Chapter 4- Roaming the City
She changed into the cat form again. Sure the powers weren't that powerful, but at least they were useful to some degree. She had a name once...but she couldn't remember it now. It was...she shook her head. It was best not to think of those things. Just get the werewolves in charge to sign the papers and get out of there. When she got back, she could have a long nice sip of tea in her office.
With a glare she looked at the crossroads leading to the ship. A giant blob was in the middle of it, stopping traffic.
That was not good. Trouble meant more paperwork for her to fill out. All she had to do was get the head security to sign the paper signifying everything went smoothly and...
Gritting her teeth she stalked down there, and glared at the blob in the face. She could see it was a werewolf now. One that was NOT registered with the Department of Werewolves due to the fact it had no tag.
The werewolf just looked at her in surprise. She had forgotten...she was still in her cat form. But there were advantages to being a cat. He was delaying traffic for 5 minuets. He would get five scratches on the nose. She dropped the folder containing the folders down.
With a hiss she went for the nose.
*******
Tanetris had just finished his meal and was paying the bill, with a generous tip for Kimiko-chan, when his keen wolf hearing heard a distant howl of pain. A fellow werewolf in human form, by the sound of it, but not one he recognized. Strange, he thought, I thought I had met all those council weirdos who think just because I live in the same city as them, I should join their pack...
When the council had first approached him, they had told him that he would have to be tagged like some pet dog and pay membership fees, and in return... Well, Tanetris still wasn't clear about any sort of benefits to him for joining, except that "Every werewolf in MegaTokyo joins..." As if there was no such term as lone wolf...
Shaking himself out of reminiscence, Tanetris debated whether he should go take a look. Of course, if it was a werewolf that didn't belong to this council, he might be worth meeting, but then again other nearby werewolves who did belong to the council would undoubtedly have heard the same howl, which meant dealing with the, again...
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Tanetris thought as he ran out of Ann Miller's and toward the source of the noise. He didn't bother shifting form, for while full-wolf would be faster to run in, half-wolf was a more versatile fighting form if it came to it.
*******
Government Agent Sims groaned. Being part of the Federal Department of Structural Integrity was the worst job in the world.
Sims took some notes with his micron pen as he surveyed another scene of destruction. At least this time it wasn't so bad. This area didn't quite look like a war zone. Sims stared at several large gashes in a wall. Obviously inflicted by some kind on beam weapon. A few destroyed fire hydrants and some smashed trash cans. Why the heck was it always the trash cans? Did these people have nothing to do other than destroy the city?
It seemed like 80 percent of the people here either went to school, or were involved with some heroics/evilness thing. Those kids in school didn't even learn anything except how to create various types of love triangles!
With so few real employed people it was a wonder how the MegaTokyo government still worked.
Sims scratched his head, at lest that dumpsters was still intact or this place would smell rather bad.
The place still did have an odd odor; it sort of smelled like a cat. Sims sneezed, he really hated those giant lizards, werewolves undead zombie creatures, but most of all he hated cats!
Sims walked down to inspect a large katana sticking out of the street when he tripped into a huge pothole. OUCH! Sims dusted him self off and picked up the projectile that had caused the huge hole. Hmmm, Sims looked at it and then promptly ate it. Those pocky cannons were becoming a problem. Sims thought for a minute. Wait, a pocky cannon only meant one thing! Sims frantically scanned the area.
Oh dear, next to the dumpster was some one knocked out silly. Sims slowly walked up to the person the guy had a stupid look on his face and held up a sign it read, "Hi I'm new here." Great, it was another newbie. Sims pulled out his cell phone and was about to call am ambulance, when a horribly hurt person staggered up to him.
The man spurted out impossible to understand words "H3y DU/\/\13 h3lp M3h; H3y J00 n00b C4n7 j00 H34r M3h?"
Sims replied "err… Yes, who are you and how did you get hurt?"
The hurt man went on "50m3 5Tup1d 45 M0d3r4tor K1cX0r3d m3h". Sims slowly started to back off. "Ju57 C4u53 S0m3 5t00p1d p33p5 c4nt s33 Why t3h X-box i5 T3h b35t, 4nD y 4Nim3 I5 f3r L05er p33ps Wit n0 lif3z."
