For the first time in her life, Hello Kitty was pissed.
Not just upset, or even angry, but pissed. As she looked up at the
glass and steel tower that was the Sanrio Corporation headquarters, she
knew that her moment of retribution had come. It was time for the suits
to pay the piper...
_______________________________________________________________________
J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:
THE DAY SANRIO DIED
A Hello Kitty fanfiction
By J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Fission Park Press
wildeman@psn.net
Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters are the creation and property of
Sanrio Japan, Ltd. Other characters (whom I won't name just yet for fear
of ruining the surprises) are the property of their respective owners.
This is a work of parody, no defamation or copyright infringement is
intended.
So there! pbbbfbfbftftffttt!!!
________________________________________________________________________
Chapter One:
The Price of Disobediance.
Hello Kitty was a nervous kitten. She hated walking by Pekkles the
duck anymore. The word from higher up said that he had suffered a nervous
breakdown, and was on heavy medication. Hello Kitty believed it. He
certainly looked drugged out of his mind.
The duck drooled absently in a chair, watching one of his TV
specials. Except that he didn't act in this one. A computer generated
image of Pekkles, along with digital speech synthesis, provided the show.
The audience wasn't the type to realize or care that the parts with
his girlfriend Ruby and the bully Carl, as well as the rest of the cast,
were spliced in from old footage. They also didn't seem to realize or care
that the faux Pekkles on their screens was anything less than he seemed.
Pekkles didn't seem to know or care one way or the other himself.
Hello Kitty wasn't entirely nervous about walking past Pekkles.
It was the large manilla envelope that she held in her snow white little
paw that bothered her. It looked like a reprimand notice. She'd never
received one before, but she'd seen Badzt Maru receive enough of them.
She was fairly certain of the reason for her reprimand. The last
few years had seen a major shift in policy for Sanrio. Characters were
expected to do more than star in TV shows or model for manga or the
latest merchandise. They were now demanding that they do voice acting
for anime.
Her first big gig was a bit of a shock, but she ended up having
fun with it. She played a guy who turned into a girl when she got wet.
It was a cute idea, except that she had to act like a boy, and talk like
a boy, and a most rude boy at that. It was definitely most un-Hello Kitty
like.
The trouble was, that was all she could get for parts. She was in
Video Girl Ai next, and DNA^2 after that. She kept playing rude girls.
It was nerveracking! But it got worse. The films' content started becoming
more and more questionable.
"Final Irresponsible Orange Bishoujo Overfiend Legend Six and
One-Half" was the last straw. She walked right out of the studio.
Imagine! Hello Kitty voice acting in a tentacle flick?! As the demon?!
Marron Creme caught her attention with a deft flick of her bunny
ears. Hello Kitty walked over and said good morning. Marron Creme saw
the manilla envelope and gave her a grave look.
"You must be careful, child," she whispered.
Hello Kitty wasn't prepared for this.
"Why?" she asked in reply.
"I heard about what you did at the studio yesterday. The Board
caught wind of it too after the studio president telephoned. They
aren't happy with you right now."
Hello Kitty was not a vain person. She didn't have an egotistical
bone in her body. Nevertheless, she was all too aware that she was the
Company's darling. What could they ever do to her? A reprimand was one
thing, but the way Marron Creme was speaking, it was sounding far worse.
"Why would they do something bad to me?" Hello Kitty asked.
Marron Creme looked around to make certain that no one would
overhear them.
"Did you see Pekkles today?"
Hello Kitty nodded.
"Pekkles was causing trouble for the company. He kept demanding
more air time for Ruby and a relaxed shooting schedule. After they
wouldn't give it to him, he walked out on an endorsement deal that cost
the company about fifteen billion yen a year."
This was certainly news to Hello Kitty, who politely avoided
gossip whenever possible. Marron Creme continued after another furtive
glance about the room.
"He was too popular to get rid of, and he knew it. He rubbed their
noses in it. So they found a way to replace him."
"You mean the computer graphics 'Virtual Pekkles?'" Hello Kitty
cried softly.
