"Thank you, have a great night!" Pico smiled and waved at the last customer who left her flower shop, content with a bunch of roses they were going to give their significant other. She sighed, it had been a long and busy day and she needed to rest. Taking off her apron, she locked the door to the shop and switched the "open" sign to "close." Her day was finished.
Pico was always careful walking home. It was not a short walk there, but the night made her nervous. She walked briskly across the street and down the sidewalk, looking around at the city lights and advertisements as she did. She smiled, almost feeling nostalgic when she saw food stores and shops that had been around since she was a little girl, like Burger Queen. She, U-1, and Kazuya always went to Burger Queen after a long day of school and homework. It made her a little sad, she almost never had the time now, but the boys did. If only they got along well enough.
The restaurant was still open. Feeling hungry, she decided to get a quick bite before she went home. She opened the doors to Burger Queen and saw Kazuya sitting alone at one of the booths, drinking a milkshake and looking out the window.
"Hey!" Pico called out, smiling.
Kazuya jumped, not expecting anyone else to be here in this empty restaurant. The sight of Pico was comforting to him. He nodded a hello and invited her to sit across from him.
"You closed early," he said, taking another sip from his drink.
"It's a Monday, I always close then," Pico tilted her head, "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be home by now. I was actually going to visit you."
Kazuya put down his drink, "I came here to think for a moment," he glanced outside the window, "mostly about what I'm going to do with myself. I just got out of college last year and I still don't know what I'm doing for a job or even a career path."
"Didn't you major in business so you can eventually take your dad's place in his company?" Pico asked.
"Yeah, but that's not what I really want to do. I thought maybe I could do something like, hell I dunno… teach skateboarding to the little squirts downtown… But I don't even know if I wanna do that." Kazuya sighed, "Growing up sucks, Pico."
"It does stink," Pico said as she drew little doodles on a napkin, "though it doesn't really sound the same coming from me. I'm happy where I am and what I'm doing. Maybe there's a way U-1 and I can help you."
"Not U-1. The last thing I need is for him to see me scraping along."
Pico giggled a little, "Alright, I won't tell him. He's been busy with his own things anyway. I haven't even seen him all day! What does he do in his spare time?"
"Probably kill himself skateboarding," Kazuya joked, then his smile turned into a look of suspicion, "you think he's hiding something from us? The other day, he mentioned something about a 'Kirah,' and when I brought it up to him, he gave me one of the worst lies I've ever heard." He took a few more sips of his drink, "This isn't the first time he's mentioned something like that either. He sometimes keeps mumbling to himself about 'Kirah' or a 'Miranda.' Is he, like, going insane? Cause I've certainly never heard of these guys."
"Just because you've never heard of them doesn't mean U-1's going insane, Kazuya," Pico stated, "what if he's talking about characters for… a book he's writing! Or maybe they're characters from a video game…"
"Pico, I've never heard of any characters in a video game named 'Kirah' or 'Miranda,' and even if I did that sounds like the stupidest video game I've ever heard of."
"Well, it has to be something. Maybe we can ask him!"
"Good luck," Kazuya chuckled, "he'll just lie to you. Like he's done since we've met him."
"U-1 doesn't lie! I mean… not that often…" Pico mulled to herself, "Anyway, we should head home. Mom's going to be worried if I don't come home soon. You can come over if you want!"
"Yeah, alright," Kazuya said and finished the last sips of his milkshake before throwing it out. He was going to lead Pico out of Burger Queen when he realized that the doors were locked shut, "What… did they lock us in?!"
He tried a few more times opening the door, almost slamming it at one point, but it was no use. They were trapped inside.
"How could they lock us in?! They saw us come inside? They didn't even give us a warning or anything!" Pico said, trying not to panic, "I'll call Mom and let her know so she doesn't worry…"
Pico got out her flip phone and was about to call her mother when she saw her screen static. Why was it acting up like this? She took good care not to get it wet while she was working, it should be fine! Worried, she tried resetting her phone to no avail.
