Prologue
Dr. Ina'nis Ninomae drove the police cruiser wildly, drifting and swerving through the muddy twists and turns of the rough forest path with the pedal to the metal. Ame's dear old friend, the shy and reserved bookworm who kept to herself and to her studies - the one who always supported her from the other end of a telephone line, drove fearlessly to the frontlines.
Her arrival drew the attention of Chief Enma and her gas-mask wearing dirty cops. At first, they were amused. They laughed as they prepared to shoot her down. But then, they quickly saw that Ina wasn't alone.
Ina honked the horns of the police cruiser. Then, the myriad of other emergency vehicles followed suit and made their presence known. All of them turned on their emergency sirens at once, flooding Strawberry Cove with flashing red lights and intensely loud sound.
Enma and her officers were on edge. They didn't know what to expect.
"Block off the path!" Chief Enma barked, rousing her loyalists to action, "They're not gonna make it through to the beach!"
Enma's officers did as they were told and prepared to block the road. They rushed to their own cruisers to prepare a roadblock. However, before the officers could make it to their vehicles, they heard another noise through the wild din.
Bicycle bells.
Krrring krrring~!
All of the sudden, four bicycles cut through the forest and the thicket ahead of Ina's cruiser. One by one, the bicycle riders emerged: a blue haired man with a short carbine rifle affixed with a bayonet, a masked red-head with a myriad of menacing chains trailing behind him and a blonde man with many mechanical hands clenched into fists at his side. They all rode alongside an older, gray-haired gentleman with a longsword and - despite his age - the brightest, most youthful grin painted on his face.
"The Tempus Boys are back in business!" Vesper Noir cheered with great enthusiasm.
Calli heard this happy cry and drew her attention for a moment. Even from a distance, she saw the four bicycle-riding men and smiled. The men gave Calli sharp salutes - then they proceeded to harass Enma's officers.
"H-hold the line!" Enma tried to shout and reorganize her defenses.
Before she could rally her troops, however, a fifth bicycle emerged from the forest. Its rider, a female officer, pedaled forward with incredible strength and shouted out at the top of her lungs.
"OMAEEEE~!"
It was Sergeant Subaru Oozora!
Enma's face went pale. She dragged one of her officers and pulled him in front of her, using him as a human shield. Because of this, Subaru crashed her bicycle into the officer and knocked him out.
Enma tried to draw a pistol from her holster, but Subaru whacked it out of her hand with a swing of a baton.
"Damn it!" Enma cursed.
The panicking Chief of Police winced and ran towards the hallucinating army. All the while, she blew her wartime whistle, drawing some of the hallucinators to her aid. So many of them came at once that Subaru couldn't break through them on her own.
Thankfully, she didn't have to.
Ina's cruiser, along with the convoy of other vehicles punched through the incomplete, disorganized road block and came to Subaru's aid. Their passengers, dozens of Shrimps and Deadbeats who evaded the HALU attacks in the City came with their fire axes and baseball bats, eager to bring their hallucinating brothers and sisters back to their senses.
The battle was joined. Ina, herself, disembarked from the lead police cruiser and pulled out a peculiar pistol from a holster by her hip: the M1911 pistol of Ame that Chief Enma had been keeping like a trophy in her office.
"I might be a Doctor, but…" Ina loaded a magazine of ammo into the gun and cocked it emphatically, "But Chief Enma has to pay!"
Subaru nodded wholeheartedly in agreement.
"You assembled this army, Dr. Ninomae - this whole Neighborhood Watch . We'll handle the big battle." Subaru reassured Ina, "Go do what you have to do." The Sergeant winked, "And go show those 'stupid detectives' how much you've grown."
Ina smiled and then saluted Subaru. Then, with pistol in hand, Ina cut through the crowd and marched through the fray.
…
In a few short heartbeats, an entirely new front opened up in the Battle of Strawberry Cove.
The newcomers poured in vigorously and the hallucinating army had to split their efforts, giving the wavering defenders at the other end of the cove some room to breathe - a light at the end of their excruciatingly long train tunnel.
Bloop and Death-sensei's assault came grinding to a halt and they found themselves swept up in the stewing chaos of the evolving battlefield. They lost their footing and their momentum. Cracks in their lines started to form and their flanks were left unprotected.
