Ukyo stood, dead in her tracks, staring at the Nekohanten. Or, at what was left of it, at least. She had been too late; the pineapple monsters had indeed been here, and had done more damage than had even been done to her shop. Windows were broken, furniture and kitchen equipment was strewn all over the place, and everything was covered in the familiar gunk that could be smelled throughout the town by now. The stench here was so bad that the young chef almost felt like throwing up. She now thanked her blessed insides that she’d missed breakfast that day.
She didn’t notice any movement inside the restaurant, though, and wondered if the crew had all been out when it happened. Spying an Open sign on the ground with the broken glass, she guessed this wasn’t the case. So, where are they?, she thought. Don’t tell me they’re-
At that moment, she spied some movement under a crap-drenched tablecloth. Taking a closer look, she saw something small struggling under it. Running over, she threw it off, finding a small cat, also drenched in pineapple feces.
“Oh no,” she said, reaching down to grab her. Before she could, however, Shampoo-neko sprung awake, and shook her body dry, flinging pineapple feces at Ukyo.
“Gah!” the girl blurted out, spitting out the gunk that had actually made it into her mouth. “Yuck! Dammit, Shampoo! And I came here to help you!”
The cat started meowing at her incoherently, to the point where Ukyo figured her best bet was to find some hot water. Looking into the kitchen to find an undamaged kettle on the stove, she set about heating some water. Soon enough, the purple-haired Amazon, nude save for a towel, was sitting in front of her. “Shampoo not normally thank spatula-girl for help, but this time she make exception.”
“Whatever,” Ukyo replied. “I see they struck here already.” Looking around at the destroyed restaurant, a thought came to her. “Shouldn’t the old crone have been able to do something about this? Where is she, anyway?”
“If you mean great-grandmother, she left for China on business trip two day ago,” Shampoo replied, a small amount of contempt in her voice. “She left place to me and Mousse.”
“And where’s he?”
“Buried under mass of broken bowls and chairs, Shampoo think. Would have beaten back monsters eventually had they not broken water vane. It go downhill from there.”
“Well, that’s just perfect,” Ukyo sighed. “We have no idea what these things are, and, so far, we have no idea how to stop them. What are we supposed to do now?”
“Ara, ara,” a familiar voice said from just outside the shop. A simultaneous cry of “DAMN!” in a strange, but also familiar voice erupted from the same place. Ukyo looked up to see the eldest Tendo daughter, accompanied by none other than the new “exchange student” Ranma and Akane had brought to school the previous day. And both of them, she noticed, were fecal-free. “What on earth happened to this place?”
“Kasumi!” she said, relieved to see someone who hadn’t yet suffered the wrath of the fruit monsters. “…and…meatball?”
“Huh? Dat ain’t my name!”
“You mean Meatwad?” Kasumi said as she approached the two.
“Yeah…whatever,” the chef replied. “I’m so glad to see you’re okay! How did you evade those monsters?”
“Monsters? What do you mean?”
“You mean…you haven’t seen a bunch of mutated pineapples throwing feces all over the town?”
“Oh, is that what that smell was? I guess that makes sense, now.” Looking at the decimated shop, she said “Is that what happened here?”
“They come and throw their poo all over place,” Shampoo said. “They chase away customers, ruin food, and tear place of business apart. Since Shampoo got wet, nothing Shampoo could do.”
Ukyo would have continued listening to the conversation had she not felt a strange, wet sensation on her leg. Looking down, she saw that there was still a bit of the brownish-yellow gunk on her leggings that she had forgotten to scrape off. And, to her shock and disgust, Meatwad was eating it off her.
“Gaahh!” the girl yelled, falling back on her rear before scooting away. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“Wuzzat?” Meatwad asked, as if he hadn’t noticed her reaction. He continued eating the gunk that had fallen off her leg before stopping to savor it. “Mmm. Dis here’s some pretty good gravy. Not too chunky, not too smooth…kinda’ taste like pineapples…an’ a bit like dog doodoo…but it’s good. Go ahead, try some,” he finished, trying to inch the gunk towards the chef.
Fighting her stomach’s desperate desire to vomit, Ukyo covered her mouth before shouting a muffled “Th- th- that’s fine!” She stood up, and backed further away as the ball of decayed meat continued to feast. “Dammit, I feel like I’m gonna hurl a big one…”
“Well, then you’ll at least have somethin’ ta’ eat!”
“What did you say?” the chef asked, a disturbed look on her face.
“Well, you see, Shake says the principal diet of Japanese girls is their own puke, which they vomit and eat back up every night in front of their master, see, ‘cause it helps maintain the master-slave relationship, an’ let’s ‘em know who’s boss an’ all, which is natural to the slave nature that Japanese girls are born into. Plus, it helps them maintain a more proportionate weight, so they never get as heavy as the master…”
Ukyo may very well have drifted into a catatonic state had someone not stepped between them, ending the conversation. “Okay, Meatman, that’s enough. I think you just gave her a seizure.” Turning to his childhood friend, he snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Yo, Ucchan! You okay? Snap out of it!”
Shaking her head, the young chef looked up to see her savior. “Ran-chan!”
“Akane-chan, Ranma-kun!” Kasumi said. “Where have you two been?”
“We’ve just been giving those poor excuses for a video game a nice taste of fear,” the boy replied. “Or, rather, she has,” he finished, pointing to his fiancé.
“They ran off in their ship, giving us the finger or something,” Akane said. “But they won’t be messing with us again.”
Ukyo didn’t know what they were talking about, but decided she didn’t need to know. “Hey, you two aren’t covered in that yellow gunk. Does that mean…”
“You mean those pineapple freaks? Oh, we ran into ‘em. But they weren’t fast enough to hit me.”
“Good for you, Ran-chan,” the girl said, getting up. “Still, this doesn’t help my situation, or Shampoo’s. Does anyone have any idea where these things came from?”
Every human in the group shook their heads. A second later, they all looked down at Meatwad, who was still dining on pineapple manure. Exchanging glances with his friends, Ranma nodded, and opened his mouth.
“Yo, Meatwad!”
“Yeah?”
“By chance, you got any idea where these guys came from?”
“What guys?”
“The pineapples.”
“Pineapples? Don’t they come from Hawaii?”
“No, I mean the monsters.”
“Monsters? Where? No one told me ‘bout no damn monsters!”
“No, I mean the pineapples!”
“Oh! Well, those come from-“
“Hawaii, we know!” Akane interrupted. “He’s asking you where…”
“Wait a minute,” Ranma quipped to himself, thinking. “Pineapples? Hawaii?”
“You sayin’ they throw their doodoo? Dat sounds like the monkeys at the zoo!”
“Well, they did kind of resemble monkeys...” Ukyo said.
“Great. No one knows where the hell these things came from, or why they’re here,” Akane pouted. “Just how the hell is this possible?”
“GEE. I WONDER HOW, AS WELL…” a deep, machine-like voice suddenly resonated. Turning to the source of the voice, they saw another weird phenomenon, in the form of a clawed robot. “OH, WAIT! I KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED!”
For more than ten seconds, they stared at it. Finally, Akane broke the silence. “Well?”
“WELL WHAT?”
“Who’s responsible for all this?” she yelled, angrily.
“WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW? PROBABLY YOUR MOMMA!”
Ranma had to move fast to grab his fiancé before she could reach the robot. As he restrained the girl, he sighed to himself. “Gee, what could possibly happen after this?”
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(Posted Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:14)
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