Episode 1: A Student, Bad Professors, and A New Hero
George Tyson groaned loudly as he looked at his homework, which lay on the table in front of him. The due date, which was five days from now, had been bolded and underlined on the top of the assignment. He wished he could skip doing it in favor of going out to the movies with his girlfriend, but sighed and began typing the essay up despite having reservations about doing it.
"Still, Professor Larson is a kind of mean, making us do this assignment so soon after Spring Break." He said to himself. At that moment, as if to spite him, a small GI Joe figure chose to fall off the shelf and knock off a small replica of a US Army tank. George grumbled when he saw this mess, because he hated having to fix such fragile models, and after he was sure that no more action figures would be falling in every direction on their shelves above his laptop and work area he returned to the Microsoft Word document he had opened on top of the Firefox window, which was currently playing one of the opening themes from his favorite anime, Gundam 00.
George worked feverishly into the night, not even bothering to note what time it was until his stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had missed dinner. It was now 6:30 and the dining hall would be packed with students seeking a hot meal after a long day at school. So he decided, after debating whether or not to stand in a long line at the entrance to the dining hall, to eat in his dorm instead. After opening the window a crack to let in the cool spring air, he walked out of his room and opened the fridge to take out a package of ready-made sushi.
The sushi, having been the fridge all afternoon, was very cold, and the junior first placed it in the microwave to warm it up. As the smell of crab meat and soy sauce slowly permeated the entire first floor of the Townhouse he was living in, George was only dimly aware of a sudden cold breeze coming in from the open window. The microwave soon beeped to let the junior know his dinner was ready, and he whistled a happy tune as he took the sushi and a pair of chopsticks and headed back to his room to eat.
After locking the door behind him, George headed for his desk chair so he could surf the Internet while eating his dinner, but someone was sitting in it. The chair was now occupied by a dark Asian youth with a gray shirt and dark pants. He was staring intently at the computer screen, which had an open MS Word document with the words "I HATE PROF LARSON" written on it in big bold letters.
"You hate teacher?" the visitor asked, and George, after getting over his shock upon seeing someone in his room, nodded.
"Professor Larson's okay, but he really asks for too much sometimes." He said. "I wish he would give us all extensions. I can't finish this essay in five days—the whole assignment is going to be fifteen pages long!"
"I can help with that." As George watched, the person sitting in his chair reached a hand into his jeans pocket to pull out a small silver medallion with a rhino design on one side and an X shaped design on the other. Then, to his shock, a coin slot suddenly appeared on the dude's forehead, and without so much of a grimace the mysterious stranger tossed the coin into the slot, complete with a ka-ching sound as the coin hit something inside of the slot. Similar coins then covered the entire person's body, and George yelped as the human was replaced with a monster whose head sported elephant tusks and small rhino horns. Its legs were reminiscent of elephant feet.
George was even more surprised when another creature sprouted from the monster's back. After crawling on the floor for a bit, this new monster stood upright, and George nearly fainted upon seeing this humanoid armored monster with features of a rhino—a very mean rhino. Instead of blunt teeth, it had sharp fangs sticking out over its lower lip, and every limb had horns protruding from its gray skin. It had piggy pink eyes and seemed to rely more on smell than it did its sight, because it took some steps toward George and sniffed him all over before appearing to be satisfied.
The first monster had by now disappeared and been replaced by the mysterious stranger.
"What is that thing?" George asked, as the stranger walked over to him and began wolfing down his sushi. He tried backing up and snatching the sushi away, but the stranger frowned when he did this, so he let the teenager finish the rest of his dinner. "And why are you eating my food? You can go buy your own at the Go-Mart here on campus."
"Food is good." The guy replied. "My Yummy will go get Professor for you."
"Er, what? That thing won't last a minute past Campus Police if you let it loose."
"It is a Rhino Yummy born of your desire. No, born from my desire to see your desire come true."
"Y-Yummy?"
"Yes, that is its name. I am Gamel. My Yummy will now destroy Professor for you."
