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| Heroing is Magic. |
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Posted by: Dark Seraph - 12-17-2024, 12:06 AM - Forum: The Legendary
- Replies (2)
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Atlas Park.
Lyra Harpsichord layed on the couch, channel surfing when the door to the apartment slammed open, standing there her new roommate Trixie Lulamoon, looking very worse for wear.
"Sooo." Lyra asked, muting the TV. "How was the first day of heroing?"
Trixie stomped to the couch, threw her self on it and screamed into a pillow.
"That bad huh?"
Trixie raised her head. "First, a sewer full of nastiness, then the Rikti War Zone where, big surprise, psionic aliens are immune to illusions, then I helped fight I giant octopus that felt like kicking a puppy and finally on Perigin Island, spending most my time on the ground, getting stepped on." The blue haired woman ranted.
Lyra gingerly patted her back. "So an eventful first day?"
Trixie screamed into the pillow again. "Sweet Celestia's hindquarters, you do this for fun?"
Lyra shrugs. "Well, yeah.... But you are still adjusting, remember, last week you where a pastel unicorn, like Bon bon and I was."
Trixie grumped, it was true, she was originally a pony from Equestria, she had fallen through a portal and ended up human... With tail, in Paragon and it was a big change, anatomy alone was something she was still getting used to... That and diet, her new human body enjoyed meat, something she never would of eaten back home.
Trixie wrinkled her nose. "You wife is not a unicorn, she is a changing, there is a difference."
Lyra sighed, her wife's species had been a point of contention, but Lyra had to help any pony that fell through that portal.... Even if a few had gone bad, like that crazy Pinkie Pie or the Vampire Fluttershy. "Look, the fact my wife is a big woman is not something we need to talk about.... Again, you just need some more heroing experience under your belt.... Or maybe you can do some magic shows?"
The mage sighs, adjusting her purple hat. "Maybe... I'm taking a shower." She gets up, stripping as she went.
Lyra calls out. "Hey, we don't do that in the loungeroom."
She sighs and picks up Trixie's discarded clothes, taking them to the washing hamper and throwing them in, she still needed to teach the former pony about some things before she was ready to live on her own.
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| 2016-09-12 ff.: Vignettes |
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Posted by: robkelk - 12-14-2024, 05:13 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (3)
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There comes a time in every shared universe where the writers run out of stories that are ready to be posted.
Well, the KanriKyaraProject publishable-story buffer has run dry. (We have more, but nothing's ready to release yet.) Here are a few short scenes that even we couldn't turn into entire stories. Yet. Some of these are just for fun; others are canon for the setting... and we aren't going to tell you which is which until something is actually used in a story, nor do we guarantee that the ones that do happen will take place on the dates given here.
Vignettes
A collection of incidental bits, scenelets, short-shorts
and the occasional really bad joke
set in the world of KanriKyara
by Dartz, Rob Kelk, Brent Laabs and Robert M. Schroeck
Vignettes: 2016
September 2016
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Monday, September 12, 2016
Chris still hated Mondays.
Not quite as much as he had in the mid-1990s -- none of the full-fledged, berserker rage, must kill kind of hate he'd had for them in his youth (marriage and the passage of time had mellowed him somewhat over the past twenty years or so, after all) -- but even though he didn't have to make an 8:30 staff meeting any more, he still woke up on the day after Sunday expecting the worst.
He usually wasn't disappointed.
Still, this particular Monday hadn't been too bad, and he'd gotten through to dinnertime without too much in the way of a disaster. With work done, the odds of something going wrong went way down, and he could relax somewhat. His cooking repertoire had expanded somewhat over the past twenty years, but he still had his favorites. Pasta was one of them, and being as it was his turn to cook anyway, he had begun preparing a batch to celebrate getting through the start of another week.
When the black-haired girl erupted from the steaming pot, he was seized by a profound sense of "someone's screwing with me." That, and deja vu.
After all, he'd written this scene in 1996.
At least she didn't fall on top of him, scream, and hammer him into unconsciousness.
But what she did next was almost as disturbing. As he backed off warily, she slowly touched down onto the floor in front of the range, then bowed to him. "Christopher Angel," Skuld said -- and he could almost hear the unspoken "nii-chan!" behind his name -- "Heaven has need of you."
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, Florida, USA
September 25, 2016
"Why do you need bicycles?"
"Because it's three and a half miles to the closest ice cream shop. Or to any place else to buy anything around here." Asuka Soryu sighed deeply. "All the places we could have ended up, and we get stuck in a bedroom community."
Harley Waters grinned. "That sounds to me like a reason to get a real bike, see more of the world than just the beach in our front yard."
"We're too young to get motorcycle licenses," Hikari Horaki pointed out.
"Aw, you'll grow out of that soon enough, like those girls who blew through here last week."
"But in the mean time..." Toji Suzuhara deliberately didn't finish his sentence.
Harley laughed. "Okay, okay, I know when I'm beat! I'll get you a few kiddie bikes tomorrow."
![[Image: 200px-Asuka_and_Shinji_on_a_bicycle.jpg?20241024013543]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/5/57/Asuka_and_Shinji_on_a_bicycle.jpg/200px-Asuka_and_Shinji_on_a_bicycle.jpg?20241024013543)
October 2016
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
October 1, 2016
"Hey, Alice, I think this page is about you!"
Alice Carroll looked, sighed, and told herself yet again that blindly clicking on links Tomo Takino sent her was a mega bad idea.
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
October 4, 2016
"Is there any chance you could teach me to drive?"
Brent Laabs looked sideways at Tomo Takino. "Why do you want to learn?"
"In case I'm on a bus, and there's a bomb on the bus that'll go off if the bus drops below 50, and the driver gets shot, and ..."
"That was a movie!"
"And I'm from a TV show. What's your point?"
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 8, 2016
"Will the three of you listen to yourselves?" Rei Hino finally complained. "Boys, boys, boys, nothing but boys! Haven't you ever heard of the Bechdel test?"
"Do we look like fictional characters?" Minako Aino shot back.
"Up until last month," Ami Mizuno interrupted, "we were fictional characters. At least we were here."
"I still think I'm a real person," Usagi Tsukino muttered.
Maison d'Orléans
Orléans, Loiret department, France
October 9, 2016
«Touché,» Jehanne admitted ruefully, stepping back and lowering her sabre.
"Halt," Adrien, acting as referee, called. "Bout to Marinette."
"For once," the young Frenchwoman said with a grin as she pulled off her mask. She stepped forward and held out her hand. Jehanne, her own mask now off, smiled and shook it, then ran the fingers of her free hand through her dark, sweat-dampened hair.
"Well fought, my friend," she said.
"Thank you," Marinette acknowledged. "You've adapted well to fencing." Together they left the long, narrow rectangle of white paint in the middle of the residence parking lot which served as a makeshift piste, joining Adrien where he stood to one side.
Jehanne grinned at her younger friend. "In truth, I did not think I would do as well as I have. I may have worn a sword into battle, but I can count the number of times I actually drew it on the fingers of one hand. That I can not only hold my own against either one of you, but prevail more often than not, is a wonder to me."
"You are a natural at the arts of war, ma petite," a rich tenor voice said from behind her; Adrien and Marinette's eyes widened, and Jehanne turned about to see her patron stepping out of a shimmer of light that she was certain led to the Heavenly realms. Another figure, obscured by the brilliant light, followed him.
«Grand frère Michel!» she cried happily.
"This is why I have chosen you and your counterparts time and time again across the many universes," the archangel continued as he embraced her. "How do you fare, ma petite soeur?"
She stepped back and wrinkled her nose at him. "As you should know, since you ask me every day, I fare well. My tutors assure me that I am progressing quickly, and ere my reading improves enough, I shall be able to join my new friends at their 'high school'. And I continue to learn how to comport myself in this era."
Marinette shared a grin with Adrien. "She hasn't attacked a car in superstitious dread in almost a week!" she giggled.
Jehanne spun on her friend and held up a forefinger. "Once! Once only was I surprised and reacted badly!"
Marinette took her hand with a gentle smile. "I know, I know. I'm only teasing."
"Its operator should never have been given a license," Jehanne huffed, then shrugged and smiled. "And in truth I did grow familiar with automobiles during my first visit to this time."