Sims pulled out his standard issue waffle Pistol and pasted the man in face. The man screamed "4hG! D0nt Make m3h us3 m4h ice-bustin l337 5killez 0n J00! Ph34r!"
Sims picked up the newbie and ran away as fast as he could. Right now he wouldn't mind having one of those illegal pocky cannons. Those L337 speaking trolls where the worst.
For Sims it just another average day at work.
*******
She threw herself onto the train just as the doors began to close, getting several sideways glances from her fellow passengers.
She mumbled incoherently to herself as she sat down, trying to catch her breath.
God, she thought to herself. That's the last time I pick anything up for someone. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. That look in his eyes... she shuddered.
She grabbed her bag and pulled out her glasses. She sighed putting them on cursing the fact she was almost blind with out them.
"Are you okay?" She opened her eyes only to see a young, dark haired man set next to her. "Only you looked a little...frightened." She looked at him and forgot about the diary in her hands, sliding it into her book bag.
"I..." she could feel the blush rising, she felt it creeping up her entire body. "I'm fine."
"That's good to hear." He smiled, it was a fantastic smile, one minute it wasn't there the next it was in all its toothy glory.
The blush reached her cheeks.
"Aimuph." She sank down in her seat, covering her face.
The man chuckled.
*******
Sean and MiMizu stared, utterly puzzled, at the man in the Aussie duster.
"That was pretty neat..."
"Excuse me, do you know where MegaTokyo is?"
Sean raised a questionable eyebrow, then lowered it again, thinking about how easy it must be to get lost when using... err... ground ringy transportation.
"Well, actually, I'm not sure WHERE MegaTokyo is, but I know you are in it."
"Huh?"
"Well, it's not on any maps see, but it looks JUST like Tokyo, but nobody knows how to get here!"
"Am I in MegaTokyo or not."
"Well, I supp-"
"Yes." MiMizu cut in.
"Thanks." The man said, and walked away.
"Still hungry?" MiMizu asked.
"Yeah."
"Cool. I know a place by the docks, let's go."
He takes a couple more steps and then he disappears with a flash. Then Sean and MiMizu here a distant "thank you".
Then another ring appears next to a human who is yelling from the cat scratching on his face. "Wow need sum help?"
*******
At some corner of MegaTokyo that the great commotion hadn't yet reached, three girls were walking down the street. AC was the oldest (and only one who could drive) and T-ko and Na-chan were both a couple of years younger than her, and were freshmen in high school. AC was currently rather annoyed at Na-chan.
"What is it with you?!" she exclaimed. "Do you have no sense of time OR direction? I told you, my friend lives in Tokyo, not MegaTokyo!"
"Gomen nasai..." Na-chan whimpered.
"Hey, look at the bright side," T-ko said. "Maybe we'll actually see Piro and those guys we read all those stories about on the internet."
"True..."
But AC's mind was still on Na-chan, and an incident involving pocky from a friends Christmas party...
FLASHBACK SCENE!
AC and Na-chan had just arrived at their friend Hime's house. Because they'd missed the bus they'd had to walk, and since AC was annoyed about the whole ordeal, she'd set a rather fast pace, causing them to make the normally 30-minute walk in only 20 minutes. So now they were both a little dizzy from adrenaline, but Na-chan had it much, much worse.
In fact, the best description would be "high".
Once they were inside Hime showed them to all the Christmas goodies, and also took out several boxes of pocky. Na-chan went berserk at the sight of her snack, and within minutes was doing tricks for it and praising it's goodness. Later, when they were leaving, she even took one of the empty pocky boxes, saying she was going to build a shrine to it in her room.
END FLASHBACK
AC shuddered, then immediately shifted her thoughts towards other, more important things. Like where in the world were they going to stay? She decided they should keep on walking for a while to see if they could find anything, and as she was the oldest T-ko and Na-chan (were forced to) agree with her.
*******
BGMaster awoke on a small table. Tied down, in fact. Quickly adjusting to the dim light, he examined my surroundings. There were three things of importance here.
