“All right. This is a simple exploratory mission. Unless you start breaking things, there will be absolutely no trouble. The main owners of this facility are...off doing their own strangeness, and their employees are...working on something else. As long as you don’t make a giant ruckus or break a bunch of things, no one will even notice you’re there. So don’t worry about leaving a door open or something like that.” Vent said.
“Still think we should have brought at least ONE weapon.” Joy said.
“Merilee, all of us ARE weapons.” Shun’ei said, finally back in the field after recovering from the Rescue Rain mission.
“Yes, well, still feel kind of naked without any.” Joy was fiddling with the lock on the door. Meitenkun flicked both Shun’ei and Neeko a sideways smirk at the choice of words before he yawned and went back to looking sleepy and desiring a nap. Neeko knew him well enough to know he wasn’t ALWAYS as dazed and confused as he looked.
“Got it.” Electrical powers had other uses besides shocking people. Like some subtle metal manipulating to line up tumblers. “Okay, we need to go through a tunnel in this…”
Joy stopped as the smell washed over here. For once, it was the right kind of overpowering. Not a bad smell, nor a pleasant one cranked up far too strong. But rather a mix of the pleasant of a score of stripes that overlapped with near perfection.
“...Buh?” Joy said.
Neeko smelled it, too. She perked up, sniffing, an eyebrow quirked.
“That smell like…” she began.
She didn’t finish her sentence, unsure what her own senses were telling her. But she dropped to all fours and crawled past Joy, through the door she’d opened. Vent stood behind them all, arms behind his back, his expression unreadable.
“...well, go on,” he said, after a pause. “Go on in.”
Dumbly, Joy went in. So did Shun’ei and Meitenkun. Vent followed behind.
It was a room of bright colors and sweet smells, all right. And much more.
Which immediately drove home how the colors were too bright, or just a touch off. Not in an unpleasant way, though. In a way that showed that the area was specially crafted, in a way rarely seen across the multiverse.
“...there aren’t any witches in here who’ll stick us in ovens, is there?” Shun’ei said. Joy gave him an odd look. “Sorry, fairy tale.”
Another standout detail was Neeko. She was already up to her hips in a large, red-and-white spotted mushroom, legs kicking and tail waving. Muffled sounds of munging were coming from within. After a moment, she pulled herself out, cheeks bulging, covered head-to-waist in…
Fondant icing?
She swallowed.
“Is all sweet!” Her voice was a half-whisper of almost divine reverence. “Is all good to eat! Neeko doesn’t know where to staaaaart~” And she disappeared into the mushroom again.
“...what in the heck?” Joy said. Meitenkun just walked over to a tree and broke some bark off, taking a bite.
“Toffee.”
“...I knew this was a candy factory, but are you telling me EVERYTHING in it is candy?” Joy knelt down to look at the ‘cobblestone’ road she was walking on.
“...everything in this room, anyway...ANDDDDDD if that’s the case, I am pretty sure that’s chocolate.” Shun’ei said, pointing at the waterfall and river of brown.
“Correct.” Vent had pulled up one of the candy canes and was twirling it idly. His expression was readable now - a slight smile had graced his face. “It’s all edible. Every bit of it. But use a mug if you’re going to drink from that river. Don’t want to pass anything on to millions of people around the world.”
“What are you implying?” Joy said, but she wasn’t looking at Vent, as she ripped up the cobblestone. Some sort of sponge cake with a candy coating. Wonder it hadn’t cracked when she’d stepped on it.
Vent bit a hunk from the candy cane and crunched for a few moments.
“...I’m saying ‘go crazy’,” was his reply.
Fortunately, the ‘kid at heart’ aspects of the four weren’t so high that they totally trashed the room.
Joy did chop down a tree though. The bark, inner ‘wood’, leaves, branches, and ‘flowers’ were all different kinds of candy. Shun’ei took advantage of his giant hands to pool them under the waterfall and sample the liquid, before using the ‘cold’ to freeze the remaining mix so it didn’t get mixed in with the main river. Meitekun just put himself under another tree and began bonking the base of it with his foot, grabbing candy pieces as they rained down.
Within twenty minutes, Neeko had eaten so much candy she looked like she never wanted to think about the concept of sugar ever again. Joy, meanwhile, had stuffed all of her spare packs and bags with everything in the room, to the point where she looked a bit like Marge Simpson when she’d been turned into a pack mule. Shun’ei was considering whether to try eating a giant gummi bear, fearing he’d get sick of it too fast and waste candy.
Meitenkun was napping in a boat. Where that boat had come from, who could say. From a tunnel, most likely.
“Shun, can you give me a hand here?” Neeko had gotten doozy, and Joy had assessed, with how weighed down she was with candy, carrying her as well would be hard. So the mystical fighter ended up using his hands as a glorified bed, Neeko curling up in them like a cat. Good thing he could control the temperatures of the magical constructs.
“Too bad we couldn’t bring the children.” Shun’ei said.
“You mean my younger siblings? Mother would never forgive me if I gave them access to THIS much sugar.” Vent said, having joined Meitenkun in the boat.
“I take it the door is not in this lovely room?”
“Sadly...sadly? No. We’ll have to check through more of the factory. It’s still quite a place, but not quite as special as, well, this. Anyway, once we get through this tunnel, we should be able to assess…” Vent said, as the boat, now with everyone on board, moved down the river and vanished into the darkness of the other tunnel.
Several minutes later, it emerged elsewhere...with everyone on it looking far more frazzled. Even Joy’s hair had somehow stood up.
“Vent...I feel like...you failed to acquire...some vital information.”
“In my defense... the man never provided it.”
“Neeko feels very ill…”
----
-Another Factory, This One Abandoned and Much Less Inviting-
“I don’t know how you found my hideout, but I am telling you that it was a bad idea!”
“...There was a big sign on the roof pointing down.” Shun’ei said.
“...THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO NOT ADEQUATELY TIP THE BROKER! HE DECIDES TO BE CUTE! AND NOT CUTE LIKE A FUZZY BUNNY! CUTE IN THE WAY THAT AGGRAVATES ME GREATLY! I WOULD BLOW HIM UP IF HE DID NOT PROVIDE SUCH A NECESSARY SERVICE!”
“Boss...that girl! She’s LIKE THE OTHER LIZARD!”
“What?”
There wasn’t much to say about the layout of the place the gang had found themselves in. It looked like almost every factory you could name - disused machinery, rusty gantries and walkways, pipes that dripped. Almost exactly the place where a criminal gang would make their lair. There were enough nooks and crannies around that you could hide some contraband, or launch a surprise attack.
It didn’t hide the Oovi-Kat in his cage, though.
He was an odd specimen, compared to Neeko. Where Neeko was lithe and thin, he had muscles, looking closer to a monitor lizard or iguana than a chameleon. Where she was a deep forest green, he was mottled brownish-green like mossy tree bark. Very visible claws scraped on the bars, and his eyes glared definitely from within like hot coals. He looked cartoonish in there, hunched up like a cat sitting in a travel box too small for it.
Neeko gasped at the sight of him. Then she rounded on the new batch of baddies Vent had asked her and her friends to punch.
“What you do to him?!” she snapped.
“...I am no longer complaining! Men, let us capture her! If we can sell both, we can blow up every single smoothie location in the state! Todd will never work again!” Well, that answered that question.
As good at Shun’ei and Meitenkun were, they still had problems with bullets in exceptionally large qualities. Hence, when the masses of mooks opened fire, they had to take cover and play defense.
Neeko? She ran right through all the bullets and jumped on Bane.
“YOU MESS WITH WRONG NEEKO!” she hollered, fins rattling and tail lashing.
