a/n: which one below looks angrier to you?

"DUMB-ASS CYNTHIA?" Cynthia roared

"DUMB-ASS CYNTHIA ! ! ? !" Cynthia roared

i just don't understand the reasoning behind filtering out multiple exclamation/question marks automatically. sigh.


Pt 9

But meanwhile, Cocona and the boy were learning more and more about the shadier side of the DT biz. So one day telling Nana to shove it, they walked out the door, ready to embark upon their very own DT-whore business venture. Nana chased after them with a meat cleaver. Some of Lady Cloche's Gergo goons were hanging about, trying to look all badass in their cute Gergo ears and fluffy armor. Cocona and the boy sped past them. The sight of a near-naked boy running through the streets wearing only girl's panties didn't even make them blink. Then Nana came roaring after, shouting buckets of nasty obscenities and looking like six kinds of murder. One of the goons yawned and looked up into the sky.

"...up your fucking ass!" Nana was yelling. "And then I'll take those Gergo panties and make you shit on 'em and then make you eat - -"

The goons quickly sprang into action. They nabbed Nana and beat her into submission, arresting her for Plotting To Commit Sacrilege Against Gergo Merchandise, a crime punishable by a nice, happy stay in Gergo Re-Education Camp, and perhaps a broken jaw, depending upon the severity of the offense. So Nana found herself staring wistfully at the tiny patch of sky visible from her barred window, dearly missing her freedom, and also dearly missing four of her own teeth.

"Whew, that was close," the boy panted. "Good thing those soldiers came to save us."

"Like fuck they did," Cocona griped. "They're always lookin' for an excuse just to kick someone's ass. C'mon, let's go get some decent clothes."

"We don't have any money."

Cocona sighed. "Haven't you ever heard of extortion?"

"What's 'extortion'?"

Instead of facepalming while gritting her teeth and growling buckets of nasty obscenities in Hymmnos, Cocona simply decided to demonstrate. Finding some well-to-do old fart who looked like a perv - - and since well-to-do old farts usually end up looking like pervs it wasn't that difficult - - Cocona quickly forced a compromising situation upon him in public with the near-naked boy. "EEEEE, NOOOO! I don't wanna touch your Song Tower!" she squealed loudly while pinned underneath the suddenly bewildered old fart. More Gergo goons nearby overheard the racket and began hustling toward them, thinking it might be fun to beat up an old fart while pretending to look like heroes. "Listen, Bub!" Cocona snarled in the now frightened old fart's ear. "You fork over an assload of cash, I tell the soldiers it was all a big misunderstanding or some shit! Got it?" Two minutes later, Cocona and the boy happily skipped their way to the nearest clothing boutique with an assload of cash. But having nowhere to pocket the wad of Leafy, the boy just stuffed it into his panties...right where it made a rather masculine bulge.

"Heyyy, lookit me!" the boy said, strutting along. "I'm lookin' beefier than ever!"

"Shut the hell up!" Cocona said, pulling the wad back out in a fluster. "Don't be disgusting!"

"Hmph. Betcha wouldn't have said anything about it if I was a girl."

Since that didn't make any sense at all, Cocona ignored it and took the boy shopping. Seventy-four snazzy minutes later, she had the boy all decked out in sexy-yet-stylish-and-cute girl's clothes that revealed more than they covered - - in other words, typical Reyvateil wear.

"You call this decent?" the boy wailed. "I still feel like I'm almost naked!"

"Hehn. Betcha wouldn't have said anything about it if you were a girl," Cocona teased.

Then it was off to the Dive Shop for a test dive. "But you're a boy," the Dive Shop engineer said in a slow drawl. "You cain't do a test dive if you ain't a Reyvateily."

"Actually I'm being possessed by the ghost of a girl who used to be an IPD," the boy said with a straight face. "So I'm sorta like a Reyvateil...I think."

The engineer gave the boy a look as if he were staring at a talking can of tomatoes.

"...Okeey. Well if yeh got the dough, then off yeh go," he said at last. Four sparkly minutes later, Cocona and the boy met up in Cocona's soulspace, the virtual world rendering Cocona's dead soul in full physical form.

"Dude!" the boy beamed. "It still worked even though you're dead!"

"Yup. Ain't magic some shit?" Cocona smirked.

The boy eagerly took a look around, but Cocona's cosmos was nothing but colors. Colors...swirling, swirling everywhere...

"Whoaaaah, this is so funky," said the boy in his best man-I'm-stoned voice. Getting to use a word like "funky" in a place like this made the boy feel pretty spiffy, and within moments he was inspired to sing and dance a little jig. "Fun-ky fun-ky diiiisco, Fun-ky fun-ky - -"

Coocna slapped him. "Stop that."

"Oww..."

The test dive a success, together they began plotting ways to entice customers for their "Underaged Therapy Services", and even the boy had to agree that although girls were yucky and horny grown-ups were scary, making money sure was a lot of fun!

