GIRLS WITH GUNS, or how I carried on after staying up until 3:30 AM The Improbable Adventures of Improfanfic's Co-Mascots Started By: David Kelk, dkelk@sympatico.ca This Chapter By: John Evans, jevans@datablast.net Hosted at: Improfanfic, http://pixelscapes.com/improfanfic/ Episode Two: Half-Lives and References Author's Note: ...wait, I don't have anything to say. Never mind. ===== Aika opened the door to the apartment and walked in, Becky close behind. She threw a package on a nearby chair, and headed for the kitchentte. "Want a drink or anything?" she called over her shoulder. Becky closed the door, looking around alerty. "No thanks. Wow, what a cool apartment! It reminds me of my living room." She moved over to a table cluttered with guns, bullets, silencers, and other assorted "fast moving bits of metal" paraphernalia. Aika closed the fridge door, a can of Jolt in her hand. "Your living room?" "Yeah, I still live with my parents, and...well, I sort of inherited my interest in guns from them." Becky shrugged, and smiled. "They've always got a few spare weapons lying around." She picked up a barrel that wasn't attached to any particular gun, and peered through it. "You don't happen to watch anime, do you?" Aika shuddered. "No my real life is weird enough." Becky laughed. "Oh, I know exactly what you mean! ...But I still can't help it, I've been hooked on the stuff for years." She picked up a silencer and tried to fit it to the barrel. "But you can find lots of people who like anime. For some reason, though, I've never found anyone I can talk to about this kind of stuff with." She smiled, then grimaced. "Except my parents, of course, and they don't count." Aika laughed. "Wow. My parents are afraid of me, I think." She took a swig of Jolt. Becky smiled, then looked around some more. "Say, what's in the package?" She walked over and picked it up. "Is it from the Kei Fin Muk Production Company?" Aika asked in between chugging. "Did you say Kei Fin Muk?" "Yeah." Becky peered at the return address. "Yeah, it is." Aika nodded. "Another movie from a couple of friends of mine. You can open it if you want." She flopped into a chair and put her feet up on the gun table. "You have friends that make movies? Sugoi!" Becky tore open the package and came up with a VHS cassette. Aika felt a drop of sweat breaking out on her head. "Well...it's sort of like they star in them..." "Wow! That's so...cool!" Becky turned the tape over. "'Wet and Wild IV'?" "Er...actually, I just remembered that we should be going," Aika said, snatching the tape from Becky's hands and throwing it on a stack of similar ones. Becky blinked. "Oh? Where to?" Aika grinned. "Where else? To find Cuthulu." ===== The door suddenly burst off its hinges. Aika stepped through and posed. "Avon calling?" "Do you have any hand lotion?" the man inside said. "My skin is chafing. It's all this bathing, you see." He was, in fact, in a bath in the time, but fortunately for the sanity of the invading title characters, it was a bubble bath. Aika leveled her favorite nine millimeter handgun at the guy. "We want to know--" "We? We who?" the man queried. "Her, and me!" Becky exclaimed, jumping through the door and posing even more dramatically than Aika had. "Wow! Those are awesome costumes! Where can I get some?" Aika rolled her eyes. "They're magical." "Oh, okay. I'll have to find my tomes of ancient knowledge..." "That's beside the point!" Aika snapped. "We're here to find Cuthulu!" The man in the bath blinked. "Excuse me?" "Cuthulu," Becky said helpfully. The man put a finger to his chin. "Cuthulu? I don't know any Cuthulu!" "Don't play innocent!" Aika said. "You were at that party! I remember!" "I do remember seeing you at a party," the man said, "and a fine party it was, the Life Savers were excellent that night, wouldn't you agree?" "I don't care!" Aika yelled. "I wasn't talking to you," he said peevishly. "Anyway, there certainly wasn't any Cuthulu there." "He's hard to miss," Becky put in. "Big green guy with an octopus for a head?" The man put his finger to his chin again. "Hmmm...that doesn't really narrow it down...oh! Wait a moment! Do you perhaps mean *Cthulhu*?" Aika and Becky shared a blink. "Isn't that what I said?" Aika said. The man shook his head emphatically, his spiky hair bouncing around. "Oh, no, you said 'Cuthulu', not 'Cthulhu'." "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!?" Aika shouted. Becky looked askance at her. "Well, I'm sure it makes a lot of difference to *him*," the man said. "I mean, how would you like it if...what's your name, miss?" "They call me Pretty Deadly," Aika growled. "...how would you like it if someone called you Pretty Deafly? Hm? I bet you wouldn't like that would you?" "All right," Becky cut in before Aika could respond, "We meant Cthulhu. Now can you tell us where he is?" "Hmmm..." Aika leveled the gun at the bath. "Tell us or I'll shoot your duck." The man clutched the duck to his chest. "No! You can't!" "Try me," Aika suggested. The man considered for a moment. "Well...okay. On Tuesdays you can find him at a club called the Half-Lives. I've no idea why he hangs out out there, since it's so boring. Everyone there isn't much of anyone, you see. I like it, however, since there's so much possibility." His eyes twinkled. The girls looked at each other. "Uh...yeah," Aika said. "Thanks," Becky said. "Sorry to have disturbed you." They walked back over the door, guns still held ready. "Come back anytime!" the man said, waving cheerily. "I take a bath every night at 9 PM!" He looked at his rubber duck. "Well, that was interesting, wasn't it Mr. Duck? I hope they come back...or maybe we could go see them sometime!" He commenced washing his duck with some puke green soap. ===== The motorcycle pulled up outside the Half-Lives. Becky bounced off, while Aika took her time, examining the front of the club. "Wow, that was great!" Becky exclaimed. "I think you do really well as the 'bad cop'!" "Er...yeah," Aika said, feeling another sweatdrop break out. "Well... let's go in..." At the door, the bouncer, a bearded guy in some sort of radiation suit, stopped them. "Are you ladies 21?