WARNING: LONG CHAPTER. 4,940 WORDS. FEAR. MY. WRATH. OF. INSANITY. AND. RANDOMNESS. AND RAMBLING. AS SUCH. I AM NOW.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In which I use a lot of words to talk about almost absolutely nothing.
"What was it she said? Open the door after opening all the other things in the room?" Sano said out loud to no one in particular. Of course, he had gone straight to the door. In front of him stood an enormous... something. It was some kind of demon human bear frog creature. He looked at it. It looked at him. He regretted having opened the door. He turned around, but the door had closed itself.
"Do your best, Sano. We'll pull you out if it gets too hairy," a girl said over the intercom.
"Yeah, thanks a lot!"
"Don't say we didn't warn you."
Sano looked at the hairy frog human monkey creature thing and blinked. It blinked back. He waved. It didn't have any front arms or feet to wave with, so it blinked again. He flipped it off with both hands. Once again, no hands, so it just blinked again. Sano belched really loud. Now that was something this thing could do. It belched so loud dust fell from the ceiling as its voice cracked the plaster stuff. And it stank. It smelled absolutely awful. Like rotten eggs that had been mixed with dog farts. Sano was on the verge of throwing up.
Meanwhile, Hiei was having a bit more luck. He had opened three out of the five compartments, found a sword, a surgical mask, and a package of Hot Fudge Sundae Poptarts. After the Poptarts, he'd said, "Screw this, this is gay," and went on to the door. He opened it and found a giant who-knows-what staring back at him.
Imagine a creature the size of an elephant with butterfly wings (actual size), horse hooves on its back legs, rabbit ears, dragon tail, wolf back legs, eagle's head... human arms... Human arms holding a battle-axe. Hiei stared at it. He'd seen plenty of ugly things in his life, but this was by far the ugliest. Yes, it was worse than Kuwabara.
"Sick! Where the hell did these girls get this stuff?" he asked himself. "I guess the challenge is to kill it?"
"Exactly! Hit it right in the forehead, Hiei!" a girl said over the intercom.
"Oh. Okay." Hiei did exactly that. He cracked the thing right in the middle of its eagle head, and it fell over dead.
"Oh damn. I mixed that up with that saying, what is it? Hit the nail right on the head? Well I guess you win this challenge. Do you want to keep those Poptarts?"
"What? No."
"Okay!"
Next thing Hiei knew, he was standing in front of a wall of monitors. The rest of the guys were displayed on the screens. He found Kurama, Yusuke, Saitou, and Sanosuke. Sano was fighting the ugliest, smelliest-looking thing Hiei had ever seen. Kurama was opening drawers in a room. Yusuke was fighting a midget on a pogo stick, which, if you think about it, is kind of freaky. And Saitou was fighting something that strongly resembled a giant egg. With feet. Hiei stared at the screens.
"This is fucked up," is all he could think to say.
"Hiei! Watch your language!" the girl beside him said, smacking some duct tape over his mouth. He pulled it off and stuck it in her hair, watching the screens to see who would come in second place, ignoring her screams as she whined about messing up her perfect hairdo.
"Shut up!" Hiei snapped. Kurama was now opening the door. Inside the room was...
A pigeon.
Oh yes. Pigeons are evil. They're evil evil bad birdies. They poop on cars and eat the old ladies who feed them in the park. Kurama had every right to promptly slice the bird in two, which he did after Hiei found the right button and said, "Hey Kurama, the challenge is to kill whatever you find in that room. So if you had found a little pink Wal-Mart smiley, you would have had to kill it. Fry the birdie."
Of course, slicing a bird in half isn't exactly frying it, but it's close enough. It dies either way. A second after the pigeon was in shreds on the floor, Kurama appeared beside Hiei in front of the screens.
"Oh. Hello," he said.
"I'm first. You're second. I have a feeling Aoshi is gonna be third."
"Why is that?"
"Look."
Aoshi was fighting a human boy. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen with brown hair and the startings of a moustache and beard. He was standing there smiling really stupidly while Aoshi paced circles around him with his two kodachi unsheathed, one in each hand.
