Since no place she knew of had such tops, she knew that she wasn't home anymore. So she swung herself to a seated position on the lightly padded bench that she had been sleeping on, and looked around. Three of the walls of the large, brightly lit chamber were made to look like uneven rock, while the fourth was made of clear plexiglass that was at least an inch thick. And the only parts to stand out from it was a small piece of metal just wider than Kasumi's biggest dinner platter, a small basin built into the wall filled with water, and a hole in the floor.
So she decided to figure out what she should do about her situation and looked down at the floor.
What proved to be even odder than where she was wasn't the fact that her legs were bare, as she wore skirts and shorts all the time. But she had been wearing socks and shoes the last time that she had checked, and looking past that revealed that, yes, she was firm enough not to need a bra, as well as that the chill she had been feeling wasn't just her imagination.
Crossing her legs quickly, she covered her arms over her chest and yelled, "What the HELL happened to my clothes?!"
"They were taken from you so that you might learn the travails that the animal kingdom must go through," a voice told her from the other side of the plexiglass.
As she couldn't see who it was, the middle Tendo daughter shuffled her way over, trying to cover herself as best as she could. When she got close enough, she looked through the clear material and saw a group of people standing before her prison, one in front of the others. That person was the odd one out, as she wore greasepaint, but a sweater and pants. Behind her was arrayed a group of people, all clad in the same robes and hoods.
"What the heck is going on?!" Nabiki asked, "What do you think you're doing?!"
"We are going to teach you a lesson for confining that poor panda as you did!" the woman informed her, "For the crime of taking an endangered animal out of the place where it truly belongs, you shall be shown to respect the horrors that such creatures must face!"
"Panda..? You mean 'Uncle' Genma? He's just a lazy good for nothing who showed up on our doorstep a while back and moved on in. And since we can't get rid of him, we have to deal with it."
"You would 'get rid' of a such a creature?"
Thinking over the habits of her father's friend, the teen nodded. "If I could? Pretty much, yeah."
"How dare you! Not only do you remove a member of a species that's numbers are already dwindling, but you are willing to dispose of it like so much garbage! What were you planning?! Making a rug and having dinner?!"
"Hold on a sec! I just meant that I'd get him out of the house, not kill the lazy guy!"
"Which would amount to the same thing! Leaving him in a strange place, especially a city, would expose the poor creature to any number of dangers it would have no defense against!"
A snort escaped from Nabiki. "He's smarter than you think."
"No animal like that is smart enough to survive in as unnatural an environment as a city! And as such, we will place him someplace where he will be safe and in his natural environment!"
"What did you do?"
The woman looked smug under her facepaint. "We will be returning him to China, and placing him high in the mountains where he can forage for food without being bothered by the likes of you!"
"He won't stay there."
"If your associates try, we will stop them. In the mean time, you won't be hurting him, or any other animal ever again."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you are now a part of our zoo."
"WHAT?!" Nabiki screeched.
"Much as we dislike such places where animals are kept against there will for 'scientific study' and the foolish gazes of the masses, we have decided that we can use one of our own. But instead of caging animals in artificial 'habitats' that will never match their true homes, we will place people like you in them. This way you will learn what it is like to be caged as they are, and kept defenseless, without even natural defenses."
"Lady... you're nuts!"
"I am NOT! I am only a true warrior for Mother Earth, a defender of her lands, and a protector of her creatures!"
"You do realise that you're doing this for a panda that isn't a panda, right?"
"What are you babbling about?"
"That 'panda' is really my Dad's old training buddy. He fell into a cursed spring, and now every time he's hit by cold water, he turns into a panda. Splash him with hot, and he goes back to being an old and fat loser."
"Interesting story..."
"You understand?"
"I understand alright. I understand that you must think me a fool for believing in 'curses' when the evidence is right in front of me! You took in a baby panda as a pet, and when it grew too large, you wanted to 'get rid of it'!"
"Umm..," the Tendo girl protested, "That isn't really what happened..."
"Save your lies for someone else! Monsters such as yourself deserve what you get, and you'll get plenty of it! And when it is all over, you'll join our animal brethren in the joy of following the rules that Mother Nature has laid out."
"I don't think so..."
"We do," the woman told her, and the group turned to leave.
"Who do you think you are to do this to me!"
The speaker smirked over her shoulder. "We are the Guardians of The Natural Order, and we shall end the damage being done by people like you."
Stunned speechless for once, Nabiki could only watch them go while:
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(Posted Fri, 26 Dec 2003 03:26)
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