Chapter 9
She was floating in a lovely, warm, soothing ocean of sound, carried to Paradise amongst the orange-and-violet-tipped clouds. Verily, she could happily stay here forever, simply listening to the voice of the Angel that had become her lifeline.
Still, she had to say, this would be a lot better if she had a book.
Yomiko pouted briefly, and then immediately forgot what the problem had been as the man in the cape began to sing. She stared adoringly, hands clasped and eyes shiny, as his magnificent voice thrilled through her.
Then, suddenly, the world went silent.
Yomiko frowned. This was fairly unusual. One would think that, if all sound somehow vanished from the world, there should at least be a clear reason for it.
The reason was obviously not that everything that had been previously making noise had suddenly ceased to do so; a quick glance up at the caped man who, Yomiko noticed for the first time, was a little overdressed for a random parking-lot concert, showed that he was still singing.
The crowd all still seemed, judging from their moving mouths, to be murmuring excitedly to one another.
Drake still seemed to be grumbling in annoyance as he waited for the masked man to finish his song so they could finish what had looked like a fairly hostile discussion.
Just as she was about to alleviate the sudden boredom of having entirely forgotten what had been so fascinating to her just a minute ago and pull her emergency back-up book out from beneath her skirt, where it was tucked into the holster around her thigh, a pair of slim hands caught her by the shoulders and whirled her around.
"Nancy!" she exclaimed happily, and then frowned.
She had heard that, if a little more dimly than she had thought she'd said it.
However, when Nancy began to say something to her, she heard not a thing.
Yomiko shrugged helplessly.
"I can't hear you, Nancy!"
With an exasperated sigh, Nancy whipped out a pad of paper and a pen and scribbled something quickly.
"'Of course you can't hear anything,'" Yomiko read slowly. "'I put earplugs in your ears to break the Phantom's spell.' Oh! I guess that explains a few things, actually."
"Glad to help. We should probably—" Here, Nancy stopped and sighed again as Yomiko blinked at her in adorable confusion.
Another scribbling of pen on paper later, Yomiko's expression brightened, and she began to reply, which Nancy cut short by seizing her arm and hauling her away.
"Hello, Agent Paper, Miss Deep," Joker greeted all of three minutes later as the two women climbed into the car, Yomiko into the back seat and Nancy into the driver's seat.
"Um…what?" Yomiko asked, rather loudly.
Shooting Joker a long-suffering look over her shoulder, Nancy scribbled something down onto a pad of paper and passed it back to Yomiko.
"'Never mind,'" Yomiko read slowly. "Oh. Okay!"
"Er…I almost hesitate to ask," Joker began as the bespectacled girl pulled out her emergency back-up book and was two seconds later lost to the world. "But I feel that I really must nevertheless. Why exactly is Yomiko unable to hear anything?"
"Because of the earplugs," Nancy replied calmly.
Joker nodded thoughtfully.
"Ah. Because of the earplugs. Of course."
"Yeah," Nancy said dryly. "And now that we have that figured out, can I ask something?"
"Of course," Joker replied.
"Great. Why do you have Wendy tied up back there?"
Joker sighed, rubbing his eyes wearily.
"To bring an end to her attempts at chewing through the door handle and joining the adoring crowd surrounding our Phantom."
"And don't think I don't resent that, when Yomiko was allowed to," Wendy pouted.
"Okay," Nancy said thoughtfully. "To keep her still. That makes sense. But I don't see why you had to half-unbutton her shirt and push her skirt way up to do it."
"I'm only human," he replied flatly, crossing his arms and nearly pouting. "But don't tell anyone; I don't particularly want that getting out."
"Uh…sure."
"And anyway," Joe, who had been remarkably silent hitherto, added from the passenger's seat. "There were fanservice quotas to think about."
"Exactly," Joker agreed. "And so, unless you or Yomiko cares to get out of the car and dance around provocatively in skimpy clothing, we'll have to keep her like this."
"No, thanks," Nancy said flatly, before staring oddly at Joe. "You know your nose is gushing blood, right?"
