Miss Thirstquencher
Disclaimer: I don't own Brave Fencer Musashi or any of its characters. It all belongs to Squaresoft. It's been over a year since I last played the game, so feel free to point out any errors I've made.
As the day of the Miss Thirstquencher beauty pageant drew closer, tensions among certain commanding officers of the imperial army finally reached their breaking point. Simply sneering, muttering under one's breath and sticking one's foot out when a rival walked by wasn't enough now. Screaming matches, tantrums and full-blown fistfights broke out so often that the novelty soon wore off and nobody even stopped to look. Complaining to the Fuhrer was pointless. Sitting on his throne, removed from all the chaos, he'd just chuckle.
"Haha! I like it when our girls show some spirit!" he said, in his ridiculously thick accent. "Eh, Capri?" he added, whacking his right-hand man on the back so hard he almost fell over. Colonel Capricciola, surly in the best of moods, just scowled and wondered why the Fuhrer thought he had the right to use that stupid nickname. Pulling a cursing, snarling Bubbles off her older sister for the fourth time that morning hadn't done much to improve his temper, either.
"Don't forget that you are going to be one of the judges!" Flatski continued, oblivious to the incredulous look the colonel gave him and the calculating lights in the girls' eyes.
"Say, darling," Gingerelle purred in her most sultry voice, putting an exquisitely manicured hand on Capricciola's shoulder.
"Hey!" Bubbles cried, shoving her away roughly. "Like, no fair!"
The colonel took advantage of the budding fight and slipped out to let the Fuhrer deal with it. Maybe then he'd admit there was a problem.
Other people viewed the upcoming contest in a more positive light. Ben and Ed stood outside the throne room, grinning from ear to ear.
"S-since Topo's busy, t-that means I'm the undisputed l-leader!"
"Duh, that's not true! I'm the leader!"
"N-no, I am!"
"Me!"
"M-me!"
"Me me me me me!"
"M-Maybe we c-could be co-leaders," Ed admitted, after fifteen minutes of intense arguing.
"Duh, okay!" Ben agreed, sounding disappointed. He could've happily went on bickering for hours. But they had other eggs to fry, as the saying goes. (Ed insisted that it was supposed to be "fish," but Ben hated fish.) Ed had a brilliant plan to get them a secure spot on Topo's good side.
"I-it's easy!" Ed had explained the day before. They would just go around telling everyone how great Topo was, and that she deserved to win.
"But she's not nearly as pretty as the other two," Ben pointed out.
"W-we don't actually have to believe it," Ed told him. "We just have to s-say we do!"
"But isn't that lying?"
It didn't take too long for Ed to convince him that now wasn't the time for morals. Topo was scary when she was mad! Unfortunately, the plan didn't work like they planned. They hurried to a crowded street corner and tried to stop people, but everyone just kept on walking. So they made posters that said "Topo Rules!" with a hasty sketch and held them up instead. This time, they got a few interested looks.
"See?" Ed hissed to Ben. "It's w-working!"
His fellow co-leader just gulped. Ed looked up and saw why.
"Like, what do you think you're doing?" Bubbles had been on her way to Madam Mousse's hair salon, but when she saw them, she changed her mind. She grabbed the posters out of their unresisting hands and ripped them into tiny pieces that were carried away by the breeze.
"N-nice hair," Ed said nervously.
"Duh, yeah! It's green!" Ben added. "Just like...uh..."
"Pond scum?" Ed suggested before he could stop himself. Instead of beating them into a pulp, Bubbles started sobbing on Ben's shoulder.
"There, there!" he said, giving her shoulder an awkward pat.
"Get your hand off me!" she screeched, jumping back.
"W-what happened?" Ed asked, partly to forestall violence, and also because he was curious.
"Gingerelle, that's what!" Bubbles snapped. "She's, like, such a cat! I was taking a nap - beauty sleep, you know - and she snuck in my room and DYED MY HAIR!"
Her last words must have been heard miles away. "So I'm on my way to Madam Mousse's to see if she could, like, fix it." she finished.
"G-good luck," Ed said. He and Ben ran off before she could rope them into helping her get revenge on her sister.
"I t-think we're far enough," Ed said, gasping for breath and, to be honest, surprised that they managed to escape with so little trouble. Normally things never worked out for them so smoothly.
"Look!" Ben pointed. Ed followed his finger and saw Topo bearing down on them with a tremendous scowl.
"You two!" she shouted. "How dare you!"
