This is the second fanfic I've ever written, and the first I've ever sent to this list. Please be kind when you slash it to bleeding ribbons. :P
Part #16, of Do-Gooders, a round-robin fic hosted at ImproFanfic
Previous parts available at:
http://pixelscapes.com/improfanfic/
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For those of you who haven't been reading the episodes from the
beginning (shame, shame!) a brief summary has been provided for your
edification. When last seen, our heroic group of musicians (Tejina,
Sailor Delight; Kireiko, the Wild One; Matsuro, Bishounen Guy; and the
latest recruit and ex-roadie/groupie Becky, also known as Sailor
Rapture, or Secret Agent BA-3) and the mystical idiot companion
animals, Daisy the Mangy Drunkard Cat and Rover the Snooty Dog, were
confronted onstage at the park festival by the evil legions of youma
led by the Supreme Dark General Esjie (also known as Yoi Maeda of the
Tokyo Legitimate Businessman's Club), while Nemesis Serendipity Villyn
awaited in the wings (with no evidence of his usual retinue of
interchangeable goons in sight), the Hello Cthulu Army (formerly
ordinary Cthulu cultists, transformed by horrific otherworldly powers)
awaited in the sewers (led by the possessed body of Brother Maynard, a
former Cthulu cultist), Keiko Yamanaka observed the battle -- armed
with the Cleaver That is Not a Sword Precisely and a fresh bucket for
the blood, Aki Villyn argued with Charles the Mystical canary about the
inevitability of a future containing fukus, and an albino and two dwarfs
walked into a bar (whoops, that was the episode before that), creating
what is quite possibly the longest run-on sentence in this series'
history!
DO-GOODERS
Original Concept by Stefan Gagne
Episode 16 - The Big Brawl!! So, when does this band play music?
by C. DeBartolo
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Like sands through the hourglass, hundreds of youma poured through
the Darkverse rift with all the inevitability of taxes, gravity, or Macek
screwing up the edit. These were not the elite members of the Darkverse,
with their own peculiar coloration and funky clothing -- these were the
bland interchangeable minions of the Darkverse: gray, taloned, over-
endowed with muscles, and under-endowed with brains. For pure numerical
stopping power, they were unmatched. If someone was looking *very*
closely at the youma (but who'd want to?), they might notice an exception
to the multitudes of carbon-copies. Towards the back stood, er, staggered
a pale form, closely followed by two short wobbling figures.
The man known to the Do-Gooders as Maeda, leader of the Tokyo-area
Branch of the Legitimate Businessman's Club (to which all elite and
forward-thinking yakuza, humaniform demons, youma generals, and various
people devoted to the cause of Evil belonged), smiled darkly and stepped
aside as the youma surged forth. He satisfied the urge to engage in
villainous laughter with a small chuckle. Excess landed one in the same
category as that idiot --
"BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!"
-- Villyn. Maeda, or Supreme Dark General Esjie (as he was known to his
youma troops), squelched the urge to moan and hide his face in his hands.
The LAST thing he needed was this idiot.
"MY Miniature Legion of Minions will destroy the Do-Gooders and no other,
Maeda! I shall destroy the Do-Gooders, confiscate their demo tapes, rock to
their tunes, take over Tokyo, and then I shall RULE THE WORLD!!
MUA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!" Villyn boomed out, his naturally loud voice
enhanced by his armor's personal sound system. He held an armor-clad pinkie
to his mouth in typical overdone villain fashion as his laughter rang out,
giving everyone a terrible headache.
Esjie counted backwards from ten, slowly. "Look," he said eventually,
"why don't we leave this to the time-honored tradition of solving the
who-gets-to-kill-them question?"
"Eh?"
"Whichever of us gets their minions to the Do-Gooders first, wins."
"A-HAHAHAHAHAHAAA! My minions will demolish them utterly!!
MINIATURE LEGION OF FACELESS MINIONS, ATTACK!!"
