SpiritsFlame: Shaman Kings not mine!
Horo:… Is that it?
SpiritsFlame: Of course not! You thought I'd let you get away with that lousy disclaimer!
Ren: …um, yes?
SpiritsFlame: Oh, ok. Well, I will also say, that there will be no replies to reviewers, as I have lost the reviews!
Yoh: How do you lose reviews?
SpiritsFlame: I have AOL, and usually I either read them, or copy paste them onto Word, which I forgot to do, so maybe next time, sorry!
Hao: now, onto the story!
SpiritsFlame: Right! Here you go!
One Week Later coughMay19thcough--- P.S. it's about 12:42.
"Come on Horo! Time for your 'dentist appointment'" Pirika shouted.
"My- oh! Right, well, then lets go!" he replied "Just a sec." Horo ran down the hall to his room and pulled out a few things, none of which was the stuff he had bought last week. With that, he ran out of the room, grabbing Pirika and dragging her behind him while stuffing the stuff in his bag.
"Bye guys, see you n a bit!" he shouted over his shoulder. He pulled Pirika out the door, down the street, and all the way to the bus stop just as the bus pulled around the corner. He then dragged her onto the bus, handed the driver a few yen, and pulled her down next to him.
"Um, Horo? You know we're not really going to the dentist, right?"
"Yeah, and?"
"So, why are we on the bus?"
"Yuki and Mandi are picking us up at the next stop, speaking of which." He said, standing up, as they ad arrived at the 'next stop'. She got up and followed him as he got off the bus.
"Um, the names sound familiar, but who?" Horo was just about to answer when he was suddenly grabbed from behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pirika being grabbed in a similar manner. Before he could struggle, he heard a voice say
"If you don't move, I might let you live."
"Haha, very funny, Yuki." He said, "And Mandi, let go of my sister, and while you're at it, get your crazy author to let go of me." Mandi pouted, saying
"Your no fun." But she obeyed, and Horo felt the arm holding him do the same. "Pirika, this is Mandi, my psycho editor." Mandi stuck her tongue out at Horo, but didn't say anything. "And this is Yuki Shindou," Horo continued, nodding his head in her direction. "Don't worry, she may look punk-goth, but inside, she's about as punk as a cloud." Yuki snorted, and said
"Hey! Keep talking like that and we'll leave you here. Speaking of which, why the hell are we here? Why didn't you take your limo?" at that exact moment a car honked and Mandi jumped.
"Speaking of which, mine is getting mad." She said. Se grabbed Horo and Pirika in one hand, and Yuki in the other and dragged them to the limo, where she threw them inside. She climbed in after them, and closed the door. Horo, Yuki, and Mandi were used to limos by now, and weren't staring around in awe, unlike Pirika.
"So, back to the question, why the hell did you get us to come get you, instead of taking your own limo?"
"Somebody" Horo started, glaring at Mandi "Gave Lyserg tickets to our book signing, and told him about out private party, which was supposed to be for just the three of us."
"Gomen, Nuye-kun, but that would be me." Mandi said, not that anyone was surprised. "He's my sister's uncle's son's brother's cousin."
"What?"
"My Moms brothers, wife's sons' cousin, and he offered me sour skittles."
"I'm not even going to ask."
"Well, ok, I get the whole Mandi-giving-information-to-a-distant-relitive-after-being-bribed-with-candie thing, but what does this have to do with Nuye here?"
"Well, Lyserg and I became friends during the Shaman tournament." Both Yuki and Mandi nodded, as they had fought in the Shaman Tournament themselves. "And so Lyserg gave the tickets to Yoh-"
"Asakura Yoh!"
"Yes and-"
"You know Asakura Yoh, the Shaman King, only person to ever defeat Asakura Hao, his twin brother, and one of the laziest Shaman Kings in history? That Asakura Yoh!"
"Yeah, so anyway, Lyserg gave the tickets to Yoh for his birthday, and invited them to the party!"
"And let me guess, you haven't told them that you're Nuye Paskuma, and you don't want them to find out?"
"Exactly!"
"And so you called Mandi and me to come get you so that your friends wouldn't think it was weird that you were going to wherever you told them you were going in a limo?" Yuki said. Pirika stared at her, Yuki saw this and said
"Hey midget, 'sup?" which, unsurprisingly, only made Pirika stare harder.
"Don't mind her, she's just weird like that, and she is pretty all-guessing. It's a bit strange."
"A bit?" Mandi joked.
"Anyway, back to me! So, everyone is going to be there and at the after party, which is usually where I take off my disguise, and be myself, but now I can't do that!"
"So why don't you just tell them?" Horo sweatdropped.
"How do you think they'd react to hearing I was their favorite author?"
"Point."
