CHAPTER SIX
In which a lot of insanity happens. A lot of insanity.
"Shadow Jaganshi, wake up this instant."
Shadow's left eye popped open. It darted around. She realized she was still lying on the floor where she had fallen asleep earlier, after Eclipse had dragged her back in after she'd tried to eat the family on the sidewalk.
"Wooooooooo," Shadow said, looking up at teen Koenma. Koenma always appeared in teen form around Shadow. If he didn't, he knew he would be insulted and ridiculed until he killed her. And besides, not only was he taller and seemed more fitting for the role of Prince of Reikai, but he was a lot more attractive in that form.
Suddenly, Shadow lunged up and latched onto his neck.
"Shadow, get off me. Right now, before I completely give up on any plans I might have had to find your precious Hiei," Koenma said. Shadow let go so fast she barely got her feet under her, lost her balance, and fell backwards. Koenma laughed.
"My precious Hiei, huh? What, you don't care if you get back you precious spirit detectives from the grips of people in 2010?" Shadow asked, standing up and dusting herself off.
"Who says they're in anyone's grips?" Koenma asked.
"Dude, people don't just vanish from my living room without a cause, and as far as I know, if a temporal anomaly opened up, it wouldn't pick and choose, it would have taken all of us, no matter how strong or how smart or what sex we are. So what are your plans?" Shadow asked.
"Did I say I had any plans? No. I said any plans I might have had," Koenma said. Shadow glared.
"Well, Koenma, I suggest you come up with a plan before I do, cuz if I come up with a plan it'll involve me, a time portal of some sort, my katana, and nobody else. In other words, I'll find a way to go into the future, I'll go into the future with my katana, and hack some people up," Shadow said.
"You're a half breed fire youkai, aren't you?" Koenma asked.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Just answer me."
"Yes, I am. Now what has that got--"
"Even though you're a half breed, I believe it is still against Reikai laws to take human life. Pure youkai aren't allowed, therefore why should you be a special case?"
"Oh, what, so you're saying that if I go hack up some future people, that you'll throw me in Reikai prison?"
"Yes."
"You're just afraid that I'll save them and get all the credit."
"No I'm not."
"Prove it."
"Fine. Save them without my help. See if I object," Koenma said, shrugging. Then he promptly vanished.
"Fine. Save them without my help. Meh meh meh, lil' fag," Shadow mocked. Then she yelled at the ceiling, "FINE, I WILL!" and went to work. In the kitchen. Making a sandwich.
How very devoted she is, ne?
Eclipse walked in.
"What are you doing?" she asked. Shadow handed her a plate with a sandwich on it.
"Eat this for me. I'm too busy to eat right now," she said, running down the hall and up the stairs.
"What the heck?" Eclipse muttered. She set the sandwich on the sink and ran down the hall after Shadow. "Why are you so busy you can't eat?"
"Because I am saving Hiei."
"Oh really," Eclipse said skeptically. "And how are you doing that?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret."
"... You never said it was a secret in the first place."
"I didn't? Oh. Well in that case, I don't know yet. I have to make a time machine," Shadow said. She was digging through a walk-in broom closet at the end of the hall. A broom closet without brooms, that never had brooms, and until Shadow moves out, never will have brooms. At the moment, it was piled up with boxes of various collections Shadow had made. All the boxes were labeled on every side in German with permanent black marker.
"Ah," Eclipse said, staring at the German words.
"It's actually not all that complicated. I just have to make a flux capacitator, and get one of those cool silver DeLorean cars, and hook the flux capacitator to the engine, and whenever you hit 88 miles per hour, SHI-POW! Into the future I go. Of course, I'd have to also make the little thingy that you set to tell you when you'll end up..." Shadow said, digging through a box of Furbies.
"A flux capacitator? And... how are you gonna make one of those?"
"Well, first I have to fall off the toilet and hit my head, and the vision will come to me," Shadow said, pulling out a black Furbie and putting it in an empty box. Eclipse stared at her like she was insane.
"Um... how is falling off the toilet gonna help? Why the toilet? Why not a chair?" she asked her friend, who was now digging through a box of what appeared to be cookbooks.
