Description: *Season Three, Episode Fifteen* Next week on "Star Blazer Ran" the spaceship Derringer comes under attack by a giant space bunny Sylvester and is boarded by the space pirate Naerose! Can Captain Ran protect her ship? And when the containment field around the mysterious object C.U.T.E. is broken, what havoc will it cause? The Hibiki Station is destroyed in this thrilling installment, you must be there!
The Hibiki Dojo, the scene of many a fierce battle. One time not long ago a couple of 'ninjas' . . . 'Ninji?'?? 'Ninjee?'??? Well anyway, there were these ninja-people and they came and they saw and they Anyway, they came to steal the dojo sign and oh the memories. So earli in the morning, today, a scooter pulls up. The very same used in the sign stealing caper and off hops a red clad woman. She fixes her shades. She adjusts her hat. She walks in. At this time of morning it's sure no one will be awake. Actually why is she awake? That's an interesting story involving an alarm clock and someone setting hers so it looked like it was 9 pm instead of. . . Anyawy.
"Hello?" She asks, but not really wanting anyone to answer, so she more like whispers before setting to work . She totally saw this on Samuria Champloo.
Pulling out a small container of paint from her hat, and a brush, she invites herself to a wall and starts to hum. It was totally time to start tagging this place up, and the first tag?
"Todoh Dojo rulez!"
Ran walks out of a side door, wearing a white pajamas decorated with a newsprint pattern, with appropriately sensationalistic titles, such as "SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS BAD!!! (Unless it's due to coffee -- coffee is good. More on page 5)". She has fuzzy slippers, her hair is loose, and she's rubbing her eye with one hand (the other, left to hang to her side, carries a copy of the best-selling book '1001 Pranks Involving Alarm Clock (and appropriate ways to get away with it)', probably her bedtime reading.
Needless to say, slung around her neck is her trusty camera.
She slouches on, calling out, "Dan, you decerebrate buffoon... how many times have I told you not to make so much noise? If you want to wrestle yourself while under the influence of alcohol, fine with me. Just do it in SILEN-", she stops and rubs her eyes better, still sleepy, and squints to focus on Naerose. "Wait a minute...", she says, still obviously sleepy. "You're too thin to be Dan! He'd never have the willpower to follow a diet!" She squints some more and rubs her eyes. "Who are you?", while feeling the wall in search of a lightswitch.
Quick ! Distract her with something zany and yet.. believable. The which has mere moments to trick Ran.
"Don't look at me!" she cries, "I .. I .. I... got a sex change and a live-o-suction... because.. because girls look so much better in pink!" exclaims the witch, doing her best to imitate not her voice.
"Just go back to bed, I need to reflect on my decision." There is a moment the witch just holds her breath before giving up and deciding the cat is probably going to shrewd the bag. So she takes this last moment to use her paint to draw a mustache and goatee on her face as a form of disguise. So.. maybe Ran won't recognize her? Witches hat. Shades. Red Dress. Broom. Ran will probably recognize her.
Ran walks up to Naerose. After some more squinting, the gears in her head seem to somehow click into place, and she grins. "Why, why 'Dan'... why didn't you tell me before? I have an awfully cute pink shirt/skirt ensemble aunt gave me as a present for my last birthday and I've seriously considered burning multiple times." A pause. "Not as in, 'considered multiple times', but as in 'burning multiple times'. She taps her chin and adds, "It's even got "RAN IS AWESOME" sewn in sequins on the front..." She claps her hands together and smiles wide. "You just HAVE to wear it right now, then!", she exclaims, then grabs for one of Naerose's wrists, and, should she succeed, she will try to pull her towards the door she's come from. Which probably takes to her bedroom.
"Eerr, wait, wha,.. What are you?!" exclaims the witch, causing her to under line her grafitti as she goes, "Ho hold on a moment.. What are you..?!" But it's too late. The witch is dragged through the dojo, loses her grip on the paint can and drops it. There is going to be a biiiig mess in the main room when Dan wakes up in the morning, perhaps even news article worthy? She hopes so anyway, rival dojo's is the very point! Afterall, you have to get publicity if that is your job, or hobby, or thing you do most resembling work.
And after some meandering through the corridors, there you have it, Ran's bedroom. She has, of course, a well-furnished library and a corner to take care of camera equipment, a computer, and old-fashioned typewriter, a file cabinet, and, a rather wide dresser (with multiple doors) and, incredibly enough, a bed!
