Casting Call For Act Two:
Daisuke-Buffy
Daiki-Giles (mostly)
Takeshi-Anya (mostly)
Risa, Emiko, Kosuke, Towa- Willow, Xander, Tara (alternating)
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Daisuke took a deep breath. On the wall above him, the clock's hour hand struck five o' clock in the afternoon. The teenage boy's geometry homework lay before him, all of its answer spaces thoroughly and completely blank. Of course, the adolescent was having difficulty focusing on pentagram angles and the square area of a heart, due to the pestering questions that the voice within his mind continued bothering him with. If this sentence had been applied to the average teenager, 9 out of 10 citizens would immediately recommend a visit to the local psychiatrist and some good, strong sleeping pills. Of course, Niwa Daisuke was not, underneath his placid surface, your average teenager.
So you just burst into song for no apparent reason? He questioned for what was, to his count, the seventh time.
The reply was firm, as though the phantom thief was explaining to his host why the sky appears blue, and has been explaining this patiently for quite some time. Yes.
And it seemed perfectly normal?
Yes, Dai-chan.
You're enjoying this, aren't you.
A jovial edge crept into his other side's thought speech. A little bit.
A weary sigh escaped the redhead's lips, and he dropped his head forward to rest on his arms, crossed over one another on top of the homework he had every intention of doing. Eventually. This is crazy-
His silent complaint to the other presence within his mind was abruptly interrupted by the yell that traveled up the stairs and slammed against his door. "DAISUKE!" It was Towa's joyful yowl, loud enough to literally rattle the pencil lying unused beside his left hand.
Emiko should rent her out as a cheaper version of a messenger service, Dark said conversationally. You wouldn't have to spend any money on phone calls or Internet, you'd just rent Towa-chan and she'd be able to deliver messages to foreign countries by lifting her voice.
Meanwhile, the energetic art spirit continued calling enthusiastically, "DAISUK-EEEE! YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE!"
"Friends?" Daisuke repeated out loud, puzzled. "But no one said they'd be coming over-"
You have friends? Dark interrupted with mock bewilderment, grinning.
Ah, shove it, Dark. In the manner of someone who found his approaching task extraordinarily painful, the teenage male dragged himself to his feet and shuffled to the door of his bedroom. For the third time, Towa trilled, "DAISUK-EEEE!" But now her shrill soprano was accompanied by a rougher alto that somehow managed to be even louder than the female embodiment of an artwork.
Wonderful, the Phantom Thief's voice drawled from the air around his tamer. The junior detective. I wonder what his latest hare-brained scheme is?
Dark!, The redhead mentally scolded, scurrying down the stairs in hopes of avoiding being sued by the neighbors for noise pollution. That's not nice, Saehara-kun's been my friend for years.
The kaitou appeared to consider this for a moment, then an image of his other side nodding flashed into Daisuke's mind. Yeah, he grumbled good-naturedly. Besides, calling him hare-brained is an insult to With. After all, With is smart enough not to try to hang himself from a tree by a makeshift harness just for two blurry photos. Even if the photos ARE of the great Phantom Thief Dark.
Daisuke rolled his eyes, but had no time to respond, as he was suddenly being forced downward by the mysterious arm that had looped itself around his shoulders and was beginning the procedure known to most as strangling. The owner of said arm cried enthusiastically, and directly in the teenage boy's ear, "HIYA DAISUKE!"
"Saehara-kun, get off!" The redhead pushed the arm away, and managed to slip free from the reporter-in-training's version of a friendly greeting.
In his most helpful manner, Dark commented off-handedly, Actually, you know what he reminds me of? A German Shepherd.
The sound of a throat being coyly cleared made Daisuke's head shoot up, resulting in a sharp cramp taking up residence in the back of his neck. Rubbing the top of his spine, the redhead turned to see Harada Risa perched primly on the edge of a kitchen stool. "Harada-san!" he yelped in surprise, not because of her presence but because of her appearance. Her long mane of chocolate hair, usually groomed to shining perfection, was tousled and frizzy, lacking any of her usual ribbons. The creamy T-shirt she wore was wrinkled, and her deep blue short-skirt was frayed at the edges. Her normally rosy face was ashen, and the skin beneath her eyes was marred with shades of purple from lack of sleep.
