One day, Spirit-hime said, "Ne, guess what? My Japanese exchange is back on!"
AngelAnne and said, "Yay!" and was immediately very jealous. After the jealousy wore off, it dawned on her that if S-hime were away from her computer, there would be no one to keep track of Peppermint Storm and, indeed, the Shitennou while she was gone. So AngelAnne said, "Hey, I'll watch the site while you're gone. Make sure Jeddy doesn't set anything on fire, you know?"
Those would be famous last words.
Not Quite Hostile Takover:
AngelAnne Runs the Webpage
(and Makes it Yaoi)
It was Saturday morning, at just about the crack of dawn. Birds chirped, the sun shone, and Anne was already checking her email.
"Penis enlarger, get out of debt, anti-depressant trial..." Anne deleted all of them. "Can't I get something besides junk mail?"
After surfing through about 600 pages of spam, she found an email from S-hime. It was dated the day that S-hime had left on her trip. Wondering why she'd missed it for so long, Anne clicked on the Read button.
After the smoke cleared, her computer chair was empty. The monitor read, "Do you want to delete this email? Y/N"
*~*~*~*~*
"YARGH!"
With that rallying battle cry, Anne landed soundly on her bum on the front lawn of a big house. A really, really big house.
"...the hell is this?" she muttered, looking around. "I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore."
She might not have been in Kansas, but it looked like she was in the Deep South. It was a huge white mansion, with porches, pillars, swings; you know, the whole bit. It was quite overwhelming, considering the rest of the landscape was covered darkness and cold fog. The only thing that made it look remotely alive were the few oak trees that surrounded the house.
Suddenly, the entire building shuddered as someone turned on a stereo. Birds frantically tried to escape from the trees as "Chibiusa no Hanran" exploded from the inside of the house.
"GAH! Jed, for the love of God, TURN THAT DOWN!" someone screeched.
"No way! It annoys you too much!" someone screeched back. Much to Anne's dismay, they turned the song up even louder.
"Well, I might as well figure out where I am," she muttered, not that she could hear herself if she'd wanted to. She strolled up the cobblestone path, up the marble stairs, and rang the enormous doorbell.
"Would someone get that?!"
After a prolonged wait, punctured by the horrible Chibiusa image song, the door opened.
"..." Anne said eloquently. She was face to face with
"Zoisite?!" she finally managed to sputter.
"Yes," the young Shitennou said, raising an eyebrow. "And you are?"
"Uh, I'm Anne. Hi."
{{That's it. No more Vanilla Coke for me,}} she thought.
"Oh. You're the one Spirit-hime told us about. C'mon in," he said, gesturing into the living room.
"..." Anne repeated. "Shimmy told you I was coming?"
Zoisite regarded her with a "duh, you moron" look, and entered the house.
"Well, I've got nothing to lose." Anne shrugged, following him inside. "Except what remains of my sanity."
The inside of the house was more startling than the outside. She was greeted by enormous hallways with literally hundreds of doors, spreading infinitely in each direction. A flight of stairs was directly in front of her, leading to even more doors.
"..." Anne realized she was going to get a lot of mileage out of that phrase.
"While S-hime is on her trip, it's your job to watch Peppermint Storm. And," Zoisite said, pulling out a note from a pocket, "'keep them from destroying everything.'"
Anne snatched the note out of his hand. "Give me that."
The note read:
A-chan -
If you're reading this, you've obviously arrived at Peppy Storm headquarters. It's a little overwhelming, but the closets are quite comfy (once you get used to them.) Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to keep the website from going into complete meltdown. Oh, and make sure Jeddy doesn't make the kitchen explode again.
See you when I get back!
Love,
Shimmy
Anne folded the note back up. "So what's this about closets?"
"Oh, we just lock Spirit-hime in there until she comes up with something creative." Zoisite shrugged. "Standard procedure."
"...Goody. We don't have to start that right away, do we?"
