Hitomi's Mantra Tapes

By Crystalmoon217 and Red

Legal shit: We don't own Escaflowne. We've said this before, so if you want to sue us, go and shove the legal documentation up your ass. Okay?

BASH WARNING: We bash everyone! Don't take this personally; we really do like the cast of Escaflowne (except for Allen and Millerna; those two need to be taken out and shot).

Far away, in the wind-swept lands of Gaia, on the silent, grassy hill in a small, peaceful little kingdom called Fanelia, a an out-of-place girl... sat. (Crystalmoon: Some one really loves their adjectives)(Red: Shut up).

Harrowing and exciting, ain't it?

Anyway, her head was bowed over as though in a trace, brown hair draped over her eyes. Nothing seemed to be able to reach this girl, except for the visions...

"BLOOD! DEATH! DESTRUCTION!" Hitomi randomly shouted.

A small cat girl scrambled over the hill, a dorky-looking boy (in need of a serious haircut) stumbling along with her (growth spurts are a bitch).

"Hitomi!" the boy yelled, for no explicable reason at all. It was becoming a habit, since thinking and talking could not occur at the same time, and IF he were able to think, he would have long ago committed suicide for falling in love with a ridiculously dorky Japanese girl. They made a good pair.

"BLOOD! DEATH! DESTRUCTION!" she shrieked.

The pink-haired cat girl skidded to a stop at Hitomi's feet. "What the hell is she doing now Van?"

Van, on the verge of doing something intelligent for a change, instead pointed out the Blatantly Obvious (TM). "She's having a vision!" (Gasp)

The cat girl Merle squinted at her. "Hmm? There's something coming out of her ears." Reaching up, she yanked the two fragile wires out.

Hitomi looked around wildly. "Where did my Walkman go?!"

Van blinked. "Walk... Man?" He stared at the curious little box-device-thingy that was suspended in the air by its earphones, courtesy of Merle.

"My... my Walkman! Give it back!" the girl demanded, pleading. Instead, Merle swept back her pink hair and slipped on the wires as Hitomi had.

This is what she heard, in level 10 volume: "BLOOD! DEATH! DESTRUCTION!"

"Hitomi!" she shouted, in utter shock. "You're visions are all just the things that this box tells you?"

Timidly, Hitomi nodded, beginning to cry. "Waaaaaaaah, I'm so pathetic!"

A certain boy had been totally oblivious up to this point, and interjected with his incredibly insight statement: "Hitomi!"

"What is it?" she said, whimpering.

"Sorry, I had to say something before I got all depressed and had thoughts of a gristly suicide."

"Huh..." Hitomi observed.

"WHAT THE MEANING OF THE BOX?!" Merle shouted.

"Nothing!" Hitomi insisted. "They help me concentrate! That's all!"

"What is it?" asked Van, tapping the box with his finger.

"Mantra tapes," Hitomi explained. "Unfortunately, I've had the `blood, death, and destruction' tape stuck in the damn thing ever since I got here."

Van, turning it over a few times, tried to solve the problem in the typical guy fashion and hack it to pieces with his sword. Merle promptly snatched it away. "Hmmm..." she said. She then hit it with a rock.

"NOOO, what the hell are - oh, that worked." Hitomi stood, looking at the relatively intact Walkman coughing out the abused tape like a cat hacking up a hairball. "Good work Merle."

"My pleasure," she replied. Van stared at his sword, thinking momentarily that he should plunge it into his own gut and save everyone a whole lot of anguish.

Merle, sensing Van's mental torment, glomped him. "Don't be sad Van! I'll hug you until you feel better!" Merle said, sticking out her tongue as if to lick him.

"Kill... me now..." Van moaned. Merle naturally ignored him.

"Ah! Maybe I can finally switch the tapes now..." Hitomi opened her mysterious duffel bag that seemed to follow her everywhere and unzipped it. Inside lay about fifty mantra tapes, each inscribed with a different name: `cooking fires', `in-laws', `scandals', `sex with ugly people', `Allen', `Zaibach attacks', `where to find piscus', `how to find ways out of insanely complicated dungeons', and so forth. Plunging her hand into the pile, she withdrew a likely candidate and shoved it into her Walkman, not bothering to read the label.

"Which one is that one?" asked Merle.

"What do I look like, a psychic person?" Hitomi slipped on the headphones and listened intently. "I see..."

"What?" wondered Van. He was hoping that the vision involved him, Hitomi, and a large bed, but of course the author is portraying him as a maniac depressive right now. He's not going to have any such luck.

"I see... windy, slightly cloudy, fog visibility rated at 10 miles, on into the afternoon..."

"What the hell?" Merle looked inside the clear shell and read the label. It read, `weather'. Oh good, nothing too dangerous, she thought.

"... Predicting a 10% chance of rain," Hitomi continued.

"Well, she seems to be alright now," said Van, stating the Blatantly Obvious (TM).

"...Correction, upgrading to 95% chance of rain... right now."

The sky, which had been crystal clear up until that moment, seemed to have borrowed the trademark for Amazing Coincidences (TM), and started to roll in thick, black clouds. It let loose with a downpour.

"Ahhh! I hate getting wet!" Merle screeched, clinging to Van.

In turn, Van grabbed Hitomi and started dragging her back towards town. "Come on, we don't want to get soaked."

"... Upgrading wind index... from 5 knots to 85... right now."

The wind hit them so hard that Van nearly fell over. "Merle! Pull out the Man-walk thing!"

"WETNESSS!!!!" she shrieked.

"...Predicting massive earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, black plague, and random outbursts of Brittany Spear's `Oops I Did it Again."

"OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN!" wretched a random voice out of no where.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Merle and Van screamed.

"... Apocalyptic destruction... Right NOW!"

With a crack and a boom, Gaia collapsed in on itself in a howl of cosmic energy.

* * *

"AHHHHHH!" shouted Hitomi, sitting up in bed. Sweat poured off her brow, plopping onto the covers softly. She slid back down. It was a dream, all a dream.

Instinctively, she reached out and slipped on her earphones.

"BLOOD! DEATH! DESTRUCTION!"

Hitomi sighed and relaxed. Somehow, this tape seemed the safest, at least for now.