"Uh-huh," Joe replied faintly, watching her in awe, one hand clamped over his nose.
"Men," Nancy grumbled.
"I'll thank you to not lump all men into a category with Joe," Joker said, clearly miffed. "Some of us do have IQs higher than that of a coffee bean, after all."
"Yeah; I'll let you know when I find one," Nancy sighed, rubbing her forehead before looking up again. "So, should we check on Drake at any point?"
"If Yomiko promises to stay here to avoid being hypnotized again, you may go assist Drake in the defeat of the Phantom now," Joker replied.
Nancy smirked.
"Lucky me. He'd better have saved me a piece."
"Um…what did you decide?" Yomiko asked slightly more loudly than usual, thanks once again to the earplugs.
"I'm going to…right," Nancy finished with a sigh, whipping out the pad of paper and pen once again.
A moment of scribbling later, she passed a single sheet back to Yomiko, who read it, eyes growing gradually wider with alarm as she did so.
"But Nancy, you can't go by yourself!"
"Drake will be with her, Agent Paper," Joker reminded her, even as he forgot one or two things about the current situation. "She's going to assist him, after all."
Biting back a grumble, Nancy jotted down a brief summary of Joker's words and passed the sheet back to Yomiko, who, upon reading it, shook her head firmly.
"I still want to go with her. I'll keep the earplugs in so I won't be hypnotized again, but I can't let Nancy and Drake fight without me."
"It's simply not practical," Joker said, drawing another confused look from Yomiko and another annoyed sound from Nancy, who went to work transcribing. "You won't be able to hear anything going on around you, and that seems a dangerous way to fight."
"Yeah," Joe added helpfully. "So you'd be totally unprepared when the end boss showed up, because you wouldn't be able to hear his theme music!"
Yomiko frowned, head tilted to one side.
"What did Mr. Joe say?" she asked Wendy, who was at that moment trying to figure out the best way to untie a well-knotted seatbelt without the use of her hands.
"I don't think you want – oh, right," Wendy finished with a sigh.
Nancy shoved a slip of paper at Yomiko.
"'Joe was just being Joe; you know what that means,'" Yomiko read slowly. "Oh! He just said a…not-so-smart thing, then!"
"Well, more like something utterly irrelevant and completely nonsensical, but why nitpick?"
"Mr. Joker!" Joe protested. "Some of what I say is relevant!"
"Yes, Joe, I'm sure that someday you will say something relevant," Joker agreed tiredly. "I only hope I'm around to see it happen."
"I think I just saw Drake fly back into a fence," Nancy noted curiously. "Think this would be a good time to go help him?"
"I'll come with!"
Nancy, Joker, and Wendy stared in surprise and slight consternation at Joe, who was at that moment looking about the group expectantly, waiting to see how his Very Good Idea would be taken. Yomiko simply stared in slightly annoyed confusion at Joe, wondering if maybe she had found the downside of wearing earplugs.
"Uh, you?" Nancy repeated slowly.
"Yeah!" Joe replied eagerly. "Think about it! I was made by the same people he was!"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you aren't a weakling," Nancy pointed out. "You'd probably be obliterated."
"I think sending Joe would be a wonderful idea," Wendy said both hopefully and helpfully.
Joe's eyes grew shiny.
"Well, I gotta go, now that my girl's counting on me!"
"I might save the I-jin the trouble of killing him and do it myself if he calls me 'his girl' one more time," Wendy muttered, trying and failing miserably to cross her arms. "Stupid seatbelts…"
Joker looked mildly alarmed. He leaned over.
"Too much evil too soon, Wendy," he murmured. "It's supposed to be a process, remember."
"Evil has nothing to do with it! We're talking about self-respect here!" she protested.
"Well? Shall we go kick some Phantom ass?" Joe asked beamingly of a very dismayed and vaguely annoyed Nancy.
"There's really nothing I can do to talk you out of this, is there?" she sighed. "Fine. But Joker, you'd better not blame me if he gets himself killed."
"If anything happens to Joe, Miss Deep, we shall regard it as the tragic accident that it is, and refrain from blaming you or anyone else."
