Hi everyone! Sorry this took so long, but I had a real hard time with this chapter for some reason. It just never felt right to me, somehow. That combined with me being weak-willed and easily distracted made this take a lot longer to make than I'd thought. As a slight compensation, it's a bit longer than the other chapters. Hopefully you still enjoy it. I'll try to get back on track.
In any case, thanks for reading!
Previously on The Nine RED Men Incident: Scout Chapters:
The Scout, who had destroyed a tree, got into a fight with Yuuka. After making the discovery that his scattergun no longer shot bullets, but danmaku, he made a valiant effort (well, for a given value of valiant), but was ultimately blasted away by a master spark. After advising Momiji and Aya, who had witnessed the battle, to get some anti-itching cream, Yuuka left, leaving them to deal with the Scout. They decided to take him to Nitori's house, as it was nearby and she owed Momiji a favor.
Previously on The Nine RED Men Incident: Engineer Chapters:
Dell Conagher, the Engineer, having acquired the use of Nitori's workshop, set to work repairing his PDA, which had been damaged during his arrival. After fixing the PDA, he was distracted by a noise, which turned out to be Nitori testing her cloaking device. Having been told about Dell's strange ability to seemingly come back from the dead (which was something Hina had learned by absorbing his misfortune), she had wanted to see this ability in action, but no opportunity presented itself. After a conversation about that, Dell brought up a display of all the teleporter signals (which are acquired by those who use his style of teleporter), and found that there were, instead of the nine he expected, ten.
We now return you to: The Nine RED Men Incident
The Scout opened his eyes and sat up, gasping for air. Dell, who'd been sitting nearby, flinched in shock. "Where is she?" the Scout asked, to no one in particular. "Where's that b-" he began, before the signals his body was sending him finally caught up with his brain. "Itchy! Itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy," he said, trying to scratch every single part of his body at once. "Oh god why does everything itch!" he yelled.
Dell held him down as he continued trying to scratch. "Hold on there, partner," he said. "Don't go scratchin' your skin off."
"Engie?" the Scout said, through clenched teeth. "Oh man, it's great to see you again! Now let me scratch! Please!"
"Hey, Nitori, is Aya back yet?" Dell yelled.
"Nope! Why, is he up?" a voice yelled from somewhere.
"Yep," the Engie said. "And he could really use that cream, I think." He turned back to the Scout. "Look, just hold on until we can get you some anti-itching cream."
The Scout continued trying to writhe his way free so he could try and stop the itching, but couldn't escape Dell's grip. Eventually he calmed down until he was simply twitching every now and then, and scratching the only part of his body he could reach, his palms.
"Feelin' calmer now, Scout?" Dell asked.
The Scout twitched, barely managing to keep himself from scratching. "Engie, my skin feels like it's on fire an' being chewed on by like a billion red ants or something, there's no way in hell I'm gonna be calm!" Dell let out a small chuckle. "Aw c'mon man, don't laugh at that! I'm dying here!"
"Sorry, sorry," Dell said. "It's just that you look red as a pig with a sunburn."
"Wha-no I don't!" the Scout said, trying to sit up. Dell held up a mirror to reveal that the Scout's skin did indeed seem to be colored a dark red. The Scout let out a choking noise. "My face! My beautiful face!" he said, when he managed to speak again.
"Well, at least you're showin' your team spirit," Dell said.
The Scout glared at him. "Very funny, wise guy," the Scout said, before slumping back down and groaning. "I'm never gonna get any chicks looking like this." Dell rolled his eyes. It was at this point Nitori and Hina came in, carrying some food on a tray. The Scout saw them enter and immediately covered his face, yelling "Don't look at me, I'm slightly less handsome!"
Nitori and Hina looked questioningly at Dell, who rolled his eyes. "C'mon Scout, you don't look any worse than you used to. 'Sides, they've already seen what you looked like when those two dragged you in here."
Scout blinked, before sitting up. "Oh right, those two! What happened to them? Is that Aya chick still going to continue that interview with me? She's not gonna stop because I lost is she?"
Nitori snorted. "Nah. She'd still try and interview ya even if you'd fallen into a coma. And to be honest, I'm surprised you didn't after a fight with Yuuka." Hina nodded, shivering. She placed a plate of food next to the bed he was lying in.