Marron Creme nodded. "Except that you'll note that they never ever
say he's a virtual Pekkles. They keep playing it off as if he's really
doing the show every week."
"What about his breakdown?" Hello Kitty asked, unsure if she really
wanted to hear the answer.
"They took him to Studio Eighteen," Marron Creme said so softly
that Hello Kitty had to strain to hear. "Only there aren't any cameras
or microphones in there."
She leaned in closer to Hello Kitty. "They lobotomized him," she
hissed. "And made up the story about a nervous breakdown to keep
public appearances to a minimum until they can get him conditioned
enough to show up every once in awhile."
Hello Kitty was aghast. Even if the story couldn't possibly be
true, it was still terrible to think about.
"You don't believe me?" Marron Creme asked. "You go check out
Studio Eighteen yourself. Only be careful, child. You might be next.
Those jackals on the board only care about the bottom line, and if
someone comes between them and their profit margin -even someone
like Hello Kitty- well, that someone is going to be eliminated..."
Chapter Two:
Betrayal
Hello Kitty walked quickly away with Marron Creme's admonition
still echoing in her ears. Lobotomize Pekkles? It seemed so absurd.
Or did it?
Sanrio had changed a great deal in the many years that Hello
Kitty had worked for them. They used to be a close family of a
company, and Hello Kitty could remember a time when she knew even the
lowliest mail clerk by name. Times had changed. Sanrio expanded
their markets overseas, profits rolled in. More characters joined
the family. Some of them also found themselves retired.
She had never thought about it before. It had never seemed
important. Characters just disappeared. She couldn't remember the
last time she saw Strawberry.
More and more she thought about the characters that came and went.
It seemed like in the last five years, characters whose popularity
dipped went away. New characters came in, and those that became hits
were lavished in wealth and status. She had really never cared before,
as she was always a favorite. She couldn't imagine a Sanrio without
Hello Kitty.
One of the new rising stars, Kero-Kero-Keroppi, bounced up
with a buggy-eyed grin. He was hot stuff in marketing; the warehouses
just couldn't keep up with demand for his merchandise. If Hello
Kitty were the gossiping type, she would have heard many tongues
a'wagging about how the frog would surpass Hello Kitty in lifetime sales.
"Hey, Hello Kitty!" Kero-Kero-Keroppi said cheerfully.
"Hello Kero-Kero-Keroppi," Hello Kitty replied. Somehow she didn't
seem as cheerful as she usually did.
"Did you hear about my third quarter sales record?" he croaked.
"I even topped you!"
"That's nice," Hello Kitty replied. Her heart wasn't in it.
"Say, is that what I think it is?" Kero-Kero-Keroppi asked,
pointing to the manilla envelope.
"I don't know, what do you think it is?" Hello Kitty asked.
Kero-Kero-Keroppi grinned. "If you ask me, I would have stuck out
the assignment. It's just a little voice acting," he replied.
"Well I didn't ask you," Hello Kitty sniffed.
"Hey, take it easy, Hello Kitty. No need to get excited about it.
Just remember that if you play ball, good things happen to you. If not..."
He left his statement hanging.
"If not...?" Hello Kitty prompted.
"Well, maybe you wouldn't be all that happy with the results. I
gotta go, Hello Kitty. How about we get together for an ice cream later,
my treat!"
Hello Kitty smiled. That was more like the Kero-Kero-Keroppi she
knew. "Okay."
Kero-Kero-Keroppi hopped away, leaving Hello Kitty feeling uneasy
in spite of the promise of ice cream to come.
* * *
Hello Kitty opened the envelope in her dressing room. Inside was
a single piece of paper on corporate letterhead. It directed her to
report to Studio Eighteen for a special project. All other projects
were considered secondary to the Studio Eighteen project.
Her blood ran cold. Studio Eighteen! Marron Creme's warning came
back to her again, as did visions of Pekkles the duck drooling in his
chair, and Kero-Kero-Keroppi's cryptic warning about not playing by the
company's rules.
In burst of clarity uncommon for her, she realized that everything
Marron Creme had told her was true. Pekkles had been replaced easily
enough, so how hard could it be to replace Hello Kitty? How hard indeed?
