[Written on and off from July 29th of 2005 to November 12th of 2005]
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"ll murder them all admit laughter and merriment, except for the few we take home to experiment." Tom Lehrer, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
SB Story
"Let's Make a Deal"
Chapter Three: Operation Rescue Chibi
"I say we storm the place, guns, rocket launchers, swords and grenades blazing! We'll have the element of surprise after all."
"They can perform all the tests they want on Wuffers but they won't find anything, plus we've got enough Wuffer's Tea stashed to last us for at least a year- no, wait, two months; my mistake."
"All is lost, lost! The clouds of darkness are upon us, ride the storm we will not, rather we'll drown and di-"
Catching Crawler as he fell, courtesy of the gut punch Rydia had delivered unto him, Rydia placed her friend on the ground, and upon whistling far too shrilly caught the attention of the rest of the (conscious) SB members. "Let's all calm down here, the situation isn't all that bad, Wuffers would never divulge any of our secrets even under the worst torture, we've trained him too well after all. While it's true we have to rescue him, if we put our heads together, I'm sure we can come up with a sure-fire plan."
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"What part of a sure-fire plan is this?" Rydia grumbled indignantly as she tugged the ugly tan hat bearing the name of a pizza parlor further down on her forehead, tucking aside some loose strands of hair almost simultaneously, after a moment, she glanced aside to the slightly noticeable slit of air that indicated the Heero Hole was nearby, and glared Rydia would have if the security guard had not moved towards the door, dragged off his lazy ass from his desk as he was.
Clutching the empty pizza box a bit tighter, Rydia twisted her mouth, showing an obscenely cheerful smile that would have normally killed her had she not been playing the role of an oblivious delivery person; eyeing the security guard, whose nametag read Ted, Rydia strode forward just as the man opened the door. "Hello, my good man! I have a pizza here, double layer of pineapple, sardines, and green peppers for one Mr. Johnson, says here he's located on sublevel B, floor 7. I can go right up, oops, I mean down, right?"
Tic starting in her forehead when snickering was heard behind her, Rydia crushed the corner of the pizza box she had been holding, wondering just how much of the awful script her friends had written she would have to follow, at this point they were still in the I’m-naught-but-an-innocent-so-let-me-pass-already-bastard stage. Clearly confused, and a tad besieged, Ted rubbed his neck and looked closely at Rydia, only to step away a moment later to return to his desk to retrieve some papers, which he promptly shoved at Rydia and ordered she fill them out, as it was standard procedure.
“Fuck standard procedure,” Rydia bit off loudly, smiling brilliantly when Ted turned back sharply, warning clear in the suddenly sharp creases of his mouth, looking decidedly pissed, though unsure if he had heard correctly. “Is there a problem? I merely said ‘shucks, been there, teacher’.” I swear, if you fall for that bit, you are truly the most ignorant human being I have ever met, Rydia thought fiercely, cursing that fact it had been her big mouth that had asked for a sure-fire plan in the first place.
“Oh, wow, for a minute there, I thought you might have been someone suspicious, trying to gain entry into this high security science laboratory, but ran out of patience halfway through your ruse, but I’m quite sure you’re honestly trying to deliver a pizza to Mr. Johnson, he always has a hankering for pizza about this time. How about we forget the forms this time and I escort you to the elevator myself?” I’d feel sorry for you but you’re about to put out of your misery in a few minutes anyway, Rydia thought within her mind, outwardly saying, “Golly, mister, you’re awful nice, how’d you become a security guard anyway?”
Please forgive the drivel that is coming out of my mouth. “Well, it’s an occupation that doesn’t carry much risk, and as I’ve got a wife and two kids at home, it’s the perfect job for me, though admittedly, it’s a bit boring, not many people would try to break in this building to begin with, seeing as most of the projects being done here are highly experimental and a tad dangerous. Oh, but don’t you worry, little lady, you’ll be just fine, I get the feeling you can take good care of yourself when the needs comes.”
