Disclaimer:

Before making any comments about 'errors' with Zom and Mana's behavior or physical appearance, I would like to politely request that readers hold off on such comments until you make it to Chapter 10, as these errors are highly intentional and done for reasons revealed in Chapter 10. While I won't spoil those reasons here, I can wholly assure that if you're a fan of 'canon' Zom and Mana, these small changes and 'errors' are done with the intention of satisfying both myself and more stringent fans that prefer the characters exactly as they are in the source material.

Chapter 1: New Country, New Problems

In one of the many rooms of the Texas State Capitol building, during a meeting about expansion of the Extraspecies Act…..right?

Hardly paying much attention to the proceedings, Zombina wasn't particularly unprofessional per se (aside from the heavily opened-up white dress-shirt); instead, she simply knew her onereason to be sitting here in a dreary government building filled with lawmakers for a state and country she didn't live in, nor come from was to be physical, persuasive proof to said lawmakers in dispelling a few bafflinglyodd myths that had come into circulation in the States. Practically falling asleep in her chair while she waited for Ms. Smith to need her, the overarching goal behind all this was something that, possibly for the sake of onelast refresher, Smith was explaining to the local lawmakers.

"I think we can all agree, when you look at it from a street-perspective….-Monsters in this country aren'tprotected…-ey're assaulted, robbed, murdered, and even sold into trafficking by gangs with even lesslegal protection than humans!…-somebodyneeds to protect them, hence our proposal to bring some form of the Extraspecies Act to the States….." Smith went on her pre-written, memorized monologue-speech to pitch a form of the Japanese Extraspecies Bill to the local lawmakers. Zom's half-tired bob in and out of consciousness causing her to pick up only choppy fragments of it, Smith recited it to her and Manako in their hotel room the night prior for practice's sake, so the Zombie didn't particularly need to hear it again."…..-there are thousandsof Monsters in this country already. Most of them are illegal purely because this country…..-oesn't recognizeMonsters as people!…..-M.O.N., or something equivocal to it…-will be needed."

"Wake up." Manako's distinct voice asked in Zom's ear. Figuring it was just Mana over-stressing about looking presentable, the Zombie couldn't even be bothered to wake up and vocalize an answer to the Monoeye.

Relax Mana….we're not gonna be needed for practically another half-hour of Smith's whole schpeal.Zom's tired brain thought to itself, not the slightest bit worried about the presentation going south. Usually able to deter Mana purely on the fact of her being a stubborn sleeper, Zom had no luck as the Monoeye's voice permeated her thoughts once again.

"Wake up!" Mana said again, this time louder and more desperate.

Shit, would you calm down?….if me taking a nap while I'm just a little decoration-piece off to Smith's side for half an hour is gonna make such a bad impression, I don't even wanna know what you yelling at me is gonna do. Zom's mind retorted, admittedly somewhat surprised Mana would get so aggressive in a public appearance. Figuring Smith would handle it, the absolute worstZom would walk away with is a firm shoulder-jostling from Smith to finally get up.

"Wake up dammit!"Mana properly yelled this time rather than a mild voice-increase. That odd lash-out being followed by a splash of something wet and cold on Zom's face and upper chest, what words couldn't do, this certainlydid the trick. Truthfully notin the Texas State Capitol building, the Zombie was actuallyin a crappy, mid-level hotel bed in Austin, Texas that wasn't pure trash,but definitely a littletoo stiff for her undead tastes. Decorated with well-worn, dull sheets and accompanied by equally dull, aged furniture in their small hotel room, it was more depressingthan exciting to look at when combined with the cut-rate wooden tables and noTV.

"Gah! What the fuck?!" Zom yelled, immediately springing up into a sitting position on her now-wet bed. Figuring out very quickly that the wetness was somebody splashing water on her face, the green-haired Zombie looked over to the right to see Manako sitting on the other bed with an empty drinking glass. Realizing the whole presentation was just her mind going back over yesterday's events, everything her dream recalled (save for Mana yelling to wake up) most definitely didhappen. Today being the day they were meant to leave for Japan, there was a verycrucial detail relating to that fact, which Zom wasn't noticing. "The hell wasthat for?!"