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Yessir," Aika said. "Really? Let's see some identification then." "Of course," Aika said sweetly, and cocked a handgun under his chin. "How's this? Can you identify it?" "...uh...you can go on in," he said. "Thank you, niisan," Aika said, and entered. "Wow! That was so cool!" Becky chirped, and followed her. The bouncer shook his head. "Maybe I should go back to New Mexico, aliens or not..." ===== The inside of the club was hazy. Indistinct forms huddled around tables, and a quartet of musicans played a lazy jazz number on a stage. "Do you see him?" Aika muttered to Becky. "No, not yet," Becky whispered back. "Maybe we should ask around." They began to circulate, listening to the conversations for a likely informant. At one table, two shadowy forms with whitish hair were talking to each other. "So he won't even kiss her," one said. "It really gets on my nerve how he acts so noble and faithful and crap." The other nodded. "Yeah, it sucks when they're so rational." "Excuse me," Becky interposed. "Have either of you seen Cthulhu around?" "That bloated octopus?" The first speaker snorted. His hair was a sort of pale blue. "Do I look like I care about him?" "Why are you asking us?" the second said. His hair was long and silvery. "Well, we heard he comes here every Tuesday night," Aika said. "Gee, how logical. Get outta here, you're getting on my nerves." The silver-haired one scowled, and tossed back his dark red drink. "Let's move on," Becky murmured, and steered Aika away before she could get mad. At another table a man in a full tuxedo and cape seems to be being comforted by both a translucent girl with black hair in a long braid, and a succession of drinks that come with little umbrellae. "I mean...he was obnoxious and paranoid...but he had his good side too... and he was all I had!" The tuxedo-ed man threw back another drink. "There, there," the girl said. "I know it must be hard..." "Excuse me," Becky said politely. The pair turned to look at them, and suddenly Aika sprang forward. "It's you!" she babbled. "I thought you were--" He held up a hand. "I'm sorry, miss, but I'm not him anymore." Aika stopped, looking confused. "But then...who are you?" He shrugged. "It's a long story. But you should forget about him, you know that." Aika looked at the floor. "Yeah...I know..." Becky and the translucent girl shared some baffled looks. "Uh...anyway," Becky said after a moment, "Do you have any idea where Cthulhu might be?" They shook their heads. "Sorry," the girl offered. "Okay...thanks anyway." She took Aika gently by the arm and steered her away. "Um...Aika? You okay?" Aika nodded, still looking down. "Yeah, just, something about my old boyfriend. It's nothing." She rubbed her eyes. "Okay..." Becky said uncertainly. "Uh, excuse me, ladies?" The girls blinked and looked up. Confronting them were two young men that looked remarkably similar, with long brown hair in ponytails and small beards. One had an arrogant smirk on his face and was dressed in a navy sweatshirt and jeans, the other (who had spoken) had a rather more pleasant expression, and was wearing a long gray robe. "Yes?" Becky said, after scrutinizing the pair. "We seem to be hearing that you're looking for one Cthulhu," the arrogant- looking one said. The girls nodded. "Do you know where he is?" Aika asked. "Well, it's not as simple as that," the robed one said, wagging his head. The girls stared. "You must have heard somewhere that Cthulhu would be here on Tuesday, right?" the arrogant-looking one said again. "Yes, we did," Becky replied. "Well," the robed one said, "is today Tuesday?" Aika and Becky looked at each other. "I...don't know," Becky said. "Well, I mean...it's...well, it should be...right?" Aika said, sounding confused. "But *is* it?" the robed guy said. "How do you expect to accomplish anything if you don't know what day it is?" the arrogant-looking one sneered. "Damn it, this sucks!" Aika yelled. "Why the hell don't we know what day it is?" The two men looked at each other. "We could answer that, but you'd probably go insane," the arrogant one said. "The thing is that you have to have someone *decide* what day it is," the robed one said. The girls stared at them for a while. "Well...then I decide it's Tuesday and the pusbag is here!" Aika declared. The arrogant-looking young man grinned arrogantly, and the one in the robe looked apologetic. "It's not that simple," they said simulatenously, then vanished. Aika and Becky looked at each other. "Well, what the hell do we do NOW?" Aika exclaimed. "I'll buy you a drink, toots," the guy with pale blue hair said. Author's Afterwards: Well, that wasn't too bad for slightly more than an hour, was it? Or perhaps it was. At least I got to run a few jokes into the ground. This story was written from about 3:30 AM (see that bit at the beginning?) to about 4:40 AM. With no editing. I don't feel like editing, I'm tired. ...okay, I went back and noticed two typos that I fixed, but that's it. Really. Spot the Impro Characters! There are 5 in this chapter (other than the title characters), but 4 are 'half-lives', and one of those is only from an omake. (A quarter-life?)