"Hey wait, your Yummy thing can't just waltz into class and get—OY!" George whirled when he saw the Rhino Yummy suddenly charge toward the locked door. Not wanting to have to pay for any damages, he quickly opened the door to let the monster out, but seconds later a loud crash told him that the monster had messed up the Townhouse after all. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That thing did not just punch a monster sized hole in the lounge room wall! This is going to be one expensive work order, man. Hang on, I'll go call Campus Police. Animal Control needs to round up that thing, and fast."
"Why?" asked Gamel, tilting his head in confusion. "What's Animal Control?"
Hearing this, George slapped his head and reached into his pocket for his cell phone. After finding the right number in his address book he let the phone ring a couple of times before noting it had been picked up on the other end of the line and put it to his ear. "Chief Nelson, there's something I think you should know—"
Professor Larson was in his office, grading the latest stack of papers he had received from his students the Friday before, when he happened to hear a couple of loud shrieks coming from the history department office down the hall. Then a familiar voice—Professor Bender?—yelled for security to come and "take away this hooligan of a student attempting a crazy prank," only to join the chorus of shrieks when someone bellowed like a wounded animal over the sound of breaking wood.
Heavy footsteps could now be heard as whatever had scared the faculty members in their cozy little office headed in a whole new direction. Judging by the loudness of the noise with every step, Professor Larson thought it was heading in his direction and quickly closed the door, hoping whoever was out there would leave him alone. But the footsteps only grew louder, and he winced as that something roared just outside his door. To his surprise, a gruff voice called out to him soon after his ears began ringing as a result.
"Are you Professor Larson?" the mysterious voice asked in heavily accented English. The speaker also sounded like he was talking with his mouth full, so Professor Larson asked him to repeat the question before he finally understood, and nodded.
"Yes I am. Do you need something?"
"You!" the voice answered. He heard the heavy footsteps recede a bit, and before he knew it the door exploded and a strange creature that looked like a rabid humanoid rhino with fangs instead of normal rhino teeth, complete with huge ham-sized fists that were in addition covered with metal armor burst into the room. "Hate Professor Larson!"
"Holy shamoley, what did you just do to my door?" Professor Larson wanted to know, but the monster only roared at him in reply. "Oh man. Where's my Blackberry? I need to notify police."
Without further ado, Professor Larson reached into his pocket for the Blackberry he always carried around in case someone called him while he was at the College and quickly speed dialed 1 to get the attention of Campus Police. A friendly woman answered him, but she never got to finish greeting her caller, because almost as soon as she said 'good evening' the Rhino Yummy lowered its oversized rhino head and charged, breaking through the table and driving its foot-long horn deep into the human's shoulder, causing him to scream loudly as the horn crushed bone and broke skin, tissue, and blood vessels alike before being withdrawn carelessly, causing more damage than it had during the actual goring.
Soon after Professor Larson had been gored by the bloodthirsty monster, almost all the history professors in the vicinity of their colleague's office rushed to his aid. The monster turned upon seeing the first of these professors arrive at the scene, and managed to make a getaway. Nobody stopped it, as they were just too shocked to move when he came charging out of the room with a bloody horn on his head, until their injured friend and fellow professor demanded that first aid be administered to his shoulder immediately. The local EMS team was soon notified of the emergency, and the history department secretary ordered someone to find the building janitor, who arrived as soon as she could with a first aid kit, which contained much needed bandages. Professor Larson was luckily alive and kicking after the attack, though he found it hard to speak because the pain in his shoulder overwhelmed him. He did, however, tell everyone that the monster was the one who had broken the door, and that he had been in the middle of a call with Campus Police when the attack occurred.
"The medical team is on their way." Said the friendly woman who had answered the phone earlier. The phone was still connected so the police could document the incident. The speaker function had been activated so that everyone on both sides of the line could hear. "But sir, are you sure it was a giant gray rhino thingy that attacked you?"
