------------------------------------------------------------- Do Gooders (The Proactive Teen Superhero Team With No X Anywhere In Their Title) Episode 14: The third gig comes! And threads start to come together! Written by Steven Scougall Original Do-Gooders concept by Stefan Gagne, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------- The queen of the Darkverse sat in her great throne, at one end of her massive throne room, and regarded the Supreme General critically. "So, Esjie. Why have you not finished the Do-Gooders yet?" "Plans to that end are already underway, my queen." She arched an eyebrow. "Indeed?" She settled into as attentive a pose as she could manage while sitting on a large throne. "Pray tell." Just a short distance away a couple of remarkably normal looking Darkverse denizens watched this performance. "What theatrical bastards," muttered one, shaking his head. "You'd think that normal talk would be much easier to communicate with, but oh no, it's 'So, Esjie' this, and 'my queen' that, and lofty dramatic tones and all." "Yeah," agreed the other denizen, "and when you try talking to them, just trying to follow their convoluted speech makes your head hurt." "Yeah," agreed the first. "Urk," went both, as the queen sent a large fireball to burn them where they stood. Their last thoughts were along the lines of "I thought we were far enough away for her not to hear us." "I shall brook no insolence," said the queen, as the Darkverse lost two denizens and gained two neat little piles of ash. "Let that be a lesson well learned to the rest of you gawpers. Now, Esjie, you were saying?" "Yes, my queen. I have used my contacts on Earth to set up a festival, of sorts, at Suzuhara Park this coming Saturday." "You know I have no patience for Earth's notions of time-keeping." Esjie did some quick mental calculation, and responded. "Approximately 153.67 whurts from now, my queen." Someone far away in the audience muttered "'Approximately,' he says, and then gives the answer to two significant digits," and then screamed as Esjie made a gesture, a youma appeared, and the youma messily killed the mutterer. "That far away?" Esjie wondered if he should try to explain the concepts of the Earth week, workdays, weekend holidays, and the fact that today was the Tuesday before the aforementioned Saturday, and decided not to bother. "I have consulted with the best magicians of the Darkverse," he lied smoothly, "and it is a significantly magical time, well suited for our purposes." "And what shall be our purposes at this 'festival, of sorts'?" "One of the attractions of this festival shall be several music bands, one of which shall be the Do-Gooders. Several minutes into their performance, I have scheduled a portal to open." "And through this portal shall spill dozens of youma?" "Not just dozens, my queen, hundreds. I want no chance at all of the Do-Gooders surviving." "Are you not worried that such an all-out assault and appearance of so many youma shall lack subtlety and cause comment?" "That is something I have arranged for my contacts on Earth to deal with, a task they are competent enough to manage." "Your plans to deal with the Do-Gooders please me, Esjie." The Darkverse Queen smiled a nasty smile as she contemplated the end of the Do-Gooders. She then remembered that she had wanted to talk to Esjie about something else, and tapped an impossibly long fingernail on the armrest of her throne as she tried to remember what it was. A moment passed as she remembered, and she then reached over the side of the throne and picked up a piece of paper from the top of a large stack of papers, and waved it at Esjie. "Now. What of the strange happenings of the Icon of Rapturous Delight and the Emblem of Delightful Rapture? According to this report they started glowing a few whurts ago." "I have consulted with the best magicians of the Darkverse," said Esjie, telling the truth this time, "and the strange behaviour simply appears to be the items activating." "Activating!?" asked the queen sharply. "Why would they be activating?" "We do not know why they would be activating, my queen. However, at about the same time, one of our youma went missing. The two events may be related, though even with my superior intellect I am unable to think of a possible connection." * * * Elsewhere in the Darkverse, far away from the queen's ridiculously ornate throne room, three drunken figures staggered up to a bar. A closed bar. One of the figures, who was much taller and paler than the other two, burped confusedly. "Thish 'sh shtrange. 't never closhesh. Famoush for 't." His large black sword seemed to be groaning in sympathy. Though that could have just been the wind. One of the other figures, who was remarkably short, had a bullet head, and a long beard he had tripped over several times in his drunkenness, peered at the door. "Looklook! 