Karen leaned her head against the cold glass of the carriage window and stared into the gloomy night. She hated the rain. She hated the creepy woods outside and the jostling of the carriage on the old road. She hated the cold fog and the stupid party she was being forced to go to. It was almost enough to make her hate her best friend, who was sitting contently in the seat across from her.
"Wow, this is really crappy weather for a party,� she said, breaking an uncomfortable silence, "Maybe we should go back. I've got that new Johnny Depp video. Why don't we go to my house, make some pop-corn and just vegg-out?"
Her companion thought otherwise. "Oh, Karen, you-simple minded child. Of COURSE we have to go," her friend replied, as though staying home and watching a video was some sort of strange taboo, " Now, I love Johnny Depp as much as the next girl, but Rika is expecting us to be at her party." Karen gave the blonde a strange look. "But I thought you hated Rika," she said, knowing very well she was right. Chelsea looked shocked, insulted, and appalled, all at once. Karen knew it was an act. "Why Karen," Chelsea replied with an all-too-fake laugh, "what-ever gave you that idea?" Karen proceeded to remind her that she threw darts at Rika's photograph every afternoon at four o'clock, and that there was a giant poster which read "I HATE RIKA" in bold letters hanging above Chelsea's bed. And that every night before bed, Chelsea would pray for "terrible misfortune to befall Rika's ugly red head." "That's beside the point," Chelsea grumbled, "The fact of the matter is, Rika is the richest girl in town. And when someone with THAT much money throws a party, it is expected that I, the most popular and well-liked person in the entire Academy, am to attend.""So...why do I have to go?" Karen asked, ignoring Chelsea's self-centered rant, knowing that no one in school like Chelsea at all.
"Because, you're my adorable side-kick! I can't go anywhere without you," Chelsea replied. Karen was on the verge of thanking Chelsea for being so considerate, when Chelsea finished with; "I need less-than-attractive folks like you to make me look good. I mean, compared to you I'm a goddess."
"Gee. Thanks," Karen said sarcastically, narrowing her eyes and mentally questioning how she ever came to be Chelsea's friend in the first place. Now, Karen might not being stealing first prize in the next Miss Universe Pageant, but she considered herself to be at least some-what attractive. After all, that knee-length flood of red hair doesn't manage itself. She merely sighed and returned to her position staring out the window, knowing it was futile to argue with Chelsea. She would have better luck convincing a rock that it was a bird than she would telling Chelsea she was wrong.
"I bet none of this has anything to do with the boy you are head-over-heals in love with..." Karen finally mumbled after a long pause. Chelsea put on another fake, overly innocent face.
"Why Karen," she replied sweetly, "whoever are you talking about?"
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"TTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIII!!!111one," Rika shrieked as she hurried down the unusually long flight of stairs leading to her living room, a flurry of overly-decorated pink skirts follwing behind her. "I'm ever-so glad you could make it!!"
At that moment, the boy whom Chelsea was head-over-heals in love with, Tai Ingamono, was standing in Rika's living room, nervous and all-together frightened as Rika and her many poofy skirts descended the stairs at a incredible pace, the way a very large, very pink lion might lunge at its prey. Still, he attempted to stand up straight, even though his legs were telling him to turn and run, and tried his best to be polite.
"Um..hi Rika," he stuttered, afraid she might pounce on him and suffocate him with her grotesquely large dress. "It's...uh...nice to see you."
"Of course it is!" Rika said, rather loudly and in a voice far too sweet to be normal. She at last reached the bottom of the stairs, stopping to rearrange her outfit and make a mental note to fire the idiot who designed this particular room. She gave a wide, enthusiastic smile toward the brunette boy, and abruptly turned on her heal to yell in the general direction of the maid behind her.
"You, cleaning woman, escort this gorgeous creature to the den!" she yelled shrilly, "And don't you squint at me!" It was then that the butler standing by the front door nervously approached the girl.
"Miss Rika," he whispered, "she is Asian."
"I am well aware of her name, Alfonz" Rika scoffed, "I would like her to stop glaring at me."
Alfonz sighed and nodded as the maid directed Tai out of the room, mumbling something in a language the others could not comprehend.
"Keep it up, Cleaning Woman," Rika called after her, "If it weren't for me, you'd still be scraping the dung off the shoes of cows back in Wang-Hang-Lo, instead of scraping it off my shoes! I gave you a life! Be grateful!!"
Once the maid had led Tai safely into the next room, the turned to the boy and whispered, in a rough, broken dialect, "Before my father sold me to that devil woman, I was aspiring actress at finest burlesque club in all of Berma."
She gave him a wide, toothless grin which Tai tried to return, resisting the urge to cringe at the very thought of the wrinkled old woman doing anything in a burlesque club. He gave a weak grin and the two continued their journey through Rika's ridiculously large home.
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Elsewhere in the house, thirteen-year old Yuki Kuro was drawing stick-figures on a large piece of poster board she had laid out on her bedroom floor. The diagram showed a stick-person with a large scribble of red hair being run over by a large round object.
"...and that's the plan," she concluded. She had just finished explaining something to the dark-haired boy sitting across from her, who was busy staring at the various sharp objects that adorned Yuki's bedroom wall, and paying no attention whatsoever to whatever it was Yuki was saying.
"Shiro, do you understand the plan?" she asked gruffly.
"Huh? What?" her bewildered companion replied, snapping out of whatever daze he had been in just a moment ago, "What plan?"
Yuki sighed and smacked her forehead.
"You know, the plan!" she cried, "The plan to rid the Earth of the most terrible evil ever to slither out of Hades!!" Shiro paused, trying to comprehend what exactly Yuki was ranting about.
"Which is..." he began, "who again?"
At this, Yuki gave a frustrated growl and tore up the sheet of paper in front of her.
"My sister, Rika!" Yuki grabbed Shrio by the scruff of his collar and leaned in close. "Haven't you been paying attention at all?!"
"I was in the bathroom," Shrio whimpered pathetically. He gulped loudly before asking "Why go through all the trouble to--"
"Because she's a bitch, that's why," Yuki interrupted. She released Shiro, who quickly stood up and stepped back, so as to avoid any further damage to his shirt. Yuki clenched her hand in a fist and looked at it with a look of terrible passion.
"Rika is evil," she said darkly, "Pure, unadulterated evil. She's a plague...like infomercials, or Barbara Streisand, but with better hair."
"Oh come on," Shiro replied, sitting on Yuki's bed, "I'm sure she's not all that bad."
"Shiro!" Yuki cried, jumping to her feet to stare at him accusingly, "For the past year, she thought you were a lawn ornament!" At this, Shiro gave a thoughtful pause, recalling the many times Rika had thrown him out the window or buried him behind the tool shed.
"Point"
Yuki climbed on her bed, standing tall and placing her fists on her hips, lifting her chin in a grand manner, as though she were the proud orator of some mighty army.
"You see Shiro, that's why we must strike! For retribution! Revenge! Anarchy!!"
Shiro gaped at the blue-haired teen, feeling more than a little intimidated. Yuki was known for her temper and dramatic flare...as well as her habit of taking some things too far. Shiro remembered the time she beat up the entire baseball team for over-using the term "home run," because she thought them all to be a bunch of "shobanistic, womanizing, cherry-chasing swine." Their school lost every baseball game that season...
After that, she was banned from gym class and voted "most likely to take over a small country" in their seventh grade yearbook.
Yuki quickly hopped down from her bed and said, in a much less serious voice, "And...because we're naughty children and it's what we do."
The girl was also notorious for her terrible pranks. She was scheduled for detention for the next seven years. Shiro understood why...
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