Disclaimer: Don't own anything but my OC(s?).
AN: Somehow got into this show, and even though most of it was entertaining and amusing I found there were some things that just irritated me to no end about the city's residents and the actions of New Townsville's government.
So suppose there's at least one resident who not only has a full head of common sense but was hit with Black Z rays, can control his power, and remember that he has it like the Puffs?
Despite all the hating my main OC in this will likely be doing on things, I really do like the show.
Clearly A Twilight Fan: Will there be vampires?
Me: -_-' Uh... no?
Clearly A Twilight Fan: No fair! Must be vampies!
Me: Yeah, no.
Rabid Fan: What about romance, huh?! We need our daily dose of smooching for no apparent reason!
Me: Oh hell, no!
Clearly A Twilight Fan: And vampires!
Me: No!
Rabid Fan: Hanky Panky!
Me: Get your arse out of this fanbase! People come here for magical girls and butt-kicking, not ridiculously consistent and painfully numerous vampire fics and ass-hat PPGZxRRBZ pairings! Ugh...
Clearly A Twilight Fan: *slams door*
Rabid Fan: *licks window then bolts*
Me: What the hell?! Why would you do this?!
So yeah... Getting pretty tired of finding like 70% of PPGZ fanfiction to be badly-written, horrendous-grammar-filled, vamp fics, unrealistic romance, or both. Seriously, this is some bullshit. It's like the fanbase somehow attracted like 2% of the prepubescent Twilight (not that I have anything particular against the series or vampires in general; it just doesn't belong in this fanbase) fans, and they all decided to do crossovers without actually marking it as a crossover.
If you're going to write a fic with some kind of crossover, please mark it as such! This is ridiculous.
Ehem, sorry. This has just kinda' been a thing with me lately. Rant over; story now.
Now before anyone says anything about it, I just want to say I intend to take a more 'Worm' approach to this story. If you don't know what Worm is, it's a super hero story with a more realistic take on how super powers would affect society about a hero playing the part of a villain, struggling with often doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. So yeah, that's closer to the route I'm gonna' go for this. Fair warning.
Ch 1: It's Just Me... Times 50... Or Something
"Ms. Keane, my feet are on fire!"
"My feet are frozen!"
"My right foot's on fire, and my left's frozen!"
"We need to go to the nurse!"
"Oh my, that sounds quite serious. Off you go, girls. Quickly now!"
The sound of my hand smacking into my forehead echoed dully in the room, as the three girls vacated the classroom, earning me a strangely confused look from Miyako, a rather well-hidden wince from Kaoru, and some raised eyebrows from nearby classmates. I looked up at the closing door briefly before turning my attention back to our homeroom teacher, as she started up her lecture again without pause.
Honestly, I was a bit baffled. There was no way Ms. Keane could possibly be that stupid; she seemed just a tad too worldly, personable, and not utterly dense for that. The three idiots couldn't even be bothered to come up with realistic excuses, or just raise their concerns at different times, instead of exiting the room as such an obvious group. There was no way no one else had caught on to the fact that the moronic trio were super-heroing (for a certain value of said subject that included mass amounts of property damage) in their spare time... or whenever they felt like it, really.
Then again...
No-one had pointed it out yet, either out of a sense of courtesy or sheer ignorance. I knew there were arse-holes out there, who would be perfectly willing to reveal the girls' "secret" identities: a fan-girl geek, a wealthy social butterfly, and an up-and-coming soccer star, who'd all had literally nothing to do with one another before that day and whom all had the exact same hair as three certain "heroes", even if their faces were difficult to commit to memory for some reason (one didn't need faces to recognize voices and mannerisms). However, there had been no online posts or forums regarding the subject to be found anywhere. Of course, Prof. Utonium, whom they were known to publicly work with in costume, could have some sort of bullshit tech that hunted down and erased any such online attempts to do so.
Or maybe Professor Utonium and the Mayor were just bribing people off. Though, honestly, I wouldn't expect much guile from the guy with the veritable spine of a starfish, who needs his secretary to open pickle jars... He kinda' sucks as a leader of men, come to think of it, but his honesty and naivety probably endeared him to a certain crowd...
In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't part of that crowd; he was an idiot.
Then again...
My stare turned its focus more onto my teacher than her lecture. That was perhaps the question vexing me so intensely lately, wasn't it? Did she, or didn't she know just who they were? Was she playing oblivious? Because, honestly, her perfectly congenial attitude intermixed with their lame excuses only made them look even more conspicuous and suspicious. And even more importantly, if this was so; why?
