Ranmash hits Japan
By Dr. Otto
So, you nitpicky crossover fanfiction readers who like pointing out all the plot holes are probably asking: "Hey Ash, how DO you get from China to Michigan with no money and no passports?" Easy: You hitch a ride on a big ol' container ship. How do you hitch a ride on a big ol' container ship? Easy: Promise the captain he'll get some hot redheaded tail if he lets three stowaways sneak on board while his back is turned. (It's even more convenient when you happen to be said hot redheaded tail.) Then: Ya ditch the schmuck the second you reach Japanese soil!
Well, okay: We're actually supposed to be getting back to Michigan, but one step at a time, huh? If you think I'm a chump for taking the long way around, you try swimming from China to the U.S. of A! Besides, I've got another reason for making a pit-stop in Godzilla's homeland: Our friendly Marxist guide back at the cursed springs told us that, a couple of years ago, some other dope by the name of Rumba Sat-on-Me fell into the exact same pool I did.
I figured this Sat-on-Me guy just might have found a permanent cure to my unique little problem, i.e. turning into a busty redheaded teenager whenever I'm doused with cold water. I mean, sure: The breasts rule, but the Promised One's got a reputation to uphold as America's No. 1 studmuffin, ya know? The whole girl-thing just makes the MILFs feel weird about jumping into bed with me.
As for money, I got that challenge squared away when I –
…uh…
All right, I'd better start from the top: It started when Kelly and I were having a little hero's spat after we first arrived at Harumi Terminal. We were trying to puzzle out a foolproof get-rich-quick scheme between ourselves.
"Y'know, Kelly," I said as amiably as possible, "I hear Japanese businessmen pay good moolah for women's panties."
Kelly looked at me with that darn…look of hers. You know the one I mean.
"Ash, you do know I'm a lot taller than you when you're in girl-mode, right? If those perverts want anybody's panties, it's going to be yours."
She had me there.
So: After I took a quick dive in some ice-cold seawater, we found ourselves an authentic Japanese businessman (his suit looked expensive enough to double as a Rolls-Royce), and through extremely fragmentary English, convinced him to buy my girly skivvies. But just before we made the exchange, I gave the sap a roundhouse kick to the groin and made off with his wallet.
What? What? Desperate times call for desperate measures, people! Besides, this freak was already drooling when I played the Lolita act. Everybody's got a right to their little kinks, sure, but a guy this damn eager to get his pervy paws on a lady's lingerie deserves to get his ass kicked by life once in a while.
"Remember, kids," I declared as we stood on the sidewalk, trying to figure out how you're supposed to hail a cab in Tokyo. The streets were bustling with people before the sun even started to come up. "We're pilgrims in an unholy land."
"Ash, what exactly is your deal with the Japanese?" Kelly asked, her eyes locked on a little booklet in her hands. She wasn't too happy about living the stowaway life on a container ship. But the captain gave us free access to the showers, so it's not like B.O. was that much of a problem. Let me tell ya, Generation Z isn't lookin' too good from where I'm standing. Bunch of friggin' crybabies.
"What, you pulling my leg? Check out Legend of the Overfiend sometime. These people are the sickest fucks to ever come out of the Far East. Any country that produces octopus-flavored ice cream has major league issues."
"That's funny, I recall seeing a lot of Japanese softcore videos on the floor in your trailer."
"Hey, I didn't say Japan had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Those geisha babes are smokin'."
In case you can't tell, I was back in man-mode. It's a relief to be a strapping, virile lion again, although I'm still working on getting rid of that darn potbelly of mine. Gotta start laying off the buttermilk pancakes once and for all.
"Hey," I called out to Pablo, the Burt Ward to my Adam West. "Remind me where this Furious Can place is again?"
"Furinkan, jefe," Pablo said. He consulted his smartphone. "It's a little community in the Tokyo suburbs. If these directions are accurate, that's where we'll find the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts."
I shook my head. "I still think that's the most retarded name for a martial art I've ever heard. Bruce Lee would be ashamed knowing a style called Anything-Goes. He'd die from sheer embarrassment instead of O. on too much aspirin."