“Can you please be more reasonable?!” Bane grappled with the angry Oovi-Kat. “Some people may say explosives and gunpowder are cheap, but they are very behind on market values!”
There was a flash, and suddenly there was another Bane.
“Neeko not know what that mean!” growled the transformed Neeko as she hoisted the real one into the air and slammed him down again. The floor shook, and the Oovi-Kat in the cage hunkered down and hissed.
Her ankle was seized, and then she was thrown into some boxes.
“That is an interesting trick! But I have seen it before!” Bane said, before he slammed his hand on a button, the green tubes attached to his body surging with some sort of illuminated substance as it was pumped into his body, engorging his already massive form with even more bulk and muscle. “I really must insist you stop attempting to deny me the chance to replenish my liquid assets! They have suffered much lately, I could not even afford a properly sized cage!”
Meitenkun flew in, striking a blow against the side of Bane’s head.
“...did you just hit me with a pillow?”
Again. So hard it even rocked back the giant man.
“Did you just hit me with a pillow hard enough to HURT?!” Bane’s fist smashed down into the ground as the fighter dodged. “Whatever happened to traditional fisticuffs? Instead I find myself a good night’s sleep’s reckoning!”
Neeko, seeing that the other man was distracted, ran over to the cage, dropping her disguise as she approached. The other Oovi-Kat turned to face her, although it was a struggle for him to do so.
“No worry, friend!” Neeko hollered as she reached for the bars. “Neeko will-”
KZZZZZ-ZAP.
The next moment, yet more boxes made Neeko’s acquaintance as she flew into them, scorched black and trailing smoke.
“...save you.”
“...is electric,” said the strange Oovi-Kat, after a moment’s observation.
“I got this!” Shun’ei had hopped down from a catwalk above, one blazing red hand reaching back…
Before a giant crate was smashed down on him.
“You do not have this! The only thing you likely have now is a concussion! You are fortunate! When I was your age, head injuries were much less understood! Though I suspect you will soon not have to worry much about any injury, because…”
Neeko jumped Bane again.
“YOUR HOSTILE NATURE IS MOST UNBECOMING TO EXPEDIENT BUSINESS!”
“OOVI-KATS IS NOT BUSINESS!” Neeko was trying to peel off Bane’s mask, perhaps so she could dust his eyes with some nasty magic of some kind. All kinds of angry colours were flashing over her body - lime greens, strawberry red-orange and sunflower yellow. The term “walking rave” would have been an understatement.
“If you saw what my accountant charges, you might not be so cold! Ow! When was the last time you washed your hands!? I dislike cleaning grease off my lenses!” He tried to pull Neeko off and kick her, only for her to grab on his leg and bite deep. “OWTCH! I THINK THAT BROKE THE SKIN!”
Neeko let go, rolled away, then spat. “Yeuch! Taste like sour milk and leather! Take a bath!”
“I will have you know my hygiene is-!”
The red fist that Shun’ei was going to direct into the cage was instead directed into Bane’s face, sending him flying. Unfortunately, by that time, four more mooks with guns had closed in on Neeko, aiming to cut her down in a cross fire.
Then Meitenkun kicked one. Into the cage. He yelled as he was violently electrocuted, then collapsed, smoking.
“Take two.”
Another gunman slammed into the cage. The Oovi-Kat didn’t look very happy, but at least he wasn’t the one being shocked.
“Neeko! Burn it out! THREE!” WHACK. ZAP.
Neeko nodded, then grabbed a fourth and threw him in a two-footed Monkey Flip as hard as she could manage at the cage.
“FOUR!”
It didn’t work to kill the cage. It was still sparking, Neeko seeing the power jumping between the bars. Now that she knew it was electrified, that fact was as clear as day. She hadn’t stared-cough, WATCHED Joy channel her speciality so much without picking up some details.
“...oh man, this is gonna SUUUCCCCKKKK.” Meitenkun said.
Then he ran up and grabbed the cage door. Electrical arcs exploded everywhere, but Meitenkun’s own immense inner energies held strong enough for him to rip the door off before he collapsed, twitching. His pillow lay limp next to him; you could swear he was even trying to reach for it.
Neeko winced. “Ouch. That hurt in morning.”
Then she noticed the other Oovi-Kat. He hadn’t any moves to step out of the cage - in fact, he seemed confused by what had just happened, as though he’d woken up from a dream. He was looking at her intently, almost as if he was trying to remember something.
But Neeko, lacking the patience, clapped her hands in his direction. “Come on, friend! You free! Come out of cage!”
“RARRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Bane crashed down nearby, even as he hammered his fist onto the same large button on his wrist, his muscles going from massive to impossibly, grotesquely large.
“MY HOSPITALITY MUST BE CUT OFF HERE, ALONG WITH ALL OF YOUR HEADS! I WILL BLOW UP YOUR PLANS TO-!”
The ground shook again. Cracks began to spread. Bane looked down.
His violent landing, combined with all the earlier damage, finally caused the floor to give in, half of the warehouse collapsing into a sinkhole.
“I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE SPRANG FOR THE BASEMENTTTTTTT-!” Bane vanished under tons of rubble.
The gang stared at the hole for a minute. There was an awkward silence as somebody tried to come up with something to say. Probably a snappy one-liner.
A scuffling noise made them turn. The Oovi-Kat had clambered out of the cage and was in a crouch on the floor, watching them. His tail swished back and forth as he looked back and forth between each of them with wide eyes. He looked like he was trying very hard to think of something to say, or even how to say it with his limited knowledge of English.
He seemed to find something, and cleared his throat.
“Um,” he began.
And then Neeko tackled him in a joyful hug, destroying the moment forevermore.
----
-Waterworld-
“Mother?”
“Yes Vent?” Dawn finished attaching the cables and then jumped down from the platform, then through the rusted hole in the grating. A risky move if she was human, due to the chance of injury and/or infection from the not-exactly-dull ends of the metal wires poking at the edges of said hole, but she wasn’t.
A good thing, as the whole structure was (intentionally) a ramshackle mess. The beyond bleeding edge futuretech that was the core of the structure was covered in layers of debris that looked like it had been floating on or in the sea for decades. Which it was. Dawn had simulated what was needed, but sadly, there were enough ruined atolls around to strip them bare to get the ‘legitimate’ stuff.
“This world makes no sense at all.”
“Oh really.” Dawn seized up a spear gun, ran up a stairway, and opened fire, shooting at a distant target.
“I know that tone. You want me to…” Vent managed two shots with the ‘handgun’, in reality a hacked together mess of metal, wood, sea material, and a tube that fired based on igniting a crudely refined oil instead of proper gunpowder, before it stopped working. The issues of being ‘genuine’. “Speak my reasons out loud.”
“It passes the time.”
“The masses of desperate humans trying to get in aren’t enough for that?”
“I tried to be kind. They don’t know anything except destroy and take. Reap, sow, etc etc…” Dawn was climbing up a rope, getting to another, larger, spear-based gun set in an outlet. She aimed and fired, rope spooling out before the harpoon impaled itself on a engine driven boat, the line going taunt before the boat was ripped apart via its inability to keep going and its engine demanding it did so.
“That horrible desert world, that could be made sense of. This…” Vent waved a hand around. “One. Even if every single piece of ice melted, it would cause horrible disasters and destruction, yes, but it would only raise the sea level a few hundred meters, at most. That would put a chunk of the world underwater, not cover it so thoroughly you need to dive a good mile to find city ruins.”
Dawn was winding the wire-rope back when it broke. Genuine material meant shoddy material.