She couldn't remember the last time she had put in a public appearance.
She was too busy doing product modeling and voice acting.
Providing voice and image samples...
Hello Kitty's heart skipped a beat at this realization.
They were going to get rid of her. The same way they got rid of
Pekkles. Images of her drooling in a chair next to him filled her mind.
Thoughts of fleeing Sanrio quickly came to mind as well. She had
the money, she had the means. Just get on a flight out of Japan and
disappear for awhile.
If she were to simply run away, they could proceed with their plans
to replace her with a computer generated image. As for public appearances,
didn't those fools in America already get away with humans dressed up in
oversized costumes resembling their favorite stars? It could just as
easily happen here in Japan.
There was a down side to running away. What if Sanrio worried that
she would expose them? It made the most sense to ensure that Hello Kitty
disappeared for good. After what they did to Pekkles, she knew they
would kill her if they thought it was necessary.
Hello Kitty realized that there was only one way to resolve this
messy issue: an explosive orgy of mindless violence punctuated by a
few snappy one-liners.
She thought of Kero-Kero-Keroppi's meteoric rise in the Sanrio
heirarchy. Kero-Kero-Keroppi 'played ball.' He did what he was told, no
matter how degrading, and now he was poised to depose her. When she
was gone, what would be left of the Sanrio she had once loved?
Hello Kitty scowled, the first time in her life that such an
expression ever crossed her face.
"Sonuvabitch must pay..."
Chapter Three:
Ways and Means
Badzt Maru was a rather punkish looking penguin who spent most of
his time on the fringe of acceptance by corporate Sanrio. He was a
prankster, a troublemaker, and as he was often found of bragging, he
wore a belt buckle emblazoned with the legend "Bad Apple."
He was also, according to rumors that Hello Kitty had often tried
to ignore in the past, a trader in questionable goods.
Badzt Maru had never taken a liking to Hello Kitty. To him, she
represented all the things he truly despised about Sanrio. So when the
very Franchise herself showed up at the door of his run down flat near
the bay, he wasn't sure what to make of it.
"May I come in, please?" Hello Kitty asked demurely through the
cracked open door.
In spite of himself, Badzt Maru let her in. She *was* awful cute
when you came right down to it.
"What can I do for my favorite pussy?" he asked archly. Hello Kitty
didn't take the bait. Instead she replied with:
"I need a gun."
Badzt Maru's beak dropped open for a moment, and his wild array of
top feathers drooped. A large bead of sweat appeared on his brow. He
shook his head a few times, and tried to regain his cool. He didn't
succeed.
"A wh-what?" he asked.
"A gun," Hello Kitty repeated. "A firearm. A rod. A piece. A hand
cannon. A--"
"--I get the point," Badzt Maru interjected. "Don't you know that
guns are *illegal* in Japan?"
Hello Kitty reached up and grabbed Badzt Maru's neck, pulling his
face close to hers. Badzt Maru had often thought the kitten was a bit
vacuous looking, but at the moment he could clearly see the fires burning
within her deep black eyes.
"I don't give a flying FUCK about that, Maru. Are you going to get
me a gun or not?"
"Fine! Fine!" Badzt Maru squawked. "I'll see what I can do."
He disengaged himself from Hello Kitty's grasp and stepped back
to catch his breath. He told himself that this entire situation was
wrong, that Hello Kitty did *not* grab him by the neck and use the
'F-Word' and was absolutely positively *not* asking him for a gun.
**No,** he thought to himself. **This is all just a bad dream. I gotta
lay off the cheap sake...**
"Are you going to get me a gun or not?!" Hello Kitty demanded.
Badzt Maru slapped his face a few times and decided that all of
this really was happening.
"Yeah, yeah, just a moment."
He stepped into his kitchen, where several weeks worth of unwashed
dishes teetered precariously in his sink, and where old smelly cartons
of takeout food vied with empty Sapporo cans for possession of the
available floor space. He reached under the sink and pulled out an old
cigar box, handing it to Hello Kitty.
