Harvest Moon: Doom the Homeland
Chapter Five: Chicken E.R.
A smooth blade slashed through a tree trunk in a fraction of a second. It was still for a moment, then collapsed. It wasn't a saw that was used, but rather a sword. The weapon definitely fit with its user's martial arts anime character appearance.
Kurt grinned (if that's believable). Before he could shred it into smaller logs, he was cut off by the sounds of heavy breathing.
In the distance, the new farmer was running towards the carpenters' hut. In his arms, held against his chest like a baby, was a bird—still and lifeless. The sword slid out of Kurt's hand at hit the dirt-covered ground.
"What the heck did you do this time, Jack?" he interrogated him, a slight growl in his voice.
"Chicken…dying…help…" the farmer panted, unable to speak clearly at all.
"How did this start, Jack?" Kurt said. He rolled his eyes, anticipating a peculiar story.
His prediction was definitely ensured.
'It all started on my farm, around noon, I suppose. I'd been relaxing in the pasture, when it hit me: I don't have any livestock. I decided that it would be time to get some poultry, if I wanted a successful farm—or at least to be able to have a few eggs for breakfast.'
Jack rose from the grassy field and brushed some dirt from his clothes. At least he attempted to, but only succeeded in spreading it everywhere. Sighing in defeat, he walked down the path towards the farm.
After getting lost (he still found the area confusing as hell), Jack found his way to the Brownie Farm. He pushed the farming shop's two doors open, marching in triumphantly.
'I felt like a god when I went to the farm. Then again, God has all the chickens in the world, and I only have one that's dying as we speak, so I'd better get on with the story.'
"I'm here to buy myself a chicken," Jack bragged, putting emphasis on the word 'chicken'. "You sell animals here?"
"Yeah," Bob said in his tough guy voice. "I've got guys all over the country who deliver
'em all over the world. Hold on a sec'."
The elder rancher got off his chair and went into a nearby closet with 'STAFF ONLY' carved into the door. Through the crack of the door, Jack could make out the forms of a few pandas.
'I saw some pretty weird things in that place, but in fear of the mafia I won't elaborate. I went home with my new chicken—Chi.'
Jack, smiling from ear to ear, strolled out of the building with a chicken under his arm. Along the way, he bragged, "I've got a new chicken!", "Like my chicken?", and other various chicken-related announcements to any townspeople that happened to be walking by.
'Of course, not everything was going to work out perfectly. I would find that out later, when I was feeding her.'
The farmer was lying on his stomach on the floor of the chicken coop. Still beaming, he observed the bird intently.
Chi approached her meal—a giant pile of ground up corn that Jack bought several sacks of—and ignored it. Instead, she just took a nap on the ground.
'She wouldn't eat, and before I knew it, she was sick.'
The next morning, Jack woke up to find that he hadn't gone back to his own shack yet. Ignoring that, he instead crawled eagerly, bouncing into the air, to find the benefits of his poultry. His jaw slammed into the wooden floor at his horrific discovery.
'The first sign I noticed was that there was no egg. And I was hungry, too…'
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" he shrieked. "I BLEW ALL MY CASH ON THIS BIRD AND SOME FOOD FOR IT, AND WHAT DO I GET?"
Jack dashed to his chicken, which was still asleep. "Come on, Chi! What's wrong with you? Chi? Chiiiii?"
'I did some very in-depth testing to see if the chicken was okay.'
The testing that Jack spoke of was poking it with his index finger thirty times before picking it up and running outside.
"Darn it!" Jack shouted, scattering many of the nearby birds.
He was running at twice the rate he usually did towards the Brownie Farm. As he traveled through the forest (still not used to the geography), branches cut at his face has he ran through the wild vegetation. He looked down at Chi, carefully monitoring her condition.
'I only had the chicken's health on my mind.'
"Damn, Gwen's gonna freaking slap me—and that's if I'm lucky!" he actually said. "Come on, Chi! Don't die! I don't want to either! Come back to life—it'll be a win-win scenario!"
'I decided that the best place to go would be the farm. Bob raises animals for a living; he'd know how to cure the chicken.'
"BOB!" he shouted, swiftly kicking the doors open. They cracked and fell to pieces.
"Hey!"
"Not now, okay? Chi's dying!"
"Sorry, I sold all the animal medicine to this guy from the city. Says he really likes the taste. Hey, I ain't judging him, as long as he pays for it, so…"
"Enough of your absurd drug dealing stories! How could you sell off all your stock of animal medicine? Shouldn't you have emergency rations?"
"Shouldn't you have prepared for this beforehand?"
Gripping his skull, the inexperienced farmer tore clumps of hair straight out of his head. He shrieked and ran out the door screaming like a lunatic.
"Who was that?" Gwen said after entering from the fields.
"Er--"
Already a few feet away, Jack flung a dart into the window. It sunk into the back of Bob's muscular neck, causing him to collapse onto the floor.
"So that's it, huh?" Kurt said, stretching after the long explanation. "If you're so afraid of her, why did you go to where she lives? And why did you assume Bob would know what to do when you're a farmer yourself and dumb as a freaking rock?"
"I dunno," Jack replied with a shrug. "But you've gotta help me!"
"And why would I take the time to save your sorry ass from that woman? Even if I did help you, she'd still get you for letting it get so sick in the first place. Besides, you don't even want to know what she'll do if I try to help you and screw up. It ain't pretty. I've seen it before…"
"Shut up!" the farmer shouted, sending Kurt flinching backwards. "The chicken's dying as we sp…"
"Heard it before…" the other man yawned.
"I don't care! Listen to it again, you bastard! It's dying as we speak, and if Gwen finds out that I came to you for help and you turned me down, expect the same thing I get! Ya got that?"
