Make-up!"
Clook blinked. "Make-up?"
"Like what you have on your eyes, and lips, Clook! They make you look really beautiful…"
Clook seemed really flattered. "Well, thanks, girl, but…"
It took a moment for Cheadle to work on Clook's pace. "Oh yes, dear? You wanted to say something?"
"Girl, I'm not opposed with you wanting a bit of a change, but don't you think this is a bit too… sudden?"
Cheadle looked rather confused at first. Clook realized that Cheadle had a schoolgirl vulnerability in her sometimes, especially when it was dabbling into something completely different from what she had been accustomed to all her life.
"Clook," Cheadle seemed at first to be explaining herself, until all she said was, "I'll have that green blouse and grey slacks in an hour." She flipped the magazine again. "And these boots." She flicked another page. "And this… this…" she fumbled for the words.
"Lipstick," helped Clook.
"Yes, that," said Cheadle.
"Cheadle, darling," Clook smiled at her friend, somewhere between uneasy and elated. "I've always known you're something else."
I've created a monster, Clook pondered.
"Oh, why did you want them in an hour?" Clook managed to ask Cheadle; the woman had somehow returned to her old self as she replaced her glasses on her button-nosed snout.
"I'll meet with you and the rest of the Zodiacs by one o' clock." She tore the ponytail off, thought twice, and fastened her honey hair up again. "Beans said something about…"
"About…?"
Cheadle cleared her throat. "One o' clock, Clook, at the conference room." She smiled.
One o' clock came and went.
Cheadle had Beans by her side. The little man, much to his surprise—indeed, pleasant surprise—willingly explained everything to the Zodiac ten. Ging and Pariston seemed to be stuck in their own affairs again, and Cheadle wished that they would stay away forever, especially the Rat. How she hated that Rat.
"ALIENS?" cried everyone in unison.
Cheadle nodded. "Yes, aliens."
"Chairperson Cheadle, I don't want to seem opposed, but… it's unlikely of you to accept such a mission." It was Sacchou.
"Problem?" said Cheadle.
"Uh.. NO! No, no ma'am."
"Good."
"These Double-Star Hunters—" began Saiyu.
"Earlier recordings of the calls I made to them an hour ago," presented Cheadle, and as per her methodological self, she took out a remote control, tapped on a button and a screen slid down for all to see.
But Ghel, Piyon, and the rest of the male Zodiacs had aliens to worry about the least. Botobai was trying not to madly blush every time Cheadle swayed her girly ponytail; Sacchou cleared his throat whenever Cheadle gave him momentary eye contact; Mizaistom shifted uneasily and pretended to pay close attention to the recorded video calls and wished Cheadle didn't call his name lest he made that uncomely sound of swine again; Ginta seemed like any moment he would bolt out the door if only to stop himself from staring at, well, those (Ghel's didn't count; they didn't seem real, anyway); Saiyu looked rather entranced and had rockets in his eyes; Kanzai was more than willing to blow Cheadle a kiss should she look his way. Mizai proceeded to drop a blow on his friend's tiger-tailed head once he learned of Kanzai's intentions.
Clook wanted to hide behind her feathered fans, but at the same time, she wanted to cheer her friend on.
The news of Chairperson Cheadle's surprise transformation was already making the rounds in the Hunter Association Main Office. Clook noted the envious admiration of the women. She perceived the sudden cloudy gazes of devotion on the men. She made it somewhat her personal momentary mission to spy on how word got around quickly, and how everyone drank it in. Someone had snapped a photo of the Chairperson on his phone and was showing it to his co-workers. They nodded in appreciation.
There was excitement in their eyes, and it seems like the same, yet different kind of song were playing in the Association's heart again, ever since Netero—bless his soul—had passed on.
And all because a Dog had turned into a feisty-looking Wolf.
Wolf in many a sense of the word.
The first hideout was a bar at Grava Road. Cheadle herself had accompanied the investigation crew. She wanted to get to the bottom of things with the least fuss and the least resistance as much as possible.
She entered the bar, and the four humanoid beings she wanted to see were there, crouched at a table, having their drinks which she knew were not ordinary libations. Before any of them could turn heel and run, or pick up any weapon and attack, she had materialized a string of rosary-like beads and swiftly, rivaling lightning, she threw a couple of beads on the floor, struck the air around the four men—who were aliens in disguise, really—and the men were immediately paralyzed.
If any of them had Nen, their Nen would have been shut within themselves.
The suspects looked up at her helplessly. All this had happened in less than two seconds. Cheadle towered over them for a moment.
"You're coming with me," she said, tonelessly, but commandingly, and as quickly as she walked in, she walked out, and the Hunters who were left to gather the captured aliens gaped at her increased methodological ways, but not in her usual manner. There was something more… spontaneous about her methods.
Clook would call it pizzaz. She had once more heard the news of the two-second resistance-less capture of four suspected creatures.
She had also heard of the Imir Avenue situation. And the Rinta Island assault. And the Gorto City mission. Each one had lasted less than five seconds, with Cheadle at the helm. It somehow gave other Hunters less work to do, but seeing her work was fulfilling enough as it was.