's gotta thingy on the door. Y'know. White. With black on." The third figure, just as short as the second, took a staggering step and tripped over his beard. Which was an impressive feat, considering the dwarves' beards went down only as far as their chests. "'s writin', Dalin," he said from the floor. "Yer drunk." "'m not drunk!" retorted Dalin. "'m as shober ash the day I wash born!" "Dalin, y'was BORN drunk." As the two dwarves bickered, their companion peered at the notice and tried to read it. This was made difficult because he was seeing triple of everthing. "Wha'sh thish shay?" A passing Darkverse denizen took pity and read the notice out to the drunken trio. "It says 'Due to preparations for the Big Festival on next Saturday in the Earth realm at Suzuhara Park (see map below) we, the Drab-and-Dark bar, must regretfully close. Yes, we plan to have a presence at the Festival that big and impressive. Believe us, closing like this hurts our wallet just as much as it hurts your sensibilities. Make sure to come to our booth and drink yourselves stupid.' And there's a map attached, only with you guys being this drunk there's no way you can read it." Balin, still lying on the floor, said "Sod that. I came here for a drink, 'n I'm gonna have one. Dalin, d'y'know how to time travel?" "Balin, don' be ridiculoush. 'courshe not." "Weeeell, nex' Shaturday 'm def'nitly goin' to thish thingy. El here shaysh they got triple-shtrength shtrong ale." "And very good stuff it is too," said the Darkverse denizen. * * * Keiko rushed home, merrily singing, swinging a bucket of the dead youma Barney's blood. Finally, she had the blood of a Darkverse creature, and she could cast the spell for changing her looks. She rushed home, and looked at the bucket. Should she use all of the creature's blood? What if something went wrong? But it couldn't possibly go wrong! She had cast the spell on just a few drops of the blood before and it had clearly worked! Well, started to work. That was the thing. All the times she had tried this spell before, it had gone wrong. The evidence was that it shouldn't go wrong this time, but what if? She lifted up the well worn book of dark magic, and paged through it until she got to the "change one's form into drop-dead sexy" spell. How much Darkverse blood did it require? She squinted at the 'ingredients' section, trying to read it through all the dark blotches, rips, and inexplicably missing characters that had confounded her before. Thankfully, the damage didn't interfere too much, and she thought she could make out the book saying she needed 150 ccs of the blood. A couple of minutes later, Keiko had retrieved exactly 150 ccs of the stuff from the bucket, noticed with satisfaction that there was still more than enough left in the bucket, and was ready to cast the spell. She chanted the words, lifted off the floor, energy crackling through and around her, her form changing and developing... ...yes, she thought exultantly to herself, this is finally working... ...and something in the magic snapped, and she fell flat to her face, there was a moment of vast magical energies seething all around her... ...and there was a shower of macadmia nuts, covering everything in the room. Well, she thought to herself, at least it's not kiwi fruit this time. And I've got more than enough Darkverse blood left to try again. No sooner had she got to her feet again did she trip up, slipping on a wet patch on the floor, and she remembered that she had forgotten to cover the bucket before casting the spell, and realised that the shower of macadamia nuts must have ruined it. She looked down, saw the bucket filled with macadamia nuts, the youma's blood on the floor around the bucket, and screamed in anger and frustration. She then caught sight of herself in her cupboard mirror, and fell over again. She HAD changed! For the better! All these near misses were adding up! And besides, if she wanted to try the spell again, she knew exactly where an entrance to the Darkverse was going to be. * * * It was 7:10 in the morning. It was a time when most people were already up and making their way through the public transportation system to work. Children and teenagers were heading to school. Housewives were cleaning up after the errant spouses and children, who hadn't had the time to clean up their breakfast things. And Tejina was sleeping the blissful sleep of those who've gone to bed at about 5:30 in the morning. Well, she was until her brother burst into her room, and started shaking her and talking at full annoying-little-kid-speed. "HEEEEEEY, Tej! Tej, Tej, Tej-chan! C'mon! Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeup! You're gonna be late!" Tejina groaned, creaked an eye open, and looked blearily over at her brother. "Eiji-chan, I just went to bed," she groused. "Lemme sleep." "You're gonna be LAAAAATE," singsonged her little brother Eiji. "You're gonna hafta stand in the hall! With buckets!" Tejina threw the alarm clock at him. He got out of its way, and burst into the "Tej is gonna be late" song, one of his all time favourites. It was just as well, for it was one he got to practice a lot of the time. It was then that Tejina realised something was wrong. "Eiji-chan!" "Yeah?" "Why hasn't Mum come in to stop you singing yet?" "She and Dad've already left! It's just you 'n me at home now!" Her alarm clock flipped over to 7:15 and started its ear-splitting ringing. Eiji slapped his hands over his ears and started howling at Tejina to make it stop. Cursing the bright spark who had invented the alarm clock that ran on batteries, Tejina was dragged into full wakefulness. * * * At about the same time, Kireiko's father slammed open his son's door, and stood tall and imposing in the doorframe, the hallway's light framing him nicely. "KIREIKO!" he intoned dramatically. "If you stay in bed any longer you shall be LATE!" With that, he drew back his hand and threw a piece of seaweed to stick on his son's forehead. His son continued snoozing. The boy must have been up at some ridiculous hour, he mused. For that would normally wake him up. Oh well, time for something a bit more hard hitting. He pulled out an old, unimportant supermarket receipt, wrote a few symbols of power on the back of it, and threw that onto Kireiko's forehead. The effects were as immediate as they were predictable. The instant the improvised ofuda touched him, there was a sizzle and some smoke and Kireiko leaped out of bed, shouting and clawing at his face. Kireiko's wildly grabbing hand caught the piece of paper, started to burn slightly, and he winced. Already having a suspicion as to what was on it, he flipped it over and looked at the symbols written on it. "It says 'Wake up right now, Kireiko'," said his father helpfully. Kireiko glared at him. "Stupid old idiot. You didn't have to do that." "And let you sleep through a schoolday? I think not. Now get up, get ready, and don't forget your ofuda." "Yeah, yeah," grumbled Kireiko. Sleeping throughout the day was obviously not an option anymore. He then looked at his clock and cursed - it was now 7:20. He had to be at school in ten minutes if he didn't want to be marked late. He flew through his morning preparations at top speed, and so was only slightly late. * * * Matsuuro stayed in a little room completely by himself and so was able to sleep blissfully through his alarm. Even when his neighbours started banging on his door, demanding he turn the alarm off, he slept on. The weird dreams he was having at the time, involving lots of gore and surrealism and visions of his mother beating a small boy to death with her decapitated head, did however gain bells, percussion, and a choral accompaniment for ten minutes. * * * It was lunchtime at the school. Becky, Kireiko, and Tejina had staggered over to a tree with lots of shade, slumped down underneath it, and slurped long and hard at three cans of Jolt Cola. Once they came up for air, they complained about only getting a couple of hours of sleep and what a lucky bastard Matsuuro was for staying in a room by himself. Once these pleasantries were over and they'd had enough caffiene to keep them awake for the next several hours, the conversation turned to more standard things. "So, Becky, tell us about this Suzuhara Park gig." "Well, there's going to be a big all day festival on at Suzuhara Park on Saturday. As part of the program they're going to have several bands perform, and you guys are going to be one of them." "Sounds pretty good." "We going to get any money for it?" asked Kireiko. "Some," answered Becky. "Not much. The organisers said it was more for exposure than for money." "Just great," mumbled Kireiko, slumped, and took another long draught from his second can of Jolt cola. "Hey, hey! Can I play with you guys this time? I'm SURE I could play the bass guitar! I mean, it's got less strings so it's easier, right?" Tejina thought fast. She'd heard Becky try to be musical before, and to put it nicely, Becky had all the musical ability of a stunned goldfish. She'd have to think of an excuse quickly. "And anyway, the super secret agent training also included bass guitar lessons." Tejina looked interested. This was new. "Alright," she said, "come along to tonight's practice session and we'll see how you go." She paused, and thought of something odd. "How'd you get us the gig, anyway? You'd think that