How about even when it’s unneeded? Suppressing the evil grin that threatened to overcome her ditzy smile, Rydia looked down at the floor, feigning shyness, even turning her feet from side to side nervously, whilst trying to keep her homicidal nature dormant, it wouldn’t do to have come so far and merely succeed 75% of the way. Pressing the floor button she would need while leaning against the open elevator doors, Ted grinned, reaching out and mussing Rydia’s hair through her hat affectionately.
Going…his hand clamped tighter, completely usurping the hat completely, and as it fell to the floor…going…Ted laughed and tilting her face upwards, fixed Rydia’s hair, as much was possible…gone! Gasping as Rydia’s expression changed from carefully blank to pure venom, the security guard stumbled backward, tripping on his own feet and as the elevator doors began closing, Rydia laughed manically as a silenced gunshot cut through the air.
Lifting the gun lovingly and blowing upon the slightly smoking muzzle, Rydia smirked evilly, though her eyes showed a hint of red, indicating her inner rage was not yet spent. “No one fucks with my hair without my permission,” She growled out lowly, entertaining fantasies on how further Ted the security guard could have been punished for such an offense. When applause rang out from behind her, Rydia’s grin widened and she bowed widely, one arm going to cover her waist, when Suzu leapt upon her and knocked her to the ground, Rydia laughed and hugged her friend briefly.
Coming to her feet again, Rydia tucked her gun back into her pocket and as HAX, and Blade joined her in the elevator as well, straightened her hair, kicking the vile pizza cap into the hole between the elevator and floor once the doors opened before her. “Golly, Rydia, you played that part so well, maybe you’ve got a bit of a ditz in you after all.” Finding a gun barrel suddenly pointed his way, HAX backed up a step and coughed into his hand, “I only meant you performed well.”
Grinning, Rydia started down the hallway, the others in tow behind her, discussing which weapons would work well for this venture, immediately rocket launchers, much to Suzu’s disappointment, were vetoed as the area they would be slaughteri-err, fighting in, would be close quarters. Once grenades and poison gas were decided against as well, Suzu growled and threw up her arms irritated, “Don’t we get to have any fun?!”
“Now, now, it’s not all bad, we get to maim and kill as much as we want, it’s just re-spawning would waste valuable time in our mission,“ HAX explained, patting Suzu’s shoulder lightly, avoiding any further bodily contact should Suzu had decided to work off some aggression.
“It’s too bad Crawler gave into the temptation of England, we could have used an extra pair of hands,” Blade mentioned off-handedly, flipping a dagger between her hands casually, moving onto juggling as Rydia threw a few more daggers at her experimentally. “Missed out he did this time, but we’ll work him over next time, that you can be sure of,” Suzu said threateningly, stopping before a door when it matched that of Mr. Johnson’s, Coordinator of the Special Projects division, one of said projects being Wuffers.
“If he’s not in this building, what do we do?”
“Wreck havoc, of course,” Rydia said cheerfully, hastily fixing the pizza box in her grip as it had suffered her anger a bit too much but the dark hallway they were currently situated in, provided little light so it would pass muster. “Okay, spread out so he doesn’t see a whole group at his door when he first opens it, we want him dimly paranoid after all."
Making one last check around her, Rydia nodded in approval before knocking loudly against Mr. Johnson’s door, tapping her foot impatiently when there was no response for a full minute, angling her body just so, Rydia slammed herself into the door, falling to the floor of the man’s office a moment later as he stared down in confusion at Rydia. “What the hell is wrong with you? No sane delivery person just rams themselves into a door, unless they have less than thirty minutes to deliver said pizza which I doubt as I smell no pizza in that mangled box at all.”
“…Ha?” Rydia muttered eloquently, coming to her feet quickly, kicking aside the pizza box as it has proved to be of no use, which just left trying to figure out why Mr. Mills Johnson wasn’t cowering in a corner, afraid for his life at the prospect of some strange woman who had broken into the building and had come to visit him especially. “Obviously you’ve gotten past Texan which is no surprise as he’s not the sharpest blade in the world, so what the hell do you want? I’ve got papers to sign, decisions to make and I can’t have you distracting me unnecessarily.