"Look at the time." Manako replied, completely irrelevant of Zom's question. Currently wearing a Smith-style black suit jacket, white dress shirt, black tie, matching knee-length skirt and generic stockings, all topped off with a pair of high-heels, the Monoeye had an oddly stern stare to give her undead friend. Too miffed to stop and notice, Zom had a singular objective in mind: Finding out why her (admittedly dull) dream just had to be so rudely interrupted.

"I don't care what time it is, I wanna know why you just had to splash fuckin' ice-water on me!" Zom yelled, further proving why the other members of M.O.N. usually didn't wake her up prematurely. Not shrinking back or caving in, Manako finally conveyed the gravity of the situation to Zom in three simple words:

"Smith is gone." Manako stated bluntly, being unusually deadpan at the moment. Still holding her position on the bed, the Monoeye was deviating from her typical personality because she neededZom to have her undead, partially-damaged head in the game in order to figure this out.

"….Say what?" Zom asked in hard-stop confusion as her seemingly-boiling anger fizzled away like measly steam. Remembering what Manako said right beforehand, the Zombie looked over at the clock resting atop the bedside stand. The crap-quality grey, rectangular LED clock reading 12:15 in generic red numbers, most Americans just thought of lunch, but for Zom, the source of Mana's stern behavior came to mind instead:

Their return-flight back home left two hours ago….

"Smith is gone and I have noidea where she went…..I got up about fifteen minutes ago, figured maybe she just left the room for a bit to get something. When I checked the time, I tried getting you up…..when you wouldn't get up, I…y'know, forced it." Manako explained, her deadpan demeanor starting to go away in favor of an insecure, concerned, mildly scaredtone halfway through her explanation. Not bothering to reply, Zom immediately got out of bed and went to the closet on the far wall where their bags were being stored. Using nothing but a pair of bags put under Smith's name to avoid any fuss with paranoid TSA agents, that decision only further hampered the two Monsters' hopes of getting back home.

"The bags are gone. Smith left with the damned bags but not us?!" Zom yelled, almost in pure disbelief at Smith's level of sheer incompetence. She knew Smith was underpaid, a problem that was only further exacerbated by her being chosen as the Extraspecies program's ambassador for US expansion due to her mixed heritage, but this was ridiculous. "So…what are we gonna do? Because those bags had our passports, our badges, anyform of identification to prove we're here legally."

"Well, we could see about going to the nearest airport and-" Manako started to suggest, both women freezing up with hope when the door to their room opened. Manako turning to face the door while Zom simply had to walk from the closet to peer around the corner, their hopes were dashed when, rather than Smith, an indistinct human cleaning-lady stepped into the room.

"What are you two doing here? This room checked out a couple hours ago….." The cleaning-lady started to ask in genuine confusion at their presence, freezing up when she properly locked eye-to-eyes with Manako. Almost seeming terrified in a way, the cleaning-lady must've been somewhat more on the extremeside of what Smith's little pre-scripted speech was referring to when, rather than politely ask them to leave, the cleaning-lady grabbed the first throwable object in reach on her push-cart of cleaning supplies. Hurling a bottle of window-cleaner at Manako as if the harmless, confused Monoeye was a savage predator before running off in a panic, the cleaning lady only succeeded in drawing out a real threat.

"Oh hell no….." Zom mumbled as she ran out into the hall despite wearing nothing but a black tank top/matching boyshorts/her personal dog-tags, caring far more about Mana nearly being hit than trivial things like who saw what. The Zombie's firstdesire being to belt the cleaning-lady across the head for nearly braining Manako with a spray-bottle, Zom had justenough restraint, primarily due to current circumstances, to get a solid hold of the cleaning lady's shirt-collar without any further assault. Giving said cleaning-lady's collar an exceptionallyfirm yank to keep her from running away, the human woman was now stuck on her knees with a 5'2" Zombie intently staring her down at point-blank.