"Because that's what the movie said," Shadow answered, shoving the cookbooks aside and grabbing another box.
"Why are those labeled in a foreign language?" Eclipse asked, changing the subject as she tried to read the writing.
"It's German."
"... Can you read it?"
"Of course I can, dorkus! Why would I label them in some language I don't understand?"
"Because you're you. You do stupid things like that sometimes," Eclipse said. She blinked. "What movie said something about falling off toilets?"
"Back to the Future!"
"What's that... some cheesy Sci-Fi movie?"
"NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
Shadow jumped out of the closet, abandoning her box of empty medicine bottles, and proceeded to go into great detail about the plots and events of all three Back to the Future movies. Eclipse actually couldn't care less, and thought she tried to interrupt Shadow to inform her of this several [hundred] times, the girl was on a roll and wasn't gonna shut up without the friendly assistance of a roll of duct tape.
Finally, she got to the end of the third movie when, "The dude shows up on the train and has some kids with him along with his wife and... and... and... The kids are named Jules and Verne because those two were like... Jules Verne-a-holics, and... and..."
She stopped and doubled over his her hands on her knees gasping for breath. She'd talked so fast, it probably could have been certified as a foreign language.
"Okay? They're good movies. You'll have to watch them sometime. But not now, because that explanation took up half an hour of my precious time to rescue Hiei! And Kurama! And I suppose Yusuke, too," Shadow said (if she talked so fast it was like another language, for half an hour, imagine how many words she said... She must have gone into a lot of detail... quoting and acting it out and everything). She dove back into the closet and started digging through the box of medicine bottles throwing them over her shoulders and occasionally hitting Eclipse.
"Look, Shadow," she said, dodging a bottle, "I'm gonna get some sleep. See you later."
"Kay kay," Shadow chirped, shoving the medicine bottles aside and tackling a box thoroughly sealed closed with duct tape. After a lot of growling and screaming, she managed to tear off the tape and open the box. She stared at the contents, first surprised, then a huge smile spread over her face.
"So that's where he keeps those..."
"So you're a demon, huh?" Sano asked. They were back in their cages in the evil circular room of doom.
"Yes. Don't make a big deal out of it," Hiei answered. "Pester Sesshoumaru about it. Or Kurama. They're demons too."
"What?! You're a demon too?!" Sanosuke said, staring at Kurama. The boy nodded.
"Yes. Sort of. It's too hard to explain."
"But... I thought demons were evil!"
"Who says we aren't?" Sesshoumaru asked. Hiei grinned evilly. Sano looked from one to the other, then let out a little whimper and sat down on the floor.
"Oh, honestly, Sanosuke, they're not going to kill you," Hiko said. Then he looked at the three demons again. "Are you?"
"No!" Kurama said. "At least... I'm not... But... I can't speak for Sesshoumaru... and... Hiei won't listen to me if I... Wait! It's against Reikai rules for demons to kill humans. So of course we won't."
"You don't smell much like a demon, Kurama," Inuyasha said. "There's something different about you, but..."
"Like I said, it's hard to explain. I'm a spirit fox... in a human body."
"Soo... You possessed the human?"
"No. I am the human. It's not a possession, it's permanent. Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Why don't you just demonstrate?" Hiei suggested.
"What?! You mean just transform into Youko right here? Do you have any idea how those fan girls would react if they saw me?!" Kurama said, panicking.
"Oh yeah. Good point. Never mind. Do it some other time."
"Has anybody been keeping track of the time we've been here?" Aoshi asked. "And does anybody have any idea when they're going to let us out of here? I'm really rather sick of it, if truth be told."
"Aren't we all?" Yusuke said. "I have a girlfriend at home who is gonna kill me when I tell her some fanatics kidnapped me and brought me into the future..."
"You could lie, Yusuke," Hiei suggested. "She wouldn't know the difference."
"Not immediately, but if she ever found out I lied to her... My face would be one giant welt."
"Pathetic," Sesshoumaru muttered.