"What kind of lunatics would make him kill a teenager?" Kurama asked, stunned.
"Those kind," Hiei said, pointing at the girls who were also watching the monitors. He stepped forward and hit the button to talk into Aoshi's room. "Aoshi! Just kill the stupid kid already. You have a chance to come in third."
Aoshi looked startled, but he attacked and in a second the kid was lying in pieces on the floor. Aoshi appeared beside Kurama. His white coat had a few spatters of blood on it, but otherwise he looked fine.
"You're third," Hiei said.
"Who ever gave you permission to run this place, Hiei?" one girl asked. "Stop giving advice!"
"Shut up, baka! I'm sick of being here. If I help them, then we'll get this crap over with faster, and I'll get out faster. Hopefully."
"Hiei, look," Kurama said. He was pointing at one of the monitors. Hiei and Aoshi walked over and watched Yusuke, who was getting squished into the ground by the midget on a pogo stick.
"Interesting," Aoshi said, his eyebrows raised curiously.
A second later, Kenshin and Hiko appeared. Fourth and fifth. Then Vash, Wolfwood, Inuyasha, and eventually everybody had appeared except Yusuke. He was still being pogo-sticked to death.
"Just transport him out," Hiei said dryly. "He's never gonna get up."
With a sigh, the girl hit a button and Yusuke appeared on the floor covered in little circles. It looked painful.
"Line up side by side!" one girl ordered. The guys obeyed, and the girl walked over with some little device. Hiei, first in the line, looked at it suspiciously.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Something," the girl answered. She hit a button and a beam of light shot out, as wide as Hiei. She ran it down from the tips of his hair to his feet. She moved to Kurama and repeated it. Next she moved to Saitou. He had been fighting a giant egg, remember. She ran the light beam down him and the egg splatters vanished from his clothes. He quirked an eyebrow.
"What was that?"
"Particle beam," the girl answered. She moved down the line, healing and tidying up each of the guys in turn. Then they promptly vanished and reappeared back in their cells.
"At least we got to fight," Sano said dryly from beside Hiei.
"All I got to do was punch some creature in the head," Hiei answered dryly.
"I had to fight an egg," Saitou said coldly. "It's degrading."
"At least you didn't get beat up by a midget on a pogo stick," Hiei said, loud enough Yusuke could hear.
"Shut up, Hiei! That midget was possessed!"
"So? You've killed demons before! Surely a midget on a pogo stick isn't much of a challenge!"
Yusuke grumbled.
"Boo hoo," Hiei taunted, fake-sniffling. Yusuke stalked over to Hiei's cage and stuck his face up to the bars.
"Shut up, Hiei, before I hurt you."
"You can't reach me," Hiei said, smirking.
"That's why I have a spirit gun! I don't have to reach you!"
"That's why I dodge," Hiei said, glaring. Yusuke had a lot of nerve.
"You can't dodge too well in that little cage! It'd be simple for me to fry you right now!"
"Shut up, Urameshi! You want me to break your face?"
Meanwhile, Kurama realized that the tensions of being cramped in a room with no exits or windows was taking its toll on everybody. He and Kenshin hurried over to Yusuke and Hiei. Hiei was now pulled up against the bars on his cage by Yusuke, who had a fistful of the front of Hiei's shirt.
"Shut up, shorty!"
"Hit me. I dare you," Hiei hissed.
Before Yusuke could move, Kurama put a hand on his shoulder.
"Calm down, Yusuke. Look who you're fighting! You're fighting your friend. Those girls are getting to all of us, but we shouldn't flip out like this. Calm down."
"Shut up, Kurama," Yusuke said, glancing back at him. Hiei took this opportunity and punched Yusuke hard in the face, knocking him out cold and sending him flying backwards. The boy landed a halfway across the room between Wolfwood and Hiko, who barely glanced at him.
"Hiei!" Kenshin said, horrified.
"That's my name."
"Why did you do that?!"
Hiei sighed. "It's obvious. He needed to cool off, and unconsciousness is the best place to do that."