“You can also tell your companions to come out, as I’m not going to throw you out if you’ll be leaving after learning what you want.” Staring openly as her supposed victim, Rydia shook herself mentally and took a seat in one of the chairs situated before Mr. Johnson’s desk, which was cluttered with papers, most of which were in the ‘in’ box, no wonder the man wasn’t scared, who would with that much prospect of work?
“No killing, no maiming, not even as much as a punch?” Suzu pouted disappointingly, the bat she had joyfully carried about now scraping the hallway floor as she stood just outside the office. “Afraid not, friend, but you can do what you want with the next stranger you see on the street,” Rydia quipped, grinning when Suzu perked up, around her HAX and Blade took the remainder of Mr. Johnson’s chairs. “Can we get down to business? I’m on the clock, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut the hell up already,” HAX bit off, showing his disappointment in another way, out of them all, Blade was the only one unfazed by the incident, and glancing briefly at her fingernails, moved her gaze onto Mr. Johnson pointedly. “Right, so we’ve come here for one thing, something you might have made a point to remember: little Chinese guy, spouts injustice most of the time between rants on how weak women are?”
“The unknown variable? Sure, I remember that, it was only a few days ago after all, he underwent a variety of tests, both known and unknown, though ultimately beyond the bizarre substances found in his blood, we could find nothing substantial. So we did what anybody would do, we threw him away.”
When the silence stretched on for more than five minutes, the coordinator shifted in his chair, beginning to feel a tad nervous, as no one among the group that had visited him had moved or blinked, merely bore their intense gazes in his direction with no indication of stopping. Jumping when upon moving his hand, each of the group’s eyes followed the movement; Mills stood slowly, intent upon reaching the office door before any of people who had visited him thought to attempt anything.
He found himself too late when a bat slammed into his head, more specifically the right side of his face, and being far too intimate with the floor for his liking, Mills spit out blood and tried to focus on his surroundings, grunting in pain when a foot kicked his stomach. When a hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around so his back was to floor, Mills cracked a bloody eye open and immediately shut it.
Looming over him, each with weapons that could be considered lethal if used correctly, were the strange group, an evil smirk on each of their faces, and realizing he most likely wouldn’t live out the night, Mills receded within his own mind, just as a pair of daggers pinned his shoulders to the floor.
Two hours later, Suzu kicked Mills’ body into a corner, frowning as they’d broken the man after but five minutes of torture, even gotten him to reveal the location where they’d dumped Wuffers but out of spite, each group members had gotten a good half hour of violence in before the coordinator’s body had finally tapped out. Cracking her knuckles and wiping a bit of blood from her face, Rydia pulled out a bottle of gasoline from the Heero Hole and eyeing her fellow members, grinned when they sprung into action, HAX preparing a match, and Blade going out into the hallway to make sure no one was coming.
Moving in sync with Suzu, Rydia helped move Mills into the center of the room and making sure to douse the man enough, moved out of the way as HAX lit his match and let it drop, fire erupting within the room, chasing away the dark shadows. “Now, about those scientists…”
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“I’m not hallucinating, am I?”
“No…though I wish I was,” came Suzu’s quick reply, after which a loud groan was issued. Before the SB members laid a scene unlike any other, for not only had the scientists situated before them experimented on Wuffers extensively, they’d also drawn vast amounts of blood, containers of which littered a nearby tabletop but the most disconcerting aspect of the proceedings was the behavior of the scientists themselves.
Of the dozen men, one had stripped himself of clothes and was currently marking any and all corners of the room for himself, while another frantically postured himself before a chair and was chanting rhythmically about Colin Mochrie. Two of the scientists were meticulously taking apart a twinkle, whispering to each other in hushed tones, examining the snack food underneath a microscope. “Don’t tell me they…” Rydia jumped as one of the men suddenly howled and latched onto her leg, gnawing at a certain part determinedly, a tic forming on her forehead, Rydia sighed and gently patted the man-turned-wolf’s head before taking a step forward. Blade stared into a certain corner, and turned wide eyes towards HAX, a hand raised to point, “He’s not going to do what I think he is with that table leg, is he?”