"Ah sweet, thanks!" the Scout said, taking a bite without looking at it. His face slowly turned green, and he looked around for somewhere to spit it out, but, finding none, had to swallow. "Augh, what was that?"
"It's a cucumber," Nitori said, happily munching on her own. "Aren't they great?"
"Ugh, that was awful," the Scout said, scraping his tongue with his bare hands. "And why is it green?" he said, looking scared.
"'Cause that's what color it is?" Nitori said, confused. "Have you never seen a vegetable before?" The color drained from Scout's face.
"That was a vegetable? Are you trying to poison me?" he scrubbed at his tongue even harder. Dell's rested his face in his palm.
"Scout, I keep tellin' ya, those 'vegetables' the Medic had ya eat weren't really typical vegetables, he was just tryin' ta get back at ya for messin' up his x-ray machine," he said.
"W-what was it really?" Hina asked curiously, breaking out of her startled state.
Dell looked uncomfortable. "Well they were technically carrots but," Dell said, before pausing. "He put something on 'em." He paused again.
"Well don't leave us hangin', what was it?" Nitori said, while the Scout tried to reach for a bit of scrap metal that was lying around.
"A laxative, mostly," Dell said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. Hina and Nitori grimaced, as Dell took away the scrap metal the Scout was about to use to scratch his tongue.
"Ah. I can see why he wouldn't want to eat vegetables after that," Nitori said. "Cucumbers are good though. They're like all I eat." She took another bite.
"Um, Nitori, you can't really use yourself as a baseline for the quality of cucumbers," Hina said.
"Why not?" Nitori said.
"Because you rarely eat anything else. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if your taste buds can only taste cucumber," Hina replied.
"Eh, fair point," Nitori said. "However, because I'm such a connoisseur of them, I can assure you that these are the best I could get."
Dell looked back at the Scout, who had somehow managed to bite his fingers while trying to remove the cucumber taste from his mouth, and was shaking them rapidly. "I don't think he's gonna eat any no matter how good they are," he said.
"Oyyyy, Nitori! I'm baaaaack, Get ready for the interview you promiseeed," a voice said, coming from the doorway. Aya entered, flipping a bottle of cream in her hands while her camera hung around her neck. She looked at the Scout, who, in his haste to appear calm and collected, had managed to both slam his foot into a bedpost and get himself tangled up in the sheets, and was simultaneously trying to free himself from the sheets and grip his foot in pain. "What happened to him?" she asked.
"Nothin' out of the ordinary for him," Dell said. "Though usually it's not so self-inflicted. He could probably use your help," he said, nodding at Hina, who was looking away from Aya and frowning. "Uh…Miss Hina?"
"Huh? Oh sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I'd be happy to, if you wanted," she said, turning to the Scout, who had somehow become so entangled in the blankets that he looked like a poorly wrapped mummy.
"Mmph mmph?" He said, still trying to untangle himself. With a sigh, Dell reached over and pulled the sheet away from the Scout's mouth. "How'd you be able to help with somethin' like that?" he asked, once his mouth was free.
"She's a curse goddess," Aya said, wrapping an arm around Hina's neck. "She absorbs curses that are on other people or places and stores them within herself. Be careful though," she said, in a mock whisper, "sometimes those curses leak out and curse anyone she's nearby!"
"I do not!" Hina said as she swatted angrily at Aya, who dodged out of the way. "I contain all the curses within me perfectly. I do not leak curses or-or let curses out intentionally to punish people I don't like or-or secretly create them or anything like that! If I did then you would be cursed by now!" She put her hands up to her mouth. Everyone save Nitori stared at Hina in astonishment. "I-I'm sorry," Hina said, bowing, "please excuse me." She left the room quickly.
"Hina, wait," Nitori said, trying to stop her, but she had already left the room. "Aw, damn," Nitori said, scratching her head.
"What was that all about?" Aya said, confused.
Nitori glared at her, causing Aya to back away. "Wasn't it obvious?" she said, bitterly. "It's because you brought up those rumors. Rumors which were help spread, might I add, by your paper."
"What, the leaking thing?" Aya said. "But that rumor's been around forever. I just spiced it up a bit."
