I couldn't send this from MO; I was barely able to connect. Hope
it goes through. ^_^;
-=-
DO-GOODERS
The Proactive Teen Superhero Team
With No X Anywhere In Their Title
A FanArt HQ / Spoof Chase Improfanfic
http://pixelscapes.com/improfanfic
Episode One :
Tejina's Big Idea! How To Make a Lot of Money!
by Stefan Gagne
-=-
NOTE: This is actually part one of a round-robin story, one
of the many (all two of them so far) such stories you
can find at IMPROFANFIC:
http://pixelscapes.com/improfanfic
...an extension of the Fan Art HQ. Drop on by and test
your might, authors! It's fun and good for your
health, providing many nourishing vitamins.
-=-
It was a sound that could have launched a thousand ships.
In fact, it was a sound that vaguely resembled the launching of a
thousand ships. Into orbit.
The building rocked with the pulse-pounding sweat of really
good pop music. Walls throbbed to the beat, the swinging sounds
of grating guitar, pepped up drums and snappy synthesizer keeping
tune through walls of noise, sculpting it into a form that you
could tap your toe to. The band itself was loaded with so much
energy that you could almost see the excess dripping off in
little yellow sparks of aural inspiration. This was music of
gods, warriors and devils alike.
The people playing it didn't look like gods, warriors or
devils. In fact, they were perfectly ordinary high school
students... more or less.
The one on drums with a dull, emotionless expression
certainly looks ordinary enough, with an ordinary haircut popular
with Japanese boys at the time (IE, short and insanely easy to
manage). He plays while staring off into space, seemingly bored
with the work. If you said he was angsty and bishounen, he'd
probably say 'whatever', toss his hair back and walk off in a
handsome way.
The lead singer is a bit odder, despite wearing a standard
girl's uniform; she's dyed her hair blue, for starters, and is
wearing it in pigtails. She bounces around the stage area like a
superball, filled with spunk and moxie, playing a portable
keyboard. Her underwear probably has a superdeformed panda or
frog on it, but it'd be unwise to make sure.
The lead guitarist is probably the most attention-grabbing,
as he has on a biker jacket and shades, recently shoplifted from
a trip to New York, where he also picked up smoking and such
colorful phrases as 'that's da phat bomb' and 'go have sex with
your mother'. He's probably the sort your mother warned you to
stay away from.
Together, they made a lean, mean music machine, coming to
the end of another successful set.
As the twelve minute guitar solo finally wound to a halt,
with a final rousing drum blast, the crowd perked one ear, looked
over at the band with a glassy eye, gave a 'woof' and promptly
went back to sleep.
"You think we need to play bigger gigs than the basement?"
the guitarist asked.
Because it doesn't really matter how good your band is, if
nobody's hearing you play other than a senile old family dog who
frequently mistook human legs for fire hydrants and had to gum
his food to death before chewing.
"You remember what happened LAST time we played a bigger
gig, Kireiko-chan," the drummer replied dryly.
The guitarist frowned at him. "I told you to stop calling
me that."
"It's your name."
"Yeah, well.. you don't have to include the -chan, got it?
And as for the gig, Matsuro-CHAN, it's not MY fault that the rig
was turned up to 11. The knob must have slipped..."
"It took three fire trucks to put out the explosion and
fires."
"Okay, okay..."
"They reposessed my car to pay for the damages."
"I already apologized for that!"
"Not to mention that the club owner specifically indicated
that we would never work in this town again--"
Whistle!!
The idol singer / keyboardist turned, leaning on her
microphone stand to address her friends. "Guys, negativity isn't
going to get us anywhere. Let's let bygones be bygones, okay?"
"Fine," the drummer shrugged, setting down his sticks.
"Whatever."
The guitarist scowled a little at him, and set his
instrument aside. He turned to the singer, resuming a fairly
serious tone. "But the point still stands, Tej. We NEED to play
gigs. Many gigs. We're not going to get noticed, we're not
going to get published, and we'll never be pop sensations at this
rate. And if we're never sensations, I can't buy a solid gold
motorcycle and be dripping with babes off every arm!"
The girl gave a little 'hmph', but said nothing.
"It's all marketing, you know," he continued. "We need to
package ourselves. What are we calling the band today again?"
"'Horse Fucker Gigantic,'" Matsuro tonelessly replied, in
perfect english.
"Right. Now that's a good name," Kireiko nodded vigorously.
"I've been to America, I know a good english name when I hear
one. They're great words, and I bet they work just fine
together. But we need a package to go with that name."