Sometimes I wondered why I hadn't done anything about this. This was ridiculous, and the city was falling to pieces around our heads under the combined efforts of suddenly absurd numbers of super villains and the reckless opposition of three hormonal teenage girls.
Couldn't people see that despite the fact that they "saved" the city on a day to day basis, they never made any real progress towards a permanent solution? Monsters and Villains they caught -and supposedly nullified the powers of- were often back on the streets causing havoc, injury, and property damage in a matter of weeks, sometimes days. Take Mojo Jojo for example; he always got away without fail. Though, honestly, I couldn't blame them for that one in particular. Mojo really was actually a genius, and I was under the fairly certain impression he always deliberately threw himself with whatever "Blow of the Day" managed to send him into low earth orbit, thereby guaranteeing himself an escape via the girls' own power. Of course, if the girls would just beat him into the ground instead of giving Kaoru a clear shot with her damn hammer, they might have actually caught him by now. These weren't Heroes; these were children, and they didn't do this to be heroic.
I glared at the door again.
They did this for fun. It was amusing to them, and despite how much they might gripe and complain about how hard it was to each other and the Professor, it was just a game as far as they were concerned, an easy way out of class for half the day. I snorted and felt my fists clench; that power was wasted on them.
Sometimes, I hated them for it.
I really tried to feel bad about that, hating them that is -really, I did, but I've found that it's something I literally just can't seem to let go, which I both hope is -and loathe the idea of- not being my fault.
I closed my eyes briefly to rub my temples. I was actually starting to give myself a headache thinking about this. The sheer amount of absolute loathing I had for those girls surprised and scared even me sometimes and actually put strain on my body. I grumbled under my breath and made the effort to pay attention to the lesson. Hatred could come later. Conflict could come later. Justice could come later.
A low, inaudible growl escaped my throat.
Why didn't I do anything about them? It would be so easy! They were just brats, and my brand of their powers was far better oriented for combat. I could beat them into the ground and rip those damn belts right off them-! But I wouldn't! Deep breaths. I refused to give in to this unnatural rage so easily. They were trying to help the city in a way; they just didn't seem to realize they were doing a horrible job of it.
I twitched. That irked me even more, the idea that they didn't even realize how bad a job they were doing, how much property damage they caused, how many people still got hurt, because they weren't paying more attention to the bystanders. Shit, why hadn't I just helped them out yet? I could do this so much better.
But no; no, I couldn't do it, not yet. I'd honestly probably attack them outright if I encountered them in costume. I don't want to do that, but my powers, my light, hates them with a fury not unknown to a thousand dying stars, and that hatred passes far too easily down to me. No, I need more time, more control, more resources, more allies.
Perhaps...? I frowned. Perhaps, I worried that they also knew who I was, despite how ludicrously careful I had been about keeping it hidden. In part, I suppose I simply feared that by some ridiculous chance of fate I might lose, that they might remove these powers from me, that it would somehow be permanent instead of temporary, like with the rest of the black light holders. In their eyes, I would likely not be any different than any foe they had faced so far. With the amount of energy I gave off, the Professor would know the second I started using my powers; he had already demonstrated an amazing response time to other black light threats, and he would likely be able to track me as long as I used them, maybe even longer with residual energy (if that was even a thing, not that I would know -or wish to test said theory). He, was the one I feared; he was the real threat. The girls were jokes, and if it ever came down to a fight, without the Professor's interference I was sure I could win.
I felt my eyes shift down towards my backpack underneath my desk, inside which a gunmetal-grey belt -one I never dared to wear in public like those stupid girls, nor keep anywhere but with myself- lay, thrumming with unnatural energy. The power pulsed in my chest, heavy, red-hot,... and dangerous. On some level, I knew my expression had shifted from frustrated boredom to a face of steel and anger. Yes, that man was the only thing holding me back from doing more to help this dying city.
My year started off pretty normal, you know? I was just a normal guy, a utterly normal teenage boy, going to a normal high school -in the tenth grade- in a normal city. That was true so much so to the point of being boring. I spent my days being an average antisocial teenager, slacking a little in classwork, playing computer games at home, and going for an afternoon run every day, even if I didn't really do so for any reason beyond general health and hobbyist purposes.
I didn't try out for track or any other sports, and I didn't have too many friends outside my online ones. I wasn't bullied or harassed at all, because despite the rarity of such a thing in my school, I had taken a practical interest in martial arts two years ago and was a (barely) brown belt in taekwondo, now finally reaching that time in a martial artist's career where one starts to really understand how to actually apply their skill should they need to.