it'd be hard to get into something like that at such short notice." "Strange, really," said Becky. "I didn't ask them, they asked for the Do-Gooders specifically." At this point, if they had been thinking straight, and weren't interrupted, they might have made an important connection and realised that Bad Things were afoot. But they were running on only a couple of hours of sleep and they were interrupted, so they didn't. "Stupid girl, if they were asking for you guys specifically, you could have asked for more money," came the interruption. The three didn't even have to turn around to know who this new voice belonged to. "Oh great," sighed Becky. "Hi Rover," said Tejina, completely without enthusiasm. "How'd you get here?" "You've SEEN me open dimensional doors, and you ask me THAT?" "When did YOU open a dimensional door? Daisy did that." "So? What does that matter?" Tejina was about to point out that it did indeed matter quite a lot, but didn't get the chance. There was the sound of wings fluttering behind the trio, and a new voice entered the conversation. "Oh, Rover old chap! How great to see you!" "And here comes the talking bird," said Kireiko disgustedly. "Actually, I'm a canary. Not just any old bird." Aki Villyn crashed to the ground beside the three. "I didn't ask him to come," she said in a strained voice, "he invited himself. Even though I told him this school has a strict no-pets policy." "WE," growled Rover, "are not mere PETS. We are the Queen's messangers and advisors to the princesses." With that he turned up his nose at the humans as much as a dog can. "I don't care what you say you are," retorted Aki hotly, "that bird is not getting me into one of those sailor fukus." What Rover said then percolated through to the logic center of her brain, and she blinked. "Does that mean I really AM one of these 'sailors'?" "That's what I've been telling you since yesterday!" chirped Charles. "And the fuku goes with the job, which you already have, whether you like it or not. You'll be wearing it eventually, mark my words." There was the sound of footsteps approaching. The four humans looked up, and their mouths dropped open. Standing there was Keiko, and she DEFINITELY looked a lot more impressive than she had earlier that morning. To add to the effect, she was wearing a modified school uniform and her 'be cool all the time' superpower was in effect. At this point, the author COULD attempt to describe her appearance in detail, but this would cause the chapter to double in length and the author would get all hot and bothered and have to go have a cold shower and a lie down. So he'll stop there and get back to the narrative. "Hi," breathed Keiko, oozing cool. "Isn't Matsuuro here?" "No, he isn't," growled a suddenly very jealous Kireiko. "That jerk's probably still asleep." "Oh damn," she said. "Sorry to bother you." She turned, her skirt flaring (and incidentally setting many watching boys' hearts a-flutter), and walked away. "How did she get to look like THAT?" asked an envious Tejina. "And how come she didn't look sleepy at all?" groused Aki. * * * A good thing that the book of dark magic had recharge spells for when you didn't have time to sleep, Keiko mused, and then laughed evilly. Yes, she was getting a bit better at this evil laughter thing, too. Things were looking up. * * * It was much later the same day, and the Do-Gooders were having their practice session. And the first item on the agenda was Becky, and her supposed ability to play the bass guitar. Something Becky was currently demonstrating. She drew to a rousing finish, grinned at the other three, and said "So, how'd I do?" Tejina stared in amazement, her jaw slack. Becky had just played the bass guitar. And she had actually sounded good! She'd actually played with RHYTHM! The chord changes, limited as they were on a bass guitar, flowed perfectly! This... this was incredible! One thing that hadn't changed was Becky's total inability to sing along. Her voice had cracked, wandered around the music, and never quite hit the mark. In some cases it had been so far off Pluto looked close to Earth in comparison. Matsuuro looked at Becky appraisingly. "The playing was good, Becky. But forget about the singing." "Aw. I can't have been that bad." "You were," said Kireiko. "My ears still hurt. Try playing again, without singing this time, so I can hear it properly." Becky made a face. "You're mean." "And you can't sing," said Matsuuro. "Tej, you've heard me sing before," said Becky. "Tell them how much better I usually am." Tejina thought fast. How could she defuse this one gracefully? "Er... you're a BIT better," she said. "But we only need one singer." "She is NOT usually better," said Rover. "I've heard her when she sings in