OOC and my attempt at writing a dare involving a video game I've never played in here… so… Happy April Fool's Day!
Chapter 9
"Uh… where are Yusei, Jack, and Kalin?" Sky asks. "You haven't sent them back into the Pokemon world, have you?"
"No, I'd have sent Crow along if that was the case," I reply. "This is a different dare—"
Lucy and Meri start laughing as hard as they possibly can, and Lucy slams her hand against the floor a few times. "Who would do that?"
"Could you imagine the phone call?"
"I mean, of all things, salad tongs?"
More laughter.
"Meri, why would you tell Lucy about some of the weirdest things to get stuck in people's butts?" I ask.
"It wasn't me," she protests. "It was real-me. Lucy was eavesdropping on the conversation you were having at lunch last week."
"Why the heck would you be on a topic like that at lunch?" Crow asks.
I look at him, "Well, because my group of friends are just those kind of people." I turn back to my muses. "So, if you guys eavesdrop on the conversations…" I pause a moment, and add, "The power of Christ propels you."
Shade snickers, and Meri starts laughing. I stare at Shade; I certainly wasn't expecting him to have been the one listening to that conversation.
Lucy looks between them. "Wait, what'd I miss?"
Meri leans over, still laughing, and whispers something in Lucy's ear. The white-haired muse now joins her in laughing again.
I roll my eyes. "Okay! Enough with the weird inside jokes! It's time for the first dare—which is the reason the three guys aren't here!" I whip out a notecard and throw it to Crow.
He catches it and reads it off.
Request by: Flypool
Receivers: Yusei, Jack, and Kalin
Dare: Place Yusei, Jack, and Kalin into a Mortal Kombat game. Let Yusei and Jack go at it, but Akiza and Carly control their movements. Then, let the winner of that fight go against Kalin.
Edit: Kalin's movements will be controlled by Misty.
"Huh? Me? Control Jack in a… in a fighting game?" Carly asks. "I can't…"
"Uh, well, you might not technically be the recipient of the dare, but if you refuse to control Jack, you're going to have to face the Closet of Doom," I say. "Trust me, this dare isn't worth that chaos."
"O…kay…"
"Akiza, you up for this?"
The magenta-haired woman grins, standing up. "Are you kidding? I absolutely love the Mortal Kombat series! I was born ready!"
I blink, acknowledging this newfound fact and letting it settle down into my somewhat scatterbrained memory. "Well then, the arcade machines are right over… uh… Lester's sitting on one of them."
"I am not!" Lester exclaims. Then he looks down and realizes he actually is on one. Confusion writes itself onto his face, "What in the…? When did my chair turn into a video game?!"
"I have no idea, because I didn't morph any type of object to make that happen," I reply. "I just made the machines appear."
The youngest Emperor scowls and hops off of the machine, muttering something that I don't catch. He finds himself an actual chair—strange, I don't remember bringing in a wooden chair like that one—and sits in it, retaining the scowl the entire time.
"Well, what are you two waiting for?" I ask Akiza and Carly. "Go on!"
Carly sweatdrops as Akiza cracks her fingers and eagerly walks to the first machine. The dark-haired woman reluctantly walks to the second machine. She looks at Akiza, "Can I have a minute or two to get used to the controls? I've never played Mortal Kombat before."
"Sure," Akiza replies. "But only a minute."
I press a few buttons on the TV remote, and the television shows us what's going on with the three guys. They're obviously pixellated now, with Jack on the right side of the screen, Yusei on the left, and Kalin in the middle, but in the background. The sleep-deprivation dare is clearly taking its toll on Yusei, whose eyes are half shut, and every once in a while, his head will slowly go down before he snaps back to attention.
"Is this some sort of dare?" pixellated Jack asks. "And if it is, why can't I move?"
"Mmm. No idea," pixellated Yusei replies drowsily.
Carly experimentally moves the joystick to the left. Pixellated Jack jerks awkwardly in that direction on the screen.
"Looks like you can move, Jack!" Kalin points out from the background.
"I didn't do that!" the blonde retorts. "Or that!"
