SUMMARY: One bad mutha shut yo' mouth post apocalyptic pop culture tour de force of excessive violence, language, drug use and hardcore otaku anime fan worship. FAQing Hostile: Subcultural Mutant Otaku Versus the Mundanes (Spawned by Twoflower) --- I believe in the power of anime. I believe in sweatdrops. I believe in triple takes, where the motion goes by once really fast, once more slower, and one last time even slower. I believe in superdeformation and the joys it may bring. I believe in lolicon schoolgirls with magical transformation pens. I believe in armor that has breasts. I believe in psychics with the power to level a city block with a blast of glowing light in a primary color. I believe in aliens with tentacles and aliens with glowing yellow hair that can destroy planets. I believe in drama, slapstick, comedy, romance, and Tokyo Tower. I believe in anime. And I believe it has the power to save this world from itself. - Anonymous Author Found written on the side of the Chrysler Building, 2135 --- Across the blasted wastelands of Florida, under a sky the color and consistency of a multiflavor yogurt cup, the crooning dulcet tones of the Backstreet Boys echoed in the endless technicolor midnight. It echoed behind an electrified fence with barbed wire strung liberally about the top. It echoed through salvaged trailers, stuck up on blocks, but decorated with all the glitz and glamour that a boy band could ask for. Tonight was the weekly dance, when all the nice young preteen girls could scream and swoon over various nonthreatening males with earrings and snazzy wardrobes. It was the time when the Pop Rocks Militia could shine. But one person wasn't attending the dance. He was holed up in the closet sized bedroom of his trailer, with the lights out, hoping nobody would notice his absence. He rooted in the hidden compartment, the one he'd cut for himself with a blowtorch, and withdrew a battered metal box that used to hold 40mm ammunition. Now, it held a number of minidisks, aging but useful despite this year 2134 of the apocalypse, each hand-labelled in pen. He sat crosslegged, sifting through it, and selecting one : The Goddess Family Club Krisimasu Album. He loaded it into a disk player, put the one working earphone bud into his left ear, leaned back and relaxed. It was like being with a goddess herself. He didn't know the words. He didn't know Japanese. But it spoke to him, spoke in a way New Kids on the Block and 98 Degrees never could. It spoke of a world long gone, in a country long dusted in the inferno of the war. Japan. Nice goddesses who cooked cakes or built motorcycles. Crazy, funny hijinks and fun. Romance and drama. Anime. So lost was he in the music that he didn't hear his door open. "Oh my god, Dave, no!" He scrambled to hide the box, and yank out the earbud; which only made the sweet, bouncy music all the more audible. "No, wait, it's not what you think!!" he protested. "I was just.. I mean..." His sister quickly scooped up the disks, and tried to stuff them back in the box. "If the Music Manager catches you listening to this blasphemy, he'll have you kicked out of the compound! I thought you got rid of this stuff last week?!" "...I just buried it," he admitted. "But I dug it up last night. I can't help it, sis. I... I.... I don't like Ricky Martin." "DAVE! Keep your voice down!" "It's true!" he said, standing. Kicked a wall in frustration. "I can't STAND Ricky Martin. I am not Living La Vida Loca! I want Megumi Hayabashi, I want Inuoe Kikkio, if that's how you say her name, I want my Trigun soundtracks and my Yoko Kanno Cowboy Bebop acid jazz and all my anime! I can't live like this." "You HAVE to," his sister said, lifting the fully packed box. "We're Pop Rocks. We live by our code and our culture. If we didn't have an ideology we'd be no better than the mutant savages out there! We'd be overrun. Mom and Dad like Ricky Martin. Why can't you? Is your brain messed up?" "My brain's fine," Dave said, opening a window.. and gesturing. "It's that. The world. There's more out there than just this fence and these trailers and the Howitzer cannon. I've seen DVDs, sis, where girls in school