Puchuu Punching

Chapter Four

People born in the year of the monkey are supposed to be inventive, right? Talk about artistic licence! You-know-who turns up in this chapter…

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Hatori hadn't even gotten home before the phone rang . He opened the front door, answered the phone, then promptly turned around to drive back to Shigure's house. The whole town was still on a blanket alert, but the coast was relatively clear. Residents were urged to leave their houses only if it was absolutely necessary. Hatori stopped along the way to buy more cigarettes.

He arrived at Shigure's to find everyone gathered together in the garden. There was a punch bag suspended from the porch and a collection of basketballs scattered about the lawn. Everyone but Shigure and Kyo were sitting on the porch sipping tea. Kyo was standing on the lawn, arms folded and a scowl marring his handsome face. Shigure was rolling about on the lawn, clutching his side and giggling like a madman. Hatori lit up a cigarette and scanned the area for Ritsu, who should still have been there. He spotted the crazy monkey and the edge of the garden, unconscious and sprawled out across the grass.

" What happened?" asked Hatori, sounding like he didn't really care.

" Ah (snort)…Ha'ri! (snicker)… there you are! You just missed it… (giggle)… it was so funny! Kyo actually tried to teach Ritsu martial arts!" Shigure burst into another bout of hysterical laughter.

Hatori raised a quizzical eyebrow. Kyo looked angry. Out of the corner of his eye, Hatori saw Ritsu's leg twitch.

" I don't understand it," muttered Kyo out loud, " he was so disciplined, so powerful yesterday. It was inspiring! What changed?"

Shigure managed to quell his laughter long enough to demonstrate what had gone wrong.

" It probably only works with a Puchuu around. Check this out, Ha'ri!"

Shigure picked up a red marker and a basketball, and drew a crude doodle of a Puchuu's face onto the surface of the ball. He then chucked the ball at Ritsu, who had just woken up and was rubbing his head in a confused manner. But just as the ball was about to bean the semi-concussed cross-dresser right on the noggin, Ritsu's fist popped up and punched it away. He didn't even had to look at it.

" That's it! Why didn't he do that a few minutes ago? With that kind of discipline, that instinct, he could be a martial arts champion!" Kyo practically screamed.

" Yeah, but watch this," Shigure said as he picked up a scribble-free ball and chucked it at Ritsu, who was just stumbling to his feet. This one he didn't dodge, it smacked him right in the back of the skull. Poor thing toppled over again, out cold. Shigure exploded into another bout of hysterical laughter.

" Isn't that cool?" he gasped between bursts of mirth, " I've been doing that all morning!"

Hatori just put out his old cigarette and lit up a new one.

" So what did you call me for?" he sighed while letting out a puff of smoke.

" Well, that's about the fifth time I've done that. I think he might have a concussion," said Shigure casually.

" Ooh, look! He's got a nosebleed!" cooed Ayame from the porch. " Isn't that adorable?"

Shigure scowled and hurled another basketball at Ritsu, who was just coming to. Hatori inhaled his toxic smoke deeply and left.

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Halfway through his twelfth cigarette, Hatori arrived home. He opened the door and actually managed to make it into the kitchen before the phone rang. He didn't even bother to answer it, just lit up another cancer stick and walked out the door.

This time, when he arrived at Shigure's, almost everyone was inside. Ayame and Ritsu were nowhere to be seen. The kitchen and living room were both strangely empty, all the pots and pans and cutlery were missing. Hatori found the group, minus the two borderline transvestites, in the dining room, sitting around the table. He took a seat and asked the dreaded question.

" So what did you call me for this time?"

Shigure stood and opened the door to the garden. He looked uncharacteristically grim.

" This has to be seen to be believed."

Ritsu appeared at the side of the house, clutching a pneumatic drill so large and unwieldy he could barely see over the top of it. He was whistling a merry little tune as he bustled about, apparently absorbed it what he was doing. In the centre of the garden was a large, unidentifiable piece of machinery, which was evidently what Ritsu was working on. When Hatori got up close, he could see it was built up of pounded steel, (solving the mystery of the missing pots and pans) miscellaneous engine parts and ambiguous pyrotechnics. Hatori watched, bemused, as Ritsu climbed on top of the strange contraption and fired up the drill. It was a surreal sight, anyone walking by would have seen a petite young woman in a conservative kimono and workman's goggles struggling with an advanced power tool.

