A/N: I would like to say that I have edited chapters 1 and 2 many, many times over in an attempt to make my characters less Sue-ish. I'm only doing writing this new one because I promised a certain worshipped authoress that I would, and this is only to see how it'll do… Flames are alright, as long as they're constructive flames.
And y'know what? Since this is my UMiverse, I'm going to go out on a limb, completely disregard most of my last two chapters, and make this after the Chojin Crown tournie after all. (Sorry to all you Lord Flash/Warsman fans, but he is now exeunt.) I've never read the manga, so this is obviously based off of the Saturday morning series… Meaning Kevin is currently dealing with his recent loss.
What happened last episode: It's revealed that Maria and Terry "The Kid" are childhood chums! She leaves her luggage in the lobby of a hotel whose name she can't even remember, and Kevin walks into a very ambiguous bar.
(I am not affiliated with the Holiday Inn in any way.)
Chapter 3: Bad Days Happen
In the future (meaning, a few days from now), Kevin would look back on this night and think: 'God, how I should have left the moment I realized that I couldn't tell whether that 'waitress' was a man or woman…' And to tell the truth, he would probably never know.
The first few hours had passed in the blink of an eye, it seemed. Nothing at all had happened in the bar during that time, besides a few more lazy shots… In fact, he hadn't even realized that "Happy Hour" had started. Although one may think that such a thing would be very obvious (what with the karaoke, and the shouting, and the fact that it is the middle of the night and all), things tend to blend like batter when you're on your fourth tequila… It didn't show with Kevin, of course, because he wasn't drunk— but his gaze was distant, his mind vacant and wandering. It was nice, not having to think about anything at all once in awhile.
In fact, he was so out of it that not even the balding, middle-aged man singing 'I Will Survive' on the karaoke machine could bring him out of his reverie. And that man's screeching was enough to make a deaf gelding keel over in writhing agony.
Later, when he would try to remember everything, he would find that he couldn't; Most of it blurred together, creating an inebriated tapestry of shouts, laughter, flashing lights, that small annoying bell on the front door, and a low, incessant humming noise inside his skull.
(He probably couldn't even have told you what the word 'inebriated' meant, because he wouldn't have been listening. But for the record, it is synonymous with 'drunken'.)
Angel stared as her companion pushed open the door to a neon-signed building named Joliana's. "…Okay, you've either taken me to a gay bar, or this is just one extravagant chick." Her companion laughed, motioning for her to come inside.
"What, I heard this place was great! Sure, it's… 'rainbow-friendly,' but how can you not love a place with karaoke?"
"Rainbow-friendly? 'Ria, are you…?"
"No! I… I like men! But sometimes it's fun to swing around these places, and you told me you were very tolerant of…"
"…Right, I wasn't really listening. Tell me, why do you hang out at bars when you act drunk enough already with just the karaoke?"
"Cause I can—and I'm celebrating tonight! C'mon, just this one night, to celebrate the fact that I still have all of my limbs intact!" Maria laughed again. "And it's only going to be for a little while. I won't get trashed or anything. Not completely trashed. I'll use the right bathroom, swear it!" Maria begged in vain. Taking a seat at an empty barstool, she spun around once, waiting for Angel to take a seat beside her.
However, her friend didn't come. She hadn't even set foot in the place before leaving—That just wasn't polite, was it? Predictable girl. That was okay, Maria assumed, because she probably knew her way around by now.
Well, she supposed… Another day, another night…
Now let's bring on those drinks!
It must have been around 11:00 (Jeez—and here he told himself he'd be out by 6) when the equivalent weight of a sack of wet cement fell on top of his table—Now that was something that could bring any person that wasn't completely comatose out of a reverie.
He must've jumped three feet when he felt the table suddenly slam up against his chest—it didn't hurt, but it was startling… Not to mention, his drink had quickly migrated from his glass to his lap.
Looking up in annoyance, Kevin was a bit surprised at what he saw—He'd assumed that some booty-shaking passerby had knocked his table… (The place had apparently transformed into something of a nightclub while he was daydreaming). Instead, what he found was an entire person sprawled upon the flat surface, complete with arms, legs, and head dangling off of the edges.
Kevin recoiled slightly, placing the glass gingerly on a nearby seat as the young woman laughed relentlessly, clutching her sides at some hilarious point which he failed to get. She kicked her legs against the wooden sides of the table, cockroach-killer heels banging like shotguns against the wood. The racket only ceased once a pair of rough, long-fingered hands hoisted the woman up off of the table.
"Oy, sorry about that! My bad!" laughed the second female as she attempted to set the other woman upright on her feet once more. It was really a pathetic scene—One woman, a brunette dressed in a sequined faux-cowgirl dominatrix outfit was flailing her arms about in all directions, grabbing onto people and furniture in a miserable attempt to stand upright. The other woman, a redhead who dwarfed the other by at least a foot and a half, looked as if she'd just come straight out of a fistfight and was trying her very best not to laugh at the drunken partier. The latter turned towards him, suddenly not so bleary-eyed.