uniforms save the world, and people are happy and friendly and win over evil... it doesn't all have to be about backbeat and five part harmony and deciding which one is going to be the 'bad boy' of the group!" "All that's out there are radioactive wastes, and killers like the Bowlers or the Trekkies or the Scorcese Banditos," his sister said. "You're safe HERE, Dave. Promise me you'll get rid of this box? Please? It's for your own sake." "...fine, I will," he agreed without any hint of sincerity in his voice. "Great!" his sister smiled, because listening to enough pop music hype and media can water you down so far that you're unable to notice even a bald-faced lie. "I gotta get back to the dance. I'll meet you there!" The young boy nodded, and waited for his sister to bound out of the trailer, the rickety, rusted structure rocking with every step. He felt the weight of the box, his package of contraband, of illegal dreams and aspirations... and absolutely couldn't throw it away. But it was getting out of hand. After getting caught the first time, with that first DVD a travelling merchant had slipped him in exchange for six rations of frozen Chicken McNuggets, he'd been trying harder and harder to hide his obsession, and it was failing each time. Soon, something had to give. It turned out to be the fence. --- The dance broke up into a frenzy of girlish screaming from male and female alike, when the hulking monster burst through the electrified fence, a shower of blue sparks like a bad discotheque flaring in the air. Too late, the Defense Squad, in their carefully tailored and color coordinated military uniforms, ran for the aging Howitzer cannon -- which promptly exploded in a fifty foot fireball when they reached it, blasted to smithereens by the turret of the intruding tank. Dave ran out of the trailer, to see what was going on.. as the heavily modified green army tank rolled casually into the compound, flattening a few trailers, shattering priceless stocks of Menudo albums. It wasn't just a tank, it was a TANK... the size of at least five other tanks jammed into one and about as pretty as the resulting combination. The turret rotated, to cover the crowd, to keep them at distance... and that's when he saw what was on the other side of the turret. Someone had stenciled in a few Mokonas, with red X's through them. Confirmed kills. The tank was labelled quite clearly, once in english and once in Japanese... 'Otakuland Strike Team Theta'. Below that, 'We brake for nobody'. The entire population of the Pop Rocks Militia, no longer with the giant gun that usually protected them from invasion, hudded in one corner of the camp, pinned between a fence and a hard tank. The hatch opened, and the most beautiful woman Dave had ever seen stood up, in a fuku made entirely of leather and chrome, like an angel, like a goddess here to save him from his mundane existence. She packed two machinegun pistols, elegant Japanese features, and a really nifty blue hairdo. Out of side hatches came a bulky looking teenager wearing entirely too many grenades on his vest, and... a small yellow animal Dave couldn't make out clearly. "Okay, you one hit wonder worshipping retards, LISTEN UP!" she shouted. "Otakuland requires your tribute to continue day to day operations in the Otaku Way of Life, and donations are mandatory. If you'd kindly pile all the Big Macs and cellular modems you have available in front of this tank, we'll be sure not to blow any of your sorry spandex and sequin wearing asses to Cloud Nine!" The Music Director, with his tasteful gold chains and big phat cigar, stepped up to confront the tank. "You pathetic foreigners aren't going to scare us with your gestapo tactics! We have the power of HANSON on our side and fear no evil--" "CHUUU!!" Lightning crackled around the yellow animal thing, which arced out perfectly and fried the Director where he stood. The tribe elder coughed once, and flopped over, mumbling something about his contract. "Anyone else with comments?" the woman asked. Big Macs were produced immediately. But Dave wasn't paying attention by this point. He knew opportunity when he saw it. This was his