Adrien snorted. "Jehanne, how often do we have to tell you? 1989 is not 'this time'."
She crossed her arms and scowled at him. "From whence I came? Then and now may as well be two days in the same week."
"She does have a point," Marinette admitted with grin. "Just like every other time you've had this little discussion." Adrien stuck his tongue out at her and she laughed.
Michael laughed, too, and laid a hand on Jehanne's shoulder. "It gladdens my heart to hear that you continue to do well, except for the occasional automobile," he said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Not you, too," she moaned in mock despair.
"But to help you to adapt even better to this our Refuge," he continued gently, "I have brought someone to meet you."
He stepped aside and the figure behind him resolved into an attractive red-haired woman, lithe and fit, taller than Jehanne by at least ten centimeters, and dressed in a men's dress shirt, jeans, and running shoes, all brilliantly white. She stepped forward with a broad smile upon her face and planted one fist on her hip. "Hello, Jehanne la Pucelle," she said. "I, too, am Jehanne la Pucelle."
"Who better to aid and advise you," Michael said, "than your counterpart from this universe?"
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 12, 2016
Rob Donaldson walked into the common room to hear Minako say, "Not a Brazilian, I hope."
"By now, I really should know better than to ask, but what are you talking about?"
"Oh, hi, Rob! Usagi's new job in the primate pen at the zoo."
He couldn't figure out what she meant. "There's no zoo in Ottawa."
"Ami said she's waxing gibbons," Minako explained.
Ami sighed deeply. "No, I said, 'The Moon is waxing gibbous'."[1]
Chicago, Illinois, USA
October 14, 2016
"Whatever happened to us yesterday wasn't time travel," Rally Vincent commented. "We're definitely not in our home world."
"How do you figure that, Rally?" asked Bean Bandit around big bites of burgers, not really caring but willing to humor his sometimes-partner.
"When I went to renew my license this morning, they told me that bounty hunting's illegal here. Even if you get a license out-of-state."
"That's a shame," May Hopkins commented. "It's been three decades. When did they change the law?"
"That's how I know we're in a different world. They changed it in 1963."
May's eyebrows headed for her forehead. "But that's before I was born!"
"Huh," Bean grunted. "So we're not home. Any idea how to find out where we are?"
"Not a clue. Right now, I'm more worried about how to earn a living. Burgers aren't free."
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 16, 2016
While looking at Makoto clearing the lunch dishes, Minako asked, "Do we need a rota?"
Mii had no idea what Minako meant. "A what?"
"A rota. You know, to keep track of the hoovering, and tossing the bins, and putting the kettle on after class."
"The what, the what, and the what?" Usagi asked, just as perplexed as Mii.
Rob smiled. "I think Mako-chan has the scran covered. But a rota for the rest would be boss."
"He's as bad as she is," Kuroko muttered.
Minako was puzzled for a short moment as well, until she realized what he was saying. "That's Scouse, Mr. Donaldson, not RP."
"So I'm a Beatles fan and I've seen a few episodes of Corrie Street. Everything's sound."
Rei finally exploded. "Will the two of you please tell us what you're talking about!"
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
October 16, 2016
"Why is it so hot?"
"Oh, that's because of the Santa Ana winds," Brent answered Tomo.
Osaka looked puzzled. "But we aren't in Santa Ana."
The Steeple
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
October 20, 2016
"Midchildan computers are the only ones with both spell-check and spelling-check."
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 21, 2016
Ami, still looking for costume ideas for the upcoming Halloween party, looked up from her computer screen. "Oh, dear. It appears that Pretty Cure isn't a medical drama."
The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
October 22, 2016, during the events of Fuku'ing With His Head
"He reminds me of my sempai," Makoto Kino said as she watched Ryouga Hibiki head toward the road.
"He does?"
"Yeah -- he's clueless and he's walking away from me."
November 2016
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 2, 2016
"I just noticed," Mamoru Chiba commented. "You stock tampons in the common room's washroom."
"That's right," Rob replied. "A majority of the residents here are teenage girls with metahuman combat powers. Do you want to tell them they have to do without until they get back to their apartments?"
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
November 5, 2016
Yomi Mizuhara's curiosity had finally reached the point where it had to be satisfied. She walked over to her roommate and said, "You've been staring at that screen for five minutes now. And you're not watching a movie. Just what is it that you're doing?"
Without looking up, Tomo replied, "We're making characters so we can play City of Heroes with the folks in New Jersey, but I'm stuck on a name for mine."
"That's a supers game, right? Call your character 'The Attractive Nuisance'."
Tomo looked sideways at Yomi. "Is that some sort of joke only lawyers would get?"
"You finally noticed!"
"At least you think I'm attractive... sweetling."[2]
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montréal, QC, Canada
November 6, 2016
"Rin," Saber asked, "Why are you calling Sailor Moon 'the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on'?"
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
November 11, 2016
Yui looked over Shinji's cello a second time. Puzzled, she asked, "Where do you plug it in?"
![[Image: 200px-Yui_and_Shinji_with_instruments.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/e/e1/Yui_and_Shinji_with_instruments.jpg/200px-Yui_and_Shinji_with_instruments.jpg)
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
November 12, 2016
"Sooooo," Ritsu vaulted the couch and dropped down next to Yui. "I hear you went on a date with Shinji Ikari." She grinned and nudged Yui with the closest elbow. "Goin' after a younger man, eh, Mrs. Robinson?"
Mio rolled her eyes. "I knew it was a mistake watching The Graduate last Friday," she muttered. Then she added, "Still, Yui, it seems improper for you to get involved with a high schooler."
"Nah," Ritsu said. "We know he likes mature women -- you see how he looks at Misato in their anime? I bet he couldn't keep his hands off our Yui."
Azusa sniffed disapprovingly. "I agree with Mio. It's not right. You're in college, and he's, what, not even fifteen?"
Yui suddenly lunged at Azusa and took her hands in hers. "Oh, don't be jealous, Azu-nyan -- you know you're the only one for me." Azusa blushed and yanked her hands free as Yui blithely went on. "It wasn't like that, anyway. He just seemed so sad, you know? When we were done with the session I just wanted to cheer him up a little before he had to go back to Florida. It doesn't seem like he does anything for fun with anyone there." She shrugged. "So I took him to Thomas Sweet for a blend-in, and there was a flier there about a cello recital at Mason Gross, so we decided to go. And it worked!" Her entire face seemed to light up. "He had such a good time, and he was so happy! We were laughing and talking all the way back here. And I gave him a hug and little kiss on the cheek to let him know that I had a good time, too." Yui's expression grew pensive. "He's nice, he just needs more friends."
Somewhere in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 12, 2016
"Your website does say that members are allowed to throw their own weapons."
"It does, but we expected people to bring in knives or axes. That's a rose."
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
November 15, 2016
"I saw her use the card, and I realized, whoa, magic is real!" Tomo enthused.
"Sure seems that way," Yomi agreed.
"So, hold my beer and watch this!" Tomo passed Yomi a bottle of Ramune.
"Oh boy."
Tomo raised her arms dramatically towards the ocean, and began chanting, "Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood -- guh!"
Yomi whapped Tomo on the head, hard. "For crying out loud, no evil magic!"
"Waaaa that hurt."
"I don't want you summoning an Elder God. If magic is real and fiction is real: just have some goddamn sense Tomo!"
Tomo mumbled, "Elder God. That spell wouldn't even work unless Shabra—"
"Huh?"
"Maybe that was a dumb idea," Tomo blushed.
Yomi stared down at Tomo and blinked a couple of times, entirely taken aback. About ten seconds later, "Of course it was a dumb idea. Geez."
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
November 16, 2016
"I want to see if I can talk them down on the price of a fur coat," Tomo said.
Brent looked at her incredulously. "You want to visit Dicker and Dicker ... to dicker?"
"Why not?" Tomo was surprised that Sonomi of all people would take her side. "Never pay the list price for a luxury item."
"Besides, it's in their name, so we have to!"
Brent decided that quoting John McClane was the best course of action. "Fine, fine, whatever. As long as you can afford it."
"I was hoping you'd pay for it."
"We're still buying fridges and stoves for the apartments. Buy your own coat."
Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, USA
November 17, 2016
"That's a mighty fine tail you have there, young man. Some variety of feline?"