Why anyone who always wears the same outfit would need a dresser with multiple door is a mystery, but a mystery that will soon be solved: in fact, as soon as Ran lets go of Naerose's wrist, she opens one of the doors, extracting a hazmat helmet, a pair of thick gloves, and a long, plutonium-grade pair of tongs. She dutifully dons them, and grabs an tosses a pair of smoked goggles to Naerose. "Here, wear these!", she exclaims, while she heads towards a drawer marked with a yellow sign. It has a symbol similar to the one for 'Danger! Radioactive material!' (you know, the circle with three 'beams' radiating from it, enclosed in a triangle), only it's pink and it has a heart instead of the central circle. Oh, and it has 'DANGER! DO NOT OPEN! DISGUSTING CUTENESS WITHIN!' written on it. In fact, as soon as Ran opens the drawer, an ominous pink glow emanates from within. "Here it is...", she states, pulling away a little.
Despite the protection of the shades which Naerose wears all of the time, she needs little convincing to throw the goggles on over the shades. The end result is of course that she's tottally blind. Now mind you in the dark at night she's usually blind because she always wears shades. But not even the thickest shades can stop that amount of cuteness from shinning through. It is a horror to behold and under normal circumstances, the witch would probably melt or something, but having dawned Ran's special goggles she would be safe for the moment. Er.. Are these discount swimming goggles made darker with a marker over the lenses? She hoped not.
"No..no! That's, that's for real!" she exclaims, taking in the sight like a prisoner with a death sentance.
Ran's heavily gloved hand brandish the tongs and, after a moment of concentration, she sinks them into the drawer, with the confidence of a fencer going for the kill. When she extracts them, the glow from the outfit (which corresponds to Ran's earlier description) bathes the whole room in an unreal light. It's probably visible from outside, the windows shooting beams of pink radiation in all direction. "Don't worry, it's just a normal reaction to it having been kept pent up in that lead-lined drawer for at least six months... it'll decay into a more acceptable state soon!", comes Ran's muffled voice from within the helmet.
And, actually, those are swimming goggles that have been darkened with the smoke of a candle. Maybe a transparent adhesive film has been put on them, to prevent accidental rubbing from removing the coating. Then again, maybe not.
Ran pivots in place, doing a 180 degrees turn and making shadows shift all around, the pink of the outfit being the only source of light. When they're positioned close enough that they could be dropped in Naerose's lap (if she was sitting... she'll just have to extend her hands, though), she exclaims, "Here, catch!", waiting until Naerose actually does extend her hands to operate the tongs and let go of the luminous bundle.
Why would anyone willingly reach out and touch *that*? They'd have to be insane. Out of their mind! And unfortunately. . Naerose is both of these things. She does reach out to take the hazardous material. A thought occurs to her, could this be the source of a whole new power? Could she unlock cuteness chi? Could she be Mignon?! No, no she can not. It is a horrified red witch now holding a pink glow in her hand, her bare hand her.
"What the snap?! Are you trying to daintify me?" she asks with a shaky hand, she can't just drop it can she? It would be like a meltdown and turn all of southtown into little red riding hoods, or worse, B.B. Hoods who would tottally hunt Naerose to the end of time. This was unacceptable.
%tgrins from behind the glass of her helmet. "Why, 'Dan'... didn't you say that the whole reason of your inconsiderate eact was due to your fondness for this particular colour? You must just /love/ this!" A short pause. "Unless you're really a stranger that's trying to soil our ancestral home! That would be punishable with a fate MUCH worse than Pink Chernobyl!", she says clenching her fist in determination, lost in thought, speaking with a certainty that would almost get a sane person believe there is such thing as something worse than a Pink Chernobyl. She then turns towards Naerose again, with her trademark grin. "But you're not, so, you don't have to worry... hey, look! It has subsided! Now you can wear it! Go, go, go!", she says, and, after opening a different wardrobe door and pulling out a very convenient windscreen, which she unfolds with a quick, precise motion, she attempts to push Naerose behind it. "Time to change!"
"Well you see, I'm not really a stranger .. I'm" shoved behind a screen
"Well you see, I'm not really a stranger .. I'm" shoved behind a screen
"Well I'm really not a stranger, " the witch says as she is finding herself quickly shoved behind a screen. Which by the by, sucks. There is a glance at the pink clothes before she comes to the conclusion she has to go through with it. Buit she can't change, she must wear red, so instead she just throws on the stuff on over her clothes, which looks really funny not to mention being way to tight to fit over a red dress and jsut how did she manage to get a t-shirt down over ehr hat without taking it off and then her shades? Don't ask.
