Chapter 28, Piece 22 * * * * * * * *
"Good morning, Mrs. Ellis." Honda bowed politely. "Is Fred home?"
The older woman bobbed her head in response. "Good morning, Mr. - uh - Toyota?" she asked hopefully.
"Honda," he laughed. At least it was a Japanese car this time.
She waved off the error as she moved out of the doorway. "Oh I give up! You boys and your code names." She chuckled and shook her head, slowly making her way into the house. "I just can't keep up with you. Freddy's in the basement, as usual. Probably drawing pictures of naked boys again. I don't know what's wrong with that boy." She paused and looked at Honda. "You seem like a nice young man, Mr. - eh..." She looked confused and somewhat apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I just don't have the memory I used to. Would it be okay if I just called you Mr. Car?"
He started to tell her his first name, but decided that 'Hiro' would likely be even more troublesome. "Yes, ma'am. That would be just fine. If you'll excuse me, I'll go check on -"
"Grammy!" A voice from the floorboards cut him off. "Honda's gonna come by this week. Tell him I'm not home!"
"That boy!" she muttered, shaking her head. She started to speak but Honda touched her arm placed a finger to his lips. She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to start telling lies for you," she yelled back. "I'd put him out," she told Honda, "but I promised my Sally I'd take care of her boy."
"You do a fine job." Honda bowed. "Excuse me." He hurried to the temporary refuge of the basement stairs.
Freddy was an online artist Yugi had found. Most of his website was dedicated to fanart of American comic book superheroes in yaoi situations. But somewhere, Yugi found some of Freddy's original art and began corresponding with him.
Freddy was basically a shut in. His only contacts with the outside world were on the web and his grandmother. Yugi convinced the guy that a story based on the couple in the pictures would be perfect for Half-Hearted.
In his basement fortress, Freddy had everything. State-of-the-art computer, scanner, professional grade pens. And when he was working, he was the fastest artist they had. But sometimes he'd get distracted. And when he did, nothing got done.
So, Honda had started dropping by Freddy's house a week or so before his deadline. Just to be sure all was on schedule. When Freddy was working, he was annoyed by Honda's interruption.
When he wasn't, he tried to hide.
"Grammy! I told you not to come down here..." Freddy huffed but stopped as soon as he realized who it was.
"Hey, Ellis!" Honda called out. "How's it going?"
"Fine! Hey, Grammy was about to make lunch. Wanna have lunch with us? Grammy!" he yelled.
"I do not want lunch!" Honda growled. "I want finished pages!"
"I finished! I finished!" Freddy scurried over to his art table and Honda had to bite his cheek to keep from snickering. "Here!" Freddy handed him a stack of pages.
Big, muscular men, wearing spandex. Fighting evil and preserving justice. Except, of course, that most of the heroes were secretly fucking most of the villains. Both the sex and the violence were graphic. For Honda, it was one of their most disturbing series, because frequently some panel of horrific bloodshed was right next to some incredibly hot, hardcore sex.
The story stopped abruptly on page ten.
Honda tried to imitate the cool menace of Takeshi Kitano in any Yakuza movie. "Ellis. How many pages is an episode?"
"Uh. Twenty or so." He squirmed.
"How many pages am I holding?"
"Uh. I - I'm not really su-"
"Ten."
"- oh."
"Does that sound like finished to you?"
"Well, yeah, no, but see here's -"
"So ten pages is not a complete episode." Now what, Honda wondered. Freddy was usually an all-or-nothing guy; crashing mid-way through was more like Eric.
"Well, no, but, see here's the thing..."
Honda gave the artist a moment, then prodded. "Go on."
"I can't finish it. It's fucked."
"What does that mean?"
"The story. It's fucked. I can't finish it."
"Not following you." Plot problems were Yugi's area, Honda thought to himself. I handle motivation and collection.
"Okay." Freddy actually showed some life and grabbed the pages. He spread them across his work table. "Valorous just broke things off with TerrorMaster and is free to stop Evilla from opening the time portal."
"I saw that."
"To do that, he needs Ink to recreate the twelve symbols of the universe. And Dragon Lord has to hold off Evilla's army."
"Ok. So?"
"So!? Last episode, Dragon Lord was suborned by Evilla's sex toy collection. Last we saw him, he was being pierced with vibrating rings and plugs. He's completely under Evilla's control! And Ink only was able to absorb ten of the symbols before he had to rescue SpectralBoy."
"I remember that." Honda shrugged. "He saw the last two before they faded. He can just draw them from memory. He does that all the time."
"IF he and SpectralBoy can get there in time, and IF he draws them precisely. Usually he doesn't have to be precise. I've already stated that the symbols have to be exact."
"So just get them there in time."
"How?"
"I don't know! You're the writer!"
Freddy huffed and picked up several issues of Half-Hearted. "I've been going over it for days! In episode 6, it clearly states that Evilla hides her time portal in a fold of light. That's why Valorous and SpectralBoy can get there; they can travel through the light waves."
"Ok."
"But SpectralBoy lost that ability when he and Ink started having their affair."
"Ah." Honda was beginning to get the idea. "So how does Valorous manage to save the day?"
Freddy gave him a confused look. "He doesn't! I told you - the story's fucked. Valorous doesn't have the speed or the tools to stop the portal from recreating history. I've been trying for days! There is no way for him to fight the army and Evilla. And even if he could, he can't close the portal without the symbols! The hero loses."
"Oh." Honda thought about it for a moment. "Wow. Ok, so where is it?"
Freddy looked more confused. "Where is what?"
"The rest of the story."
"What story? Did you hear me? Valorous cannot win! The hero flat, game over, Cheezburger Network meme FAILS!" Freddy screamed, causing Honda to take a step back. "HEROES DON'T FAIL!"
"Yeah, they do." Honda said, trying to stay way calmer than he felt. "Heroes fail all the time, but they don't stop trying."
"Superman doesn't fail!"
"If Superman were perfect, he wouldn't need Batguy and Wonder Woman and all the rest." Freddy started to speak, but Honda went on. "When Yugi faced Marik at Battle City -"
"A common card game duel is not the same as saving the world."
Honda started to protest, thought better of it, and tried another tack. "Ok. Valorous fails, and the portal opens. What then?"
"What then?! Oh, nothing. Only the entire rewriting of the history of the planet!"
"Rewriting?" Honda snapped his fingers. "So then, you could rewrite the whole story arc, right? Have Valorous somehow protected from the change, and then he could stop SpectralBoy from having the affair and warn Dragon Lord about Evilla's sex trap."
Freddy's expression went from frustrated anger to blank. Then, he seemed to consider something. He bit his thumb. "No, that's going to happen anyway. Earlier. Dragon Lord is - used to be Evilla's General. So I could give him that implant I was working on." He stacked the finished pages and handed them to Honda. "You can take these. I don't need them. Ink could work for TerrorMaster and switch sides." He seemed to be talking more to himself more than Honda.
Honda left as Freddy pulled out a clean sheet of paper. Motivation and collection, that was enough. Yugi and Otogi could handle the hard stuff.