New Townsville used to be a normal city, a boring idyllic place, but one I was rather -if not apathetic to- at least, satisfied to call home, because that's just what it was, my home. That sleepy state of being changed -pardon the cliché- on one fateful day.
My name is Kosuke Hiragana, and this is the story of how a black light ruined my peace and quiet.
Several months prior...
School was out for the day, and my afternoon run beckoned.
I had my small running backpack filled with a book to read if I happened to feel like it (I was working on the third in the Lord of the Rings franchise), two bottles of water, a banana, and four Quaker oatmeal snack bars of varied flavor. I had brought two in peanut butter, one chocolate, and one raisin.
Stepping out the front door of my family's small, one-story house in the suburbs, I looked up at the sky and inhaled a surprisingly cleansing breath of fresh air, considering that we lived in the city. The sky was bright, and the cloud cover was heavier just so to the west of the front porch, providing protection against the afternoon sun's heat.
Jogging a little in place for about thirty seconds to warm up, I then proceeded to perform some simple stretches, involving lunges and some high kicks, while enjoying the light, pleasant breeze that played against my skin and ruffled my hair.
Huh, today was looking to be a pretty good day. I was feeling a bit especially enthusiastic for my run. Normally, a full day of school tended to drain the life right out of me, leaving me to be more amendable to copious amounts of television and food, but I was apparently having an 'on' day today.
The significance of this fact?
Despite my general occupation as a growing, antisocial teen, I enjoyed nature... like, a lot, but I didn't often get to really take time out of my day to appreciate it. The large park to the north-east in relation to the front of my home was a favorite route of mine. I liked to watch the squirrels gather nuts and return them to their hoards, listen to the birds sing their songs, or simply spend an idyllic evening trying to catch sight of fish flitting about within a pond or in the shallows of the bay.
Maybe it was a bit whimsical of me, perhaps I'd read a few too many fantasy novels, but it really was the simple things in life that tended to give me the most fulfillment. Everything else amounted to not much more than 'filler' in my life. I did often dream of adventure -of freedom from this routine existence as just another face in the crowd, a cog in the machine of society, encouraged and pressured by one's peers to conform to normality, to get an education, get a job, get a spouse, have a kid or two to continue in your place, and then die, become just another headstone in a graveyard, where people will shed meaningless tears and make empty promises, only to promptly turn about-face and move on.
It was selfish of me, entirely overly ambitious, I think, to refuse to accept that, as if refusing to acknowledge the fact that 'this is how things are' would actually change anything, to want more out of life than the common man, to make a mark on history -such as to be known prominently in books that other school kids are forced to read and memorize, to be freaking quoted!
Ehem. The point is, my love for connecting with all things that are not everyday society was born of a desire to be different, to make a difference, but, as of currently I would get no closer to such a goal than enjoying what everyone else tended to take for granted.
So when I wasn't too tired between school hours, homework, practicing martial arts and running, simply observing nature and spending time in the park was my absolute favorite thing to do. Case in point, I intended to be jogging straight to said park and then spending the entirety of my day till curfew there.
I began my light run with a straight jog east. My home was located close to the docks off to the east side of the city at the bottom of a steep, inclined stretch of road. This meant that the shortest route to New Townsville Park always began with a bracing uphill jog before I would hit the main neighborhood.
I wasn't expecting the trip to the park itself to stretch longer than ten minutes -fifteen to twenty minutes tops if I took my sweet time to an utterly ridiculous level.
I cleared the hill quickly, idly noting and silently pitying the bare few drivers heading in the opposite direction. It was a steep incline, and the whole thing must be rather daunting to safely drive down. That was certainly something I wasn't looking forward to doing myself someday when driving my own vehicle.
I muttered a silent little prayer to whatever higher existences might be listening that no one spun out and crashed downwards into my house at the bottom.
I shuddered a little. That would really suck.
...
And now I'm suddenly becoming super paranoid about someone crashing into my home while I'm helplessly slumbering at night.
Geez.
Ah well, who needs sleep anyway? Not me, that's for sure.
Hah. Hah. Hah.
I'm hilarious...
Ugh...
Whatever, no sense worrying about it right now. No-one's crashed into us yet, even if it's really only a matter of time. Maybe it won't be today or tomorrow. Maybe it won't be a week from now or even several months, but mark my words. Even if it takes years, it's bound to happen. No, it's just about guaranteed to happen... right when my parents and I least expect it... right when we are all the least prepared... the most vulnerable...