"Hey, wait, you're…" Again, all of Maria's attempts at a straight face went down the crapper. "…Did you know this is a dyke bar? You are one built lady…" she told him very matter-of-factly with a strong slur, leaning back and stretching as she did so. After a moment, she stood, slammed a fistful of bills on the counter of the bar without counting them, and stumbled from the bar, leaving the sloshed brunette stumbling in her wake.
He blinked, edging out from behind the table as soon as he heard the annoying bell on the door as she departed. (Kevin could hardly help the overwhelming feeling that people were going to start getting the wrong impression of him. Whatever happened to normal bars, with filthy trays of peanuts and noisy games blaring on television screens?)
It was the second time he'd seen this woman today, after that strange public display she'd had earlier—Maybe he was right, and she was trying to drown her failure sorrows in Margaritaville. No way she'd be celebrating anything, he thought as he rose to leave.
Kevin exited as well after paying, taking his time. Really, he was hoping that that wannabe femme-wrestler wouldn't still be hanging around by the time he got out there—He'd walked from his motel, so there would be no quick motorcycle getaway this time. Unfortunately for him, she was still hanging around—…if you could call it that. She was actually across the street, pacing back and fourth aimlessly.
At least she wasn't bothering him…
...It made him wonder, though. Other than being a bit buzzed, she looked perfectly fine. Not even a band-aid on her that he could see. Was he actually wrong? She'd made it through the Factory without being eaten alive? He turned to look at her, just as she clutched her head in frustration and hurled.
And hurl she did— quite spectacularly, in a conveniently placed trash can. It was almost morbidly fascinating. But he got bored after the first two seconds and pivoted on his heel, ready to make a discreet left-stage exit.
"Hey! You! The closest hotel's a… What's it… A Holiday Inn, right?" The voice was a little muffled; she had been wiping her mouth off at the moment of speaking, apparently unfazed by the impromptu upchuck.
He narrowed his eyes, hoping to God that this was the only thing she was going to say to him. "Yes," he growled, walking a little bit faster.
"Oh. Okay, then."
Wait, he was staying at the Holiday Inn, just two streets up. Damn!
Even though he lacked a rear-view mirror, he knew she wasn't far behind, her footsteps pattering on the wet concrete and splashing through puddles from the evening's rain. It really, really grated on his nerves.
The last shard of hope that she wouldn't follow him into the hotel was shattered when she did just that, dragging her feet up to the clerk at the desk and quietly asking about something. He hurried to the stairs, trudging up them wearily in the direction of the miserable little hovel that was 4A.
The trip up felt almost dreamlike, seeming to take years. The thought that his boots were made of lead and his muscles had turned into jelly seemed perfectly logical at the time; But again, his second deep reverie for the day was interrupted by something unwelcome and unwanted.
In this case, it was the quiet ding of an elevator as it opened, letting its passenger out onto the fourth floor.
"What, now you're following me!"
Green eyes glared back at him, now apparently more clear-minded and straight-backed than they had been earlier.
"I only asked you for the closest hotel, jerk! I couldn't care less if you slummed it in the alley across the street! Maybe people'd like you better if you weren't such a nar…narsi…" Her icy tone was ruined by her mid-sentence pause as her mind (drunkenness carried the words from her mouth almost before they registered) tried to remember the word she was thinking of. "…Narcissistic bastard! At least I'm here with my convictions—What've you got?" Despite her attempts to recover her indignant glare, she'd ruined her own moment. In an attempt to salvage it, Maria turned sharply and took excessively long strides down the hall to 4D, slamming her fist against the door so hard that it began to splinter around the knob. After that, she waited patiently for her companion to let her in, sparing Kevin not another glance (though she could practically feel his indignant gaze burning into her skin), failing to understand why he didn't just go into his room already. Their "conversation" was over; didn't he get it? Jeez, did something offend him?
Maria pushed roughly past Angel and her dark-eyed stare, slamming the door closed behind her. Quickly she whirled around on her manager, stooping over slightly in an attempt to look the smaller girl at eye-level.
"Men! I hate them!" Angel's image doubled, but this didn't seem to convern Maria. "Pompous cocks think that … Cause… Cause…" she paused, an almost pained expression crossing her face as the room suddenly swerved vertically.
Angel stepped forward, catching Maria under the arms as both of their legs gave way beneath her weight. Only her eyes belied the anger that spread across Angel's face. "Well at least those men don't break their promises! I should toss you off the balcony—drunk as you are, you wouldn't even notice, hypocritical…" the rest turned into a series of grumbles as she noted that Maria had fallen asleep right there.
"Hmph. Push you off the balcony in the morning, right before a bucket of ice water. That'll teach you."
A/N:Yep. That's it. And I don't care, I'm not going back to edit the other chapters to accommodate my obscene plot swerve.
By the way: Did I make Maria seem less bubbly? I'm aware that that's the way she came out at first, and it is an important side of her, but I also want people to know that she's got different faces, just like everyone else in the world. Oh, and don't ask me, I'll tell you now: Maria is straight. She's just really open, I guess.