There was a short silence before Sano interrupted it, plopping down with a loud thud and whining, "I wanna go home!"
"For once I agree with the moron," Saitou said dryly. Sano's eyes snapped open.
"Really? I never thought I'd see the day!"
"We all want to go home," Wolfwood said.
"Let's rebel," Inuyasha suggested.
"Let's kill them all," Hiei added.
"No!!!" Vash and Kenshin whined. Hiei sighed.
"Whatever."
"But I agree that we rebel," Vash said.
"I think we should kill them," Sesshoumaru said.
"Onegai! Iie!" Kenshin whined.
"Well we are going to escape," Hiei said. "Because there's no way we can know if anyone we know knows where we are."
"Nani? Run that by me again. You said 'know' too much," Sano said cluelessly.
"Ahou," Saitou sighed.
"I said that we will escape, because we don't know if anyone knows where we are. Get it?" Hiei said dryly.
"Hai. I think so."
"Good."
"So what's your plan?"
"Anou..."
"You do have a plan, don't you?" Sano asked suspiciously.
"Of course! One of the first things I learned about life is to always have a plan," Hiei said, his eyes carefully avoiding Sano's.
"So what's your plan?"
"I don't have a plan."
"Nani!" Sanosuke said, falling over.
"Wait! I have one! Here's my plan: Let's ask Kurama for a plan!" Hiei said. Everybody sighed, but looked at Kurama expectantly.
"Ask them," Kurama said, pointing at Hiko and Kenshin.
"Why do we always have to be the ones with the plan? Baka!" Hiko complained. Everybody stared arguing over everything, and eventually it got to the point where they were blaming it on the position of Uranus relative to the core of Pluto divided by the sum of the distance from Earth to the Sun plus the square root of half of the speed of light, and according to Einstein's theory of relativity, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Of course, being as Einstein was born March 14th (my birthday too!), 1879, in Germany, on Earth, nobody but Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke even had the vaguest idea who Albert Einstein was or what he did, so that settled the argument. They lapsed into silence.
However a few minutes later, Hiei, sitting between Saitou and Sanosuke, felt like he was gonna burst into flames from the looks the two were giving each other. Who knows why, but they were shooting insults back and forth like they had been arguing for hours. Maybe they had, but it had gone unnoticed in the larger argument.
"Tori-atama," Saitou said.
"Ookami," Sano retorted.
"Arigatou, ahou," Saitou said, smirking.
"Bakayarou!"
"Kuso-atama," Saitou said. Sano's jaw dropped. Hiei snorted back laughter.
"Shimatta! Hiretsukan!" Sano whined.
"Gaki! Shuushi!" Kenshin snapped. Saitou glared. Sano just looked annoyed.
"Baka," Saitou said, sitting down. "You spoil my fun."
"Fun? Insulting Sanosuke is fun?" Hiei asked.
Saitou looked startled by the tone of Hiei's voice. "Actually, yes."
Hiei paused, looking horrified. Then a smile broke over his face. "Hai. It is."
Saitou grinned at the crushed look on Sano's face. Hiei laughed. Sanosuke had been hoping that maybe Hiei had changed. Of course he hadn't.
"Guys, can't we just get along?" Vash whined.
"No!" Hiei and Saitou said simultaneously.
"Haven't you asked that before?" Kurama asked.
"I think that was Kenshin."
"Whatever. Same question. And what was their answer then?" Kurama asked.
"No," Vash said miserably.
"Then why would that change?"
"It wouldn't."
"Good! Glad we understand each other, there, Needle noggin," Hiei said, having picked up the nickname from Wolfwood.
"Hey! That's my nickname for the idiot! Mine!" Wolfwood complained.
"Too bad."
"Too bad? All rights reserved! Back off! Mine!"
Hiei gave up and sat down.
The room lapsed into silence, more or less. Miroku and Inuyasha were having a conversation, and Hiko, Kenshin, and Kurama were having a conversation, but everybody else was sitting, staring, sleeping, and other such things that begin with "s."
Meanwhile, in Reikai... 2004...