"Well, than just keep the stuff on while you're at my place, and no problems. By the way, we're almost there, do you have it?"
"Yeah." Horo pulled a folder from his bag and handed it to Mandi, who handed him a big heavy bag of something. Yuki, meanwhile, was rubbishing through his bag.
"Hey, what's this?" she asked, holding up his sketch book.
"Don't!" too late.
"Who's this?" she asked, flipping through his sketchbook. "Your boyfriend?" Horo turned red.
"N-no." he stuttered.
"But you'd like him to be? Well, duh, you have a sketchbook full of him, or him and you snuggling." Horo turned redder. Pirika looked up at him.
"Really?" they asked at the same time "Who?"
"There's no name." Yuki said, continuing to flip through the pages. "But he has- mfkjsdhasjd" As Horo had just put his hand over his mouth, which she bit.
"Ow! Oh look, we're here! Pirika, you stay here for about 5 minutes, then come in and say that you left me there." He said, while pulling a hoodie on. "And treat me like a stranger." Pirika nodded and watched as Horo pulled on some sunglasses and scarf. Yuki rolled her eyes. Horo shouldered the bag Mandi had giving him.
"See ya, squirt." Yuki said to Pirika, messing up her hair. Yuki, Mandi, and 'Nuye' stepped out of the limo and all winced at the sheer volume of their fans. They all smiled and waved as they went into the bookstore. When they got in, Horo reached into the bag and pulled out a megaphone.
"QUITE!" he shouted, the crowd went silent. "Ok everyone; I have Fire Eyed here for you, DON'T STRAT CHEERING YET! And I'm putting it on this table" he did so. "Please bring it up to be signed in a single file line, now, a word from Yuki." He finished, and handed the megaphone to said author, who said
"Hullo all! NO DON'T ANSWER ME DAMMIT! I have here my new book, Blue Strawberries! And ditto to what Nuye said, thank you!" she handed the megaphone back to Horo, who stashed it somewhere. They then sat down at the table and proceeded to sign books for an hour, at the end of which, Mandi stood up and shouted "Hello? Hello!" but no one heard.
Ren's POV---
Ren and the others arrived at the bookstore just before Nuye and them were getting out of the limo. Yoh poofed them right into the middle of the parking lot, (the 'them' being Lyserg, Yoh, Ren, and Hao) just in time to see three people getting out of the limo, one was Mandi something-or-other, who had shoulder length, curly green hair, and blue eyes. She had on a blue and white ski jacket, pale denim jeans with a slight flare, a white t-shirt, and Ren thought she looked at lot like Lyserg but ignored it. She was followed by Yuki Shindou, who Ren had seen a picture of in Horos room.
Her blue/black hair looked like she hadn't brushed it since she had published her first book, Blazeing Life, (which was followed by the sequel Hazel Eyes, both of which were puns) She wore a green sweater/jacket/coat thing with the hood down, a black t-shirt with green flames that said --Metallica--except the -- -- were also green flames. She wore black pants a lot like Hao's and black sunglasses, but Ren remembered that her eyes were silver.
She was followed by Nuye Paskuma, who wore a black hoodie with the hood pulled up, black sunglasses, and a black scarf tied around his mouth, so none of his face was visible. He also wore black pants, also like Hao's but without the thingamabobbers. They walked into the bookstore, smiling and waving. Well, it was assumed that Nuye was smiling; it was hard to tell under the scarf.
The crowd followed them into the bookstore. Ren and the others were thrilled when they saw the table piled high with Nuye's new book Fire Eyed, the way that Nuye wrote was kinda weird, he would write three books in a trilogy, and four trilogies in a series. The trilogy would be about on person, than the next trilogy would be about the same people, a few years later, but from a different person's point of view. His first book was the Water Trilogy, book one, Water Nation, boom 2 Water Walker, and book 3Water Caller, the main character was a girl name Mizu, who, along with 3 other people, a girl Kaki, a boy Tenkuu, and another boy, Daichi, were sucked into a alternate reality, and they each controlled an Element, and they were the main character in the series of their element. His second trilogy was the one that had just been finished, was about Kaki, and the books were Fire Flies, Fire Singer and, the most recent, Fire Eyed. Ren and everyone else grabbed a book but didn't go to get it signed, as they would be able to do that later. Ren decided that he couldn't wait to see what happened till he got home, and promptly started to read. He wanted to see if Tenkuu got together with Daichi, whether Kaki died, and if Mizu said yes to the prince's proposal. He was so immersed in the book that he didn't notice Pirika until she bumped into him.
"Sorry Ren." She said, grabbing a book for herself.
"Pirika? What are you doing here? I though you were taking Horo to the dentist. Is he here?" Ren looked around as if hoping for Horo to pop out of no where next to him, which he was.