Sun Wukong blinked and stared at the shopkeeper for a moment. "Um, no, monkey."
"You don't say! I'd've never guessed from the coloration." The old man nodded assessingly. "Must come in handy."
Sun's stare slowly morphed into a broad smile. "It certainly does! It's prehensile, and strong enough that I can hang from it."
The shopkeeper shook his head and chuckled. "And I suppose you can climb like the dickens, too. What I wouldn't give for somethin' like that. Would make tendin' my shop a sight easier."
Later, when Sun walked out of the store in a visible state of shock, the others clustered around him. "You okay, Sun?" Yang Xiao Long asked.
"The shopkeeper..." Sun began.
"Did he do anything?" Ruby Rose demanded, eyes narrowing.
Sun turned wondering eyes on all his companions. "He... he talked. Actual words and sentences, not just grunts. And he wished he had a faunus trait like mine!"
Ruby pivoted and studied the storefront. "Wow," she whispered.
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
November 18. 2016
Bob Schroeck was surprised to see Yui Hirasawa in the community center on a Friday afternoon; he expected that she'd be doing her homework at home. Noticing she was wearing headphones but not playing Gīta, he asked, "What are you listening to?"
She looked up while taking her headphones off. "I think it's a song about somebody asking my little sister out on a date." She switched on the stereo's speakers.
Bob listened for a moment, then said, "Considering that song was written in 1959, I doubt it's about your sister." Enunciating carefully, he continued, "Besides, he's saying 'oo-ee', not 'Ui'."
The Old Dietmeier Place
Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, USA
November 26, 2016
"Good night, Jaune-boy."
"Good night, Ruby."
"Good night, Jaune-boy."
"Good night, Nora."
"Good night, Jaune-boy!"
"Good night, Yang..." he said through clenched teeth.
Kris turned to Eleanor. "I don't think you should've shown them The Waltons, mom."
The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
November 27, 2016
"I don't like hitting girls."
Mii Konori grinned at Ranma Saotome. "So I get a free shot at you?"
"Hell, no!"
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 30, 2016
"Sugar and spice and everything mice!" Minako declared.
"That's what little catgirls are made of!" Diana chimed in.
December 2016
Aria House
Los Angeles, California, USA
December 4, 2016
"Taeko, you don't need to add chocolate to these. They're already chocolate habaneros."
"Oh, okay. I'll use them today, then. Thanks, Yomi!"
"Happy to help."
As she walked away from the kitchen and Taeko Minazuki, Yomi Mizuhara grinned. Dinner was going to be fun.
Washuu's Lab
December 12, 2016
Hayate Yagami stood up and, for the first time in years, took a step forward without Reinforce's assistance.
Her smile lit up the room.
Then she fell over.
Sasami grabbed her before she fell onto the floor. Hayate frowned and said, "I guess I'm a little out of practice."
"That's all right. I'll help you get used to having working legs again."
Washuu almost told Sasami that Hayate's strength would be returning quickly, but she changed her mind. Better for the two girls to have this reason to become friends, and to learn that it's all right to need to rely on somebody else or be there for somebody else to rely on her.
Residence 51
Idaho Springs, Colorado, USA
December 15, 2016
"Rhiannon, I don't know whether this will stop me from getting angry," David Banner said while looking at the spliff that she'd given him. "Besides, isn't this illegal?"
"Not in Colorado," she replied.
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 19, 2016
The elementary and high-school students were all in classes, Accelerator and Hyoga were doing the tourist thing downtown, and Maika and Mamoru were out buying groceries. It was just Rob, Ami, Mii, Chibiusa, and Last Order in the building, enjoying a rare day off.
"Anybody want to do anything special?" asked Rob.
Mii looked at the youngsters and thought better than to say anything. Chibiusa and the youngest Misaka Sister shook their heads.
"I promised Skuld I'd teach her how to play chess," Ami replied while grabbing her coat.
"Ah. Have fun!"
Fifteen minutes later, when he was back in his own apartment, Rob remembered Skuld was a Valkyrie as well as a Norn.
He couldn't sleep at all that night.
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 26, 2016
"You will be learning from Ms. Shirai how to control the Sailor Teleport to pinpoint accuracy, and she will be learning from you how to extend her range."
"That's work. What do we get out of it?"
Rob rolled his eyes at Usagi's question, then had an idea. "Remember when Rui-chan, Mako-chan, and I went up north for a week? Remember that really good cream soda that we brought back with us? Wouldn't you like to be able to go buy some whenever you want without needing a six-hour drive each way?"
Usagi thought for a moment, then grinned. "When do we start the lessons?"
Colonnade Pizza, Bank St
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 27, 2016
"Rob-oji and Hyoga told us that they've been to the gates of Hel, but I have trouble believing in an afterlife."
"Well, yeah," Mikoto Misaka agreed with Kuroko Shirai as she helped herself to a second slice of pizza. "An Academy City education doesn't prepare us for the supernatural."
"Despite the fact that we're all espers," Ruiko Saten pointed out.
"I meant magical supernatural, Saten-san. You know how Belldandy can't lie, right? So we could get her to confirm whether there's an afterlife by asking her to sing Prince's 'Let’s Go Crazy'."
"How'd you hear that old song?"
"My mother likes it."
Kazari Uiharu shook her head as she swallowed the bite she'd been eating. "It won't work. First, you're assuming she's allowed to tell us anything about what happens after death. She could just refuse to sing any songs about Heaven. Second, you're assuming she isn't lying when she says she can't lie; we haven't independently confirmed that."
Kuroko frowned. "Uiharu-san, why do you have to be right about this?"
- RK: Just think, in a week it'll be raining gibbons... er, waning gibbous.
- RMS: DYO!
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| 2016-09-30 ff: Everyone's Still a Critic |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 12-10-2024, 05:44 PM - Forum: Stories
- No Replies
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Everyone's Still a Critic
by InquisitiveRaven, Rob Kelk and Robert M. Schroeck
September 30, 2016
Maison d'Orléans
Orléans, Loiret department, France
(Dialogue translated from the French)
Marinette paused the Blu-Ray disk and gave Jehanne an incredulous look. "They kidnapped you out of a church the night before a battle?"
The older girl smiled, displaying teeth that Marinette still thought were extraordinarily straight and white for a 15th-century peasant. "I would not say 'kidnapped'. I thought they were angels sent by Archange Michel at first and went willingly." She shrugged. "By the time I knew better, I was too busy exploring their time and learning what I could that might help the King's troops." Her expression grew distant for a moment. "I have never regretted not having learned to read more than I did during my few hours in that palace of a marketplace -- all that knowledge in its bookstores, denied me."
Adrien shook his head. "How could you mistake them for angels? They're idiots."
Jehanne favored him with a flat look. "When two figures appear in a pillar of light and metal and glass in front of the altar of the cathedral where you're praying, what else could they be? In truth, a pair of errant schoolboys looking to complete an assignment was not my first thought." She paused for a moment, then added with a sly little smile, "Besides, I'm still not entirely sure you two aren't angels. You have power far beyond anything any human possesses, and Archange Michel clearly favors you as much as he does me."
"If you say so," Adrien replied doubtfully.
Jehanne shook her head in amusement. "Angels or not, I enjoy your company and friendship. And in truth, so did I Bill and Ted's. Although I do wish they had learned my proper name, even if they could not speak a word of French. 'Darc' was my father's name, not mine."
October 1, 2016
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
Mio suddenly shot up out of her seat. "Pause it! Pause it!" she shouted, and Ritsu obliged.
"What is it, Mio-chan?" Yui asked, sharing puzzled glances with Yugi.
Mio had begun stalking around the living room of the apartment, waving her arms. It was the most agitated any of them, except perhaps Ritsu, had ever seen her. "I can't believe it!"
"Can't believe what, sempai?" Azusa asked.
Mio halted and pointed at the TV screen. "That!"
"That" was K-On! the Movie, frozen on a frame showing the members of Hokago Tea Time crossing a street in London during their graduation trip. In response to the puzzled silence that ensued, Mio took a deep breath and explained, "That's Abbey Road! We crossed Abbey Road! And I never noticed!" she concluded in almost a wail.
"To be fair, sempai," Azusa said after a moment, "none of us noticed. It didn't look like the album cover from where we were. It was just another crosswalk."