"Harada-san, is something wrong?" The words escaped him before he could clamp them back down into his throat. Though Daisuke had posed the question as gently as he could, his former crush's bottom lip trembled, and Takeshi gave his childhood friend a look that would have been more suitable for someone belching in the middle of a high-class restaurant.
Risa's shoulders convulsed, her frazzled bangs hiding her eyes as she whispered hoarsely, "Riku…Riku's been…kidnapped."
The floor promptly vanished from beneath Daisuke's feet. As he stuttered incomprehensibly, his other half whistled. Who'd want to kidnap her?
After several seconds, he finally managed to shout, "WHAT!" Daisuke considered his response for a moment, then decided to add, "Where? When?"
"Last night, at home she just vanished," Risa told him, her head lowered, voice flat. "We were arguing, and I'd gone into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came out, she wasn't there. I looked all over the house, and my parents reported her missing to the police, but…" Her explanation faded out, and was replaced by an almost tangible silence.
Daisuke wanted to demand that she supply him with more details. Daisuke wanted to leap out of his house's front door and tear down the street, calling for his missing girlfriend. Daisuke wanted to flee back up to his room, dive under the covers of his futon, and hide from the unfair world surrounding him. Instead of taking any of these three options, what Daisuke's mouth blurted out to his two companions was, "Uh…last night, did any of you…uh…burst into song?" He clapped his hand over his mouth immediately, but the words had already flown out of his control. Risa's head slowly lifted, as she and the reporter-in-training turned as one to stare at their friend, each wearing an indecipherable expression.
Then all hell proceeded to break loose.
"Merciful Zeus!" Takeshi yelped. As soon as the silence shattered, Emiko, Towa, Daiki, and Kosuke all rushed into the room through the door leading to the front hallway, where they (meaning Emiko) had apparently been eavesdropping on the conversation. Daisuke's former crush sprang to her feet, and there was a dull flash of gleaming black plastic as Takeshi whipped his ever-handy pen and notepad from the pocket of his shirt. All but Kosuke and Daisuke began jabbering at once, their words clamoring over and through one another until it was impossible to catch anything but frazzled snatches of sentences.
"We thought it was just us!" (Risa)
"Well, I sang, but I had my old guitar in the attic and-" (Daiki)
"It was bizarre. We were talking and then it was like-" His mother paused, apparently unsure exactly what her musical experience could be compared to.
"Like you were in a musical!" Risa finished excitedly.
Emiko snapped her fingers. "Yeah!"
From the edge of the room, Kosuke commented in the mild tone of someone who has long grown used to the inexplicable effects of living with a Niwa, "That would explain the backing orchestra I couldn't see, not to mention the synchronized dancing from With here."
"Kyu!" the shapeshifter added helpfully, nudging the brown-haired man's fingers as they ran over his back.
Towa announced cheerfully to no one in particular, "Me and Emiko-san did a duet about dish-washing."
Meanwhile, from the side of the room where she and Takeshi stood, Risa rambled, "And we were arguing and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and the dance with coconuts-"
Oblivious of her son's former crush, Emiko continued, "There was an entire verse about dish soap."
Finally, Takeshi ended the tangling sentences and mingled conversations by concluding, "It was very disturbing." There was a brief quiet, during which everyone attempted to gather their thoughts and to get their tongues back into working order.
Kosuke turned to Daisuke with an inquisitive gaze. He asked, "What did you sing about, Daisuke?"
In the farthest reaches of his mind, the red-haired teenager felt the Phantom Thief stiffen. Suddenly Dark's warm presence seemed very in danger of fading into elsewhere, until he wasn't anything more than the reflection of a form that had long ago aged to nothingness. "I…I don't remember," Daisuke stuttered lamely, taking a step backwards. "But it seemed perfectly natural."
