M4
Earlier That Day...
Badgerclops watched as Mao Mao left the house, a strained expression adorned on his friend's face. Not knowing why, Badgerclops felt as if this could've been avoided somehow.
Making his way back to the kitchen, he saw Minori and Adorabat sitting at the dining table. Adorabat had gone back to her scribbles, while Minori watched in curiosity.
"What're you doing Adorabat?" Badgerclops asked, his interest peaked. When he and Minori had arrived at HQ the previous night, they came in to see Adorabat passed out on the coffee table, those same scribbles trapped under her tiny body.
"Mao Mao's been super upset lately, and I wanted to help," said Adorabat, her cheerful demeanor taking Badgerclops' mind off of the sour interaction between him and Mao Mao just moments prior.
"Awww, well aren't you sweet," cooed Minori, with an adoring look on her face. "What are you making? Art?"
Adorabat looked offended at Minori's comment, as the martial artist had somehow insulted her.
"It's not art! It's music! See," said Adorabat, holding up her scribbles for Minori and Badgerclops to see. Upon further inspection, the scribbles did kind of resemble music notes in a way. "I wanted to sing a song for Mao Mao, and maybe raise his spirits if I can."
"That actually sounds like a great idea," said Badgerclops, sitting next to Adorabat. "I'll help you."
Unfortunately, before Badgerclops could give Adorabat any assistance with her song, the monster alarm went off. Badgerclops and Adorabat jumped out of their seats and dashed towards the garage, while Minori remained seated, confused to what was unfolding before her.
"Minori, come on!" Adorabat shouted from the top of the poles. "There's a monster, we gotta fight, now!"
Minori's confused look turned to that of a starry-eyed one, as she rushed after the two deputies. "Oh, should've just lead with that!"
——————————————————————
Mao Mao ducked and weaved between the Sweetypies, stopping every so often direct them to the designated safe area. It appeared that the source of the disturbance was originating from the town square.
Turning the corner, Mao Mao set his eyes on something that raised several questions, none of which could be answered. Badgerclops and Adorabat were standing on either side of the monster, corralling it back to the square when it started to get too close to buildings.
The monster itself was a ten-foot-tall, bipedal oxen, it wore a loincloth around its waist, scars adorned the bovine's torso like badges of honor. One of the scars went over the beast's right eye, which only added to its intimidation factor. The Minotaur's horns spanned three feet and curled upwards.
Mao Mao noticed something unusual about the Minotaur, it was precariously leaning backwards. The creature lurched to the side, revealing its back to Mao Mao, as well as showing who was holding on to the monster's horns.
Minori hung off the oxen's horns, her feet planted on its shoulder blades. She was tugging on the beast, like her goal was to steer it as if it were a vehicle. Midst the creature's bumbling, Minori spotted a splash of red and black out of the corner of her eye.
Turning her head to see who was standing on the edge of the plaza, she smiled at the sight of her kid brother as he watched her display of heroics.
"Mao Mao! Check me out! I'm a cowboy," she shouted to the original Sheriff. "Yeehaw!"
Badgerclops turned to where Minori was shouting to, seeing Mao Mao as he stood just at the edge of the square with one of the most confused looks he ever had.
"Dude! What are you doing here?" Badgerclops asked, showing discontent in whatever compelled Mao Mao to come here. "You should be healing!"
"You are fighting a hulking behemoth right now," Mao Mao said, regarding the humongous Minotaur. "Is my personal health really your biggest issue right now?"
The Minotaur, fed up with Minori's antics, whipped its head forward, launching the martial artist towards Mao Mao, who was still caught in an argument with the cybernetic badger. Unable to change her trajectory in midair, Minori stretched her arms towards her brother as she rocketed towards him.
Just before she made contact with him, Minori grabbed Mao Mao by his shoulders, quickly pulling him into her chest as he was pulled off his feet by the sudden amount of force she brought with her. The martial artist quickly twisted around in midair so that her back would take the brunt of any damage.
It wasn't even two seconds until the two members of the Mao clan crashed into a building, breaking through the stone brick wall and into some Sweetypie's empty living room. Mao Mao pulled himself up as he gazed down at his sister, whose brows furrowed from the extreme pain of smashing through a stone wall.
"Minori!" Mao Mao cried in a worried tone, unsure as how to give aid to his sister.
"Yeah?" Minori replied, steadily raising herself from the rubble. "What is it?"
The Sheriff sat back, sighing a breath of relief at his sister's wellbeing not being hindered in any way. "Nothing." Mao Mao replied.
"Hehe, still the little kid you always were," Minori laughed, teasing her younger brother.
"And you're still as carefree, and reckless as ever," Mao Mao retorted. Moments pass, and the silence that fills the air is disrupted as the two siblings erupt into a misfit of giggles.