"It's surprising that there weren't any tourists there to clue us in, though," Mugi noted.
October 17, 2016
The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
Ranma Saotome was getting used to using a computer by doing what he thought was completely natural: looking for mentions of himself on the Internet.
"Hah! Hey, Na-chan!"[1]
"Don't call me 'Na-chan'," Nabiki Tendo complained from the far side of the building's lounge in front of the Anything Goes Cafe. She was older than him, after all.
"You've heard of Wikipedia, right?"
"I told you about it, Saotome. It's a good place to start looking for things, as long as they're notable."
"Well, guess who's got a Wikipedia page."
"I know that The Guess Who has a Wikipedia page," she replied while walking over to him, purposefully misunderstanding his statement.
"Not them. I've got a Wikipedia page!"
Completely deadpan, Nabiki said, "I'm so happy for you."
"Nobody else here has one. Guess that shows who's the notable one here!"
"It took you long enough to find it. You have something else, too, that you share with one of the residents in Ottawa." She took the keyboard from him and typed in a URL.
"Hey, thanks." He looked at the screen and started reading, becoming more horrified with every word. "A very specific variety of Intercontinuity Crossover that has proven so popular and spawned so many instances that it practically counts as its own genre: a Ranma ½-Sailor Moon crossover in which girl-form Ranma becomes a member of the Sailor Senshi, or otherwise takes up the role of Magical Girl. So called because Ranma almost always ends up in the Sailor Fuku styled uniforms of the Senshi..."[2] He turned off the monitor in disgust. "There's no way in Hell I'll take part in a fuku fic!"
Nabiki grinned as she went back to her book. That's what you get for calling me "Na-chan", she thought.
October 18, 2016
The Steeple
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
"I'm not that bad, am I?" Nanoha whined after reading several fanfics that made a big deal of her knack for befriending people with violence.
November 18, 2016
The Steeple
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
"I'm not that bad, am I?" Hayate complained about fanfics playing up her supposed sexual proclivities.
November 19, 2016
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
She could hear Kuhonbutsu-san through the wall that their apartments had in common. "Come, my brother! We must set to work immediately! ... Did you not see the glorious account of our quest to produce the greatest fan comics ever? Were you not there with us last night as our generous hosts shared the marvelous anime that our efforts deserved? ... Is it not obvious, my brother? We must now tell the story of our arrival in this universe, and our heroic role in saving the multiverse as well! The world, nay, the worlds must know! And the best way, the only way, to tell it is of course as a comic!"
"No," she said quietly, "that isn't the only way. But the story should be told." She started a new word-processor document, put on a headset, and turned on the program's speech-to-text function because she wasn't sure that she had the stamina to be able to type the entire article. "A critical review of the Refuge reality, by Ikumi Tachikawa for the displacees.yggdrasil forum "So You're New to Refuge". Persocom new paragraph.[3] Fair disclosure: I am one of the people displaced from the world shown in the anime Comic Party and Comic Party Revolution. Persocom new paragraph. Reactions must be judged in context of the background of the people having the reactions. Comic Party is a 2001 anime based on a dating sim of the same name, where Kazuki Sendō has to complete and sell a new doujin to sell at the Comic Party convention every month, while pursuing the girl that he prefers and also attending college classes. The anime takes some liberties with the plot of the game in that there are fewer conventions for Sendō-san to attend and more attention paid to both the actual process of creating doujinshi and the girls that Sendō-san dates. Persocom backspace one word. meets. Unlike in the game, Sendō-san does not choose any one of the girls he meets as a love interest. However, Mizuki Takase appears to be the girl who Sendō-san prefers in the anime."
"Really?"
"Persocom pause entry." Ikumi turned to face her apartment-mate. "We watched the anime together, Mizuki-san. Didn't you see how much attention you got from him?"
"I saw how much attention each of the other girls got," Mizuki replied sourly. Dropping the rancor, she added, "He even likes you as a friend."
"And I think of Sendō-san as a friend, too, but I don't want to date him. He's too old for me. I want him to write good stories."
Mizuki smiled at the first-year high-school student's comment about the boy who everybody else from their reality but Chisa and Taishi wanted as a boyfriend. "Oh, and you said 'sell a new doujin to sell'."
"Thanks; I'll fix that in the first edit pass. Our Sendō-san likes you, Mizuki-san. He stopped working on his doujin to paint a portrait of you, after all."
"That was my evil twin, not me."
"He didn't know that."
"So," Miyuki asked, "who do you think Kazuki should end up with?"
"You'll just have to wait until I've finished this article to find out," the younger of the two redheads said with a smile before turning back to her computer. "Persocom resume entry. She receives more screen time than any one of the other girls in the cast..."
January 21, 2017
FBI Headquarters
The J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC, USA
When the last episode on the disk concluded, Scully turned her seat to face Mulder. "Your thoughts?" she asked.
"You're prettier than Gillian Anderson," Mulder declared, absolutely straight-faced.
"Thank you," she said dryly, "but that's not what I meant."
Mulder snorted, then waved at the screen with the "X-Files" logo on it. "At least now we understand all the jokes about why we were destined to work together. With this television show still so prominent in the popular culture, a 'real' Mulder and Scully working for the FBI would have been a pair of irresistible targets."
"I don't like the idea that I might have my position in this world's FBI solely because it was someone's idea of a joke," Scully said with a frown.
"If it's any consolation, both our records and the Bureau's personnel files for us say we're not just lazing about here," Mulder noted blandly. "We've got a full caseload that gets us sent all over the country."
"Just like before," Scully acknowledged with a nod. "I would have stormed the director's office if the only reason this assignment existed was just so they could pair us together."
February 9, 2017
Glynn's Wellington House
Dorset Street Upper
Dublin, Ireland
Sam took a long draw on his pint of Guinness, then looked sidewise at Meg, who was studying the head on her own pint. "Thanks for meeting up with me tonight," he said.
She looked up at him, a faint smile dancing on her lips. "No worries. We'd just finished an afternoon of practicing, and we were all going our separate ways before we got sick of each other."
Sam laughed. "Can't see that with your lot -- you seem more like sisters than anything."
Meg raised an eyebrow. "You've never seen sisters fight?"
"Ah," he admitted. "There you have me."
She studied him for a bit before saying, "So... what did you want to talk to me about?"
He shook his head, smiling. "Figured that out, huh? You'd make a good detective. Want to swap jobs?"
"I don't know," Meg drawled. "How's your soprano range?"
"It's rubbish," he said. He took another sip of his Guinness. "I finally got my hands on a copy of the TV show you told me about. Life on Mars?" Meg nodded and Sam went on. "Watched the whole thing end-to-end over the last week."
"And?" she asked before finally taking a sip of her own pint.
"Can't say I'm enamoured of having had some seriously private family matters splattered across the BBC," he growled.
"I might be able to sympathize with that," Meg offered mildly.
"Damn programme was accurate, best as I can recall," he continued as though he hadn't heard her. "But what really has me pissed off is that in the end the damned thing didn't clear up my situation one fucking bit."
She took another drink. "What, you mean whether you were mad, unconscious, or actually in 1973?"
"Yeah," he growled and sucked down nearly half of his pint in one go. "Right to the last it seemed like it was trying to have it all three ways at once." He put his pint back down on the bar hard enough to make the barman look up at the sound.
Meg hmm'ed. "At least you know that you're sane and that this world is real."
He laughed humourlessly. "Meeting a god will do that for you. Whatever else that thing he did accomplished, it certainly grabbed the inside of my head and said 'this is real, lad'." He picked up his pint again and studied the logo on the glass. "I just want to know once and for all what was really going on with me before I arrived here."
"Well," Meg said, "one good thing, regardless -- no creepy little blonde girl with an ugly doll chasing you around any more."
"Oh, yeah," Sam nodded. "That is a definite plus." He held his glass up to her, and Meg lifted to hers to clink against it. "To the real world. Whichever one it is."
Meg nodded. "To the real world."
February 14, 2017
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA
"Whoa, what a crowd," Ritsu declared when the video ended. "We've never played in front of an audience that big."
"There were over 35,000 fans there," Aki said, "more than twice as many as were at the concert in 2009, which was kind of scary."
Satomi laughed. "Kind of? Try 'very'."
"Aki-chan and I are the only ones who had any experience playing music before K-On!," Minako said, "but never in front of a crowd that large."