And~, I really need to just stop thinking about this right now. Geez, that's some depressing stuff.
Don't be an angst-ridden teenager, Kosuke; you're better than that.
My run turned north, briefly crossing the road and traversing up a small series of paved stairways, till my feet were moving eastward once more.
Five minutes later, I took one last left turn to the north and stepped into New Townsville's main park, bordered by a small 2-foot high stone wall.
The twitter of birds echoed through the air on occasion, and, even from the entrance of the park, I could already see a squirrel in the distance, which briefly regarded me in turn before quickly scurrying off.
Before me, a long dirt and gravel path wound neatly through small, nicely-groomed hills, like what one would expect from a golf course, which were dotted with large clusters of a wide variety of trees and shrubs.
To the north-east bordering New-Townsville's business district, the park was more industrialized, possessing cobblestone paths instead of gravel. It's main draws were the prevalence of a higher number of benches and a large water fountain located in the center of a small square.
The south-eastern corner of the park was far less trafficked by comparison with longer grass, more fauna, and more flora than any other section of the park. At its center, sat a pond that was supplied by a pair of small streams that branched from -and flowed back into- the sizable river that New Townsville had been constructed around.
To the north-west, the park bordered New Townsville's primary zoo. It was similarly furnished to its north-eastern neighbor, but also seemed to be trying to pull the best parts from he more rural sections of the park, having all its paths lined by spaced-out shrubs. Additionally, it possessed its own smaller fountain and a small playground.
The south-western region of the park was where I was heading. The south-west of the park seemed to be an attempt to display and maintain a tentative balance between the aesthetics of all the other sections of the park. In some places it had gravel paths; in others, it had cobblestone. It had its own wide plethora of flora, but they were planted and grown in more deliberate and obvious patterns, unlike the way the plants were allowed to all but run wild in the south-east. Small critters and leagues of nesting birds could be found here as well. And as an aside, the south-west didn't skimp on relaxation constructions either, possessing a number of benches only second to the north-east.
FEW EDITS PAST THIS POINT YET. (Fair warning, it sucks) :)
Seriously, everything past this point is under restructuring. The biggest problem is the massive gap between here and the area beyond the line, which I'm having trouble bridging. As in, I know what I want there, but can't decide how to put it to words.
You have been warned.
Sequence of Events Yet to Be Written:
1): Some slice of life relaxation. (a major part that's stumping me)
2): The miniature Ice-Age chaos
3): A Wild Black Z-Ray Appears!
4): Kosuke vs. the [Darkness]
My rib-cage felt like it was being squeezed, when I returned to consciousness. I found myself sucking in several deep breathes from my position on the ground, lungs feeling like they couldn't quite grab enough oxygen, even though I could intellectually tell that they were being filled with plenty.
After about a minute of flopping and twitching like a useless dead fish, the constricting sensation slowly began to fade away to be replaced with the low internal burn of the [darkness].
My blurred vision quickly cleared, and a cursory glance around me revealed that no-one had apparently been witness to what just happened. The mother-daughter pair I'd taken a blow from a hilariously malicious light beam for were unconscious, but neither seemed to have been affected the way I was. it seemed my altruism wasn't in vain.
No longer occupied with feeling like I was drowning on land, I could see a thick grey-black haze drifting off of my body, getting thicker and more heavy(?).
No. As I struggled weakly to my feet, I found it more accurate to say that the [darkness] was beginning to add the aspect of [physical weight] to its existence, where before it had none.
I inhaled and exhaled deeply several times, feeling a sudden wave of unnatural strength hit me, as the [darkness] sought an outlet. I near physically felt it begin to creep outwards from my pores and solidify around me, starting from my core and forming an inky-black jacket with metallic, dark-grey clasps on the forearms at the wrists and dark-grey gloves. At the same time, the haze warped my favorite running pants and solidified into reinforced, black jeans over dark-grey boots.
With a tingling, I also noticed my normally mud-brown hair draining into a black nearly as deep as night -even as (bafflingly) a pair of black shades formed over my eyes for some reason.
I felt a weight at my waist and on my back. I raised an eyebrow at the highly conspicuous, thick, gunmetal-grey belt with a black 'D' imprinted on the circular clasp now hanging loosely there.