Villyn's minions charged.
There was a brief moment of silence as the audience, the Do-Gooders, and
the youma scrutinized Villyn's legion. Then the laughter began in those
nearest the action, and spread slowly as those further back peered over
shoulders to see what the joke was.
Esjie/Maeda looked at the legion, then looked at Villyn expressionlessly.
Villyn coughed, and cleared his throat. A faint blush tinged his cheeks,
such as could be seen behind his armor. "They answered my ad by phone. I
thought it just meant that there weren't that many of them."
Fully a thousand Faceless Minions were charging across the park. They had
about fifty feet to go before they reached the Do-Gooders. As each of them
was only four inches tall, that was going to take some time.
A large sweat-drop appeared on the back Esjie's head. "Why do you even
bother?" He turned to his troops and waved a spotless handkerchief in the
band's direction. "YOUMA, DESTROY THE DO-GOODERS!"
"Hey, wait a minute!" Tejina, also known as Sailor Delight, shouted into
the microphone. "Aren't you guys supposed to attack one at a time? I thought
using groups was against your crummy Dumbverse traditions!"
The youma general chuckled lightly, flicking non-existent particles of dust
off of his tie. "That, my dear short-skirted Sailor, is the old way of doing
things. These days, the youma fight to win!"
"Amazing!" Everyone on stage glanced at the knee-level voice. Rover
looked delighted, as far as a German Shepherd's face can express delight,
anyway. "I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime! We may be seeing youma
evolution in progress!"
"I'm sure we're all overjoyed at the prospect," Tejina snapped.
Matsuro sighed in mild nausea and drew his sword from his abdomen, trying to
ignore the twelve miniature winged monkeys circling his head and singing the
theme song to Gilligan's Island. He swept the sword into a properly dramatic
angle, and hoped the hallucinations wouldn't get any worse today.
Kireiko grinned terrifyingly. The effect only increased after he laid his
jacket to the side and removed his ofuda-emblazoned T-shirt, causing his teeth to
turn to a multitude of sharp fangs. "'Let's Kick Ass!'"
"Anybody have a sneaky tactical idea to get us out of this alive?" Tejina
eyed the oncoming mass of youma with concern.
Becky removed a small object from a trenchcoat pocket, fiddled with it, then
threw it into the center mass of charging youma. *BOOM!* A short, sharp shower
of youma parts sprayed out. She rummaged in the coat again, this time retrieving a
Glock. "Kill 'em all. Let God sort it out," she suggested and opened fire.
Tejina sweat-dropped. "Is it just me, or is she getting worse?"
The youma surged onto the stage, over the bodies of some of their lead-poisoned
cohorts.
* * * * *
The audience was cheering wildly. So far, this had turned out to be even
better than the flyers had promised! The late breaking announcements HAD promised
'The Battle of the Century' to be staged by the Do-Gooders before they played, but
no one had expected this amount of realism in special effects. Those nearest the
action had thoughtfully been provided with clear plastic cloth to hold over their
heads, which was being put to good use as little chunks of dark youma flesh and
sprinkles of black blood splattered against the plastic. One section of the crowd
had taken to shouting "Ol�!" every time Matsuro hacked a youma in two with his
sword. A few junior high school girls were starting to get in an argument over
which was cuter, Bishounen Guy or the Wild One. Twice as many high school boys
were drooling over Sailor Delight, or more accurately, Sailor Delight's extremely
short skirt.
"AIIEEEE!!" A short, sharp scream attracted the spectators' attention.
Several gasped in horror, and many began to applaud. Some youma had been
unfortunate enough to destroy the Do-Gooders' amp, and the Wild One was expressing
his anger on their bone structure.
Meanwhile, Becky had run out of ammo, and was now down to performing hand-to-hand
combat with the Darkverse denizens. She had already removed her tie and strangled no
less than three youma with it, and was trying to ignore the voice in her mind that was
urging her to change into Sailor Rapture. Her headache was rapidly gaining migraine
status.