only chance to get out of here before persecution eventually crushed him, his only shot at meeting other anime fans! If it was true... it HAD to be true... this was his moment to shine! Rushing inside, to grab a few essentials, and his prized collection, he sized up the situation, and snuck around behind the wreckage... studying the tank. Right there... a compartment he could hide in... A new day was going to dawn now. A way out of this backwards subsect, this hateful place. He didn't know what 'Otakuland' was, but if anything was paradise, that would certainly be it! --- The tank rumbled along what passed for a highway, at subsonic speeds. "This isn't going to fill the take," the woman was saying, although Dave couldn't see anything from his dark, enclosed space in the tank. "Not by a longshot. We might need to stop off at Epcot for more. We can't feed all of anime fandom on this pathetic load." "I should remind you that we are in uneasy relations with the Mickey Mouse Club, commander," an older, more poised voice spoke. "And aside from that, the tactical odds of a single strike unit moving against Epcot Center are slim." "That may be, but pickings are getting scarce out here. The only other group around here is a roving band of Trekkies, and they've got phasers. We didn't install up a force shield before leaving." "I t0ld y0u we'd need 1, d00dette," a somewhat broken voice spoke. "but n00000, y0u said, 'oh, th4t's OK, well just be out a l1ttl3 wh1l3 just a sm4ll run. L00ser!" "Hey, MY intelligence reports said the Pop Rocks were loaded! Don't blame me for a screwup at Tokyo Tower!" Dave giggled a bit in joy. They recreated Tokyo Tower? This was going to be TOO good! ......oops. "Sensors are indicating a foreign sound inside the luggage unit," the elder voice said. And in less than a second, the door to Dave's cramped hiding place was kicked open and he was looking down the barrel of a gun. "You've got two seconds to explain yourself," the woman said. Being able to look up her fuku delayed Dave for one second. "Uh, I--" CLICK. ...the woman examined her weapon, confused. Scowled, and tossed it away. "Dud ammo. I swear, resources are running low lately... guys, secure him." "What?" Dave asked, too late. The guy with all the grenades was on him like white on rice and water on ramen, locking his hands behind his back with a weird rubbery elastic, and attaching THAT to a fixture. "G0T h1m! u suck! I rul3 y0u!" the guy cheered. "Settle down, B1FF. Okay, kid, who the hell are you?" she asked, sitting in a nearby pilfered office chair. "Spill. Or we can spill other parts of you. I know Kung Fu." "I-I'm Dave Smith!" Dave said. "I live.. I lived at Pop Rocks. I want to come with you guys to Otakuland!" "Oh, great, a stowaway," she groaned. "As if Otakuland didn't have enough mouths to feed..." The man's voice that Dave had heard earlier seemed to come from nowhere... or rather, everywhere. Through speakers all around the inside of the tank. "Part of our directives do state that we should pick up converts to the Anime Way," it reminded, in a slightly chiding voice. "Yeah, well part of MY directives say that we're cramped enough in this thing without deadbeats. Fine, fine. Kid, who's Kiyone's partner?" "Mihoshi," Dave replied instinctively. "And what device did Washuu try to destroy the universe with in the Kiyone OVA special?" "Uh, a giant robot with squeaky mallets on cartoon arms." "How many clones of Rei Ayanami got used during the whole run of Eva?" "Three!" "What did Funmation use as a cheap patch whenever someone got killed in the dubs of Dragonball Z?" Dave actually sweatdropped. He'd seen one of those, true, but then had switched to fansubs immediately. Rack brain, rack brain, find answer... "Umm... they...... they 'sent people to another dimension!'" "luser kn0ws his jun10r lev3l stuph," B1FF admitted. "M0st d0nt ev3n know t3nch1 in th353 d4rk t1mes, s1s." The woman rubbed her eyes, to try and ward off a headache. "Okay. Fine. We'll ditch him at the Admissions office on arrival and he's out of our hair. Okay, Dan--" "It's Dave--" "My name's Vixen Hiroshima, and that's B1FF," she said, gesturing. "He's my