Meanwhile, over in the corner (of a circular room??), Miroku was meditating, Vash was sleeping and dreaming about eating donuts, and Wolfwood was really wishing he had quit smoking a long time ago, like... the second he started, so he wouldn't be going through withdrawal now. Saitou was just as miserable. Kenshin and Hiko were just sitting there listening to the conversations, but they were quickly unoccupied as everybody lapsed into silence again.
Meanwhile, back in the broom closet... literally...
"Let's see... ECLIPSE!!!" Shadow screamed. A second later, the girl walked out of the living room, grumbling and mumbling and yawning.
"What the...?"
"Do you think I could make a time machine?" Shadow asked.
"Shadow?"
"Yes?"
"No, I don't think you could make a time machine. Not if you were planning on using that pile of junk."
"JUNK!? Not junk! This is countless hours and days and weeks and months of gathering! I'm about to sacrifice hundreds of precious items to make a time machine! A black Furbie! Three forks and a spoon! Hearts, stars, and horseshoes! And a red balloon!" she said, grabbing each item as she said it.
"Dude. You're gonna use Lucky Charms to make a time machine?"
"Dude, no. And look at this! 'How to Make gourmet meals out of ROADKILL'! This is precious, man! Do you know how many dead things I find around here? This could be useful!" She threw the book off to one side and started digging through the pile. "And... and... An empty Tylenol bottle! I mean, seriously! A SHOEBOX! Shoeboxes are priceless. Coat hangers! A deflated soccer ball! This stuff is what astronauts used to make science projects in fifth grade!"
"Dude. You're not an astronaut, you're not in fifth grade, and this is not a science project," Eclipse tried to explain.
"Dude, look at this! AN ECONOMY-SIZED BOX OF DUCT TAPE! THERE'S 30 ROLLS IN THIS! And... What's left of Barney after I told him the weasels wanted to be his friends! This stuff could make me a fortune on eBay! I'll sell it and buy a time machine!" Shadow said. "But not the Furbie. The Furbie stays. The Furbie is my friend." She chucked the Furbie at the wall and it cracked into a million pieces.
"NOO! TALK! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TALK, DAMMIT! NOT BREAK!" she screamed, kicking the remnants of the Furbie around in the hallway. "I HAD FAITH IN YOU! YOU WERE GOING TO GO FAR IN THIS WORLD!" She broke down into hysterics. Eclipse wasn't sure whether she was faking it or not.
"Shadow?"
"MY FURBIE HAS FAILED ME! IT HAS FAILED ITSELF! IT HAS NOT COMPLETED ITS PURPOSE IN LIFE! WE MUST SACRIFICE IT TO THE GOD OF GREEN BANANAS!"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
"QUICK! PREPARE THE ALTER, LACKEY! I MUST GATHER THE REMAINS!"
"You spelled 'altar' wrong, retard."
"WHO CARES! IT SOUNDS THE SAME! PREPARE IT!" Shadow screamed, grabbing a dustpan and a broom and gathering the remains of the Furbie (I said the broom closet didn't have brooms, I didn't say there were no brooms in the house).
"Um... Do you even have an altar around here anywhere?" Eclipse asked. Shadow froze.
"No! I'd better build one quick, or the God will be displeased!" As she ran down the hall, Eclipse slammed her in the back of the head with a broom.
"SHADOW! Calm down! We don't have to sacrifice anything! We have to build a time machine, remember?" she said. Shadow rubbed her head, walked back to the closet, and went inside. A few seconds later, things started flying out of it. Eclipse assumed Shadow had gone back to searching for construction materials.
"IT'S A GIANT LLAMA!" Shadow screamed suddenly, running out of the closet with something tiny in her hand. "ONLY REALLY SMALL!"
Eclipse flung a baseball bat and Shadow and smashed her in the center of her forehead. The girl fell over and the tiny giant llama fell out of her hand. It turned out it was a 3-inch-high plastic toy. The entire floor was covered in little plastic toys. Eclipse looked in the closet and saw two boxes open: One full of little plastic toys, the other full of magic 8-balls.