'Or that' happens to be a series of air punches, brought on by Carly pressing each of the buttons a few times.
"That's a minute!" Akiza declares.
"Wait!" I shout. "I almost forgot about Leo, Luna, Piano, and Rudolph! They're not supposed to watch this!"
"They aren't here," Joseph says. "I teleported them… elsewhere… right before you revealed the dare."
"Okay… next time tell me before you do something like that," I say, sighing. "Where are they?"
"…"
FIGHT appears on the screen in giant letters, and the fact that Joseph won't say where he moved people to is completely forgotten as the two women get to work.
XXX
Akiza at least has something resembling a strategy, attempting to make Yusei move in and attack (with a sword I don't remember him getting). Unfortunately, pixellated Yusei is really sluggish at the moment, so Carly has no trouble making Jack dodge the attacks.
In all honesty, Carly has absolutely no idea what she's doing. When she's not trying to make Jack dodge attacks, she's rapidly pressing buttons. It turns out to be a decent way to play, as it is in some of the games I've played, because pixellated Jack lands punch after punch and kick after kick, Yusei's health bar slowly and steadily decreasing.
I can literally see the steam coming from Akiza's ears.
And then, Akiza lets go of her controls and pushes Carly away from hers. Smiling, she rapidly starts attacking Jack (or at least as rapidly as the sluggish Yusei can attack).
"H-Hey! That's cheating!" Carly shouts, scrambling off the floor.
"All's fair in love and war!" Akiza shouts back.
"'All's fair', huh?" Misty asks. She leans over and whispers something into Carly's ear.
The black-haired woman nods, taking the controls and, apparently, doing what Misty suggested.
Which gives pixellated Jack a chainsaw.
"What?!" Akiza shouts.
So Carly, with the chainsaw-wielding, should-probably-be-dead-right-now Jack, attacks before the sluggish Yusei can respond. Just before the final attack hits, the screen goes black.
"Dammit! I wanted to see Fudo get his head cut off!" Primo roars, throwing a bowl of popcorn (where the heck did he get that?) in the air. "Why did you turn it off!?"
"I didn't!" I exclaim, putting my hands up like that makes me any more innocent. Remembering one of the several inside jokes I have with my grandma, I look at the outlet. The television's cord is disconnected from the socket. "See, someone unplugged the TV. As I've been sitting here literally the entire time, it wasn't me."
"Or have you?" Lucy asks with a dramatic look on her face.
I glare at her, "No, Lucy. We aren't going to hold a mock trial." I really need to stop letting the muses watch me play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney…
"Aww, but I was gonna be Maya, and Shade could be… Edgeworth! Wait, that would make Joseph Phoenix… and Meri Mia, but Mia's dead so that wouldn't… Ooh! Maybe we could all take on roles of the characters—"
"No," I say firmly.
"But that would be so much fun!" she whines.
"You'd probably make Jack into that von Karma dude from the fourth case," I say. "And, while that role would be accurate personality-wise, I can't see him as a murderer, so…"
"Actually, I was going to make him Larry, but Manfred works too," Lucy says thoughtfully.
I sigh. "Lucy, just stop and… and… I don't know, distract yourself."
Her red eyes light up. "Can I work on Z-ONE's backstory?"
"…Yes," I say reluctantly.
She grins, sits down, and pulls out a pad of paper. Then she starts grinning evilly, scribbling stuff down.
"Am I the only one who's confused about what just happened?" Crow asks.
"I think so," Lester replies.
The ginger scowls at the younger Emperor, "I didn't ask you."
While this happens, Yusei reappears in the room, thankfully unharmed now, but still basically asleep.
"Yusei! I'm sorry, I almost had her…" Akiza starts. "Uh, Yusei?"
"Mmm…? What're you sorry for?" he mumbles.
"Uh… no…thing," Akiza replies. She turns to me. "I think you should let him sleep…"
"Yeah, I agree with you," I say. "Yusei? You can sleep."
"Thanks…" the Head Signer says quietly, plopping down on a nearby bean-bag and instantly starting to snore a little bit.