"Oh, Ko-ennnnnnnnnnnnnma!" Shadow sang, walking into Koenma's office. "I need to ask you something!"
"Not now, Shadow! Can't you see I'm busy?" Koenma said. Shadow noticed a teenage silver-purple haired boy standing in front of Koenma's desk.
"Who's that?" Shadow asked. She walked up and got close to the boy's face. "Have we met before? You look familiar."
"Shadow, leave!" Koenma snapped.
"Do me a favor first. We need to find a half-Saiyan named Trunks... Could you help us?" Shadow asked.
"No, I most definitely cannot," Koenma said stiffly.
"I'm Trunks... Why am I suddenly so popular?" the boy said.
"Where is your time machine?" Shadow asked, grabbing Trunks's collar with both hands and pulling his face down to her level. "TELL ME OR DIE!"
"It's..."
"Nowhere! Go away!" Koenma yelled. Suddenly, Shadow and Eclipse fell and landed hard on their butts. They looked around and found themselves... somewhere... in the middle of a city with strange futuristic-looking buildings and cars, and yet... people were walking dinosaurs on leashes.
"What the fuck?!" Shadow yelped.
Back in Reikai, Koenma was cursing and screaming: "I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON! I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON!!!"
"Let me see that book," Eclipse said, snatching the How to Build a Time Machine book out of Shadow's hand.
"Look at this," she said. "It's different. It's showing... this city. There's an arrow pointing..." She paused. "... this way!" She pointed to her left and walked that way without looking up, and promptly slammed into a wall.
"There's a building there," Shadow said. She walked to the door. "There's no doorknob!"
"Try this," Eclipse said, pushing a button. "It's an intercom."
"Who's there?" came a man's voice.
"We're mechanics!" Shadow chirped quickly. "We're here to work on Trunks's time machine!"
"Does it need work?"
"Yes! Yes, it most definitely does!" Shadow said.
"Did he call you?"
"Of course he did! What did you think we did? Appear out of thin air in the front lawn?"
"No, of course not. Come in," the man's voice said. A second later the door slid open. Shadow led Eclipse inside. Just inside the door, they nearly ran into a man wearing full-body Spandex, boots, and gloves.
"Direct us in the general direction of the time machine!" Shadow ordered, standing up tall and proud.
"That way," the man said, pointing. "Where are your tools?"
"Right here!" Shadow said, kicking him in the crotch and taking off running.
"Shadow! What the hell was that for?" Eclipse yelled as she ran after her friend.
"We're thieves! What do you expect us to do? Just leave him unharmed and use cunning and trickery to steal it?"
"Yes! That's exactly what I expect, and you were doing fine until you had to go and whack that guy in the nuts!"
"I prefer brawn over brains! In case you couldn't tell, I'm not too high on the brains department," Shadow said. They ran through a door and ended up in a little room with the time machine they'd seen in the book.
"Here it is. I don't suppose you know how to drive it?" Eclipse said.
"No. That's why I have the 'Driving Stolen Time Machines. For Dummies. Edition 1' in my hand," Shadow chirped, climbing into the cockpit. "All aboard!"
With a sigh, Eclipse hauled herself up into the cockpit beside Shadow.
"Let's see here..." Shadow said, looking over the controls.
Spandex-man was suddenly in the doorway.
"HEY! Get out of there! Trunks doesn't need a mechanic! He built that thing himself, he can fix it! Get out before I kill you!"
"Shadow?!"
"I don't know how to work it!"
"Figure out! Hurry!"
"Ahm..."
"Shadow!! At least close the lid!"
"I DON'T KNOW HOW!" Shadow bellowed.
A second later, the two girls screamed in surprise, because the Spandex-man was suddenly floating in front of them.
"YOU CAN FLY?!"
"GET OUTTA THE COCKPIT!" Spandex-man snapped, forming up a ball of energy in his hand.
"Are you Vegeta?" Shadow asked abruptly.
"Of course, fool! Who did you think I was?" Spandex-man, a.k.a Vegeta, snapped.
"I thought you were President of the United States. So you're Trunks's father?" Shadow said, leaning forward a little bit.
