This chapter took more time than I expected to, though I actually finished it yesterday. I didn't originally feel to good about it and decided to spend some extra time on it. Also, still no hate mail. Did I jinx it yet?
Review replies:
centauri2002 – You sure know how to inflate my ego.
SychoBabbleX – Unfortunately not yet.
Binchou-tan – Your Internet will be put to good use sometime soon.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed since I posted the previous chapter (in no particular order):
Cactusmilkshake, glowie, silencer42, renny-chan (x2), SychoBabbleX, centauri2002, and Binchou-tan.
The Author, The Laptop, and the Travelers of Fan Fictions
By Sepiktik
Chapter 3: Plot Device
In which there is plot advancement hidden under softcore yuri smex.
Bubuzuke Woman stood of the roof of Fuuka Gakuen, scanning the area for villains.
And then she saw the most heinous villain in the history of villains.
Him.
She swooped down towards the villain and brandished her naginata.
Ricehater Teamaster glared at Bubuzuke Woman.
"Still at it, I see?"
"Be quiet! Your love of tea is admirable, but tea is best served with rice!"
"That's just your opinion."
"Nonsense! I will make you see the light!"
Natsuki was riding her motorcycle, brooding yet again. She decided to recycle her thoughts from the first chapter.
What is this? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?
And then she drove off a cliff.
The Author looked into the portal, disappointed.
With my typing skills, I'd spend more time writing her revival then she actually does living. What am I saying? I am the almighty Author! It's her fault for dying so much. But still, this can't go on. I need backup.
She opted to contact the Great Will of the Macrocosm again. Through instant messaging this time, though. Apparently, the universe didn't take too kindly to the use of at symbols. She decided to stick to the chat standards and use horrendous grammar.
xxcutiepie4812xx: r u der????
macrocosmsocorcam: ya hu iz dis?
xxcutiepie4812xx: da author
macrocosmsocorcam: om itsyou
xxcutiepie4812xx: om itsme
macrocosmsocorcam: ya wut
xxcutiepie4812xx: ded u c wut happen?
macrocosmsocorcam: om ded sum1 set u up da bomb??
xxcutiepie4812xx: no sry nuthin dat exitin
macrocosmsocorcam: oic
xxcutiepie4812xx: natuski's ded agen
macrocosmsocorcam: i sware dat gurl dies moar den kenny n excel put 2gethur
xxcutiepie4812xx: ya rly ken u liek gaurd hur n fix wen she diez?
macrocosmsocorcam: suer okies
xxcutiepie4812xx: wut r u wearin?
Natsuki continued riding her motorcycle, conveniently not remembering what just transpired.
As a result, she drove off another cliff. (Where do they keep coming from, anyway?)
The ACME production manager yelled at his workers.
"SPEED IT UP, MAGGOTS! WE HAVE AN ORDER FOR 8000 CLIFFS!"
xxcutiepie4812xx: moan
macrocosmsocorcam: damit i g2go fix natsuki agen
Natsuki continued her thought.
I need to find out the meaning of my life. I need to talk to Yamada.
She parked her bike in front of the Rorschach and entered the bar. She chose to sit down in a dimly lit area, next to a man in a hat.
Natsuki slipped the man some money in an envelope. The man opened the envelope and counted the money.
"Thanks."
And he left.
Crap, that wasn't Yamada.
Yamada entered the Rorschach and sat next to Natsuki.
"Sorry I'm late."
"I don't have any money this time."
"No problem. I'm in a good mood."
"What happened?"
"I just got laid." replied Yamada.
Blowup Doll lay on the couch.
Ugh. Absolutely no stamina.
"Don't want to hear about it. Just tell me about th-"
"The meaning of life? Oh, yeah. That."
"How did you know?"
"It would've taken too much effort to add back story into this scene."
"What?"
Yamada leaned back on his stool and fell down. He stood up and then sat back down. A rather pointless action, to most people, but few would know the true reason. The quotation marks needed a break.
Open Quote turned to look at Close Quote.
"I feel like such a whore. I've been used so many times recently."
"I don't mind."
"That's because you're a tool."