"Nearly ten years and nothing's changed," Minori stated, just audible enough for Mao Mao to hear.
"I wouldn't call that a good thing," Mao Mao responded, the Minotaur's roar echoing through the empty town. "How long have you guys been fighting this thing?"
"An alarm went off about ten minutes after you left," said Minori, resting back on her elbows. "We've been fighting that thing ever since."
Taking a minute to do the math in his head, Mao Mao shouted, "You've been fighting that thing for six hours?"
"Sounds about right," Minori replied plainly, jumping up from the ground. "When we started fighting it initially, it was just outside the kingdom walls. We tried to keep it from entering the gates but, well you can see how that turned out."
"It doesn't look like you guys have done any serious damage," said Mao Mao, thinking back to how the Minotaur's torso was bridled with scars, but none of which looked recent.
"Yeah, that thing's hide is pretty thick," said the martial artist, rubbing the back of her head. "And it isn't like Bessie's willing let me pinch a nerve cluster anyway."
"Bessie?" Mao Mao asked, confused as to who this 'Bessie' character was.
"Yeah, Bessie," said Minori in a chipper tone. "That's what I named the Minotaur! Although BC didn't want me naming it."
"Because you'll get attached?" Mao Mao queried, remembering when Badgerclops told him the same thing about the Impressasaur.
"Exactly! How'd you know?" Minori asked, impressed with her little brother's foreknowledge of the matter.
"Same thing happened several months back," replied Mao Mao, keeping the explanation short. "I want to help in any way I can, tell me everything you can about Bessie."
Minori was more than happy to divulge the information to the original Sheriff; in the past several hours, the Sheriff's Dept. learned that the beast was partially blind in the eye with the scar, and heavily depended on its sense of smell.
Mao Mao came up with a multitude of ideas when he initially saw the Minotaur, but most of them were rendered obsolete with this information.
"Whatcha thinking about bro?" Minori asked, recognizing the face her brother made when he was thinking something over.
"I've got a few strategies you and the others could use against that thing," explained Mao Mao said, making his way to the hole he and Minori made a few moments earlier. "But I'm not confident about any of them."
"Well," started Minori, following after Mao Mao to stand next to him. "I've got an idea if you wanna hear it."
"What is it?" Mao Mao asked, his interests peaked. When ever it came to ideas or anything that involved thinking, it was usually Violet or Ashaki who Mao Mao would think of first. So Minori proposing an idea was a strange thing to see.
"You and I should do M4!" Minori exclaimed in an excited fashion.
"What?" Mao Mao asked, caught off guard from Minori's proposal. "That's just something you and I did to get extra candy on Halloween."
"Come on, it'll work!" Minori stated, bringing her arm around her kid brother's shoulders. "You trust me don't you?"
"You sure it'll work?" Mao Mao asked, slowly starting to cave to cave to his sister's idea.
"Meh~" sighed the martial artist, giving a so-so gesture with her free hand.
"Well, not like it's the worst idea ever," stated the Sheriff, he and Minori moving to find someplace to get ready for M4.
——————————————————————
While Mao Mao and Minori were getting ready, Badgerclops and Adorabat were just barely getting by. While Adorabat was flying circles around the oversized bull, Badgerclops was in the midst of changing his arm cannon to fire ice blasts.
"Where'd those two run off to?" Badgerclops asked himself, wondering why they insist on making things difficult for them. "Adorabat, heads up!"
Adorabat, seeing the other deputy ready his arm cannon, flew out of Badgerclops' line of sight. As soon as she was comfortably out of the way, Badgerclops unleashed a volley of freezing blasts on the oxen's feet, limiting its movements. Although based on how the fight has been going these past few hours, it wouldn't be long until the Minotaur broke from the frosty trap.
"Badgerclops I'm tired~," whined Adorabat as she landed on his metal shoulder. This the first time that the Sheriff's Dept. as a whole had fought a monster for so long without a break, so it would make sense that they would start getting winded.
"Just hang on Adorabat, we only have to hang on a little bit more," reassured Badgerclops, trying to keep the blue bat's morale up.
A thundering crack of the blue ice that Badgerclops just placed moments ago, echoed throughout the town square, the sound bouncing off one building to the next. The Minotaur brought its fist down upon the ice, cracks spreading across the chilly trap.
A black and red figure dashed by Badgerclops, rushing the oxen with a malicious grin. The red-cloaked cat leaped up and grabbed one of the Minotaur's horns and started using it like a gymnastics bar. The centrifugal force from the cat's swinging, forced the bovine to tip over.
The Minotaur stretched out its arms, catching itself before it could crash to the cobblestone below. The creature started to violently shake its head from side-to-side, flinging the Sheriff around like a rag doll.
"Mao Mao!" Both of the deputies screamed, worried for their friend.