"Please don't kill me!"The cleaning-lady pleaded, seeming put off by Zom's stitches. Zom's head bobbing back slightly in surprise, the undead Monster could only credit it to the American paranoia that Smith, Zom and Mana were partially sent here to clear up. Rolling her eyes before ignoring the statement, the green-haired, very faintly green-tinted-skin Zombie shirked the urge to tear this woman's throat out with her teeth and moved on with the questioning.

"Lady, listen: I need you to calm down….just tell me how we get to the nearest airport, and I'll let you go." Zom asked, remembering Manako's idea briefly touched on an airport before thisproblem showed up. Admittedly surprised she got through that thought without frustratedly jerking the cleaning-lady around more, Zom could only wonder if maybeSmith's constant harping about 'behaving herself' during this trip actuallypaid off.

"I….I….I…." The cleaning-lady stuttered, trying Zom's patience. Not devolving to physical violence, Zom instead chose to get somewhat more verbal than before.

"God dammit…English!" Zom tried to coerce, finding it odd in retrospect that the person who knew English as a secondary language was demanding that it be spoken. With the cleaning-lady continuing to sputter useless, incoherent babble, Zom let her go and motioned for her to leave. Watching as the panicked woman took off down the hallway, it just looked sadfrom Zom's perspective, particularly in regards to how much the woman actually didn't have to fear. Only shirking further interrogation in order to not add 'wanted for attempted murder' to their growing list of problems, Zom opted to finally get out of the hallway and move back to their room instead.

"How long do you think we have before the cleaning-lady gets the police?" Manako asked, still stung over being nearly brained with a bottle of window-cleaner. Not being a very confrontational person, whatever desire Manako might've had to take the closest thing to a sharp object on that cart and hunt down the cleaning-lady was minuscule at best.Instead opting to sit on the bed and look at the vaguereflection her empty water-glass gave of her own face, the Monoeye's continued self-harping alwaysbugged Zom to a certain degree, but for now, the Zombie needed to focus on the bigger picture for both of them.

"Probably….an hour, give or take?" Zom guessed as she lingered at the door to their room, rolling her eyes when the cleaning-lady tripped, stumbled, and almost face-planted into the door of a janitorial closet she was trying to hide in. Eventually fully reentering the room and closing the door behind her so they could have any privacy, that privacy was more for Mana's sake.

"You really think it would take that long?" Manako wondered, slightly confused. The majority of that confusion coming from how the existence of Monsters waswell-understood in this country (even if the fine details of what they could and couldn't do were muddy at best), Mana couldn't quite comprehend it taking an hourto persuade the police.

"It'll probably take about half an hour for her to calm down, ten or so minutes for her to convince the police that there's an issue, and then a good twenty minutes to get the cops out here.By what I heard, the response-times in this state are shit when there's Monsters involved…doubleif it's a Monster making the call. Either way, it should be plenty of time for us to go if we hurry." Zom guessed, walking back into the room to grab a pair of black cargo pants, her brown leather bomber jacket, and a pair of black combat boots. Oddly laid out on one of the wooden tables in the room, Zom did notremember laying it out the night before, and so assumed Mana must've taken the due diligence to have it set for her when Zom wasn't looking/already asleep.

"Well, I was thinking…..if we can get to a local airport, maybe we can explain who we are and try to work out some method of getting back home? Or at least call Smith?" Manako suggested, eschewing any kind of bombastic heist-plan in favor of a fairly common-sense talk-it-out solution. "We don't exactly have much money on us, so I'm not sure we'd be able to buy more tickets….if they don't believe who we are, I don't know what we're going to do."