"Ash, please," Kelly suddenly turned, grabbing me by the shoulder, "do not be a smartass. Not here. The Japanese are all about manners and etiquette. If you go out of your way to piss them off, they'll…"
"Yeah yeah yeah, 'the protruding nail gets hammered down,' etc. etc.," I said, brushing Kelly off. "If these conformist dickweeds try that routine on me, they're gonna get the worst case of tetanus ever. I'm the meanest, rustiest nail who ever lived, baby."
"I'm just saying there's a reason why Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world," Kelly said, hoping I got the point. I didn't.
"That's probably because they're too busy committing seppuku due to being one minute late to work."
Pablo and Kelly cast glances at each other.
"He's going to get us into trouble, isn't he?" Pablo asked.
"About as much as usual," Kelly replied with a shrug.
I pretended not to hear that and kept my eyes peeled for a telltale TAXI sign amid all the metropolitan chaos. Weirdly, no one seemed to pay much attention to my chainsaw and boomstick. Maybe they figured I was going to a screwy superhero convention in town. There's some other guy called Ash in one of their biggest cartoons, isn't there? Wears a red hat and goes around collecting deformed animal embryos or something.
"Hey, how do you hail taxis in Tokyo, anyw - "
I wasn't even finished uttering the sentence before Kelly stepped forward and thrusted her hand out. "Takushi!"
Right on cue, a bright yellow car with a bright red stripe running down its side came skidding to a halt. The driver, looking a lot like a Japanese George Costanza, hopped out and grinned.
"Hai! Takushi!" he acknowledged with a slight bow of the head. "Totally terrific white people want taxi? I am your man!"
"Uh…" Pablo started to say, "I'm Puerto Ric – "
"Here, fine sir, let me take your spoon!" The driver grabbed my 'saw and threw it right into the car's trunk. I'm pretty sure he was trying to break some kind of personal record. I've gotta admit, I liked this guy. Happy, jacked up on sugar, and ready to help a few lost Americans out. At least he wasn't wearing anything Lenin would have approved of.
It took a long, uncomfortable forty minutes, and a lot of language-barrier-crossing between Pablo and the driver, but we finally arrived outside the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts at 5:30pm sharp. The street was relatively small compared to all the roads we'd seen up to that point, and even better, it was 100% pedestrian-free. It's nice to find a spot in Japan that isn't insanely crowded. I saw some Japanese hiraguano (or whatever the hell) on the front door.
I jabbed my thumb at the sign. "What's this supposed to say?"
Kelly squinted her eyes at the symbols, then took a gander at the Japanese-to-English booklet in her hands. "To defeat owner in nasty…in savage combat, use rear door."
I looked at Kelly with my best 'WTF' expression. "Come again?"
She shrugged. "That's what it says, Ash."
Criminy. Buncha friggin' weirdoes. I knocked on the door.
We heard someone grumbling as they shuffled towards the door. His voice sounded weird; all thick and muffled, like his mouth was stuffed full of cotton or something. The door swung open, and then we saw a giant panda looking at us. Seriously, this guy was big. Even my trusty 'saw would have a hard time cutting through his massive white-furred gut. He held a broom with his free hand.
We gawked at each other like retards for a full hour before Pablo said anything. "Uh…Saotome Genma?"
The panda nodded. His narrow eyes swiveled back and forth between me and Pablo. He was clearly trying to figure out what to make of us.
"How the hell do you even know he lives here?" I hissed at Pablo. "He could've escaped from the zoo. Might be carrying rabies, for all we know."
"Jefe, the guide told us Ranma's padre got turned into a panda, remember?" Pablo attempted to give Mr. Sat-on-Me his full, undivided attention. "Okay. Watashitachi wa anata…uh…sagashiteimasu…"
The panda shook his head. "Grgfgrfgrfgrygryf."
"Sorry, Yogi," I said. "No speak panda."
"Gfrgfrgfrgfrgfrgfr?"
Kelly rolled her eyes. "For fuck's sake…"
She picked a hose off the ground and aimed it in my direction.
"Hey, wait a sec - " I started to blurt out.