"Open it," he told her.
Hello Kitty did so. Inside the box was a tiny Chinese made .22 caliber
revolver with a bad job of nickel plating.
"What the hell is this?!" Hello Kitty cried.
"It's a gun," Badzt Maru shot back. "You said you wanted a gun. I'll
give you a great deal on it too."
Hello Kitty threw the box down.
"Maybe you didn't understand, Badzt Maru. I don't want a cheap little
pop gun... I want HARDWARE!!!"
Badzt Maru looked down to the box, and then back to Hello Kitty,
and sighed.
"Okay, kid. Have it your way."
* * *
Hello Kitty was shown to Badzt Maru's private warehouse on the docks.
The penguin paid good money to the Yakuza to keep the place secure, and
that included the healthy bribes to the police to look the other way.
The place was deserted when they stepped inside.
"Now what is it you had in mind, exactly?" Badzt Maru asked.
"Just let me browse for awhile," Hello Kitty replied.
Badzt Maru nodded. "Okay. Fair enough. You wanna tell me why you need
heavy artillery while you 'browse'?"
Hello Kitty's eyes darkened as they perused racks of Belgian FN-FALs
and German G-3s. A French FA-MAS caught her gaze for a moment, but she
dismissed it as being too stylish to be effective.
"Sanrio's decided to 'retire' me..." she said quietly.
Badzt Maru's eyes widened. "What, are they smoking *crack* or
something?!" he cried. "You're the flagship of the whole goddamned
company! You're the *Franchise,* for Buddha's sake!"
Hello Kitty nodded. "But they don't need *me* anymore... Did you ever
hear about Pekkles?"
Badzt Maru's face darkened in thought. "Rumors mostly," he replied.
"Nothing good, that's for damned sure."
"They lobotomized him," Hello Kitty said evenly. "But his show is
still on at night, and the manga keeps going. How? They've got a Computer
Graphics Team that *replaced* him. They just keep him around for public
appearances, drugged out of what little mind he has left. It's worse than
Mohammed Ali doing Pizza Hut commercials... Ghastly..."
"You're kidding me," Badzt Maru replied, knowing that she wasn't.
"And now they want to replace *me*," Hello Kitty said softly. "Because
I won't play ball with the company anymore."
Badzt Maru nodded. "So you're gonna make a run for it?"
Hello Kitty shook her head.
"No. If I run now they'll try to kill me for certain. It would be
too dangerous to let me go: I could expose them."
The penguin cocked his head at her.
"So what is it you're planning on doing?"
Hello Kitty looked at him for a moment. The penguin found her burning
gaze impossible to meet for long.
"I'm going to take them out first."
* * *
Hello Kitty rummaged through the machine guns as Badzt Maru consulted
his notes and ticked off her choices. She picked up an M-60A3, looked at it
for a moment, and then tossed it aside.
"Don't you have anything bigger than this?"
Badzt Maru looked around. "I've got a Browning fifty cal lying around
somewhere."
"Bigger," Hello Kitty demanded. Her eyes caught a large steel shipping
crate with the logo of General Electric stenciled upon it. "Hey, what's
in that box?"
Badzt Maru's eyes bugged out of their sockets.
"Oh no, not *that* one!"
"Oh, but why not?" Hello Kitty begged.
She walked over to the crate and opened the lid. Her eyes glazed over
with big pink hearts.
"Ooooooo!" she squealed in delight.
"Oh fer chrissakes, not that thing!" Badzt Maru pleaded.
Hello Kitty would have none of that. She reached into the box and
removed the manufacturer's technical manual.
"The General Electric M-261E1 5.56mm six-barreled electric
minigun..." she read aloud.
"Absolutely not!" Badzt Maru cried.
"Why not?" Hello Kitty protested.
"You couldn't even *lift* the thing!"
Hello Kitty looked down into the crate.
"Yes I could," she replied.
"What are you smoking?! That thing has to be three times bigger than
you!"
"Oh, but I *could* lift it," she said. "For I--"
She reached into the crate. With a grunt of exertion, she withdrew
the heavy gatling gun and brandished it at port arms. Badzt Maru was
correct; the weapon was easily three times bigger than Hello Kitty.
