Times like this, Mara hated the fact that she was once childhood friends with Urd—call her ‘Urdeth’ at your own risk—and wished she never made that ‘pinky promise’ to give aid in absolute dire need. Her duty was to increase the level of demonic presence on the face of the earth, not... dumpster diving!
Turning from the alleyway, the blonde-haired, red-eyed Demoness glared at the platinum-haired, green-eyed Goddess. “No.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I said, ‘no’!”
“Do it and I won’t tell Hild about You-Know-What,” Urd sang out. Truthfully, she didn’t know what Mara—a.k.a. Marller—may have done that she believed had yet to reach the Goddess’ Mother/Queen of Hell.
No need to let Mara know that, as it appeared to have gotten the Demoness to stop her course and slowly turn around.
“You wouldn’t,” the pale blonde accused.
Smiling deviously, Urd replied by asking, “Have we met?”
“...How the fuck are you a Goddess?” growled Mara.
Smiling, the Norn of the Past truthfully answered, “It’s because I happened to be the lucky bastard that was in the right womb at the right time, and I was the spawn of the Almighty himself!” she then grinned, showing off her pristine white teeth. “So are you going to jump in there for me or do I tattle to mom about something you don’t want known..."
Glaring at the smirking Goddess, the Demon of Minor Nuisance and Bad Luck replied, “Do that and I’ll tell your mother you bankrupted Heaven.”
“Are you kidding?” the tanned Goddess snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s no way this endeavor bankrupted us; and even if it did, mom would hug and thank me for making the area a ‘purchasable acquisition’ for her!”
Preparing to snort—whether in agreement or agitation—Mara paused a bit.
Urd had just called Hild... ‘mother’... twice. The Norn never did that. Sure, she claimed that by doing so, she would let Hild into her heart and thus be corrupted, but no one bought it. They felt it was just the usual mother/daughter BS that sometimes occurred, a sort of teenage rebellion.
But here Urd, was saying it...
So, either this wasn’t Urd—her luck wasn’t that good—or Yggdrasil was really, REALLY fucked up at the moment.
“Hmm...” she said, scratching her chin in thought, as she stared at Urd.
“...What?” asked the Goddess.
“Something else is up,” Mara muttered, trying to decipher what was changed. “Did you break the System?”
“Wuh-what?” stammered Urd nervously. “Are you kidding? Nothing can damage Yggdrasil!”
Now certain something was going on, Mara leaned in, glaring at the Goddess. “Spill it... what happened?”
A sweat-drop trickled down the side of the tanned woman’s head. “Wuh-whatever do you mean?” she asked. “Yggdrasil is impenetrable, after all it runs all reality so it has to be... really!”
“Oh, really?” Mara asked. “So that means if I put in the proper requisition forms and have word sent to... ‘Him’...” she snorted as thinking of the almighty left her with a sour taste in her mouth. “He would be able to look at it and confirm that the Tree of Life is all right?”
“...IT WAS SKULD’S FAULT!” the Norn of the Past wailed, breaking under the peer-pressure rather quickly.
The Demoness sometimes known as Marller sighed. Really? Cracked so easy? She hadn’t even needed to threaten to break out the Austrian Polka music. Shit, the System must be ready to crash, she internally ranted. Though, somehow, she should have seen this coming. Urd had been voted Most Likely to Cause Ragnarok... by both sides. “And how exactly have you two almost brought The End of Times this week?”
At this rate, Hild-domo really would make her apprentice under Urd to better learn how to make shit go crazy.
Twiddling her fingers, Urd could only mumble, “Crysis 3...”
Blinking her eyes once, twice, the pale-skinned Demoness tilted her head. “Crisis three? What, this is the third time you’ve done it?” Damn! DA~YUM even! Maybe she should try and get some tips from the Norn...
“No, ‘Crysis 3’! It’s a videogame," Urd said. “It’s the most bandwidth hogging, PC power-demanding, graphics-card raping videogame in the world!” she sighed as she added, “And it doesn’t help that the gameplay IS addictive!”
“...You crashed Yggdrasil with a human videogame?” Mara asked in awe, wondering if she should use this insider info to try and buy-out one of the videogame companies; Capcom and Square-Enix were currently in hot water.
