Fly Soup, or the Stoutland Conference

Chapter Six

Tadashi awoke, breathing heavily. He had just had a nightmare, though the dream had started out so well.

In it, he had gone to a cosplay convention and someone had dressed as Elsa in her icy blue dress. Her blond hair wasn't quite a platinum shade and she had it much curlier than the actual Elsa from the painting he had seen of her, but she was still gorgeous…

Then Honey Lemon had come in a Pocahontas suit (she hadn't died her hair so she was even less convincing than the Elsa girl but she still looked stunning in Native American garments…Tadashi wanted to pick her up and kiss her, but at the same time he didn't want to offend the lass dressed as Elsa.

Then Honey dropped an entire bowl of chip dip on the Elsa cosplayer's head, and glared at Tadashi. A girl wearing her hair in pigtails and having on some raiments seen in pictures of Princess Anna of Arendelle, screeched at Honey that she had just humiliated her sister and the Anna cosplayer would have her revenge…

Then Gogo came in wearing a yellow utu. *Yellow was Gogo's favorite color, the way Honey loved pink.) That was the freakiest thing. She danced around imitating moves of a musical artist known as the Sexy Acrobat, That wasn't something Gogo would ever do in real life, but Tadashi thought it was cute…if he had had a crush on Gogo…

But then Gogo shoved Anna to the ground and began kicking her chins and her knees and her ankles and her chest.

"Gogo, stop!" Tadashi yelled.

"Never! She wants to hurt Honey!"

"No, she doesn't. Please, calm down."

"I will not!" Gogo said, her eyes wild. Then she pulled Tadashi in close, and kissed him.

After that, Renegade Ralph, a character from a first-person shooter version of Fix-It Felix Jr., where Felix's grandson came back in time and turned the world of the original game into a nightmarish war zone, came in and fired repeated shots at Honey Lemon. Tadashi ran to defend her when Ralp[h let out a volley of shots at the girl decked as Elsa, and then laughed maniacally. But it didn't sound like Ralph's laugh…it was more like that of a much younger man. And then Tadashi looked at Ralph, who gazed upon Honey Lemon and the Elsa cosplayer's corpses with glee.

Ralph began to metamorphize into a leering man with red hair and prominent sideburns. "You'll never break through, Tadashi. Hiro can, but circumstances say he won't. And I will be the victor."

Then the new man wearing Ralph's garb held up a needle and brought it to Anna's shoulder. "Save her, Tadashi. It's the only way for Hiro to have a chance."

Then the man got a flamethrower and turned it on, tossing it at the place where Tadashi stood. "That is if you can survive being burned to ashes. And while you're being scorched, Anna shall be tormented by the pain I shall inflict on her."

"That's just a girl cosplaying as Anna," Tadashi said. "Sure, her life is valuable, but she's not the real Anna."

"Oh, isn't she?" laughed the man. He forced the girl to raise her head, and now she gazed upon Tadashi, blood streaked across her chin. She looked like all the pictures of Princess Anna of Arendelle that Tadashi had seen, though of course only portraits were readily used back then, the daguerreotype still being a novelty

Tadashi then saw Elsa, who now was screaming because Honey Lemon was pulling her hair and Gogo held a knife between her toes, with a nasty grin on her face.

"No, Gogo, Honey! That's the real Elsa!" Tadashi found himself saying. But he couldn't stop them from torturing her. And in another moment the redheaded gentleman would put Anna to death! Tadashi had no time to lose.

As the man wearing Ralph's workday garb brought his knife in an arc aiming toward Anna's midriff, Tadshi leapt forward and the cold hard steel stuck fast in his heart. Then Hiro was by his side.

"Keep the girls from fighting one another, bro," Tadashi said. "Please."

"Don't die on me, Tadashi!" Hiro said.

"I'm sorry. I must go now. I feel faint."

"Stay with me, Tadashi…"

In his dream, Tadashi closed his eyes. Then he saw a funeral scene, which actually was a double funeral, for both him and Elsa. Anna was weeping, and the redheaded man was near her, and he held up a wedding photo, implying that he had coerced Anna into marrying him.