"--have the strength of madness!!!" she declared proudly.
Badzt Maru wiped away the large sweatdrop from his brow.
"I'll put it on your tab..."
Hello Kitty finished selecting her arsenal and prepared for battle.
Her bright red coveralls were gone, replaced by heavy black motorcycle
leather with bright steel studs and dangling chains. Steel toed and soled
combat boots took up where little red sneakers had gone before. Black
fingerless gloves with three ounces of powdered lead sewn into the knuckles
felt heavy and powerful on her hands. A black streak of greasepaint lay
under each eye, and a pair of Gargoyles lay across the bridge of her nose.
A camouflage pattern bandanna was tied into a sweatband over her brow.
She pushed the sunglasses into position as she looked in a full length
mirror and scowled at herself.
She looked up at the top of her head. The red ribbon bow was still
there. She had been wearing it for so long that she had forgotten about it.
With a curse she ripped it off her head and threw it down on the cement
floor. Gathering up her duffle bag, she stepped on it on her way out of
the warehouse. No matter what happened, that part of her life was over
forever.
Chapter Four:
Payback
The Sanrio Company's primary inventory clearing house was a large
warehouse on the edge of the Sanrio Compound. From the huge building
finished products were shipped to their various destinations in Japan,
or trucked to the harbor for shipment to the Americas and Europe. All
of Sanrio's products moved through this warehouse.
So logically, this was the place to hit them.
The dock workers and lift drivers didn't notice the heavy OD green
duffle bag land on the middle of the platform deck at first, but the
sight of a little white kitten holding an enormous gatling gun quickly
garnered their attention. The hectic bustle of emn and machines came to
an abrupt halt.
Hello Kitty kicked at the duffle bag, knocking it across the
concrete floor to reveal about twenty thousand rounds of 5.56mm gatling
gun ammunition painstakingly belted together by Badzt Maru. The dock
workers could clearly see that this serpentine mass of brass and copper
jacketed lead snaked right into the dual feed ports of the GE minigun.
"I'm going to give you guys three seconds to get out of here!"
she cried at the top of her lungs. The dock workers looked at each other,
at their supervisors, and then the exits.
"THREE!!!"
She rocked back the bolts, chambering rounds into gatling gun.
"TWO!!!"
A flick of her wrist started the electric motor, powered by the
battery pack on her back. The high pitched whine galvanized most of
the dock workers into immediate retreat.
"ONE!!!"
Another flick of her wrist started the barrels of the gatling gun
rotating. At this point, the slow witted remainder got the picture and
started to run.
"KICK ASS!!!"
Hello Kitty engaged the feed lever, and all hell broke loose.
The gatling gun roared with a sound like a giant carpet being
ripped apart. A tongue of flame four feet long rolled from the muzzles
of the gun barrels. Spent brass flowed like a river to either side of
Hello Kitty as she unleashed the whirlwind on the warehouse.
Bullets ripped apart shipping crates. Bullets smashed into forklifts.
Bullets shattered windows and tore open walls. Whole shelving units
twelve feet high and a hundred feet long exploded into scraps of ruined
steel, paper, plastic bits, and paint chips. The screams of terror from
the fleeing dock workers were drown out by the roar of the gatling, the
rending of steel, and the exploding propane tanks of the forklifts.
Somehow above it all the voice of Hello Kitty carried above the insanity.
"Get some! Get some! Getsome-getsome-getsome-GET SOME!!!"
Hello Kitty walked down the aisles, hosing fusilade after fusilade
into the shelves. Fires raged all about her, the sprinkler system was
useless after being utterly destroyed by gatling rounds. Through it all
Hello Kitty walked as an Angel of Destruction.
She couldn't stop the gatling gun even if she wanted to -which she
didn't. The rush of power she felt was too much for her to control, and
all around her the products of Sanrio burned. She continued her mindless
destruction until at last her ammunition ran dry.
The barrels of the gatling gun were red hot as she discarded the
heavy weapon. It would never fire again, but it had served her well.