While the two of them were panicking and working out what to do, the lights suddenly shut off, which made the both of them worry even more, not noticing a figure floating down behind the both of them, a devilish smile lifting the corners of his mouth as he summoned his axe.
Heh, heh, heh, heh….
"What was…?" Pico slowly turned around to the source of the chuckle and immediately closed her mouth to suppress a scream. Kazuya immediately moved in front of her to protect her.
"Who are you?!" he demanded to know.
His form was unclear in the darkness, but he looked tall and muscular. Horns gleamed in the moonlight as his pointy ears twitched, his tail flicked as he inched closer to the humans.
"I'm Panpeus," the figure said. His voice was deep and older, "and I'm gonna chop you in half!" he lifted up his axe and laughed, "Goodbye, friends of Gitaroo Man!"
"So, why was Gregorio even here in the first place, Kirah? I thought I defeated him…" U-1 was confused. Then again, that was not unnatural for him.
"I can answer that," Puma started, "U-1, when you unleashed your power against Zowie, you released the power of all eight of the Legendary Gitaroos that littered the Universe. When your job was done, the eight Gitaroos were released again, and now they are probably either scattered somewhere or right back to their proper owner. It explains why Kirah has her Gitaroo, too."
Kirah nodded, gripping her Gitaroo gently, "I missed it, heheh," she smiled before explaining, "Gregorio III is part of the Great Cathedral. When the Gitaroo is taken away, his soul is taken with it. He told me before when I was a child, he cannot survive without the Great Cathedral now."
"Weird," U-1 commented, making a face, "Gravillians are so weird… Wait! So that means… everyone I've ever defeated is back again?! And I gotta defeat 'em again in order to get their Gitaroos back…?" U-1 whined a little, "It was a hassle doing it the first time!"
"U-1, you were 15 back then. You're older and a lot stronger now, I'm sure that they'd be no problem for you!" Puma encouraged him and barked a couple of times, smiling.
"I suppose that's true… but still! UGH. Well… there's really no use in worrying about it. We have a much bigger problem on our hands, and we're getting close to it!" U-1 ran over to the entrance to the big elevator, "All we need to do is get through here… Kirah, do you have any idea how this works?"
"Gosh, it's been so long… let me see." Kirah walked over to the elevator and lifted the latch which activated the control panel, "this is basically Zowie's main headquarters, so it's password protected… let me see if…" Kirah pressed a few buttons.
ACCESS DENIED
"Damn it! Ming Ming must have changed the password!"
"Then what do we do now?" U-1 asked.
"Activate an emergency password reset. It's what Zowie did whenever he was suspicious of anyone entering the headquarters or if he wanted time to himself. To do that, we just need to answer a security question. Something no one but Zowie should know…"
"Well, seeing as, fortunately, no one is Zowie, then that task is kinda impossible, don't you think?" Puma said.
"It's possible. I cracked it once… maybe I could do it again…"
Kirah pressed the emergency reset button. The screen in front of them immediately turned red with the Z Gravillian symbol dead center in front of them. The security question then popped up.
WHO IS THE KING OF GRAVILLIANS?
"Pshh, of course he would use a security question that involved himself as the answer!" U-1 rolled his eyes, "C'mon Kirah, lemmie answer this. Just cause me knowing would piss him off."
"Gitaroo Man, that's not – "
It was too late. U-1 confidently put in "LORD ZOWIE" as the answer. The screen immediately turned red as the white words of "WRONG ANSWER" popped up on the screen.
"What?!" U-1 was shocked, "But, it said…"
"Gitaroo Man," Kirah walked over to the terminal, "Zowie was the Prince of the Gravillians. Of course, he wanted to be respected and revered as a king, but there was always someone else. After all…"
She put down her Gitaroo and began typing.
"You can't have a prince without the king."
Kirah slowly typed out, a name that U-1 was unfamiliar of, but brought Puma shaking in his rollerblade feet.
KING ZERO
The elevator descended and the doors opened. U-1 had questions, but he would ask them later. They had a cat to catch.