Those cracks let the Queenpins and their allies turn the tables on the turncoat Lieutenants.
Ame and Gura found their way to Bloop again first. The short, sneaky duo peppered the large shark-man with shots just like they had done dozens of times before. This time around, though, Ame and Gura conserved their shots and fanned out cautiously.
"Finally run out of steam, boss?" Bloop grinned a bloody grin at the two. He pounded his chest proudly and roared, "Your peashooters ain't got nothing on me!"
"Probably." Gura smirked, "But we're not the ones you should be worried about, stinky!"
As soon as Gura said this, the rattle of a Tommy Gun reached Bloop's ears. The shark-man whirled around and found a haggard but determined Baelz Hakos there with her weapon at the ready.
"You wanted the detectives to rub me out back then at Dicey Odds." Bae cocked her Tommy Gun and growled, "I'm just returning the favor!"
Bae shot at Bloop and emptied an entire drum magazine into him, bringing him down to his knees once and for all.
Shortly after, Calli and Kiara caught up to the retreating Death-sensei. The Lieutenant, without his light machine gun, was cowardly and ran away from the marauding couple. Instead of fighting, he fought his way through the hallucinating army to try and get out.
Just as he made it through some hallucinators, however, the butt of an incredibly ornate revolver slammed into his face. Detective Kronii Ouro proceeded to pistol-whip the scared, flighty man.
"Do you like my gun?" Kronii asked menacingly, swinging her pistol around, "It's perfect isn't it? Almost as perfect as me!" She wound it back to strike him another time, "Wanna have an even closer look!?"
Death-sensei yelped and tried to run away from the insanely narcissistic detective.
"Working with City PD was a mistake!" He lamented, "Your department is full of basket cases!"
Before he could even turn tail and run, a sickly sweet voice called out to him.
"Oh hi~!" Mumei Nanashi greeted. She gripped her hammer tightly and pointed to Death-sensei, "Today's your lucky day. The Owl Pals pay me to do this, you know! Don~ don~!"
Mumei promptly whacked Death-sensei's kneecaps with her hammer.
With Bloop and Death-sensei out of commission, Ame and Kiara found a clear path to the desperate Chief Enma in the hallucinating crowd. Calli and Gura called their new henchwomen
"We'll clear the path for you guys." Calli offered with a grin, resting the flat of her katana on her shoulder.
Gura cracked her neck and then reloaded her twin pistols, "Just be sure to send a knuckle sandwich to the bespectacled bitch, okay?"
Kronii, Mumei and Bae joined the Queenpins' side and sent them off with determined, confident smiles.
With their blessings, Ame and Kiara moved to confront their despicable boss once and for all.
…
At the heart of the hallucinating crowd, Chief Enma was trapped in the maelstrom of chaos. Sandwiched between the gangsters that she wanted to eliminate and the sudden coalition of the 'Neighborhood Watch', Enma had nowhere else to run.
So, when she saw Ame and Kiara - with help from the Queenpins and their allies - crashing through the crowds towards her, she panicked. Enma blew her whistle, spurring the hallucinators to rush to her aid.
However, the multitude of Pavlovian orders started to cross the wires of the hallucinating army. A handful of the hallucinators did as they were told, but many more just stood there - dazed and confused.
Was the HALU starting to wear off?
Enma bit her lip, drew her pistol and prepared to greet the two employees she hated the most. She shot at the two detectives, but her aim was off and her targets were more agile than she anticipated.
But still, the Hallucinators slowed the detectives down. Tough as Ame and Kiara were, the human wave still threatened to cut them off.
"You kids were supposed to roll over and give up when I gave that assignment!" Chief Enma barked, reloading her pistol while she frowned, "You were supposed to take the hint and beg for an easier job. We could have worked something out, just like I did with the Lieutenants. You could have shared in the limelight and basked in my reflected glory - but you just had to push through." She pointed her gun at the struggling detectives locked in combat, "You had to test my patience to the very end! That ends now!"
Enma paused and stared down the iron sights. She had a bead on Ame's head.
However, just as she tried to pull the trigger, Enma heard a different gunshot. The Chief's pistol flew out of her hand!
Enma whirled around and found Doctor Ina'nis Ninomae pointing Ame's M1911 at her.