His father eyed him skeptically, but he was saved by Takeshi's inability to wait until a conversation was finished before speaking. The brunette interjected, "But disturbing. And not in the natural order of things, that's for sure. Ya think it'll happen again?"
"I don't know," Daiki murmured thoughtfully, rubbing his stubble of beard. "I should look into it."
"With the books." Emiko added. Risa and Takeshi, playing the role of mystified onlookers due to their lack of Niwa family history knowledge, looked back and forth between the woman and elderly man as if the two were engaged in a tennis match. Towa busied herself running a duster over the perfectly-clean top of the bookcase behind her "savior", which actually had the opposite of the desired effect by sprinkling particles of dust onto the wooden surface from the duster's feathers.
The former recipient of Dark turned to his daughter, doubtful. "Do we have any books on this?"
Kosuke told them in his typically logical manner, "Well, we just have to break it down into cause and effect, look at the factors before it happens again. Because I for one-"
Whatever he was going to say next was blockaded by his wife. She had been fidgeting where she stood as he began to speak, shifting her weight from foot to foot agitatedly. At last, Emiko could no longer resist the overwhelming urge that was washing over the room's occupants, and a tune ripped its way free from her throat. "I've got a theory, that it's a demon, A dancing demon! …No, something isn't right there."
Risa's voice was sweet, but pitched back and forth unexpectedly and had frayed angles. "I've got a theory,
Some kid is dreamin', And we're all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare."
Kosuke chimed in, "I've got a theory we should work this out,"
Risa, Takeshi, and Towa chorused, "It's getting eerie, what's this cheery singing all about?"
"It could be witches, some evil witches," Daiki's proposal was quickly shot down by a death glare directed to him from his daughter. The elderly man threw up his hands, hastily adding, "Which is ridiculous 'cause witches they were persecuted, wicca good and love the Earth and womanpower and I'll be over here." With that, he tiptoed quietly to the corner and sat on a wooden chair, hoping to avoid the wrath of Niwa Emiko.
Takeshi trilled boldly, "I've got a theory, it could be bunnies."
This theory was greeted by absolute silence, unshattered but for startled blinking. With was the only one to look directly at the expectant reporter-to-be, and his enormous crimson eyes were full of wonder and grave doubt. After a few wire-strung moments eased themselves past, Towa picked up the musical number once again with, "I've got a-" But Takeshi was far from finished.
"Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes!
They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies, bunnies it must be BUNNIES!"
All this was yowled on a single breath, and the brunette was forced to halt his raving to pant heavily, his tongue hanging from his mouth like an overexcited dog's. Each of the room's occupants stared at him, too incredulous to speak (excluding With, who was busy directing all the hatred he could muster up into a death glare towards the nosy human for daring to insult his kindred). After a thoughtful pause, he wondered outloud, "Or maybe midgets-"
Quickly interrupting the reporter-in-training's latest potential conspiracy before he could give With more evidence with which to commit homicide, Emiko cut in, "I've got a theory we should work this fast,"
Her husband's voice sailed up the musical scale to take a note below hers, and they finished together, "Because it clearly could get serious before it's passed." Daiki rose from his seat, and began to move towards the doorway leading to the Niwas' extensive, cluttered library of information related to artwork.
Daisuke's song, quiet and steadily-pitched, wove throughout the room. "I've got a theory, it doesn't matter." Daiki's hobbling steps halted, and one by one his friends and family turned to look at him. The redhead took a deep breath, and then continued, at first hesitating but gathering strength as the melody went on.
"What can't we face if we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
Apocalypse?
We've all been there.
The same old trips
Why should we care?"
As if on an invisible cue, the other six human voices rose to join his; rich, gravelly, lilting, rough, flute-like, chiming. "What can't we do if we get in it?