Tejina paused, in deep thought. It looked a bit like a
bubbleheaded girl chewing on her hair from the outside, but
inside, gears turned like well oiled machinery.
"I dunno," she said. "I'll try to come up with tomorrow's
name for the band and a package, n'kay? For now, I gotta get
going. I'm going out--"
"Shopping," Matsuro said, without looking at her.
"Yes, shopping," Tejina said, tugging at an eyelid and
taunting him. "After all, we'll need props and costumes to have
a package, right?"
"And you want those new shoes you saw in the window three
days ago."
"...do not," Tejina lied.
*
Tejina stepped out of the store wearing shiny new shoes,
hauling her bags draped across each arm like many hanging ferns.
Shopping was a religion. It required strict adherence to the
sales codes, to the many disciplines of bargain hunting, and of
course a thick wallet for daily donations to the temple. Perhaps
an expensive way of spirituality, but Tejina freely admitted she
was a Material Girl Living In A Material World and let it sit at
that. Not that she liked Matsuro pointing it out in his usual
dry way.
"He's so annoying sometimes," she complained. "And moody.
He's a great drummer, but he never enjoys it! If we're going to
be a pop band, we need to smile more. Right?"
"Right!" her friend said, smiling big to show. "Fire him and
hire me!"
Tejina missed a step, but regained her stride. "Ah...
well... he's on a contract, see. Verbal contract."
Mainly, she didn't want to tell Becky exactly how bad she was
at music. Tejina had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing Becky
sing along when she had her walkman on, and couldn't tell anybody
was listening... it was not unlike several cats stapled to a
garage door that was going up and down repeatedly. And when she
tapped her foot, she managed to achieve the universe's first true
random number generator.
But Becky was friendly, and good to have around, and spoke
pretty good japanese for a gaijin exchange student. Plus, she
loved to shop as well; but when Becky shopped, she aimed high,
and aimed specific. Specifically, the several thousand yen of
video tapes she was carrying, in a neat stack of colorful boxes.
"I can't believe what a great sale that was!" Becky said.
"ALL of Sailor Moon SS for such a low price. Unthinkable! I
can't wait to get home and wire myself to the VCR for a few
days."
"Ah... what is all that stuff, anyway?"
Becky stopped dead.
"Shoujo anime," she said, confused.
"Oh. I don't watch much television."
"You're LIVING in the mecca of animation and you've never
watched anime? Tejjj! I know people back home who would KILL to
live here, where you can pick up anime without bad American
translations and edits! I can't even begin to explain just how
terrible the english version of Sailor Moon was..."
"Okay, okay," Tejina protested. "I get the picture. So
what's so good about this stuff?"
"Everything!" Becky said. "It's all about these high school
girls who are reincarnated princesses from an old kingdom and
they transform into magical girl costumes and save the world
repeatedly."
"...you don't say," Tejina said, a bit spooked.
"And there's this band of pop singers who transform into
heroines," Becky continued. "They're called the Three Lights.
Like, by day they're enormously popular musicians, and by night
they fight evil bad guys as the Sailor Starlights!"
"It's not very.. realistic, is it?"
"Who needs realism?" Becky shrugged. "It's for fun. Hey...
HEY! That's what you should do for your band!"
"Ah.. make our own anime? I'm not that good at drawing, and
Matsuro's camera broke when Kireiko was trying to film a gang
fight with it for a school documentary--"
"No no no," Becky said. "You should be superheroes. Magical
girls!... well, no, two of your guys are guys, so it'd have to
just be an ordinary teenage hero team. Maybe sentai, though..."
"What's sentai?"
"Nevermind. How about it? You wouldn't have to fight
criminals or anything, it's just a cool way to make up costumes
and appeal to anime otaku, such as myself. Sound good?"
"Costumes..." Tejina considered, thinking.
*
"We're going to be super heroes."
The response was not what she was hoping for, as the band
discussed these critical issues over instant ramen in her family
kitchen.
"That's stupid," Matsuro said.
"It's a little... fruity, isn't it?" Kireiko asked. "I
mean, would we have to put on tights and bug-like helmets and
pose a lot?"
"Well.. I have a costume already," Tejina said. "And I bet
you two could come up with something. It doesn't have to be over
done, just watch some TV and get ideas. And Becky's arranged for
a gig! We're going to play for her anime club."
"Otaku," Matsuro said, in the same tone one reserves for
'pestilence.'
"I guess a gig's a gig..." Kireiko said. "It can't hurt.