"Giant spitting llamas... hamster sized," Shadow mumbled. Her eyes snapped open and she jumped back into the closet, pulling down another box. This one she tore open to reveal voodoo dolls, crystal balls, and ouigie (weegee) boards.
"This is my collection of fortune-telling devices," Shadow explained.
"Voodoo dolls don't tell fortunes," Eclipse said.
"No, but they hurt people, and that's cool."
"Do they actually work?"
"I haven't tested them. Give me your bracelet," Shadow said. Eclipse was wearing a thin metal beaded bracelet. She handed it to Shadow, who looped it around the doll's neck, then dropped the doll on the ground.
"Feel anything?"
"No, not really," Eclipse said. "Should I?"
Shadow picked up the doll and squeezed it slightly. "Anything now?"
"Sort of..."
"Now?" Shadow asked, shaking the doll around.
"Yes, okay, they work! Stop before I throw up!"
"Woohoo!" Shadow squealed, taking off the little bracelet and handing it back to Eclipse. "There you go. Hm... These could be useful... I'll have to keep those in an easy access area."
"Like where?"
"Like my room!" Shadow said, grabbing the box and running up to her room. Eclipse stared after her, then looked at the boxes in the broom closet. One was full of books. There was a large one with huge pink writing on a black spine that said "HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE." Her jaw dropped.
"Oh God, that girl is incompetent," she muttered, grabbing the book.
Meanwhile, in the happy pink room that was neither happy nor pink...
"... And that is why Furbies and Microsoft are at war in the land of gummy bears," Hiei said. It was an interesting new twist on, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Kurama, Miroku, Vash, Hiko, and Aoshi had just had a very long, profound discussion on time travel. Everybody had had a few comments to throw in here and there, but those five had been the main conversationalists. Yes, Aoshi had had a big part in the conversation. Like I said earlier, or in the last chapter, he seemed to be getting over complete antisocialism.
Kurama smiled at Hiei's comment.
"Well, did we come to any conclusions that might help us get out of here? That conversation lasted at least an hour," Miroku said. "We've got to have something."
"Even if we knew how to build a time machine, I don't think we could. Not while we're stuck in here," Kurama said.
"Man, this bites!" Yusuke complained. "We can't do anything! I can only think of one person who might be able to help us is Koenma! For all we know, he doesn't even know we're gone. And he'd have no way of tracking us if he did, would he? He can't time travel!"
"Well, he's supposedly the 'almighty' Koenma. He thinks he's so great, he should be able to help," Hiei said. "And the only way he could not know we were gone would be if something happened to Shadow, too."
"Which we all know you can't bear to think about," Sano said. "Something happening to your precious Shadow."
Hiei flipped Sano off. "Shut up, baka."
"Aww, he's not denying it!"
"Unless you want some part of your body to go missing, I suggest shut up."
"Go missing?"
"In other words, shut your pie hole before I feed you your heart."
"Errgh..." Sano said, sounding disgusted.
"Hiei, is there any need to be so violent?" Kenshin asked.
"Yes."
"I don't think there really is..."
"Yes there is."
"Why?"
"Just because you don't like it," Hiei said, smirking.
"Oh, I give up," Kenshin groaned, sweatdropping. Kurama grinned. Suddenly, a voice came over the intercom. One of the annoying girls.
"READY FOR CHALLENGE NUMBER THREE YET, GUYS?!"
"I swear to God, I'm going to start fearing the female gender," Yusuke muttered.
"NO WE ARE NOT, SO SCREW OFF!" Hiei screamed.
"Too bad!" the girl retorted. They were transported into the white room. It dematerialized.
"I hope you still have your keys," the girl's voice said as a new room appeared. Not so much a room, really, than a hallway. "Fine the matching door. Open it, and find the keys inside for the doors and compartments. You'll need to open all of them, but I suggest opening the second door last. Ready, go."
I'm getting sick of the word meanwhile...
"Hey Shadow!" Eclipse called, walking down the hall towards her friend's room. "I think I found something that could help!" She walked into the room and found Shadow playing with the evil ouigie (weegee) board.