brother, as much as I hate to admit it. We're otaku, in the Circle of the Holy Fuku, Strike Team Theta. I do cyberpunk and girls with guns research, he does porno studies." "Y0 D00D!!!11!!!!!" B1FF greeted, pumping Dave's hand in a greeting hard enough to make it turn purple. "y0u g0t any hentai 3l33l3 sh1t w1th y0u, by NE chance?? b0ndage feries!?!!!" "Uh, no, I mostly like shoujo..." "Oh, one of THOSE," Vixen scoffed. "To be expected coming out of a Pop Rocks camp. Maybe they can stuff you in the Goddess Kasumi of the Holy Broom Circle. Anyway... our crew. That voice you're hearing is Sherman, the onboard AI for this rolling wad of steel and pain." "Good morning, Dave," the voice soothed. "And that--" Dave turned to look, and in the better lightning conditions, immediately recognized him. His face beamed with a smile. "Aww, look, it's Pikachu!" "PIKAA!!!!" Lightning slashed across the room, jolting up Dave's spine, and blowing out a few nearby dials and lights. B1FF panicked and jumped in the air to avoid the shock; Vixen didn't even flinch, wearing enough leather to insulate nicely. But she did glare at the Pokemon. "WHAT did we tell you about using Thundershock when you're in Sherman??" she barked. "Chu," the animal grumped, and gave her the middle finger. "......" Dave said, patting out a fire in his shirt. "Uh... is he mad at me or something?" "Th4ts n0t his name," B1FF said. "He likes Phreakachu." "Pika!" Phreakachu said, whipping out a huge blunt and lighting it up. "We rescued him from a genetic amusement park and reprogrammed him a bit. Valuable member of my crew," Vixen explained. "Well, you've met the whole slaphappy bunch. And hopefully when we get back in a few hours you'll never see us again and vice versa. And PLEASE wipe that idiot grin off your face." "Sorry, sorry," Dave apologized. "I'm just.. really excited! I mean, wow, a whole tribe dedicated to anime... wow! It's just.. wow!" B1FF grabbed a handle, and swung himself through one of the chamber doors in the tank. "1ll run a Net m4tch on him 'n chnge h1s c1t1zenship," he said. "H3y, Dave, wann4 see my la blue girl quicktime d1skz??" "Uh, no thank you," Dave said, cradling his (thankfully insulated) box of anime goods. "Um. So what happens next?" "What happens is you go sleep in the guest closet over there and leave us alone until we get to Otakuland," Vixen said, waving ganja smoke away and nudging Phreakachu towards the door with her foot. "Push off, newbie. We're a busy crew." "Ah, right, right," Dave said, opening the closet door. "Don't worry. It'll be like I'm not even here." --- Standing in a closet was boring. True, it was marginally larger than his room back home and had more padding, but he wasn't sleepy. He was excited. Otaku! A tribe of otaku! Tribes formed around a lot of things; survivors trying to survive. But he'd never heard of an anime tribe. And they had their own CITY, from what it sounded like, a city of dedicated fans of japanese animation... how was it possible? "Attention, we are now approaching Disney territory. All lights out, please," Sherman's voice echoed through the entire roving war machine. "...uh, Sherman?" Dave tried. "Yes, Dave?" the tank asked, a speaker just in his closet. "What's Otakuland like?" "File: Otakuland Primer. Otakuland is a settlement just outside what used to be the city of Miami. It was designed and conceived by the first Otaking, as a safe haven for anime fans, a twenty four hour a day anime con that never stopped. The first members met on the Internet, through cellular modem laptops to design and organize. Thus, building took little time and there was almost no chance for outsiders to raid and destroy the project before it was secured." "The Internet?? But... but isn't it expensive? The Music Director had it, but he had to pay a lot of money each month to the company to keep his connection going..." "The Internet is free, as run by NeoK1bo, He Who Greps," Sherman explained. "You are thinking of AOL.com. The two camps are at war with each other at the moment. Otakuland is allied with NeoK1bo, and thus receives access and resources and their own website, on which can be found the