" Isn't that cute? I don't know what it is, but it's so much fun to watch!" trilled Ayame, who was sitting on the porch staring at Ritsu with adoration in his eyes. Shigure looked furious.

" Looks like a big old bundle of crap to me," he muttered nastily. Hatori put out his cigarette and approached the apparatus.

" Ritsu!" he yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the drill.

" Ritsu!" he yelled again, hoping he wouldn't have to yell a third time. The day's smoking was starting to catch up with him. Luckily, the force of the drill knocked Ritsu off the top of the machine, and he landed with a muffled 'oof' at the doctor's feet. Hatori helped him up, and gestured towards the machine.

" So what is this thing, Ritsu?" he asked, dreading the answer.

" Oh, this?" the little monkey piped up casually. " It's a rocket launcher."

Hatori had to light up his last cigarette. This was all to much for him. Feeling the nicotine stabilise his nerves, he asked his second question.

" And why did you build a rocket launcher?"

Ritsu removed his workman's goggles and pointed to a blank space of bright blue sky.

" There's a Puchuu warship on its way to Earth right now."

Hatori craned his neck to see what Ritsu was pointing at, but all he could see was azure sky. He cast an incredulous look at his industrious cousin, who had picked up a hammer and was pounding the side of the machine.

" You can actually see it from here?" His monkey senses were good, but surely they couldn't be that good… could they?

" Not see… hear," said Ritsu, pounding the machine harder for emphasis. " I can hear them coming closer. All day, all I hear is 'Puchuu, puchuu, puchuu!' Why can't they just SHUT THE HELL UP? Well, I'll sort them out when this is finished… that'll show the little bastards!"

He started laughing softly to himself then, so Hatori decided it would be smart to move away.

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As the sun began to set, Ritsu's alleged rocket launcher began to take shape. Everyone moved out to the porch again to see what would happen. There was no sign of the Puchuu warship, but Ritsu was adamant that it was up there. Momiji and Tohru looked excited, Hatsuharu looked bored, Hatori looked worn out, Yuki looked indifferent, Kyo looked pissed of, Ayame looked infatuated and Shigure looked pissed off because Ayame was infatuated with someone other than himself. The scene was set for something big.

The sun went down, but no warship materialised. Ritsu didn't seem all that bothered. He'd gone into the house to put away the power tools, and as the night went on he stood beside his machine, staring at the sky. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses and chewing on a toothpick like some shouty, sweary army drill sergeant. The group on the porch was just about to leave, when Ritsu went to the front of the machine.

They watched as he fiddled with the levers (which were all ballpoint pens filched from Shigure's office) and typed some numbers into the control panel (an ancient Sega Megadrive left over from Shigure's schooldays.) He waited a few moments, and then…

KABOOM!!!

A massive missile ( which had been a broken rice cooker, some empty beer cans and baking soda with a dash of lemon juice) flew high into the sky until it disappeared into the blue-and-white unknown. A minute passed, and then an explosion lit up the sky as though someone had thrown cans of red and yellow paint into the sky.

Ritsu smiled faintly as he heard a slight whistling noise. Soon, Puchuu heads and guts rained down on the house and garden. Shigure gaped, horrified.

" My house… my beautiful house…"

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Thousands of light years away, the Puchuu Queen watched her warship explode. She scowled as she regarded her enemy, a young lady in a kimono and sunglasses who had decimated her troops.

" Puchuu, puch puch puchuu puchuu." ( I will have my revenge, mark my words.)

Tied to chairs directly behind her were her previous opponents. The man in the butler's uniform with the luminous green and yellow hair looked roughed up, but the man in the badly fitting seventies style suit with the poofy afro still had a spark of murderous rage in his squinty little eyes.

It was clear, when they got to Earth, there would be hell to pay.