The other two members of Leader's Force exchanged puzzled looks.
"Duh, I thought you said she'd be happy!" Ben said accusingly.
"Happy? Happy?! How could I be HAPPY when I've got people coming up to me and saying that you two jerks were holding up posters - "
"We were just g-getting you publicity," Ed protested, trying to stem the flow.
"Let me finish! They said you had posters with pictures that made me look like a rat! A rat with elephant ears and a stringy tail! Urgh!"
They were used to pretending to pay attention to her during long, angry tirades, but this one was special. After twenty minutes of ranting and raving, she finally stopped to catch her breath. Her face was brick red and she was sweatier than she usually was after hours of dancing. There was a huge crowd of people staring. Topo gave them one last venomous look before she flounced off, as if her outburst was all their fault. They decided to return to the castle and see if they could butter up the janitors instead.
The head custodian was only too happy to put them to work washing floors. They headed down to the basement, Ed with a mop slung jauntily over one shoulder, and Ben sloshing down the stairs with a leaky bucket full of soapy water. The lower levels of the castle were lit by sickly-looking torches in rusted sconces that looked loose enough to fall down any moment. Very few people went down there, except for those who had business with the cells, which were mostly abandoned now, since the Fuhrer started advocating taking no prisoners to cut down on expenses.
"Duh, why are we mopping down here?" Ben asked, when they reached the bottom of the stairs. He set down the bucket, which by now was half empty. Ed was about to come up with an answer, when he heard footsteps and saw the flame of a torch coming towards them.
Colonel Capricciola stepped out of the darkness, holding the torch out like a weapon, but when he saw them he visibly relaxed.
"It's just you," he said, sighing in relief. "Good."
Before Ben or Ed could say anything, the colonel went on. Ed was kind of worried, since Capricciola was usually taciturnity itself, but there was nothing wrong with being happy. It was a generous sort of happiness, not the nasty, secretive kind, as far as he could see.
"I thought you were that crazy lady," he said, wiping sweat off his forehead. His voice sounded a bit different, and not just because of the relief. Ed could see lipstick smears all over his cheek. It was the distinctive shade used only by Gingerelle. He sniffed, and the delicate scent of Gingerelle's perfume reached his nostrils. "She followed me down here. She'd still have me in her clutches if Flatski didn't call her..."
Ed personally would have loved to have such a beautiful young woman dote on him, and judging by the look on Ben's face, he agreed. But that was the Colonel's business.
"Duh, why's she following you?" Ben asked, scratching his head and ignoring Ed's shushing noises. But Ed saved Capricciola the trouble of answering.
"I heard s-something about t-that," he said. "Aren't y-you a judge, sir?"
Capricciola nodded miserably. Ed tried to cheer him up, once again on the lookout for brownie points.
"Y-you should be honored," he said. "I r-read that the Miss T-thirstquencher competition has roots from five hundred years ago! Its p-purpose was to c-choose a suitable bride for the prince!"
"What do you mean by that?" Capricciola demanded sharply. Ed took a step back, startled. "I'm sorry." the Colonel said, after a minute. "Overreacted, you know. This thing has me high-strung."
Ed didn't say anything. He felt honored that somebody like Capricciola cared if he got offended.
"I wish Gingerelle would just realize the best way to bribe me is being quiet," Capricciola said, more to himself than them. "She - agh!"
He turned to face the stairs as he spoke, and now he saw a tall, shapely shadow descending. Ed wished he could feel sorry for the man. It didn't help him problem that Gingerelle, Bubbles and even Topo all had major schoolgirl crushes on him. They always competed to get his attention - the pageant just made it worse.
"There you are, darling!" Gingerelle said, wholly prepared to lay it on thicker than chocolate frosting on vanilla cupcakes.
"Out of my way!" Bubbles cried, shoving her sister to the side. Gingerelle lost her balance and toppled, but Capricciola instinctively jumped forward to catch her. When Ed and Ben left, the wily redhead was still in Capricciola's arms, where she resisted every one of his attempts to put her back on the floor. Bubbles stood at the foot of the stairs with her arms crossed, scowling. Her hair wasn't green now - it was pure, snow white.
"Madam Mousse tried to bleach it out," she explained, rolling her eyes. "Then she had the nerve to, like, ask me for a tip!"
"Your fault for napping, darling." Gingerelle said smugly. "Shouldn't an officer of the imperial army be more alert?"