Keiko watched Matsuro chopping the youma soldiers into tiny bits, with the
mandatory girl-in-love soft-filter lens and a background of blooming roses, fluttering
petals, and sparklies. Admittedly, in Keiko's case the roses were black, the petals
were coated in blood, and the sparklies were emanating negative energy, but you get
the general idea.
"Wow. He's sooo handsome when he cuts those youma into --" she blinked. "Aagh,
all that Darkverse blood is going to waste!" She charged into the fray, swinging her
cleaver with abandon, and trying to catch the flying blood in her bucket. With every
splash of youma blood, the strange semi-sword-like cleaver became more over-decorated,
runic, and more sword-like, while retaining its inherent cleaver nature.
* * * * *
Matsuro was cutting down his twenty-second youma when the flying monkeys switched
from singing TV jingles to haunting operatic arias, interspersed with Latin chants. The
youma blurred together and shifted into an endless tidal wave of pink liquid faces that
dribbled yellow mucus. His mother burst forth from the ground before him in a spray of
blood and effluvium.
"Not now, Mom! I'm busy!"
"Matsuro... you must go to Tokyo." Today his mother was tied to a stake, with her
hair on fire. It made a nice change from the usual wires and I-beams. Anthropomorphic
buffalo waltzed with astronauts in concentric circles around her.
Matsuro sighed, and cut down what he hoped was another youma. "We've been over this
before. I'm IN Tokyo, I've JOINED the band, I've GOT the Sword of Duality, you STILL
haven't told me what my destiny is, and you never got back to me about the Icon of
Rapturous Delight like you said you would. If you don't have anything useful to say, I'd
like to get back to killing the youma before I become the band's first statistic."
His mother blinked as bits of flesh sloughed off her. "Well, I suppose I could tell
you your ultimate destiny and what will come on the promised day."
He looked at her suspiciously. "Really? You're not just saying that to make me sit
here for an hour just so you can vanish again, are you?" He chopped blindly ahead of him,
his sword guiding his hands. The buffaloes and the astronauts switched to the tango, as
the monkeys began to sing music from 'Carmen.'
"You must listen closely, Matsuro! This is against the rules, so I can only tell you once."
"Go ahead, Mom, I'm listening."
"..."
"What?" Matsuro gazed intently at his mother. Her lips were moving, but no sound seemed
to be coming out. "Speak up, Mom, I can't hear you! Tell me my destiny already!"
"...beware the..."
"What?!" With a groan, he realized he couldn't even hear the monkeys singing anymore.
His head felt stuffed up, too, almost as though some sort of pressure was building up within
his skull. He shook his head violently. The tension in his skull seemed to increase.
His mother sank back into the ground, leaving a densely coiled fog in its place. After a
moment, the fog coalesced into a large, angry bishop who strode purposefully in Matsuro's
direction. The bishop clouted him on the side of his head. Several objects fell to the
ground, and the pressure dropped away. The monkeys began a chorus of Willie Nelson's greatest
hits. The bishop shouted, "DON'T PUT BEEF TARTS IN YOUR EARS," and was sucked into his hat,
which flew off with the monkeys. The distorted pink faces reformed into the much more
reassuring forms of youma out for his blood. Matsuro gratefully decapitated several of them.
"Sugoi! Your mother is such an interesting lady, Matsuro-kun."
Matsuro glanced around, and nearly sliced his own foot off. It was that Keiko girl, but
she seemed... different. He'd swear that there was, well, more of her filling out that leather
outfit than there had been the other day. Somehow, she just looked cooler. Maybe it was
because she was wielding that huge cleaver so gracefully, he mused. "You think so?"
"Oh, yes. That destiny of yours is amazing! I wonder how she knew it..."
Again Matsuro nearly needed to add a peg-leg to his shopping list. "You heard her?"
"Oh, that's right. You had those pastries in your ears. Lucky you. The monkeys were *awful*."