"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANY MORE! NO MATTER WHAT I DO, I'M NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU. I QUIT!
"Go to Fuuka Academy. There's a carnival on campus. No, not that kind of carnival.
He continued. "There's a booth on campus which mysteriously appeared earlier today. It's rumored that you will find what you seek there.
"Thanks.
Blue-Eyed Man grinned evilly like a grinning psychopathic psychopath grinning evilly.
I might not been able to do it myself, but at least she'll still die.
Natsuki exited the Rorschach. Normally, after a scene change, there wouldn't have been such a meaningless sentence. But this was a special case. It was to build up drama. Oh dear, that seems to have been botched quite badly.
A shot was heard. Natsuki fell to the ground, bleeding.
"BOOM, HEADSHOT!
Master Chief pumped his fist.
xxcutiepie4812xx: ooh im a boat to
macrocosmsocorcam: ffs not agen
A shot was heard. Natsuki fell to the ground, bleeding.
"DOUBLE KILL!
Master Chief pumped his fist.
xxcutiepie4812xx: IVE BEEN A VERY NAUGHTY GRILL
macrocosmsocorcam: ugh
The Great Will of The Macrocosm decided to take action. She set the respawn time to 1 second.
"TRIPLE KILL!
"KILLTACULAR!
"KILL FRENZY!
Master Chief reloaded his sniper rifle.
xxcutiepie4812xx: best cybar evar
macrocosmsocorcam: sum1 keepz spawnkillen natsuki
xxcutiepie4812xx: du sumtin bout it
macrocosmsocorcam: kk
The Great Will of the Macrocosm walked up to Master Chief and took his gun. Master Chief began to cry.
"Ssh, don't cry.
The Great Will of the Macrocosm gave Master Chief a pacifier. The Master Chief stopped weeping briefly to suck on the pacifier. Then the waterworks began again. He spit out the pacifier and glomped The Great Will of the Macrocosm.
"MOMMY!
Open Quote ran after Close Quote.
"I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN WHAT I SAID! PLEASE COME BACK TO ME!
Close Quote stopped for a moment. She turned around and said, "I'M SORRY FOR RUNNING AWAY! I'LL COME BACK!"
Open Quote caught Close Quote in a hug.
It looked something like this: '"'. (Period was just hanging around at the time.)
And dialogue became much less annoying to read.
Nina Wang and Erstin Ho stared at the sign in front of them, dismayed.
THE POOL IS CLOSED.
The chairman of the Searrs Foundation pulled his hand out of the vat, taking out a large bunch of cotton candy.
He handed it to the Obsidian Lord.
The cotton candy fell to the floor in slow motion. The Obsidian Lord followed it's motion downward with his one eye.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
He blinked his eye.
"At times like this, I wish I had hands."
"Don't worry, we'll make the next carnival handicapped-accessible."
-- xxcutiepie4812xx is now known as Author --
-- macrocosmsocorcam is now known as GWOTM --
Author: I need some help with my story.
GWOTM: I noticed. It's getting better, but you still haven't gotten anywhere near what's supposed to happen. Perhaps you should try not to get sidetracked.
Natsuki, through some masterfully used deus ex machina, was on the Fuuka Academy campus. She looked around the campus and saw many people. Some she recognized, some she didn't. Some who were students, some who were teachers. Some who were perverted old men. And she saw the booth that Yamada had mentioned. She walked up to the booth and peeked inside. She saw nothing. A high-pitched voice addressed her.
"Stand behind the yellow line, mortal!"
Natsuki was creeped out by the voice and stepped back.
"What is the meaning of my life?"she demanded.
Smoke began to exit from inside the booth. Natsuki was temporarily blinded.
"You should be more respectful to your elders."
Natsuki spoke softly.
"What is the meaning of my life?"
"You? Your life has no meaning. You're just a character in the universe, a pawn to be moved by more powerful beings. Your job well represents what you really are. You're living a story within a story within a story."
Natsuki fell to her knees.
"No! No! NO!"
She ran off with tears in her eyes. From the smoke, of course.
Inside the booth, Nao and Shiho hacked and coughed due to the smoke.
"Haha, that was good. cough. We managed to scare that brat."