Nitori grit her teeth. "You don't seem to realize how much power your paper has over some people. Sure, the rumor'd been around for a while, but until it's published, people can just write it off as a rumor. Once something like that's in writing for everyone to see, then it's as good as true to some people."
Aya laughed, a slight tinge of bitterness to her voice. "Yeah right. No one believes my paper, at least not anymore. They just read it to laugh at the articles. Or burn it for fuel. Or both."
"Not everyone," Nitori said. "And a lot of other newspapers started reporting that story once you did. They do it for a lot of your less crazy articles, you know. Since you're first on the scene so often."
Aya looked slightly uncomfortable. "Well that's not my fault! They should do some fact-checking before they publish!"
Nitori snorted. "Why should they? You don't."
"Hey," Aya said, "I always check my facts! I just…don't necessarily care if they turn out to be false," she said, mumbling. Nitori and Dell raised an eyebrow at her, while the Scout looked back and forth, confused. "Ok, so maybe I don't, but I'm known for being fast," she said, "if I took the time to fact-check every story that came my way, I'd never be the first to publish a paper about a story. What's their excuse?"
Nitori shook her head. "Ugh. I give up. You'll never admit that something's even partially your fault, will you? I'm gonna go find Hina." She walked out the door and began walking to where she thought Hina would be. In her absence, an awkward silence filled the room, until it was interrupted by the sound of the Scout scratching his arms. Dell and Aya turned and looked at him, grateful for the distraction.
"What's up with them?" The Scout asked, as he itched his arm faster. "But before that, " the Scout said, "could you please, for the love of god, gimme that cream! I'm dyin' here!" Aya blinked, before realizing the bottle of cream was still in her hand, and tossed it to the Scout, who began spreading it everywhere he could reach, starting with his arms, then his face, and then his legs. "Y'know," he said, after he'd finished with his legs and the burning had calmed down a bit. "I might need some help with those hard to reach areas." He turned towards Aya. "Could you help me out?" Aya smiled, while Dell sighed and shook his head.
Dell was about to speak up, when Aya said, "Ok, but close your eyes."
"Wait, seriously?" the Scout said. "Sweet!" He began to close his eyes as Dell looked at Aya skeptically. He heard the sound of whispers and Dell chuckling, and was about to open his eyes to see what was going on when he felt a hand begin to work its way under his shirt and begin rubbing cream on his chest. A goofy smile began to form on his face. The hand began to go further down, rubbing in cream wherever it went, causing the Scout's smile to broaden.
"Scout, you do realize that's my hand, right?" he heard Dell whisper into his ear.
"Gah!" the Scout screamed, his eyes flying open. He looked around to see Dell at his side, chuckling, while Aya leaned against the wall stifling her laughter. "What the hell guys, seriously!"
"That's what ya get," Dell said, shrugging his shoulders, while Aya simply laughed louder.
The Scout grimaced and folded his arms in front of his chest. "That wasn't funny."
"No, that was pretty funny," Aya said. "Besides, how many times has a line like that actually worked for you?"
"Plenty of times!" the Scout said, indignantly. "I'm the smoothest playboy on the team!"
"Scout, your idea of a pickup line is 'We've both got buckets of chicken. Wanna do it?'" Dell said.
"What's your point?" the Scout said. "That line works every time."
"My point is that your pickup lines only work on a specific type of person," Dell said. "And for those kinds of people, you could probably say just about anythin' to get them into bed," Dell said.
The Scout opened his mouth to respond, when the door opened and Nitori returned, her arm around Hina's shoulder. "We're back!" she said, while Hina simply looked away, embarrassed. "Did you-" she began before stopping and staring at the Scout for a couple seconds. Then she burst out laughing.
The Scout looked around, puzzled. "What? What is it?"
"You look like one of those sheet-ghosts the kids at the village sometimes make," she said.
"What?" the Scout yelped, as Aya took a picture. "Gimme that mirror," he said, reaching for the hand mirror he'd looked at earlier. Looking into it, he saw that his face was completely white, the cream apparently not having been rubbed in fully. He attempted to rub it in more, but despite his best efforts, his skin refused to absorb any more than it already had. He groaned and leaned back onto the bed. "Today just isn't my day," he said.