* * * * *
"So much for business here today." Damu, youma bartender of the Dark-and-Drab bar of the
Darkverse, shook his head sadly and chewed on his unlit cigar. "And to think I closed the bar for
the first time in five millennia to hit this gig." His rather ugly, yet mostly human-looking face
looked grim as he spat a piece of cigar in the direction of the battle.
"I thought this always happened whenever youma tried to invade Earth, uncle," his assistant
piped up. He adjusted his thick square-framed glasses.
"Shut up and smear the counter, Ramu. And call me boss, or I'll send you back to your mother."
"Right away, boss!"
"Ekschush me, ish thish the booth of the Drab-and-Dark bar?"
Damu blinked. The counter appeared to be addressing him.
"No, no, no, idiot. 'S the Dark'n'DRAB bar!"
The bartender chewed his cigar again and leaned cautiously over the bar. Two flushed, bearded
faces peered at him with alcoholic myopia.
"'Snot a bar, 'sa BOOTH!" The one on the left began to fall over.
"Don' care, long as it's got drinks. If I don't get a drink soon, I'm gonna start feeling
the hangover. An' THAT'S not gonna be pretty. Drink, barkeep!" The dwarf burped quietly
into his beard, swaying next to his listing companion.
"No cash, no credit, no drink. You got money?" Damu spat another chewed section of cigar to
the side.
*CLINK!* A pile of gold coins plunked down onto the counter. A startlingly tall man, paler
than a fish's belly and looking as though his entire family had just died, leaned against the
smeary counter. "Wormwood, hold the organs, and a stein of the Darkverse's Best BlackBlood Brew."
With a faint mournful look, he slid down until his face was flat against the counter. "'N ask them
what *they* want, too," he added dolefully.
"Brew." The dwarves chorused.
Damu nodded at his nephew to get the Brew, while he broke out the protective gear to handle
the Wormwood. Ramu set three large steins of what closely resembled bubbling tar on the counter.
"Rare stuff, this," the young youma chirped. "Made from the heart's blood of a DarkBeast of the
Darkverse, and mulled within a cauldron inscribed with the sigils of Power. It gives strength,
health, and endurance, and even cures hangovers, if it doesn't blow the top of your skull off
first, why --"
"Shut up, Ramu."
"Yes, boss."
The bartender carefully carried the small vial of green glutinous and fizzing liquid to the
pale man. The albino nodded sadly, unsheathed an inch of his sword and poured the drink in. A
grisly sucking sound emanated from within the sheathe. "It's thirsty again," he informed them
dismally.
The dwarves hastily buried their faces in the tankards.
* * * * *
The immense throne room of the Darkverse seemed even more tremendous than usual without the
throngs of toadying youma dancing attendance on their cold-blooded Queen. Most of them had put
in requests to stay home and watch the magical broadcast of the youma army in action. It was
the first event in a decade to be shown without being accompanied by pie-charts, line-graphs,
and projections for the coming year. The Queen of the Darkverse had magnanimously let them all
go and watch it. There were things she wished to do without a multitude of witnesses today.
She swore in an unQueenly manner and banged a fist on the crystal ball attachment of her
throne. None of the other Dark Queens ever have any problem with these things, she thought
darkly. Nothing ever works right here.
She made a few mystical passes over the cloudy crystal, then stuck out her tongue at it.
After a few moments, a picture formed of some youma attacking five girls in short skirts.
She thumped it again. "That's not any of mine, you stupid thing!" It flickered, and tuned
into what appeared to be Suzuhara Park, if one judged by the sheer amount of youma running
around it. The Queen beamed at it.
The vertical hold went out.
The Queen glared at the crystal for a long moment, then spoke thusly: "Dark General
Malaise, appear before me!"
A burst of ticker-tape exploded out of the air, closely followed by what appeared to be
a normal, if slightly androgynous, human. Dark General Malaise dropped her (or was it his?)
pizza and can of Dark Brew Lite and saluted. "Yes, my Queen?"