“Sadly, yes,” HAX bit off warily, turning from the dreaded corner to eye one of the scientists as he hopped about, utterly convinced he’d lost use of one of his legs, but unfortunately, the man lost his balance easily and repeatedly injured himself accidentally. As Rydia took to looking over Suzu’s shoulder, the man chewing on her leg ignored for the moment, she titled her head as Suzu raised her hand, and within it, was a shrunken scientist, screaming in panic as Suzu slightly tightened her grip whilst chuckling evilly.
Curious to where the remainder of the wayward team was, Rydia walked (as much as she was able) over to freezer in the far corner, inching away from a yellow puddle and putting a hand over her eyes, looked into the cold unit, spying two of the scientists upon a high shelf, trying futilely to paint the ventilation shaft above them black, but the paint in the can between them had long since frozen over. The last two scientists Rydia found in bits and pieces, over a half extinguished fire, and nibbling on a piece of cooked meat, she turned back towards the table with the containers of blood.
Noting the few open containers and drops of blood staining one corner of the table, Rydia looked down on the man contently chewing on a piece of her leg, and seeing traces of red around his mouth, both dried and wet, Rydia put a hand on Suzu’s shoulder as she neared, the shrunken man situated in her shirt pocket. “They’re even crazier than us if they drank Wuffers’ blood without even bothering to dilute it, though it is interesting they survived. Perhaps this means if we can market Wuffer’s Tea after all.”
“You mean we can go back to invading office buildings?” Suzu asked happily, rubbing her hands together, already picturing new ways to stun and otherwise harm those who would oppose their method of proposing a business venture. “We’ll have to see, I suppose. What are we going to do with these guys? They’re amusing but obviously mentally deficient.”
“Why don’t we take them with us? They’ve already been infected, and we can always use more guinea pigs…I mean, subjects,” HAX said, motioning to the few scientists who weren’t otherwise engaged in an activity and had taken to staring at the SB group curiously. “And they’re kind of cute really,” Blade commented, disregarding the one who’d become far too familiar with a table leg.
Shrugging her shoulders, Rydia nodded her agreement. “Why not? I’m easy, though you might want to go retrieve the two in the freezer before they accidentally freeze to death. But I wouldn’t advise taking away their paint brushes, they’re rather attached to them.”
“Isn’t Wolfy annoying you?” Following Suzu’s pointed finger towards the man on her leg, Rydia shook her head, scratching behind one of the man’s ears for a moment. “The leg’ll grow back eventually, and it’s not like I’m in pain or anything; now, as for rest of the building, should we start wrecking havoc?”
Taking Suzu’s evil grin for acquiescence, Rydia headed to the open door of the laboratory, and after the infected scientists had been tied up and dumped into the Heero Hole until they could be properly attended to, the SB group began their revenge on those who had unfairly taken what was rightfully theirs.
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Walking away from the wreckage of the formerly high security science building, Suzu glanced back at the scene lovingly, eyeing all the pretty fire that now burned steadily. “Do you think the giant Cyclops and fire dragon was too much? They did commit an unforgivable deed but still I wonder.”
“I’d say we punished them properly,” Rydia responded, turning about and walking backwards, trusting the people around her to let her know when an obstacle appeared in her path. “Human darts are much more fun than regular darts,” Blade commented calmly, leaning forward slightly to push Rydia lightly to the side to avoid an upcoming mailbox.
“Thanks. Though I agree, the added difficulty of the dart sliding off because of blood was amusing.” Glancing at HAX when he laughed, Rydia grinned and turning to face the street they were walking on correctly, slipped into the Heero Hole, almost instantly traveling to the island they had claimed for themselves. Taking a seat on the couch and eyeing the TV that was currently boasting of how wonderful a hair product was, Rydia shut it off and relaxed until a hand shook her shoulder. “Meeting time?” At Suzu’s nod, Rydia stood and headed to the all-important picnic table where said meetings were held.