"We'd better not let Sawa-chan-sensei see those outfits you were wearing," Azusa noted with a smile, "Or we'll be in them next week."
"I hope not!" Yui said with a pout. "I wouldn't look as good as Aki-onee-chan did -- my legs aren't nearly long enough!"
Yoko let loose a peal of laughter. "You think those are bad? You should have seen what they had us wearing during 'Don't Say Lazy'!"
March 12, 2017
Kaleido Stage Dormitories
Venice Beach, California, USA
"Wow," breathed Sora as the video came to an end.
Layla laughed. "Makes all those long, dull hours of practice and rehearsal look exciting, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "What was the music they were using, though? I thought it might be in English, but I could only catch a couple words here and there."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Layla replied, shrugging. "I couldn't even make out that much."
March 30, 2017
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, Florida, United States
Once she had ensured that Hikari had departed on the planned bicycle excursion, Rei retreated to the apartment bathroom and stood at the sink, studying her reflection in the mirror there. She tilted her head and considered her image for several minutes, before suddenly erupting in a broad, toothy smile utterly unlike any expression any of her fellow displacees had ever seen on her face.
"Heee~ey," she sing-songed, still grinning.
A moment later the smile vanished, and she frowned minutely before trying again.
An even wider, toothier grin exploded across her face. "Heeeeeeeeee~ey."
After holding the grin for several seconds longer than the first time, Rei let it collapse and admitted disappointment. While as the story she'd found online had suggested, it did have considerable potential for amusement, she did not think she could maintain the persona long enough for a proper pay-off. She would have to reserve it for a special occasion.
In the meantime, she wondered, how hard would it be to find a squeaky rubber hammer the next time they went shopping on the mainland?
March 31, 2017
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, Florida, United States
"Huh? What's this?" Asuka picked up a thick stack of laser-printed pages held together by a binder clip from where it sat on an endtable in Apartment 3's living room — their apartment manager's living room had turned into a place to hang out months ago. "'NGE: Nobody Dies -- A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction by Gregg Landsman'." She began reading, chuckling darkly at a Shinji who, despite being two years older, seemed even more hapless and pathetic than the one she knew.
Forty-five minutes later she reached the first appearance of her own counterpart.
The subsequent scream of outrage could be heard on the mainland.
June 3, 2017
The Beach House
Seaside Heights, New Jersey, USA
As Sammi stood by smirking, Nicole ejected the DVD after the last episode concluded. Without saying a word she returned it to its case and popped out the next disk, watching her new tenants as she did.
Gilligan was the first to break the silence. "Okay, I know I wasn't the smartest person on the island," he said, looking around the room at his fellow former castaways. "But after watching all that, I have to ask -- what're you guys's excuses?"
July 12, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States
When Disney+ returned to the title card for Phineas and Ferb, Linda carefully laid down the remote and looked over at her daughter. "These cartoons are reasonably accurate?" she asked.
"Pretty much," Candace replied. "At least for the stuff I saw."
Linda nodded, mostly to herself. "It seems," she said, "that I owe you an apology, Candace."
July 19, 2017
Tsukuba Space Center
Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
Five people — three astronauts and two seiyuu — had gotten together to watch anime. While most people would consider such a thing to be a waste of an astronaut's time, two of the astronauts had come straight out of the show they were watching, so JAXA considered the time to be a familiarization activity.
"Yukari-sempai," Akane Miura asked at the end of the final episode, "did you ever notice that everything your sister Matsuri gets involved in changes from realistic to magical realism?"
The senior astronaut of the Solomon Space Association, Yukari Morita, thought for a moment. "I hadn't noticed until watching the anime about us, but I think you're right, Akane. With all of the superfast astronaut training they were giving us, I didn't have time to really pay attention to what was going on around me. Us."
"Oh, dear," said the remaining astronaut in the room, Naoko Yamazaki. She had been called back to JAXA from her position on the Japanese government's Space Policy Committee because she was the Japanese astronaut with the greatest knowledge of the Rocket Girls, having voiced herself in a cameo during their anime. "Astronauts are supposed to train for years to pay attention to, and think about, what we're seeing and hearing."
"The SSA didn't have years," Yukari pointed out. "They only had weeks to send a person into space or lose their funding. But Director Nasuda was right; even a monkey could have done the job I did during my first mission, at least until the Tampopo catastrophe."
"Monkeys have gone into space in our reality," Yamazaki-san admitted, "but as passengers aboard automated launches, not as crew. I'm impressed that both of you could learn what you needed to learn in such a short amount of time." Akane blushed at the compliment, while Yukari took it in stride. "I noticed right away that Matsuri's scenes are not at all scientifically accurate."
"Such as?" Yukari asked.
"You riding on top of her during re-entry. You might only mass 40kg, but 40kg at 1G is the equivalent of 480kg at 12G, so she should have been crushed. And you didn't have a form-fitting couch to absorb some of the G-forces on your body. The retrieval crew should have had to carry both your bodies out of the capsule, but both of you walked out of Coconut without any injuries instead."
"Are you saying my sister is some sort of magical girl?"
"I can't be sure, but if she was with you, the government would have already asked the transforming heroines who we've been told are in Philadelphia and Ottawa to give her a complete examination." After a moment of thought, Yamazaki-san added, "Perhaps we should ask them to examine you, Yukari."
Shaking her head quickly while frowning, Yukari answered, "We have the same father, not the same mother, and I'm pretty sure Matsuri gets her magical realism from her mother's side of her family."
Akane, on the other hand, asked with wide-eyed amazement, "There are transforming heroines in this reality?"
"They're from other universes, like you," Eri Sendai commented, causing Yamazaki-san to wince at the imprecise use of the term 'universe'. But precise use of language was an occupational hazard of being an astronaut. Akane noticed; Yukari and the seiyuu didn't.
Eri continued, "Many of us seiyuu have been in on the secret for much longer than any government has. Last month, I visited the girls from Girls und Panzer to talk with Suzuki Takako before I voice her again in the upcoming movie series."
"Whatever Girls und Panzer is," Yukari commented. "I suppose there's a half-dozen people out there from other Earths who sound just like us."
"Not as far as I know. I only know about her and you, Yukari-san. I've heard rumours that Hisakawa Aya-san has a half-dozen voice twins, though."
Akane turned to the woman who had voiced her in the anime they had just watched. "How many of your characters have shown up here, Hasegawa-san?"
"As far as I know, just you," Shizuka replied. "Yutaka didn't accompany the Lucky Star characters that are here, and if anybody from any of my other shows is in this world, we don't know about it. I think I like it better that way."
After a moment, Akane nodded. "I think so, too." Then a look of realization appeared on her face. "Hisakawa-san voiced a half-dozen characters who are here, and you've already told us that transforming heroines are here so that implies the existence of magic. Do the people who sound like Hisakawa-san include her roles from Sailor Moon and Ah! Megami-sama?"
"We aren't supposed to tell anyone," Eri replied, "but just by being from another universe lets you in on the secret. Yes to both."
The beginning of a smile played on Yamazaki-san's face, despite her attempt to present a professional face to the others. "And that is the kind of inductive thinking that JAXA and NASA teach us. With the proper training, you just might become a better astronaut than I was, Miura-san."
July 21, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States
"Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!" A pair of young and unfortunately shrill voices cut right through Truly's attempt to draft a new item for the agenda of the next Advisory Board meeting. "Oh, you, pretty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, we..."
Truly sighed and laid down her pen. "Jeremy, Jemima?" she called while rubbing her eyes.
The enthusiastic singing abruptly. "Yes, Mum?" the twins chorused, making her smile.
"Please sing outside?"
"Yes, Mum!" they called back. The rubber-soled shoes they wore now as a matter of course didn't make a sound as they left the apartment, but the door certainly did, slamming enthusiastically behind them. Truly winced at the noise, then picked up her pen again. The 'movie' of their adventures had been quite enjoyable, but Jeremy and Jemima had been insisting on singing its title song for some weeks now, seemingly only stopping at mealtimes or when playing with the Flynn-Fletcher brothers.[4] Even a doting mother could take only so much.
August 1, 2017
Private home
1721 NW 2nd Street
Abilene, Kansas, USA
James Goodwin lifted the mug of hot chocolate to his lips, sipped it carefully, then set it down and returned to his book. As he turned the pages one by one, the sun slowly sank. He paused only to take further sips from the mug and to turn on the lights when it grew too dark to read.
