No Need For A Sniper Kitten
Part IV
Kingdom Hearts is the property of Square-Enix etc, etc...
"Feels weird with just the two of us," Selphie said.
"Yeah," Tidus said sadly. Even if Wakka wasn't busy trying to educate Boomer, he was still too mad about the stabbing to be in the same space as Tidus. They sat on Tidus' porch swing and flipped through his comics in a desultory manner.
"We should hold auditions for a replacement," Selphie said. "We'll invite some new friends of our own to come over."
"Nobody wants to come here," Tidus said.
"That's true," Selphie pulled out a small notebook and wrote: "'boost Destiny Island's image' campaign?" She circled it twice and put the notebook away.
"I'm bored."
"I've got an idea. I just got a bunch of illegal fireworks the other day, let's go to the swamp and light 'em!" Selphie hopped to her feet. Just then Riku plodded by, looking unusually innocent. "Hey Riku! We're going to light some fireworks in the swamp! Wanna come?"
"The swamp?" Riku's eyes went all unfocused.
The lawyer wore a suit so sharp it could cut glass.
"Don't be afraid, young man, no one will accuse you of 'playing favorites,' just pick which one of your parents you'd like to live with," the lawyer checked his buffed nails, "bearing in mind, and this is completely between you and me, that there are tremendous advantages to living with your mother: a superior school system, a better class of neighborhood, unlimited access to the resort, a sports car…"
The lawyer gasped suddenly and struggled with his briefcase, but being unable to work the combination lock in such a state he clutched his chest and fell over at Riku's feet. The boy screamed and the door flew open.
"What did you do?" his father asked.
"I didn't do anything!" Riku said. "Were you listening at the door?"
"That's not important right now, we've got to get rid of the evidence!"
"Evidence of what? Nothing happened, he just fell over!"
"Good, keep denying. Keep your story simple," his father scratched his chin. "I've got to make this go away… Get your shoes on, boy, we're going to the swamp. It's time you learned the real facts of life!"
Six months later…Mom's new lawyer landed on the study floor with an expiring gasp, Riku screamed and the door flew open.
"Dammit!" his father said, and he muttered quietly to himself: "Damn metric conversion… Riku, get the hacksaw."
Six months after that...
"No! Not again!" Riku grabbed the lawyer on his way to the floor. "Live, damn you! Liiiiive!"
The door flew open.
"Aw, come on! Riku, get the special axe. Rrrr, should've invested in a wood chipper..."
"No…" Riku shivered. "Not the swamp. Anything but that!"
"Not even for… black cats?" Selphie waggled her eyebrows.
"I don't know…" Riku his resolve weakened... Selphie pulled a strand of firecrackers out of her pocket. "Well…" he was about to fall, and Selphie threw out the death blow: bottle rockets. "Okay."
"Good. Meetcha guys by the dock, I've got some stuff I wanna blow up." She ran home.
"I don't think cats like fireworks," Riku said as he watched the boy pet his kitten. "They have sensitive ears."
It would be the first time Tidus and Miss Yugi were apart since he found her. The fluffy little thing bounded off the porch and began to stalk some of the lizards in bushes. Okay, so maybe Miss Yugi wouldn't miss him for a couple of hours, and besides, she was protection against the mummy, not the vampire, and the mummy clearly couldn't hang out in the swamp.
"You stay here and guard the house," Tidus said to the kitten. Miss Yugi ate the grass. He spotted what Riku was trying very carefully to conceal behind his back. "Hey! Is that a real sword?"
"What? This old thing?" he held the sword out as if he'd noticed it for the very first time.
"I thought you weren't allowed to have a real one," Tidus said.
"I'm just holding it for someone," Riku said.
"Oh yeah? Who?"
"One of the pirates, you wouldn't know him."
"It's not fair. Everybody's got weapons but me," Tidus said. He closed the gate behind him and the boys headed toward the docks. The kids had an old rowboat there that the adults didn't know about (or so they believed, but that's neither here nor there.) There was no easy way to the swamp over land; the jungle between the town proper and the cove were divided from the mangrove swamp quite effectively.
Once they were safely out of the hearing of any adults Riku leaned over and said out of the side of his mouth: "I know where you can get one."
"One what?"
"A sword," Riku hissed. "Or anything you want."