She turned on the hose, drenching me from top to bottom. Parts of me got smaller, while other parts grew bigger. I shrank from a studly 6'2" to a girly 4'9". My blue shirt slipped down my bare shoulders, just in time to reveal an ultra-ripe pair of juicy melons sprouting from my formerly hairy torso. An invisible barber attacked my rapidly reddening hair and twisted it into a ponytail. My Power Glove hand popped out of my now-undersized wrist.
"I'm the Jefe," I grumbled. "Next time, I'll say when I want to get wet."
The panda stared at my feminine alter ego, slitted eyes widening into saucers. But there was also a trace of recognition in his shocked features.
"…grgrgf," he said, indicating for us to wait. Then he slammed the door in our faces, leaving me dripping and half-naked on the sidewalk.
"Didn't happen to bring a thermos of hot chocolate with you, did ya?" I said to Kelly, trying to hoist my XXXXXL-shirt back over my shoulders.
Pablo frowned. "Why do you want to get soaked with chocolate, jefa?"
"Oh, for the love of – it's a figure of fuckin' speech, Pablo! In case you didn't notice, we were just talking to a goddamn panda! It couldn't be something more normal like an Oregon black bear, noooooo, it had to be a panda! My everyman sense of humor is all that's keeping me from going completely - "
The door opened again, revealing a young Japanese lad no older than twenty or twenty-one at most. He wore a red Chinese tunic with black trousers, his black hair pinned up in a ponytail almost exactly like mine.
He stared at me with even bigger eyes than the panda's, almost like he couldn't believe what he was even looking at.
"Sore muri," he mumbled beneath his breath.
I put my hands on my hips. "What?"
Believe it or not, things got even more awkward from there.
So as close as I could figure it, the house belonged to some guy called Nintendo and his three daughters. The kid I was looking for, Rumba Sat-on-Me, had hunkered down here with his panda dad a couple of years back. We were all sitting together in the guest room: Me, Kelly and Pablo on one side of the table, with Nintendo and two of his daughters on the other. The panda squatted beside Nintendo, chewing on a piece of grass. The Rumba kid was looking at me as if he couldn't even believe I existed. Just outside the guest room was one of those hoity-toity Japanese Zen gardens, complete with its own pond.
Apparently, the household had a few absentee members: Some purple-haired chick called Shampoo (I kid you not, that's her name) was out running a restaurant with her boyfriend/stalker Mousse (no, seriously, I kid you not, that's his name), while a creepy old hag called Cologne (these people must have some kind of fetish for bathroom accessories) managed the whole joint. There was also another doofus called Ryoga who was supposedly out getting groceries, but his sense of direction is shot to shit, which means the chump could be somewhere on Mars for all we know.
The language barrier was proving to be an even bigger problem than we anticipated. Nabiki, one of Nintendo's rugrats, was the only person who knew a smattering of English. She and Kelly seemed to be hitting it off pretty well, having a lively conversation with each other. Kelly later told me Nabiki was the only family member who had any serious ambition to become a 'global citizen,' whatever that means. The oldest daughter, Kasumi, was busy fixing up dinner in the kitchen. That lady creeped the living bejeesus outta me. The 'submissive content domestic Japanese housewife' is always an act, as far as I'm concerned. Turn your back on her type even for a second, and she'll pull an Audition on your ass.
And then there was Akane, the youngest of the three. I didn't really know what to make of her. Kind of a blank, if you know what I mean. She seemed awfully quiet most of the time, but Pablo managed to chat her up a little.
As for myself, I was still stuck in girl-mode. Fortunately, the Jusenkyo guide had provided me with an outfit that, coincidentally, was awfully similar to Rumba's; a Chinese tunic colored blue instead of red, and a pair of brown slacks. Let me tell ya something, fellow gentlemen: Wearing your own set of panties feels even sexier and snugglier than you think. Not that I'd ever wear 'em as a dude, of course, but I'm just saying as a 110% hot-blooded beer-guzzling heterosexual white guy that the crossdressing scene makes a whole lot more sense to me now.