In about three days, all seventy suspected "alien beings" were captured and quarantined at Zaiban City in a state-of-the-art facility which Cheadle had managed to come to an agreement with among the Zaiban City military and government. She never mentioned that what they had under their watch were "aliens." One look, one word, and she got what she wanted.
Wiles, Clook managed to encode. She added, Feminine wiles.
Cheadle was a powerful Conjurer, but Clook amusedly wanted to believe that she had manipulative abilities too, ones that remained asleep in her bonnet-covered head until the moment she took it off.
"Well, girl," Clook found the chance to sneak into the Chairperson's abruptly growing busy schedule. She had wanted to give Cheadle a bright-as-a-firefly smile. "Looks like you're having the time of your life, right?"
Cheadle regarded her with her sapphire gaze. She looked as though she hadn't really understood what Clook told her. "Pardon me, Clook?"
"Cheadle, hon," Clook persisted. "We've got the Association buzzing like anything. Chairperson Cheadle kicking ass. Aliens at our doorstep. Rookie Hunters getting a chance at missions. Everyone seems to be having fun. But…" she paused. "You are having fun, aren't you?"
Cheadle was silent for a moment. The Dog woman wordlessly adjusted her coat over her lean shoulders, as if to distract her from over-thinking. Cheadle loved to think, but not when it drowned her to pointlessness. She shrugged.
"Just doing my job," she finally replied, and smiled. With precision, she left Clook's side, and with her high-heeled boots (Cheadle never wore heels higher than an inch, Clook remembered, and I think she's on three now) hitting the floor of the near-empty Hunter Association Office building with an ironically catwalk rhythm, and a paradoxical marching tempo of one-two-one-two.
Cheadle was walking down to the gates of her home when she felt another presence somewhere close by.
She halted in her steps; the presence seemed both a threat and something to brush off at the same time. She decided that she would have more time to worry about it later; she proceeded to enter the house and climb into her room—
Someone had entered her En territory, even if that someone was using Zetsu quite lazily. She acted quickly.
At that moment she was at the pretense of taking off a boot, and then, with a powerful sweep, she flung the footwear to the general direction of the presence; she knew it would not hit her target but she would definitely feel movement of the one evading it.
She felt a shadow in front of her face; she then grabbed it, earning a rather surprised sound from her supposed attacker; within seconds, she had hit her attacker with her bare feet at the back then at the front, hitting the spine and somewhere below the diaphragm, and then again at the throat; she twisted so that her entire weight was on one leg and she used it to lock onto her attacker's neck before flinging him to the ground.
She conjured her Prayer Paralysis beads and flung them at her attacker.
At first she was puzzled. In that short moment, she knew the extent of her attacker's Nen. The rustle she had with the assailant, at the moment, was simply a toss in a child's sand box. It wasn't even something to work up a sweat with, and yet the attacker was as powerful—if not more powerful than she.
She conjured another set of beads and whipped three of them out; they opened like tiny light bulbs in mid-air and that's when she saw who her attacker was.
Her cobalt eyes met cerulean ones. She noted the lithe form, the bright sandy hair, and most of all, the face she so detested in all the world—hell, in all the hundred galaxies now that there seemed to be more than one planet with intelligent life forms in this plane of existence.
"Very good, Cheadle," said the voice. The figure had been visibly paralyzed by her Nen, but for a moment she wondered if his motionlessness was all a pretense.
So…where was that continent she wanted to fling at him again?
"Pariston," she proclaimed the name like poison.
The man smiled his sunshine of a smile. Pariston good-humoredly eyed her from head to foot. Cheadle felt her insides hurl and her face grow warm.
"I like that outfit," said Pariston in his silky, cheerful voice. "Please wear it often."
Cheadle had always been predictable to Pariston, but Pariston didn't exactly expect Cheadle to come to him, raise a fist, and in one, sweeping, all-or-nothing punch, knock the daylights out of him.
A/N: Okay okay, the alien sub-plot is just a ruse to add more spice to Cheadle's reign. Also, the Zombie Apocalypse ploy has been used to death. :PP
I've also made up Cheadle's Nen abilities since the manga hadn't mentioned exactly what she can do, Nen-wise (and that goes for Pariston and the rest of the Zodiacs as well). I've figured that she would most likely be a Conjurer based on her personality as devised by our dear Hisoka. xD
And Pariston is a pervert-voyeur.
I'm kidding.
This story may come in three parts, since three chapters are the maximum number of chapters as per guidelines of the contest. So if there're no lovey-dovey stuff here yet, it's coz they'd most likely go to the second (and most especially) third parts. And hey, let's face it—the girl hates the guy's guts with the heat of a thousand suns. :P
Well, comment and review away, folks! Moe hearts everywhere!
Cheers!
DW-chan :3
P.S. Apologies to those waiting for the Living Things sequel. Chapter one is almost ready. ;) Muwahugs. :P
PPS. The art I used for my story cover isn't mine. ^^