Upon completing the final page, with its description of Dorothy's return to her aunt and uncle's farm, he closed the book and set it on the end table next to the armchair in which he sat. Then he leaned back and considered the book and its curious parallels to so many people of his acquaintance, past and... well, not present, not any more, but much more recently past. The correspondences were oddly inconsistent -- some were subtle, taking thought to identify, but others were so blatant that had the book not been written more than a century earlier he would have suspected the author of deliberately taunting him. But they were there, and they were indisputable. It could not be a coincidence.
Just as curious, though, were the omissions. There were so many other people who had played important roles in his long, long existence... why had only he and a handful of them been "honored" in this fashion? Why not... her? Surely she was more important than the last generation of allies and agents he had recruited. Why had there been no obvious counterpart to her in the book?
James' stomach growled, and he realized that between his absorption in the book and his ruminations afterward, he had completely missed dinner. He reached for his cane, and with it levered himself up out of his seat. As he made his way to the kitchen, he continued to muse on the curious puzzle. Depending on how you counted, there were either fourteen or forty books in the entire series... perhaps what he looked for would be found in one or more of them.
Or perhaps, once he grew more comfortable with using it, he would start searching the "Internet". It would no doubt be faster than reading forty books. After all, over his existence, he had known so many people. He glanced at his cane and smiled. And he did have a long memory.
August 11, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States
When the movie was over, Mortimer turned off the player and the TV with the little remote control box. (And have I mentioned just how neat it was to have a TV the size of a picture window and the ability to watch almost any movie or show you wanted, any time you wanted? It almost made getting kicked out of our own world and time worth it.) "Well, guys?" he asked.
"It stinks!" Dinky piped up immediately. He was so agitated that his voice, already squeaky, got even more so, and you could see the start of tears in his eyes. "They stole the story of our sea monster!" He had a right to be upset... the sea monster was, when you get right down to it, his idea. Yeah, we all built on it, but he came up with it when he needed an excuse for coming home late one night.
Freddy shook his head. "Why'd they cut us out of the story? I mean... I thought Walt Disney was such a great man and here he goes and throws us out of our own adventure." He sulked. "We don't even know anyone named Tippy, Scott or Catfish."
"The books were good," Homer said. "The books were all but perfect -- well, except for making Charlie the narrator." He shot me a smile, letting me know he was just teasing and not serious. "But that ... abomination was unforgivable."
"It's a pity it was made fifty years ago," Jeff mused. "Too long ago to get any kind of revenge on the people responsible."
"Maybe not, but I don't think we want to be bullying a bunch of old folks," Henry replied, a thoughtful look on his face. "At least Mr. Brinley got some credit."
August 25, 2017
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montréal, Quebec, Canada
"Have you seen some of the fanfiction about us?"
Konata grinned at Kagami's question. "I see you finally found the lemons."
"Is that what they're called? Anyway. Why would anybody think I'd ever do that?" She pointed at one of the windows on her screen. "Or this? Or this? Or... actually, that one looks interesting."
Miyuki looked over Kagami's shoulder and read the first few lines. "According to my pre-med textbooks, that's anatomically impossible."
"Oh... Drat."
- RK: "Nabs" is a fanon nickname which cannot be written in hiragana, katakana, or kanji. "Na-chan" is our best guess as to what Ranma is actually calling Nabiki in all of those other fanfics, and is sufficiently diminutive that she would take offence to being called by it.
- RK: Quote from "Fuku Fic", from All The Tropes, is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. And fair disclosure: The person who wrote this scene is an administrator at All The Tropes.
- RK: No, Ikumi isn't referring to Chobits. See the first footnote in A Serotinal Frolic Chapter 1 for details.
- RMS: Yes, the Potts twins hang out with Phineas and Ferb. Wait until you see who else lives in their residence. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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Which web comics should I be reading, and why? |
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Posted by: robkelk - 12-10-2024, 05:07 PM - Forum: General Chatter
- Replies (10)
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With General Protection Fault winding down, I'm looking for a web comic or two to add to my reading list.
My current reading list is Darths and Droids, Dresden Codak, Freefall, Girl Genius, Girls und Panzer - Operation: More Love Love! Web Edition, Grrl Power, Irregular Webcomic!, Kevin & Kell, League Of Super Redundant Heroes, The Order of the Stick, Rusty & Co., Scandinavia and the World, Sequential Art, Sluggy Freelance, Wrong Hands, and xkcd. I haven't yet given up on Kiwi Blitz, Modest Medusa, Pepper&Carrot, and Times Like This.
Last month, I marathoned A Miracle of Science and liked the story. Last year, I marathoned Lavender Jack and liked the story.
For my current marathon, I'm about 10% into reading Megatokyo for the first time. (Yes, I know it's a big task). If it maintains the same or better level of storytelling, I'll probably add it to my reading list.
Story and characters are more important to me than artwork, as one could probably tell from the presence of Darths and Droids, Irregular Webcomic!, The Order of the Stick, and xkcd on my reading list. On the other hand, a strip has to be very good to keep my interest over a hiatus, and extremely good to keep my interest over a long hiatus or multiple hiatuses (which is why I dropped Erma and PvP – too many breaks.)
Given what I like, does anyone have any suggestions for what else I might want to audition for my reading list? Please don't just list strips; tell me why I might like them (which can be as simple as "since you liked FOO, you might like LOREM IPSUM").
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| 2016-09-17: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Touring |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 12-03-2024, 09:57 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (8)
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Touring
by Robert M. Schroeck
Chapter 1: Yesterday In Old Fall River
Motel 6 Fall River
459 Airport Road
Fall River, Massachusetts, USA
Saturday, September 17, 2016, 7:36 AM
"What are you doing drooling on me, Mophead?"
Half-asleep, Hane wrapped her pillow around her head in the hope that she could block out the sound of an outraged Rin, as muffled as it was, and return to blissful unconsciousness. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter than they already were, burrowed deeper into the covers and slid closer to the figure on the other side of the bed that radiated pleasant heat. "Mm, Yume, you're nice and warm," she murmured as she wrapped her arm around her sister, while still doing her best to ignore the sounds of the argument on the other side of the wall.
Then her eyes snapped open. Yume couldn't possibly be sharing her bed. The Club was on a road trip, and Yume wasn't a biker. And Hane had gone to sleep in the top bunk of a very narrow bunkbed in a youth hostel in Kyoto the night before. There should have been no room for someone to be in the bed with her -- but someone was, anyway. In front of her nose was hair the wrong shade of brown to be Yume. "Chisame?" Hane murmured in confusion.
She unwrapped her arm from around the other girl (who slept on, unaware) and carefully rolled over onto her back before sitting upright. (Definitely a larger bed than last night's bunk. And much closer to the ground.) The room that came into view was dimly lit by morning light leaking around curtains that covered a single large window to her left where the room she had gone to sleep in had had two regular casement windows to her right. There was a door next to the window that apparently led outside -- very different from the hallway door that had been past the end of the bunk by a couple meters. The faint light also revealed unfamiliar furnishings including a TV which hadn't been there the night before.
It was also lacking the other four members of the club and Mister Hayakawa, all of whom had been in the remaining bunks of their shared hostel room. Rin and Onsa's voices, somewhat muffled, were still audible through the wall behind her, so they at least weren't too far away. But they still weren't where they were supposed to be.
"Something weird is going on," Hane whispered to herself.
"Sempai?" a sleepy voice came from behind her. "What are you doing in my bunk?"
Ten minutes later, Hane and Chisame -- now hastily dressed -- burst out through the door to their room to find (as she'd feared) a sidewalk and not the hallway of a hostel. Almost absently Hane noticed it was cooler than it had been the previous day -- about twenty degrees, almost ten degrees cooler than the day before.[1] From the other side of the room next door seemingly occupied by Rin and Onsa came Hijiri, Lime and Hayakawa. Of the three, Hijiri was the most obviously distressed.
"Hane! Chisame!" she cried, agitation driving her voice almost up into a shriek. "What happened? Do you know where we are?"