"It was shaped like a rhino, but no rhino I've ever seen, on TV or otherwise, walked on two legs, was humanoid in shape, and had fangs in place of regular teeth." Professor Larson answered, stopping every couple of words to wince as the tight bandages were wrapped around his shoulder. "I'm not sure if it was a student in disguise, or a real monster."
"We'll try to find this monster right away, sir." The woman answered. "Hang in there."
"Oh, I'm hanging." Professor Larson replied with a grin, and tried to sit up, but his colleagues noted he was still bleeding and told him to lie down to minimize further loss of blood. "Is it just me, or am I feeling a little lightheaded?"
"There's a hole in your shoulder and you're losing tons of blood." Professor Weinstein observed. "Keep applying pressure, everyone!"
"Yes!" everyone else chorused, and some sat down to pray as they all waited for the EMS team to come take their wounded friend and colleague to the local hospital.
After being tipped off by George and notified of Professor Larson's injuries by professors in the History department via a campus wide email, Campus Police deployed almost instantly following reports of a monster running wild on campus so that they could apprehend it. While most patrol vehicles went out in search of the creature, some police officers stopped by George's Townhouse to check up on everyone in the vicinity and make sure the students were safe.
Meanwhile, Ankh, Kristy, and I were crowded around a Ride Vendor that had mysteriously been installed on the first floor of Evans Hall. Due to a lack of knowledge of how these things really worked, it had been labeled as 'broken' by a member of the dining hall staff and a big "OUT OF ORDER, DO NOT USE" sign subsequently slapped to its front.
"'Do not use', huh?" I asked, as Ankh began tearing off the copious amounts of tape that held the sign in place, and produced a Cell Medal from my pocket. A little while ago we had argued over who would become OOO and Kristy had agreed to let me be the heroine, since she hated fighting and couldn't bear to think of lifting even a finger against such a dangerous monster running on campus. Not to mention that she had not even the slightest clue how to do even the most basic karate moves. (Ankh, being a Greeed, had sensed the Yummy almost as soon as it had been "born" in George's room a while ago and had sent out a Taka Candroid to find the two of us, which is why we knew about the current situation on campus and had had the argument.) "Let's cash this cow."
"Make sure that when you engage the Yummy you get more Cell Medals than you can actually use in a single day." Ankh reminded me as I was about to put the Cell Medal in the coin slot. Had he known we were going to be fighting Gamel's Yummy he wouldn't have said that (you'll see why in a few pages or so), but he didn't have the ability to sense what kind of monster was currently causing a big sensation on campus, at least not yet. "These things aren't free."
"Wait, they're not?" Kristy asked, and her eyes widened when the coin went into the machine and hit the unseen bottom with a loud clatter. "Oh silly me, this is a vending machine. Of course things in vending machines aren't free." She then watched as I punched a button underneath the Batta Candroid. The Candroid fell down from its assigned slot and into a compartment below so I could reach past a plastic hinged door and retrieve it while an automated voice coming from a hidden speaker in the Ride Vendor said 'Batta Can' in Japanese accented English. "Here you go. Your very own walkie-talkie. Keep in touch with me and Ankh if you need to, especially if you get attacked. We'll be by your side in a jiffy if things get a little rough."
"So I just open it like this to activate it?" Kristy asked, and without further ado she popped the pull tab on the top of the Candroid, allowing it to transform into its animal mode. After seeing what kind of animal it really was, she let it drop to the ground as if it was a poisonous snake. "Ugh, it's a bug! Get it away, get it away!"
"Aw, it's so cute." I said, scooping up the grasshopper and taking a few moments to pet it before telling it to return to its Can Mode. "Geez, Kristy, it won't bite. It doesn't even have a mouth!"
"But you know I hate bugs! Good Lord, isn't there another Candroid that can do the same thing as this one can?" (Wow, that's a lot of 'can's in one sentence.)
"Well, this one is perfectly harmless." I answered, and shoved the Batta can into her hand even though she screeched "Eww!" at the top of her lungs and tried to drop it once more. I then faced the vending machine again to make it eject a yellow and silver colored Tora Candroid in its Can Mode. "According to police reports, there's a Yummy in town, so we might need a Combo to take it down. Ratoratah and Toridevendor should do the trick."
