Catse: Well, here's the next chapter. Texans come into play! My people! Just kidding. Only the girl is like a lot of people around here. The guy is like some. Many people seem to think that Texans have a slangish drawl to them, and carry guns and wear cowboy hats and ride horses across their farms. That doesn't happen around here. Here most people call you Majita if you're a girl and Majito if you're a boy. All girls usually wear sandals, and both boys and girls have the bottoms of their pants torn, where girls are always wearing bell bottoms, and boys are wearing heavy pants that sometimes look about ready to fall off. You rarely see a cowboy hat around here, but boots aren't too rare, and the most common plant to find here is cactus. Then again, maybe this is a lot like the stereotype everyone sees.
Disclaimer: See Chappie one...
"So, what happens now?" Seika inquired as he helped his team gather their luggage to one spot.
"We wait." Haku answered simply, making sure nothing was missing from his bags.
"Wait for what?"
Suddenly, a man walking by them collapsed and fell to the floor. The group surrounded him as Haku checked his pulse.
There was a large bleeding hole in his back.
"He's dead." He mumbled, standing up.
"Will yah get away from him! You're attractin' attention!" They heard a young voice snarl from behind them. Katai was the first one to notice him.
"It's a cowboy!" She hollered, pointing. Everyone else turned to see.
The man before them was probably about the same age as Seika, with a plaid red button up shirt hanging loosely open over a long sleeved white t-shirt. He wore a loose pair of jeans with a chain running along one side, and his alligator boots were nothing to be ignored, being a deep maroon and everything. He had his pale white hat cocked over green showy eyes, and a smile that came to prove he was just like Katai in attitude. In his hand stood a gun, in which he quickly twirled it and set it back into the holster at his hip.
"Hiyya dudes. I gather you're the team we been waitin' on?" He asked, but no one there understood him but Haku. They only spoke Japanese. He only spoke English.
"I would gather you are Cole Williams?" Haku inquired in English, and the boy nodded.
"The one and the same. Now if I could find my sister she could—"
Out of nowhere, a sandaled foot flew into Cole's face, knocking him to the ground sideways. After he had collapsed, and his hat flown off, he stood up with a curse.
"Geez! Warn me the next time you do that Christy! It gets on my nerves!"
"You're the one that shot a demon in public!" Christy snarled. She wore a blue sparkling tank top with the words "Princess" across the front, and a pair of jeans just a tad too tight for her. Her sandals were black and her dusty blonde hair was kept in pigtails at both sides of her head, her bangs hanging before blue eyes that matched her top.
Haku stopped and turned, looking at the man on the ground. There was no longer a human there, but a dead demon with green scaly skin and pointed ears. He was already beginning to evaporate, which greatly puzzled him. Demons didn't do that when dead.
"Well, anyways. My name's Christy Williams! This is my over reactive brother Cole. So you're the team?"
"Yes." Haku answered instead. Seika and the others looked at him strangely, and he had to turn and translate for them what the new people had said. Once they understood, they bowed their heads as Haku presented them in English.
"Seika Kuwabara, Katai Urameshi, Satou Nohara, Tsuki Kuwabara, and Yoru Nohara. I am Haku Minamino. I would gather you are the detectives of Texas?"
They nodded as Yoru stepped in front of the group and glared at Haku. In perfect English, she stated very simply: "I will not be referred to as Yoru Nohara. I am just Yoru. If you fail to remember that I'll gut you, cook you, and eat you."
Seika would have reacted, but again, he didn't understand a word she said.
"She speaks English?" He asked Katai as the two people walked them to their van outside.
"I guess so. I didn't know either." Katai answered. "But there's one thing for certain. I'm glad I took an English class."
Seika sighed and felt the cold run up his spine.
"What? You don't understand English?"
"I never took it." He told her simply. "I don't understand a word their saying. But I can understand Chinese!"
Katai shook her head and passed him as he presented his finger as if it were something wonderful. "We ain't in China." She said.
The two lead them to an old beat up van outside, and Katai sighed. She whispered something to Haku, and he glared at her, but then sighed and walked up to the curious Texans.
"She wants to know why you have a van if your Cowboys. She thought all cowboys have heavy duty trucks."
"Where'd she get that idea?" Cole inquired as he opened the driver's side door.
"Television." Haku answered him.
"Well tell her back that I ain't no cowboy." Christy snapped, opening the back door of the van so as to store the group's luggage. "I just sit on the sidelines and watch."
"What does your brother do?" Seika asked through Haku as he set his stuff in the back of the van, along with everyone else.
"He's a Rodeo Rider." Christy answered, again through Haku.