Yet over in Lady Cloche's chambers, toys were flying. "I MAD!" she screeched, bashing a stack of plushies with her fist. She then grabbed the nearest Gergo plushie and savagely tore out its ears with her teeth, growling and snarling.

"C-Calm down, my Lady!" a nervous servant-girl pleaded. "Y-Y-You should not break your own laws even if you are the Unquestioned Goddess Of Cute Who Rules With Fluffy Fists!"

Cloche spat out an ear with a 'ptoo'. "I would have given Croix everything he could have asked for," she glowered. "A palatial room of many luxuries. Free food. Free sex with me anytime he pleased! A bureaucratic high-profile position where he would have never had to do anything and people would kiss his butt all day long! And most of all...MY UNDYING LOVE FOR HIM AND HIS SEXY GLASSES!" Tears suddenly burst from her eyes. "What more could he have possibly wanted?" she wailed.

"Freedom?" the servant-girl suggested.

Cloche decked the servant-girl with her gloved fist. "I'm going to Croix's house!" she declared. "And I'm bringing Croix back with me! Call my entourage! Have them prepare my airship!"

"Entouraaaage..." the servant-girl mumbled dizzily from somewhere on the floor.

And so, bravely Lady Cloche embarked upon a quest to drag Croix back into her arms of merciless love. But when she and fifteen of her Gergo goons reached Croix's house, they found it rather Croix-less. But there was a Cynthia inside. "Love, love, weapon of love~ ...Ahhn~ ..." Cynthia was singing, while rhythmically riding upon one of Croix's spare booster lances. Fifteen goons grinned pleasantly. Cloche punched Cynthia to the floor.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Cynthia giggled up at Cloche, licking her fingers.

"Where's Croix?"

"Silly pudd'n-head," Cynthia smirked. "He's right behind you."

Cloche twisted around. "Eh?"

Cynthia kicked her steel-plated boot right between Cloche's legs. Cloche went down saying something like "Gfwlihdgt!" while Cynthia scrambled up and tried to make a break for it. The goons nabbed her and dragged her out of the house - - which was where she was trying to go in the first place - - but before they could commence publicly beating her senseless, with possibly some gropage on the side, Cynthia pointed toward some random direction and bellowed, "ZOMG! They're pissing on Pippen cel straps over there!" The goons dropped her like a sack of old biscuits and tromped off to find and beat the Pippen desecrators senseless instead. With no more goons to contend with, Cynthia casually strolled back inside Croix's digs, where the Most Holy Maiden Of Puni Puni was still lying on the floor, hands between her thighs and looking like a beaten puppy.

"Gee, your minions sure are a buncha dumbshits," Cynthia smiled.

"They can kick a lotta ass," Cloche croaked. "That's all I care about."

But Cynthia was humming happily to herself as she started poking through some of Croix's belongings. "So I heard that you're in love with Croix...and that you wanna make him yours forever," she said lightly. "But what do you reeeeeally know about him, hmmm?" And in the next few moments, Cynthia let out a chirp of, "Oh!" and pulled out something hidden within some shelves. "What have we here?" she beamed. And proudly she held up before Cloche a copy of DiveGirls, a Reyvateil porn mag. Cloche stared at it in disbelief, trying to hide her shock and dismay...and trying not to read taglines on the cover like "Installer Ports in the Nastiest of Places!" or "Slummin' With IPD Sluts".

"Did you know that Croix liked things like this? No? Awww, too bad!" Cynthia chided merrily. "Hope that doesn't change how you feel about him too much, teehee!"

Cloche wrenched her eyes away from the tongue-locked Reyvs on the cover. "S-So what?" she stammered. "He's a healthy male. A-A-And at least they're still 3D girls!"

Cynthia tossed the mag over her shoulder. "Oh, that. Well, there's also these here under the floor..."

Shifting aside a few things, she opened up a hidden trapdoor in the floor, pulled out a hefty stack of hentai manga, and let them fall all over Cloche.

"And there's plenty more where that came from too - - I just grabbed a few off the top!"

Cloche shut her eyes, trying to stifle a tiny sob.

"But'cha see," Cynthia went on, "I'm a love-obsessed stalker for Croix. I've even got an illegally-made copy of his key and everything," she said, holding it up. "Made it myself - - sometimes it's good to be a smith, eh? So I've been here lotsa times without Croix knowing, and I know where he hides all his dirty shit." Then with a dark smirk, she added, "I've even seen many of his sleeping faces...and even some of his...mmm, no, I think I'll keep that to myself, teeheehee! Anyway, that's my dark side. So I don't mind knowing about Croix's dark side. I know we're both twisted, so I'm okay with it! Hell, if I even found out one day that he'd been screwing Cocona for years, I wouldn't even blink. But you...you put people on pedestals, because people put you on a pedestal. Tsk, tsk, tsk...whatta shame. You'll never be able to live life like - - hello, what's this?"