Otakuland Anime FAQ." "FAQ?" "Frequently Asked Questions. A guide to all known anime, salvaged from before the war, and before Japan sank into the ocean. Original version compiled by the Otaking, and passed down from Reporter to Reporter for regular additions and editing. Have a copy." A dispenser slot opened in the wall, and a thick pocket book slid out, into Dave's hands. The cover had an adorable superdeformed Ranma, and as he thumbed through, there were pictures of various animes, encyclopedia entries, histories, videographies..... the compendium, the codex of all things Anime. He held it as carefully as the Turin Shroud. Something about it FELT holy, rare and beautiful. Years of work had gone into its creation, and it was felt in the weight of every page, the color of every picture... it felt RIGHT in his hands. Like his own book. "Do you have any other questions, Dave? I have some free processing time, as we are travelling in a direct route and sensors are minimally draining on my power." "No no.. I'll just read this. Thanks, Sherman." "Pleasant dreams, Dave." The speaker clicked out with a soft static sound. --- The young otaku convert awoke, to the sound of part of the tank exploding. Klaxons wailed from all corners, red lights spinning. Pandemonium. He fell out of his closet, still clutching his box of booty and his FAQ, and quickly looked around (from the floor) to see the crew running around like mad. "What the HELL was that?!" Vixen shouted, turning a periscope around, peering into it. "I can't see anything out there!" "Direct hit to primary weapon systems," Sherman clamly said. "Rocket propelled grenade from the east. It used smart guidance systems, and I was unable to avoid. My apologies, Ms. Hiroshima." "PH0CKING B45T4RD5!!" B1FF shouted. He jumped into a chair in front of the main computer array. "WH3N 1 G3TM H4N3D5 0N--" "B1FF, calm down, I can't understand a word you're saying!-- I got 'em. Small group making a beeline for the hills... DAMMIT! Ears! They're goddamn EARS!" "...ears?" Dave asked, getting the nerve to interrupt. "Th3 M1ckey M0use Club," B1FF filled in. Vixen folded up the handles on the periscope, and jammed it so hard into the ceiling that sparks flew. She ground her teeth. "That tears it," she declared. "Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, fucks with my transportation and gets away with it. SHERMAN! Head due east, after them! All the way to Epcot if we have to!" "Our mission parameters state we must return as quickly as possible to Otakuland, Vixen--" "Am I the commanding officer here or not? I wear the fuku on this tank, now turn and pursue!" "R1GHT30US!" B1FF agreed. "Sma5h those d00dz!!!!!!" "..I'll just go back to my closet," Dave said, trying to keep his footing as Sherman bounced from hill to hill at speeds approaching a hundred miles an hour. "Call me if I'm needed--" The tank rocked with another explosion, and turned sideways. A full ninety degrees, making the left wall into the new floor, a bridge lurch which would have made Shatner jealous. "The third bridge is destroyed," Sherman stated. "We are immobile." And in the eerie silence, a chant, from outside the tank... "...for you and me... M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E..." Vixen pulled herself up to her knees, and slapped a fresh clip of ammo into her gun. Then she passed it to Dave, who almost shot himself in surprise. "You're needed," she said. "Get out there and kill something. You want to live for anime, you die for it too." "Ah, but--" "GO!" she shouted, and promptly kicked him in the ass with her metal heeled boots, ejecting him out an external hatch. The night was dark -- multicolored in a psychadelic haze of sky, but a dark haze. Dave stumbled to his feet, looking around the hills of dirt and twisted metal, remnants of the world before... and heard the giggles, floating around the dunes... The others climbed out of the tank, armed to the teeth. "Remember, don't shoot until you see the whites of their gloves!" Vixen reminded. "Short controlled bursts! Ammo is not cheap!" Dave stood, with his Anime FAQ in one hand, and weapon he had no clue how to operate in the