On my back, in the place of my backpack, there had formed a sheathe in which sat an honest to goodness sword with an obsidian-black blade that was at least two and a half feet long at a first, unmeasured glance and edging towards three feet the longer I stared at it. I had drawn it and then quickly sheathed it once more after observing as such and giving it a few swings. It looked positively deadly, glistening in the afternoon sunlight, and it wasn't like I could actually use such a thing right now without chopping off a limb. I wasn't an idiot, and I did not know how to properly use a sword.
"Well," I finally commented aloud, blinking back my utter confusion and not insignificant levels of trepidation. "This is... a thing that certainly just happened." So that's what the black light did.
I felt a light headache coming on; there had been a lot more of those energy beams. What would happen to other people who got hit? Would they receive the same over-all best case scenario as I did? What would happen if they didn't? That shit was ultra malicious! What about animals? What about inanimate objects? What about those scarce few white ones? This stuff was dangerous enough to do something with just about anything obviously, and I was rambling.
"'Tch, not my problem, really," I muttered with a cluck of the tongue, suddenly straitening up at the realization. The only thing I really had to worry about now was changing back to a semblance of normal. Even as alike as they were to the rest of the stunted population of New Townsville, my parents, the Hiraganas, would definitely notice pitch-black hair and clothes that can't be changed.
I glanced around and, after checking their pulses and propping the unconscious mother and daughter pair up together on a park bench, quickly vacated the premises, heading towards the outer edges of the park.
As I approached the north-western park exit closest to New Townsville's zoo, my now noticeably enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of screams and shrieks of terror as well as some oddly bestial noises. I was about to turn a right corner, when a gaggle of panicked people rushed by, forcing me to stumble back. To my irritation, they didn't even take pause of the fact that there was a young teenager in the park carrying a real, live sword on his back -not that I wanted any sort of attention in my befuddled, adjusting state, but it was the principle of the matter and further justification for my reasons to dislike this city's general populace. Seriously, it must be something in the water!
Though...
Come to think of it, they may have just pegged me as some kind of cosplayer and moved on with their lives. Yeah, that makes a bit more sense.
That matter settled mentally, I chose to do the expedient thing and get on with my own life as well.
My curiosity was piqued, however. I turned the corner at a cry of, "HEY!", and my left eye immediately started involuntarily twitching. The park was infested with what were obviously escaped zoo animals, such were their variety.
First, freak icebergs! Then magical light beams of doom! And now, the reprise of Planet of the Apes, Zoo Edition!? Today just kept getting weirder!
A seemingly human-sized, green-furred monkey, wearing a white dome-like helmet and a massive navy-black cape that stuck up triangularly at the shoulders like some sort of wizard-wannabe, had casually bodily heaved a full-grown lion to the side and straight-up hinged open its mouth to pluck out a sort of icing-filled cracker.
He had sniffed it and immediately licked said already lion-licked cookie-cracker, only for a red-headed girl, garbed in a blindingly hot-pink leotard, vest, skirt, shoes, black gloves and choker, and having a truly, impressively massive ponytail tied up with a large, red bow, to screech at the monkey and indignantly snatch the cookie-cracker away, proceeding to explain the best way to eat said cracker-cookie in a rather offended manner and ignoring the fact that it had been double-licked, as she split the cookie in half and shared it with the monkey.
My eye twitched violently, when they finished off the cookie and finally seemed to take notice of the fact that a) the monkey was indeed a giant, green, mutant monkey and b) the two were giving off literally palpable auras not unlike my own that also apparently opposed violently...
With a shriek from the girl and a startled yell from the monkey, the two leaped away from each other like they'd been burned, the girl hunching defensively as she landed, and the monkey leering inquisitively from atop a park bench. The two remained completely ignorant of my slow approach, even as I analyzed what they were doing.
The feelings they were exuding through their auras were those of direct opposites, of mortal enemies, of an almost primal instinct to utterly eradicate the other or drive them away forever. If I could have heard what I imagined were the two's admittedly humorous and inane inner monologues, my eye would have twitching to a dangerous -and probably eventually chronic- degree. I knew instantly that these were two were fellow targets of the energy rays that had fallen from the sky. I knew this for sure, since my own blood had abruptly gotten to pumping, adrenaline furiously flooding through my veins, and my instincts screaming at me that the girl's beatific, white aura was just wrong and should be utterly erased, that she should be hacked to pieces, burnt to ash, and swept away in the wind!
And that was rather disturbingly specific...
But I wouldn't act on those powerful urges... not yet at any rate. It wasn't like she'd done anything to me... yet. All she had done was most certainly be the receiver of one of the white beams, instead of a black like me. I glanced at the twitching, green monkey and knew for certain that he would have no similar restraint for such instincts that spoke to him on a primal level.