"Nah." The horrible Chibiusa song was still going - it was now on its second run through - so Zoisite picked up a conveniently placed pot and heaved it at the nearest door. The wood shattered, revealing what could only be described as "loosely controlled chaos."
"Jed! Listen to another song, would you?" he yelled. Jadeite obliged - he changed it to "Mata Mata Chibiusa Desu."
"Does 'keeping you in line' mean I get to hit him?" Anne asked.
"Only if you're brave enough to enter that room. I'm not."
"That's because you're a wimp." Nephrite ambled down the flight of stairs. "You must be the new meat."
Anne sighed. "I'm beginning to wish I'd just left well enough alone. Next time, Ochan gets this job."
She heard the flapping of wings above her head, and cautiously looked up. A giant winged cat looked down on her from the enormous chandelier and purred.
"Is this whole house one giant acid trip?" she asked, afraid to look down for fear she would offend the feline.
"Essentially," said Nephrite. "That's Muffin."
Anne waved slowly at Muffin, who mewled happily. "Mata Mata ... " ended, replaced by "I'm Too Sexy."
"So, what do I do now?" Anne asked, still feeling dwarfed by the infinite hallways. Before anyone could answer, the entire house rumbled as a giant truck pulled up in front of the house.
"..." No prizes for guessing who said that.
"It's the Glico truck." Zoisite stuck his head out the window, waving to the driver. "This is how we pay S-hime. While she's gone, this shipment is for you."
Anne grinned. {{Okay, so maybe this won't so terrible.}}
Ten minutes later...
Anne chewed thoughtfully on a stick of Coconut Pocky, feet propped up against the closet door.
"This must be Shimmy's closet," she observed. At least twenty empty Pocky boxes were stacked in the corner, and random notes were scribbled on the wall (she was hoping they were for fanfics.) Her favorite was, "Endymion is a pimp," although she wasn't quite sure how that fit into any of the fanfics S-hime was currently working on.
Someone banged on the closet door. "Come up with anything creative yet?" Zoisite called.
"I've only been in here ten minutes," Anne replied, eating another stick of Pocky. "I haven't come up with anything good yet."
"I didn't say 'come up with anything good?' I said 'anything creative.'"
Anne grinned. It was that grin she got when she was about to write a really, really scary fanfic. "In that case, get me out of here and to a computer, my femmy uke."
"Did you just call me 'your femmy uke?!'" Zoisite squeeked.
"Just get me to a computer!"
He should have taken that as a premonition.
Approximately 2 hours later, give or take a few boxes of Pocky...
"Done!" Anne shouted triumphantly, saving for one last time. They wanted something creative? Ooh, they'd get it, alright.
Kunzite strolled in, a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand. "You've got something in two hours? How could you possibly write a fic in that amount of time? I've seen your behemouths."
Anne stood up from the computer chair, offering it to Kunzite. "I was inspired. Go ahead, read."
"...it's called 'Clowns'?!"
"Uh," Anne blanched, "I'll be at the other end of the house, hiding under the sofa, if you need me."
Twenty minutes later...
An inhuman scream came out of the computer room. Anne looked conspiratorily over to the dustbunnies under the couch.
"Perhaps I got too creative?" she asked them. They nodded.
"Well, I can blame it on Zoi."
"Anne, if you're not already hiding, you might want to consider it!" bellowed Nephrite. "Kunzite's got a big stick with your name on it!"
Anne "eeped," and curled further into a ball under the sofa. She knew the wood and upholstery would not protect her from an angry Kunkun, but at least he'd be distracted by hacking it to pieces.
Kunzite came barreling down the hallway, looking like a crazed Braveheart, stick raised high above his head. Before he could do the intern-S-hime any harm, three very annoying alarms went off. The lights in the house flashed and whirred.
"Shit, we've got Ask the Shitennou sign!" he yelled. Rampage of terror forgotten, Kunzite discarded the stick and ran back down the hallway.