"Well, I was, but I had to come here, I didn't want to miss this."
"You just left him there!" he exclaimed, indignant.
"Yes?"
"Oh, ok." And he continued to read the book. He looked up every once and a while, and after it had been about an hour, he saw Mandi stand up and shout something unhearable. Yuki said something to her and she got up on the chair and shouted again, nothing. He watched as Nuye tapped her shoulder and hand her the megaphone, she took it and stood up on the table.
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" she shouted, everyone shut up. "Ok, you see this?" she held up the folder Horo had handed her earlier, but Ren didn't know this. "This is the rough draft for Nuye Paskuma's new book, in the Earth Trilogy, called Earth Thrower." There were cheers. "But you can't have it!" the cheers stopped. "Because it's a rough draft, and Nuye-kun's handwriting is so bad you wouldn't be able to read it anyway! But I do have some sour skittles, which you also can't have! Goodbye!" with that, she grabbed Yuki and Nuye and dragged them off, tapping Lyserg on the shoulder as she passed him. He gestured for the others to follow him, which they did. Out of the corner of his eye he say Mandi dragging Yuki and Nuye to a parked limo, Lyserg rolled his eyes and followed.
"Lyserg! Long time no see!" Mandi shouted "And you random people get in the limo. No not you!" as everyone within hearing distance had moved closer. "Only if you know Lyserg." Everyone who fit that description moved into the limo, which left Yuki standing outside the limo next to Nuye, even though he did know Lyserg, they didn't know that. Mandi just rolled her eyes, and gestured for them to enter. Yuki and Nuye obliged.
"Yo, limo driver guy, take us to Mandi's" Yuki said, then turning to said crazy person, she said "Mandi, you mind explaining what the hell is going on?"
"Oh, right, well you see, Lyserg here is my aunts brothers sisters husbands son, and-"
"Doesn't that make him your cousin?" Ren asked
"Well, yes, but sisters cousin's mom's sister's son is much more fun to say!" Everyone fell over.
"Anyway." Lyserg continued for his cousin, sense he knew that if she explained, people would get even more confused. "Well, I remembered how Mandi is Nuye-sama and Yuki-sama's editor, so I called her and asked her, and she said that I could come, because making new friends is fun, and because the only other reason she had was 'why not'" Suddenly, Yuki cheered
"We're almost there!" she shouted, pointing. Everyone looked at her.
"You must be Shindou Yuki-sama." Lyserg said politely, she grinned at him.
"You must be Lyserg-kun!" she said. "I've heard a lot about you."
"How." He asked. Yoh glanced over at Nuye, who was sweatdropping and mentally swearing.
"Oh, um, well, Mandi told me, yeah." She said. Mandi looked up.
"I did, Ow, I mean, Oh, right I did." She 'remembered' with help of Horos foot.
"Oh, look, we're here." Yuki said, hopping out quickly and running up to the mansion. Everyone gaped, big house.
"Well, come in then," Mandi said, holding the door open. "Make yourselves at home. You can wander around randomly until you here the bell, which means dinner, then we will all have dinner, introductions will be made, and you will all get a huge surprise, provided by Nuye-kun! Have fun!" she said, and ran off.
"Well, that was weird." Yuki said "Hey Nuye-kun, what's wrong, cat got your tongue?" she stuck out her own "Well, I for one plan to take advantage of Mandi's video games, anyone else wanna come?"
"I'll come." Lyserg said, Hao went after him, and Yoh followed his twin, which left Nuye and Ren standing there by themselves. There was an awkward silence.
"Will you sign this?" Ren asked, holding out his copy of Fire Eyed.
"Sure." Horo made his voice a little deeper than usual. He pulled a gold signing pen out of his pocket and wrote 'Hey Ren, 'twas nice talking with you. – Nuye Paskuma.' And handed it back to Ren.
"How do you know my name?" Ren asked suspiciously.
"I, uh, heard someone call you Ren earlier." He said. Ren didn't look convinced, but luckily didn't say anything.
"You want a snack?" Nuye asked, trying to change the subject.
"Uh, yeah, sure, why not?" Ren replied, thrilled at he was about to have a snack with his favorite author. Nuye led him down through a maze of hallways. When they passed one door the heard tires screeching and gun shots, mildly alarmed, Nuye stuck his head in. Mandi, Yoh, Hao, Lyserg, and Yuki were playing a playstation game, which was really fancy, and more like laser tag then anything.
"Hey guys." Nuye said, and was just about to leave when Yoh said
"Just a sec, can I talk to you?" Horo blinked, although you couldn't tell under the sunglasses.
"Okay." He said, and entered the room. Yoh grabbed his sleeve and pulled him over to a corner.