When we bomb, we'll just rename, recostume and try again, right?
We don't have any supervillians to fight, and it's not like we're
really mutants or heroes or psionic warriors or anything, it's
all an act..."
"That's the spirit! Sort of!" Tejina cheered nervously.
"I'll have my little brother run off some flyers, and Becky will
post them around. It'll be a good concert, you see. Our true
debut as an idol singing sensation!"
"And the band name..?" Matsuro asked.
This was the bit Tejina was proud of. She smiled wide, and
told them.
"We're going to be the DO-GOODERS!"
"That sucks."
Tejina threw the nearest heavy object at him, which turned
out to be the microwave.
*
That night, all three teenagers sat in front of their
respective televisions, watching anime. They were supposed to be
thinking of costume ideas. None of them were.
Tejina didn't need to think of a costume idea. She already
had a costume that would work perfect, from what she was seeing
on TV.
It was a funny story, really...
Her elementary school class was going to Tokyo Tower for a
field trip, and she was up on the observation deck, playing with
the telescopes and trying to look at all those little people in
the city below. She was too short to reach them, however, and
had to hop up and down a lot.
A dull scraping got her attention, and she looked down to
find a small cat nudging a discarded box over.
"Gosh, thanks!" she said, petting the cat and using the box
to stand on. Now that she could see properly through the
telescope, she...
"Hey."
...could maybe look at...
"Down here!"
Of course, nowadays, she said she didn't believe in talking
cats. But she was young and silly then, and lacked the perfectly
rational mind that could filter out a talking cat and get on with
its life. Instead, she talked back, and that's when her troubles
began.
The cat went off on some long speech about how she was
really Princess Amore from the Crystal City of Delight Before The
Age Of Time, and that she was reincarnated now to fight the
Darkverse warriors who would probably be coming now that this cat
had told her all about who she is. Oh, and here was this pen
that could change you into a magical girl sailor suited senshi.
Then she got scared and ran to her teacher crying about a
scary cat she saw, and they took her back to the bus. But she
kept the pen.
Later, when her family signed her up for therapy for not
wanting to eat her vegetables -- they really did have a bit too
much money to throw around, Tejina thought in hindsight, even if
it makes for good shopping trips -- Tejina admitted to the whole
talking cat incident. The therapist explained it away as a
vertigo-induced hallucination and charged her folks a hundred
bucks and hour.
Out of curiosity and the many years that had dampened any
sense of concern, Tejina found the magic pen in the bottom of her
junk drawer, under her diaries, cosmetics and magazines. When
she clicked the ballpoint retractable she transformed into a
sailor costume.
A Darkverse warrior did show up, but it politely explained
that they had found a far more effective plan of world domination
than trying to destroy her, and left after tea and cookies.
Maybe it's only a coincidence that Barney hit the airwaves the
next day.
All this left Tejina with a really cool pen and nothing to
do with it.
Until now, at least. What could possibly go wrong?
*
Matsuro slumped on his bed, watching the tiny television
placed across the room. His apartment was small, utilitarian and
uninteresting. Which was all the better.
He looked into his cup ramen, saw that it was empty, and
discarded the container. This anime stuff was pretty plain
compared to his real life. Sure, his real life consisted of
sitting through mind-numbing classes, sitting at home doing
mind-numbing things and eating and sleeping...
His skin tingled. Oh, no. He was going to have another
symbolic hallucinatory flashback.
Matsuro learned to really hate these things. It was like
being trapped inside a Pink Floyd concert without any good guitar
solos. It was like being stuck in a David Cronenberg movie with
too many mugwumps. It was annoying, too.
This time he saw the usual imagery... clocks, the earth,
figures with one bat wing and one angel wing. He saw himself
holding the world, a glass sphere, and shattering it on the
ground... only to pick it back up again and repeat, shattering
the shattered parts. He saw swirling pink goo that pulsated with
his heart beat. There were crosses done up with high tension
wires, lots of decapitated heads, strange clouds of blood,
penguins singing that 'shoo be doo be doo' song, lots of girls
from 'Baywatch' running in slow motion... no, wait, that was just
wishful thinking.
"You must go to Tokyo, Matsuro," his dead mother said,
before exploding messily and after giving him a really cool
sword.
Truth be told, Matsuro figured he was destined by fate for
this whole saving the world, hero at large thing. Which is why
being in a band that resembled his future was not that appealing.
But he'd do it anyway. Tejina seemed very happy about it.