"You stole it from a pirate, didn't you?" Tidus whispered. "You know you could get your hands cut off for that!"
"Pff, I don't believe it," Riku shrugged. "Besides, they keep too close tabs on their possessions, too risky to steal from them. You have to take it from someone who wouldn't miss it." Tidus looked at him blankly. "Someone who receives weapons as gifts every New Year?" Riku prodded.
"The Mayor?" Tidus said in horror. "You stole from The Mayor? Are you crazy?"
"It's easy," Riku went on. "There are so many old weapons in the attic that they can't even open the door from inside the house. Someone has to climb in through the roof to get inside."
"You climbed up the Mayor's house," Tidus shook his head. "You must have a death wish. Don't you pay attention to what Dr. Unne says?"
"You mean: 'I wish some little boy would just try and climb up to my daughter's window, so that I could kill them?' Ha! Clearly he's joking."
"That's what Ernie Boothby thought, and nobody's seen him since!"
"He's a doctor, they can't hurt people. Besides, I heard that Ernie Boothby moved to the Island of Beautiful Women and changed his name to Ernella."
"And I heard," Selphie poked her head over the lip of the dock, "That Ernie Boothby retired to some naval academy somewhere to be a gardener." A big bundle of various household appliances landed in the rowboat. Riku picked up a plastic lady leg that had fallen out.
"Uh, isn't this Bob's lamp?"
"Yep!"
"But Selphie," Tidus said. "You'll get into huge trouble– he loves that lamp!"
"I think Miriam will back me up on this," Selphie said. She jumped into the boat and looked at the sexy lady leg like it was a captured enemy. "I'm striking a blow for good taste," she said with a smile. Riku put the lamp down and picked through the other items in the sack.
"Bob's singing cowboy wall clock? Bob's tee-shirt with the tux painted on, Bob's old neon beer sign, and Bob's beanbag chair? You can't do this, Selphie, it's a beanbag chair!"
"It's tacky."
"Well," he whined as the two warring sides of his psyche tried to determine how to address this problem. He had a highly developed sense of interior style (and if you laugh at him for it, he'll kill you. Oh, not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday when you're sitting around on your ugly couch watching television on the tv stand that doesn't match the oak finish on the coffee table, you'll feel a certain... presence in the room. The temperature will drop and the next thing you know the power will cut out. Frightened, you'll pick up the phone only to find that the line is out, and then... ) But it was a beanbag chair! It was cool, somehow.
"Can I have it?" Tidus asked.
"No. Miriam specifically implied that if I didn't destroy these items very thoroughly Bob would hunt them down and try to drag them back to the house."
"Aw, no!" Tidus pulled out a shapely lady figure from the bag. "Bob's signature hula dancer beer tap! Selphie, I can't take the blame for this! I don't wanna die!"
"You don't have to," Selphie pushed the rowboat away from the dock. "I got it covered. I have been given immunity to perform my duties in this mission. If the lady says 'blow it up' I blows it up! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!"
"The cackle might've been overdoing it," Riku said.
"Ah, what do you know?"
The Blue Parrot was the heart of Destiny Island's "pirate culture," a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and the best place to get shrimp in the world. For obvious reasons they didn't allow minors, but Chappu was always able to bluff his way in by pretending to be a little person– or a midget, if you will. He just had to walk in wearing enough clothes to cover his face and walk a little differently and it was no problem. Most of the regulars knew who he was, but they recognized that he was just one of them– a little corsair-in-training, and they left him alone. Sometimes though, Mom caught him there, the disguise never fooled her.
Today was one of those unlucky days. He was talking to Squinty MacMurray about his end-of-year bonus when she showed up and dragged Squinty out of the booth.
"Alright, pal, you're under arrest," she got up and slammed the frail old man against the floor.
"What fer?" Squinty screamed. She kicked him in the face.
"Help! Help! Police brutality! Ageism!" the old geezer screamed. The pirates pretended not to notice this very public lesson in the power of the Law. Except in clearly outlined situations pirate were never to speak with the minors, ever.
"Stop it! Stop it! He's already dead!" Chappu cried. The pub got so quiet that they could hear Squinty wheezing on the floor.
"Go home!" Mom yelled at Chappu as she dragged the unconscious man out of the pub.
"But Mom!" She gave him… The Look. Several pirates who had the misfortune to be looking in that direction went blind. "Fine!" he stomped out of the pub.