The carpenter blinked twice. "Yes…" he said in a timid voice.
"Good!" Jack said, backing away. "Now give me a phone book!"
"Do we even have them in this village?" Kurt pondered. "Let me check…"
He ran into the house. Jack stood outside, tapping his foot impatiently. The chicken in his arms showed no signs of improvement.
"Come on, already!" Jack shouted. "We need to find a vet!"
"Says here that there's a chicken hospital over in New Flowerbud City!" called Kurt.
"There's a New Flowerbud? Just how long have I been gone?"
"Well, you seem to have spent forever complaining about your chicken!"
"Shut up, already!"
Jack and Kurt sat in a small canoe, rowing at a slow pace. The latter turned his head to see where the land mass was.
"We should reach the city in ten or so minutes," he said. Jack sighed in relief. "You know, Jack, you're lucky that they set up a city so close to here. The original Flowerbud City was miles away."
"Yeah… Hey, on the topic, what is the name of our village, anyway?"
"Well--"
Suddenly, a rather large boat sped past, causing a loud splashing sound to fill the air.
"Got it! 'The Homeland' it is!"
"You weren't frickin' listening to me, were you?"
"Not really."
"Well, that boat sent us towards the land a good distance. We won't have to travel the full ten minutes after all. Which is good, because I can't stand talking to you."
Two minutes later, the two hopped off the boat. Jack carried the chicken (although he hadn't put it down all day), while Kurt held some directions that he scribbled on some scrap paper.
The woodcutter lifted the paper to his eyes and then pointed forward. Jack stared in the direction where Kurt's finger was.
"See that building shaped like an egg?"
"That giant eyesore?" Jack said. "Who couldn't?"
"Good. The building across the street from it is the chicken hospital."
"But--"
"Don't question it."
They walked into the building. By the time, they had grown accustomed to being around a half-dead bird. Immediately, the people noticed.
"Oh my God!" exclaimed a balding man. "We have a code fourteen!"
"No way!" exclaimed a teenage boy, who promptly ran from behind the counter to see Jack and Kurt. "This never happens!"
"I've prepared you for this, boy," the older man said. He turned to Jack. "Thank you very much!" he said with a large smile.
"Where the hell did you take us, Kurt?" Jack whispered in an annoyed tone.
"We'll need to clean the bird first," the balding man said, tossing the bird to the teen. The teen promptly scrubbed it in a sink.
"Is he allowed to throw the birds around like that?" Jack whispered to Kurt, who shrugged in response.
"Then we stick it in this here oven…"
"WHAT THE HELL?" snapped Jack, who immediately pounced on the teenager. "What the hell kind of animal hospital is this?"
"Well, it was a chicken hospital, but the doctors were so terrible that they all died. We seized the opportunity, and…"
"My chicken was still alive!" the farmer shouted.
"With no pulse?"
Everyone froze. Finally, Kurt spoke up. "Jack…you never checked for a pulse, did you?"
"…No."
"And you never told Gwen you bought a chicken, did you?"
"…No."
"And so there's NO FREAKING REASON FOR ME TO BE WASTING MY TIME HELPING YOU!"
Kurt leapt onto Jack, teeth bared. He began to found his enemy's face into the tiles with his fists.
The farmer's mouth dripped with some blood. He spat it out and rose to his feet, delivering a kick directly into Kurt's jaw. Jack was about to win, and after this he could return to the village without the competition for Gwen's love (Kurt was a threat--he was too ridiculously good looking) and live a happy life.
Unfortunately, the restaurant owner took pity on Jack. After all, he didn't know that he was donating his bird to be eaten, so the owner gave placed the meal in Jack's hands.
That was the same time that Gwen entered the room, after being tipped off by Bob that Jack's chicken was sick. She froze when she saw the chicken in his hands.
"MEAT IS MURDER!" she yelled, picking up an employee and tossing him directly into Jack's face. Blood sprayed from Jack's nose, violating the health code.
Jack, sprawled on the ground, looked up at the woman. "I'm sorry, I swear it. I had no idea what was going on. Please, find it in your heart to leave me alone. Please?"
He saw the glint of a knife.
Author's Note:
GAH! So long without an update—sorry, guys! I know how stupid it was thatI used the old "some-building-that-used-to-be-something-but-isn't-now" cliche. Bah.This chapter has a lot of in-jokes in it, so I'll explain them:
The title—A parody of a show I saw once called "Venom E.R.", a medical reality show about NOTHING BUT POISONOUS STINGS. It's just too damn specific. Mix it up a bit, no?
Chi—In HM 64, I had a chicken named Chi. I was young at the time, and it ended up dying. In STH, I named a chicken Chi 2 as a memorial. It got sick the first day I had him, hence the plot of this chapter.
Anyway, recently I haven't been as enthusiastic with this fic like I have with my others (except for the dead one…), so I've decided to take the fic in a new direction. Since the beginning, I've intended to make this a parody. The prologue was, and in the beginning it was too, but it became to random (yes, even for me) and not as funny as I thought it could be. Therefore, from now on, Doom the Homeland will become a parody of many different things—anime, books, genres, other crap… Next chapter will be…dum-dum-dum… An overly angsty Harvest Moon fic!
Yes, I –can- hear you screaming from over here in New Jersey. Oh, that beautiful sound of terror.
Next time, on Harvest Moon: Doom the Homeland
Chapter Six: Why?
Returning solemnly to the city on a small canoe gave Jack time to think. What was the point? He spent all that time over something so trivial as a chicken, always assuming that it would stay okay long enough for him to reach the animal hospital. Then he met a razor-sharp blade. He grimaced as he remembered how easily it slid into his flesh…