"You really should tell them, Horo." he said quietly, Horo jumped. Well, he should have known Yoh knew, he was the Shaman King.
"I'm going to tell them after dinner." He whispered. Yoh nodded and let go of his sleeve. Horo waved to everyone and left the room. The others were too engrossed in the game to notice. Nuye led Ren down the back stairs to the kitchen. He had been to Mandi's enough to know his way around.
"Milk?" he offered, opening the fridge
"Yeah, thanks." Nuye pulled some milk from the fridge and poured it into two cups, one of which he handed to Ren, than realized that there was no way he could drink it with his scarf on, and he was not going to pull it down.
"You ever read Trail of Darkness?" He asked, naming one of his favorite books, and he also knew that Ren liked it, but they had never discussed it.
"Yeah." And they were off, talking about their favorite scenes, characters, pairings, and their predictions for the future books.
Meanwhile---
"Muahhahaha! I shall defeat you!" Yuki screamed
"Never!" Hao and Lyserg screamed back. Mandi had left with Yoh, saying she wanted to show him her sound system.
"Fear my wrath!" Yuki yelled, doing a quick cheat on her control.
"Never! Oh crap." As game Yuki had just killed game Lyserg and game Hao, who had teamed up on her a while back.
"Hey, on the Brightside, you two managed to get a lot farther than anyone else. Most people usually get killed in about 5 minutes, you guys lasted 30!"
"Has it really been that long?" Hao asked.
"Ye-" Yuki replied, but was cut off by the sound of the bell.
"FOOD!" Yuki shouted and grabbed both of their hands and dragged them after her. When they got to the table they saw everyone was already there. Lyserg sat down next to Mandi, Yuki sat next to him, Hao sat in between her and Yoh.
"Ahem." Mandi said, tapping her glass with a fork. Everyone looked up at the sound of breaking glass.
"Oh whatever. Anyway, since no one knows anyone's name, we will now do introductions! Just say your name, and that's it." She turned to Nuye, who was sitting on her left side, he said
"Paskuma Nuye." Everyone already knew this, so no one was surprised. Nuye looked at Ren, who was next to him.
"Tao Ren." Which caused Yuki and Mandi's heads to snap up.
"THE TAO REN!" they yelled together, Ren nodded.
"Oh, well, ok then." Yuki said, as Nuye had been glaring at her not to mention anything about the Tao's reputation as a homicidal maniac. Mandi didn't say anything, as she liked her head the way it was, attached. Yoh, who was next to Ren, said
"Asakura Yoh." He said calmly. Mandi and Yuki both gave mini bows, saying
"You're the Shaman King." Yoh nodded, Pirika, however was confused.
"I though only Shamans knew about that." Yuki and Mandi laughed.
"We are shamans." They said. Almost everyone's eyes popped out. "But lets discus that later." Mandi said. "Continue."
"Usui Pirika."
"Asakura Hao." Yuki already knew this, but Mandi's eyes bugged out.
"Hao, you mean-" her eyes flicked to Lyserg, she had, of course, heard about his family. Lyserg kicked her, he had, well, not forgiven, more like accepted, the fact that Hao had killed his parents, after Hao had apologized so much that his throat had been raw and he couldn't talk for the rest of the week, and he didn't like it mentioned.
"Shindou Yuki." Yuki said
"Morphin Lyserg."
"And I'm your host, Morphin Mandi!" Mandi concluded. "OK, you guys know how I told you there'd be a surprise after dinner? Well, the surprise was going to be that Nuye was going to show you/tell you who he really is-"
"WHAT!" Pirika shouted, she turned to Nuye "You sure?" he nodded.
"BUT. "Mandi continued. "Nuye-baka he discovered that he cannot eat with the scarf over his mouth, so he will be telling you/showing now!" Mandi sat down, and Yuki stood up, saying
"Ladies and aliens" "Hey!" "I give you, for the last time! Nuye Paskuma!" Nuye stood up and walked on to the stage that Mandi'd had made so that she could hire Broadway performers, then watch them during dinner. He bent his head, so that even when he had removed the stuff, the hood hid his face. He reached up to pull off the scarf.
"Dammit! It's stuck!" he swore, but he still didn't raise his head. He tugged a few times, and it finally came off, the people watched as it fell to the ground, followed by his sunglasses. He put on hand on the top of his hood, and pushed it down as he looked up.
"Horo?"
"Hi guys."
TBC
SpiritsFlame: I know, that was evil, I sorry, but I having no idea what to do next! ANY SUGGESTIONS WILL BE WELCOME! Oh, and I'm taking votes on the side pairings, here are my ideas:
YohHao
HaoLyserg
LysergYuki
YukiHao
Other.
PLEASE VOTE!