*
Kireiko was watching television, but he was watching an
underground hentai movie where the characters were dressed up
like Street Fighters. He figured it was close enough to the
research Tejina wanted him to accomplish. But he wasn't
particularly excited; his mind was too troubled to really bother
appreciating the finer points of poorly filmed pornography.
A hero. Him. It was totally unthinkable, of course. He
had spent most of his life trying to be the exact model of who
you shouldn't be when you grew up. His family quite a few of his
early years in America, and it was the perfect place to learn how
not to fit into Japanese society... of course, he didn't find out
WHY they moved there until far after the fact.
"Well, m'boy, it's like this," his father explained, while
they were fishing at a local lake in a very picturesque
father-son bonding moment. "Your mother and I were shinto devil
hunters before I took up cost accountancy, and we were chasing
down one particularly nasty oni who had terrified a local girl's
college. Well, this oni had us pinned, and tried to.. well,
let's just say it wasn't friendly to your mother, but I gave it a
kick right square in the family jewels before anything happened.
Apparently it wasn't real happy about this, and it cursed us so
that our first born son would be half-oni. We sealed that
bastard up right good, but figured it'd be best to change our
names and move to America to avoid the curse. Then we had you,
and thought that we'd better give you the most feminine, girly
name we could to also avoid the curse, and I'm proud to say that
all our precautions have worked, and you're not showing the
faintest sign of demonic being or tentacles or claws. Want a sip
of beer, son?"
Kireiko stuck the bucket of live bait over his father's head
and went home after that.
He liked to think that even at a young age, he could be a
reasonable person. The idea of his parents being Ghostbusters
and himself being a half-demon wasn't that easy of a concept to
grasp, but the facts were simple : Aside from the absurd story,
he couldn't find any shred of evidence to back up his dad's
claim. Sure, he was generally a bad boy, but it felt good to be
bad and he didn't mean any harm by his antics. So he ignored the
tall tale and chalked it up to his Dad's general weirdness.
It was late into puberty that he found that evidence.
Waking up one morning with a couple tentacles and teeth that
could bite through a can of V-8 is not easy on a teen. His
parents were quite supportive, and gave him wards he could wear
on his forehead to control the transformation. Unfortunately,
these kept him from seeing properly, but he found that placing
one on his back would work just as well, and had them sewn into
his shirts from then on. Problem solved.
It meant no visiting public baths or going to the beach.
True, he usually had an increased sex drive, and had to be
careful not to break things with his strength. But he could
deal. There was nothing really problematic about being a demon.
But he wasn't a hero, by definition. Secretly, he hoped this new
band idea would sink... but he'd go through with it at first.
Tejina seemed very happy about it.
Besides, it was all just a silly act. It wasn't like he'd
have to fight supervillians or anything.
*
"I WILL ENSLAVE YOU ALL!" the stranger shouted, pounding an
armor-clad fist on the podium. "All who disobey the rightful
might of my command over the planet will be crushed like so many
ants beneath my iron heel. Bow and submit freely, I implore you,
to prevent the slaughter to come! I, as your natural leader and
god, will accept nothing less than total control of every nation,
every city, every man!! HA HA HA HA HAAA!!!"
His laughter resounded as if echoing from all four corners of
the world... the world that would one day be HIS.
The PTA stared back at him blankly.
"Ah.. but how do you feel about the budget changes, Mr...?"
one asked.
"VILLYN! Nemesis Serendipity Villyn to you!... we should
probably put more money into the activities fund, considering how
few student events that we managed to produce last year," the
stranger said, calming down. "I'm in favor of the bill. Thank
you for your time."
He waited for the waves of triumphant applause, and possible
saluting, but didn't get any. Accepting the stunned silence as
tribute to his might, the massive armored man stepped down and
resumed his seat on a rickety folding chair in the crowd.
"I don't know why you didn't want me to come to
parent-student night at the school PTA meeting," he explained to
his beet-red-with-embarrassment daughter. "It makes a fine
platform for my plans!"
"Daaaaad!!" Aki Villyn hissed, under her breath. "These
people don't care about your so-called plans. We're just trying
to get more money for the student government! Don't ruin my prom
with your insanity, please!"
"You know what they said in group, dear. I'm not insane, I'm
simply 'experiencing issues," the bulky man said. "Sounds like a
right fine explanation to me. Soon, I will issue orders that
demonstrate who will live and who will die!"
The nervous chairman of the board assumed his place back at
the podium, casting a worried glance at Mr. Villyn. "Ah... so,
let's vote. All those in favor of the bill?"
"AYE!!!" Villyn shouted, dwarfing out the plaintive ayes.