"That's another Cell Medal down the drain, isn't it?" Ankh now piped up, causing me to jump a little, since he had been so quiet the past couple of minutes that I thought he had left. "Geez, woman, don't waste these things! I need all the Cell Medals you can spare if I want my body back!"
"Chill, Bird Boy, don't get your feathers all in a bunch." I answered while inserting yet another Cell Medal—causing Ankh to scream bloody murder—and pushing the big prominent black button just below the vending machine window. A electronic whir was then heard, and I pushed Kristy away before the vending machine could fall on her after transforming into a motorcycle. "Cool beans. My own sweet ride."
"Don't let people see you've parked that thing in here." Kristy warned me as I began fondling the bike as if it was the most precious thing on Earth. "Might want to take it outside before you start drooling over it like a little kid on Christmas morning."
Hearing this, I immediately stopped ogling the "sweet ride" and grinned sheepishly before grabbing the handlebars of the motorcycle and steering it toward the direction of the door. "Right, right. Sorry about that. But man, this thing is so cool!"
"You know what would really be sick?" I heard Ankh say sarcastically behind me. "If, by the time you're done using my Cell Medals by the end of the day, the only thing that's left of me is a mere finger! Yeah, that'll be cool!"
Hearing this, I turned to give the Greeed a look which indicated I was quite exasperated by his complaining by now. "Oh, please don't be such a drama king." At this point we reached the door and I made sure the entire bike was a good distance away from the automatic doors before sitting astride it and making sure that the helmet that had been hanging off of one of the bike's handlebars was secured properly on my head. The engine started almost instantly after I placed my feet in their proper footrests on either side of the seat, and I was soon shooting down the sidewalk. "Whoa! Geez, where are the brakes on this thiiiiinnnnggggg—!"
The Rhino Yummy growled loudly as it walked out, bloody horn and all, out of the Science Building. After fulfilling George's desire to see Professor Larson be "punished" somehow, it was now going berserk since no more orders were given. But what a sight greeted its piggy little eyes!
A lot of policemen had gathered at the entrance to meet it with guns drawn and sirens wailing. But before any of the officers could fire at will after being told to make be ready to shoot the creature down my Ride Vendor screeched to a stop beside a patrol car parked beside a mulberry bush to the side of the gate leading into the Science Building Courtyard.
Another screech followed, signaling Ankh and Kristy's arrival at the scene as well. Some officers gave us suspicious looks as we approached, but when the three of us made no move to confront the creature ourselves at first, their Chief of Police just shrugged, told us to stay out of harm's way, and gave the command to fire.
The sound of gunshots then rang out as all fifteen officers in the area fired their weapons at once. The monster roared as the bullets were pounded into him, but his armor was merely dented, and then only slightly. A chip of horn broke as a result of a couple of the bullets bouncing off its surface, but that was it.
"Gamel's Yummy, huh?" Ankh commented. "Damn, we're not going to get a lot of Cell Medals from this guy."
"Why not?" I asked. "I thought you said they're made up of these things?"
"Not every Yummy though. Gamel's a simple-minded fool, and the Yummy is born from him rather than the human who holds a desire. So it's going to be more powerful than the average Yummy—Gamel's the heavy animal type of Greeed—but won't net you much of a profit if you're going Medal hunting because its parent is so narrow-minded, its drive to fulfill a desire isn't very strong and therefore it will produce little to no Medals."
"I see. But Ankh, if you want me to kill this thing, we better hurry. The police aren't going to be able to stop a charging rhino."
"I know that! But first, you'll have to break the Seal." The Greeed then shook its arm to reveal a strange stone from his wrist. It was rectangular in shape, but had circular patterns on it. "After I told Eiji to give this back to me, I said a spell that would prevent someone else from using it. Here, take it. I don't know if it'll work, but we could always try." With that, he slapped the strange object onto my stomach, causing me to let out a grunt of surprise.