“I DIDN’T CRASH IT!” Urd shouted in response. “I... merely made it work at only fourteen-percent for fifteen hours or so...”
At the look the Demoness gave her, the Norn of the Past quickly added, “It still ran!”
Mara just twitched. Fourteen-percent! Oh, that could not end well.
Hild sat in her office, tapping her fingers against her desk, a phone to her ear... as snow fell outside the window behind her.
“We’re sorry, but all Help Lines for Yggdrasil are currently busy. Please stay on the line, as your issues are very important to us. ”
“Someone... will pay for this...” the Queen of Nifelheim promised.
“But it IS back up and running now, so I’m sure everything is fine now!” Urd waved off nervously.
Peorth pulled with all her strength, trying to rip the mouse cable from her throat.
“NUMBER FIVE IS ALIVE!” she managed to scream out as her computer called tried to end her... ‘User Status’.
“...I repeat, how the Hell are you considered a Goddess?” Mara asked again.
“...Because the Almighty's seed made me,” Urd repeated, giving what was likely at this point the only reason she was allowed into the Heavens. “Now, are you going to keep your end of the Pinky Promise and go dumpster diving to find the money that was supposed to go to Orphans via a Goddess Relief Office Wish or not!?”
Mara just continued to stare at the half-Goddess—more like half-Demoness—and told her, “You know, since you’re in deep shit anyway, I know a better way to get money that doesn’t involve either of us having to look inside of dumpsters...”
“I still say you should check it out,” the Norn huffed.
“Get a minion,” the Demoness snorted out. She got them all the time.
Urd just smiled.
“...I am not your minion,” Mara dully replied.
“Please!” the platinum-tressed Goddess begged.
“... Did you just try and use ‘Puppy-Dog-Eyes no Jutsu’ on me?” Mara asked with a light hiss.
Urd narrowed her eyes, and went with Plan Theta—the only Greek Alphabet Letter she knew! “Fine, but then you won’t get the glory of stopping me from completing my wish, thus failing to stop me from acquiring a larger share of the Earth Market!”
Mara was about to argue when realization hit her like a sack of bricks. “But wouldn’t NOT helping you also keep you from granting said wish and helping said orphans, thus making the world a more fiendish place to live?"
“DON’T YOU BRING LOGIC INTO THIS!” the Norn of the Past snapped, starting to become desperate.
*BAM*!
Turning at once, preparing to magically toast whatever made said noise, they stopped, watching as a lanky Japanese teen exited the back door of some restaurant, cursing to Heaven and Hell, as he dragged several bags of trash towards said dumpster.
Listening to him, one could make out that apparently, the owner was much too cheap to get a proper cart to carry the gunk safely instead of risking the bags ripping.
Pausing, said man looked at the two women: one dressed almost completely in leather, the other with a split dress that stopped before showing anything good.
It reminded him he needed to rent a few pornos that night.
Looking about, he couldn’t decide if he had interrupted a pimp dealing with an unruly ho, or a Mistress punishing her leather-clad slave, he shrugged, opened the dumpster, hoped they weren’t new vagrants—curse you, World Economy and Bubble Markets that stupid people always assume can rule themselves—and tossed the bags into what the two ladies now saw was an empty dumpster.
“...FUCK! ” Urd cursed at the top of her lungs. “The garbage truck already came!?”
Considering that for a moment, Mara nodded her head; she couldn’t fight the smile on her face. “Well, Urd... what’s it going to be? Are we both going to head to the local garbage dump and look for a proverbial needle in a haystack and risk tetanus and other diseases? Or shall we go with my idea?”
The tanned Goddess turned her head to look at her former friend with a sullen gaze. “What’s the idea?”
Smiling, Mara wrapped an arm around Urd’s shoulders and escorted her towards the street. “My dear, you need to think more like a demon now...”
As the two turned the corner, the teen blinked, having understood not one word of what they had said; not because they had been speaking some foreign language, just that he had his iPod on and the sound turned to, ‘Who needs to hear at 30?’
For one, he knew it was the pimp/ho relationship now.