“Two. Even IF this world somehow had so much ice that if it all melted it could cover the world to this degree, that would introduce so much freshwater into the seas that they’d all be diluted to the point of not being sea slash salinated water any more. But as we have discovered, this water is all very much salinated, because everything on this world has been ground down by salt rust for centuries. These people kill each other for fresh water, when it should be available in such qualities that, well, you’re stealing it.”
“This world needs less water and Duster’s world needs more. I consider it a balancing.”
“Three. Even IF somehow all the ice had salt cores that somehow made all the newly introduced water as salinated as the ocean generally is...you estimate it’s around 2500?”
“Give or take a decade or two.” Dawn tossed Vent a shotgun-esque weapon as she indicated he needed to go to another slit in the wall. Vent did so, taking aim at a trio of filthy, yelling men driving what had once been jet skis, before who knows how many years of repairs and modifications. It didn’t help them against electronic eye leading, their bodies flying off their mounts as they spun helplessly in the drifts.
“That is nowhere near long enough for such brand new monstrous species as we had to repeatedly drive off when placing this operation to evolve. This world refuses to follow all the basic laws of chemistry and biology.”
“And yet, here we are. JOY, THE MAIN BOAT IS TO THE PORT SIDE! JUST KEEP IT OCCUPIED WITH SNIPE FIRE! So what happened, Vent?”
“Well, either I’m in a vivid coma dream based on banging my head on the wall because of all your rather antagonistic actions, lately…”
“Ha ha.”
“...that’s it. I have no idea otherwise.”
“Neither do I.” Dawn slid down a ladder, heading into the depths of the structure. The downside to there just being three people defending what the masses outside, called “Smokers” based on the fact they sailed with crude fuel, assaulted what they thought was a well-supplied atoll, was that you had to run around like a maniac. Again, it was probably a good thing Dawn was a machine and didn’t run the risk of getting exhausted. “I have a theory though.”
“I am legitimately interested.”
“Since we’ve established that this isn’t impossible, we need to look into the improbable. I thought it over. My theory is a cataclysmic mix of synesthesia and H.P Lovecraft being more right than he realized. Based on the theory, which we’ve seen fair proof of, that no one creates anything, just views other worlds which are then filtered through their personalities.”
Vent turned it over, as Dawn tossed up several ‘throwing axes’ that he ran out onto a few balconies to chuck at dangers. A ‘bullet’ pinged off his shoulder, but between his body and the very crude nature of the guns of this world, it barely even staggered him.
“You think someone summoned a Lovecraftatian creature and it made the world this way?”
“Indirectly. Lovecraft was all about beings beyond all comprehension that would melt the minds of humans if they caught the briefest glimpse. I think if he was assessing it in any way correctly, well, if you tried to wake up Cthulhu, a big octopus giant man wouldn’t rise up out of the sea. It would get ‘filtered’ into our reality, wrongly. Like synesthesia writ large. Someone finally figured out how to breach the realms. It warped the whole world crossing over. Or even just partly crossing over. Hence, a world wholly covered in saline water with a whole new dangerous ecosystem in the space of less than five hundred years while humans from society as we know it keep scratching out an existence using material we recognize as modern, after who knows how many years of existing in this warped place.”
“....you think the water is cursed?”
“No. It’s unnatural enough. It’s just water. Hence we pump, desalinate, and dump. Like Lovecraft wrote. Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.”
“...these Smokers are insistent.”
“This is life and death to them. I wish I could give them life.”
“The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.”
“Not bad from a deeply broken person who actually named his cat Ni-”
—-
-A Dojo In Japan-
There was once a quote that went something like “A name often reflects the quality of the named location. So while the Day and Night Hotel will be a fairly nice place, the Royale Magnifico-Fantastique would be a dive located above a topless bowling alleyway.”
The quote would have gone over Joy’s head, but she could definitely understand the sentiment when she’d stepped through the door and discovered just what lay within the ‘Saikyo’ Dojo. According to Shun’ei, it meant ‘Strongest’. A martial arts style claiming to be the strongest.
Joy had also never heard of the concept of a “McDojo”, but after assessing how empty the location was, she might have thought it was a step up. Thick dust covered mostly everything. The walls, the empty front desk with a disconnected phone, the few chairs which looked scavenged from a junkyard at that, the windows that gave the great view of a brick wall, everything except the combat mats seemed to be crying out from sheer lack of attention. Meitenkun had started sneezing ten seconds in and hadn’t stopped, Shun’ei hunting around for some tissues.
They hadn’t needed to go in here. They’d been dropped off to look for another door. It wasn’t there, so they’d waited for Dawn, and after getting bored, started wandering around, only to discover this dojo. Which had caught mainly Shun’ei’s attention due to the name on it.
“I’m hopin’ this place ain’t haunted, I had enough with spookys lately.” Joy said, looking around as she ran a gloved finger over a dust covered pillar.
“Place has no power.” Shun’ei said, flicking at a light switch.
“Sheesh. Amazing they haven’t torn this place down.” Joy rubbed the dust off her fingers.
“This is a lousy area for a dojo anyway. They’re best set up in places with high foot traffic, especially with young people. Master Tung purposely set his far out in the wilderness so we could train without being bothered by wannabes. Whoever set this place up is either doing tax fraud or is a moron.”
“Moron?”
The voice came from behind one of the canvas shoji, or sliding walls, that was set into the building about two thirds of the way into it. Perhaps the intention here was to allow the sensei some private time alone, or to privately converse with one of the students if they needed to. But the amount of ragged tears in it, as well as the cheap sellotape stitching it together, meant that this probably wasn’t the case anymore.
When the man in the pink gi ripped a fresh new hole in it as he dived through, that confirmed the theory. He did a complete roly-poly forward, leaped to his feet and struck a pose, teeth gleaming.
“I think you mean MASTER!” he hollered in what he probably thought was a badass voice. “Master Dan Hibiki, teacher of the Saikyo Style! Count yourself lucky to meet a living legend, ladies and gentlemen!”
Silence.
Amazed stares.
The young woman then glanced at her male companions.
Then she began howling with laughter.
The pink gi was the topple point. She could handle his entrance, his tone, his attitude, but the mess of a fighting outfit was just too much. It wasn’t even stylized well: any color would work if you had a little knowledge. In this case, it was just the cherry on top of the absurdity sundae.
Shun’ei and Meitenkun didn’t join her, though they clearly did snigger some, Shun’ei cocking his head.
“...well...I do sense ki in you, so...uh...least there’s that?” Shun’ei said.
“Gods...all we need is some sign to finally break off and land on his head...you should do a one man show, you’d be the best clown I’ve seen since...well, myself.” Joy said.
Meitenkun had already gone to sleep.
“Does your combat involve baking bread?” Joy asked. Maybe that was why they’d ended up here: this was some utterly bizarre alternate version of Tachibana.
“That’s Honoka’s specialty, Merilee.”
“Oh sorry. They’re so joined at the hip I forget. I guess he boxes. Or sleeps in boxes.”
“No, ma’am, I sleep here in the dojo. It’s the best way to get inspiration for new techniques!” Dan didn't seem in the least bit phased by what was being said about him. He simply gave a cocky laugh and straightened up, adjusting the belt of his gi as though he knew what he was doing all along.
“So, then!” He approached the trio, very clearly sizing them up. “What brings you here to the legendary Saikyo Dojo today? Looking to learn from the best? Then you came to the right place!”
“Then why is it abandoned?” Joy said.
“And what even is it? The term’s so generic it could be any sort of style. Not everyone can learn everything.” Shun’ei said.
Dan shook his head, almost as if in pity. “That’s alright, I get it. You clearly don’t get that not everyone can handle how awesome my style is. Most of my students can’t even withstand the basic techniques! One look at them and BOOM!”