"Aw, cheer up bud. At least you aren't itchy anymore, right?" Dell said, happily.
"Yeah, I guess," the Scout said. "Thanks for that, Aya," he said. She grinned and flashed a thumbs up. "Why was that, anyway?" he asked. "Did I roll into some poison ivy or somethin'?"
"Oh, that's 'cause a Yuuka," Nitori said. "See, danmaku can take on some characteristics of the user's powers, and since she deals with flowers an' plants and all that, her danmaku can take on the effects of whatever plant she wants. She probably chose poison ivy or something so it wouldn't be downright painful, just annoying. Like if she'd chosen a rose it'd feel like you'd been hit by a bunch a' thorns over and over, things like that."
"So when you got hit by the Master Spark, which I got a great picture of, by the way," Aya said holding up her camera, "it was like your whole body was engulfed in poison ivy, causing the itchiness."
"Wait, you got pictures of me losin'?" the Scout said, eyes widening. "Gimme that camera!" He jumped out of the bed and grabbed at the camera, but Aya dodged out of the way.
"No way! They're going in my article on you," Aya said. "They're gold!"
"There's no way I'm letting you print photos of me getting my ass kicked!" the Scout said, jumping at the camera again, but once again Aya simply dodged out of the way. As he prepared to jump again, he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder, and turned to see Dell holding him back.
"Scout, just let 'er be. We've got more important stuff to deal with right now," Dell said.
"Are you sayin' there are more important things to do than keeping those photos from comin' out?" the Scout said. "Cause I don't think there is."
Dell rolled his eyes. "Scout, we need to find our teammates. They might be in trouble."
"Yeah right," the Scout said. "Those guys can take care of themselves. And I'm defendin' my honor here!"
Dell frowned, thinking, as the Scout continued jumping after Aya, who kept spinning and dodging, while Nitori and Hina looked on at the Scout understandingly. A smile formed on Dell's face.
"But just think of the look on Spy's face when we bail him out of whatever mess he's in," Dell said. The Scout immediately stopped trying to get the camera and was at Dell's side.
"So, what's the plan then?" the Scout said. Dell smirked.
"Well, this" he said, tapping the keys on his PDA to show the display of teleporter signals, "shows where we all are in relation to each other. That," he said, pointing to a dot in the center of the display, "is me. And that," he said, pointing to another dot hovering near the first, "is you." Hearing a click behind him, he turned around to see Aya holding her camera. He shrugged and got back to his explanation. "Now, the closest ones to us would probably be these two," he said, pointing to two dots that were somewhat close to the first two he'd pointed out. "Come to think of it, I think that's the direction that you went off to to get the cream," he said looking at Aya, who was busy jotting down notes.
"Huh?" she said, glancing back at the display. "Oh, uh, yeah I guess so. There was some commotion going on in the village when I was there," she said. "Something about a really big guy showing up. I wanted to go investigate but-" she said.
"You were worried about me?" the Scout said, hopefully.
Nitori, Dell and Aya laughed at that, while Hina smiled. "Aha, no," Aya said. "The people I was asking about it told me he'd be taken in by Keine, and I don't much relish getting headbutted right now." Nitori and Hina smirked at this.
"Hey, what's with this one?" the Scout said, changing the subject. He was pointing to a dot that seemed to be contantly jumping around a small area.
Dell frowned. "I dunno. It's been doing that since I first turned the display on," he said. "I don't have a clue what could be causing that."
"I might," Hina said quietly. Dell and the Scout turned to look at her. "W-well, considering the position we're in, and the fact that those two dots are probably in the village," she said, pointing at the dots that they'd been looking at earlier, "this dot would probably be in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost."
"Oh, you're right!" Nitori said. "That place is constantly rearranging itself or at least doing some sort of controlled scrambling of electromagnetic signals from within it! To be honest," she said slumping over slightly, "I've never really been able to figure out how it does that."
"Some sort of natural signal scrambling?" Dell said. "I mean, sure there can be interference, but actual controlled scramblin'? That's worth investigatin'."
The Scout tapped his foot impatiently. "Look, are you gonna tell us about the rest of these dots or are you and cucumber-girl over there gonna keep talking about some weird forest all day?"