Hane glanced around and shook her head. "I have no idea. It's not Kyoto, though." And it wasn't. The hostel where they'd gone to sleep had been a boxy, two-story structure of dark wood surrounded by densely packed city blocks, with nothing but sidewalk separating them from the narrow streets. But now... now they were standing along the front of a long, white one-story building in what looked almost like a rural area, with thick stands of trees and grassy lawns in every direction. At one end was something that looked like it might be a restaurant.
The only other structures for at least a hundred meters in any direction were three large buildings, one each to the left, right and across the broad highway that ran past the other side of that parking lot separated them from it; a sign where one could turn off the road into the parking lot declared they were at "Motel 6" and "Denny's"; something about the sign seemed odd to Hane but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what. The parking lot itself was filled with cars and...
"Our bikes!" Chisame cried. And there they were, neatly sharing a pair of parking spots right by the doors to their rooms.
Hane was the first to reach hers, and quickly ran her hands over it while checking the paint job. It was, she was glad to see, in perfect shape. In fact, she quickly realized, it was lacking the road dust that had accumulated on their drive to Kyoto. "Someone washed you?" she murmured. To either side of her, Chisame and Hijiri were saying similar things, and looking up, Hane saw that Lime seemed surprised and pleased at the state of her Kawasaki -- before she waved and pointed at the rear of the lime-green motorcycle.
When she pointed at the back ends of the other bikes, Hane stood and stepped behind her Su-Four. It took her a moment to figure out what Lime had spotted.
The license plate was not the one she was familiar with. Gone were the familiar kanji, hiragana and number in green on white. The plate that was now affixed to her bike had red romaji and numerals on it...
"What's 'Florida'?" Chisame demanded.
"It's one of the United States," Hijiri said absently. "How odd. Your bikes have red lettering. Our Ducati's license has green. And why do yours say 'Under 21' below the number?"
"Because we're all under 21 except for Mister Hayakawa," Hane offered. "Speaking of Mister Hayakawa, where is..."
"Right here," the butler said from behind her. She spun, surprised, to see him standing there in a fresh uniform, with a newspaper under his arm. "Good morning, young ladies," he continued, withdrawing the paper and unfolding it. He held it up so they could see the masthead, which read "The Boston Globe" in English. Under it were headlines, also in English, that Hane realized she was reading so easily that she hadn't noticed she'd been reading English. She turned abruptly to look at the sign that had seemed odd and it, too, was in English. That was what had been odd about it.
"We appear to be in Massachusetts in the United States," Hayakawa continued calmly. "And if this newspaper is correct -- and I believe it is, as I have just retrieved it from a stack of identical copies from a vending box a few meters away -- it is September 17, 2016."
"What?" someone shrieked. Hane wasn't sure who said it; all she could think of was how when they'd gone to bed in Kyoto the night before it had been July twenty-third, just a couple days after the start of the summer holiday.
In 2012.
The door closest to them was flung open; Onsa and Rin, still buttoning and zipping up their clothes, charged out onto the sidewalk. "What about September 2016?" Rin demanded. Huh. Hane realized she hadn't heard them arguing for a while now.
Onsa dragged her sleeve across her mouth, glanced around, then added, "And where are we? This isn't Kyoto."
It took only a minute to share what little they knew, and most of that was spent convincing Rin that whatever it was, a mistake wan't among the possibilities. Hayakawa's newspaper went a long way to proving that something weird was going on, much as Rin didn't want to believe it.
"What do we do now?" Chisame asked
"I think," Hayakawa said slowly, "that before we do anything else, it would behoove us to have breakfast." He gestured toward the end of the building, toward what she had thought was a restaurant. "I am reliably informed that Denny's serves a more than acceptable American-style meal."
"Of course it would, we're in America," Onsa muttered.
"How are we going to pay for breakfast if we're in America?" Rin demanded.
Hayakawa held up a wad of unfamiliar-looking money. "What or whoever is responsible for depositing us here has not left us without resources."
If being able to read the newspaper hadn't been enough, reading the menus at the Denny's certainly hammered home that everyone could now read English perfectly -- even Onsa, whom Hane knew hadn't been the best in class. Knowing that, she wasn't sure why she'd been surprised when she realized that they all now spoke English as well, and had been since waking, and hadn't realized it until the hostess had greeted them and guided them to a large corner booth.
Most of the breakfasts in the menu were huge, but that was okay -- Hane was starving, and judging by everyone else's orders, they were, too. Hayakawa was the exception, ordering just a bowl of fruit, which he consumed quickly but elegantly before excusing himself. "I believe I shall take a short walk to learn more about where we are," he said as he handed off the money to Lime. Then he gave the table a quick bow before exiting the restaurant.
"You can tell he was in the army during the Pacific War," Onsa said between bites of sausage. Hane had a couple links of it on her plate, and she thought it was oddly seasoned but still tasty.
"What do you mean?" Chisame asked, a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth. Next to her, Hijiri nodded sagely but said nothing.
Onsa gestured vaguely. "Every once in a while he gets all military-like. Like just then," she said. "He's scouting the area like we're in enemy territory."
"Aren't we, though?" Rin asked. "We're in another country, probably illegally for all we know, in the freakin' future, and we have no idea how or why. Someone left us money for breakfast, but we don't know who."
Lime waved for their attention and held up her pad:
"There's enough here for lunch, too!"
Rin rolled her eyes. "Okay, so we won't starve until after it gets dark. Big deal. The point is, we've got nothing but our bikes, the clothes on our backs, and our travel gear. We may have our licenses and all, but they're all in Japanese, and we don't have passports. What happens the first time a cop pulls us over?" She spread her hands with a self-satisfied look on her face. "Enemy territory."
Across the table, Hijiri suddenly got that delighted look she always got whenever she thought she was doing something naughty or "delinquent".
Hane bit her lip as a thought struck her. "We're four years in the future... and we're not any older, any of us." She looked up at the rest of the table. "We've all been missing for four years! Our families must be frantic."
"Or they've given us up for dead," Chisame said glumly, staring into her orange juice.
"That's easily fixed," Onsa declared confidently. "When we're done here, we go back to our rooms, and we call our families."
"And tell them what, Mophead?" Rin snorted derisively. "'Hi, we went to sleep in Kyoto in 2012 and woke up in the United States in 2016? Can you come get us?'"
Onsa scowled at her. "We can at least let them know we're alive."
Rin's expression softened. "Yeah," she admitted after a moment. "You're right."
"I have to admit, I'm curious who is behind this," Hijiri said, then nibbled on a strip of oddly crispy bacon. "As Rin said, the money proves there is a someone. But what can possibly be the motive for transporting us halfway around the world and four years into the future?"
The debate on that topic which ensued lasted longer than their remaining breakfasts, and continued as they left the Denny's and returned to their rooms.
Hane bit her lip as she closed her phone. She tried not to worry what it might mean that both her home number and her parents' number here in the United States had netted her "no such number in service" recordings. "Chisame?" she said without looking up from the phone cupped in her hands. "I heard you talking. Did you reach your parents?"
"There's something really wrong here, sempai," Chisame said from the other side of the bed. "Someone answered, but I didn't recognize them. they'd never heard of my parents, and they said they'd had the number longer than I've been alive. When I told them my dad's name, they asked if I mean Nakano Shinya instead of Nakano Kinya.[2] " Hane looked up in time to see Chisame shake her head. The younger girl normally showed little in the way of emotion, but Hane thought she looked like she was about to burst into tears. Not that Hane didn't feel much the same.
Yume... where are you?
There was a knock at the door, and after a glance at Chisame, Hane hopped off the bed. It was, as she expected, the other girls.
None of them looked happy. In Lime's case, her entire bearing seemed to droop. Hane looked from face to face, and said, "I'm guessing you didn't have any more luck than we did."
"If that means you didn't reach anyone," Onsa said with a grimace, "Then yeah, no luck."
Hane stepped back and opened the door wide. "Come on in."
A minute later the entire club was in a rough circle, some perched on the bed, others sitting in a pair of chairs that flanked a small table in front of the room's picture window. "So now what?" Rin asked, in a tone considerably more subdued than her usual.
"I don't know," Hane admitted, shaking her head.
"Where are we going to go?" Hijiri asked. "We don't have enough money for another night in this establishment." Her eyes widened. "We have no money." She looked like she was about to start hyperventilating.