Most of this conversation Haku was going to have to translate.
"Wow! Awesome! Um…What is that exactly?"
Haku narrowed his eyes and replied the question, and both Christy and Cole began to laugh their heads off.
"Hahahah You have no idea what a Rodeo man is? Hahahahahah!" Came Christy, valiantly holding onto the van to keep from tripping and falling.
"Well, they are Japanese! Hahahahah!" Cole returned. After a bit of huffing, and laughing, they finally calmed down and looked at Katai and Seika.
"A Rodeo Rider is a man that rides wild or angry bulls, and sometimes rides horses in the pursuit of lassoing a calf. It's dangerous, but a ton of fun and the crowds love it." Christy answered, she took most of the luggage and helped everyone into the van. Tsuki and Satou were strangely silent throughout most of it, and Christy got them in and tried to buckle their seat belts. Both Tsuki and Satou shook their heads and did their own seatbelt.
"We ride in the car sometimes. Mom's rules are not to drive without seatbelts." Satou told her in perfect English.
"Ah…So you too can speak English!" She exclaimed happily. Seika knitted his brows and turned.
"You can?" He said in Japanese.
"Yep." They answered.
"They've started teaching us English in school. Satou really liked how it sounded so she learned most of it this year. I still don't speak very well." Tsuki admitted, blushing.
Seika slapped his forehead. "How many people here know English!"
"I don't." Katai replied.
"Well, that's a relief." Said Seika, sighing as he got comfortable. The van had four rows of seats. The first was for the driver and passenger, where Cole and Christy sat. The next set were for two people, where Seika and Katai sat. The third had three seats with Tsuki, Satou, and Haku in the corner. There was an extra three seats in the back, but Yoru wasn't there.
"Hey! Get off the freakin' van!" Christy shouted out the window. Cole was already up and sitting on the window frame of his door, glaring at some that was on top of the van.
"You ride inside the car chick." Cole told her, angrily in a way. "That's what we American's do."
"Yes, but I am not American now am I. I will ride on this van or we will go walking. Is that clear human." They heard Yoru snap from above them.
"Why do you think she's on the roof?" Katai asked Seika.
He shrugged. "Well, we know she doesn't like to be close to anyone. But this place is hot as hell! You'd think she'd have brains enough to sit in her."
"Then again, she has ice abilities. Where we are drenched in sweat she's as cool as winter."
"Nuh-uh! That's not how it works chick!" Cole continued to argue as Christy clambered out of her seat. "You get in van, and we drive off. If you so much as lay a dent in this van, I will shoot you dead here and now!"
"Go ahead. I'd like to see my own blood coat your van. It's acid, did you know?" Yoru told him. Haku sighed.
"It's alright. Let her ride on the top." He said softly. "She's not one anyone really wants to argue with. She's not exactly the abiding type if you know what I mean."
Cole shrank back into his seat with a huff.
"But she's on my van!"
"It's best you listen to what Haku says." Satou replied. "Yoru is a mean person! She dangled me out my window when I was two because I annoyed her!"
"All the more reason she should get her way!" Cole snapped. He opened the door and climbed out, now on the other side of the van where Christy was still arguing with Yoru.
"Look! I can understand you don't like being around people! But this is ridiculous! Do you know we can get pulled over and arrested for some one up there. That isn't going to help your mission you know!" Christy shot, glaring.
Cole pulled the gun from his holster and aimed.
"I'll shoot you, and I warn, I'm a good shot."
"Tsk. You're the detectives of this region and you can't even sense it? Tsk tsk." Yoru replied, bowing her head for a moment.
Then, out of nowhere, a black whip enladened with lightning shot out and shredded something that was floating in the air. It gasped and struggled, dropping to the ground like a fly when it became visible. There, on the pavement was a demon with large bat wings and eyes just as big, black and dead.
"I was hoping we wouldn't have to kill it." Christy argued, coming to the beast. "But in any case, at least now you'll know to get in the van."
Haku sighed. This argument was going nowhere. Yoru wouldn't accept unless forced to. With a quick use of some of his energy, he formed a whip that reached out through the door of the van and pulled Yoru off the roof. She fought with him, sliced him up with her claws, but this type of vine was indestructible to physical damage, which was why he had chosen it. Before long, he had pulled an angry Yoru through the driver's side door, over everyone's heads, and with a plop behind him, stuck her in the seat. Not only that, but the vines wrapped around the seat belt and buckled her in.
She glared at Haku with a vengeance, but did not attempt to leave the seat as if she was expecting they would do this.
Christy and Cole stuck their head in the van as they watched Haku buckle her in, and once finished, looked at him strange.