"Oof! Geez, man, you didn't have to do it so hard…ack!" At this point I noticed that the stone had somehow changed into a mechanical belt of some sort. "Uh, what is this?"
"It's called the OOO Driver. Huh, so it works. In that case, take these too." Ankh then shook out three different colored Core Medals, one of which was the Taka Medal he had shown me and Kristy a couple of weeks ago. "Eiji normally puts in the Taka Medal, then the Batta, and finally the Tora. That means the Medals go in right, left, and center in that order, but you can put them in the belt in whatever order you would like. However, to activate the transformation sequence, you have to take that circular Scanner currently snapped on the right side of your belt and scan each Medal from right to left. This part can't be reversed or anything like that, so don't you dare try scanning it in the other direction or you'll screw this whole thing up."
"Like this?" After following Ankh's instructions on how to load the belt, I then scanned the belt using the provided Scanner and was surprised when it started singing…or rather, rapping.
"Ta-to-ba!" It said in a male robotic voice. "Ta-to-ba, Ta-to-ba!"
"Tatoba? Ankh, is it just me, or did this thing just rap out a beat?"
"Never mind the song. Now get going. I'll let you know if I think you're ready for a Combo, as these things pack a punch, and you need to practice with Tatoba form first."
"Uh, um, how does this thing work?"
"Good God, woman!" It was at this moment that Ankh really ran out of patience and spun me around rapidly so that I was soon facing an enraged Yummy, who was screaming "KILL POLICE!" at the top of its lungs. "Just think about what you want to do, and the suit will respond. Eiji was dumber than you, but at least he was quick to take action and not ask too many questions."
"O-Okay. I'll do my best. But seriously, how do you work this thing? Like, do I have to call out Tiger Claw power or something?"
As if on cue, the huge folded up claws attached to the yellow armor on my wrists suddenly sprang forward to cover the backs of my hands. After running my hand over the weapons, I realized just how sharp the claws really were and whistled a tune of disbelief. "Gosh, you could really deal some serious damage with these things."
"Just do it!" Ankh finally yelled while I was taking a closer look at the mechanism that had caused the claws to spring forward, and I got the message. Without bothering to ask him for the umpteenth time how something worked I just ran forward and began slashing away like a madwoman. "That's it! Now you're getting it."
"But will she be okay?" Kristy wanted to know as I grabbed the Rhino's horn and started bashing its face with my fist, which quickly became sore because the Yummy's armor was hard to crack.
"Well, if she messes up and dies here, it's not my problem. I'm not the one fighting, that's for sure."
"Wow, maybe Michelle was right about you. You're such a self-centered, egoistic, desire-oriented person."
"Hey, I just so happen to be born from a swirling cauldron of wicked desire. I can't help but be greedy, okay? It's our nature."
Hearing this, Kristy winced, and she didn't say anything back, because the boy who used to be her boyfriend was now acting so insanely absurd, she didn't feel like she could talk with him again for a while.
"Ouch! Ankh, a little help here! This guy's tough!" While Kristy and Ankh were talking the Rhino Yummy had tried to charge me and managed to push me to the ground.
"Switch the middle Medal with this!" The Greeed called back, and I fought the urge to puke as a Kamikiri (Mantis) Core Medal flew through the air towards me. "It might make things a little easier."
"But I don't like mantises, they freak me out!"
"Kisama—! Just put the Medal in the belt and get moving!"
"Was that an insult—OW! Watch where you're aiming that horn, you big perissodactyl! Didn't your mother ever tell you that girls are delicate?"
"Kill OOO! Kill police! Punish everybody!" The Rhino Yummy answered, not at all sorry that he had just stomped on me while I was trying to reach the green colored Medal lying a few inches from a rain gutter on the sidewalk. After rolling away from him before his giant foot could come down on me a second time I managed to shove the Kamikiri Medal in the middle slot after tossing the Tora Medal back towards Ankh despite feeling pain every time I moved. Doctors would later tell me that the pain was because I got stomped on a little too hard, and my muscles were bruised.