We'll work it through within a minute
We have to try
We'll pay the price
It's do or die
Fire or ice
What can't we face if we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
There's nothing we can't face-"
Takeshi abruptly dropped onto the couch, rubbing his forehead wearily. "Except for bunnies."
Suddenly, the nonexistent music fled from the aura of the room, and all that was left were six people looking very silly, and a rabbit throwing nasty looks at the reporter-in-training. Risa sat on the other end of the couch, commenting, "See, okay, that was definitely disturbing."
Shaking the duster out above the kitchen garbage can, Towa chirped brightly, "I thought it was neat!"
"So what is it?" Daisuke asked, a hopeless note in his tone. His hands suddenly seemed awkward by his sides, and he wrung them together behind his back nervously as he waited for someone, anyone, to rationalize the alternate universe he seemed to have been thrown into. "What's causing it?'
A smug Takeshi reminded his friend, "I thought it didn't matter."
Daisuke rolled his eyes, and cuffed the brunette sharply on the head. As Takeshi rubbed the side of his skull and glared reproachfully at him, the redhead retorted, "Well, I'm not exactly quaking in my oh-so-fashionable school shoes, but there's definitely something not normal about six people performing an unrehearsed song about evil rabbits –No offense, With—in the middle of a living room. And that doesn't usually lead to hugs and puppies."
"Is it just us?" Risa questioned, looking anxious as she gazed up at the Niwa boy. "I mean, is it only happening to us?"
Daisuke turned away, unable to answer the disheveled damsel-in-distress. Instead, he stepped towards the front door. As he moved to open it, Dark's voice penetrated his thoughts. If that is the case, it probably would mean a spell or-
The red-haired teenager threw open the door, its handle thudding solidly against the wall behind it. Gathered in the middle of the street were a dozen or so strangers, each with a dry-cleaning bag slung over their shoulders. A slightly-over-middle-aged man stood before the other eleven as their leader, swinging his dry-cleaning bag over his head in what was clearly meant to be a dramatic effect. Outside, the birds were oddly silent as this stout man bellowed, "They got…the mustard…out!"
The crowd gathered around him wielded their bags like swords as they sang back, "They got the mustard out!"
With a soft click of the door's mechanism, Daisuke swung it closed. He turned back to the expectant array of people before him, who had also watched the display in utter silence. Reluctantly, he told them what each already knew. "It's not just us."
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Author's Note: Please take note of the fact that the Casting Call tends to change quite often and without any particular rhyme or reason. It has occurred to WolfBane2 that it would have made more sense for Towa to do Anya's bunny-rant, but WolfBane2 likes Takeshi more and decided he needed a new conspiracy. The title of this chapter's song has several different names, such as "I've Got A Theory", "If We're Together" and "Bunnies". WolfBane2 likes the last one, personally, but usually uses the first one. The next chapter will contain revelations as to Riku's kidnapper, as well as a song called "Under Your Spell" which WolfBane2 will not have any fun writing because (though she likes the song) it's not funny and she has a straight pairing planned for it. Most of the pairings in this story will be straight.
Random Person: You're such a liar.
Yes WolfBane2 is. But there will be MOSTLY straight pairings. But not all. Come on, this fic will have Satoshi in it. It is nearly impossible to have Satoshi in a fic and not have some hints of gayocity in it. The fact that WolfBane2 is a faithful Dark/Krad fan does not help, considering the two pairings go hand in hand. Anyway, just so you can't say WolfBane2 never warned you, WolfBane2 warns you now that if you are an avid homophobe, please turn away from this fic and run far, far away. But WolfBane2 doubts you hate shounen-ai, because you're reading DNAngel, which is very, very hard to make appear straight despite the efforts of the anime creators. …What? You're expecting more. Go away. WolfBane2 is busy pointedly ignoring you. Go review, or flame a Mary-Sue…or something to that effect.
Oh. One last point. "The Mustard" is an entirely different song from "I've Got A Theory". The fact that it is only two lines composed of the same words is irrelevant.