other. Ordinary people would lock up in fear and confusion, and Dave always thought himself to be ordinary, thus he did -- but not for long. Hearing the gunfire break out around him, the war cries, it hit him like a wave, shifting from uneasy nerves to hard sensibility. It was the tension of death around him, the first time he'd ever had to fight for his life, for what he genuinely believed in. Something in him snapped. He felt like a hero. He felt like Kenjiro after he got up out of bed in Fist of the North Star with enough force to destroy the bed. He felt like a fully loaded holy rolling walking avatar of anime badass righteousness, into the outdoors with gun and bible. "IKU ZO!!!!" he screamed, jumped into the fray, and got knocked face first into the buried wreck of a Volvo when Phreakachu rebounded off his head to napalm death on the enemy, and was knocked completely out cold. --- Dave awoke to a splash of water on his face, sputtered, and sat up. It was daytime. "Y0u okay, sp0rt?" B1FF asked, offering him a cup of instant ramen. "...uh, I'm okay," Dave said. All the adrenaline was gone. And Vixen had apparently taken her gun back. So much for that, he thought. B1FF grinned, and continued to torque a nasty looking wingnut onto the underbelly of Sherman. "E45y squash. W3 k1cked a55. U m1ssed most of it, thou. phr35k's g3tt1ng parts offthe dune bu66y th0se Ears w3r3 using." "Oh. So, ah.. we won? Good. Well! Strike a blow for animekind!" Dave said. "That's good, right?" "s0rta. Means hol1day ceasefyr was br0ken. Otakuland's n0t g0nna be happy." "Holiday?" "Walt's b1rthday." "Oh." Phreakachu bounded over the dunes, and dumped an armful of parts in front of B1FF. "Pika," he explained, and sat down, pulling out a bottle of Wild Turkey and chugging. He quickly licked some salt off his other hand after. "Gr34t!" B1FF exclaimed, assembling the stuff like tinker toys. "Alm0st re4dy. Bit delayed but w3'll be back in Otakuland 1n a few hourz!!" "Where's Vixen?" Dave asked. He got up, pocketing the FAQ, and looked around... no sign of her. "1 dunn0, doin' g1rrl stuph 0r something" B1FF said. "Phr35k, h0ld this wh1le I tap 1t 1n, d00d." Dave wandered off, curious, and looked behind the various hilly dunes... --- The Ears devotee was most certainly dead. Anybody would be with that many holes in his face. That wasn't the strange part. Vixen poked at what was left of the Micker's armor, nudging it aside with the muzzle of her gun. She hated touching dead things. Dead things, sticky things or bloody things. She had no objections to making someone very dead and bloody and sticky but that's as far as she went in the process. There was no physically touching dead and rotting things in her contract. It was a bit of a problem growing up. She'd never wanted to play Sailor Moon with the other girls, or to catch monsters in cards or pokeballs or whatever. She wanted to kill stuff. It had always appealed to her, and in a survivalist world, there was a socially acceptable outlet for that sort of thing : the military. She had a mind for the military, the moxie, the strength... but never really liked dealing with the aftermath of it. But on field missions, you had to stick it out, somehow, sticky or not... Dave stumbled down a dune, nearly kicking sand over the Micker. She frowned up at him, losing her train of thought. "Could you try to be a little more competent, newbie? This is a delicate forensic study I'm doing here." "Uh, sorry. Um, what's going on?" "What's going on is something isn't adding up," Vixen said. She nudged a small black object with a numeric pad out of the broken and shattered body armor. "This isn't adding up." "What's that thing?" Dave asked, reaching for it until Vixen bapped his hand away. "It's a cellular modem. Really powerful one, judging from the antenna, probably a T3 equivalent. But the Disneys never carry better than ISDN, and certainly not equipment as fresh and new as this. Hey, do me a favor and grab my gloves out of my pack over there." Dave looked over, and opened the bag. Blinked a few times. "What's this long pink plastic thing with the button on it? Some kind of orbital laser strike