Anne peered out from under the couch. "Phew."
Seven days later...
The "Clowns" incident appeared to have been forgotten. In fact, it had been forgotten nearly an hour after it had begun. (Anne had hoped the Ask the Shitennou session would take a long time, and it did - nearly two days. Those fangirls just don't know when to quit.)
Anne was back at the computer, as she had been since she'd escaped the Wrath of Kunzite. She had spent most of her time coming up with even more "creative" ideas for the website. Most of them involved yaoi, naked bishies, whipped cream, or all three. She was very proud of herself.
She peeked in on the Shitennou at regular intervals, and except for a few incidents involving violin strings, grasshoppers and a Jello mold, all was right with the world. That is, up until the last few hours.
Anne wasn't quite sure how, but it felt as though the atmosphere in the house had changed. Before it was weird. Now it was ... extremely weird.
It could have been that T.A.T.U. was now coming out of Jadeite's room. And he was singing. And he was starting to sound like Haruka. And wasn't that a Mugen Gakuen uniform he was wearing? (The "vroom vroom" noises he made on occasion were mildly scary, but nothing that would cause therapy. Everyone knew Jadeite led a double life.)
Unfortunately, there were plenty of other, scarier possibilities.
It could have been that Zoisite had taken it upon himself to dress like a hooker who fell out of the 1980s: complete with robin's egg blue eyeshadow up to his eyebrows (which had been expertly plucked,) enough blush to drown a third world country (and some second world ones,) and lipstick that would make Marylin Manson gag. The black dress he was sporting - complete with neon pink polka dots - left very little to the imagination. The black heels were a nice touch, though. (The "Kiss Me, I'm an Uke" sign was a little disturbing, however.)
It could have been that Nephrite had sequestered himself in the kitchen. This in and of itself was not terrible, because she had hidden the propane torch one uses to make creme brulé. However, he was wearing a frilly maid uniform - and it was covered in glitter. Glitter was liberally applied to pretty much everything in the kitchen, in fact. His makeup was light - at least in comparison to Zoisite's. The worst part, at least from the point of view of an innocent bystander, was that he was actually cooking. Not only did the kitchen not smell like burned fish, it smelled good. Edible things were actually coming out of it.
It could have been that Kunzite had redecorated the living room, as a result of his new (very new) hobby: flower arranging. Every available space in the room had been covered with a vase overflowing with roses, irises, posies, wisteria, and anything else that looked like a flowering plant. (This included the featherduster.) He had pulled his hair away from his face with a pink scrunchie, and had some time ago discarded his shirt. Save for a pair of incredibly snug leather pants, he was totally naked. Somewhat ironically, he was wearing a "Kiss Me, I'm a Seme" sign.
Anne decided, as she sketched a picture of uke!Zoisite, that the line from "extremely weird" to "just plain f*ing bizarre" had been crossed. And spit upon. And set aflame. And eaten by rubber chickens.
Then it occured to her. She had yaoi-fied the Shitennou.
S-hime was either going to be highly amused or ... well, Anne predicted she would recieve some very interesting Taiki fanfics in the future.
"Ooh crap," she said conversationally, putting down the sketchbook. This was a problem. She could either dedicate the rest of her time to writing really angsty Senshi x Shitennou fanfics to counteract her yaoi-ish tendencies, or let the phase ride out and hope S-hime's sense of humor had gotten even weirder in the time she was away.
Anne picked up her sketchbook and continued to draw uke!Zoisite, making sure to give him wings and sparkly sakura petals.
Seven very strange, very yaoi, days later...
Anne finished writing her latest After Dinner Mint - "Why Kunzite Does Not Need to Wear Pants" - and saved it. She leaned back in the computer chair, feeling incredibly proud of herself. Someone thumped the wall next to her, and she peddled the chair out into the hallway.