Chisame rolled her eyes. "Relax, Hijiri. Worse comes to worse, we should still have our tents -- we can always camp overnight."
"Besides, someone left us money for breakfast," Onsa pointed out. "Somebody is looking out for us."
"Well, whoever they are, they could be doing a better job of it," Rin snapped.
There was another knock and the door, and once again Hane got up from where she was sitting on the end of the bed to open it, to reveal Mister Hayakawa.
"Hayakawa!" Hijiri declared as if the simple presence of the butler was a lifeline. "Please tell us you have good news."
As Hane closed the door behind him, Mister Hayakawa calmly replied, "Yes... and no."
"No?" Chisame asked, an eyebrow raised.
He nodded, glancing around the room at them. "I have made several phone calls and learned a few things. For one, the Minowa conglomerate does not exist and never has."
Hijiri shot to her feet. "What?"
"There is not, and never has been, a Japanese zaibatsu by that name, and by extension there is no Minowa family. At least one of great wealth," he replied blandly.
"My family's gone?" Hijiri whispered.
"Well, that's just freaking great," Onsa growled. "Compared to that, what's the good news?"
Mister Hayakawa favored her with a faint smile. "When I returned to my room after my... investigations, I found this." He reached into his pocket and withdrew...
"That's my teacup!" Rin declared. And it was -- Hane recognized the Suzuki cup she'd given to Rin after receiving it from that biker with the robes and the halo that she'd helped on the road to Aomori that one time.
"Indeed it is," Hayakawa said, handing it over to her. "It was in my room, next to another stack of money, on top of this." He held up a sheet of what looked like parchment. "It is, as far as I can tell, an itinerary, sending us to a number of stops along a route that terminates in the state of Florida a week from now."
"Florida again!" Hijiri cried.
"Oh yeah," Onsa chuckled. "Somebody's got a plan for us."
"Someone who keeps breaking into Mister Hayakawa's room," Rin growled.
"While two of the stops are at motels where, it notes, reservations have been made for us," Mister Hayakawa continued, "the rest are at locations with quite odd names like 'The Steeple' and 'Gulfside Rest'. And the first stop, which we are apparently expected to reach by tonight, is 'Douglass Gardens Apartments' -- where, according to a note next to its name and those of its managers, 'All will be explained'."
Onsa laughed out loud. "Like I said, a plan!"
"So that's it?" Chisame asked. "We're just going to bike over to wherever this Douglass Gardens Apartments is?"
"New Jersey," Mister Hayakawa noted, "about five hours away to the south."
"Do you have anything better to do?" Onsa demanded of Chisame, who scowled at her.
"Do you know anything about driving in the United States?" she asked.
Onsa dug into her pocket and pulled out a little leather case, which she flung at Chisame. "I have a Japanese motorcycle license! I can go anywhere in the world."
"I don't think it works like that," Hane pointed out.
Meanwhile, Chisame was frowning at the contents of the case, which had landed open in her lap. "No, you don't, Onsa."
"What?" Onsa gave her a puzzled look. "Of course I do."
Chisame shook her head. "No, you have a Florida license." She held it up. "Driver License Class E, Motorcycle Only." She turned it around and peered at the front. "And according to this, you live at 809 SE 8th Ave, Okeechobee. Wherever that is."
Mister Hayakawa chuckled. "What a coincidence. That is the address of our ultimate destination."
"Gimme that." Onsa lunged across the bed and yanked the case out of Chisame's hands. "Damn," she said disconsolately. "The same lousy picture of me."
A quick check revealed that they all now had Florida licenses. Lime and Mister Hayakawa had full Florida driver licenses with motorcycle endorsements, meaning (Mister Hayakawa explained) that they were both permitted to drive cars as well as motorcycles. To her chagrin, Chisame had a motorcycle learner's license. (But according to her paperwork, Chisame had completed all the required courses and passed all the tests to convert her learner's license into a full license on or after her 17th birthday. So she was somewhat mollified, even if she had to wait nine months.) As for the rest of the club, like Onsa, they had full Florida "Motorcycle Only" licenses.
And all the paperwork had "809 SE 8th Ave, Okeechobee, FL" on it for their home addresses.
"Could they be forgeries?" Hijiri asked with that barely-restrained delight with which she approached anything that seemed the least bit "delinquent".
"I bet you'd be so disappointed if they weren't," Chisame muttered, and Hane giggled.
In the end, they ran out of reasons to delay. There was no point in staying here -- even with the money Mister Hayakawa had found, they didn't have enough for another night. They didn't have anywhere else to be, either, and they'd been promised an explanation by their mysterious benefactor at their first stop. Rin had suggested ignoring the itinerary and striking out at random, but only half-heartedly, and no one else thought that contrariness was a good enough reason to ignore the only lifeline they had in this weird, crazy situation.
They'd packed up, checked out of the motel, and mounted up. A few minutes later they were heading south along the Western Fall River Expressway, which was also Massachusetts State Route 79, enjoying the weather, the ride, and the view of the river to their right, chatting over the radio link along the way.
"All I'm saying is that whatever's waiting for us in Florida, it had better be worth the drive," Rin grumbled.
Hane laughed.
809 SE 8th Avenue
Okeechobee, Florida, USA
Saturday, September 17, 2016, 9:45 AM
There was, Molly decided, something distinctly odd about the guy who'd hired her father to do a little fix-up on the house around the corner, and then be something like a landlord for the people who were going to be moving in. There wasn't any one thing that she could put her finger on, but a whole lot of little things that just didn't add up.
She stretched out her legs in front of her as she sat on the hearth of the fireplace that took up nearly a third of the longest wall in the great room, pulled a scrunchy out of her pocket, and gathered her mane of red hair together into a long, thick ponytail with it. Then she leaned back against the cool stone and watched as the guy led her dad around the house, pointing out a host of little things that needed attention. He had a really deep voice, she noticed, that seemed out of place on a guy of decidedly medium height and (fit) build -- a build that was revealed nicely, in Molly's opinion, by the white leather motorcycle suit he wore.
And that was one of the odd things -- she'd never seen a pure-white head-to-toe full-body biking suit with matching boots before. (She was sure they must exist, but she'd never seen one in a catalog or a shop.) It looked absolutely brand new, without a speck of road dust or wear on it, either, even though she'd seen him drive up to their house on a simply massive black Suzuki Intruder. His beanie-style helmet was also pure white, with a green "crown of thorns" design on it that Molly was pretty sure Pastor Williams would call "sacrilegious".
As her dad and his new boss returned from the far end of the house Molly squinted and tried again to get a good look at the empty air above his head. She could almost but not quite see something floating there, and it was driving her nuts. It almost looked like a... a halo, of all things. But that was crazy. She sighed. Just one more oddity about this guy. "We're expecting the furniture to show up on the twenty-third," he was saying, showing her dad something on the tablet he was carrying. "Do you think you can get all that done by then?"
Her father thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's doable. Fortunately there's nothing really bad that needs attention, just little things. I'll assemble a small crew and we can get it all done, if not before Friday, then on Friday." He grinned at the other man. "We'll just work where the delivery guys aren't if it takes that long."
"Fair enough," he said with a chuckle. "Then I think we have a deal, Mister Ritter."
"Tom, please. And excellent," her dad said, smiling, as they shook hands. "Let's head back to my place and we can take care of the paperwork."
"Paperwork." The other man shook his head with a rueful smile, sending his shoulder-length hair swinging. "The bane of mortal man since at least the Romans."
Her father shrugged. "What can you do?" he asked, then looked over at her. "Well, sweetheart, we're done here."
Molly smiled, and climbed to her feet. "'Kay, Dad."
"I'm sorry I interfered with your plans for the morning," his boss said. "But I'm afraid it couldn't wait. Maybe it'd help if I mentioned there'll be five girls your age moving in next Saturday? I'm sure you'll become the best of friends."
"I don't know," Molly replied doubtfully. "What if we don't have any interests in common?"
"Oh, I don't think that will be a problem," he said. "They're all bikers like you and your dad."
Molly blinked. "In that case, you might be right."
- RMS: That's in Celsius, of course -- in Fahrenheit it would be low 70s vs low 80s, which were the actual temperatures for the locations and dates concerned.
- RMS: Chisame's father, Kinya Nakano, is a thinly-disguised version of retired Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Shinya Nakano.
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