"You underestimated us. All of us." Ina spoke, watching Chief Enma from behind her own iron sights, "You thought we couldn't make this case. But we did - and we're gonna make you pay for it!" The Doctor smiled deviously and called out to someone behind Chief Enma, "Isn't that right, detectives?"
"Huh…?" Enma gasped.
Before Enma could turn around, Kiara tackled her to the ground and rolled out of the way. Then, Ame came and dropped down upon Enma with an elbow.
Despite this, Chief Enma still struggled against the two detectives from where she laid.
"You fools!" Enma roared, "I've already spread throughout half of the City! Riots are gonna tear the City apart - and cops loyal to me are gonna put them down with extreme prejudice!" She pushed back against Ame and Kiara and hissed, "When the dust settles here, it doesn't matter what you do in this stupid little cove! I'm gonna be the hero of the City! Me! Chief Enma!"
"So you really were the one who masterminded all this." Ame growled, wrestling with the defiant Chief, "You got that, Kiara?"
"I did…" Kiara huffed, forcing her weight onto Enma to pin her down, "That sounds like a confession to me! The Feds are gonna love this!"
"The Feds are gonna be none the wiser. Not when they have to pick through the ashes of this goddamn place! Not when you and your friends aren't gonna be alive to see the next morning!" Enma snickered, "Kill me if you want. That won't stop the inevitable! HALU has already sealed your fate."
"Is that so?" Ina hummed, keeping her gun pointed at Enma, "Well, in that case, then that seal isn't exactly water-tight."
"Huh…?" Enma glanced at Ina.
"Vesper Noir, the one who synthesized the HALU for you, spilled the beans." Ina explained with rising smugness, "HALU requires continuous exposure to be effective as an over-stimulant. The stuff disperses naturally over time too in the open air. The sea breeze will naturally blow it out of the victim's system, for example."
Enma's eyes turned to the lion's share of the hallucinators standing idly on the beach. They were still dazed and stimulated, but most of them weren't as rabid as before.
"But you know what will disperse the HALU mighty quickly?" Ina asked a rhetorical question. She pointed up to the sky and smiled, "Rain."
When Ina said this, a fleet of blue propeller planes rumbled through the skies and flew into the clouds. All of the planes bore markings visible from the cove.
'RAIN SHAMAN'
They were cloud-seeding aircraft.
The hatch of one of the aircraft popped open. Its pilot, a blue haired girl, waved to Ina.
Ina promptly waved back.
Once the planes flew through the clouds, a slow but steady downpour started to fall over the City. Rain fell all over the cove as well, dispersing what little traces of HALU was left there. Then, left and right, the hallucinating army started coming to their senses.
All of a sudden, under the pouring rain, Chief Enma found herself surrounded by enemies.
"So." Kiara asked, "Do you still think you're gonna be the hero of this story?"
Enma looked up at Kiara. Then, she fell silent and stopped struggling.
Ame and Kiara got up from the sandy ground and pointed their guns at their disgraced boss.
"Chief Enma." Ame started firmly, "For a shit ton of crimes, you and all of your clowns are under arrest."
Enma lowered her head and offered no more resistance. A handful of Sergeant Subaru's officers hurried over to the scene and took Chief Enma away.
Once the source of her woes was out of her sight, Ame lowered her gun and heaved a sigh of relief. Kiara stood beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Good work, Ame-senpai." Kiara praised.
"You too, kid." Ame reciprocated, "You too."
Ina holstered her pistol and sauntered over to the two detectives. She furrowed her brow and glared into their eyes.
"Do something stupid like that again and I will have your heads!" Ina warned them sharply.
Ame and Kiara shuddered from the threat. However, before either of them could say a word to defend themselves, Ina threw herself at them and hugged them both.
"I thought I lost the two of you." Ina whispered tenderly, "Welcome back."
The two detectives smiled and hugged Ina back. Ame closed their eyes and let herself get drenched in the pouring rain.
For once, Ame thought, the rain falling over the city filled her - and everyone around her - with hope.
…
Queenpins
Q
…
To Be Continued
Author's Note: Chapter 45 is the Epilogue/Finale! Thank you for your support all this time. Queenpins will end next chapter!