The warehouse, all hundred thousand square feet of it, was utterly
destroyed.
Even then, Hello Kitty wasn't satisfied. Bullets could only do so
much to paper, and so she produced a flamethrower and began torching
all 27 varieties of Hello Kitty notepads, notebooks, organizers, sticky
papers, temporary tattoos, puffy stickers, keychains and assorted
stationary. Purses burned, as did the entire line of clothing items.
The napalm streams consumed the remains of thousands of CD-ROM games
and torched a million stuffed Sanrio character dolls. Nothing was spared.
It still wasn't enough, even though there was nothing left. At
the warehouse at least. There was still Studio Eighteen. And then,
Sanrio Corporate Headquarters.
* * *
Token resistance was brought forth in the form of rent-a-cops.
Hello Kitty capped off a few quick bursts from her Tommygun over their
heads and sent them packing. No need to kill a bunch of useless unarmed
security guards.
Studio Eighteen was another matter.
She didn't know where Sanrio found these guys, but they were
Bad News. It took all of her agility and hatred fueled fury (plus a can
of cheez-whiz, a jello mold, some tygon tubing, and a spork) to finish
the last one off. She reminded herself that the next time she ran into
a bunch of muscle bound martial arts types, she'd shoot first and compare
Schools later.
Once past the electrified door she saw the table where Pekkles had
lost his mind. Surgical instruments gleamed in the light. Her eyes were
drawn to the heavy leather thongs and shackles that once held him down.
The power tools that bored through his consciousness and turned him
into a drooling zombie sat ready for use next to the table.
Curious as always, Hello Kitty thumbed through a chart sitting
next to the tools. She was only half surprised to see a photograph of
herself clipped to the manilla folder. There were others. Badzt Maru.
Pochacco. Pippo. The Twinstars. There were others, but Hello Kitty
didn't want to go on.
Some of them were trouble makers. Badzt Maru was easy to peg in
that category. Some were too dangerous to let go, like herself. The
rest? She had no sure answers, but it seemed like Sanrio was getting
ready to do a major slash and burn on their overhead. All the more
reason to bring them down.
She lobbed a few primed thermite grenades into the room and slammed
the door shut. The grenades exploded into flames far too hot for a measly
sprinkler system to put out. On the contrary, the thermite received a
helping hand from the atomized water droplets in the form of readily
available oxygen. She started walking towards the Sanrio Headquarters
building at the end of the road, oblivious to the fact that Pekkles the
Duck was in a side room. He drooled helplessly as the flames rushed
through the thin hollow core door and into his room. A single tear
fell from his eye as the entire room was engulfed in flashover, a tear
of joyful release.
Chapter Five:
Endgame
Ryu Kyosuke sat outside the building with his Sanrio lunchbox,
waiting for the school bus to come. He considered himself fortunate
to live so close to the place where all his favorite TV and manga
characters lived. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of one as he
went to and from the bus stop. Such things were magic to a third
grader.
He started to look up as Hello Kitty walked by, Tommygun in her
little white paws. Then he turned away. It couldn't be Hello Kitty.
In black leather, reeking of napalm and gunsmoke, and carrying a
submachinegun? Could it?
He decided to find out.
"Hello Kitty?" he cried. "Good morning! I'm your biggest fan!"
Reflex almost took over for Hello Kitty. She checked herself
from smiling her inane little smile in return. She was on a mission.
"Get out of here, kid!" she snarled instead at him. "Before you
get hurt!"
Ryu gave her a bewildered look.
"You're not Hello Kitty! You're mean and nasty and rude!"
He promptly dropped his lunchbox and ran away crying.
Hello Kitty choked back a sob.
"No, I'm not Hello Kitty. Not anymore..."
A quick burst sent the front lobby guards scurrying. They were
armed, expecting her arrival, but they weren't trained soldiers, and they
certainly weren't getting paid enough to die at the hands of a formerly
lovable little white kitten. She made her way to the elevator and punched
in the button for the penthouse. She discarded the now dry Tommygun and
hummed sweetly to herself as the elevator carried her to the top of
the Sanrio building.