"Great, another potentially productive day wasted!" he grumbled. He walked home very slowly and took the long way around– she never said how fast to get there. The evening fog was already starting to form. Of all the times she could've caught him, she had to catch him with his accountant! Gods only knew how many honest ones (honest to a point) were in this world. He'd have to double Squinty's end-of-year bonus for this one.
"Mrrr?"
Chappu looked down and saw the tiny little kitten rubbing up against his leg.
"You again? Where's your master? Shoo! Shoo!" He kicked out at the little kitty, but she dodge him and came back to rub against his other leg. She purred loudly. "Stupid cat! Beat it!"
"Mrrowl!" the cat jumped onto the back of his shirt and hung on with her tiny little claws.
"Ow! Get off!" He tried to reach the cat, but she was in that spot that you just can't get to no matter how you reach, and she was small enough to miss. All that ineffectual struggling made him feel ridiculous. He considered hissing at the thing, that sometimes worked, but by this point it probably would only make him look really crazy. A shadow appeared in the thickening fog and he hit upon an idea. "Hey! Hey you! Could you help a kid out?" It was best to identify yourself as a kid, that way he wouldn't expose his back to this guy and find a knife at his throat along with a whispered demand for his gil. That would be embarrassing.
The shadow stopped and he ran up to the guy and turned around.
"Fss!" the cat spat and dug her claws in.
"Little help here?" Chappu said. The guy laughed. "Yeah, it's cute," Chappu gritted his teeth. The cat yowled and shifted around. "Ouch! Claws!" He tried to reach behind his back to grab the rotten little devil by the tail and throw it into the harbor.
"Steady there, little man," the man reach down and the little cat swiped at him. "Let go you little– ouch!" The cat leaped off of Chappu's back and right into the man's face. Chappu took to his heels and left them there. "Yaah! Arrrghaurgh! My face!" the man screamed.
"Thanks mister!" he yelled over his shoulder.
"Woohoo!" Selphie jumped up and down after the bundle of M-80's left a crater in the tree the size of a beach ball. Tidus brushed the splinters out of his hair and tried to pop his ears.
"That poor tree," Riku tsked.
"It's dead," Selphie snorted. "You wanted to blow up fish."
"Sahagin. And they're a menace!" he looked at Tidus through narrowed eyes. "They eat kittens!"
"I'm sure they'll eat anything," Selphie said.
"Ever wonder why we don't have any cats on this island?"
"You're sick," Selphie muttered.
"Let's light the big one!" Tidus held up the large cardboard wheel with the insanely long fuse. The fog was rolling in and they wouldn't get much of a show if they waited much longer.
"You've read my mind, my boy," she flicked open her zippo lighter and shut it. "Hmm, where should we nail this thing? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it spins or something…"
They paddled to one of the mangroves that sat on the edge of the swamp. For some odd reason Riku didn't want to venture too far in, which was fine, because there were too many snakes in there anyway. Selphie hated the snakes.
Riku carefully nailed up the wheel while Tidus pushed the rowboat out just far enough for Selphie to jump into after she lit the fuse.
"Blowing things up makes me happieeeee!" Selphie sang as she lit the fuse and took a running leap into the boat.
A fantastic explosion bloomed in multicolored bursts of flame and smoke. The trees smoked and the water sizzled as the wheel started to spin at an increasing rate.
"That's interesting," Tidus said.
"Just wait till it gets to the middle!" Selphie said "I made a few alterations."
Both boys dove for the oars and started to pull away from the swamp as if their lives depended on it.
A blinding flash soon followed and Selphie giggled as the colored flame geysered outwards way beyond the intended range of the device. Several trees caught fire and a huge flock of birds abandoned the swamp altogether in search of safer perches.
"Selphie," Tidus looked at the swamp in horror. "You set the swamp on fire!"
"It'll go out, it's struggling as it is and the rain should take care of it," Riku said, "But we'd better get out of here in case someone comes to check it out."
"Ah. Now that Selphie's finally gone and done it, I feel so much better," Tidus said.
"Finally done what?" Selphie asked.
"You have to admit it, we all expected you to burn down something... What? Am I wrong?" Selphie was giving him the skunk eye.
"He's right," Riku said.
"Oh, nobody asked you," she huffed.
A/N: What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A good start.