"Ow, ow, ow…okay, I got this." I said, and followed Ankh's subsequent directions to scan the Medals again after I had done so the second time to activate the new combination's Scanning Charge finishing attack. After watching my mantis-like wrist mounted blades glow green and become slightly larger and sharper, I charged toward the monster and winced in pain as it blew up after being knocked backwards into a tree. "Did I do it?"
"Good work." Was all Ankh said after I handed over the single Cell Medal the Yummy had yielded while exploding, and I rolled my eyes at him as he rode off with it and Kristy using the RideVendor, leaving me alone with a flaming tree to my left and a bunch of officers shooting a million questions at my still transformed self standing next to a small crater the Rhino Yummy had made in the ground while he was rampaging.
"Hey, you can't leave me here like this. Oh man, what do I do? Um, sorry guys, but I gotta go." With that, I returned to my own RideVendor and, while babbling apologies left, right, and center, left the scene.
George laughed nervously as he faced the police officer writing some observations in his small notepad in front of the wall-turned rubble in the Townhouse East area of campus. "I swear I have no clue how this monster came to be." He said. "It was just weird. One minute I'm talking to this guy, and next thing I know—poof! This rhino thing comes out from behind the stranger and charges out my door. I didn't do a thing."
"Let me get this straight son. You were talking with someone one minute and next thing you know the monster appeared?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you have any idea if this person you were talking to is a fellow student? Did he identify himself in any way?"
"Well, he did say his name was Gamel, and that the rhino thingy was called a Yummy, and also that it was born from my desire. No, he didn't say if he was a student though. Now before you ask, I swear I didn't summon the thing directly. I just told G-man I hated Professor Larson…oh no. Something happened to Professor Larson, right?"
"Well, to put it simply, your professor won't be grading any homework any time soon. He's not dead, but I heard he was bleeding quite severely. Apparently the monster gored him."
"Oh. My. God."
"So in a way, you have indirectly brought trouble not only to yourself, but to your classmates as well. Now that you've admitted to—indirectly—unleashing the monster, you face being subject to disciplinary actions. On the other hand, you will have a substitute professor teaching the course, and so your homework will be due to that person. No extensions will be given."
"Crap."
"As for the monster, it has been put down. Some crazy kid in spandex got in front of Chief Nelson and blew it up in our faces. Our guns didn't do much damage to it, so it's a good thing someone else was there to finish the job. But whoever this person is, though, I wish they really wouldn't place themselves in such danger like that. It's our job as police officers to protect the community, and we can't rely too much on the efforts of a hot-headed individual. Not to mention that person deliberately put themselves in the line of fire and it could have ended badly."
"Spandex? Oh cool, so Power Rangers are real. I gotta meet them."
"Uh kid, I said it was just one person in spandex. She's likely female, judging by the voice."
"Was it the Pink Ranger?"
"*Sigh* There's no stopping you, eh, Tyson? Tell you what, you can believe what you want. Besides, I need to continue this investigation. So. You take care of yourself, all right? For now, just hurry up and get ready to move out. I hear they're reassigning you to a room in Eickhoff Hall. It's too dangerous to live here now; the walls still standing could collapse at any moment."
"Yes sir." George gave the officer a mock salute before rushing off to do as he was told.
The next day, Kristy and I met at the library so we could mull over a particularly confusing Venn Diagram highlighting the similarities and differences between the Cold War and the Red Scare of the early 20th century. We understood that they were both fueled by a fear of Communism, but the author of the text that accompanied the Venn Diagram was an expert so engrossed in his field, we found it hard to decipher his words into plain, everyday English. The fact that we were looking up unknown words like 'paradigm' in the dictionary every five minutes or so didn't help manners at all. And Ankh, as usual, wasn't being of much help. Instead of taking a copy of the text for himself and trying to assist us in our school work, he was tossing the Taka Candroid (in can mode) from one hand to the other, looking very bored. An iPad lay on the table beside him and was currently displaying a 3D model of his missing Peacock Core Medal. If he was doing anything of note, it was researching the latest achievements and leaked reports from the Kougami Foundation.