The elevator doors slid open to reveal a long wood panelled hallway.
There was a single set of large double doors at the end of the hall.
There was also a large man standing outside the door, looking intently
at Hello Kitty.
Hello Kitty walked leisurely down the hall towards the man, who
continued to follow her every move. She stopped several yards short of
him, when he drew an HK USP automatic pistol and levelled it at her.
"That's as far as you come, Hello Kitty," the man said in a
threatening tone.
Hello Kitty gazed up at him with her little coal-black eyes.
"I'm going through," she said flatly.
The man thumbed the hammer back on his pistol.
"I don't think so."
Hello Kitty took a step forward.
The man fired.
The bullet smashed into the parquet floor as Hello Kitty leaped at
the man -chainsaw buzzing angrily in her hand. The chainsaw screamed as
it dashed across the man's face -drawing a shower of golden sparks and
acrid wisps of smoke.
Hello Kitty somersaulted away from him as he lashed blindly with
his fists.
"Boomer?!" Hello Kitty cried in disbelief. She'd heard rumors, but...
The man grinned as best as his disfigured face could, and then
shucked his organic sheath with a laugh, growing to almost seven feet
tall. The grinning death's head metallic skull gleamed in the fluorescent
lighting.
"Now you're mine, Hello Kitty!" he cackled. Two viciously serrated
blades extended along his forearms.
Hello Kitty was unimpressed.
"Say hello to my leetle frien'..."
Whereupon she produced a Panzerfaust VII anti-tank missile launcher
and fired.
The explosion blew the double oak doors of the boardroom off their
hinges and sent billowing clouds of black smoke into the chamber. Men
in suits ducked reflexively after the fact as the patter of little metal
bits rained steadily outside. After a few moments they looked up to see
what had happened.
They could see nothing but the blackened ruins of the doorway, for
Hello Kitty was too small to be seen against the expanse of the walnut
boardroom table.
Hello Kitty leaped up onto the end of the table to face her oppressors.
It was worse than she could possibly imagine. Far worse.
The dreaded Quincy of the GENOM corporation stood at the head of the
table. My Melody stood clutching his arm like some gangster's moll. Her
little rabbit eyes were alight with terror. To their right was Bill the
Gates of Microsoft. Other notable personages were "Chainsaw" Al Sharpton,
Charles Keating -obviously flouting the U.S. Federal Court restraining
order that was to keep him in the United States, Donald Trump, William
Shatner, the ghost of Josef Stalin, Tuun-La: Not of This World, and
-worst of all- Rumiko Takahashi.
The sight of Rumiko almost drove Hello Kitty to tears, but she
steeled herself, and brandished a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun.
No sooner did she jack a shell into the chamber with a jerk of her
wrist than several dozen Boomers, suits of K-12 powered armor, a MADOX-01
suit, three Omni Consumer Products' ED-209s, and the Decepticon known as
Galvatron did appear. All leveled their weapons at her, and waited for
the signal to attack.
Hello Kitty regarded the various faces of the Sanrio Board of
Directors with disgust.
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass," she said to them.
She spat a wad of bright pink bubblegum on the table. "And I'm all out of
bubblegum..."
Several members of the Board -most notably Gates- cowered in their
chairs expecting the end. Chairman Quincy on the other hand stood and looked
deeply into Hello Kitty's eyes.
"Don't do anything you might regret, Hello Kitty. I'm still willing to
overlook your little tantrum in light of your long and profitable service
to the Sanrio Corporation. I'm still willing to bring you back into the
Sanrio family..."
Hello Kitty paused. *Family...* She needed that word to have meaning
for her again. The shotgun wavered in her little white paws.
"Hello Kitty!" a voice cried.
Hello Kitty's eyes widened as Kero-Kero-Keroppi appeared, leaping
up on the table near Quincy to face her. Hello Kitty brought up the
shotgun to bear on the frog.
"Don't do it," Kero-Kero-Keroppi said softly. "I'm your friend,
remember?"
Hello Kitty's eyes began to dew. The shotgun wavered again.