Two, he did wonder why they were so interested in the dumpster. Trash had been picked up three days ago... and the place had just reopened after a week off for a busted water pipe.
Shaking his head, the Japanese teenager headed back inside... once more cursing the cheap owner as he began the long task of trying to coax the unlocked door knob to actually ‘open’ the door.
“And that is what the Japanese National Tax Agency is offering for a counter-proposal... if you believe that sort of thing,” Toramasa replied as he told Nodoka what the Revenue Service was willing to forgo in payment in return for leaving removal of the dead rats—and the dead midget that was currently hanging from the men’s bathroom via pantyhose noose—up to her...
“I don’t,” Nodoka replied, tapping a few keys on the piano... and stopping when one made a squawking sound. “Would you be able to get an agent here or on the phone? I’d rather wrap this up quickly—yes, I know how odd a request that is from a government agency,” she waved off before the old man could answer, looking about. “But I really need to get my son’s business up and running before we find out if the Mayans were right or not.”
Mr. Kobayakawa blinked his eyes once, twice. “I could get ahold of them as I do have a phone number available...”
“Let me guess,” Nabiki snorted as she looked through the paperwork. “That’s, ‘if you believe that sort of thing’ right?”
“Actually, I was going to say, ‘but I wouldn’t hold my breath’. They are terrible with returning calls,” the elderly man snorted as well. “Kami-sama knows how much they’ve screwed me over... I’ve been forced to live in the places I’m trying to sell; and the ladies public bathroom is CRAMPED!” he cursed bitterly. Realizing he had the two women staring at him, the elderly man replied, “What? It’s the cleanest room in the place! Barely any use!”
Nabiki looked around. This place has a public restroom... for women!? Man, she really didn’t know what was going on here, did she?
Ranma ignored them both, trying to find the plug for the pinball machine. He most certainly did not want to be involved in whatever was going on. Bad enough the previous owner took the ice-cream machine the sign outside probably had the coupons for, but he was relatively certain that the skull in that hidden room had been winking at him!
He needed a vacation...
Meeerrrowww... the Neko-Ken firmly agreed, trying to nudge his emotions to explain what he wanted.
Pausing in his search for an extension cord, Ranma told the kitty in his head—no, not figuratively, literally—with a firm voice, “No, I am not going to swallow catnip!”
Nyaaaoooo...
“I’m not smoking it either!” the pigtailed martial artist snapped, feeling rather pissed when he found a portion of extension cord that only ended in frayed wires, denying him the bliss that was ‘Evil Knievel Super Pinball’.
Seeing Ranma talking to himself—and not in the good way—Nabiki slowly made her way over to him. “This way, Saotome,” she said curtly, dragging him towards the bar. “We need a drink.”
“...They have milk?” Ranma asked. He was feeling a bit parched from the walk... and the suit not breathing.
Meow?
“Fine, you can have some milk too,” he grumbled. Damn thing, always after something...
Memerow?
“I am not grabbing a rat.”
Hiss—purr?
Ranma blinked. Well, things did taste better deep fried...
But if the asshole took the ice-cream machine, he probably took the deep fryer as well! Damn him!
Coming to a stop as Nabiki propped him up on the single stool that wasn’t neither bent nor missing the seat and becoming an device of impalement, Ranma watched as the woman bent over, looking underneath the bar cabinetry. She frowned as she realized that there wasn’t much left and/or intact. She reached a hand in slowly, hoping to the kami there were no rats in the darkness further off into the depths of the bar.
She paused as she felt intact glass and reached in deeper. She slowly pulled out a bottle of wine, corked with wax and decked with a paper label that seemed to have the hand-inked title, ‘Sandeman: Ruby Porto 1932’ and the image of what looked like a man from behind walking.
Part of her wondered if she should check how much this bottle was... the other was saying, ‘fuck it, I need heavy alcohol now’ and she wasn’t ready to go to any one of the numerous Liquor Stores in the immediate area for fear of running into any of her old... ‘acquaintances’...
Deciding to forgo glasses—wasn’t like she had to worry about indirect kisses after last night—she looked around for something to remove the cork, something that wasn’t covered in a dried, red fluid, or in a discarded evidence bag.
