Are you Serious?
Chapter 7
By Gabriel R. Lopez
The Crown Arcade, Known for serving the best American food in all of Japan. Contained within it's menu were meals that could feed a family of three with just one of it's many entrée's. Items of particular note include; a pizza with 6lbs of toppings and a three foot radius, a triple double bacon western cheeseburger featuring three 1/4lbs patty's covered in guacamole, and the piece de resistance, an 8lbs banana split resting on a oven fresh brownie the size of a layered cake. If one thing was certain, no one ever left the Crown Arcade hungry. Along the back wall of one of the booths in the arcade was a picture of the Crown Arcade's favorite patron, Usagi Tsukino. Not only was Usagi the first customer to order everything off the menu, she was also the first customer to eat it all in just one sitting. Within the picture was Luna, her cat, holding up a sheet of note paper. A crudely drawn picture on the notepaper was a caricature of a pleasantly plump girl, it was drawn in red crayon and the words "Usagi Fat" were written in dyslexic English. Apparently, Usagi had been fasting for several days and was hungry after the gym across the street was mysteriously destroyed.
Below the picture of Usagi and Luna was a picture of Lita, Mina, Usagi, Amy, and Raye sitting in the same booth it was resting. Andrew sprayed the table with a cleaning solution, then using a soft cloth he wiped the table off. Sigh, after Usagi went missing, the arcade lost it's best customer… customers. Considering the only regular customers of the crown arcade were Usagi, her friends, and her little brother, the arcade was loosing business. The arcade business was dead. In fact, if it weren't for new the Sailor V Action game no one would even give the Arcade a second glance. You would think being both an all American restaurant, and serving the biggest meals in all of Tokyo would have made the Crown Arcade more than a novelty.
Andrew had another problem. Last night he almost ran over some cat with his car. The thing just ran out into the street and collapsed. Andrew lived and worked in the arcade, but in his free time he was a freelance photographer…and the newspapers were offering a million Yen for first Photographer to get face shots of the scouts. So far he had only managed to get a few action shots from half a block away. Last night, things were looking hopeful. There was an explosion just down the street. Where there's smoke there's fire, he'd be the first photographer on the scene, and he'd get to test out his new digital camera. Unfortunately, some cat darted into the street and colapsed. Causing Andrew to skid to a halt as the front left tire blew out on his Audi 80, this caused him to lose control of the vehicle and he almost crushed the kamikaze kitty.
After the car halted Andrew exited the vehicle and checked to make sure the cat wasn't road kill. Wrapping the cat up with his shirt, Andrew gently placed the cat in the passenger seat and went to fix the tire. After fixing the tire he checked to see if the cat had any broken bones, finding nothing but a small knot on the cats head. "Luna?" not knowing of any animal shelters in the area he decided to take it back with him to the arcade. Looking through the phone book Andrew called every veterinarian listed, but it was late and no one answered. He then called the Tsukino's emergency number and found that they were all in the hospital after the sailor scouts burned their house down. Not wanting to worry the family any further and having no idea what to do, Andrew placed a band aid on Luna's head and decided to call it a night.
Ranma woke up in a sock drawer, it was quite uncomfortable, and the very act of waking up disgusted her. Especially as she was greeted with the odor of stinky feet mixed with fabric softeners and detergent. Ranma clutched her head in pain…ok, she remembered the meeting the Tendo's, getting clobbered on the head, but what happened afterwards? Oh well, Ranma was sure it wasn't important. Another problem concerning Ranma was that her memories were Swiss cheesed…and there was something very sticky on her head that needed to come off.
"nya?" Ranma asked, as he reached up and felt the band aid on his head. Trying to remove the annoying thing was going to be harder than she first realized, as she hopped out of the sock drawer and started rubbing her head against all the sharp corners in the room. 'jeez, did they stick this thing on with superglue? Ranma asked aloud, using they to describe the one who had put her in this fix in the first place. But what concerned ranma the most was her question came out garbled. "meow miyah moyah?" The very sounds caused Ranma to shudder. Ranma knew she was in her capybara form. She knew it wasn't a different form because her balance hadn't changed, and upon closer inspection, the rest of the body matched. but this was the first time since the accident she was unable to speak…then Ranma bumped into a floor mirror hanging on the door of Andrew's bedroom. There before him was a cat with a large pink bandage over its forehead ' eek, a Cat!' "nya! Miyah!" Ranma jumped away from the mirror and hid under the bed. Ranma peeked out from under the bed and noticed in the reflection, the cat was likewise hiding under the bed, glancing quickly to the left he noticed out of the corner of her eye the cat was looking to the right.
It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Ranma approached the mirror and place her paw against the reflection. This was awful, she didn't want to be a monster. Ranma was crushed, her head hung low. She didn't want to look at her reflection in the mirror, but she forced herself too anyway, because she had to get the stupid bandage off her head. That thing was all kinds of irritating. After realizing band aid might be easier to remove if she was human, which took a while because her brain was the size of a walnut, Ranma decided to look for the kitchen.