MiracuCrack Q12: Reservoir Kwamis
by DFC
[Author's Note: If you're too young to know the movie Reservoir Dogs, or other Quentin Tarantino movies... you won't get this parody.]
Master Fu stood in a darkened room, staring at the motley group of individuals sitting in a row in front of him.
"All right, let's get to know one another," he began. "With the exception of Ladybug and myself, who you already know, you'll be using aliases. Under no circumstances are you to tell one another your real name or anything else about yourself. That includes where you're from, your wife's name, where you might've done time, about a bank in St. Petersburg you might've robbed. Only thing you guys can talk about is what you're going to do. This way the only ones who know who the members of the team are, are Ladybug and myself. And that's the way I like it. Because in-"
"Excuse me?" said a blonde girl, on the far right of the row.
"What?" asked Master Fu.
"But we already know each other. We're all in the same class in school," she smiled. She squinted, trying to make out the one larger figure sitting near her. "Most of us, anyway."
Master Fu sighed. "All right, fine. PRETEND that you don't know each other. Because in the unlikely event of one of you getting apprehended by the cops, not that I expect that to happen - it most definitely should not happen - it hasn't happened, you don't have anything to deal with. You know my name, you know Ladybug's name. That I don't care about. I ain't worried. Besides, this way you gotta trust me. I like that. I set up and picked the men I wanted for it. None of you came to me, I approached all of you. I..."
The girl raised her hand again. "But... I'm not a man."
"I know that," Fu grumbled. "It's a figure of speech."
"Oh! Okay," she smiled back.
"Okay, quickly." He rummaged in a box behind him and came up with a handful of smaller boxes. "One Miraculous box for each of you. Mr. Chat, Mr. Turtle, Mr. Pig..."
"Why do I have to be Mr. Pig?" complained another attendee.
"FINE. Here. You're Mr. Bee. YOU'RE Mr. Pig."
A hand raised.
"MRS. Pig..."
The hand went down, then raised again.
"MISS PIG. Yeesh. We're never gonna get through this. Miss Fox and Miss Tiger."
"Why can't we pick out our own animals?" asked Mr. Chat, staring at his box.
"I tried that once, it don't work," Master Fu explained. "You get four guys fighting over who's gonna be Mr. Dragon. So forget it, I pick. Be thankful you're not Mr. Peacock."
"Yeah, but Mr. Chat?" That's too close to Mr. Sh-"
"LANGUAGE!" snapped Master Fu.
"Tell you what, let me be Mr. Rooster. That sounds good to me, I'm Mr. Rooster," he declared.
"You're not Mr. Rooster. Somebody from another job's Mr. Rooster. You're Mr. Chat."
"I could be Mr. Blonde," Mr. Chat ventured, pointing to his hair.
"Who cares what your name is?" asked someone further down the row. "Who cares if you're Mr. Chat, Miss Pig, Miss Fox, Mr. Bee..."
"Oh, that's really easy for you to say," grumbled Mr. Chat. "You're Miss Tiger. You got a cool-sounding name. So tell me, Miss Tiger, if you think 'Mr. Chat' is no big deal, you wanna trade?"
"Nobody's trading with anybody!" shouted Master Fu. "This ain't a city council meeting! Listen up, Mr. Chat. We got two ways here, my way or the highway. And you can go down either of 'em. So what's it gonna be, Mr. Chat?"
"Forget it!" declared Mr. Chat, with his hands up defensively. "This is beneath me. I'm Mr. Chat, let's move on."
The group huddled around a blueprint of the Françoise Dupont High School.
"Okay, fellas," Master Fu grinned...
A hand raised.
"AND ladies... let's get into this. Everybody transform!"
A short while later, Ladybug burst into the basement of Master Fu's massage studio in disbelief. "What in Sam Hill is going on?" she yelled. Mr. Turtle and Miss Pig were standing by Mr. Bee, tied to a folding chair, while Miss Tiger was stretched out against a wall on the other side of the room in a cat-like pose. Mr. Chat was watching her carefully, possibly considering pouncing in her direction.
"Hey, guess what! We got a cop," grumbled Mr. Turtle.
"Lovely. This was supposed to be in-and-out, nobody gets caught... Wow, this guy's all messed up!" said Ladybug.
"No kidding! He's looking a little queasy! He's gonna yack on us if we don't get him taken care of," agreed Mr. Turtle.
