Chapter 8:

According to Plan

As Tari sank deeper and deeper to her doom, the likelihood of anyone coming to her aid was looking slimmer and slimmer. She was sure that this was the end, yet she kept calling for help on the off-chance anyone saw her and could pull her out in time.

"HEEELP!" she screamed. "Please, help!"

The gamer girl wanted to scream for help some more, but she was losing her voice. As she was up to her upper waist in the quicksand, she was sure that wasn't all she would be losing.

"Tari!" came a very familiar voice.

Immediately, her hopes of living were high again as she recognized the voice.

"Saiko?" she called.

"Where are you?!" the anime girl called desperately.

"I'm over here!" called Tari. "Help me!"

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Saiko to track down the source of her friend's pleas for help. As soon as the anime girl saw Tari sinking in the quicksand pit, the young rock star's first instinct was to reach for her.

"Grab my hand!" she cried.

Also fortunately, both girls were within easy grabbing distance, allowing Saiko to pull Tari out of the quicksand with ease. With Tari out of harm's way, the first thing she did was hug her savior.

"Oh, my gosh," she said with tears of relief flowing from her eyes, "thank you, Saiko. You saved my life."

Saiko returned the embrace, happy that her friend was alive, her own tears of relief flowing.

That's how it should happen in the anime girl's mind. She would come to the quicksand pit to save Tari, arrive on time, pull her out, and they would both go home to take a shower. Nice and simple.

The motorcycle was going crazy-fast as she drove to her friend's rescue. Thank goodness Mr. Monitor wasn't around to see her likely running the speed limit. But to her, the motorcycle wasn't going fast at all. Of course, this was a natural train of thought for someone who's trying to save their friend's life, with the thoughts of what's supposed to happen running through her head.

"Please be alive," said Saiko as she continued to ride the motorcycle. "Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive."

So far, things were going just as Senbo and Aibo have planned. When the wannabe musician made it to Saiko's house, he could see that, in her panic to save Tari from a danger that didn't exist, she forgot to shut the front door to her house, meaning the security system remained unarmed. Entrance to her guitar was practically gift-wrapped to the wannabe musician, and he was not about to let this go to waste. Once the coast was clear, Senbo wasted no time skipping into the abandoned house.

It was the moment he had been waiting for.

It took a little bit for Senbo to find Saiko's guitar, but eventually he figured out that her recording studio would be in the basement. As luck would have it, after a bit of searching, there was her guitar leaning toward a wall, all by itself so it could easily be identified. Near it was a comfortable-looking chair. Senbo truly thought it was his lucky day.

Quickly, he grabbed the guitar and rushed to the chair, ready to begin playing the instrument he had his eyes on for so long. To start, he brushed his fingers through it, giving it a simple strum.

GRRRNNN

The heavy metal sounds from that strum tickled Senbo's fancy, and he thought it seemed about right for a hardass punk like Saiko.

Moving on, he ran his fingers through other parts of the guitar, trying to imitate the classic "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do" chords. We say "trying to" because the melody was a little…off.

GRN-GRN-GRN-GRN-GRN-GRN-GRN-GRN

Senbo didn't seem to mind. In fact, he thought it was great. Feeling himself mastering Saiko's guitar already, it was time to move on to the lyrics. With this resolve, he strummed the guitar some more and began to sing.

"Here I am with Saiko's guitar.

How I wonder where you are.

You are here, with me.

You and me…will make good music.

You and me are, uh…great.

Great mate. No hate. United States.

La la la la la la…."

The anime girl was almost at the quicksand pit. She probably broke quite a few speeding laws on the way, but it would be worth it if she could make it to her gamer friend before she completely sank. Soon enough, she could see the forest where the quicksand pit was. Careful not to fall in herself, she slowed down her motorcycle the closer she got to the forest.

"Hang on, Tari," she said, "I'm almost there!"

What she didn't see was Aibo standing on a tree branch that was thick and sturdy enough to support her weight. But Aibo saw Saiko, and took this as her cue to initiate phase two of Operation: Saiko's Guitar. Calmly and carefully, the bespectacled girl tossed her fake Meta Runner arm into the quicksand, making sure to aim it just right so that the bottom of it landed in the pit and not the top.

As luck would have it, the timing was perfect on both females' parts. Saiko finally arrived at the quicksand pit to witness the Meta Runner arm sinking into it—and, as Senbo and Aibo have planned, assumed the worst.

"TARIIIIIII!" she screamed.

The fake arm was sinking rather slowly, as though God was milking Tari's final moments of life. Saiko could only watch as what looked like Tari's hand slowly sank in a desperate plea for help. But the hand was too far away to reach, and it was unlikely Saiko would have found a stick long enough in time.

Finally, the hand was completely gone, and Tari, it appeared, was no more.

The anime girl could feel her heart skip a beat. Panicking, she began digging through the quicksand in a desperate attempt to find her friend while screaming her name.