Suzu sat at the edge of the table and pounded an imagery mallet, catching all the group’s attention with little to no sound. “Meeting Numero 12 now commencing, today’s topic of discussion is how do we retrieve our precious Wuffers from the location he was unjustly thrown into? One, we could walk calmly into the dump and pick him up.
“Two, we could go all out and burn everything we can get our hands on before finally seeking out Wuffers, being the only thing that would survive such an ordeal; or three, just use one of our Wuffers doppelgangers and forget about the one in jeopardy for now.”
“Hmm, I’ll leave it up to you guys, I’ve been wanting to teach the Penguimooooooose a few new tricks. Good luck,” Blade announced, jumping up and chasing down the freak of nature as it walked alongside the shore. Eyeing the Penguimooooooose, as it squealed happily and rolled onto it’s back at Blade’s approach, Suzu looked towards HAX who shrugged.
“I’m all for leaving it to you guys, since Suzu is the one who makes the tea in the first place,” He informed then stood and headed towards Blade, who held a human leg bone in the air above the Penguimooooooose, trying to teach it how to play fetch. Exchanging a look, Rydia and Suzu shrugged and took a seat across from each other, trying to decide upon which plan would work to their advantage. “Well, we can’t forget Wuffers completely, so we have to rescue him, after all Wuffer’s Tea just doesn’t taste the same when you use one of the doppelgangers,” Suzu said, eyeing a notch into the picnic table before taking out a knife and widening it.
“So, we have to retrieve him but would you rather do it in a normal utterly boring way or the over handed highly amusing flashy way?” The evil smirk that Suzu flashed Rydia decided it, and falling into a conversation discussing the plus and minuses of certain weapons, once everything was discussed fully, the pair broke off the meeting to go laze about accordingly, having free time until their mission commenced.
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“Promise me, Hikaru-chan,” said Suzu pleadingly, latched onto one of Rydia’s arms, looking with wide eyes towards the dump they stood before, already the stench had killed what remained of her sense of smell, and she could feel wetness begin to gather in her eyes, her body’s way of further indicating it had no wish to walk amongst trash and other unmentionable items. “Hikaru-chan!”
Rydia let out a sigh, and immediately closed her mouth as she’d just gotten a taste of the trash instead of a brief whiff and nodded, turning her head away pointedly. “I promise that once we have Wuffers in hand, I’ll kill you so you can re-spawn, and use a body that hasn’t been wallowing in garage for hours on end. But…only if you promise to do the same to me as well, I have no wish to let the others know just how horrible our task turned out to be.”
“We can’t use the flame throwers like we planned, it’ll just make things worse” Suzu growled out, her uneasiness quickly twisting itself into rage, something she was all too familiar with, and using it to her advantage, she took a step into the dump, and looked about, calling out Wuffers’ name every minute or so, and as Rydia joined the search as well (though a bit grudgingly), she pulled out a whistle and blew, inwardly scrunching into a ball as the dog whistle affected her a little as well.
Three long hours later, Rydia and Suzu sat against a halfway crunched car, exhausted, as the dump had turned out to far larger than they’d anticipated, and because their bodies had gotten used to the general stench of the place, and that further dampened their moods, as they would have rather fought their surroundings more. “Where is he?!” Rydia yelled into the air, noting Suzu’s patting hand against her back, indicating she was in agreement with that outburst.
“Maybe he escaped long ago or in the process of being transported here, got crushed and really died; either way, those theories really suck,” Suzu suggested sadly, raising a hand and eyeing her dirty fingernails in distaste. “But he should have known we’d rescue him, seeing how much we use him during the course of one day unless…he, in truth, hates us and ran off somewhere, where we couldn’t touch him again.”
Frowning as Rydia burst into tears, something she ever rarely did, Suzu put an arm around Rydia’s shoulders, and patted her head soothingly. “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure he doesn’t hate us as much as you think. Besides, we’ve taken care of him all this time so that has to count for something.”