"Why did you tie me to a chair, anyway?" asked Mr. Bee, looking puzzled.
"It seemed like the thing to do at the time," replied Miss Pig. "What else would you want us to tie you to?"
"Look... sir, you ought to quit while you're ahead," apologized Ladybug. "What the heck HAPPENED?"
"We were set up!" declared Mr. Turtle. "The cops were waiting for us."
"What?" snapped Ladybug. "Nobody set anybody up."
"Hey, YOU weren't there," snarled Mr. Turtle, "we were. And I'm tellin' ya, the cops had that school staked out."
"Okay, Mr. Detective, who did it?"
"What d'you think we've been asking each other?" sighed Mr. Turtle. "This was all supposed to be an easy gig... get in, grab the Guardians' Book of Lore, get out... what was it even doing in the school library, anyway...?"
"Nobody set you up," replied Ladybug. "You guys turned the school into a war zone, setting off alarms everywhere, and you wonder why cops showed up? One cop, anyway?"
"What are we going to do about him?" asked Miss Pig, pointing to Mr. Bee.
"Give me a chance to breathe. I got a few questions of my own, you know," panted Ladybug.
"You're not about to yack. He is," insisted Miss Pig.
"All right, we gotta get out of here," declared Ladybug, trying to take charge of the situation. She pointed to Mr. Chat and ordered, "You stay here and babysit Miss Tiger and the cop. You two," pointing to Mr. Turtle and Miss Pig, "You two take off, I'll follow you. We'll meet by the back door of the school, we'll pick up the Book. And on the way, I'll stop at the drug store and get some antacids or something for our friend."
"Or you could just untie me," Mr. Bee pleaded. "This really isn't a big deal or anything... I don't think you broke any laws. The school door was still unlocked, even! I can just go home."
"We can't leave these two with him," sighed Mr. Turtle, pointing to Mr. Chat.
"Why not?" asked Ladybug.
"Because this guy's a psycho. I can't believe I'm in the same room as him," he snapped.
"You see what I've been putting up with?" Mr. Chat replied, in a stunned voice. "As soon as I walk through the door, I'm hit with this..."
"HE'S the reason the school turned into a punning gallery," snarled Mr. Turtle. "He seems all right now, but he went crazy in the school."
"I told 'em not to touch the alarm," Mr. Chat muttered. "They touched it."
"That's your excuse for going on a pun-crazy rampage?" asked Miss Pig, incredulously.
"I don't like alarms," he snapped.
"FINE!" sighed Ladybug. "Enough. Mr. Chat, you stay here and take care of these two. Turtle and Pig, come with me."
Ladybug went up the stairs with Mr. Turtle and Miss Pig. Mr. Chat turned to Mr. Bee with a slow and dangerous smile...
"Alone at last," he grinned.
"Now, where were we?" smirked Mr. Chat. "Who was working with you? Who set us up?"
"I told you, I don't know anything about any setup!" pleaded Mr. Bee. "Your boss even said there wasn't a setup."
"First off, I don't have a boss," Mr. Chat snarled, leaning in close. "She's my PARTNER. I'm not her sidekick. Are you clear about that?"
"Fine! Whatever!" agreed Mr. Bee, nervously.
"Now, I'm not going to mess with you too much. I don't really care about what you know or don't know. But I'm gonna... sing for you for a while, regardless. It amuses me." Mr. Chat walked over to the radio and turned the dials on it, searching for a particular station, saying in a silly voice, "Let's see what's on K-BILLY's Super Sounds of the Seventies weekend..."
The sound of Stealers Wheel filled the air, and Mr. Chat began to sing and dance to it. "Oh, I like this song. Classic rock!" he smiled. "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here you are, stuck in a chair with minou..."
Mr. Bee looked around, frantically. "Hey, help me, please!" he shouted to Miss Tiger, reclining against a far wall. "He's going to pun my ear off!"
Miss Tiger looked on with some annoyance. "Fine!" she sighed, walking over to the scene.
Mr. Chat looked at her, curiously. "And how are you going to make me stop? I am a cat and I must PUN!"
*SNIKT!*
One look at Miss Tiger's razor-sharp claws extending towards him... and Mr. Chat passed out cold.
"Thought that'd do it," she smiled. She looked up at Mr. Bee and asked, "I had to take him out before he turned on all of us, too. Need a little help?"