And Honey and Gogo bore scars on their cheeks, battle scars, wounds from a knife. And Tadashi was certain he knew who threw it.

From this dream he awoke, terrified and frightened. He went to have a bowl of his favorite cereal, Peanut Butter Crunch. By the time he took the last bite, he remembered having a bad dream and that it had something to do with cosplaying, but he couldn't have told you the details of the dream.

Hiro came down to the café. "Eating cereal again? Aunt Cass won't be pleased."

"I don't have anything against cereal," Aunt Cass said, entering the room. Unless you're using strawberry milk. Then I'd go bonkers."

"My milk is white, not pink," Tadashi said.

"Okay, good. And Hiro, I'm sure your project is coming along great?"

"Oh yeah, it's done," Hiro said. "I put the finishing touches on it last night."

"Great. I'm so proud of you." Aunt Cass pinched his cheeks.

The front door chimed, and a young couple entered. "Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Hanachi! I was so gald to hear of your successful wedding."

"Yeah, it was grand," said the young woman, who had yellow blond hair.

"Marvelous," said the man. "You should've been there."

"Let me lead you to a table," Aunt Cass said hospitably.

"Aunt Cass knows how to make friends," Tadashi said as the two brothers watched Aunt Cass wait on the Hanachis.

"Or keep customers," said HIro, grabbing a box of cornflakes for himself.

"Hey, whose the hypocrite eating cereal now?"

"If you're allowed to eat cereal, so am I, bro," Hiro said as he fished a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and poured his bowl.

"Suit yourself. Though tonight is when you're scheduled to play that board game with Honey Lemon. Don't forget."

"Oh gee, was that tonight?" Hiro said, "It quite slipped my mind."

"My prettiest friend asked you out and it slipped your mind?"

"If you think she's so pretty, why don't you ask her out then?"

"And jeaopardize our friendship? Nah,d oesn't sound like fun."

"Oh bro, see…if she plays a board game with me, it's because she really wants to play it with you."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, she doesn't know me, for starters."

"That's the point," said Tadashi. "None of them really know you yet. So I thought you'd get to spend time alone with Honey Lemon, then with Gogo, and then we can have a guy's night, just us two, and the other guys from the Nerd Lab want to show you an old arcade…one where the original Fix-It Felix Jr. was played."

"You mean Litwack's Arcade?"

"That's the one," said Tadashi. "But until you've spent time with Honey Lemon, you won't be ready for that."

"It's freaky playing a game with a girl I don't even know."

"You've met her. And I'll be there for the first few minutes. I'll have to run shortly after the start of the game, but it's not like I'll be leaving you alone with her from the moment she arrives.

"Well, I do admit she's cute," said Hiro.

"And quite witty."

"I haven't spend enough time with her to determine that. But she did seem quite intelligent."

"Oh, she is. And fun to be around. Honey makes life so much better, you know?"

"Perhaps, but your old girlfriend made you a much cooler person about some things. Not that you aren't super cool, bro, but when you were dating her, you were less opposed to my botfight craze."

"Yeah, I suppose," Tadashi said, chewing on his cereal. The conversation was starting to get into dangerous waters.

"What was her name by the way?"

"Whose?"

"Your ex-girlfriend," Hiro said. "I thnk you said it started with an A."

"Oh yeah. It was Allison."

"Hmmm. I was sure you said it was something else. But Allison's a cute name."

Hiro must not find out about Abigail, Tadashi thought. And hopefully he never discovers the Time String or the gadget which makes time-travel possible."

Unbidden in his mind came the image of Gogo in a tutu. She was pulling it away from her shoulders. And then he caught a flash of Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle. "Help me, Tadashi. Save us. "

"Yes, Tadashi," said Elsa. "Don't fail either Anna or me. Please. We need you."

What you need…is Hiro, Tadashi thought.

"And I need you," the Gogo wearing a yellow tutu in his mind said. She leaned in to kiss him.

Then the Honey Lemon in his mind looked hurt, having witnessed the kiss. And he felt an ache in his heart, because Honey was the girl he lovoed, and he felt that Gogo and he could only at most ever be friends, especially given the fact that he knew Gogo much longer than he knew any of the other members in his nerd lab.