"Does that mean we have to be quiet when Jack and Kalin fight?" Joseph asks.
"Nah, after staying awake for so long, Yusei'll sleep like a log. We could blast a trumpet in his ear, and he wouldn't wake up," Crow replies.
I subconsciously put a hand to my left ear. When my brother gets angry, one of the things he likes to do is blast his trumpet in my ear. "Heavy sleeper then," I say.
"Extremely," Crow says.
XXX
So, once we get back to Misty/Kalin vs. Carly/Jack, the fight doesn't last very long. While Carly brings back the chainsaw, apparently Kalin has access to a variety of weapons, and Misty takes advantage of this.
A machete counters the chainsaw, taking both weapons out of the fight.
I have to hand it to Carly though. Even with the chainsaw gone, she continues to fight back.
Unfortunately, hand-to-rifle combat doesn't work too well in the favor of the person lacking weapons. Misty pulls off some combo that ends in Jack literally getting his head blown off, and the game ends.
Kalin and Jack reappear in the room, Kalin grinning and Jack clearly pissed.
"Well, it looks like Kalin and Misty are the winners… tough luck, Jack," I say.
"Hey! If Yusei hadn't been half-asleep at the time, he would have won!" Akiza says angrily.
"That a challenge, Izinski?" Misty asks.
"Any time, any where."
"Uh, no, let's try later for the time," I interrupt. "We still have time for more. Two more, actually, and I think they'll be interesting. One's a dare, and one's a truth, and just because, they're both for Jack."
The blonde groans as I hand out the first of the remaining two cards. Misty takes it from me and reads it off.
Request by: NA
Receiver: Jack
Dare: Dress like a ballerina for the rest of the chapter.
The horror instantly appears on Jack's face as I laugh and snap my fingers.
The tall, blonde-haired, purple-eyed man is now in a sparkly pink unitard, with a very poofy tutu of an equally pink color. He also has fake fairy wings, a tiara, and a wand with a butterfly on one end.
Instantly everyone starts laughing. I'm fairly certain several stupid comments are made during this, but I can't really concentrate I'm laughing so hard.
Wait, I should probably stop before I give myself an asthma attack. Again. Because I have laughed so hard I've almost died before.
I wait until the laughter dies down to only a few snickers to hand the last card to Sky. She's already stopped laughing, but the grin remains on her face as she reads the card.
Request by: Minimania of EE
Receiver: Jack
Truth: If you could change your name from Jack, what would it be?
"Why would I want to change my name? Jack Atlas is the best name someone can have! Hmph!" Jack replies.
"That makes three times," I mutter.
Meri picks up on my comment and, still remembering the kicking dare, slams her foot three times into the back of Jack's left knee. Needless to say he falls over, grabbing said leg and whimpering a little.
"Oh! Hey, so you wouldn't change it even if you were a girl?" Lucy asks.
"Why would I—agh! Quit kicking me—ngh!" Jack shouts, grabbing Meri's foot.
My muse glares at him, and a pair of scissors appears in her hand. "Let go of me before I shove these into your face."
He obliges, and Meri walks back to the other muses, glaring at Jack the entire time.
Lucy, with a giant grin, whispers something into Meri's ear. The latter's eyes light up, and she gives Lucy two thumbs up.
There is a bright flash of light that fills the room, and when it dims…
…Hold on, that can't be right.
Everyone except me and Sky look like they've swapped genders.
"What in the world…?" a male's voice asks. I look in the direction it came from, and I think that Akiza was the one who spoke.
This is basically the same reaction for everyone, except the still-asleep Yusei, and someone on the other side of the room who says, "Damn, I have a nice rack," followed by the sound of someone hitting the back of their head.
The front door swings open, and in walk the two missing characters and my two other muses. They look at the room, blink a few times, and just stare.
"…Uh, what the heck did we miss?" Leo asks.
~To be continued~
Haha, so here's the April Fool's Day chapter, though I don't think any pranks were pulled… until that last thing. The gender-swap will continue until the next chapter, by the way. Please tell me how I did! :)
Oh, and a cookie to the one who can guess who said that one line about the, uh, rack.