"Um Ankh, we have a five page paper on the Cold War due soon." I reminded him after noticing that he didn't look like he was going to stop playing with the Candroid anytime soon. "You might want to start writing now or Daniel Piers will get a 0 in the Professor's grade-book 2 days from now."
"Pfft! Greeeds don't need to study. Or write. Or do anything that is not related to the cultivation of desire."
"Dude, that's just wrong. You're in Daniel's body. He often gets straight A's. You keep his grades up or you'll be found out by his parents. Now get to work, and make sure you do a good job of it. Use his memories to help you craft your answers."
"Tch!" Ankh's lips twitched in irritation when he heard me lecture him on the importance of keeping up his—or rather Daniel's—grades. "Who are you to tell me what I should desire?"
"You get those A's or I'll call Mrs. Piers myself and tell you you've been a naughty boy. Now get to work."
"To tell you the truth, I've had it with the boring student life—"
"Still 4 more days till the end of the school semester. Then we have finals. If you can make it until the 18th of May, I'll let you have all the ice candy you want."
Ankh, who was not interested in what I had to say, suddenly perked up the moment he heard 'ice candy' a.k.a. popsicles come out of my mouth.
"Huh. Really?"
"Yes, we'll buy three packages of them when they go on sale next week, but only if you get an A on your next paper by Monday."
"Tch!" Ankh's lips twitched again and he clucked his tongue loudly before standing up and placing the Taka Candroid over my stack of class notes. I glared at him for doing this, since my eyes had been scanning them in preparation for an upcoming test, but he didn't bother to move the thing even after I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes in exasperation in response to his unruly behavior. "I'm in. So. I guess I had better get started, then."
"Yes, please. There's a computer lab downstairs you can use. And while you're battling writer's block, try not to injure anyone, will you? The last thing I want is a school newspaper article about a floating hand attacking faculty and students alike because you got mad at someone whistling or something while you're working." Here I lowered my voice a little, because I didn't want the people sitting next to us to hear what I was about to say. "I'm already in the paper because some guy snapped a photo of me riding the RideVendor back to Evans Hall while I was still in Takakiriba form. Really, I can't stand the publicity."
"Fine, I'll try to restrain myself. If I happen to stir up any commotion in the library, I will claim full responsibility."
"Such as paying the hospital bills of your victims?"
"Tch! As if I will do that! Do I look like I'm made out of money? Besides, if the weak humans get hurt, it's not my fault. You might as well blame them for being unable to stand up to people with superhuman strength."
"Well, do Medals count as money? We do use them as if they were actual coins for those RideVendors. And you did just swear to take full responsibility, so that would imply that you will accept the blame for everything that goes wrong down there. And not too many people possess superhuman strength, so that's a problem you might want to be fully aware of before you start smacking people left, right, and center."
"Details, details! Spare me the lectures, Michelle. I don't want to hear anymore. Call me if any of the Candroids we sent out earlier inform us on the whereabouts of my fellow Greeed." After throwing a nasty look at me over his shoulder, he got up and stalked off toward the elevator that would take him down to the library's ground floor.
"You know, I'm thinking we need a catchphrase to start off every battle." I said to Kristy and Ankh as we were dining on steak, mashed potatoes, and corn that night in Evans Hall. Since all three of us had coincidentally ordered the same thing, we had dumped all our portions onto one large plate and had gotten smaller, empty bowls filled with rice for ourselves so that we could eat our food the Asian way. Ankh was much more comfortable eating like this, especially since he had already spent half a year in Japan with Eiji Hino—who, by the way, occasionally called Ankh to see how he was doing—and didn't like using Western utensils if he didn't have to. The previous Kamen Rider OOO had even mailed a picture of himself to Kristy upon request, and now she was in love with him. (I actually caught her trying to mail a foot wide pink Valentine heart with a sappy sounding love letter addressed to him to Japan. It was kind of amusing to hear her admit she loved someone two years younger than her, since her previous crush had been a guy much, much older than Eiji, and she had said she liked older guys.) "If we say it in Japanese, it'll be even cooler. How about 'saa, omae no Medals o kazoero'?" *Credit to someone on Henshin Justice Forums who thought this up, it's too awesome to not be used somehow!