“I’m not…crying because of that,” Rydia sniffed out quietly.
"Then why?"
"If we don’t find Wuffers, we’ll never be able to make anymore full proof Wuffer’s Tea again." Laughing, Suzu grinned, pulling Rydia closer until the SB member rested against her shoulder, then the impact of Rydia’s confession hit Suzu, and she too began crying; after a while, both of the SB members grew tired of the angst, and gathering themselves together once again, restarted the search for their precious Wuffers.
They found the source of their addictive tea underneath a pile of large pile of garage, one they’d been avoiding because of the horrid stench, and once they had gotten to the bottom of the pile, and caught sight of Wuffers, Rydia and Suzu glomped the man tightly, then pulled back in disgust as Wuffers smelled worse than even them, and quickly killed the chibi so he could re-spawn.
Clean Wuffers resting on her shoulders, Rydia turned to Suzu, a small grin forming now that their objective had been accomplished. "How about we make good on that promise now?"
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"So after eight hours of searching, you finally found him?" HAX questioned, eyeing the skipping chibi circling around the picnic table happily, apparently pleased his owners had actually rescued him from his peril, though in view of the things the SB group would do to Wuffers in the future, the chibi should have known it would have been better to remain missing.
Nodding, Suzu leaned further onto the table, still a bit tired from the excursion to the dump, and purposely keeping the details sparse, Rydia briefly explained where and in what condition they had found him, before looking towards Suzu, and suggesting Wuffer’s Tea, now that they had their source of the delicious drink back in hand. Head perking up, Suzu grinned, and grabbing one of Wuffers’ legs, quickly headed to the section of forestry she’d converted into a makeshift vat room.
Once all had been served with a large portion of Wuffers’ Tea, Blade patted the Penguimooooooose’s head, as the creature was sitting next to her, having taking a fancy to Blade out of the SB group, and briefly giving the Penguimooooooose a small taste of Wuffer’s Tea, it fell off the bench and spasmed against the ground, though lazily, as if given a drug it’d been craving for a straight month. When Wuffers was about pass the creature by, the Penguimooooooose tripped the chibi, and acting on habit, bit into an arm, drawing a scream from Wuffers.
"No, no, bad Penguimooooooose!" Blade scolded whilst pulling back the Penguimooooooose’s mouth painfully from Wuffers’ right arm, the chibi whimpered and falling back into Rydia’s awaiting hand, passed out. Lying Wuffers on the edge of picnic table gently, Rydia tilted her head and looked to the others reclaiming their seats, startled as they’d been by the Penguimooooooose’s attack. "That reminds me, whatever did we do with those scientists?"
"For right now, we’re keeping them as pets, though we still have to name them, at least those who haven’t indicated they can speak," Suzu answered softly, her eyes closed and just on the verge of falling asleep. "That should be easy, Wolfy’s already accounted for, and I recall you named the shrunken scientist Bob. The rest we’ll just name along the way."
"Along the way to where?" HAX asked curiously, eyeing the shit-eating grin that had appeared on Rydia’s face soon after her statement, Suzu seemed to shake her off drowsiness and raised a hand, waving it excitedly. "I know, I know! We’re going to experiment with Wuffers’ blood, and then once we have a product we’re satisfied with, that doesn’t have quite the severe effect it did on the scientists, it’s off to storm business buildings again."
"Took the words right out of my mouth," Rydia replied, patting Suzu’s shoulder softly in approval. “Invading those buildings was fun,” Blade informed grinning, looking sideways towards HAX, who nodded that he’d be glad to join forces with Blade and leave Rydia and Suzu to their own havoc. “It’s decided then, once we have a suitable beverage that doesn’t break others’ minds and merely leaves them a quivering mass, craving more Wuffer’s Tea, it’s off to indulge in chaos…uh, I mean business negotiations.”
“Wait, what if Crawler returns to the island and wonders where everyone went?”
“Eh, we’ll leave him a note.”