He threw out his hands in imitation of an explosion. Even made a “froosh” noise with his mouth.
“Mind equals blown! That’s why I barely have any customers - they can’t handle the intensity! And as for what it is,” he went in, turning to Shun’ei, “come on! You read the sign, right? It’s the Strongest Style! The one martial art guaranteed to wow your friends, floor your enemies and make you a one-hundred-and-eleven percent more awesome guy! Or girl, no offense.”
“Some taken.” Joy smirked. “So you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, are you?”
“Yep!” Dan threw a thumbs-up. “Took on Sagat and won! You think that Ryu poser’s so cool? I did it, and so can anyone if they take the time to learn!”
That actually made Joy’s eyes widen a tad.
“...Sagat. Gigantic man, uses powerful kicks, likes tigers a lot? That Sagat?”
“The very same! The same Sagat, what’s more, who killed my dad! So I developed this style just to take that big lug down and avenge him! And I did it!” Theatrical tears began to flow from Dan’s eyes as he raised a fist to the sky. “You hear that, dad? I did it! I evened the score!
“...whoa, sorry.” He wiped his eyes. “Musta got some dirt in my eye there.”
“Wouldn’t blame you. Place needs a cleaning.” Joy spun her hat off. “THIS, I have to see.”
“He might have something behind all that, Merilee.” Shun’ei said, as Joy shucked her coat off, undid her weapon belt, dropped her shotgun on the ground, folded up her spurs into her boot counters, and undid her vest. “I fought Sagat too. And lost. So I won’t be holding back, Mister Hibiki. So be warned. If you’re a balloon, you’re gonna go pop.”
Dan grinned. “Oh, a challenge is it?” He immediately dropped into a stance, one arm raised and another level with his stomach. It looked, probably to the surprise of Shun’ei and Meitenkun, remarkably similar to a stance they’d seen any of the Kyokugen practitioners use.
“Well, if you aren’t careful,” he continued in the same braggadocious tone, “you’re the ones who are gonna go pop! ‘Cause Dan Hibiki ain’t a balloon, he’s a hurricane! Which one of ya wants to go first?”
“I got this.” Joy said.
Now, dear reader, I must pull you aside for some personal beliefs.
One belief I have is that Dan Hibiki did indeed beat Sagat in a fight. And not because Sagat purposely threw the fight out of pity. While he may have deeply come to regret his murder, Sagat, the King of Muay Thai, would never purposely lose. I do think, however, it mentally wore on him. It undercut him subconsciously. And Dan, for all his arrogance and absurdity, did have righteous rage on his side that day. It was a perfect storm of factors, one that would likely never be replicated again. Had Sagat fought all out, Dan would have lost, no matter how much rage he had. Sadly, it would not have been a case of Drunken Master, where Jackie Chan’s character was able to basically ‘flail’ and ‘expert fears amateur-fu’ a legitimately dangerous martial artist into defeat.
The first film. Not The Legend of Drunken Master. That was technically the sequel.
Secondly, by a lot of definitions, Dan Hibiki is not weak. In our world, he’d be superhuman. He can endure fatal impacts with bruises and shoot fire out of his hands. He is only weak by the standards of the World Warrior tournament, which means he’s stronger than 99.9 percent of the world’s population. Those that can split islands and endure giant air bases falling on them are the exception to the exception to the exception of the rule: they’re just all gathered in one place for those games.
That being said…
Dan had an arrogance problem. Not just in words and actions. It infused his combat style. It made his movements exaggerated. Joy, when using purely hand to hand, had never been much of a blocker, more of an avoider.
In other words, by sheer chance, she was a ‘bad match’ for Dan, as he fired off blow after blow, and she bobbed and weaved around them, throwing snapping quick strikes in return. By credit or stupidity, Dan didn’t waver. And there WAS a factor in his attitude and life experience that had subconsciously influenced his fighting style.
When he did hit, he hit HARD. And when he leapt with a scream of “DANKUKYAKU!” and delivered two rapidly fire forward jump kicks, he actually broke Joy’s guard and sent her tumbling backwards, Shun’ei having to actually get out of the way before Joy crashed through the dust-covered front desk, smashing it to pieces. Termites, it seemed.
“HAH!” Dan crouched down and threw one arm forward in a taunting gesture. “I warned ya! You mess with the Hibiki, you get the… ah… Hibi-kicks?
“...look, I’m on the spot here,” he protested as Shun’ei threw an incredulous stare at him. “They can’t all be winners!”
Joy flipped up to her feet, doing a no arms kip up.
“Sorry about your desk. Shall we get serious now?”
Joy raised her hands, and the light bloomed, the electricity dancing between her palms.
“Afraid I don’t have any moves with my name on them, so...ZAPPY ZAP!”
Joy thrust out her hands, firing the lightning.
Dan...jumped over it. He even did another taunt as he did.
“YAHOOOOOO-!”
Joy came in after it. A leap upwards, followed by a high angled crescent kick. Cavalry Cascade-Claim Jumper. Very much like a certain military’s man’s Somersault Shell.
Dan probably would have hit the roof in joy if he got new students. Instead he just hit the roof and went up through it with a yell, as Joy landed and got back into a combat stance.
She waited. And waited.
“...I didn’t hit him THAT ha-”
Dan fell back down through the roof again, crashing down to the floor in a pile of debris and dust.
“...You know, it’s not nice to lie.” Joy said.
“Wh-whaddya mean?” Dan was trying and failing to rise, clearly too winded to manage it. “I t-told you I - ow! - developed this style m-m-myself, and I meant it! Just - ack! - just because that old fart Gouken said I had vengeance in my heart or - argh! - some b-bullcrap like that-”
He slipped and faceplanted into the floor with a thump.
“OW, MY NOSE!”
“I lost to Sagat giving it my all. And you beat him? You’re either a liar or delusional. I hit Sagat with that. He just grunted and took two steps back and then grabbed me and slammed me into the ground.”
“You got some stuff, but not even close to what you say.” Shun’ei said. “Meitenkun could probably beat you in his sleep. I wouldn’t even need my special gifts. I hate to be mean, but it’s true.”
“I could probably beat you with one arm behind my back.”
“THEN DO THAT!”
“Okay.” Joy said, doing so.
“GADOKEN!”
A one handed fireball.
Which, by the time it reached Joy, fizzled out. Though to be fair to Dan, part of that was his lack of focus due to the commentary rather than the move.
“Annnddddd that felt like a fly landed on me.” Joy said. “What else you got, Master Hibiki?”
For a response, Dan dashed in and swung a fist up in a very shoddy-looking leaping uppercut, accompanied by a yell of “KORYUKEN!” Joy simply dashed back and out of the way, and then kicked Dan in the ribs as he came down. He went flying backwards and hit the wall, splintering it, before dropping to his knees.
“N-no fair!” he coughed out. “That one’s meant to be unblockable! Gouken lied to me again, I know it…!”
“She didn’t block it.” Shun’ei said.
“Who the heck is Gouken? If you paid him, I think you got ripped off.” Joy said.
“I HAVE YET BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!”
Three minutes later.
“You ain’t bad, buddy. But you ain’t good either.” Joy said, putting her hat back on before she dropped a card at Dan’s crumpled form. “Call this number to get money for the stuff I broke. And maybe to start over.
“I like your airbourne double kick, though. So hey, you impressed on me a bit. Sorry my fist impressed a lot more on you.”
Dan, lying on the floor, didn’t say anything.
---
-A City Somewhere On A Strange Little World-
“HOW IN THE BLAZING HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?!” howled Vent.
Sifter-based moving was about as safe as flying. And not all the accidents were the same.