directional--" "GIVE me that, you twit," Vixen snarled, covering up for that slipup quickly. She rooted through it and pulled out a pair of leather gloves, tugging them on, and then carefully nudged the armor aside, withdrawing the modem. She flipped the lid open... and her eyes widened. "Internet issue," she said. "Customized rather than standard, but the scrambler's set to Net frequencies, not AOL. But Disney's hardcore in bed partners with AOL. What's this guy doing with this hardware?" "515!!!" B1FF called out. "W3re re4dy t0 g0! Sherman's p4tch3d!" "Whatever this is, it can wait," Vixen decided, pocketing the strange modem for now, and hefting her bag. "C'mon, newbie. We've got to get back to Otakuland. We're late enough as is and those Big Macs aren't getting any fresher." --- Sherman slowly rolled to a halt outside the gates of Otakuland. The entire crew was leaning out of various hatches and windows, eyes wide... Nobody moved to climb out and alert the guard to open the gate. The guard wasn't there, and the gate was fused into one superheated lump of metal. Just like the rest of Otakuland. The twenty square mile city had been MELTED down to the ground. Misshapen husks of buildings, towers, entire community structures were ground down into the dirt, into slag. Tokyo Tower stood, but barely; dripping like a waxy candle, and about to collapse any second... Tokyo Tower collapsed. The shock knocked the WELCOME TO OTAKULAND sign off the gates, clattering to the ground. "....pika..." Phreakachu said in awe. He blinked his little black eyes a few times, to clear them from smoke, then climbed back into Sherman, intent on cooking up some hard drugs so he didn't have to cope with this. Dave's vision of utopia had just been blown to itty bitty pieces. He looked to the other crewmembers, and because he was that sort of person, asked the obvious question. "What happened?" "Only one thing could've done this," B1FF said, so serious that he wasn't even using alphanumerics. "The GENOM orbital railgun platform," Vixen stated, completing her brother's thought. "What we used to keep the city safe. What nobody dared to challenge. Someone hacked into the net and got access to it..." "This.. this... SUX!!!111!!!!!" B1FF declared. He banged a fist against Sherman's side, the tank making a slight 'ow' sound. "WE G0TTA F1ND TH0SE 5H1TH34D5 4ND K1CK TH31R B4LLZ 1N!!!!!" The tank put in its two cents. "I would advise leaving immediately," he said. "If someone does have control of the railgun, they likely can see us here. And being the last Otaku left on earth, the impulse might be to finish the job." Vixen clenched a fist, through the leather of her glove. Vessels tensed in her forehead. "...the last Otaku on earth..." she repeated. Dave fingered the FAQ in his pocket. Probably the only copy of the codex left, as well. It was up to Dave now to take care of it. "I shall fear no dubbing," he said quietly, to himself, for reassurance. "Sherman, scan for anything salvagable," Vixen ordered, in a quiet, less angered tone than she normally used. "Weapons, food, DVDs, anything. Load up. We're gonna exact some revenge for all of animekind." "We just lost Otakuland. What are we going to do now?" Dave asked. Vixen turned to him, with eyes of rage. "We are going to Disneyworld." TO BE CONTINUED --- Author's Notes : I originally set out to write the most offensive, tasteless, poorly done impro of all time. Damn my melodramatic sense! May I PLEASE PLEASE suggest not adding 42957 new characters to this Impro over the span of its run, if it does make it in? Some are okay (and needed!), but we don't need dozens active at any point... it's a dangerous world, so presumably a few can be killed off every now and then. :) But really, think of it as a very violent road movie / black comedy / mystery centered on three people, their adorable chain smoking Pokemon and a tank. It's like Live Ammo Wacky Races! I'll shut up now. ^_^; Thank you for reading! Vote for me if you really liked this and want to write more! PS: The title is, yes, inspired by Pantera's "Fucking Hostile." Maybe I need to make a soundtrack of heavy metal anime tunes for this?... -2f