As if at the ring of a starting bell, the two lunged. I imagine the girl only half knew what she was doing, as she -though skillfully- attacked with a pink yoyo of all things. The monkey jumped over the attack and unleashed a flurry of slaps and palm strikes, that the pink-clad girl veritably danced around and responded to with her own flurry of yoyo attacks.
My brows shot up to my hairline though, when a missed yoyo attack completely blew through and shattered a wooden park bench easily. Okay, so maybe the yoyo wasn't so useless after all.
As the conflict started to ramp up, I started to become aware of some things. Several zoo animals fleeing the area past me had managed to shake me from my tunnel-visioning on the fight, my natural wariness for large predators engaged. Naturally, I quickly put distance between myself and the wild animals, while also trying to not to provoke them; except... I noticed something odd.
Now, a lot of people really don't appreciate how fast large animals are. Nature enthusiast that I am, I had a better idea than most, and, well... These animals were moving far slower than they should have been. Like, in slow motion.
I'd only now noticed that there was an odd ticking noise echoing in the air. In the meantime, every other sound that my enhanced senses could hear seemed to drag out unnecessarily long. The animals around me moved as though through water, birds flittering through the air slow enough for me to easily process each wing beat, and a glance at the fight between girl and monkey saw that the blows being exchanged no longer seemed to leave afterimages in the air to my sight.
No one else, not the combatants nor the fauna, seemed to be reacting to the phenomenon, the ticking or the slowness, like the speed of everything around me had been chopped in half.
I blinked. The ticking sound persisted. It was kind of annoying. I clucked my tongue and wished it would go away.
As if on cue, the ticking came to a sharp halt, and the world around me abruptly returned to normal.
Animals now became paragons of movement that my eyes could still strangely keep up with somewhat. The fight, meanwhile, was once more a flurry of motion. As an aside, I felt a little like I'd just been punched in the gut, my breaths quick and heavy and my heart hammering hard in my chest like I'd just exerted some monumental effort.
The heck?
Personally, with all the weirdness that had occurred today, I wasn't at all inclined to believe what had just happened was a coincidence. Somehow, someway, I could slow things down. Or, at the least, I could speed my perception up. After all, I hadn't done much moving once I'd noticed the world going wonky, so I couldn't be sure which was true until I tried to actively cause the effect again.
My gut clenched harshly in what I got the sense was a warning, when the idea occurred to me, giving me a feeling of mild nausea. My heart continued to hammer in my chest at a unnatural pace, but I could feel it steadily slowing down to a more reasonable pace. I figured I'd be able to try that slowing thing again when the muscle that pumped my blood didn't feel like it would burst out of my torso from the effort.
But I didn't have time to experiment with that right now, since the nearby battle certainly wasn't waiting for me to get my act together.
Less than a minute later, the combatants could be found leaping away through the outskirts of the park and into the city, their frenetic conflict causing truly excessive amounts of destruction as they went. I was forced to pick up my pace of pursuit, when they landed on a white delivery van and kept on brawling without concern. I found myself surprised to find that I could now easily run fast enough to keep up with the vehicle, but given the blatant display of my fellow unnatural beings I really shouldn't have been so surprised.
The van shook and buckled, nearly tipping over, as the monkey heavily leaped high up during one of the truck's turns to land on a highway overpass. Seemingly without thinking, the girl hopped down and steadied the van to an upright position with a sudden and almost casual display of ridiculous strength, before leaping off to continue the chase.
I watched with no small amount of interest and slight glee, as their duel escalated in destructive power, as the two forced more and more tricks out of the other. The girl's yoyo was quickly proved to be a weapon of focused, concussive power -if a rather inaccurate one; nothing it came into contact with could help but buckle and crumble, except for the monkey. He seemed to not only be able to take such ridiculously powerful hits but sometimes outright shrug them off using his cape.
"Missed me!" shouted the surprisingly agile monkey, as he literally glided along the ground around her attacks. I had briefly observed with a strong wind that it was actually a small, strong, green, flying, mutant monkey. The unnaturally enhanced simian rushed forward. "Missed again!"
The girl was not a fighter, that much had been abundantly clear from the very get-go, and she was slowly -but surely- beginning to tire, gasping in exhaustion, as she backpedaled away from her opponent, not having the experience to know when to conserve her energy and focus on defense and counter-attacking, not that her weapon really helped in that respect anyway.