1. Hr seemed to be on a sacrificial altar, not a table.
2. The large painting to my left was of Miho, with a large cross through the middle. Like those wossnames, no smoking signs. Right. A no-Miho sign. Then this must be... the Anti-Church of Miho!
3. A bunch of people standing around in 70s clothes, chanting in time to a very bad Barry Manilow tune. One appeared to be holding a knife. BGMaster squinted at it. There were strange designs on it. As his vision came back into focus, the designs became clearer.
No.
He refused to be sacrificed to the Teletubbies.
Strange lights began to play over him as the music switched. He looked up at the giant disco ball suspended from the ceiling. The colors flashed sickeningly. The man with the knife moved closer.
This had gone on long enough. BGMaster snapped his restraints and flipped up into a casual martial arts stance on the altar. These people may set a record for bad taste, but they can't make decent restraints. He materialized a pair of Oakleys in his hand, twirled them once, and put them on. A stray beam of light from the disco ball flashed off them. At least it was good for SOMETHING.
"Y-you! Miho-Cultist! You will be sacrificed! The Darkly Cute Goddess of MegaTokyo will be... be... What's the word I'm looking for again?"
"Annihilated, sir."
"Annihil - no, wait, I'm sure that wasn't it."
"Destroyed?"
"Ah. There we go. Destroyed!"
BGMaster couldn't believe his ears. They failed to even get a simple dramatic speech right!
"Look. You guys are pitiful beyond measure. I'll make this short. In the name of Miho, the Necrowombicon, and all that is Darkly Cute, I will KICK YOUR ASSES!"
Luckily, his martial arts skills had not deserted him. He moved through the pasty-white and overweight cultists with ease, pausing only briefly to vaporize the knife. Teletubbies. Ugh. Finally, he made his way to the door and outside. The cultists ran after him, stumbling over each other in their haste.
"You will never escape, *puff* evil MihoCultist! *huff* Never!"
BGMaster turned back and grinned. Then he snapped my fingers. The building exploded. As the fireball rose into the night, he raised my right hand, finger cocked like a gun, to his lips.
"Boom."
With the other hand, he patted the Necrowombicon. Wonderful book. A burning tire rim rolled past him. Figures. Their building couldn't even get the right dramatic explosion effect when it tried.
He turned again, this time toward the city. The Style Brigade was back. The Church of Miho was in full force. It was time to hit the town.
Briefly, he wondered if he should go see Ed when his ship came in and explain about the whole 'banishment to Strange Candy' episode on the Sega roof.
Why not? Wouldn't hurt, and Miho could always use another ally.
She changed into the cat form again. Sure the powers weren't that powerful, but at least they were useful to some degree. She had a name once...but she couldn't remember it now. It was...she shook her head. It was best not to think of those things. Just get the werewolves in charge to sign the papers and get out of there. When she got back, she could have a long nice sip of tea in her office.
With a glare she looked at the crossroads leading to the ship. A giant blob was in the middle of it, stopping traffic.
That was not good. Trouble meant more paperwork for her to fill out. All she had to do was get the head security to sign the paper signifying everything went smoothly and...
Gritting her teeth she stalked down there, and glared at the blob in the face. She could see it was a werewolf now. One that was NOT registered with the Department of Werewolves due to the fact it had no tag.
The werewolf just looked at her in surprise. She had forgotten...she was still in her cat form. But there were advantages to being a cat. He was delaying traffic for 5 minuets. He would get five scratches on the nose. She dropped the folder containing the folders down.
With a hiss she went for the nose.
When the council had first approached him, they had told him that he would have to be tagged like some pet dog and pay membership fees, and in return... Well, Tanetris still wasn't clear about any sort of benefits to him for joining, except that "Every werewolf in MegaTokyo joins..." As if there was no such term as lone wolf...
Shaking himself out of reminiscence, Tanetris debated whether he should go take a look. Of course, if it was a werewolf that didn't belong to this council, he might be worth meeting, but then again other nearby werewolves who did belong to the council would undoubtedly have heard the same howl, which meant dealing with the, again...