Blinking, Ranma decided to try his own luck. Reaching over the counter and into the covering shadows underneath, he felt for something too.
“SQUEAK!”
Meow!
Nope, not that.
Hsss! Damn it, even split personalities needed food too!
Ranma ignored it, continuing to feel around. There had to be more under the bar...
Maybe he’d find some more random money again!
“Squeak!”
“Squeak!”
“Squeak!”
“SQUEAK!”
“Squeak!”
“Giggity-Squeak!”
Damn it! Rats, rats and more rats! Oh if only he could get Nuku-Nuku here! She would be more than enough to clean this place out! Damn the Japanese Diet for making it law that he couldn’t be with Atsuko and that they needed the minimum space of half a district between them! Why was it every time he made a purely platonic friend—yes, he knew the term; that one military officer explained it thoroughly to him—something always kept them apart!?
At this rate, it might be illegal for him to leave Nerima Ward by the time he turned eighteen!
Hmm, maybe I can use that to keep the old farts from pushing marriage to the tomb—not rat! Let’s see...
Damn! Only a Glock-9. Better keep looking…
He blinked his eyes as he felt... “What’s this?”
His fingers grasping around something tightly, Ranma noticed the darkness pulsing with a shimmering soft red glow that hadn’t been there before and gulped. He tentatively pulled the item out, revealing it to be a human bone...
If human bows could glow.
“...I think I found something that belongs to the skull in the hidden basement...” Ranma said slowly as he looked up at Nabiki.
The middle Tendo daughter paused in her efforts to remove the wax cork—finally having found one corkscrew that probably hadn’t been used to injure someone fatally—and looked at the pulsing bone. And to think, the bartender simply called it his ‘Persuadertron’. She frowned as she realized. But, you know, it does probably explain how that fat geek got laid so much. Strippers simply do NOT have fetishes for pimply nerds. “Well?” she asked, staring at him.
“...What should I do with it?” the heir of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts questioned.
The woman huffed. While she wasn’t one to give free information, this had the possibility of effecting her as well; covering her own ass would be payment enough. “Well, me, I’d wipe my prints off it before tossing it onto the pile of bones in the wall there, before the government agents get here.”
“...So I need a clean towel,” he replied, remembering some of what his father had taught him.
“Yeah, good luck finding one,” Nabiki replied, returning to trying to obtain her sweet nectar.
“Well everyone, I’ve got both good and bad news,” Toramasa spoke up, trying to get the attention of those further away from him and the now cackling Nodoka.
Looking up from her bottle of sweet relief and over at the Saotome Matriarch, Nabiki shuddered. This could not be good at all!
As the two youths remained where they were—not that he blamed them—Toramasa sighed and he motioned for the two to come closer...
Which they did, making sure they were further away from Nodoka and finally opposite the woman so they could keep an eye on her. You couldn’t trust what that woman would do when out of your field of vision... at least if you saw it coming you could run!
“What’s the matter now?” Nabiki asked, clutching the bottle to her bosom protectively as if it were a newborn baby.
“It turns out there was a reason why this place could be bought dirt-cheap, even in comparison to other properties in the neighborhood and why certain... ‘questionable’ practices went on...” the elderly man explained. “I got ahold of an Accountant for the JNTA and upon explaining what was going on, he forwarded me a line to the Tokyo Planning and Zoning Commissioner... it turns out... well...” he scratched the back of his head. “Apparently this place doesn’t technically exist.”
Ranma blinked his eyes once, twice. “Come again?” It would be his luck to have entered the Twilight Zone... a third time... this month alone...
“It would seem that there was a miscalculation when they divvied up the properties of this district and the Commissioner discovered that the land the Pink Kitty rests upon is not on the Tokyo map, and thus not even part of the map of Japan... or ANY map for that matter. Furthermore, it’s not listed in any of the registries. That means what you have here is a tiny spot of land smack dab in the middle of Tokyo that by legal definition isn’t Japanese soil. That’s why there’s been a lot of legal red-tape in selling it.”