"TARI!" she yelled as she dug her hands through the quicksand. "TARI, WHERE ARE YOU?! TARI! TARI, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! TARI, PLEASE! DON'T DO THIS! TARI! TARI, DON'T DIE ON ME!"

Saiko didn't feel like she was getting anywhere as her calls for Tari seemed to have fallen on deaf ears…or dead ears. She was starting to lose hope that her friend could still be saved.

"Tari, please," she said, her pleas now getting weaker, "don't do this. Tari, you can't. Tari…you can't die!"

Being smart, Saiko probably could have tied herself and a tree with a rope and dragged Tari out of the quicksand. But there was nothing in the woods even half as sturdy to support her weight, and she was too focused on trying to save Tari to think about bringing a rope of her own.

As much as the devastated rock star hated to admit it, Tari appeared to be gone. The realization of the sad truth was setting in, and hitting her like a ton of bricks.

"I…I'm too late," she said.

The anime girl couldn't even begin to imagine her android friend's terror as she was drowning to death. She felt like a horrible friend for not making it in time. Why couldn't she have died a faster death? Not that Saiko wanted her to die at all.

She couldn't hold back her tears. Between the adrenaline and the time that it took to rush from her house to the pit, only to find that it had been for naught was simply too overwhelming. Soon enough, she fell onto the ground crying for her fallen friend.

"T…T…. TARI!" she sobbed. "I'M S…I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY I COULDN'T SAVE YOU!"

This was easily the hardest Saiko had broken down over someone she cared about. It's no secret that Tari was a fragile being. The anime girl had been quite protective of her lately, and as far as she knew, all that was done for nothing. Saiko wasn't just crying, she was sobbing, bawling over the loss of one of the nicest friends she ever had.

…and Aibo loved every second of it as she watched with a cruel smirk on her face. She even went as far as to record the inconsolable anime girl's misery on her phone. Saiko fell for their trick hook, line and sinker—literally. This was the perfect punishment for denying Senbo his dream of being a musician, Aibo thought, and she knew that Saiko would sit there and keep crying for hours; maybe longer. As planned, this would give him all the more time with that guitar.

"That's what you get for saying no to my Senbo," said Aibo quietly and coldly as the anime girl continued to sob.

Hours have passed since Senbo and Aibo made their move, and despite what the wannabe musician wanted to believe, his skills with Saiko's guitar haven't gotten much better. He was still strumming it off-key and singing lyrics on the fly without caring if they rhymed or not.

"There's a wall.

It's tall.

Not small.

Give it your all, wall.

There's a keyboard.

Or maybe it's a piano.

It's a keyboard-iano.

I named a new instrument.

Give me a Nobel prize.

Right now.

Uh…um…

Wall."

In spite of it all, Senbo was enjoying himself with the guitar he's been wanting to get his hands on for so long. That enjoyment was cut short as soon as he heard the notification chime on his phone. He just knew it was Aibo telling him that Saiko was coming home, and to get out of her house and leave her guitar as it was when he found it.

"She's coming. Get out of there."

"Remember: leave the guitar where it was."

Yep.

Senbo couldn't help but groan when he got the message, mostly because he felt like he just got started with the guitar—despite the fact that long hours have already passed. At the same time, though, he knew the consequences if Saiko caught him at her house, so the decision to escape quickly was made. With this resolve, he walked up to where the guitar originally was and carefully leaned it against the wall where he found it, making sure that it looked like it was where it originally was when the anime girl left the house. Then, he hurried up the stairs to the front door, careful not to touch or break anything.

At last, Senbo was out of the house without Saiko catching him—with perfect timing to boot, as he saw his enemy driving home on her motorcycle. Instinctively, the wannabe musician hid behind one of the parked cars so she wouldn't see him. But he could see her, and how broken she was. The tears wouldn't stop flowing as the anime girl parked her motorcycle next to her house and ran inside to cry even more. Senbo couldn't see much of Saiko's sobbing—but what he did manage to see was quite enough to satisfy him. He showed the same sadistic enjoyment watching her misery that Aibo had. He only wished he could have enjoyed it for a little longer.

As he was walking home feeling very pleased with himself, Senbo heard another notification chime from his phone, which he quickly answered. It was once again from Aibo, only this time, she was sending him the footage she recorded of Saiko weeping unconsolably for her fallen friend. When he saw this footage, a wicked smile came from his face.

It was clear that the couple's scheme had broken the young rocker, and they have proven that this was a bonus to them, not a drawback.

One can only hope that karma will bite them in the ass.

Once again, I would like to thank all the people reading my story so far, truly means a lot. Now that we're in the meat of things here, I would like you to know that I'm planning on making a page for this story on TV Tropes soon. So, for those who use that website, be ready for that.

Stay tuned for Chapter 9 next week!