"Be careful, Miss Makuhari!" Wendy called as the two climbed out of the car.
Then, sensing that she was being watched expectantly, she continued grudgingly.
"You be careful, too, Joe."
"Don't worry, babe," Joe said with a wink. "Nothing's gonna mess up Friday night, not even my untimely death!"
"Oh, wonderful," she said as Joe skipped across the empty lot towards the crowd of women, followed by a much less enthusiastic Nancy. "I very well might be spending Friday night with a coffee-making ghost."
"At least if he's dead, he can't touch you in any ways that might have otherwise earned him sudden death," Joker said, glaring after the young man, who was still flamboyantly blowing kisses back in the direction of the car.
"Um…Mr. Joker?" Yomiko piped up hesitantly. "Can I take out these earplugs yet? I keep getting the feeling I'm missing something important."
Joker and Wendy exchanged glances. Joker reached into his jacket and withdrew a pad of paper and a pen, scrawled something quickly, and passed it to Yomiko.
"'Don't worry,'" she read. "'You can't miss what doesn't exist.' What?! That doesn't even make sense!"
"Hey, Drake," Nancy greeted as she jogged over to the very angry man pulling himself from the ground and dusting flecks of green paint that had previously been decorating a fence, from his back and shoulders. "What happened to you?"
"He had his army of fan-girls attack," the blond man said flatly.
"So, I guess it's not your lucky day?" Joe asked with a hearty laugh at his own cleverness, coming to a halt behind her.
Drake glared, first at the Phantom in the center of his crowd of women, and then at Joe.
"Shut up."
Then he turned to address Nancy.
"Why is he here?"
Nancy hesitated.
"He's…going to help us with the Phantom."
Drake simply stared. Finally…
"Right. So, Joker's finally completely snapped under the stress of constant overwork, huh?"
"No, Joe came on his own. He got the idea that it would impress a girl."
"She said she believed in me," Joe sighed dreamily, his brain busily rewriting reality to better suit his fancy. "And she said that, if I came back to her, she'd reward me with a kiss!"
"Great," Drake grumbled. "If he gets killed, I'm not taking responsibility."
"I told Joker the same thing," Nancy assured him. "He understands. Although, there could be promotions and raises involved if we did take responsibility for Joe's death."
Drawing his weapon, Drake sighed.
"Well, let's get to it and hope for the best."
"Why is that starting to feel like our theme?" Nancy wondered briefly before starting after Drake.
"So, how did it go, you three?" Joker asked brightly as Drake and Nancy stormed back to the car, followed by an energetically skipping Joe. "I don't see a Phantom in your possession, and so I assume you either forgot to take him alive, or got overenthusiastic."
"No," Nancy said flatly as she slid into the front seat. "And no."
"Well, then, what on earth happened? Yomiko hasn't been wearing the earplugs for the last twenty-seven seconds, without ill effect, and Wendy has stopped begging to be let out of the car for a moment, and assuring me with nervously shifting eyes that she only wants to go for a walk."
"I only did want to go for a walk!" the blonde protested.
"Of course you did," Joker said, patting her comfortingly on the head.
"We didn't take him alive," Drake began through gritted teeth, "because just as we got to the front of the crowd, he belted out something about it being over now, the music of the night – and he drew the word "night" out for about four minutes – did a weird swishy thing with his cape, and disappeared into nothing."
"It was a little anticlimactic, really," Joe added, leaning casually against the side of the car.
"Ah," Joker said, quite uncertain as to what to make of all of this. "So…he has simply disappeared, then."
"Yeah," Drake agreed.
"Although, he left this behind," Nancy added, staring curiously down at the white half-mask in her hand.
"We'll take it back to have it analyzed," Joker said briskly, reaching for the scrap of cloth. "Not entirely sure what for, but that's what we do, and this is not the time to be scrapping tradition, now, is it? As for you three, Agent Paper, Miss Deep, Mister Drake, try to get some rest before the next round begins."
"Yeah; maybe they'll send the cast of Cats after us next!" Joe suggested excitedly.
"If I catch any whiff of spandex, fake fur, or stage makeup, I'm going home," Drake announced flatly.