Her mind slowly processing the information, Nabiki just blinked her eyes. “You have to be shitting me...” she growled out. That meant...
That meant...
THAT MEANT ALL THE FUCKING TAXES SHE PAID WORKING THERE NEVER WENT TO ANYONE BUT THE OLD FAT LARD ASS HIMSELF!
*POP*!
“Hey! You got the cork out!” Ranma exclaimed, wondering how Nabiki had managed to do that with a... burning red battle aura?
Well, that can’t be good, he thought to himself.
“Squeak? SQUE—”
*SIZZLE*!
“Meow!”
The Saotome Matriarch stared at her only child curiously. “...Son... did you just ‘meow’ while staring at the suspiciously flash-fried rat near Nabiki?” Nodoka asked.
Ranma blinked his eyes once, twice. “Maybe...” he said slowly. At the look he was getting from his mother, he knew he needed to get her attention off of him... and fast! It’s not like this was Japan! Why be held up to Japanese standards when kitties wanted to enjoy mousies in a place that wasn’t EVEN Japan anymore and...
Wait... Mousies? Mousies in Not-Japan?
It was then a major realization hit him... one that made him smile wide. “Wait... wait a minute... if we’re technically not on Japanese soil... does that mean the laws don’t apply here?”
Nodding his head, the elderly man replied. “Yes... you’d likely end up paying more for your utilities unless you go ‘off the grid’ and you’d certainly have to pay international mailing fees if you want to send mail out elsewhere into the country from here or have it mailed to the building... but otherwise you have nothing to do with Japan here...”
Smiling widely, the pigtailed martial artist asked, “Excuse me, old guy? May I borrow your phone?”
*Ring*!
*Ring*!
*Ring*!
“Atsuko~Ooooo!” Professor Natsume called out, the man on his back and underneath a raised table frame his latest project was situated on. “The phone’s ringing! Can you answer it up for me?”
“Okay, Papa-san!” cried the excitable android catgirl as she picked up the phone. “Hello, who the fuck is this?” she chirped happily, just like Papa-san did all the time when he answered the phone.
The man tried to get up quickly at hearing her yell that. “Gah!” came his surprised cry from upstairs, as said man rushed, while clutching his head, only to slip on a discarded pack of cigarettes and injure himself further, trying to rapidly make his way downstairs before his 'daughter' cost him a possible client.
“Uh...” was the response of the surprised male voice. “Is that you, Nuku-chan?”
Immediately, the android’s ear receptors sprang up and her Tetrabyte Pentium Processor went to action in recognizing said voice. A huge grin on her face, the robotic catgirl cried, “FRIEND RANMA! What a surprise! Nuku-Nuku not hear from Friend Ranma since we took out big green radioactive dinosaur together!” she giggled with girlish glee.
“Ruh-Ranma?” the Professor sputtered as he ran into the room, foot losing traction as he stepped on a milk bowl of Nuku’s and fell over again. From his place on the floor, now all wet from lactose liquid, he questioned, “It’s Ranma Saotome!?”
Pouting, the android turned to her creator/father and demeaned, “Papa-san! It’s not polite to interrupt people on the phone!”
The Professor didn't want to interrupt them. HE WANTED TO THANK THEM! Because of Ranma, his ‘friends’—and he used that term looser than he used the term, ‘friendly divorce’—and others like him, the JSDF never blamed Nuku-Nuku for the damages she caused AND had him on permanent retainer to make weapons to deal with entities like them!
Hell, his Second-Generation Pulse Rifles helped repel an invasion of Shikima Smurfs!
As he shuddered at the mental image of such abominations—tentacle demons should NEVER sing like that when attacking ‘innocent’ schoolgirls—he finally tuned back into the conversation to hear...
“WE CAN!!”
Across Japan, several Mauve-level personnel shuddered as if someone had let the captured tentacle-laden Smurf free from its pen again.
“We can, what exactly?” the Professor asked, curious as to just what his daughter was agreeing him to.
“Papa-san! Friend Ranma says he has lots of money and he wants to hire you on to fix the place and that he wants Nuku-Nuku to come along to help!” the fuchsia-tressed android chirruped, drooling at the thought of all the mousies the place had to clear out, if what Friend Ranma said was true!