Ben closed the door just in time to miss hearing Bubbles's piercing shriek. "Duh, think we ought to tell Topo all this?" he asked. They totally forgot about the chore that sent them to the basement in the first place, although Ed still carried the mop.
"No w-way!" Ed replied. "Are you c-c-crazy?" He couldn't believe that Ben forgot what happened after their first attempt to help her chances in the contest. Either way, all of this activity made them awfully hungry. They went down to get some lunch.
After another week of this, the day of the Annual Miss Thirstquencher Beauty Pageant finally arrived. The Fuhrer finally realized that the contestants might not play fair. The night before, he stationed guards outside the doors of his soldiers who happened to be participating. (The civilian contestants were on their own.) It was a good thing, because the sentries caught Bubbles sneaking into Gingerelle's room with a pair of scissors, Topo tried to break into Bubbles's room with a basket of rotten eggs, and, later on, Gingerelle entered Bubbles's room with a bottle of nail polish remover. Nobody tried to sneak into Topo's room, since it seemed that she wasn't seriously considered a threat.
That morning, everything should have moved smoothly. The hopeful beauty queens were lined up, shivering in their skimpy costumes, eager to begin the competition. Fuhrer Flatski and Rootrick were ready at the judging stand. But the other judge was nowhere in sight.
"Hey, where be Colonel Capricciola?" Rootrick asked, grinning broadly when Gingerelle winked at him. The Fuhrer turned on him angrily.
"How am I supposed to know?" he demanded. "Next time I see him - "
Before he could finish, the door to the chamber opened and Capricciola came in, slightly out of breath. He was soaked, and water dripped from his clothes onto the stone floor.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, running to take his place next to Flatski. When Rootrick asked where he'd been, he muttered something about being locked in the stocks. The other judges decided that he must have stopped somewhere to drink, and lost track of time.
The contest finally began. From their seats several rows back, Ben and Ed struggled to see what was happening on stage. Ed tried climbing on Ben's shoulders, but then the big, brawny guy behind them complained that he was blocking the view. The two members of Leader's Force cheered and whistled for Topo, hoping that she would notice and at least grace them with a smile, but chances are she never noticed. She was too busy trying to tread on the back of Gingerelle's feet.
When it was time to pick the finalists, nobody was surprised that Gingerelle, Bubbles and Topo were among them. Capricciola looked at the girls from his place on the judging platform. Bubbles simpered at him, and Gingerelle couldn't erase her smirk. Topo scowled at the other two and rubbed her sore ankle. Dancing wasn't much fun in six-inch heels, which Gingerelle so graciously let her borrow when her own shoes mysteriously vanished the night before. The Colonel was relieved beyond words when the Fuhrer announced that the judges would write their selections down on paper and give them to him to read. Flatski took forever sorting out the slips, cursing Rootrick's horrid penmanship, and everyone anxiously held their breath. On the stage, Bubbles ran her fingers through her hair, which had somehow been restored to its normal gold, and ruined the elaborate braids she spent three hours putting it into. The only sign of nervousness for Topo was how her ears twitched. Gingerelle alone looked completely calm.
"The winner of this year's Miss Thirstquencher contest is..." the Fuhrer made a dramatic pause before continuing. "Gingerelle!"
The chamber erupted with wild cheers and whistling. Gingerelle skipped up lightly to accept her trophy.
"And the second place prize goes to Bubbles!" Flatski shouted over the ruckus. Bubbles joined her sister, but stood on the opposite side of the stage, as far away from her as possible.
After the contest was officially over, Topo walked outside barefoot, holding the high heeled shoes in her hands, wishing that she never had the idea of joining the pageant in the first place. She'd never been so embarrassed in her life. And now she'd have to put up with both sisters taunting her about her loss. What could be worse?
Just then, she heard running footsteps behind her. She whirled around in time to see Ben and Ed making their way through the crowd.
"T-topo!" Ed cried.
"What is it?" she demanded with a sniff.
"W-we just wanted to, y-you know, say that you d-did a great job!" Ed said in a rush. "You d-definitely deserved to win!"
"Yeah!" Ben added. "If we were judges, we would've voted for you in a jiffy!"
"Really?" Topo asked, stunned. She wiped a tear off one cheek, where it smeared her carefully applied makeup, but now that it was all over, she didn't care. Before they could reply, she gave them both a hug. "You guys are the best!"
Ben and Ed realized that they found a way to the good side of her heart after all.