"Yeah. Listen to me, Miss Tiger... I'm a cop," he said, as she untied him.
"Well, yeah. You're Sabrina's dad, Roger Raincomprix," said Miss Tiger, matter-of-factly. "I was wondering why there was a grown man sitting with us at the meeting."
"I was working undercover. I didn't think anyone would notice me or figure me out," replied Mr. Bee.
That got him the most incredulous look of the night.
"Now, let me say this out loud, just to get it straight in my mind," came a voice from the other side of the room. "According to you, Mr. Chat was gonna pun this cop. Then when we came back, pun us, grab the Book and scram. That's your story? I'm correct about that, right?"
"She told you what really happened. You just can't deal with it," muttered Mr. Bee, as Ladybug, Mr. Turtle and Miss Pig came into view.
"Somebody set us up! Someone here is working with the cops," Ladybug replied, pointing at Miss Tiger. "And I think I know who it is."
"Seriously, nobody did," Mr. Bee pleaded. "It's not like I'm going to arrest anyone, or even write a ticket! I'm just here because... well... I'm bored. There doesn't seem to be any actual normal crime in Paris any more. All I do is write parking tickets and noise violations."
"I am so confused," said Miss Pig. "Ladybug, do you have any proof?"
"You don't need proof when you got instinct. I ignored it before, but not no more," snapped Ladybug. With one smooth motion, she whipped out her yo-yo and aimed it at Miss Tiger.
The room echoed with shock. Reluctantly, Mr. Bee readied his stinger. Miss Pig recoiled, yelling "Have you lost your mind? Put your yo-yo down!" She reached down to her waist, fumbled around for a minute... then asked, "Hey, what weapon do I have, anyway?"
"I don't know!" called Miss Tiger, nervously. "Canon hasn't gotten that far yet!"
Miss Fox came to a decision, and assumed a defensive stance. "Ladybug... you're making a terrible mistake I can't let you make."
"Don't worry," Ladybug muttered. "We have been friends a long time, you ain't gonna... wait. What are you gonna do?"
"Ladybug, if you yo-yo that girl, you... uh... get fluted next! Repeat, if you yo-yo that girl, I'm casting one HECK of a Mirage!" Miss Fox ventured.
Mr. Turtle looked at the Mexican standoff with wide eyes, and backed away, wanting no part of it. "C'mon, guys, nobody wants this! We're supposed to be professionals!"
"Professional what?" asked Miss Pig, even more confused.
The tension in the room continued to grow, as the four costumed individuals stared each other down, weapons... or lack of weapons... drawn and ready.
Suddenly, a yo-yo whizzed through the air...
"Okay," asked Miss Tiger, wrapped up in Ladybug's yo-yo. "So... now what?"
"Um..."
Silence filled the room for a long moment. Mr. Chat slowly regained his senses and stood up, looking around cautiously, trying to figure out what was going on.
"You, uh... anyone wanna go find Andre and get some ice cream?" Ladybug asked.
"Sure," the other heroes shrugged.
As they gathered up their things and left, Ladybug called, "Enjoy the book, Master Fu!"
A dark figure stepped out of the shadows, once they were gone, and approached Mr. Bee, who transformed back. "You're all right, Mr. Raincomprix?" Master Fu asked.
"Yeah, no problem. Actually, some ice cream sounds pretty good... listen, that book. That's actually yours to begin with, isn't it?" Roger asked.
"It is," Master Fu confirmed.
"So... what was all of this tonight? Why did you gather up all those kids and have them running all over Paris, playing this strange costumed game?" Roger wondered.
Fu shrugged. "I was bored, too. And it keeps 'em off the streets."
Deep beneath the Agreste mansion, a blonde woman awakened from a long slumber, and opened her eyes with a startled cry.
So... she thought. The Deadly Butterfly Assassination Squad thought they'd taken me out for good, did they? They are in for a huge surprise.
She took inventory of her situation. Okay... I'll need a katana. I think I had a yellow tracksuit in my closet upstairs; that'll be thematically appropriate. I will have my revenge on those who put me here. And then, I will reclaim my child. I'm coming for you, Gabe...
The woman reached out, pushing against the glass wall of the protective chamber that had housed her for so long... and it didn't move.
Okay. This might be a little more complicated than I thought...
~fin~