For some reason or another, the Japanese really hate chairs, so we were all having to sit on our butts like kindergarten. Pablo and Kelly were adjusting just fine, but I was more uncomfortable than a clown at a mime party. I kept one elbow up on the table, while I kept my Power Glove hand clutched in a not-so-friendly fist. (Pablo managed to slap together a smaller model for my girl-mode in record time.)
Nintendo was sitting across for me, arms folded, trying to see into my soul with a blink-free gaze, but I could see the sweat on his face and the tiny twitch underneath his left eyelid. Something about this dork reminded me of that Gold Tooth douchebag who got his kicks whipping the shit out of me back in 1300 A.D. Not a good impression to leave at all. Come to think of it, I wasn't taking much of a shine to any of these people.
"So," I said.
"Hai," Nintendo replied.
I cleared my throat. He did the same.
"Any of you friendly folks know how to make a tall, cool glass of Pink Fuck?" I suggested, hoping to break the ice.
Nintendo cocked an eyebrow. "Pink-uh fuck?"
"Aw man, you have no idea what you're missing…"
Kelly suddenly tapped on my shoulder. "Ash, Nabiki's filled me in. Ranma wants to know why you look exactly like his girl-self."
"What, seriously? I thought that'd be obvious."
"Guess it's not obvious enough."
I rolled my big blue eyes. "Fine. Tell 'em what happened."
Kelly did her damnedest to explain the situation. Apparently she was successful, because Rumba started looking at me with a gaze of dawning comprehension, while the panda nodded in sympathy. I'm pretty sure it was sympathy. Maybe a piece of grass was stuck in his throat. Meanwhile, Pablo and Akane were laughing like they were already the best of pals.
Around this point, the green-eyed Deadite called envy was beginning to gnaw at my insides. I was supposed to be the Promised One, the Jefe, the Main Man, but Pablo and Kelly were learning Japanese faster than I could shotgun a can of beer, while I flailed behind them like a drunk Chris Farley. Between being a girl and generally feeling useless, I was on the brink of doing something really stupid.
"Hey," I snapped, "why don't we just get to the friggin' point and ask them if they've found a goddamn cure yet?"
Kelly looked at me like I was the one who insisted on being difficult, but posed the question to Rumba Sat-on-Me anyway.
He didn't say anything. Instead, he just turned his gaze down to the floor. It was Akane who answered by shaking her head.
Great. Fucking great.
"Well, this was a waste of time," I said, getting back on my feet. "But thanks for the hospitality, Mr. Nintendo. I owe you a pair of schoolgirl panties. Come on, guys, let's get moving. There's a freighter bound for L.A. with our names on it. I want to split this country before the dolphin killing festival starts."
"Jefa, come on," Pablo said. "You can't just…"
"Oh yes I can!" I turned on Pablo and shrieked right into his face. "Look, Pablo: It's cool! Really! I love being a freak! It's the best thing that's happened to me since I got sucked up a dead guy's butthole! I've got a bright, shining career ahead of me as an ambassador for the LGBTQ community! I'll load my boomstick with transgender ammo that'll shoot rainbows at Deadites and pump their bodies full of tolerance and understanding instead of lead!"
The panda used his paw to make a circling motion pointed at his temple. Nintendo nodded in sad agreement.
"Ash," Kelly chimed in, her voice as cold as a Pepsi can fresh out of a soda vending machine. "You're acting like a child."
"Me, a child?! Seriously?!" I pointed at the formidable mountains on my chest. "Would anyone below the age of sixteen be rocking THESE babies?! You're just jealous because you're flatter than Donald Trump's brain activity graph!"
"All right, that's it." Kelly stood up, cracking her knuckles. "Promised One or not, I'm going to kick your ass all the way back to Michi - "
It was that exact moment when a terrifying dwarfish creature with a long mane of white hair and carrying a long brown cane suddenly shuffled into the room. It was like the ending of Don't Look Now all over again, perhaps the single most traumatic movie-watching experience of my whole messed-up life. If Nicolas Roeg wasn't dead, I'd still kick him in the ballsack.
"Naniga okotteirunda?!" The inhuman little monkey demanded.
"DEADITE!" I shouted, yanking my boomstick from its holster. "EVERYBODY DOWN!"