The monkey, on the other hand, while not a fighter himself, clearly had the brains to pick up a self-styled art that worked for him quickly enough, and it revolved around evasion and counterattacks to the girl's constant, self-tiring barrage.
Surprisingly, the battle ended in the girl's favor, despite the rather literal slip-up of her stumbling over several boxes of oranges. The fruit somehow tripped-up the flying monkey as well, and it allowed the girl to leap to her feet and wind up an attack that charged her yoyo with some of her aura.
"Yoyo Supreme!" she shouted, clearly getting a little too into the superhero thing and making up her own attack name, which -again- surprisingly worked.
"Yow!" The monkey was nearly bent in half and launched off his feet by the yoyo, coated in a brilliant, pink aura, driving into his chest and sending him flying into the side of a parked, beige car. He scrambled to his feet and leaped on top of the dented car. "I won't forget this!" he shouted before flying away hurriedly -little more than a sparkle in the sky thanks to the glint of his helmet.
"See ya'!" laughed the girl, pulling down her eyelid her one finger and rather childishly blowing a raspberry after him -to the mortification of a mother exiting the grocery store behind her with her young, impressionable child. I found myself restraining a series of silent cackles from atop a building.
Then, somehow, over the course of the next half-hour, the girl was able to round up every last escaped zoo animal and herd them back into the zoo to the gaping of crowds of onlookers. I was pretty stunned myself at the absurdity of it, but eventually chalked it up to her white aura making her seem naturally more trustworthy to fauna, just like every good magical girl should be.
"Please, people, no need to thank me! You can have my autograph later," the girl giggled loudly. Precocious one, wasn't she?
I truly had to clasp my hands over my mouth not to blow my position on a nearby roof through peals of laughter, when the same goofy, beige car the girl had badly damaged with a monkey projectile pulled up beside her, and the Mayor stepped out. I had trouble breathing from restrained laughter for a few seconds.
The Mayor chuckled nervously, as he addressed her. "Uh, Miss? In the future, take it easy on the buildings, and cars, and uh..." He trailed off, gesturing to a team of construction workers already on site and the trashed grocery store entrance. The Mayor's dented car behind him also rather went unsaid in that statement. "Now, as mayor, allow me to thank y-"
"Uh oh, time to go. Heh heh, later!" the girl declared, seemingly realizing for the first time just how much property damage there had been and leaping away high into the air.
"Hey, where are you going?!" the Mayor called. He was dutifully ignored, as she continued to moon hop away.
I chuckled quietly but found myself becoming pensive. Frankly, as exciting as that had been, the battle had easily caused tens of thousands in damage costs. For another, when she had been standing still, I had caught a glimpse of an emblem on the girl's jacket and white belt, a 'P'. Whatever could that mean, when I had a 'D'?
Suddenly, neck hairs standing on end, I got the extremely specific feeling that I was being watched and found myself involuntarily growling quietly, as my hackles rose. My head swiveled about, eyes glaring death around myself, as I slipped quietly and quickly away, hoping to outreach whatever prying eyes had laid their gazes upon me.
In a house built atop a hill overlooking the bay on the outskirts of the city, Professor Utonium and his son, Kenny Utonium, dutifully watched the monitors of their many screens in the lab. Some might call it strange and an invasion of privacy that the city of New Townsville had so many cameras; others would just call it convenient, and Professor Utonium would freely admit to being of the latter opinion in this time of crisis. Better to use whatever's available, when so much is at stake.
Unlike a good portion of the rest of the city's population, Professor Utonium was an intellectual, curious, and occasionally paranoid man -thus the cameras. Really, it was a wonder how he had managed to set so many up without notice, but considering where he lived and the residents thereof... The Utoniums even had their own orbiting space satellite for Pete's sake.
At the moment, the Professor was immersed in a combination of research and keeping an eye on the three girls, who had absorbed the white Z-rays. At least, he was until the green-jacketed one looked directly up at a camera that was zooming in on her face and called them out like a sane person, before smashing said camera. Needless to say, it got yelps of surprise from both Utonium and Ken.
Prof. Utonium quickly composed himself, muttering, "Three normal girls, somehow transformed by Chemical Z. We need to find out more about them..." His gaze drifted to screen, showing the shadowy figure of a young boy -clearly hardly any older than the girls- zipping over the rooftops and through dark alleys in deliberate evasive maneuvers. "and him... and quickly."
Squeezing his white Z-ray infused robot dog, Poochi, enthusiastically, Ken said, "Sounds good, Dad, we'll get right on it, but you have to admit their powers are pretty cool!"