"I doubt any airport would just let a Zombie and a Monoeye on a plane for free, government agents or not, but I've got nothin' better….c'mon, I'll lead." Zom half-countered, finishing the laces on her boots. Giving Mana a comforting pat on the shoulder, the slightly shorter 5'1" Monoeye gently got up and stuck close to Zom. Naturally falling in line due to Zom's right arm draping across Mana's shoulders, her intentions behind the move were mixed. Half doing it to let Mana avert her eye downwards without fear of running into a wall as the Zombie effectively walked for both of them, the otherhalf of Zom's reasoning was to give her pseudo-sister of a coworker some sense of security/comfort in this sketchy scenario by pulling her close. "Got any ideas on a good place to ask for directions?"

"Well, I saw a firearms and fireworks shop just down the road when we first checked in…..maybe they'll have a map." Manako figured, not noticing as Zom sneered at the janitor's closet that the cleaning-lady hid in when they passed by it. Carrying on past dull tan walls and boring doors to the equally-meh elevator, Zom wasted no time punching it in for the bottom floor as she thought on Mana's suggestion.

"Sounds good to me…just stay close and look at the floor while we're passing through the lobby, don't wanna attract any attention." Zom suggested, figuring that the desk attendant wouldn't be more Monoeye-friendly than the cleaning-lady. Watching as the drab metal elevator doors slid open, the two Monsters casually fast-walked out the door. Trying to look as few people in the eye as possible lest they see her nose-stitches or get their attention grabbed by her blue/green heterochromia, Zom focused on diligently guiding Mana until they strolled out through the hotel's slightly creaky, auto-sliding front doors.

Somewhat questioning the hotel's quality in retrospect, from the aforementioned creaky auto-doors to the quite clearly fake, tacky architecture that was tryingto look fancy, the hotel was one of those that sold itself on the idea of 'Live a brief life of luxury!…sort of. Only if you can ignore everything in sight looking like it had the life sapped out of it ages ago'. Walking past the drive-up area out front without any confrontations, Zom finally felt comfortable letting Mana go once they were on the grass, just shy of the sidewalk next to the busy road this hotel was placed near. Starting to scan the horizon (if dreary shopping-centers and middle-class cars going by could even be calleda horizon), Mana had a general memory of what the shop looked like as she searched for it again.

"Ah! There it is…across the street, with the big brown sign." Manako exclaimed, pointing across the street and a small ways down the road to their right. Following Manako's finger, Zom couldn't help reading the shop-name out loud.

"Boomtown Firearms and Fireworks….Huh; if we were staying, I'm sure I'd like the place. C'mon, with any luck, he'll have a map for sale too." Zom pointed out, lightly dragging one hand past Mana's hand to gesture that the Monoeye should follow as she moved towards the crosswalk. Crossing the street when the street-lights permitted it, the duo made their way to the front door of the shop and pushed their way inside without a second thought. Looking somewhat dark and drab, the shop screamed'family-owned' rather than being a 'professional' shop, from the vague gunpowder smell in the air to the low-rate metal shelving that much of the store's product was placed on. Capped off with some dinky lightbulbs that didn't even have any sort of decorative cover around their socket, the shop was crude, but crude was good enough for Zom and Mana.

"Welcome to Boomtown Firearms and Fireworks, how can I help you?" A middle-aged man semi-eagerly asked, hurrying to get behind the counter when he heard that generic door-rigged open-bell chime off as Zom pushed into the store. Seeming pretty friendly, the man was just an indistinct, late-forties white male with a bit of faint facial hair and black hair that was greying in some spots. Topped off by a well-worn, but not too battered face, it still had a bit of a friendly, warm crack to its design. Dressed in jeans, a grey polo shirt and a dull white apron, the old guy was certainlynot running the most packed or most glamorous of shops, but he still seemed content.

"Sorry, we're not here to buy anything…we need to know the way to the nearest airport. You got a map or somethin'?" Zom asked, deciding to take 'point' since her non-human aspects were more easily written off. Seeming cooperative, the friendly older man nodded and pulled out a map from under his side of the well-worn, heavily-scratched, yet supremelythick and durable wooden desk. Seeming more like a solid countertop from Zom and Mana's side of things, it was merely a side-detail as the man laid the aforementioned map out on the desk for them.