"Nani?" Nintendo asked.
I unloaded both shells at the unspeakable little nightmare. Both Nintendo girls screamed and duck for cover. The panda grabbed Rumba and threw him outdoors in some badly misguided attempt to keep him safely out of the crossfire. The kid landed in the pond with a splash. Nintendo didn't budge, although a dark, wet stain was visibly growing on the front of his pants.
I snapped the chamber open and pulled out the two smoking cartridges.
"Pablo! Reload!"
Pablo stared at me like a classic Romero zombie. "Huh?"
"You're supposed to throw me some fresh ammo, dipstick!"
"I don't think that's going to make any difference, Ash," Kelly said. She was looking over my shoulder.
I turned around, and saw the gremlin leaning peacefully on her cane, two bullet holes blown into the wall behind her.
I missed? How the in the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger did I miss when she was practically right in front of me?
The creepy crone shook her head, muttering something under her breath, and started to hit the ground with her cane, slowly at first, and then faster, until she was using the floor as her own personal drum set. My eardrums felt weird, as if some kind of gonzo vibration in the air was making them shake, rattle 'n' roll. She must've smacked her cane down a hundred times before she suddenly stopped.
"There," she said, apparently having learned English even faster than Pablo and Kelly were learning Japanese. "Now we can talk like civilized people."
I blinked so many times, my vision felt like it was being blasted with strobe lights at Tokyo's wildest rave party. "What the Hugh Hefner?"
"A little technique I call BATH. Bilingual auditory transformation harmonics," the hag explained casually as she shuffled over in her green-and-red bathrobe. "Until they dissipate, we'll be able to understand each other just fine for the next twenty-four hours."
"You never told us you could do that!" Nintendo said, hands clasped over his ears. Somehow, the guy sounded even dumber when he spoke my dialect.
The raisin-faced witch shrugged. "You've never had Americans over before."
"Father?" Kasumi called from the kitchen. "Are you all right? I thought I heard a bang or two. Did you drop something?"
"Everything is under control, Kasumi," Nintendo said in his most stoic Japanese patriarch voice. But that damp patch on his pants just kept getting bigger.
Nabiki was crawling back out from under the table, her hair frazzled. "Cologne, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be running the Cat Café with Mousse and Shampoo?"
Cologne shook her head in disgust. "We had to close up early. A little brat sprayed Mousse with a toy squirt gun and he turned into a duck in front of everyone. Total pandemonium."
I got a teensy bit alarmed at how amiable everyone was acting around this heinous monstrosity. "Wait a minute...that's Cologne? What, do all Asian people just shrivel up into freaky little hobgoblins when they get old?"
"Ash…" Kelly said.
"Oh no, don't fret now, my dear," Cologne uttered soothingly. "A fool cannot be hated, only pitied."
"Hey now, don't talk about Pablo that way, lady," I said. "I know he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but..."
"I was referring to you, imbecile."
Maybe it was just the sour mood I was in, but I didn't appreciate the 'enlightened-Easterner-dumps-on-dumbass-Westerner' routine this old biddy was pulling on me.
"You just watch your tone, Norma Desmond," I warned her as diplomatically as I could. "Back where I come from, we treat our Promised Ones with respect."
"Well, you are most certainly not a Promised One here!" she cackled.
Okay, that tears it. Senior citizen or not, this wrinkly crow was about to get burned by some redheaded, ponytailed fury. I detached my Power Glove.
"Pablo, unpack the Milwaukee M12."
"Jefa, are you really going to - ?"
"Fuckin' A."
Cologne watched with bored disinterest as Pablo opened his duffel bag and tossed over a 14-inch chainsaw specially accommodated for my girl-mode. What this mean little steel alloy bitch lacked in size, it made up for in spunk, just like me. I clicked the nasty gal into my wrist and made her purr.
"Okay-dokey, you little mutant," I said, turning back to Cologne armed and dangerous. "You've got three seconds to apologize before I slice up some crone cutlets."
"Ash!" Kelly was mortified. "Are you high? She's an old woman!"