There would be a lot of puzzling over what had happened, when Joy and Neeko had arrived...and Joy was no longer human.
“Arcanineeeee!”
And “Joy” bounded off, heading for a nearby rocky plain.
“Mirree!” Neeko was immediately trying to catch up, sprinting on all fours. Her eyes were wide with shock and amazement. Did Joy also have the same gift she had and not tell her? There were a lot of questions in her mind and they’d only just arrived here!
Vent, for his part, was grinding his teeth in fury as he frantically typed on a keyboard.
“Neeko, try to keep up with her! I’m working on something to try and reverse… whatever the hell this is! If mother hears of this, I won’t ever hear the end of it!”
It became apparent very fast that Joy was now...very fast.
Yes, she could run at high speed as a human, but now in the form of the strangely cat-esque dog, she was outpacing Neeko easily. Only because she kept stopping and running around until Neeko got close, then bounding off again, let Neeko stay close.
“Nine! Nine!”
Neeko was frowning, straining, trying to juggle keeping pace with the transformed Joy and with trying to read her sho’ma. Doing the latter would have made it easier to understand the Pokéspeak her friend was now using, but with Joy bounding away every time she got close, that was nearly impossible.
“Slow down, Mirree!” she cried, already beginning to pant. “Neeko not understand you! Hold still!”
Joy stopped.
She sat down.
Then when Neeko got close, she got a blast of fire to the face.
It was weird. You’d think that would be a terrible thing to do. But to Neeko, it was more like she’d been spritzed with warm water.
“Nine! Nine! Nine!” The Pokemon formerly known as Joy was doggy laughing.
Neeko spluttered, brushing soot off her face. She had no idea what to say or do. Was this really Joy transformed? Had the accident caused her to change personality as well? Confusion and shock reigned in her head for a moment.
Then Joy licked her.
Yes, it seemed like her personality had undergone something of a shift.
“Ackpffft!” Neeko giggled and wiped her face. “Stop it, Mirree! You silly!” But now that Joy was closer, she finally had the chance to get a read on her sho’ma. Perhaps there’d be some clue as to how to change her back in there? She hoped this wouldn't end up like it had on Klendathu…
She reached out. With one hand, trying to pet Joy. And with her sho’ma, trying to mingle it with the Arcanine in front of her.
...yes, this was Joy. Though she was kind of subsumed by whatever weird energy had done this. She seemed more confused than anything…
Then the Arcanine turned and bounded off again.
“MIRREE!”
This time, Neeko didn’t let her get away, leaping onto the Pokemon’s back.
She was promptly taken for a ride, the Pokemon running and bouncing all over the plains before running back into the city. The rough translation of the Pokespeak? “Play! Play! Play!”
All the poor Oovi-Kat could really do was hold on for dear life, g-force whipping at her face. She tried to say something, but the wind snatched her words from her mouth, and she couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t yelps and squeals. If this was this animal’s idea of play, then goodness knows what its idea of force was!
Then Vent’s voice buzzed into her ear.
“Neeko, I- Goodness! Everything alright?”
“Y-y-eeeeee-s-s!” Neeko managed to holler out. “Mir-r-r-eeeeee is s-s-s-till in do-o-o-ogggg-y-y-y!”
“Good. Hold tight, I think I might have found a way to change her back. Try and keep her occupied until I can give further instructions. And for goodness sake, try not to die! We’re dealing with a life form that runs at speeds that would embarrass the fastest production cars!”
Neeko wished he hadn't said that. Because as he clicked off, she was getting all kinds of awful mental images about how this would end. Most of them involved the word ‘splat’.
Ironically, it did end in ‘splat’. But not the kind she’d have expected.
Because the run ended with Joy-as-Arcanine finding Vent again and leaping through the air.
“ARCANINNNEEEEE-!”
Right down on top of Vent.
It wasn’t an attack. And it could have been a lot worse, considering it was several hundred enthusiastic pounds of dog-creature plopping down on Vent. Instead, all it did was knock Vent onto his back, being held down by two large paws.
One of which began bopping his face. Bop. Bop. Bop.
“ACKPFFFFT!” Vent flailed, trying to shake the over-enthusiastic Pokémon off. But with her greater weight, that was a tricky proposition. “Joy, please! I’m trying to help you here!”
Despite everything, Neeko had to restrain a giggle at the sight. “You use thing to help Joy now, yes?”
“I would if I hadn’t dropped it just now! Ow, that was my nose!”
BOP.
With a surge of bright light, Joy was now sitting on Vent, Neeko wrapped around her back. Fortunately, whatever strange process had changed her had kept her clothes on her body.
“...That was...very...VERY weird.” Joy said, lifting her hand that was in mid-new bop. “Like something needed my mind for a few minutes for...some reason.”
Neeko hugged Joy from behind. “Neeko glad it give you back. Not know how to look after doggy.”
“All very fascinating,” groaned a dazed Vent, “but will you please get off before my ribs give out?”
---
-An Abandoned Mill In Maine-
“Hmmm. Would you look at that?” Dawn crouched down, holding up a rusty lock that was attached to the top of a trap door. “This is new. New-ish. Thirty years old compared to the hundred plus of this place.”
This place had once been a textile mill. Vent was pretty sure it had been a run down barely functioning business/structure when it was in operation. It no longer was, the town it was in also long abandoned. A festering pit of rotting, abandoned cloth and furniture, Dawn had come here looking for a door.
Vent had gotten a very bad feeling as soon as they’d entered the place. It had a very bad vibe. And lots of distant scratching noises.
“Kind of pointless. This wood’s so damaged you could just pull the door off the frame. Wouldn’t even need our strength...like so.” Dawn yanked the trap door up. “...huh. Now would you look at this?”
Another lock, on the other side of the door. Older, broken long ago. And faint scratches in the wood.
“...someone once locked this from the other side. This is the basement level, so...what’s down there and who put the lock on because of it?”
Vent surveyed the lock himself. “I couldn’t guess on either one of those. But why it was put on is pretty obvious.”
“Well, the door possibility is down there, so I guess we’ll soon find out.”
“Mother, I must disagree with just GOING DOWN THERE like it was a fruit cellar.”
“Oh come on Vent. There’s decades of abandonment here. Maybe there was something here once, but surely by now it’s either moved on or died out.”
ONE HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF A RAT MUTANT UNDERWORLD LATER.
“In my defense...would YOU think mill runoff could do that?” Dawn said, as she broke off one of her badly chewed fingers, looked at it, and then put it away for disposal later.
“Considering,” Vent muttered, clutching the heavily-gnawed Zero-One Driver, “that I come from a world where space gas turns people into monsters, I’m honestly more shocked that it couldn’t.”
“I’d best call Labrys back, so she doesn’t think we’re about to drop a mass of mutant, hostile rats into the bar. The roaches Mother dropped in once was enough. I am very glad people have mostly forgotten that incident.”
---
-A Mountain in Japan-
“Well, then.”
Gouken dropped his fighting stance and took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Then he raised one hand to his beared chin and contemplated.
“All in all,” he mused, “not a bad showing. But there is definitely some room for improvement.”
Neeko found herself poking Joy as she lay on the ground. Normally, she would have been more upset, but there were extenuating factors.
One, she’d recently found more of her people.
Two, this was more or less on Joy’s part. She’d come back talking about some yahoo whose mouth was fifty times bigger than his skills, and wondered if he’d been manipulated by some guy called Gouken. Tracking him down had revealed no, she had completely and utterly misjudged the man. But, faced with a chance to fight an actual martial arts master, she hadn’t been able to resist.