the shower. If you ask me, normally she's WORSE." Tejina's family's dog woofed, thumping his tail on the floor. "And Kuro here agrees," finished Rover. Becky made a nasty face at her Magical Advisor. "Who asked you?" "You did, when you finished and said 'How'd I do?'" "So guys," said Matsuuro, "let's try playing together then." "And please don't sing this time," pleaded Daisy. "Alright, alright, I get the message!" shouted Becky. * * * Nemesis Serendipity Villyn stood over the city map and laughed megalomaniacally. At the music shop he'd failed because of incompetent minions - well, for this next strike, he was going to go out there and get the best minions he could find. Exactly where he would get them from was an as yet minor detail he could worry about later. "Oh great," said Aki from the entrance to the living room. "Dad, what are you laughing about this time?" Nemesis entered into a mighty struggle with himself as he tried to stop himself blabbing his plans. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that were he to tell her his plans, she'd tell them to her friends the Do-Gooders. But his Evil Villain instincts were screaming at him to gloat over his latest plans. "I... cannot... tell you..." he croaked out between lips thinned with effort. Aki wandered over to the table where the city map had pins placed in it, spelling out the kanji for 'evil'. Conveniently, there were red circles around two of the pins, and one of the pins was where the music shop was. It didn't take much to realise what the other circled pin meant. "My, what a coincidence," she said flatly, "your next target is Suzuhara Park." Seeing as she'd just worked out his plans, the need not to gloat disappeared. "YES! Next Saturday, at the great festival planned, I shall amass my minions and STRIKE!" Aki rolled her eyes. "Really. Incidentally, and if you'd read this pamphlet at all, you'd know that the Do-Gooders are going to play at the festival as well." "They ARE?" he asked incredulously, and then rallied magnificently. "I mean, of COURSE I knew! This way I can kill two birds with one stone! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" More like no birds with lots of missed stones, Aki thought, but kept it to herself. She seriously hoped Charles wouldn't have got her in a fuku by then. Not only would it be embarassing, she'd have to fight her own father. He broke out into another fit of insane evil laughter, before pressing the play button on his in-built tape deck and dancing across the floor. Mind you, she thought, the idea did have some attraction at times. * * * Deep in the sewer sanctum of the local Cthulu cult, what had once been Brother Maynard gibbered insanely as magic flared, cultists screamed, and much mayhem and chaos was wrought. Finally, after a marathon session of magic, the shell of Maynard lowered its hands and looked proudly at its work. It had taken some doing, and a lot of chasing after panicked cultists through dank and mucky sewage, but now everyone in the cult had been transformed into the terrifying Hello Cthulus. "yEeeEhEeHEEheaHaHAAahaAHA! tHE ArmY Of hELLo cTHuluS iS ComPlEte! nOw, alL tHaT reMAiNs is TO taKe tHe mORtaL rEaLm fOR tHE gReaTEr GLorY oF OuR loRD CtHUlU!" Something brightly coloured floated past his knees in the muck. He reached down and picked it up and read what was inscribed on the mucky piece of paper. "AhA! tHIs iS WheRE wE shAlL beGiN! a GReaT fEsTiVAl aT sUzuHARa ParK tHis SAturDaY! WHeRe THeRe sHalL no DOUbT be ManY huMAnS fOR uS to STarT wITh! WahAHAhAhahHAhahAHahAHhahAaA!!" The army of Hello Cthulus chanted 'Cthulu, Cthulu' for a few seconds, and then broke into the 'Happy Cthulu Joy Joy Fun Song', and what was once Maynard cackled in insane laughter at the horrible sound. * * * (To be continued) WITH SO MANY THINGS GOING TO HAPPEN THERE, JUST HOW MUCH CHAOS AND MAYHEM IS THERE GOING TO BE AT THIS FESTIVAL AT SUZUHARA PARK ON SATURDAY? WILL THE DO-GOODERS ACTUALLY MAKE ANY MONEY FROM THE UPCOMING GIG? WILL KIREIKO'S AMP SURVIVE? PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY, WILL AKI BECOME SAILOR JOY (OR WHICHEVER OTHER EMOTION THE AUTHOR WHO FINALLY DEFINITIVELY STATES IT SAYS IT IS) AND WEAR A RIDICULOUSLY SMALL SAILOR FUKU IN TIME FOR THE UPCOMING CRAZINESS AT SUZUHARA PARK AND WHOOP HER FATHER'S @$$ ALL THE WAY BACK HOME, OR WILL SHE DECIDE TO IGNORE CHARLES' MAD RANTING ABOUT COSMIC POWER AND FUKUS AND STRANGLE HIM INSTEAD? AND SHALL WE EVER FIND OUT EXACTLY WHY THERE ARE ALWAYS THESE QUESTIONS WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER? Find out how many of these questions are answered when this is continued next week by David Siegel! -- Steven Scougall http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/7196/