Breaking off from her cornball line of reasoning, she went up to an unfamiliar box lying on the table. On the box was a note clearly stating, "Do Not Open This Unless You Have Green Hair". Finding a handy can of green spray paint lying around, Cynthia spray-painted the still-mostly-helpless Cloche's hair green. Then she put the box in front of Cloche.

"Okay, you open it."

"I can't move."

"Want me to kick you again?"

Suddenly Cloche became motivated to move. Dripping with acrylic, she gingerly opened the box. A telecell was inside, along with another note. "Hit 69," it read. Why 69?...oh. Tch, pervert, Cloche wondered briefly. Rolling her eyes inwardly, Cloche hit 69, and a pre-recorded message from Croix began to play on speaker.

"My dearest Frelia-sama. I am currently in hiding from Cloche The Cheesebitch and Luca The Whineyface...as well as dumb-ass Cynthia. Sorry I couldn't wait for you here. Sorry also that I did not have any bagels for you last time. But if you want to find me again, as I very much want to find you, I'll be waiting for you with a whole basket full of bagels over at - -"

"DUMB-ASS CYNTHIA?" Cynthia roared, grabbing the telecell. "HOW DARE HE AFTER ALL WE'VE MEANT TO EACH OTHER?" And she flung the cell at the floor, then smashed it repeatedly with those steel-plated boots of hers.

Cloche whined and squealed like a kid who'd just lost Wii or Playstation privileges for a week. "But...the message!" she squeaked pitifully. "Croix was just about to say where he..."

"Aw, fuck Croix!" Cynthia raged. "If he wants stupid Frelia, he can have her! I'm through with him!" And she stormed out. Two seconds later, she stormed back in, grabbing the booster lance she had been pleasuring herself with earlier. "But I wasn't through with this, ya know!" she cried, then stormed out once again.

Cloche lay for a few moments in silence, wishing that her goons had beat Cynthia senseless five minutes ago. She found herself replaying Cynthia's shout of "Aw, fuck Croix!" in her mind.

Yes...I do very much want to fuck Croix, she thought quietly to herself.

Fifteen feet to the north, in a residence adjacent to Croix's house, Croix lay hidden beneath the floorboards, listening to the commotion with a can to the wall. Luckily for him he had a kawaii-desu moeblob schoolgirl for a neighbor, and although she did not understand all the details of Croix's situation - - and she was too polite to pry - - she was very hospitable and didn't mind at all letting Croix hide out for a few days at her place. It had also seemed like the perfect hiding spot - - so long as they didn't know where to find him, they'd never think to look in a place like right next door.

Hm. So that's why my booster lances were sometimes kinda sticky, thought Croix. And here all this time I thought Cocona was just being stupid with the Pom glue.

Coming out of the floorboards, Croix announced that the coast was clear. "They didn't hear the whole message, so they still don't know where to find me," he added.

The moeblob schoolgirl sat pleasantly sipping tea at a heated table in the middle of the room, a plate of cookies looking yummy in the center of the table. "Okaay," she said sweetly. Her big eyes and cute hair clippies practically vomited love and peace.

Croix moseyed on over to the table and sat down. Moeblob poured him a cup of tea. Croix had a couple of sips and ate a cookie.

"Dang...this is comforting," Croix said, suddenly feeling warm and dozey.

"Desho, desho?" said Moeblob, her voice tinkling gently.

"What do they call these things, again?" said Croix lazily, tapping the table.

"A kotatsu."

"Kotatsu...huh."

"You've never heard of one before?"

Croix shook his head.

Moeblob giggled. "I guess you wouldn't have. Our class is studying ancient cultural artifacts this term. We've studied things like mamachari, sanshin, betamax, pokédex...but a kotatsu sounded like it'd be cool to actually have one for real, and it seemed easy to make, so some of the guys from shop tried making a few...and this is one of the ones they made, ehehe!"

"...Oh...really...?" Croix's voice trailed.

"Yeah. But the blanket material they used was too plain. Just white...boo. So some friends of mine and I got together and made these cute kitty-cat and pawprint patterns on it, eheehee! What do you think? Don't the patterns make it feel that much more warm and cozy?"

"...Mmh...cozy..."

"But I guess we don't really have kotatsu nowdays because the weather's controlled," she went on in her soothing, lulling voice. "These were really made for when it gets cold outside. And for family and friends to gather together around dinnertime or just because. But even though it's not cold out, it still just feels so good to be near the warmth! Ahahaha! Ahhh...someday I'd like to invite my friends over and try having nabe here at the kotatsu...it sounds like fun. And then there's also a tradition that we heard about that involves eating fruit at the kotatsu around a certain time of year...ummm...I think it might've been tangerines - -"

Thud.

Croix's body hit the floor, dead asleep. And not just from the warmth.

"Are? Are you okay?"

Snooorrrre.

Moeblob pondered. "Hn. I guess it gets tiring having to hide out from fangirls all the time. They also say it's not good to fall asleep at the kotatsu...but I guess it won't hurt this one time." She smiled to herself and quietly took another long sip of tea.