"Well, I've found that the quickest way is if you go up-" The man, whose nametag stated was 'Yorick, Store Manager/Owner' started to explain as he dragged a finger across part of the map. Abruptly cutting himself off when Manako stepped up to try and look at the map too, the seemingly-friendly old man stepped back and pulled a cut-down Ithaca 37 shotgun out from behind the counter in response to seeing Mana's eye. Evidently keeping it loaded but not chambered, Yorick's hairpin-turn in demeanor was accentuated by the racking sound of his shotgun as he stood his ground.

"Hey, asshole, we're just looking at the map!" Zom yelled, throwing her hands up to show she wasn't armed in hopes of calming the man down. More worried for Manako's sake than her own, it was this same concern that kept her from just tanking the potential shotgun blast and yanking said shotgun from his hands.

"Oh no, I've heard all about you freaks on the TV: what you're doin' over in Japan and all that. Especiallyyou Zombiepeople! Well you're not gettin' me too! Get the hell outta my store!" Yorick threatened, probably not having taken particularlyclose note of Zom's finer physical details at first. Not wanting Manako to get shot, the Zombie complied without a fuss, draping her arm across Mana's shoulders again as she led the Monoeye outside. Almost bargingthe door open to expedite their departure lest they test Yorick, Zom waited until the door was closed to vent her frustrations.

"God dammit! We were that close to getting out of here!" Zom yelled in pure frustration, sitting down on the hood of a dark grey muscle car in the parking lot. That anger becoming more focused when she noticed Manako's distinctly souring expression, the Zombie was finding it muchharder to keep that 'behave yourself' mantra in check.

"I guess I really am just a freak…" Manako almost moped as she looked at her own reflection in a car window, letting her insecurities rise up again. Probably able to run the full nine-yards of self-loathing over her species' namesake single eye, Zom heading off in a huff broke her out of it. "Uh….Zom, where are you going?"

"To cost this dipshit some money." Zom answered in a low, grumbling, fed-up tone as she walked back into the store. Finally being spurred to do so when she noticed Yorick had gone towards the back, the Zombie could only pray he wasn't just around a corner inside. Pushing the door open slowly in hopes of not setting off the literal bell rigged up above the door, she crept in and looked around for something she could use up to deny Yorick some profits. Spotting a box of small fireworks laying on a shelf near the middle of the store, the Zombie got an evil idea. Snatching a box of matches and a Swiss Army Knife from some cheap plastic bins near the checkout desk, Zom quietly grabbed the fireworks and moved to a small table nearby.

"Don't wanna help a couple freaks, huh? Well we'll see who's laughing when you're watching money explode right in your face." Zom chuckled to herself in a low voice, cutting open the box and dumping the fireworks inside out on the table. Laying them in a line facing towards the manager's office, the Zombie lit a match and set off all of the fireworks' fuses in quick succession. With her revenge happily sated, Zom wasted no time sprinting out of the store to notbe here when he came back. Thanks to the long fuse each one had, she and Manako could be well out of sight before they went off.

"…Why are you so happy?" Manako asked from her seat on the muscle-car hood Zom was previously sitting on, fearing that Zom 'took care' of Yorick.

"Went back inside and lit some of that asshole's fireworks….not a bigup-yours, but it's better than letting that jackwit get you down. If we get goin', we can be outta the way before he comes out here." Zom smiled, imagining the expression on Yorick's face when he sees his product being expended at random.

Maybe I'll get lucky and the fireworks I set off will trigger even more f- Zom started to think, said thoughts soon being thrown upside down by a jarringly loud explosion coming from within the store that was on-par with a bomb. Whipping around, Zom's jaw might as well have actually dropped as she saw a plume of smoke rising from the roof of the store while various bits of debris, presumably remains of said roof, sailed towards them.

"What did you do?!" Manako yelled as she jerked to a standing position, completely bewildered.