"Ah, yeah, alright, alright," Dell said. "So that's one in the bamboo forest then. On that note, these two," he said, pointing to two dots that were much paler than the others, "seem to be blocked by something. Like they're in a bomb shelter or underground or something."
"Well, they're probably in the underground, then," Aya said, shrugging. "There's a whole city of Oni down there, after all."
"Ok, two in this 'Oni city' then," Dell said. "Which leaves us with these three by themselves"
"Well that one," Aya said, pointing to a dot somewhat far off to the left, "is somewhere near the top of the Tengu mountain, so you'd probably have a hard time getting there without Tengu approval."
"And this one," Nitori said, pointing to a dot slightly above and to the right of their position, "is probably somewhere near the Misty Lake."
"And the tenth," Hina said, pointing to one slightly past the ones that were in the village, "seems to be near the Hakurei shrine."
"Wait, ten?" the Scout said. "But there's only nine of us, right?"
"Yeah, there's someone else here with a teleporter signal. I don't know how that's possible, but there's no mistaking it," Dell said.
"Huh," the Scout said, before shrugging. "Well, whatever. So, which one's the Spy then? Oh man, I can't wait to see his face when he realizes he owes me one."
"I don't know, unfortunately. The signals aren't personalized, so we're just gonna have to go visit each one until we find everybody," Dell said, scratching the back of his head. "I think we should probably split up and meet back here after we've found them. Y'all willing to help us out?" he asked, turning to Hina, Nitori, and Aya. Or at least where Aya used to be. "Huh? Where'd that reporter go?"
"She said something about getting the scoop about the one on the mountain before any other Tengu beat her to it," Nitori said.
"But what about my interview?" the Scout said.
"Don't worry about it Scout. I'm sure she'll finish your interview eventually. In the meantime, can you go check out the one at the lake? It's pretty close by, so you should be able to get there easily," Dell said.
"Alright, alright. It's that way, right?" he said, pointing southwest as he headed for the door.
"No, it's this way," Dell shouted, pointing the correct direction. The Scout looked back briefly and nodded before leaving. "I sure hope he actually paid attention to that," Dell said, frowning.
"I-I'll go with him," Hina said, moving to leave. "I know where he should be going."
"Are you sure?" Nitori asked.
Hina nodded. "I'll be fine. Besides, he'll probably need someone who knows the area, and I-I'm really the only option right now."
"Yeah, I guess," Nitori said, looking away. "Just be careful, alright?"
"I will," Hina said.
"Thanks for this, Ms. Hina," Dell said. "And don't worry about Scout. He might be kinda immature and arrogant, but he's not a terrible guy."
"I-it's no problem," Hina said, bowing her head slightly. "I'm happy to help." With that, she began to run after the Scout, who was already off near the horizon.
"Well, that just leaves us then," Dell said. "I guess we could head for the village, since it's supposed to be nearby and all."
"Alright," Nitori said. "But before that, you owe me a closer look at that hand."
"Ah, I did promise that, didn't I?" Dell said, scratching his head. "Alright," he said, twisting his robotic hand and removing it from the socket he'd grafted to his arm. "But could ya make it quick? I'd really like to find the rest of the team."
"No worries!" Nitori said, pressing a strange button on her table from which a glass box popped out. She placed the mechanical hand inside the box and pressed the button again, at which point there were a few flashes and a loud whirring noise, after which the box opened up again, revealing the now-twitching hand. She picked it up and gave it back to the Engineer, who absent-mindedly took it and screwed it back into the socket. "There we go. Now we can head out."
"What did that do?" Dell asked.
"Huh? Oh, it basically takes a bunch of photos of the item from different angles, then uses magic to create a 3D replica. But it only works on items that fit in the box, and it takes a long time to charge up to use. That was about a month's worth of charge right there."
Dell let out a whistle. "That's a mighty fine machine you've built there," he said.
"Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it," Nitori said, patting the box. "Too bad the charge time makes it kinda impractical to use. Anyway, shall we go to the village?"
"Yeah, I suppose we should," Dell said, trying to get his hand to stop shaking. "Let's go." They left Nitori's house, after she reactivated the cloaking field, and began walking towards the village.