Dies Usagi (Day of the Bunny)
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By Bezo and Yezo
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Disclaimer: We do not own these characters, as their sheer level of warpedness might be beyond even our creation. Bezo would like to protest that they are not beyond his, and comments that Yezo is a "little girly man". She protests that she is not a man at all, but very much a woman, mrowr. He confirms this, and that's it for the disclaimer. See you at the end notes!
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"Argh! It's the writer's block!" Excel yelped as she shrunk back nervously from the gazes of several young men and women clad in black turtlenecks and berets. "I don't know why they all live in the same part of the city – must be all the cappuccino bars, or somethin' – but when ACROSS finally conquers the city, led by the glorious Lord Ilapalazzo, this den of pretension and artistic angst will be the first place we strike off the map! WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' WRITERS!"
"Oh, really!" a familiar voice asked viciously from one of the several oddly named coffee shops that peppered the street. "Well, I, Koshi Rikudo, creator of Excel Saga, will not stand for it! You think you can do so fine without me, you just go ahead and try! I, Koshi Rikudo, do NOT hereby give my permission to today's experiment! I will have nothing to do with it, and will instead leave everything under the control of two fan author's named Bezo and Yezo!"
And with that, he put away his stamp indignantly and went back to sipping his double-mocha decaf super-mega-ultra latte, no whipped cream, no sprinkles, but a cherry on top, which promptly sank into the coffee, thus ruining the flavour.
Excel stared, horrified, as though turned to stone.
Then she turned to stone, and promptly fell to the ground and shattered. Then the bits reassembled themselves, just in time to a yell out,
"Hey, Pedro!"
This was excellent timing, as indeed, the no-longer-disgruntled immigrant worker chose just that moment to pass by.
"Oh, Miss Excel! I wonder if you could help me," he called, sounding on the point of tears, as he made his way through the throngs of authors, some looking for their first big break, and some looking for their first coffee of the day. "Have you seen That Man pass by?"
"What man do you mean, my fuzzy-haired immigrant worker pal, Pedro? Love the afro, by the way," she added.
"That Man!"
"Which man?"
"That man!"
"There's lots of different mans around here!" Excel pointed out impatiently. "And some womans! And lots of bunnies, for some reason."
"I am not looking for just any man," Pedro wept. "I am looking for That Man!"
"If you know exactly what you're looking for in a man, by all means, go to it! Excel is not one to judge a person on their alternate lifestyle choices, although she does feel a little sorry for your adorable son and sexy wife! What do they think about this? No, never mind, go get your man! We'll all stand behind you! Except for the guy; he'll probably wanna stand in front of you. Or kneel in front of you. Or bend over. Or whatever. But first, Excel has some news, which may excite, frighten, or leave you feeling slightly indifferent. It also may cause headache, nausea, dry mouth, or death in extreme cases."
"O…kay," Pedro said hesitantly, having been generally embittered toward news of any kind as of late.
"Excel was wandering the streets of F-City, looking for some spare guitar strings for Lord Ilpalazzo, who broke all of his in a fit of glorious artistic expression that made Excel weak in the knees and all kinda warm and squishy – for the glory of ACROSS, of course – and she happened to get lost in the Writer's Block, where she was accosted by hundreds of black-wearin' weirdoes in stupid hats, who just kept saying 'life is shit' over and over and over, and telling Excel that her happiness offended them, and drinking expensive coffee. She remarked to herself that, in the glorious perfection that was the assured future of F-City once ACROSS purged it of all undesirables, the writers would be completely unnecessary! Unfortunately, Koshi Rikudo overheard Excel, and got all huffy and left us in the control of two fan authors named Benny and Yeller, or somethin'."
"Fan authors?!" Pedro repeated, aghast.
"Yeah! And I heard one of them really likes lemons!"
"What about Pedro?"
"No, I haven't heard anything about that," Excel replied thoughtfully.
"Oh, no!" Pedro groaned. "Not fan authors!"
"And they're really into weird yaoi experimentation, like That Man and Pedro," she concluded, dancing wildly about the street.
"That Man and Pedro?! Nooooooooooo!"
"Would it be better if it was Pedro and Menchi?" she asked sympathetically.
"No!" Pedro insisted. Then he frowned. "Hold on; why did you suddenly know who That Man is?"
Excel looked at him strangely.
"Who? What are you talking about, Pedro?"
To this, there was only one possible response for a disgruntled Pedro.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
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A strange twanging noise rang out through the Great Hall of ACROSS.
Ilpalazzo studied the guitar thoughtfully for a moment.
"I must say, it does sound better with the missing strings. Could they have been what was throwing me off all this time?"
Striking a chord, he launched once more into his song.
"Kinesthetic! Kinesthetiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic!"
Then, as the sound died away, he frowned.
"No, it just doesn't sound right. Too many syllables, I believe."
"Hail Ilpalazzo!" a weak voice, punctuated by coughs, called, breaking into his thoughts.
"Oh, hello, Agent Hyatt. I hadn't noticed you there."