"'Now, count up your Medals'?" Ankh was not amused when he translated this into English for Kristy's benefit, since her Japanese was very bad. "That's lame. You need a better phrase. Like 'watashi wa…Greeed. Saa, omae o korosu.'"
"Ankh!" I immediately got a little miffed when I heard him tell me I needed to say "I am Greeed. Now, I will kill you." before every battle. "That's not nice." At this point I heard the sound of keys being pressed and noticed that my friend's fingers were pushing buttons on her smartphone. "Oi, Kristy, what are you doing?"
"I signed up for an international texting plan and had Eiji sign up for it too so we could talk to each other whenever we wanted. He just sent me a message." With a smile, she flashed the cell phone screen at Ankh. "He says 'what's up' and 'how you doing'?"
"Anything else?" I wanted to know, and Kristy nodded before admitting she was having trouble figuring out what he had sent to her. "Let me see. Ah, he says 'Ankh, I hope you haven't lost any Medals lately. Try to rein in your temper whenever possible, okay? Good luck! Hina says hi. And Kristy, thanks for the cute pink Valentine. Btw, you're cute too.'"
"AHH!" Kristy, upon hearing this, immediately went into hysterics. "OMG! He likes me too! Give that back, I want to read it myself!"
In response, I frowned as I returned the phone to her. "I thought the reason you gave it to me was because you couldn't read it yourself. At least, not very well."
"Oh, don't be so smart-alecky. But seriously, this is like, awesome. No guy I went out with would admit that. That's why they were so dull."
"Wait, how does he even know you're…no, you didn't!"
"Yep, I sent him a picture of all of us, so he knows what we all look like. In a previous text he told me that it was either 'cool' or 'freaky' that Ankh picked for his new body another blonde guy. Sigh, Japanese is so damn hard to understand."
"For your information, it was only a coincidence that I happened to pick Daniel Piers." Ankh clarified, and jabbed the air with his chopstick for emphasis. "He just happened to be half-dead, which is good for me because I don't have to fight him to gain control. I could care less about a host's hair color. End of story."
Hearing him say this, I gave a dramatic gasp and made a 'tsk, tsk' noise at him. I then looked at my watch and noted it was time to get to my next class. "Well, it's about time for me to go. I'll see you after Bio lab, okay guys?"
"Good luck." Kristy answered and gave me a little nod as I began picking up my plate and pair of chopsticks and began heading toward the tray return area at the back of the cafeteria.
"A part-time job, you say?" the woman behind the counter of the campus bookstore repeated when Ankh asked her for more information about the help wanted poster he had seen posted outside. "Sure. We're still looking for a cashier—perhaps you would like to oblige us by filling in for Mia Paulson until the end of finals? The pay won't be very impressive of course, but at least you'll get paid, and that' s what counts."
"I'll take it then, I suppose." Ankh answered. "I do need to pay a certain someone back for eating them partly out of—what do you people call it—hearth and home."
"Great. Then you can start right now. There's a spare uniform in the closet." The woman then beckoned to Ankh and steered him into the back room before taking a blue T-shirt with yellow letters forming the words "Yes, I Can Help You" on the front of the garment from a box on a rack filled with similar boxes containing store merchandise. "This should fit you. Now go over to the check-out counter and ask Sally for help on how to operate a cash register." The woman now handed Ankh the shirt and watched as he took off the shirt he was currently wearing and replaced it with the one she had just given him.
"Tch! I'm not dumb, you lowly human."
"Hey, watch your language, young man. You can't talk to your supervisor like that. Now go find Sally. She'll tell you what to do. At the end of the work week, come and see me for your first paycheck."
"Humph." Ankh gave the woman one last look of contempt before he reluctantly went off to do as he was told.