"Understandable, Drake, although it does disturb me that you knew immediately what Joe was referring to," Joker said, hiding a grin.
"I have a kid," Drake informed him in a tight, controlled voice. "She likes cats. And she likes Cats."
"Um…what?" Yomiko asked vaguely, looking up from her book. Then something seemed to dawn on her. "Oh…is this one of those things that it's easier not to ask about, Nancy?"
"Oh, yeah," Nancy replied. "So, do you want to go see if we still have a hotel room to go to by this point?"
"Okay!" Yomiko agreed cheerfully, then hesitated. "But…um…do you think we could go back to the bookstore where we left all the Joes? I left a few books there."
"You mean, you only bought out three quarters of the store's merchandise, and you want to go back to finish the job?" Drake asked with a smirk before taking his leave in the interest of not prolonging the conversation any further. "'Let me take you by the hand,'" he hummed as he sauntered from the rapidly emptying lot, "'and lead you through the streets of London; I'll show you something that'll make you change your mind…'"
"Hey, speaking of all the Joes," Nancy began thoughtfully, glancing over her shoulder at Joker, "weren't we supposed to do something with them?"
Joker pondered this carefully.
"Honestly, Miss Deep, I can't imagine what that could have been," he finally admitted.
Nancy turned to Wendy.
"Has he been drinking more coffee on the sly?"
"Er…not that I noticed. Although, I was busy driving. Honestly, there are some savages out there…"
Nancy raised one eyebrow.
"Uh, right. Has he just been drinking on the sly?"
"I don't think so," Wendy replied carefully. "Although, that could explain all these seatbelts."
"I've explained the seatbelts," Joker reminded her a little indignantly. "It wasn't entirely for fun. Er, it wasn't for fun at all, that is."
"Yomiko and I left eighteen clones of Joe tied up in front of a bookstore! You were on your way over to help us collect them, when you got distracted by this Phantom, who I have the uneasy feeling, is going to return at the most inconvenient moment possible. Now, would you like us to do anything with the Joes, or just let them continue to brighten up the street corner with their eighteen dazzling personalities?" Nancy demanded, losing patience with what seemed to be going the way of another bit of meaningless dialogue.
"Well, I think the best thing to do for now is let the I-jin come to us. Thus, I will be taking Joe back to the Library. Agent Paper, Miss Deep, feel free to head to your hotel, but stay in contact in case it should become necessary."
"But...we left eighteen Joes tied up on the street corner," Nancy reiterated, wondering if excessive consumption of coffee could do this kind of damage to a person's short-term memory, or if the bound and dishevelled blonde next to him was responsible for his somewhat hazy reasoning.
But then again, Nancy thought, that doesn't explain why his reasoning is like it is the rest of the time. Unless those two make a habit of this sort of…ARGH! No, I don't want to think about it! He may tie her down to his desk for fun and games several times a day, but that doesn't mean I have to think about it! Out, damned mental image! It burns! It burns! AAAAARGH!
"Um…Nancy?" Yomiko called hesitantly.
Nancy turned around and shot the other girl a tired smile.
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay? You look like you swallowed a bug or something: kind of green."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Look, let's get out of here before Joker changes his mind and sends us after the Joes right now."
"Well, okay. Good night, Mr. Joker. Bye, Joe. Um…do you want some help with those seat belts before we leave, Wendy?"
"That would be nice," the other girl replied, smiling up at Yomiko gratefully, before reflecting with a pained expression, "I can't feel my arms."
"You know, I think I know how Drake feels," Nancy noted curiously, a small part of her mind screaming in pain at this identification with the burly pottery dude.
"Uh…" Joe #4 began hesitantly. "You did say they were gonna come back and untie us at some point, didn't you?"
Joe #12 sighed heavily as best he could, the drama and wistfulness somewhat spoiled due to having Joe #17's toe in his ear.
"Someday," he said, voice and eyes quivery. "Someday…"
End Notes: Whoa! And I thought nothing happened in the last chapter! This one takes the cake for pointlessness. I want some cake… [Pout] :o)