"I lit the guy's fireworks and ran out of the store! I didn't think shit would start blowing up!" Zom yelled back, trying to defend her innocence. Genuinely believable judging by her reaction, Mana got past the concern of whether Zom was lying or not, and nowhad to focus on why the hell did the store blow up?!

"Well did you see anything that the fireworks might've sailed into?!" Manako continued to yell as both Monsters effectively got into an argument born of pure panic.

"There wasa shelf full of black powder products near the manager's office, where I was aiming at…." Zom noted, not having thought much of it at the time.

"You sent fireworks flying at a shelf full of black fucking powder?!"Mana finally swore back at Zom, her timid nature causing her to be light on curses with anybody. Adrenaline no doubt changing that habit for a little bit as the two short Monsters argued in the parking lot, Zom could at least take solace in having an argument that held up better than 'Well, uh…..I didn't know black powder was explosive…..'.

"Right,because it's myfault he left a whole shelfof black powder sitting around! Besides, those were cheap-shit fireworks!If those rinky-dink pieces of crap got past whatever containers the black powder was in, what the fuckis he doin' with black powder in a fireworks storeto begin with?!" Zom counter-argued, effectively saying 'If I'm Tweedledee, he'sTweedledumbass!'. Soon calming down enough to process the fact that she couldhave killed Yorick due to the size of the blast, the Zombie was more interested in the benefit and safety of herself and Manako rather than things like legal justice or the preservation of human life. Following that inherent bias, Zom cared piss-all about morality as, rather than stay and face the consequences, she grabbed Mana's hand to lead the Monoeye far away from the scene.

Author's Note:

Keeping this first Author's Note brief for the sake of not babbling over into revealing aspects of later chapters, so to give the (ideally) actually-effective rundown and answer the (not) simple question of "What is this story trying to be?"…best answer would be 'a cluster-bomb melting-pot of a myriad of different influences' as a short-answer. The longanswer is pulling on all manner of different influences from music (Blues Saraceno, Velvet Revolver, TFK…..I could write entire paragraphs just talking about musical inspirations here), anime (Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, maybe a tiny little dash of GITS for politicking and a design aspect of onecharacter that has yet to appear, albeit it's handled in a more MGSV-like manner), games (Watch Dogs 2 primarily, both for its elements of pseudo-punk style and the parkour aspects), and movies (predominantly Quentin Tarantino, but it could easily span past that).

Speaking of movie inspiration, the very opening bit with Smith's 'bobbing in and out' speech that Zom was catching only parts of is extremely similar to and inspired by the reallyclever way that Shaun of the Dead delivered exposition: they did flicking through TV channels at just the right time so the words matched up to explain the plot, while I went for Zom's brain half-recalling the day before, specifically picking out bits of Smith's long speech to a bunch of stuffy Texas lawmakers that, when placed end to end (The …. indicates a 'gap' where she bobs out and the speech jumps forward) effectively tells you a greatdeal of the setup for the conflict at the heart of the story.

In regards to what the story's actual purposeis, that's more classic Musume in that I care more about having characters that people like, care about and are interested in regardless of how chill or grave the minute-to-minute circumstances are, not a story with chess-pawns being lifelessly pushed to a defined finish-line. Beyond that, all I can really say is, aside from the focus on characters rather than a goal-checklist, this story is not trying to 'compete' with the style of Musume itself very directly.

IE rather than copy Musume's exactrough formula of 'Small (usually) non-violent sub-conflict happens, Monsters try to resolve it, tits usually pop out somewhere along the way, then Darling (or Darling equivalent) delves into his deep reserves of knowledge about obscure things that coincide perfectly with the conflict/resolve it by simply being a courteous person', this is leaning wayfarther into the Black Lagoon side of things, with a very ever-present conflict between a few primary 'factions' that you'll see appear as the story goes on, albeit with down-time moments so not all the dialogue has to go on during a gunfight. Finally, to note: there is nothingwrong with the writers in this section who dowant to follow Musume's original style much more closely in their works, nor is there anything wrong with the people looking for stories in that style rather than what I'm offering, it's just not what I'mhere to do.