"We still have some time left over."
"Turn that smoke machine off."
Shiho fiddled with the switch.
"I can't, it's broken."
Nao pushed Shiho to the grass and laid on top of her.
"What are you doing?!"
"Smoke rises. It makes sense that we get low."
"I guess it does."
"How did you manage to talk in such a high-pitched voice?"
"It wasn't hard... when you were touching me like that."
"Like this?" Nao brought her right hand to one of Shiho's breasts and squeezed.
Shiho blushed and squirmed under Nao's touch.
"Stop that!"
Nao brought her head closer to Shiho's and kissed her, silencing her protests. An alarm rang, totally ruining the mood.
"Dammit, we're out of time. And I was just getting to the good part."
A/N: Some statistics (Source: Google search results)
"silencing her protests" – 462 results.
"brought her right hand down" - 10,800 results.
And just out of curiosity: "brought her right hand up" - 15,400 results.
Moral: When in doubt, reach up.
Author: Got any other ideas on how I can spice up my story?
GWOTM: You could try a running joke.
It was Nao's turn to think in italics.
I just finished the scene, but the spotlight's still on me. I guess it's time to do something interesting.
Nao spotted Mikoto bouncing around outside of a portable toilet.
"Is Mai in there?"
"YEAH YEAH YEAH BEEN WAITING FOREVER."
"Let me tell you something about Mai."
Nao bent down and whispered something in Mikoto's ear.
Mikoto's eyes widened.
"NO WAY! REALLY?"
Mai came out of the portable.
"It smells really bad in there. Let's go back to the dorm."
Nao saw Natsuki running away from the campus.
"STOP!"
Nao walked up to Natsuki. And whispered something in her ear.
Natsuki looked puzzled for a moment. Then she started drooling. And then she started running again, although this time she headed towards the school.
Author: How many times can I use the same basic sequence?
GWOTM: Chapters frequently have a pattern, though most reviewers don't see it. Television series, for example, all have a template. In a detective show, in the first half, the detective solves the case. In the second half, he either finds out that he made a grievous error and got the wrong guy, or encounters some difficulty in proving his case.
Author: Shut up already.
GWOTM: Fine. You can use the same setup for your jokes, but if you overdo it, people will be able to see the punchline before it happens. And that's not good. Change it up a little every time you do it.
Author: Thanks.
Nao took out her cell phone and send Shizuru a text message.
In the Student Council room, Shizuru's phone beeped. She looked at her text messages and her eyes began to twinkle.
She started packing up her laptop.
Author: Have you ever wondered why Japanese people wear school uniforms?
GWOTM: It'd take too much work to design different clothing for every person in every 20-minute episode.
Author: You are wise.
Mai lay in her bed, tired from all of the day's events. She closed her eyes and sleep quickly took her.
Mikoto was also in her bed, pretending to be asleep. It was time to try the experiment. She stealthily snuck into Mai's bed, having perfected the art over the past year.
She could barely contain her excitement, though she decided to wait a few minutes before trying the next move. She then lifted Mai's shirt up.
Mai shifted in her sleep. Mikoto waited some more. Mikoto lifted up Mai's bra. Mai began mumbling. Mikoto, knowing it would only be a few minutes before Mai woke up, moved in for the kill. She tentatively licked at one of Mai's nipples.
Mai sat up in her bed, seeing herself exposed and with Mikoto on top of her.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
"MAI, MAI! YOU DO TASTE LIKE RAMEN!"
Nao pulled away from the door, snickering.
One down, two to go.
Author's note: This chapter is actually about double the size of the last chapter. Although bigger is not always better. (Or so I hear.) I think the content of this chapter was nearing Defcon-M, although I don't consider it anything inappropriate for teens. Anyway, it was intended in a way to move the plot closer to its actual beginning (and I consider it a success in that sense.) The next chapter will pick this up from where this stopped.
I briefly thought of giving Nao's manipulations a separate story, and even came up with a title (The Way to a Woman's Heart).
Anyway, I hoped you all liked this chapter. By the way: "tentatively licked" - 3,250.
NEXT CHAPTER: Ambition