"Yes," Vegeta answered, floating backwards a bit. The energy in his hand faltered.
"Ah. I guess you would be the one we would want to talk to, then," Shadow said, pulling herself out of the seat and perching on the edge of the cockpit.
"What? Shadow, what are you--" Eclipse started, but she was silenced by a quick kick to the side of the head. She slumped back in the seat, swirly-eyed.
"Talk to?" Vegeta asked, the energy in his hand shrinking down to barely anything. He floated back some more.
"We have Trunks."
"WHAT?!"
"Yeah. We kidnapped him," Shadow said.
"What do you want with Trunks?"
"Oh, let's see... A lot of things. We could use him as breeding stock. We could use him for slave labor. We could power our entire colony with his energy. Half-Saiyans are amazing creatures," Shadow said. She's strange. Who the hell could think up all those things in a split second and act like they'd had them planned out for ages? She is a very good actress, I suppose.
Vegeta was fuming. Shadow could see his aura. She smiled innocently.
"All we ask for his return to you is this time machine," she said, smiling.
Vegeta was shaking with rage. He believed her. A thought came to him.
"How could some puny girls kidnap my son? He would easily fight you off!"
"First, it wasn't us in person. We gave the order. But our workers carried it out. Second, it would really be rather easy for a girl like me to kidnap any guy, even the strongest man in the world," Shadow said, smiling.
"Oh? How would you do that?" Vegeta snarled.
"Seduction," she replied, grinning evilly. Vegeta's eyes widened and he looked even more furious than before.
"Not all men are susceptible to women's charm."
"Heh heh heh. I haven't met a guy yet who I couldn't train to lick my boots," Shadow said, still grinning. Of course, she hasn't really tried that with too many guys... That we know of... Maybe she's doing objectionable things behind Hiei's back. Gasp!
"Oh yeah? Try it on me," Vegeta said. "I can hide any and all emotions. Nobody can manipulate me."
"You wish. I only seduce my victims and my chosen mates," Shadow said. Okay, this is getting freaky. "Of course, my chosen mates are usually in the victims category... BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND... Are you willing to give us the time machine in return for your son?"
Just then, something happened that threw Shadow's acting and on the spot planning right out the window.
"Dad?!"
Vegeta jumped. "Trunks?"
"Oh, shit," Shadow muttered. Trunks appeared in the doorway.
"You?!" Trunks said, startled to see Shadow sitting on the cockpit of his time machine. "What are you doing here?"
"You escaped?" Vegeta asked, startled.
"Escaped? What are you talking about?"
"Shimatta... Time for Shadow to make her great escape," Shadow muttered, starting to slide back into the cockpit, hopefully unnoticed. Oops.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Vegeta snapped, punching her right out of the cockpit and on to the floor at Trunks's feet.
"Kuso," Shadow whispered. She was now between Trunks and Vegeta. Neither looked too happy. After laying there for a few seconds, just long enough for Vegeta to reach her and think he had her, she leapt up and tore down the hall. Vegeta shot off after her, but Trunks noticed Eclipse was starting to regain her... normality. As in... blue eyes instead of swirlies... and conscious thought. She's never quite normal, by society's definition. Just like Shadow. Shadow is NEVER EVER even CLOSE to being SIMILAR to society's definition of normal.
"Shadow?" she said, looking around.
"What are you doing in my time machine?" Trunks asked.
"Oh, kuso," Eclipse muttered. "Did you already kill Shadow?"
"The twisted lunatic girl wearing black and carrying an oversized book everywhere with her? No. My father is after her right now."
As he said the words, a yell echoed up the hall.
"Don't shoot at me, fool! Haven't you ever heard 'never hit a lady'?!"
"Some lady you are!" came Vegeta's response. There was a thud and a second later Shadow tore across the hallway. Vegeta was close behind her.
"Ah."
"So what did you want with me?" Trunks asked.
"Well, we were gonna ask you nicely for your time machine, and when you said no, we would steal it and, and being as Shadow was the one with the instructions, when you got it back... if you got it back, it would have been reduced to something that could fit in a shoebox," Eclipse said nervously.