Nodding in agreement but rather more concerned about possible negative side effects, Prof. Utonium shouted, "Alright, let's bring 'em in and run some tests!"
After a solid hour of evasion and a trip through the New Townsville Park till I no longer felt the invisible eyes on my back, I finally stopped in a deserted clearing in a more heavily forested section of the park. I was breathing hard by this point and was shortly leaning up against an oak tree for shade and support.
"Nosey, freaking, whoever," I muttered angrily. "Who even has the time to set up so many damn cameras, let alone actually maintain them properly?" At some point or another in my flight to anonymity, I had realized shortly that the 'invisible eyes' were, in fact, hundreds upon freaking hundreds of identical cameras scattered about in almost every conceivable location. 'Annoyed' didn't even begin to properly convene my feelings on the matter of such an extreme invasion public and personal privacy.
I huffed out a tired breath and took off my shades to wipe away a small bead of sweat on my forehead; that run had left me quite tired, though my stamina was now recovering at a rather decidedly unnatural speed. I paused briefly to frown at the reflection of my eyes in the black lenses.
Once brilliantly emerald irises, were now intimidating, glowing rings of ruby-red fire and fury, which seemingly involuntarily glared back with intensity, set into a pale skinned face of a hue that shared an ominous similarity to a corpse. I really hoped I could change back, because those eyes were honestly down-right scary, and scary people made babies cry, and that wasn't fair to my eardrums both as far as the babies and subsequently angry parents.
Again, I find myself self-labeled as rather not nice in most any sense of the word.
I replaced my new head accessory over my unnerving, altered eyes and once again checked over my slightly eccentric garb. I went through all my pockets, finding nothing except what had been in my pockets before the transformation, and drew my obsidian-black-bladed sword once more.
Upon a closer examination, I realized the hilt above the sword's grip was shaped like a copper gear -lain flat against and between the bottom of the blade and the top of the weapon's hilt- with a raised black sigil of a "D" at its center; the other side of the gear had an actual ticking clock imbedded in the top of the hilt in the place of a "D". Additionally, the time on the clock even looked to be correct for the position of the sun. I was starting to notice something of a pattern here.
I wondered briefly if a proper fusion with that strange energy yielded this theme to all targets, "P" for white rays and "D" for black ones. It was only speculation at the moment, since I'd only ever seen one other successful fusion like my own up to this point. For all I knew, it could be a gender thing or even a personalized thing for each individual target of the energy rays.
I sheathed my sword and examined the uniform's belt in more detail.
The gunmetal-grey belt was ridged and had several discolored parts that seemed like they might have a function. Examination thereof did not reveal much at all, nothing, in fact, so I fiddled with the circular buckle that was emblazoned with the black "D".
Suddenly there was a quiet "click", and my eyebrows shot up to my hairline; the "D" had been titled slightly. Realizing that the buckle could twist, I gave it a few more 90 degree turns. The last turn brought the buckle to the point of having been spun fully, and with a flash of somehow black inverted light, I found myself once more standing in the clothes I had been wearing before all this ridiculousness, save for the gunmetal-grey belt looped around my waist.
On another happy note, my backpack had returned to its rightful position on my back from whatever unreachable stuff-space it had been banished to prior.
Grinning widely, I whooped with joy and jumped a bit. After a few more self-congratulatory victory arm pumps, I examined the belt some more and found a pair of triggers that hadn't been there when I was transformed. To my satisfaction, the revealed feature of the first let me remove the belt, and the other allowed me to turn the belt invisible while wearing it over my casuals in broad daylight.
I soon discovered that twisting the circular buckle clockwise -instead of the counterclockwise turn needed to deactivate it- reengaged my transformation. After a few more switches -just to get the adrenaline of a new discovery out of my system, I returned to my unpowered form and switched the belt to stealth mode, whistling a happy tune, as I nearly skipped home.
Luckily, the universe seemed to have decided it was done with the shocks for the day. As a result, my journey home was wonderfully uneventful, and I remained unmolested by prying eyes, even if a bit of understandable paranoia lingered.
I unintentionally chuckled in a way that sounded undoubtably sinister, as I tossed my bag onto my bed at the Hiragana household and brushed a short lock of auburn hair away from my once more green eyes; New Townsville was about to become a very exciting place indeed.
Oh, if only I'd known what was to come.
I'd never have been so excited.
AN: Not really sure where this will go. I've got a vague alternate plot in my head and the beginning arc sort of jotted down, but I'm not sure how I'll go around implementing it.
Anywho, Read and Review! :D