Almost as if in response to their cry, another blur, this one being black, white, and orange, ran past them. Badgerclops noticed something weird about the two cats as they engaged the Minotaur; the first being that for some reason, Minori was holding Geraldine in hand, the second was that Mao Mao's fighting style was drastically different than usual.
The martial artist pulled Geraldine from its sheath and jumped into the air, slicing one of the monster's massive ivory horns off from its head. The way she landed on the ground, it was almost exactly the way that Mao Mao would've done it.
The Minotaur unleashed a roar that would've shook the heavens, it reared back one of its arms, and with full force, went to backhand the martial artist. Mao Mao reacted by vaulting off the oxen's face and pushed his sibling out of the way, taking the attack himself. Flying through the air, Mao Mao twisted around and slammed his limbs into ground, coming to skidding halt.
"What's happening?" Adorabat asked, total confusion swarming her mind like a plague of locusts.
Badgerclops quickly switched his robo-arm from its Ice Blast configuration into binoculars, peering through them, he saw what was really happening. Who he thought was Mao Mao was actually Minori, and vice versa; for some reason or another, the two members of the Mao Clan had switched clothes with one another. Upon further inspection, Minori, who was currently wearing Mao Mao's clothing, had her bangles hidden underneath the original Sheriff's crimson gloves.
Mao Mao pulled himself off the ground, and dashed around the hulking beast. After several laps, the Minotaur started covering its nose, a pained look on its face.
"Now!" Mao Mao shouted, using his vocal mimicry skills to perform a dead-on impersonation of Minori's voice.
Minori dashed towards the beast, when it was within jumping distance, she leaped up and onto is shoulder. Grabbing its last horn with both hands, she placed both feet on its shoulders and pulled with all her strength.
As the beast started to rear its torso backwards, Mao Mao made a beeline for Badgerclops and Adorabat. As he entered ear shot, he shouted "Piggyback!"
Badgerclops reacted swiftly, ready to finish this and go home. Stretching out his arm, it expanded and shifted into a humongous three barreled cannon. Mao Mao vaulted over the barrel, landing on Badgerclops' shoulders, and Adorabat positioning herself on top of her mentor.
As the barrels started to charge energy, the Minotaur was slowly breaking free from the Minori's grip.
"Oh no you don't!" Minori said through gritted teeth, extending her claws from her hands and feet to keep traction.
Once the barrels were fully charged, the three original members of the Sheriff's Dept. unleashed began their final attack.
"Piggyback Blaster!" The three shouted in unison. An enormous beam of light erupted from three barrels, racing towards the monster.
Minori retracted her claws, letting the monster pull free from her grip. As the monster set its eyes on the beam of light, it's pupils shrank to the size of dots. As the beam collided with the hulking bovine, Minori jumped to the side before the light could burn through its body.
The ice that pinned the Minotaur's leg started crack even further, until eventually it couldn't handle the force that Sheriff's Dept. we're hitting it with. As soon as the ice shattered, the Minotaur was sent flying, far beyond the walls of Pure Heart Kingdom.
As the smoke cleared, the original three disengaged from the 'Piggyback Blaster', and they made their way over to the martial artist, who was still picking herself off the ground.
As Minori started to get back on her feet, a hand entered her frame of view. Tracing up the hand's arm, she found her brother's smiling face. For a split second, she could have sworn she was looking at the five year old from days long past.
"Need some help sis?" Mao Mao asked.
Taking his hand in hers, Minori pulled herself up with her brother's assistance. "Thank you brother."
"Not to interrupt your sibling bonding or whatever," said Badgerclops, his voice cutting through the silence. "But why are you wearing each other's clothes?"
"Oh, me and Mao Mao were just doing a bit of M4," said Minori with a proud smile, as if she explained everything perfectly.
"What's M4?" Adorabat asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.
"Minori and Mao's Masquerade Mix-Up!" Minori stated, her smile never wavering.
"When Minori and I were kids," started Mao Mao, going into a short story from his past. "On Halloween we would go through a neighborhood trick-or-treating, and switch outfits with one another so we could go through again and get twice as much candy."
"Okay, but why did you guys think changing clothes was in, like, any way helpful?" Badgerclops asked, trying to wrap his head around the craziness of their plan.
"Remember when we learned how Bessie was dependent on its sense of smell?" Minori asked rhetorically. "Well when Mao Mao and I swapped clothing, the scents from our clothes and bodies mixed together. Thus making Bessie believe there were two of the same person."
Badgerclops wasn't entirely sure that was how scents worked, but earlier when Mao Mao was running laps around the trapped Minotaur, it covered its nose like the smell was too much for it to handle.
"That's. So. COOL!" Adorabat shouted, hurting Badgerclops' ear.
"Okay," said the cybernetic badger, drawing the line. "If your gonna shout like that, can you, like, not be perched on my shoulder?"