"You were going to blow up my time machine?" Trunks asked, anger starting to show on his face.
"Yes, and if we can, we still need it."
"In your dreams!" Trunks snapped, lunging at Eclipse. The girl swung her legs over the edge of the cockpit, landed gracefully, and took off running as fast as she could (which, being half demon, was rather fast. But then, Trunks, being half-Saiyan, was rather fast too, and could fly). She tore off in the direction she'd seen Shadow going. Up ahead, the two, pursuer and pursued, were still visible. She shot after them.
A blast of energy hit the floor at her heels and she turned to see Trunks tearing after her shooting energy balls at her feet. She lunged into the nearest room she could find and leaned up against the door to keep it closed.
She must not think too well under pressure, because a second later, the door slid open. Sideways. She fell back and bumped into Trunks. She lurched forward and spun around.
"Oh. Crap," she said, getting slightly pale. In addition to energy bombs, Trunks now had spiky yellow hair and a good bit more energy. He charged at her. She dodged to one side and tore back out the door and down the hall after Shadow, as fast as she could run. In a couple minutes, she was a few feet behind Vegeta. She passed him. A second later, she was running side-by-side with Shadow, and Trunks was side-by-side with Vegeta.
"Hello!" Shadow said happily. Eclipse glanced at her and kept running. "Nice day for a high-speed chase, ne?"
Before Eclipse could say anything else, there was an explosion of energy at their heels and they sped up even more. Shadow glanced over her shoulder and grew pale.
"Quicken pace!" she yelled, calling on her fire demon speed. "He's got a sword!" She and Eclipse were now running so fast that even if they had wanted to stop, it would have taken a 5-foot-thick brick wall to do so. Or maybe ten gallons of elephant tranquilizers would have worked…
They had run through every hallway in Capsule Corp, and now they were tearing back towards the room housing the time machine.
"We're leaving!" Shadow said, running straight into the room and leaping into the time machine. Eclipse was right behind her. She pushed some buttons and the lid thing closed. They were sealed in the machine, and they knew the two men wouldn't attack them until they were out. They wouldn't damage the time machine. The time machine that the girls weren't getting out of, so they were safe.
"Shimatta!" Trunks cursed loudly. Shadow looked at the book in her lap for instructions and pushed d a few buttons. The machine's engines started and they lifted up off the ground. She hit a few more buttons and they started up. They crashed through the ceiling and lifted up several yards above the roof.
"Now... How do we program what year we're going to?" Shadow asked herself, looking over the controls.
"Here's some numbers... Maybe that has something to do with it," Eclipse suggested.
"Let's see..." Shadow said, leaning over and looking at it. She pushed a few numbers in. Nothing happened. "I guess n--"
Before she could finish the sentence, the area around them seemed to dematerialize. It was replaced with wavy, floaty lines. Pigs flew outside their windows. Down below, Shadow saw a red man with a pitchfork wearing a thick fur coat and carrying a snow blower down some seemingly endless stairs. She stared at the guy's pointy tail until he vanished from sight.
"I just saw the devil."
"I just saw the Easter bunny and Santa Claus," Eclipse said, staring out the window with wide eyes. "Where are we?"
"I think... we're no where."
"What?"
"Um... There's a midget... on a pogo stick..."
"I think we're in another dimension... where the unknown... is known..." Eclipse said. Shadow looked at her in horror. "What?"
"You sounded smart! I'm scared! I guess the unknown really is known!"
"Shut up!"
"Um... Let's try to get out of this dimension and into... 2010," Shadow said, looking over the controls.
"Wait... Didn't Koenma say that the time warp went to 1880, too?"
"I dunno. Did he?" Shadow said cluelessly, looking at the buttons and scratching her chin.
"My point is, shouldn't we go to 1880 and see if we can find out anything there?" Eclipse asked.
"Eclipse, have you noticed how smart you have been ever since Kurama and Hiei vanished? You've been calm, cool, and collected. Unlike me. I'VE BEEN BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS AND TALKING ABOUT FREEZE-DRIED SQUID!"