They say certain things were like night and day. So had it been here. Gouken was old, clearly slowly down some, bearing the wounds of life and other struggles. He’d still taken Joy apart like a can of peas.
“...did anyone...get the number...for that...horse cart…” Joy mumbled.
“Uh, Master?” Shun’ei said. “She’s quite strong, but she normally fights with weapons so I don’t think she was really at her absolute best…”
“Oh?” Gouken quirked an eyebrow.
ONE FIGHT LATER.
“...you and master...Tung...would get along...well…” Shun’ei said, flat on his back, Joy now sitting up nearby, sipping from a soda can. “Hey Meitenkun...you wanna…”
“Not really....”
“No shame in trying, young one. Come, let us see what you can do!”
ONE MORE FIGHT LATER.
“I think...I am owed a nap.” Meitenkun said. Once the fight had started, he’d taken it wholly seriously. It hadn’t helped. Plus Gouken seemed to know exactly what to do to pierce through his ridiculously high inner energies.
“So what have we learned, young ones?” Gouken said.
“Not a single one of us here can defeat you.” Joy said.
“You gain wisdom, young one.”
“....So we’ll have to GANG UP ON YOU! GET HIM GUYS!”
BOOT TO THE HEAD.
“Can someone...help me...find my teeth...my eyes are kind of...swollen…” Joy said, in a pile with the two boys. She exaggerated: she hadn’t been beaten THAT bad. She was trying to salve her pride with snark.
Neeko stared at the heap of bodies.
“...Neeko not sure you fast learner,” she commented.
“Speak...for yourself.” Joy managed to get up for about three seconds before she fell down again. She wasn’t so much in pain as she felt...disabled. “...this is gonna...wear off, right?”
“Oh, it will.” Gouken, who was now sitting calmly in a meditating position, had his back to the others. So they didn’t see the quiet smirk of amusement. “In about an hour. Plenty of time to reflect on your mistakes, I would say. Unless your friend knows a technique to reverse it?”
Neeko shrugged. “Yes. But what good that do? Mirree just get butt whooped again.”
“Indeed. One doesn’t learn by bashing one’s head against a tree over and over. All that earns you is looking like a fool. And a concussion.”
“Neeko pleassseeeee…”
“No.”
“I’ll be your frieeennndddd…”
“You already that.”
“CHEEESEEEBREEEAADDSSSS…”
Three seconds later.
“No no no, don’t ACTUALLY do it. Joking, Neeko. Ack, your hands are cold!”
“You promise cheesebreads, stop complaining.”
For lack of anything better to do, Neeko approached Gouken as he sat there. He didn’t turn around, but Neeko knew that he’d understood what had just happened. She could feel his sho’ma - old yet unwavering, like a cliffside standing up to the pounding of waves. She crouched next to him, staring at him keenly. But he never offered to turn around or look at her.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Your talents intrigue me,” came Gouken’s voice, soft and quiet. “And your aura is… very similar to my own. Or even one of my own students.”
Neeko shrugged. “Perhaps. Neeko thinks that fireballs and things… is just extension of sho’ma. Of old spirit magics from days of vastayashai’rei, when we tend Green Father’s sapling. Everyone has different name for same thing. But Oovi-Kat, we know. We see it first.”
“And you say you never undertook any training? That what us warriors take years to perfect, your kind learns on instinct?”
“Learn as hatchling, from mother. But martial arts seem selfish to Neeko. Is all about looking inwards to find true self. Always looking in, never out. Never to where the real life is. Because true self is not inside, is outside and all around, in every rock and plant and animal. Oovi-Kats need to share sho’ma with others, to make bigger picture. If we keep it in, we lose connection with others. Become lost and alone. Wanderers.
“Also,” and here Neeko pulled a face, “fighting moves look silly. Even tiger cub can dodge Shoryuken.”
A chuckle. “That would most likely be more unfair on the tiger cub. Then again, I know a man who wrestles bears to improve his strength.”
“See, that make sense to Neeko. Bears love wrestling! Not silly fake wrestling with costumes, though. You not fit mask on bear so easily. It bite your hand off.”
“In any case, we are digressing.” Gouken gave a small smile. “You are a remarkable being, Neeko. And much wiser than you look. So I will speak to you plainly. Whatever the difference in our philosophies, it gratifies me to see someone use their talents for good. Too often, I’ve seen potential squandered by short-sighted egotism, cruel ambition or… worse. I could tell you stories, but I suspect that, with your unique abilities, you have already deduced what those are about.”
Neeko had. In the faint haze of the old man’s memories, there was something dark. Something dangerous, crimson like blood and with demon fangs. She shuddered.
“Yes. Neeko knows. Gi’dorra here in this world. Dark sho’ma born of bad feeling. Lingers, becomes alive, takes over. You call it… Satsui no Hado? Oovi-Kat not have name for it. Feels close to Darkin. But no Oovi-Kat ever use it, at least not in Neeko lifetime.”
“And that is why we train the way we do. Meditate the way we do. To control our darker selves. Because with the power we play with and the techniques we wield… to give in can lead to much worse than a stain on honour. It may lead to stains on our memories, or our hands. Looking in does not mean we do not look out. We look inside to find our flaws, then take steps outside to correct them. We have to, for the sake of those around us. And if we let what we learn from our training and meditation carry us, instead of base desires such as pride and rage… then that is how we improve as warriors and as people.”
Only then did Gouken turn to look at Neeko. A small smile was on his face.
“May your kindness carry you far, Neeko”
Neeko nodded and smiled back.
“...master…” Joy had tried to flop into a position where she wasn’t staring in some random direction. “I knew I had a ways to go, but lying here...I thought I’d done a little better than this. What am I doing wrong?”
It took a while for Gouken to respond.
“You are young, Merilee Marsello. With youth comes a certain… well, to say arrogance would be trite. But the young already feel confident that they know better. And when they lose, they don’t learn the message the loss gives them. They try to make excuses, because changing means admitting that they don’t know better, and that hurts their pride. And your fighting style is entirely based on the need to survive. Nothing wrong with that, but that can only carry you so far. Because you can fight for so many other reasons than survival.”
Gouken got up from his seated position and turned to face Joy. He looked a lot more imposing all of a sudden, more ancient and wizened like a tree that has refused to bend to the storm so many times it doesn’t even bother now. Although the effect was probably more to do with Joy being prone.
“And more than anything, martial arts is about finding your own reason. Wherever it be for the thrill of it, or for personal growth, or to protect those you care about. But that sort of thing only comes with time and experience. And you’ve much of both ahead of you yet, Merilee. You just need to take that time and experience, as much of it as it takes, and let it inform you. No matter how much it may sting or challenge what you think you know about yourself.”
He folded his arms.
“That,” he finished, with an air of finality, “is how wisdom is gained.”
“...and me?” asked Shun’ei.
To their surprise, Gouken laughed.
“Oh, that is easy. You failed because you paid less attention to the fight than on getting Merilee to notice you!”
“Wait, WHAT?”
Neeko burst into a fit of the giggles.
-
-A Winter Wonderland-
There weren’t a lot of peaceful spots on a world.
Even when you could access many worlds, the number didn’t increase all THAT much. But if you keep searching the haystack, eventually you’ll turn up the needle.
“Come on, Mirree!”
Neeko’s transformation ability, it seemed, didn’t just limit her to copying other people’s looks. It also allowed her to adapt to whatever environment she ended up in. Which meant that here, in the midst of all the snow and ice, she’d gradually changed from her tropical hues to something from a Christmas fairy-tale. The bright greens and purples had given way to pale blues and violets, her hair had turned the colour of ice and her fins were shining icicles instead of flower petals. Where the furs came from to replace her usual rags, however, was more of a mystery.