The witch steps out from behind the screen, red as a beet and then points at Ran,
"You're a bad reporter!" she exclaims, in an attempt to deflect attention.
Recap for those who just entered: we are in Ran Hibiki's bedroom. Naerose has a mustache and goatee spraypainted on her face. And now she's been handed a disgustingly cute outfit composed of pink skirt, pink top and 'RAN IS AWESOME' sequined on the front. It's so disgustingly cute it emanated a glow bright enough to bathe the neighbourhood in pink light until a few seconds ago, when it subsided. Moreover, Naerose's been pushed behind a windscreen to change.
Ran is wearing a newsprint-patterned pajamas, fuzzy slippers, no hairstyle and a camera around her neck. Until a few seconds ago she was wearing a hazmant helmet, a pair of thick gloves, and was carrying a pair of tongs, but now she's put them back in place.
Ran snickers at the vision coming out from behind the windscreen, then slaps her forehead. "Why, 'Dan'... you're right! Of course I am!" She raises her camera to her eye and, pointing the lens at Naerose, she grins so wide it has to hurt some facial muscle whose existence most people are blissfully unaware of. "I mean, we must immortalize this moment for posterity! Oh, you're just /lovely/ wearing that! We'll have to make a 6x4 feet poster out of it!"
"NOOOOOOO!" exclaims Naerose and knowing well what will be coming next, she does the only reasonable thing she can possibly do. She raises her broom and tries to hit Ran, the camera and anything else she can with it. She seriously starts swinging it everywhere. And in this small space that is significant, actually who knows how big Ran's room is, but it's probably too small for her to be swinging a broom around.
"Stopitsoptitsoptitsoptit!" she cries while trying to hit Ran. Why is she not hitting ran? She never took the goggles off, she put them on over her shades, that woudl make it hard for just about anynoe to see.
Ran's reporter instincts kick in, urging her to protect the camera at all costs. Which she does. Unfortunately, she does so with her face. *THUD* *WHAM* *BWHAM*
Well, okay, it's not really 'reporter instincts'. It's more along the lines of 'her face happened to lie in the trajectory of the broom, while her camera did not'. But still, the first justification makes it sound more noble and dignified.
It doesn't take long for Ran to duck and cover her head with her crossed arms. "STOP THAT, YOU FOOL! YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF WHAT..."
Too late. Naerose's broom accidentally hooked into the handle for the 'DANGER! DO NOT OPEN! EXCESSIVE CUTENESS WITHIN!' drawer, and the worrying pink glow from earlier emerges again. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" Screams Ran, falling back to sit on the ground, closing her eyes, shielding them with an arm and turning away at the same time. "YOU FOOL! YOU... YOU... CLOSE THAT AT ONCE!", she exclaims, while an insidious hum seems to emanate from the receptacle of Things Better Left Unseen.
It is like the scene in raiders of the lost arch, only instead of exploding and melting like bad special effects, Naerose gapes as she can see again bathed in the pink glow and just at that momment the cuteness she is wearing calls to the cutenes in the drawer and she falls over backward, unable to look at it. Crawling back oward the door, the witch stutters,
"I .. I can.. I can't! Im too scared!" and indeed she seems far to frightened to move in any direction toward the drawer. She instead gives a scream and scrambles in an attempt to escape the room.
And, like it is required in any movie, the ground starts to shake, and books and other implements start to fall from the walls. One of the doors to the wardrobe open, spewing out the hazmat helmet, the tongs, and one single glove. It's collapsing! It's collapsing! The scene is almost over, and thus, as required, the place is about to fall to pieces!
Actually, no, it's just a minor earthquake, so common in Japan, combined with the fact that the books and the tongs were precariously balanced and Japanese walls shake easily. But still, the effect is impressive. "LET'S RUN OUT OF HERE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!", she screams, getting up, trying to run blindly towards the exit.
And like an episode of Sealab where continuity is not required, the hibiki dojo is completely destroyed in an explosion of cute proportions. Do our heros escape? Who knows! They might of been killed in the blast. Or.. Maybe Naerose just can't see the dojo because she has far to many layers of shades on and her hat has fallen down over her eyes and maybe nothing too seoius happened, except she trips over her parked scooter after diving out of the nearest window and takes cover, see in a heap, on the other side.
Meanwhile inside the dojo is the markings of her having been there, scrawled on the wall 'Todoh Dojo rulez'.
Log created on 07:59:35 08/18/2007 by Naerose, and last modified on 12:48:00 08/18/2007.