"All those against?"
Villyn glared screaming painful death at the crowd. Nobody
moved a muscle.
"...the ayes have it meeting adjourned!!" the chairman said
quickly, banging his gavel and running for the exit.
The room emptied in suit, the whole of fifty amassed people
finding the nearest way out of the room, like a sped up reel of
film.
"Another gathering of faceless minions acquired for my
teeming hordes!" Villyn bellowed.
"Let's just go home," Aki sighed in defeat. "I need to plan
my apology letter to the council."
The evil Villyn nodded, and clanked his way down the hall
behind his daughter, deep in thought. His internal monologue
turned itself inside out. "These are fine beginnings for the
thousand year reign of Villyn, but I feel that it is not enough.
There has been no resistance. Where are the great armies that
will fall to my power? Where--"
"They're wearing white coats and will probably catch onto you
sooner or later.." Aki muttered.
"Dear, I've explained this before. Never interrupt my
exposition. You're grounded to the blackest dungeon of despair
for the week."
"What, the living room? We don't have a basement."
"What I NEED," Villyn said to himself, "Is... an adversary.
Perhaps many of them! To prove my mettle and show the world I
will never be unseated as the rightful emperor of all."
He found the answer posted up on a nearby locker with little
Hello Kitty stickers.
A wide smile spread across his lips like rolling death
crushing humanity underneath treads of steel and iron.
PERFORMING LIVE FOR THE 'SHOOTING STAR' ANIME CIRCLE
*** THE DO-GOODERS ***
LIVE ACTION SUPER HERO POP MUSIC
EVIL BEWARE! 9/25 8PM OUTSIDE THE GYM
(tickets 500 yen a head)
"Hah... ha, ha!!" Villyn laughed.
"AHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!"
Aki paused. "Dad, if you laugh like that again in public,
I'm formally disowning you."
"Yes, dear."
*
Dusk fell over Tokyo, as the players gathered to take their
places.
Tejina hadn't actually tried on her costume for years. She
didn't remember it being so... short. Apparently, it didn't grow
properly with her age, and now was a bit more abbreviated of a
sailor fuku than she'd have wanted... but a costume was a
costume.
The other two had very interesting costumes. They just
weren't wearing them.
"Guuuuys!" Tejina protested. "Come on, we're supposed to be
dressing up!"
"I like my school uniform," Matsuro said. "I did add a black
cape to it. Isn't that enough?"
"You call that tablecloth a cape?" Kireiko laughed. "Ha!
Looks like you raided Tim Burton's picnic. And besides, black
leather and shades IS a costume, baby. It goes a long way in the
hipness department."
"Whatever! We're on in ten minutes," Tejina said, giving up.
"You guys are ready for playing, right?"
"Hai."
"You got it, Tej."
"Great. We'll introduce ourselves dramatically, do a few
numbers, win the crowd's approval and just watch the record
contracts pour in," Tejina said, recovering some optimism. "I
can't wait. This is going to be a night to remember!"
*
"Your target is this gymnasium," Villyn explained, pointing
it out on the itemized map he had drafted to scale and projected
on the living room wall. "The band must be DESTROYED! They
stand between myself and what is mine. Now! WHO'S WITH ME!?"
All four of his faceless minions shrugged.
"People, you need more enthusiasm than that," Villyn
grumbled. "We need to work on our fanatical devotion."
"For 600 yen an hour?" one of the minions asked. "Best
you'll get out of me is a limp cheer."
"Fine! Seven hundred!"
"Yay," a minion went.
Villyn ground his teeth. "NINE hundred."
"I'm all for that!" another minion piped in with.
"ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED!"
"All hail Villyn, Master of the Universe!" the minions
shouted simultaneously, drawing their weapons.
"That's better," Villyn nodded in satisfaction. "Now...
onward towards glory! Death to the Do-Gooders!!"
*
WILL THE DO-GOODERS SURVIVE THIS MERCILESS ONSLAUGHT?
WILL THEY EVER GET A RECORD CONTRACT?
WILL MATSURO HAVE TO CUT OFF HIS TWIN'S HEAD ON NEW YEARS EVE,
1999?
EXACTLY HOW MANY TENTACLES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE, ANYWAY?
It's up to you.
Read (and write) more of Do-Gooders at ImproFanfic, the twisted
sister of ImproManga, at http://pixelscapes.com/improfanfic
Writers with a mean and lean sense of the absurd wanted! Sign up
today.
(Do-Gooders Copyright 1998, Stefan Gagne.)