It wasn’t a mystery why she was skating so confidently, however. She’d adapted to it just as well as she adapted to everything else. Clearly, the setting didn’t matter to how well she took to things. It only fired her curiosity more, which was how she’d ended up here to begin with.
“Is easy!” she was saying as she balanced on one foot. “Neeko show you how! Come on!”
“WARGH!”
Joy’s butt impacted on the ice with a dull thump.
“Ow.” That was the sixth time she’d fallen down in the last five minutes. She hadn’t needed to switch clothes, instead activating a few traits on the magical items for warmth, but she had had to put on skates. It seemed like a poor decision in a vacuum.
“The balance on this stuff is all weird...it’s like I’m tryna run while standing still...I mean, I’ve run on ice before, but with like, rough boots, not blades-ack!” Joy fell on a knee. Fortunately, she had armor, so it was just a bump. “What gives? This is sorta like that skiing and I wasn’t too bad at THAT…”
“Is not like skiing, silly!” Neeko slid up to Joy and helped her up. “Skiing is letting slope do work! Skating needs balance and effort! Like riding bike!”
“I ride a horse. Ain’t helpin much…” Joy moved forward a bit, arms held out...and promptly fell on her butt again. “Ow. It’s like any time I twitch, my feet go flyin’. Maybe I need a tail.”
“Tail does help, yes,” admitted the Oovi-Kat as she helped Joy up again. She looked her friend over and dusted her down as she thought. A couple of small, white, fluffy creatures - poros, Neeko had called them - were gathered on the edge of the frozen lake, watching curiously.
“Neeko knows is tricky,” she continued. “But Neeko go through same thing. So Neeko tell you big secret. You nervous, because ice slippy. So you make small movements. But small movements only make you wobble. You not want to steer or move, because what if you fall? But then you fall anyway. So that make you want to try less.
“Big secret is to not worry. Big secret is to not make silly small movements that throw you off feet, or make you hit tree. You just make big movements! Swoosh-swoosh, you go, and you lean to turn, and you just do it! Because if you worry so much, then the things you’re afraid will go wrong, do go wrong. Be patient and take time. Don’t let worry make you slip, okay?”
The poros didn’t understand any of that speech. They rolled over, or scratched themselves, or lay down, panting like spherical puppies with horns.
“Fearless, huh? I can do that.”
SEVERAL FALLS LATER.
“...I think I might be on to something weird.” Joy said, her coat over her head. “Did I ever mention the last thing I did with Rudolf before...well, the bad thing? He took me to a waterin’ hole. Nice and peaceful. Kinda like this. Got my guard down and then…now let me finish…” Joy said at Neeko’s look of horror. “I kinda feel the same way because there’s no mission here. Nothing else. Just you and me and the lake. In the back of my head, I feel like...when is the other shoe coming down?
“And I go, Merry, that is stupid beyond belief. There is no other shoe. But...we’re getting somewhere. We found three of your people. Dawn finds that thing, we might find a lot more. Even if not, there’s the fact that when we killed Ghidorah, we did get them to return, at least a few. I wonder...maybe eventually, you’ll have to leave and go back to your tribe. For them. And I never was...very good with distance. It tends to make things...drift apart, with me.
“...or I just banged m’head too hard and am babbling nonsense. But...I dunno. Once I started getting the finger down on this pulse...I felt like if I tried to ignore it, the more real it might become.”
It took a moment for Neeko to understand. And also, she was distracted by a poro that was chasing her tail.
“...you think Neeko leave? When find enough Oovi-Kat?”
“Not because you’ll WANT to. That it’ll just...happen. And it’s so nice and peaceful here, just us trying to skate...best time to talk about that, huh? I tell my head, be quiet. And my chest keeps goin’ ‘But what if’...I don’t know. I was trying to think, why would I be afraid…”
She tried to get up, only to slip again.
“So afraid I can’t even stand up?”
There was a long silence.
“...oh, Mirree.”
Neeko leaned over, and even in her wintry form she could give a hug as warm as any.
“Is Neeko’s bad. How Neeko not notice? You must be thinking long time about this.”
“I have discover’d I am bad at thinking. All it does is make my head hurt. Wait no, that was the ice.”
“Neeko should have talked earlier. Should have thought about you more. Feel bad. But…”
Neeko pulled away.
“Neeko not leave. Oovi-Kat coming back, is good thing. Great Never not take us all. But why go back to old tribe? Neeko is full-grown now. Not hatchling who need protection. Can make own choices. And Neeko choose to stay with new tribe. With Mirree and Shunny and Kobber friends! Such a big tribe! Why throw away new thing just because old thing come back? Is silly thing to do!”
Her golden eyes sparkled like the snow.
“I won’t throw you away, Mirree.”
“Never thought you would. But sometimes, you think you’ve got something, and then you check your pocket, and it’s gone, y’know?” Joy got up. “Now I’m SURE I can figure this out-”
ONE OUT OF CONTROL LUNGE INTO A TREE AFTER WHICH SNOW FALLS ON YOU LATER.
“Or maybe I’ll just go find DeMonde and get a tail.” Joy said, before a little more snow fell on her head.
————
The language of the Oovi-Kat was not in words. It was much closer to the language of animals, where sounds and facial expressions were of lesser priority to other, much more subtle cues. Cues that the average person would only have a loose grasp of at the best of times. A flick of a tail, a twitch of an ear or nose, a shift in body posture means a thousand words to the creatures of the wild, to whom the human language is no more than annoying noise.
The three Oovi-Kat rescuees - Keela; her son, Jarro; and Bane’s former captive, Muuti - did not know English very well. Muuti knew it better due to exposure to the thugs who had captured him. But the other two had tried to mimic the sounds made by Neeko and gave up in frustration. They had no patience for such a limited way of speaking, without the layers of emotion and sensation their sho’ma could give them. So Neeko, for the sake of making them comfortable, was now speaking to them in this way.
To an outsider, it looked odd. Each one glancing back and forth between them, occasionally shifting in place or flicking their tails. Patterns would flash over their bodies, and the occasional chirp or trilling noise would come from one of them. It was all body language and facial expression with nary a word.
But the conversation going on as their sho’ma blended like the scents of tropical friits was as detailed as one in any other language.
And you were stuck there for three days? Neeko could hardly believe what she’d just heard from Keela.
The mother nodded. Yes. Three days. We had to live on bugs and rats. Not the best fare, but preferable to getting your head cut off or worse.
I liked it! chirped Jarro.
You would, interjected Keela, sardonically, with all the junk food you eat.
A grunt and a snort from Muuti. I don’t envy you. At least the masked man fed me. It wasn’t very good food - too greasy. I could feel my body wailing as I swallowed it down. But better than rats.
A pause, punctuated by Jarro scratching behind his ear with one foot.
...I never imagined, said Keela, softly, that life outside the island would be so fraught with dangers. It’s a completely alien environment to the likes of us. Without our trees and our nature, we’re almost helpless. I could never believe one of us could survive here, and yet… She looked at Neeko with mixed awe and admiration.
Neeko stifled a giggle. Please, Miss Keela! I’m not that good! I just learn from all the others around me, like all our mothers taught me! I take a bit of sho’ma from everyone I meet, just as I took them from the trees and the birds. It’s not that much different!
But it is true? rumbled Muuti in an insistent tone. You slew the Great Never, the Sun Eater, the Devil of Fire and Light? That’s a worthy Life-Song!
Yeah! cried Jarro, hopping on the spot. Neeko’s the best!
Blushing, Neeko nodded. In truth, she hadn’t told them everything of her adventures, or of the things she’d discovered in the human world. Too much of that would probably overwhelm them with both the passage of time and the overload of alien concepts. It had come in dribs and scraps, given piece by piece to let the grow accustomed to the new ideas and how long it had been since King Ghidorah’s attack.