"Plant energy?" Cole inquired as he returned to the driver's seat. There was a lot to be discussed.
"Yes. My father taught me all he knew." Haku told him simply, folding his arms. "I believe the first place we're to go to is—"
He stopped when a purple fuzz ball leapt into the window and landed gracefully on Seika's lap.
"There you are Niko! I was wondering where you had disappeared to!"
Niko sat up, his reddish fur rippling, as electric wings faded into his back.
"Ah! How cute!" Christy shouted, leaping back to try to hug the little creature to death. Cole grabbed her pants and yanked her back, sitting her in the seat. "I'm backing out for godsakes Christy. Get your damned seatbelt on!"
Christy pouted, but finally complied with her brother and fastened the buckle.
"Now. What were you saying Haku?"
"Oh, right. We're heading to a hotel called the Embassy Suites?"
The van stopped.
"You're going there?" Cole asked from the drivers seat. He turned over, a look of surprise on his face. "That's a very expensive hotel."
They all nodded.
"I know and I blame my mother." Haku told them simply.
"Who's your ma?"
"My mother…" Haku corrected. "Is Jennifer Minamino."
The car started moving and again Christy tried to get to the back seat.
"Jennifer Minamino! The Jennifer Minamino!"
"Yes. Why, have you heard of her?" He asked.
Christy looked about ready to either scream or cry.
"She's my favorite auther in the entire world! I have every book she's written! Everything! Oh my gosh! Can I meet her! Where is she!"
Haku sighed. "She's in Japan right now. I doubt she'll be coming here any time soon, but she's the one that got us the arrangements at the hotel."
"Well that's understandable! She's got to be rich as hell with her books! Wow! This is awesome! I'm talking with the only son of Jennifer Minamino!" Christy squeeled and Cole glared at her, turning up the music on his radio. This too confused the other team, considering they all thought Texas people listened to country, when on the radio there was rock.
"That's a stereotype everyone knows, but it ain't ever true. Some people here like country, we go for the rock stuff." Cole answered as he joined traffic. They drove a while, as the groups chatted about jobs and what their lives were like. Yoru remained silent the entire trip, still a little angry about being brought into he clustered van. About thirty minutes after their plane landed, they got to the hotel, and Cole parked in the tall five or six story parking lot, and they climbed out. At the hotel, the man at the front needed verification, so Haku sighed and gave him his name and his birth records and everything.
"I sometimes wish I were eighteen so people would leave me be." Haku told them quietly in Japanese as they came to their hotel room. The suite was huge, with a large living room like environment with several couches of a tan color, and a large television set with a set up for a game cube. With it were a few games the group could play later on. There was a fine kitchen at one side, with a large fridge and everything, and then several doors leading to different rooms. The first three were to bedrooms, in which they would have to team off to rooms. Katai was going to have to team off with Yoru, except that Yoru told them that she didn't sleep often, and would most likely be up the night, so Katai had a bed to herself. Next to the rooms was a narrow walk to a balcony where Yoru pretty much escaped to to be left alone, and then a rather large bathroom with all the necessary things to it.
"Wow." Seika said in Japanese as he looked around. "This is awesome."
"Yes. But there is more." Haku said as he checked the phone in the living room for a dial tone. "They have an indoor pool, hot tub, and sauna. Mother told me about them." Haku called the hotel, and then took down an order for some sort of Mexican plate he figured he and everyone else could try. Then he and everyone else got accustomed to the rooms and chatted. When the foot finally came, Seika took it and set it on the bar, as he tried to ask Cole what stuff was on it.
Cole shook his head, not understanding until Haku walked over and translated.
"Oh! Well, this is a chalupa, gordita, some fajita steaks with enchiladas, some beans and some of that good spiced rice. You've got quite a feast here." He acknowledged as Katai brought over another plate of the same goodies.
"I figured I'd get enough for everyone." Haku said sarcastically, checking out the details of the room. Being his father's son, he liked to make sure there was nothing stashed in the room that would get them later.
"Well, do you need anything from us?" Christy asked, getting comfortable on one of the couches.
"Yes." Haku answered back. He turned just as Seika popped a tomato in his mouth.
"We'd like you to tell us as much as you know of the region and the demons in it. And how much you know about our mission."
Catse: Well, what do you think? Poor team right? I decided to give Yoru a little of the spot light in this, considering her fans and the fan club made for her and Haku. : ) Oh well, in any case, poor Haku is going to be very useful here. And throughout the rest of the story. If I happen to forget the languages some of the characters speak, please remind me. I might have already done so, but tell me anyways. Thanx for reading! Ja Ne for now!