"Old women don't look like something that grew under my toilet seat!" I hollered back at her. "This butt-ugly gnome doesn't qualify as a member of the human species!"
Cologne sighed. "You're picking a fight with the wrong person, you know."
"Oh yeah?" I chuckled. "What makes you say that?"
"The foot that's about to hit your face, of course."
I barely had time to swivel my neck an inch before somebody's bare foot collided with my feminine features. I went down like a sack of potatoes. Looking up, I saw...me.
Okay, not me-me. Girl-me. It was Rumba, freshly transformed after his dive in the garden pool. Let me tell ya, I grew to respect my bust even more after seeing it on someone else.
"I've had it up to here with your gaijin bullshit, old man," she snarled. "Either you clear out, or I'm going to break both of your femurs."
What the hell? 'Old man?' I might be bordering on sixty, but everybody knows sixty is the new thirty!
I got back on my feet and smiled my coyest smile.
"Bring it, you snot-nosed little twerp," I smirked. "Maybe after we're done, you and me can engage in some kinky-dinky twincest. That sound up your alley?"
WHAM! BAM! BONK! Rumba's martial artistry sent me flying through at least a dozen shoji blinds. What she lost in male strength, she gained in female speed. The damn punk was used to fighting like a girl, while I was still adjusting to the same format. POW! BIFF! BOFF! I was on the receiving end of a 1960's Batman fight scene. I could already feel parts of my body turning black-and-blue-and-purple from her kicks and punches. She knelt beside me as I panted for breath.
"I never thought I'd have this much fun beating myself up," she said, mimicking my smirk.
"Oh yeah?" I wheezed. "Wanna know how we kicked your heinies in World War II?"
"You dropped atomic bombs on cities and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?"
Ouch. That was brutal. Good thing I had the perfect comeback ready.
"No," I said, "we fought DIRTY."
"I think dropping bombs on cities is already fighting d - "
I landed a punishing haymaker to Rumba's left boob. The kid's face turned green, and she buckled over. I revved up my chainsaw.
"Okay, junior," I growled, "let's see how all your fancy footwork measures up against old-fashioned Milwaukee steel."
Unfortunately, the Nintendo household had one other resident we weren't informed about: A loathsome antichrist in the shape of a deformed leprechaun who made Cologne look like Galadriel. This living plague-upon-the-earth was known as Happosai, and while everyone was watching me and Rumba catfight the shit out of each other, he snuck into Pablo's duffel bag and made off with the Necronomicon. The little perv retreated to his private quarters, where he could study the book's contents at his leisure.
"Aaaaah...human flesh, eh?" Happosai mumbled aloud, noting the book's cover. "Inked in blood, too! This ought to be good! Let's see...I just know a tome as ancient as this one has an incantation to summon exotic harem women from the scolding deserts of the Middle East..."
My girl-on-girl duel with Rumba was causing all sorts of racket and clamour that made the entire building shake, but even the prospect of seeing two ladies duke it out couldn't entice that human atrocity away from the Necronomicon. One abomination deserves another, I guess.
"Aha! Here we are! My Sumerian's a little rusty...exos...kanda...demonto..."
Meanwhile, Rumba was busy kicking my ass...as much as I hate to admit it. My chainsaw kept her from getting in close enough to wallop me, but I couldn't reload my boomstick while this hyperactive little minx refused to let up. Our fight had gradually moved outside into the garden, where we at least had more room to inflict all kinds of physical trauma on each other. Everybody else observed the action from the bleachers.
"Shouldn't we try to break 'em up?" Pablo asked, a little uncertainly.
The panda held a sign up with a phrase scrawled on it that was basically the Japanese equivalent of NO WAY.
"I concur with Genma," Cologne snickered with mad glee. "This is the best entertainment I've had in centuries!"
"How can you say that?!" Akane screamed, appalled. "That awful foreigner is using a chainsaw! He could cut Ranma in half!"
"I think your boyfriend-slash-girlfriend's handling himself just fine," Kelly deadpanned as she watched Rumba deliver another Jet Li to my face.
"He's NOT my - !"