"Oh, for the love of God, keep it down in there!" she shouted, peddling back into the room. She wasn't quite sure who was in the room next to hers at the moment, but she wasn't going to ask. In the last week, she had seen more utterly strange yaoi pairings than she'd ever encountered, and that included in the Gundam Wing fandom. Quatre and Zechs getting it on made more sense than these guys. (Although the mental picture of Quatre and Zechs getting it on was very scarring, indeed.)
Anne checked the clock. S-hime would be home in T-minus 5 minutes. This was going to be interesting.
In a last ditch effort to make the whole "yaoi-fying the Shitennou" incident look as little her fault as possible, she picked up her copy of The Alienist and tried to find room on the couch to sit. (This was not easy, because Kunzite had managed to take up every inch of space in the living room with his floral beauties. This included the chandelier and Muffin's head. Anne hadn't seen much out of Muffin in the two weeks, and she figured that the creature had wisely decided to be out hunting butterflies the whole time.)
Her plan was this: pretend she had no idea what had happened to the house, and deny she had any hand in it. If all else failed, she'd plead insanity. It was true.
In order to combat the sheer floral ... -ness of the living room, Anne put her Evanescence CD into the stereo (which had been decorated with pressed poppies.) If anything could give her a sense of normalcy, it was gratuitous angst.
When the giant, rose-covered grandfather clock struck on the hour, Spirit-hime burst through the door of the house.
"Welcome back, Shimmy!" Anne greeted, barely able to get in a word edgewise over "Bring Me to Life."
S-hime stumbled through the door, her arms full of Sapporo Beer and a large suitcase in tow. "Woo, watch out for dem ki rin! They fly awful low..." she yelled over the music, stumbling over a few poorly placed palm trees.
"Uh, of course, Shimmy," Anne agreed, tossing her book aside. "You want some help?"
"Whut happened here?" asked S-hime, depositing beer all over the plants as she gestured about her with an open can. The plants seemed pretty happy about that.
Anne turned down the volume on the stereo a few decibels. "Oh, Kunz got a new hobby. You know him."
"Welcome home!" Kunzite greeted, carrying the world's largest snapdragon plant. He turned the stereo on its side and put the plant in the newly created space.
S-hime giggled in a nearly perfect fangirl impression. "Nish fashion choish, Kunz..."
"You think so?" he asked, bending over and craning his neck. "You don't think these pants make my butt look big?"
"Naaaaaaaw," S-hime said, taking a swig out of one of the many open beer cans and glad to get such a nice view of Kunzite's posterior. "You look shekshy."
Anne sighed in mild relief - S-hime may have been horribly drunk, but that meant she wouldn't see anything wrong with the house until the beer wore off. And by the number of open cans she was carrying, and others unopened that she probably shipped home, that would take awhile.
"Well, glad to see you made it home safe!" Anne chirped. "I hope you like the, uh, additions I made to the site while you were gone."
S-hime had already disappeared down the hallway, beer in tow, to take a peek at these "additions." Anne remained in the living room, just in case she got sober very quickly.
"Zoi, baby, you've got to let me borrow that dresh shometime," she remarked, coming down back down the hallway. Anne smiled warily.
"So?"
"I eshpeshially like th' one about Kunzy's pants. Or lack thereof," S-hime remarked, draping her arm over Anne's shoulder. "You did good, A-chan."
"Ooh, glad to hear it," Anne sighed in relief again. "Well, I think it's time I got back to my house. Taiki angst isn't going to write itself, you know?"
Making sure S-hime was propped up against something solid - the best thing she could find was Kunzite (and S-hime was not complaining) - Anne grabbed a box of Coconut Pocky and made a hasty retreat.
"See you online!" she called, flying out the door.
Two hours, and one sober S-hime later...
SushiGirlSpirit is now online.
Taiki Justice: Hi, Shimmy!
SushiGirlSpirit: A-chan, what did you do to them?!
Taiki Justice: Uhhhh...
Home || Back