Pizza rolls had already blown their minds once. One could only wonder what pizza balls would do.
She turned back to Muuti. His skin had gone from the muted tones of tree bark to a brighter hue, closer to an olive colour. He also looked a lot healthier, with more muscle definition and a more alert posture as well. In fact, all the newcomers looked a lot better - especially Keela and Jarro, after the thorough wash and feed they’d had. His eyes were fixed very intently on her, and his sho’ma, a thick and tangy orange, mingled with her own vibrant patchwork. Jarro’s bright yellow-green and Keela’s rosy pink hovered on the edges like schools of fish.
Do you remember anything, Neeko asked him, of what happened? I mean, how you got to where you were?
Muuti sucked in breath and looked pensive. I remember… darkness. I was alive, and yet… there was nothing. No sound, no light, no touch. Like I was buried under mud or trapped in an ocean of shadows. I don’t know how long I was there. The only other thing was this… horrible burning in my mind, that kept growing and growing. And a chattering, like the whispers of a thousand bat’s wings but with words.
It was awful. Keela shuddered, and Jarro clutched to her, shivering. I felt like I was being taken over. Like the fire and the voices and the madness were eating me from the inside. I felt that sooner or later it would swallow me up and I would be gone.
Neeko recalled the same awful burning in her mind. The voices of Ghidorah. She shuddered.
But what about after? she pressed, shifting to present her tail, where soft blues tricked down her scales like water.
Muuti scratched his head. Well… It’s hard to explain. But suddenly there was a jolt, and I felt like I was… flying? No, that’s not right. Being pulled along, perhaps. Like when you grab a vine with a fruit on the end and drag it along behind you. It was pulling me along-
Keela made a chirrup and perked up. Yes, I remember that, too! Like you were tied to something flying along and all you can hear is the wind in your ears! And there was a great rowing or rushing noise, like a waterfall but much, much bigger.
It felt like I was being… pulled somewhere? Muuti frowned. I was being drawn somewhere, in a certain direction. But I could see nothing but blackness, so I have no idea what direction it was.
Neeko also frowned. But how did you end up… in a city? Or the haunted woods?
Keela shook her head. I don’t really know. All I know was that suddenly, it felt like I was falling. And then when I opened my eyes, I was in that awful forest. And Jarro was with me, too. Muuti nodded in agreement.
It kinda felt like I’d been dropped. Jarro rolled onto his back, showing a pale underbelly. Like, whatever it was, it didn’t mean to put me or mama in that forest. It kinda let go by accident. Or maybe it just left us there for a moment and was gonna come back. Does that sound weird, mama?
No, Jarro, you’re right. It did feel that way. Like I was only meant to be there for a short while. Only it didn’t work out that way, thanks to that awful demon.
What I don’t understand, snorted Muuti, is why it felt the need to put us down to begin with. If it was such a great force, could it not have gone on until it got to where it wanted to be?
The quartet sat in silence, musing. Only Neeko’s mind was racing. A force that just dropped others off in random places, only to come back for them later… why did that sound so familiar? Where had she-?
“Odd fellow, though. Didn’t speak English very well - seemed to be some sort of reptile-man. Kind of like you, actually.”
“Neeko ask hospital for info. But they say he never come in.”
“Two broken legs ain’t something you just throw out there. Unless something ‘bout this place made him want to leave.”
“This carnival… it goes between worlds. Turns up in different lands and places. A lot of the staff here get picked up from any one of them, because they can’t cope.”
“Considering it faked an injury beforehand...maybe it sensed it was getting yanked somewhere else, and didn’t want Neeko to come along?”
...the carnival. The same thing had happened to the Oovi-Kat at the carnival. Maybe he’d been dropped there, then had sensed he was going to be picked up again? He had started the fire, that much was fact. Was he trying to keep Neeko from being picked up as well? Dawn had floated the idea before, but Neeko had never given much thought.
She swallows the thought down. She’d have to relay this to the others later.
Don’t worry about it, she said, trying to seem comforting. I’ll find out what’s causing this. Merilee’s going to help you-
A trio of hisses startled her onto all fours. All three Oovi-Kats had taken hunched postures, fins rattling and tails arched. Muuti had bared his teeth, and even Jarro’s skin was flashing an angry crimson flame pattern. But they weren’t aggressive gestures - to Neeko’s shock, they seemed to be the opposite. Defensive. Almost… frightened?
Her! he growled. To the Void with her! We’ll have nothing to do with that woman!
But… why? Neeko whimpered, puppy-like. She helped me, and I’m sure-
We can smell it on her! Keela’s eyes were narrowed. We can feel it in her sho’ma! She’s got something to do with it! With the force that sweeps us up and pulls to who knows where! The connection is faint, but it’s there! And if she really is responsible-
Neeko hissed back. Don’t be stupid! How can she be?! She doesn’t know any more about this than I do!
So she says, growled Muuti. But no lies can come out of sho’ma. You know this as well as any other of our kind. How can we trust the words and deeds of this person, told to us second-hand, after we’ve sensed the same force in her that took our tribe away? How can we know she’s not a fake-shade with her own-?
DON’T CALL HER THAT!
Neeko hadn’t meant the snarl to come out as loud as it did. But it did come out that loud, a guttural sound that rolled down her body and through her throat. The other Oovi-Kats jumped back, eyes wide, their colours going pale white in shock. Neeko glared back, on all fours, daring any one of them to challenge her any further and-
A whimper made her look down. Jarro was cringing, curled next to Keela’s side, tears rolling down his face. The mother was clutching him close, nursing him, and her expression was now an accusatory glare at the one who’d frightened her son.
Guilt rippled through Neeko, and she reached out. I… I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-
But Keela shook her head. Stop it, Neeko. You’ve said enough. We know what you feel for this woman. We can’t stop you - it’s not our position to. But don’t let your feelings for her blind you, Neeko. If you’d sensed what we have, you wouldn’t trust her any more than we do. And we can’t trust someone who, knowingly or otherwise, keeps secrets from us. It’s not the Oovi-Kat way. It’s not right.
For a moment, Neeko remembered. The things Dawn had kept from her. The sting of the bottle shattering, only to be told her mission had been pointless anyway. The fear and terror of facing Fiddlesticks, followed by the disappointment in being deceived by omission. The resolve to never again work for someone who was, essentially, the very concept that her tribe hated. A liar and deceiver. Was it right for her to judge her fellow Oovi-Kat for doing the very thing she, herself, had done?
Then she remembered other things.
What Joy had said. What Dawn had sometimes said, though she didn’t agree with it. The stories Vent had told of his world and of Faust. The advice given by Springtra-Phillip, and Celestia. And how, to each and every one of them, what they said was what they felt was right, even if it was so different from her own, and even each other's.
Joy, to her, was a woman with a hole in her soul. One that influenced so much of her. To Neeko, fixing her was right. But that right was too different from the old Oovi-Kat right, where a hidden or broken sho’ma was cause for suspicion and even shame. That had been Neeko’s right, once, but living with Joy… that had changed that. It had given her a new right.
And if the old right meant doing nothing for someone who was clearly suffering...
She steeled herself, and looked Keela, Jarro and Muuti in the eye
“What’s right for one,” she said, “is not always right for other.”
Then she turned and left the room.
---
She almost immediately ran into Dawn.
“Neeko.” Dawn said. “We found the door.
“We can access the Apeiron. Find the Lorgnette. And maybe, the rest of your people.”
Neeko looked at her intently.
“...Neeko hopes so.”
