Otaku Wish Fulfillment Theater Started by Scott Schimmel Chapter 27: To Sing or Not To Sing... That, and We'll Fly the Friendly Skies! By Illyria ^_^ "My last night here for you; Yes, it's true, I'm gonna boooooook... My last night here for youuuuuuu.... Touch me and I'll scream, you stupid jerrrrrk-" Kate folded her arms and raised an eyebrow in a critical expression. "That doesn't even rhyme, Scott." "What doesn't?" The magical girl blinked, then blinked again when she realized what she'd been doing. "Why was I singing? Why are Dan and Steve preparing to put on a stage show?" Steve sniffed haughtily as he slid on the mask of his giant bear costume. "Don't be jealous just because I got the good costume and you're stuck in your normal outfit." Kate tapped a finger thoughtfully against her chin. At the sound of a supply closet toppling open and depositing its contents rather suddenly and noisily upon the stage, she spun on her heel to see Ardweden rubbing a spot above her knee, wincing. "Ai, ai, ai, I got hit with stray supplies; Green, black and blue make the bruises on my thigh." Realization finally striking her, Scott rolled her eyes. "I know we've been here a while and have gone through just about every RPG around, but don't you think Rhapsody is just a LITTLE obscure?" The other five members of Our Heroes looked at him and shrugged. Scott whipped off her blonde wig and stormed out. "Let's go. I swear, I don't even know how we wound up in an element from this RPG." "Awwww," Ardweden mock-pouted as they walked out. "But we haven't gotten to Illyria's song yet!" The aforementioned bishounen did not look too terribly distraught at this turn of events. "Guys?" Damien said a few minutes later as he wobbled into the room in a rather goofy-looking raven costume. "...Guys?" He grumbled. "No one tells me anything. No one cares about the mascot." He looked around the empty hall, muttering. "Cough wheeze hack moan," came his reply. He blinked and looked over to the smoking figure making its way into the far end of the hall. Damien peered at it, then rolled his eyes. "Go away, Ash." "I'm... *cough* gonna be a Pokemon... *hack* master... and... take a *choke* vacation after this." The preteen wobbled a bit, then snapped to attention. He coughed a puff of smoke to the side, then looked back to the mascot. "Look, you know you guys nearly have all the seals, we know you guys nearly have all the seals." "Yes," Damien noted, folding his wings and nodding. "And then we- okay, and then they'll go kick your respective butts. I think we both know this, yes." "Right!" Ash confirmed in a voice an octave higher than the half-bird's. "THEY'LL go and beat Xelloss (or at least try)." "Yeah yeah, your villainous ego's securely in place. Got it." "Thanks! But are you going to just stand by and watch as they get all the glory and fame, while you slave away to help them in their mission?" "Your speech has sure been polished up." "Eh, Xelloss likes PBS. I hear stuff in the background." Ash leaned back on his heels, grinning. "So, you gonna think about it? We could make you a hero, a real star!" For a long moment, Damien stared at Ash, eyes clouded with thought. Ash leaned forward, smoke-blackened face grinning. Finally, the weight of the world on each word as he spoke, Damien replied, "One, no. Two, someday, you're going to think it's really weird that your mom has a Mr. Mime living with her. Later, pipsqueak." That said, he waddled off in his raven costume, looking for the rest of his party. "I knew I should have tried Steve instead," Ash grumbled as he *pap*'d his fist into his palm. He blinked. "What's weird about the Mr. Mime?" ?_? "Man, you guys should have stuck around a minute longer," Damien snickered as he strapped himself into the Dan-SUV. "Ash came by." "Awww, and Illyria missed the chance to skewer him," Scott said. A faint flicker of regret crossed the swordsman's face, though he tried to hide it. "What'd he have to say?" Kate asked as she played with the pretty shiny colorful blinking shiny blinking blinking SHINY buttons. "Oh, he tried to get me to switch sides," Damien shrugged, totally unconcerned. "Then when I blew him off, he said he should have gone after Steve. So we can safely say that he's getting pretty desperate." "Hey!" Steve cried, firmly on sidekick autopilot. Ardweden elbowed him in the side, then flashed him a weighty look. He blinked at her in confusion for a moment until she motioned over to Illyria. "What?" the sidekick asked. She coughed meaningfully. Illyria looked more than a bit