But before Akane could deny whatever she about to deny, Rumba punched me in the babymaker, and I dropped down like a bag of cement instead of potatoes. Yes, there's a difference.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" I gasped, holding my hand up. "Time out!"
Rumba stopped, panting but far from out of breath. She stared at me like I was a nutjob. "Time out? Seriously?"
"Yeah! I mean...as hot as chick vs. chick brawls are, you and me fell into the same pool, right? Doesn't that make us water-pals, or something?"
Rumba glared at me for another moment, before she burst out laughing.
"You are the dumbest gaijin I've ever met in my life! You're even more of a failure than my dad!"
"What've you got against your dad, kid?"
Rumba's grin turned down into a scowl. "It was his idea to use a cursed spot for a training ground."
"Wow, no kidding? Is that all he did?"
"No," Rumba said, the bad memories flooding back to her. "No, the bastard also knocked me into that fucking pool."
"Holy shit! That jerk didn't just pick the wrong place to make a man out of you, he ended up making a woman out of you to boot!"
Rumba looked down at the ground. Tears were beginning to coalesce around her big blue eyes.
"We try not to talk about it, but..."
"Hey, kiddo, I totally get it. Sometimes we've got to bury all that regret and anger bubblin' inside our guts so we can move on with our lives, right?"
Rumba wiped the tears away with her sleeve. "Yeah."
"I'll let you in on a little secret," I said, motioning at him to come closer. "Me and my pa weren't exactly John and Will Robinson, either."
Rumba took a step forward. "...really?"
"Hell, no," I elaborated, letting the wistful sadness seep into my eyes. "Nothing ever made the S.O.B. happy. Total Republican hardass, know what I mean? He thought homeless people were just lazy bums who wanted to get by on welfare. If I got so much as one B on a report card, he'd think I was slacking off. This one time, he's looking at my math grade, and he looks at me disgust. 'Why do I have such a butthead for a son?' You know what I said to him?"
Rumba nodded, leaning in.
"I said...dad, I'm not a butthead, I'm a headBUTT!"
And with that, I gave Rumba a literal headbutt to the face. The little punk reeled backwards, holding a hand to her smashed nose. The panda raised a sign saying OUCH. (How the hell was he writing those so friggin' fast? Come to think of it, how'd he learn to write English so fast?)
"Owwwwooooowwww!" she screamed. "You lowlife Yankee son of a bitch! I'm gonna rip you to shreds and throw the pieces to Happosai!"
Then…the wind picked up. Leaves blew wildly across the garden. There was an ominous howl in the air. And I knew IT was coming.
What is IT, you ask? Well, the truth is, I don't have a name for it. Nobody does. I guess you could describe it as a kind of faceless force that heralds the arrival of the Deadites. Sometimes you can see it coming from all the dust and dirt it kicks up in its wake. Sometimes you can only feel it as a vile, hateful presence getting closer and closer like an oncoming storm. But if it catches you, the results are always the same: A demon infects your body, and you turn Deadite.
The panda, looking around in alarm, lifted another sign with a quivering paw: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
"Oh, shit…" Kelly groaned.
"Pablo! Kelly!" I tried to yell above the din. "Get of here! Me and Rumba will – "
Rumba grabbed my tunic's collar and yanked me in close. "My name," she snarled, "is RAN - "
KABOOM. The wall to the Sat-on-Me garden exploded inwards, sending chunks of stone and concrete flying in every direction. The girls screamed in unison. Nintendo passed out. Even the hag Cologne ducked for cover. As I hit the grass, I felt IT roar over my head like a passing Monster Truck.
I glanced up, and saw Rumba had wisely done the exact same thing. She looked at me with blue eyes aflame with suspicion.
"Was that your doing, old man?"
Before I could protest my innocence to this spastic hothead, a grotesquely mutated parody of Kasumi Nintendo floated out of the kitchen, her feet at least seven inches off the ground, eyes completely white and soulless, her right hand still holding a frying pan that sizzled and spat with oil. The Evil had found its first host.
"We are the things that were and shall be again!" Kasumi bellowed in triumph. "Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!"
The panda, having crawled behind a rock, raised a sign while his eyeballs wept with raw terror: HELP.
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