Blinking his eyes once, twice—not that one could see it with how his bangs hung down over them—the man slowly kicked the kitty bowl off his foot and questioned, “Is that even legal? Not the work, I mean... you and him... together... in the same room, let along the same building...”
Grinning wider, a sparkly gaze came over the young android catgirl’s eyes. “Friend Ranma says his new place is a Rule Free Zone the and mean old Dietmen can’t keep us apart as long as we’re together there!” she mewled happily.
“...Ooookaaaay...” the middle-aged inventor said slowly. What did he care; as long as he got paid and got out before the JDSF came... “What’s this place he wants fixed up?”
Placing the phone to hear hear, the fuchsia-tressed friend of Ranma asked, “Friend Ranma, where is this place again?” She nodded her head a few times and said, “Uh-huh...” she turned to her father and replied, “It’s at 732 Takahashi Boulevard!” she then paused and frowned as she realized the address wasn’t popping up in her internal GPS.
The man was once again blinking his eyes—although said effect was lost for obvious reasons—and frowned. “Hmm... odd... that address seems familiar to me...”
As he pondered that, he also pondered how said boy had found a Rule-Free Zone in Japan...
Fifty Years Ago...
“Come here, you!” growled out a drunken Diet politician, as he chased his secretary, not noticing as he spilled his freshly imported American liquor into the air, some of it landing on a detailed map for a planning and zoning commission, that tomorrow, would go to a stickler for the rules middleman in the emerging bureaucracy of Japan, who would see the smudge, assume it was unusable land, and since he was only to put in actual property listings and not swamp-land or sinkholes—that was another pencil-pusher who had said maps the day before—and skip it.
“Hmm,” the Professor continued. Damn that was bugging him. Just WHY did that address sound so familiar?
Oh well, time to make money! “So, he just needs me to do repairs right? Structure, mechanical, what have you?” the man asked, rubbing his hands as he could already count the Yen signs.
“All of it,” Nuku-Nuku answered. She frowned as she leaned her head in to hear what he had to say. “He says we should leave any ‘sucky-bust’ bones we find alone though...” she then smiled widely at something else her friend told her. “But he also says that Nuku-Nuku can eat all the mousies she finds!!”
Blinking again, Nuku-Nuku replayed the last sounds her audio receptors had picked up. “We need to really hurry, Papa-san! They are even frying tasty mousies! And Nuku-Nuku knows never to let fried food set too long, or it goes bad!”
“...Why are they frying mousies—I mean, mice?” he asked, wincing at his mangling of the human language. Kami-damn, could Nuku ever make anyone lose IQ Points by simply hanging out with her for too long.
“No time!” Nuku-Nuku cried, tossing whatever supplies were nearby, out the window, and outside of the professor’s van. True, a toaster might not help Papa-san...
But she could put fried mousies between buttered toast!
Mmmm, toast...
Watching as his daughter feverishly went to work, the Professor could only comment, “This better pay well...”
“FREEZE!” A female figure clad in trench-coat with pantyhose over her head shouted as she whipped out a Remington shotgun. “Hands where I can see them!”
Her associate, dressed similarly pulled out an AK-47, moving across the area and getting a look at everyone. “This is a robbery and you better pay well!”
The lone male in the place paused in his work, before turning to face the robbers. “Um, ladies? This is a JoS. A. Bank store: we sell men’s clothing.”
“...No safe?” asked the tanned beauty wearing the trench coat opened enough to expose some of her massive cleavage.
“Well, yes, we have one, but the manager just emptied it and took the deposit to a real bank.”
“...” was all Urd could say when it finally sunk in... how badly her first bank robbery was going.
Lowering her automatic weapon, Mara looked at the nearby prices and snorted. Oh yeah, like they were the only robbers in the room. Hopefully, Urd would come up with a plan on the fly to make sure the jackass didn’t report them so they could go find a real bank without those pesky police officers trying to kill them.
“...”
“...I hate you so much right now,” Mara stated, glaring at her friend who couldn’t even come up with a quick lie.
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(Posted Thu, 28 Jul 2011 03:38)
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