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Tanetris thought as he ran out of Ann Miller's and toward the source of the noise. He didn't bother shifting form, for while full-wolf would be faster to run in, half-wolf was a more versatile fighting form if it came to it.
Sims took some notes with his micron pen as he surveyed another scene of destruction. At least this time it wasn't so bad. This area didn't quite look like a war zone. Sims stared at several large gashes in a wall. Obviously inflicted by some kind on beam weapon. A few destroyed fire hydrants and some smashed trash cans. Why the heck was it always the trash cans? Did these people have nothing to do other than destroy the city?
It seemed like 80 percent of the people here either went to school, or were involved with some heroics/evilness thing. Those kids in school didn't even learn anything except how to create various types of love triangles!
With so few real employed people it was a wonder how the MegaTokyo government still worked.
Sims scratched his head, at lest that dumpsters was still intact or this place would smell rather bad.
The place still did have an odd odor; it sort of smelled like a cat. Sims sneezed, he really hated those giant lizards, werewolves undead zombie creatures, but most of all he hated cats!
Sims walked down to inspect a large katana sticking out of the street when he tripped into a huge pothole. OUCH! Sims dusted him self off and picked up the projectile that had caused the huge hole. Hmmm, Sims looked at it and then promptly ate it. Those pocky cannons were becoming a problem. Sims thought for a minute. Wait, a pocky cannon only meant one thing! Sims frantically scanned the area.
Oh dear, next to the dumpster was some one knocked out silly. Sims slowly walked up to the person the guy had a stupid look on his face and held up a sign it read, "Hi I'm new here." Great, it was another newbie. Sims pulled out his cell phone and was about to call am ambulance, when a horribly hurt person staggered up to him.
The man spurted out impossible to understand words "H3y DU/\/\13 h3lp M3h; H3y J00 n00b C4n7 j00 H34r M3h?"
Sims replied "err… Yes, who are you and how did you get hurt?"
The hurt man went on "50m3 5Tup1d 45 M0d3r4tor K1cX0r3d m3h". Sims slowly started to back off. "Ju57 C4u53 S0m3 5t00p1d p33p5 c4nt s33 Why t3h X-box i5 T3h b35t, 4nD y 4Nim3 I5 f3r L05er p33ps Wit n0 lif3z."
Sims pulled out his standard issue waffle Pistol and pasted the man in face. The man screamed "4hG! D0nt Make m3h us3 m4h ice-bustin l337 5killez 0n J00! Ph34r!"
Sims picked up the newbie and ran away as fast as he could. Right now he wouldn't mind having one of those illegal pocky cannons. Those L337 speaking trolls where the worst.
For Sims it just another average day at work.
She mumbled incoherently to herself as she sat down, trying to catch her breath.
God, she thought to herself. That's the last time I pick anything up for someone. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. That look in his eyes... she shuddered.
She grabbed her bag and pulled out her glasses. She sighed putting them on cursing the fact she was almost blind with out them.
"Are you okay?" She opened her eyes only to see a young, dark haired man set next to her. "Only you looked a little...frightened." She looked at him and forgot about the diary in her hands, sliding it into her book bag.
"I..." she could feel the blush rising, she felt it creeping up her entire body. "I'm fine."
"That's good to hear." He smiled, it was a fantastic smile, one minute it wasn't there the next it was in all its toothy glory.
The blush reached her cheeks.
"Aimuph." She sank down in her seat, covering her face.
The man chuckled.
"That was pretty neat..."
"Excuse me, do you know where MegaTokyo is?"
Sean raised a questionable eyebrow, then lowered it again, thinking about how easy it must be to get lost when using... err... ground ringy transportation.
"Well, actually, I'm not sure WHERE MegaTokyo is, but I know you are in it."
"Huh?"
"Well, it's not on any maps see, but it looks JUST like Tokyo, but nobody knows how to get here!"
"Am I in MegaTokyo or not."
"Well, I supp-"
"Yes." MiMizu cut in.
"Thanks." The man said, and walked away.
"Still hungry?" MiMizu asked.
"Yeah."
"Cool. I know a place by the docks, let's go."