"Are you an evil ouigie board?" Shadow asked. She put her hands on the little thingy that moves around. Eclipse stood above her and watched the thing spell out 'yes.' Shadow let out a squeal. "Yes! Evil ouigie board of doom, grant me a wish!"
"What's your problem?" Eclipse asked. Shadow shushed her as the board spelled out, "I don't grant wishes. Screw off."
"WELL FINE!" Shadow screamed, kicking the board. It went flying out the window. "You were saying?"
"I found this book," Eclipse said, holding up the time traveling machine book.
"That's not gonna help us. Did you look at it?" Shadow said.
"No," Eclipse replied honestly. She opened it and looked inside. It was a picture book with a few words and arrows. The first page had a picture of a boy with silvery-purple hair. It had an arrow pointing to it that said, "Trunks, son of Vegeta. 1/2 Saiyan." The next page had a picture of a little pod looking thing. It had an arrow pointing to it that said, "Trunks' time machine. Fully operational." The next page had two empty outlines running with an arrow pointing to them that said, "You." And the page after that had the two outlines carrying away the time machine, and it said, "You, carrying away Trunks' fully operational time machine to help save your oh-so-wonderful friends who were transported six years into the future."
"What the hell?" Eclipse said, staring at it. She turned the page. There was a picture of a very angry-looking 1/2 Saiyan, son of Vegeta, named Trunks, chasing after two outlines that were carrying away his fully operational time machine.
"That's not what it said last time I looked at it," Shadow mumbled, snatching the book. She flipped a few pages ahead and started reading. "Well according to this, somewhere in the world there's this Saiyan dude with a time machine. Let's go."
"Go where? On some search to find some guy we know nothing about who probably doesn't even exist?"
"No, retard! To Koenma's! We're gonna find out if he exists," Shadow said, slamming the book shut and tucking it under her arm as she walked out the door. Eclipse ran after her.
"You're suddenly serious."
"I'm always serious."
"... That's not how it looks from my point of view. Anyway, what the heck did you mean when you said, 'That's not what it said last time I looked at it'?"
"I meant exactly that. Last time I looked at it, it said, 'You don't need this book yet.'"
"Shadow, is everything in this house possessed?"
"Possessed? Of course not. Why would you say that?"
"No, I mean, do you have anything normal in this house?"
"Sure! I'm here, aren't I?" Shadow chirped, posing and batting her eyebrows. Eclipse sighed.
"I rest my case."
"I don't see a case. Where is it resting?"
"You know... You were serious for about two seconds... Now you're back to dancing down the hall."
And Shadow was doing exactly that. She hadn't even waited for an answer after she had asked about the resting case. She had just asked, then started dancing down the hall and singing.
"TO KOENMA'S!" she yelled, pointing up, then running down the hall and out the door.
"Yeah, let's just hope he'll help... You did say you'd do this all by yourself!" Eclipse said as she caught up to her.
"If he doesn't help, I'll tell his father he's abandoning his spirit detectives. He'll straighten up real quick," Shadow answered, smirking.
And they were off to see the prince, the wonderful prince of Reikai... Who isn't actually so wonderful, but if you didn't catch it, I was singing the Wizard of Oz there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, disclaimers. I don't own Furbies (I don't even own a Furbie, never have, but you know what I mean. No copyrights are owned by me.), I don't own the copyrights to Back to the Future, though I own the movies, I don't own Lucky Charms, I don't own... Dragonball Z (thanks by the way to Serenitystone, who suggested that. I was in severe need of ideas. Putting DBZ in it will be fine, though it's not my favorite anime or anything… I think she suggested something else I used in one of my other stories too… The Work Sucks story… Was that you? ^_^ Bad memory. You know.)... I don't own... anything else I mentioned in this chapter... or this story... or any of my stories for that matter... that's copyrighted. I own Shadow and everything that is completely made up out of my mind. ^_^ Oh, Eclipse belongs to my best friend... Well... We sort of have a shared ownership on her... WHATEVER. It's not important. Anyway... ^_^ Sayonara until the next chapter. OH. Any errors in this chapter are because I didn't proof read it. I have a bad habit of not proofreading things unless it's a weekend (which it is currently Thursday).