"Malaise, are you familiar with my dark crystal that can plumb the depths of mystery
and call forth the powers of darkest evil? Indeed, the very crystal which I can use to
see and know all that my enemies and subordinates do?"
Panic covered Malaise's face. "I didn't do anything! And I never believed Sohkoh
when he said that about you!"
"What are you talking about?" The Queen looked at her Dark General blankly. "I just
wanted to know if you could fix it."
"..." Malaise paused, then laughed weakly. "Of.. course, Your Supreme Dark Majesty.
Just my little joke. Eheh." He (or was it she?) fiddled nervously with some of the dials
on Pillar of Attachment. The signal cleared.
"Very good, Malaise. Clean up your food and ticker-tape on the way out and kill Sohkoh
after you leave."
"At once, my Queen!" Malaise blasted the remnants of its entrance and meal into fine ash,
and teleported away. Another shower of ticker-tape rained down.
The Queen of the Darkverse sighed in resignation and turned her attention to her crystal.
Sometimes she wondered if she wouldn't be better off if she forced some of her minions to
work on the opposite side. At the very least, they'd screw up someone else's day for a change.
* * * * *
"They're going to get creamed if this keeps up," Aki muttered. She stood on tip-toe to
peer over a taller member of the cheering audience. "Well, at least most of Dad's Idiot
Legion has been trampled."
"You must transform into Sailor Joy! They'll be killed if you don't help!" Charles, her
self-proclaimed Official Sailor Magical Companion Canary, was starting to look upset enough to
spontaneously molt.
"Look, they're doing fine. They've already taken out about a fourth of them, and that weird
Keiko girl is hacking her way over to join them." Aki paused and peered at the melee again.
"What *is* that thing she's using, anyway? It looks like a giant can-opener! Really, that's -- "
Aki paused. The day suddenly seemed a lot darker, as though the sun had passed behind an especially
thick cloud, or as if someone very tall was standing right behind her...
Aki spun around. Well, neither guess had been exactly right. He wasn't tall, he was just
floating several feet off the ground. "Let me guess. He's possessed by some horrible evil beyond
the ken of mankind," she murmured to Charles.
"Aha! *That* is your mystical Sailor Sense in action! You must transform into Sailor Joy
and defeat him!"
"Actually, it's the way he's floating in mid-air with his eyes glowing bright red and the weird
black light effects that are radiating from his hands. And shut up about the Sailor Joy thing, or
you're Meow Mix."
The shell of what was once human hung midair, clothed in the stained remains of what looked like
a cheap robe, pulled over rather a more ordinary T-shirt and jeans. The creature quivered from the
shoulders down, and began to speak in an eerie, warbling voice. "pUNy MOrTAlS, wITneSs THe pOwER oF
HELlo cTHuLu!!" It gestured left-handedly, blowing open a section of the street near a sewer grate
with a bolt of dark power.
The entirety of what was once the Cult of Cthulu (local #39924-91) burst forth into the daylight.
>From their slimy little tentacles to their overalls with the oversized buttons to their red and white
striped shirts, they were the epitome of evil brought to life. Fifty abominations against nature
smiled cutely in unison and marched forth to the opening refrain of the Happy Cthulu Joy Joy Fun Song.
"Well, *that's* torn it," Charles chirped. "Even if you do transform now, we're far too
outnumbered to do anything about it. I guess we'll all just die horrible deaths, and the youma and
Hello Cthulu will destroy the Earth in their Apocalyptic Battle and --"
"Do you *ever* shut up?!" Aki stared at the oncoming wave of nauseatingly adorable living symbols
of evil. It looked as though she might have to wear the dreaded fuku after all.
* * * * *
To Be Continued...
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For those familiar with Do-Gooders, I'm saving the shouted questions for the actual submission. ^_~
"We now end your elf broadcast day. Ding!"
Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com