He takes a couple more steps and then he disappears with a flash. Then Sean and MiMizu here a distant "thank you".
Then another ring appears next to a human who is yelling from the cat scratching on his face. "Wow need sum help?"
"What is it with you?!" she exclaimed. "Do you have no sense of time OR direction? I told you, my friend lives in Tokyo, not MegaTokyo!"
"Gomen nasai..." Na-chan whimpered.
"Hey, look at the bright side," T-ko said. "Maybe we'll actually see Piro and those guys we read all those stories about on the internet."
"True..."
But AC's mind was still on Na-chan, and an incident involving pocky from a friends Christmas party...
FLASHBACK SCENE!
AC and Na-chan had just arrived at their friend Hime's house. Because they'd missed the bus they'd had to walk, and since AC was annoyed about the whole ordeal, she'd set a rather fast pace, causing them to make the normally 30-minute walk in only 20 minutes. So now they were both a little dizzy from adrenaline, but Na-chan had it much, much worse.
In fact, the best description would be "high".
Once they were inside Hime showed them to all the Christmas goodies, and also took out several boxes of pocky. Na-chan went berserk at the sight of her snack, and within minutes was doing tricks for it and praising it's goodness. Later, when they were leaving, she even took one of the empty pocky boxes, saying she was going to build a shrine to it in her room.
END FLASHBACK
AC shuddered, then immediately shifted her thoughts towards other, more important things. Like where in the world were they going to stay? She decided they should keep on walking for a while to see if they could find anything, and as she was the oldest T-ko and Na-chan (were forced to) agree with her.
1. Hr seemed to be on a sacrificial altar, not a table.
2. The large painting to my left was of Miho, with a large cross through the middle. Like those wossnames, no smoking signs. Right. A no-Miho sign. Then this must be... the Anti-Church of Miho!
3. A bunch of people standing around in 70s clothes, chanting in time to a very bad Barry Manilow tune. One appeared to be holding a knife. BGMaster squinted at it. There were strange designs on it. As his vision came back into focus, the designs became clearer.
No.
He refused to be sacrificed to the Teletubbies.
Strange lights began to play over him as the music switched. He looked up at the giant disco ball suspended from the ceiling. The colors flashed sickeningly. The man with the knife moved closer.
This had gone on long enough. BGMaster snapped his restraints and flipped up into a casual martial arts stance on the altar. These people may set a record for bad taste, but they can't make decent restraints. He materialized a pair of Oakleys in his hand, twirled them once, and put them on. A stray beam of light from the disco ball flashed off them. At least it was good for SOMETHING.
"Y-you! Miho-Cultist! You will be sacrificed! The Darkly Cute Goddess of MegaTokyo will be... be... What's the word I'm looking for again?"
"Annihilated, sir."
"Annihil - no, wait, I'm sure that wasn't it."
"Destroyed?"
"Ah. There we go. Destroyed!"
BGMaster couldn't believe his ears. They failed to even get a simple dramatic speech right!
"Look. You guys are pitiful beyond measure. I'll make this short. In the name of Miho, the Necrowombicon, and all that is Darkly Cute, I will KICK YOUR ASSES!"
Luckily, his martial arts skills had not deserted him. He moved through the pasty-white and overweight cultists with ease, pausing only briefly to vaporize the knife. Teletubbies. Ugh. Finally, he made his way to the door and outside. The cultists ran after him, stumbling over each other in their haste.
"You will never escape, *puff* evil MihoCultist! *huff* Never!"
BGMaster turned back and grinned. Then he snapped my fingers. The building exploded. As the fireball rose into the night, he raised my right hand, finger cocked like a gun, to his lips.
"Boom."
With the other hand, he patted the Necrowombicon. Wonderful book. A burning tire rim rolled past him. Figures. Their building couldn't even get the right dramatic explosion effect when it tried.
He turned again, this time toward the city. The Style Brigade was back. The Church of Miho was in full force. It was time to hit the town.
Briefly, he wondered if he should go see Ed when his ship came in and explain about the whole 'banishment to Strange Candy' episode on the Sega roof.
Why not? Wouldn't hurt, and Miho could always use another ally.