"I'll take a screaming companion," said Minori, offering herself to be Adorabat's new perch.
Adorabat, taking her offer, flew over over to the martial artist.
Mao Mao looked towards the castle, "We should probably let everyone know it's safe to come back to town."
"Fine," said Badgerclops, rolling his eye. "But don't think I've forgotten that you've disobeyed Camille's orders."
"Yeah, yeah," said the original Sheriff, waving the comment away. "We can talk about it when we get back to HQ."
The four heroes then set off to get everything back to normal.
——————————————————————
Later that day, after Minori and Mao had switched back to wearing their original clothes, Mao Mao received a scolding from Camille, to whom he apologized. Camille eventually came to realize there was no way to keep the Sheriff under control, so she worked out a deal with him.
If he could avoid fighting for one week instead of the original two, he could go back to duty as long he doesn't use his left arm for the second week.
After taking time to think on Camille's conditions, Mao Mao accepted them and agreed to not fight for a whole week, period.
After the Sheriff's Dept. gave whatever assistance they could to the clean up effort, the four went back to HQ, where they were currently eating a dinner that Minori prepared.
"So in the two days that I've been here, I've fought two monsters," pointed out Minori, setting up for a question she's been meaning to ask. "Do you guys do this every day?"
"Yeah," replied Badgerclops, digging into tonight's dinner of Razorback filet mignon with his fork. "Sometimes we even fight two or three times a day."
"That. Is. Awesome!" Minori shouted, ecstatic at the fact she'll get to fight something everyday. "If I had known that a place like this existed, I would've moved here sooner!"
"Yeah I suppose that's good in a way," continued Badgerclops, taking a bite of his steak. "Except we don't get a lot of days off."
"What do you mean?" Mao Mao asked, instantly noticing a flaw in Badgerclops' argument. "We've had days off before."
"First of all, we've only ever had one day off," corrected Badgerclops, referring to the one time the called out when the entire Sheriff's Dept. got sick. "And even if we did have other days off, we usually just ended up wasting them on shenanigans."
Mao Mao opened his mouth to rebuttal, but closed it when he realized Badgerclops was correct in that manner. True they've had a few days without a monster attack, but they just ended up spending those days on events like the thumb wrestling tournament, or the Torbaclaun incident, or usually dealing with the kingdom's pink devil.
"See?" Badgerclops said with a smug look, taking notice of Mao Mao's lack of an argument.
"So where's Minori gonna sleep?" Adorabat asked simply, cutting through the current conversation like it was a stick of butter.
"Oh yeah, we don't have a guest bedroom do we?" Mao Mao asked, already knowing the answer. Aside from the triple bunk bed in their bedroom, the only other bed was in the jail cell in his office; and there was no way he was going to make his sister sleep in a cell.
"That's alright, I can just sleep on the couch," stated Minori nonchalantly. "Trust me, after roughing it in the wilderness for so long, I'd even take the floor."
"Well as long as you're fine with it," said Mao Mao, trading looks with the rest of the Sheriff's Dept.
After the four heroes finished up dinner, Mao Mao, Badgerclops, and Adorabat left for their bedroom to turn in for the night.
"Goodnight Minori," said Adorabat, giving the martial artist a parting hug.
"Goodnight little one," said Minori, returning the gesture. As the blue bat pulled away, Minori watched as the tiny deputy flew upstairs after the others.
After the last of Adorabat's blue fur disappeared around the corner, Minori silently walked over to the front door. Taking the door handle in her hand, she slid open the door, making sure that it made little to no sound.
Minori stepped out onto the front porch, slowly closing the door behind her. The night sky shrouded Minori and her surroundings in darkness, just what she wanted right now.
Creating some distance between her and Sheriff's HQ, she sauntered over to the sheer cliff that overlooked the whole kingdom. The lights over time, turned out one after the other. She lowered herself to the ground, her legs hanging over the cliff's edge.
A feeling of nostalgia rolled over Minori, like a cool stream of water over a stone in a riverbed. This reminded her of when she would watch the village at the bottom of the mountain with a young Mao Mao and their sisters after they had a long day of training. It was one of the best memories she ever had growing up.
Minori pulled her headband off her forehead, glaring at the symbol of her dedication to being a hero, a symbol she didn't deserve to wear. Wrapping the orange fabric around her wrist, she swore she wouldn't unwrap it until she accomplished what she came here to do.
As she continued to gaze out upon the kingdom, the lights began to blur as a cold feeling traced its way down Minori's cheeks. She brought her arms up to her face, trying to wipe away the seemingly endless cascade of tears.
"I'm sorry Mao Mao," sobbed Minori, the pain and sorrow that she had bottled up for the last ten years, finally making its way to the surface. "I'm so sorry!"