"I'm sorry to disturb you," she began, "especially during your time of artistic expression, but I thought I should bring to your attention that the city has been overrun by a plague of bunnies."
"Bunnies?" he repeated. "Are you certain of that?"
"Yes, Lord Ilpalazzo," Hyatt replied.
"Are you sure you didn't read the report wrong? It wasn't, perhaps, a plague of sores? Bunions, or something?"
"Very certain, Lord Ilpalazzo."
"Right," he murmured. "Now, how can we use this in our conquest of the city?"
"Bunnies are very cute, Lord Ilpalazzo," Hyatt said hopefully.
"Cuteness, hmm? An avenue I had not previously explored. Though there may be some merit to it. You do recall the invasion of the Puchuu?"
"No, Lord Ilpalazzo," Hyatt replied sadly.
"They used cuteness as a weapon. But they lacked something. A certain…me-ness. Now…how to bring the bunnies to our side?"
"Well, as I recall, bunnies like carrots, do they not, Lord Ilpalazzo?"
At this, his expression became marginally more gleeful.
"I have an idea," he said slowly. "I want you to take this fifty-thousand yen and find Agent Excel. I want you two to buy all the carrots you can. You'll be useful for keeping charge of the money, and she'll be useful for carrying the carrots in the event of your death. Warn her that she is not to eat the carrots, or it will be the pit. Where is Excel, anyway?"
"I believe she's out buying guitar strings, Lord Ilpalazzo," Hyatt replied.
Ilpalazzo glared at the thought.
"Why was she doing that? I clearly don't need them! Check out this rockin' sound."
He let fly a mighty power chord, the effect of which was only moderately spoiled by Hyatt uttering a pained, choked sort of noise and keeling over, dead.
"Hmm. Not very encouraging," Ilpalazzo noted, "but I'm going to assume it was merely a coincidence."
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Menchi leaned forward against the window sill, her nose pressed to the cool glass, humming a melancholy tune. Surely, she was the saddest puppy in all of history. No one sympathized. No one understood what it was to be left in the care of a psychopath and a frequent corpse.
"Whine, whine, whine-whine-whine," she sang unintelligibly.
However, unfortunately for us, her translator did not, in fact, accompany her everywhere, and we shall thus be left with no idea what she had just said.
Still, it was fairly clear that, gazing wistfully into the streets where she might run joyously, free from the danger of becoming a main dish, there was but one thought on her mind: escape.
This would, of course, be no easy feat. But Menchi was up for the challenge.
Leaping from the window sill, her goal of the open space at the top of the window fuelling in her the will to be a hero, she landed gracefully at the top of the rocking chair. After a few desperate seconds of trying to keep her footing as the chair rocked back and forth, trying to dislodge the small adventurer, she sailed majestically through the air, into the folds of the nearby drapes.From here, she started the long climb upwards. Mind racing, already tasting of the heady elixir of freedom, excitement led the small mutt to abandon caution with nearly disastrous results. Claws slipping free from the wool/polyester blend, she gave a terrified yelp as she plummeted…but only a few inches.
With renewed determination, but wiser after her mishap, she scrambled the remaining feet up the drapes.
One last death-defying leap sent her directly into the crack left by a window pushed almost closed.
After a moment of desperate wriggling, she burst free of captivity and beamed dramatically as she landed lightly on the railing outside.
Yes, for the time being, Menchi was free.
Just as she prepared to set off joyfully down the steps, Watanabe emerged from the apartment next door and stopped short as something caught his eye.
"Oh, man. Miss Ayasugi and her roommate left the door open again."
As he set off down the steps, Menchi gave a pained whimper.
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"This is strange," Kabapu noted, frowning at the screen in front of him as the little white blips moving over a map of the city grew larger and more frequent. "The Bunny Detection Radar equipment has never gone off quite like this before. Misaki," he called over his shoulder to the young woman poring over a stack of papers, "would you come here for a moment?"
She set down the highlighting pen and approached the screen.
"What is it, sir?"
"The BDR is off the scale," he announced grimly. "This does not bode well."
Misaki pondered this for a moment.
"Really? Badgers?"
"No, that's the BDRa. This is the BDR."
"Oh, of course. Bunnies."
"Hundreds of them," Kabapu nodded. "By this time, perhaps thousands."
"But, sir," Misaki said, alarmed, whipping a calculator from her vest pocket, "by my calculations, with only fifteen to begin with, in a matter of one week, we may very well have an epidemic of thirteen trillion bunnies!"
"My God!" Kabapu gasped. "Call in the special defense forces!"
"We are the special defense forces," she reminded him flatly.
"In that case, get in here!"
"We're already in here," Iwata called proudly from his task of watering the plants.
"Get everyone else in here, then," Kabapu ordered impatiently.
"But then we won't be in here anymore," Iwata pointed out.
Kabapu's mustache bristled with annoyance.
"It's not easy being mayor," he sighed.
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End Notes: Hail Ilpalazzo!