"I know you've been under a lot of stress lately," Kero-Kero-Keroppi
continued. "But it's okay. We all have our bad days."
Hello Kitty nodded, a tear beginning to well.
"I know you think the company's bad. But it's not true. We want to
help you. *I* want to help you, Hello Kitty."
The little white cat shuddered with a sob. The shotgun lowered
slightly.
Kero-Kero-Keroppi went on in a soothing voice. "I want you to put
down the shotgun now. We can talk this over and have some ice cream.
Does that sound good?"
Hello Kitty nodded silently, even closer to a teary breakdown.
"Good. Now put down the shotgun. It'll all be okay."
Hello Kitty began to lower the shotgun to the table. The various
androids, powered armor, and robots followed her intently with their
photoreceptors. Beads of sweat trickled down Quincy's brow as the little
white kitten lowered her weapon.
"That's it," Kero-Kero-Keroppi soothed. "Just put the shotgun down,
and we'll take good care of you, Hello Kitty. You just need a little
break, some rest, and a chance to think things through."
Hello Kitty sighed pitifully. Rest sounded *so* good. She needed
to get away from the blood and death. She needed to get away from the
horror that her life had become. She set the shotgun down with a heavy
clatter on the walnut boardroom table. The various boardroom members
breathed audible sighs of relief.
Kero-Kero-Keroppi stepped closer, extending a flipper to her.
"That's good, Hello Kitty. Now let's go have that ice cream and
take care of you..."
Hello Kitty bowed her head sadly.
"You mean like the way you took care of Pekkles?" she said in
a voice so soft Kero-Kero-Keroppi almost missed it.
"Huh?" he replied.
"ZAIBATSU STOOGE!!!!" Hello Kitty screamed at him. A speargun
appeared in her hand and she squeezed the trigger with a hate-filled
glare at Kero-Kero-Keroppi.
ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzssssTHOKKKKhhhhhhhh!!!!
Kero-Kero-Keroppi was impaled through and through by the speargun
bolt. His little green body flew across the room to embed in the mahogany
paneling of the far wall. His bulging froggy eyes were ablaze in pain
and disbelief, then they dimmed forever.
Hello Kitty drew herself up to her full height, a particle beam
cannon crackling in her paws. A shell of bright pink titungstenel powered
armor sheathed her body. Her little coal-black eyes glowed with hatred and
anticipation of final vengeance through her armored visor as the opposing
mecha charged...
* * *
Outside the Sanrio corporate headquarters, the little lunchbox left
by Ryu glowed in the noon day sun. The sudden booming roll of thunder
exploded high overhead, punctuated by sharp peals of charged particle
fury. Glass shattered, metal screamed, masonry splintered, wood crackled,
and flesh boiled.
Citizens ran in panic from the chaos. The sounds of emergency
vehicle sirens blared in the distance. Shards of glass and steel, chunks
of concrete, and splinters of wood rained down upon the lunchbox, marring
the decal image of the Sanrio cast of characters. Last to fall were two
drops of blood, which splattered brightly upon the image of Hello Kitty.
Then there was silence...
THE END
Author's Notes:
1. This story was inspired by a trip to the mall, watching my beloved
little four-year-old, Rachel, ransack the shelves of a Sanrio outlet
for twenty minutes. There is also the horror of the Hello Kitty game
that we have on CD-Rom. You cannot imagine the deep psychological trauma
that has been inflicted upon me, and I consider this work of fanfiction
to be a cleansing...
2. The part about Hello Kitty providing the voice of female Ranma in
Japan is true. The same voice actress who did Hello Kitty also did
onna-Ranma, plus Ai from Video Girl Ai, and a character in DNA^2 (B-ko
could tell you whom specifically) among many others.
3. You can visit the Sanrio Homepage at: http://www.sanrio.co.jp/english/
Another site for viewing the characters that Sanrio has "retired," as
well as the rest of the cast that still receives company favor can be
found at: http://www.angelfire.com/ia/weddell/chars.html
4. Visit these sites, and then judge me for what I have done. Some of
you may understand my pain...