uncomfortable. "...Oh!" Steve finally cried. "The video with the betraying and the prophecy and Illyria and Dan not telling us about it!" Ardweden's face impacted with her palm. Illyria looked shocked... really shocked, not mild-nonplussed-bishounen-face. Scott and Kate looked highly confused. A weighty pause hung over the SUV as Kate and Scott inspected the other three human occupants of the vehicle. "Okay, then we'll just be on our way, then!" a computerized voice said as the car kicked into sudden and extremely fast motion, sending everyone firmly against their seat backs. "Wow, it sure is fortunate that we're well on our way to getting all those seals, huh?" Dan's voice asked, too rapidly for anyone to break in on. Or so went the plan. "I mean, it would have been easier if we'd been going after the four elemental seals, but hey, it could have been worse! Boy, going after the 108 seals of destiny sure would have sucke-" "So what's this about you guys hiding something?" Kate asked, voice considerably more serious than the ninja's usually sounded. "..." "And betrayal? A prophecy about betrayal?" Scott pursued her lips. "When did you see this? And who was it about?" "..." "Look, this isn't funny! Why aren't you saying anything? This is a big deal!" "Kate," Ard said. "Remember who you're talking to." "...Right," she said, turning back to face the control panel. "Dan, tell us what's going on, or... or... or... I'll rip off this knob!" Several occupants of the cab winced. "I'll talk!" Steve cried, waving his arms. "I'll talk, I'll talk! Okay, so Ard and I were looking for stuff in that weird room, and we started watching the FMVs, right? And man, I've gotta say, you girls were all really stac-" "STEVE!" "...king up the hits with your incredible fighting prowess! Yeah! Um. Yeah. Anyways, we saw this scene with Dan and Illyria, and we figured out when it was because he was in a skirt-" "When was Dan in a skirt?" Kate broke in, confused. "No, Illyria!" "He's not THAT kind of bishounen, you know." Ard groaned and explained, "When our powers got switched, remember?" At the "ooooooh," she nodded and continued. "And they found this mosaic that showed how one of us is going to betray the group to Xelloss, but they don't know who, and they didn't tell us about it!" "That's AWFUL!" Kate cried. "How could you find something like that out and not tell us? How could you keep that to yourselves? How could... why didn't you tell us?" she asked Ardweden and Steve. "Uh," they explained. "No one trusts me with any secrets!" Scott bawled. "And someone's gonna go over to Xelloss and we're never going to get home and I'm going to be stuck in this skirt forever!" "And the lies have already started!" Kate couldn't look any more stricken if she tried. "We've already been lying to each other, and we still have another seal to get! What happens if someone turns traitor before then?" "I'll be a girl foreeeeeeeeeeever!" "...So, funny story about that Ash, huh?" Damien asked, laughing weakly. "Aheh... heh... heh... awwww, crap. I don't know why I even bother." x_X "So we're here," Dan explained, pointing to a map with his index finger laser pointer, "and the seal we're after is waaaaaaay the heck over here on the Isle of the Bishounen." "Well, we're definitely not going on a boat," Scott said emphatically. "That's a perfect place for someone to turn traitor!" "...Because there's a limited number of people and so once they were easily tracked down, they wouldn't be able to escape?" "Shut up, liar!" "Oh yeah, this is gonna be really fun." Dan rubbed his temples. "Now, we could try to all ride on Damien-" "No!" the mascot cried. "Fine, DON'T be a team player. We could try to find some more chocobos-" "I haven't seen any forests," Scott sniffed. "Which is unfortunate for the traitor, since they wouldn't be able to get away as easily!" "Scott," Dan said through gritted teeth. "What?" "If you don't Let It Go, *I* will be the one to turn traitor so I can get away from you and your sudden fascination with obsessive paranoia, okay?" "AHA!" Scott thought that over a second, then lowered her accusing arm. "Oh, wait. If." "Riiiight. And that leaves... nothing." Dan scratched his head. "I don't have any sort of giant flying form that I've found yet, which leaves us sort of... stuck." "No it doesn't," Steve replied. Kate and Scott eyed him suspiciously. "Why... do you know something we don't?" "...They'll get over this soon, won't they?" Ard asked. "I hope so," Steve replied. Turning his attention back to the doubting duo, he nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do. I happen to know that I'm standing at a much better angle than you are." "Huh?" they asked in unison before turning to see the sight behind them. "...Oh." "I also know that this must be the part of the plot where we get the airship," Steve grinned as he tried to dramatically set off towards Crazy Jake's Airships For U, only to end up wobbling as he trekked through the deep sand of the beach. "To the airship!" Dan dramatically proclaimed as he popped a pair of snowshoes out from the sides of his shoes and set off, leading his merry, paranoid band. "This sucks," Steve grumbled as he wobbled after them. "Tell me about it," Damien muttered as he hopped around on the burning sands. "At least you've got shoes." "So. Whatcha say me and you start up our own hero team, where we can get all the glory? That wouldn't be betraying them, we're not going over to Xelloss!" "I think we'd be dead in five minutes." "...Yeah, being with the Destined Heroes is a good, solid career path." Steve wiggled his toes, grimacing. "So, got any bets on who'll land the final strike?" "Not one of us two?" "Heh! Yeah! ... Yeah... yeah." Steve grumbled. "The next alternate entertainment-based universe I get sucked into from a theme park ride, I want to be some other archetype." "I'm sure the universe will keep that in mind." ;_; "The universe hates me!" Scott gave an experimental shimmy in her full magical girl outfit and eyed the airship salesman suspiciously. "So, this doesn't make you want to make any comments? About in the name of the moon, I will punish you, and you'll somehow work a bullwhip and bottle rocket into that phrase, though I don't want to know how?" "No ma'am." The Destined Heroes looked oddly at the red, spiky hair on "Crazy Jake," then peered around the airship lot. "Looking for something?" the salesman asked. "Just a rubber duck," Scott offered by way of explanation. "Can't say I know what you mean, son." Scott perked up. "Son! Didja hear that, he called me son!" Jake peered over his spectacles. "Oops, sorry about that, missy. Just hard to tell with you being so underdeveloped. ... Now now, missy, you'd be a right pretty girl if you just turned that frown upside down. ... It wouldn't make much sense for me to bite y-" "Guys... have you looked at these ships?" Kate looked around the lot, looking more uneasy by the second. The group peered around, looking rather unsettled as they did. "A bunch of crows practicing... Judo?" Ard asked as she stared at the crude painting on the side of one, flummoxed. "The name on this one, the one with all the camouflage-painted weaponry, is 'Fairly Deadly.'" Dan took a big step backwards. "This. Is. Weird." "Can't say I know what you mean, son," the salesman repeated. With a shrug of his shoulders, he continued. "Buuuuut... if you don't go for the decorations, we've got that unadorned little beauty right over there." The group looked over to a ramshackle airship that was bobbing up and down in its dock, barely able to stay aloft. "I don't know..." Kate trailed off, looking at it dubiously. "Hey, look!" Steve cried, pointing to the figurehead on one of the nearby ships. "That one looks fine, and it's got a cute almost-naked girl on the front! ...With wings! ...Wearing leather! ... Okay, it's a bondage fairy, and let's go on the non-bizarre ship." There was a group nod, and the Destined Heroes Plus One filed onto the ramshackle ship. Crazy Jake promptly cut it lose its ties and waved to the group as they wobbled off over the ocean, towards the last seal. A minute or so passed. "Hee hee hee, worked like a charm." Ash popped up from inside one of the decorated ships and flipped Jake a bag of gold coins. "Thanks! You got 'em right where we wanted 'em!" "This wig you brought for me won't come off," Jake replied as he tugged at the red spikes. "...Uh, sorry about that. Maybe you'll grow to like them. Anyways, see you, thanks!" Paintcans and brushes in hand, Ash ran off, still giggling. Jake tugged ineffectively at his wig for a few more minutes, then stopped, a contemplative look on his face. "Hmm... maybe I SHOULD get a rubber duck..." ¬_¬ Author's notes: Whee. Block block block. :P It's short, not as funny (hopefully there was SOME funny stuff...) as I'd have liked, and went a different way at the end that anything I'd planned. Stupid fluctuating writing skills. But I DID do the one thing I wanted to, which was set up the visit to the Isle of the Bishounen for Del. Mweh heh. All yours, Del. Sleep time now. x.x -Illyria