"Yes. I actually had noticed, but I decided that it would be okay, since you're being strange enough for about two hundred and thirty-four people," Eclipse said.
"Okay. Just wondering. Well, we might as well go to 1880. Anything is better than this place," Shadow said as the pogo-stick-midget floated by and three green monkeys wearing glasses rode by on winged unicycles.
"Good point," Eclipse said, watching as the monkeys morphed into evil flying Goatsheepwhales (you'd have to know me to understand the Goatsheepwhales thing... I am an Evil Flying Goatsheepwhale... Ruler of all Beans), and marshmallow clouds floated over the banana moon and started raining malted milk balls.
After a two-second analysis of the number buttons again, Shadow hit some and pushed a big blue button. The insane dimension of unknown vanished and in its place was a rather large forest. Shadow lowered the time machine to the ground and opened the lid.
"Well, I suppose this is 1880," she said, climbing out and hopping to the ground. Eclipse followed her as she walked into the forest.
"You know... We're in 1880! Won't they notice a couple of teenage girls strolling down the streets in boots and belts and buckles? Didn't they all wear kimonos?"
"... Yeah. Well, we can just... hide...?"
"Do we even know what we're looking for?"
"No. We could go to the cops or something. Ask if anybody has vanished."
"Missing persons?" Shadow said. "Did they have missing persons in 1880?"
"I'm sure they did, Shadow. They just ended some war or something, didn't they? They had samurais and swords and--"
"Hold it right there!"
Shadow and Eclipse spun around and saw about a dozen scarcely dressed men with swords and daggers. Their jaws dropped.
"Kuso. This is great," Shadow whispered. "We're here for three minutes and we're already getting mobbed."
"What do you want?" Eclipse asked.
"What do you think we want from two little girls in the middle of the forest?" one asked, smiling cruelly and raising his dagger.
"Little? Are you calling me little?" Shadow asked coldly, narrowing her eyes. "You'd better watch how you treat ladies!"
"Ooh, I like 'em feisty!" another man said. "Let me handle this, boss."
"Handle, huh? Who are you twisted people?" Shadow asked, crossing her arms.
"We're just some local guys who want some fun."
One of the guys reached for Shadow. She hit his hand out of the way.
"You messin' wit me?" she snapped, narrowing her eyes. "You messin' wit me? Do you know who I am!?"
"No."
"Let's keep it that way." Shadow turned and started walking away. Several of the man lunged at her. She spun around and kicked one of them in the head. Boom. Fighting started. Eclipse punched guys left and right and sent them flying into trees. Shadow kicked guys, mostly in the groin and head. The two girls easily mauled all twelve armed men.
"Let's go!" Eclipse said. "Before they... die... or something..."
The two girls took off running through the forest. In 1880 Tokyo. Near 1880 Tokyo, more like.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Evil Flying Goatsheepwhale. I am the creator. Do not steal. I will tell you. Last year, I thought I was fat. I thought I was a whale; hence "whale." Also, last year, I kept making strange farmyard animal noises, and my friends debated whether it was a goat or a sheep. I told them it's a Goatsheep. I settled it. Hence, "Goatsheep." "Evil"... is just cuz that's what I am. "Flying" is because I like things that fly. My mission over the summer between 7th and 8th grade was to find more goatsheepwhales. I failed miserably. *sob*
"Quicken pace" and "We're leaving" are quotes out of Sleepy Hollow. Sure, they could be from anywhere, but that's why they're there. That movie is awesome! It's got Johnny Depp in it (who my friend is obsessed with, but I am not), and a really awesome horse, and people get their heads lopped off, and it's rated R. For violence. Hee hee hee. I'm probably gonna have Pirates of the Caribbean quotes in the next chapter.
There was something else I was… Oh yeah! Aoshi's bishie challenge was to kill my sister's boyfriend. ^_^ And he succeeded. I hate my sister's boyfriend. He likes Aoshi, so it was just so fitting to have Aoshi kill him (I didn't remember that until I was proofreading…)
