Log: RollerClow? pt 2!
Second verse, same as the first!
Armstrong sighs. Not only is he skating at insane speeds, but going headfirst into the wall completely flattened his afro. Since everybody else has left or is leaving and the kids remaining are doing funky transformations, obviously its time to reveal his secret too. A white flash of alchemy overtakes the Disco King from foot to head, leaving in its place the wild-haired and scantily-clad cute form of everyone's favorite shapeshifting homunculus. "Not quite as flashy as that kid's sword trick, but it gets the job done," Envy notes with a satisfied smile. "Now... to figure out just what the hell's going on."
Shinji Ikari, just needed to get the hell out of the apartment. His roomates were either avoiding him or grousing at him, Ayanami told him she felt safer fighting with her red-headed rival than him-which is fair enough, since a mad scientist managed to use a ray gun to send Young Ikari and his giant robot on a rampage where he almost killed the stoic young woman-, and his old man hadn't even come by to tell him how much of a screwup he is.
When you're dissapointed that your evil genius father hasn't yelled at you, Shinji reasons, its time to get outside and do something becides mope. After writing a quick, 'I'm not running away, really, I swear, just going out!' note and feeding Pen-Pen, Shinji Ikari decided to let fate be his guide!
"Y'know, fate, one of these days you're going to tell me what it is I did to you." Shinji mutters, looking at the rapidly emptying roller rink. His instincts say that this is a good time to turn around and go home, but, Shinji considers his words last night. He's a member of the IPA-a space cop! He can do things becides hit giant monsters with his tempermental giant purple robot, now! Heck, its part of his job! "Becides, its a roller rink. What could happen?" Shinji convinces himself, using his skills as a social recluse to weave through the crowd, trying to get inside the building.
Nervously, Ikari the Younger pulls out his IPA badge, holding it forward like a talisman of power. "Um, h-hello? I'm...Shinji Ikari, with the I-IPA, and I'm h-here to help!" Real commanding, Shinji, the Shinji-Within-Shinji quips. As for the actual Shinji, he wonders if it'd be worth trying to flip off the voices in his head.
Li Syaoran scans the arena quickly. "No idea where it is," he says, shaking his head. "but even if we can see it, that's not gonna matter. We can't catch the damn thing unless we stop it fir..." Li brightens. "Got it!"
The young man raises a slim piece of paper up into the air. "Suiryuu!" he shouts, driving his swordpoint up. "SHOURAI!"
Water immediately begins issuing from the slip of paper, spouts of it that spiral in a rapid circle, quickly beginning to douse the floor of the arena (and probably most of its inhabitants) with rather quite a bit of water.
.....that isn't a white sundress, is it?
Oh my.
"Hey kid, what are you doing? You're supposed to be moving out, not in!"
Rukia blinks. "What, but--my friend is--" And then, she's fireman-carried onto the bigger man's shoulder. "HEY! What are you DOING?!"
"This is for your own good!"
"Let go, I don't need to be rescued! Hey...HEY!" And she is almost kidnapped by the Good Samaritan. It would've been easier, if she hadn't been struggling. And then...water.
SPLASH!
Rukia's dark hair plasters over her, the white sundress clinging onto her like wet tissue paper.
Li Syaoran stuns Ichigo Kurosaki with his BOOBS action.
Balrog slows down from The Quiz's 'Power of Inertial Dampening'. He stumbles for a bit dizzily before spotting Ichigo. "Huzzah! What's your name? I hit the wall, and then I spun, and then some green thing hit me, and then I was going faster and faster and faster and I think I hit someone. Did I hit- urk" Balrog stops stumbling, and closes his mouth. He's getting that nauseous look. He stumbles forward a bit towards Ichigo and then... "HURK!"
Balrog successfully targets Ichigo Kurosaki with his Eeeeeeeeeeew action.
Ichigo Kurosaki is no longer stunned.
"Hi, Mr...person from the IPA! I'm also from the IPA! My name is Sakura! Please help us stop the fuzzy speedy thing!" If it isn't obvious, Sakura's shouting while she veers around, trying to catch up with The Dash. And indeed, the water does make it more slippery to get around, especially for the poor creature that starts screeching and...spinning. Yes, now even The Dash is spinning out of control, right through the wall of the rink and towards poor Mr. Ikari.
Meanwhile, Sakura searches through her own repretoire of cards. There has to be something useful in that deck! The Sword? No, that won't help. The Big? No. The Little? Shrinking it will just make it harder to catch! The Mist? Oh, who is she kidding?
Wilt, a tall imaginary friend, is walking alongside a bird that is part airplane and a small Blue creature that seems pretty small, if sly and sexy. Because it's Blooegard Q. Kazoo and he is a professional imaginary friend, and also kind of a jerk.
"Hey, Bloo! I think that kid over there is looking pretty down in the dumps! It looks like he could use a friend!" Wilt says, "You think I should try it?"
"Hmm.... I don't know, Wilt." Bloo says, eyeing Shinji as he steps into the ice rink, "He looks like a tough case. I just don't know if you're up to it, buddy!"
"Er, well... okay, Bloo, but then who? Maybe we could bring him over to Foster's."
"No need, no need. Just watch... The Master." Bloo says, dusting himself off and spraying some sort of cologne into his mouth, "If you follow my footsteps, Wilt, one day you too will be as popular as me." And so saying, Bloo pushes the door open and heads for the IPA kid.
Meanwhile Coco and Wilt shrug their shoulders at each other. They don't seem to be troubled by the various levels of chaos yet.
The Quiz rubs at her aching head with a hand, quickly using Super Healing to prevent the inevitable bruise. She then turns to glare daggers at Buttercup, before realizing that the fuzzy green thing seems to be responsible for this mayhem--and the kids are trying to do something to it. Huh.
The Quiz teleports this time, suddenly disappearing and reappearing a safe distance away from Shinji; fortunately for Balrog, she hasn't noticed his little reaction to being spun around.
"Oh man, /GROSS/!" shouts Ichigo as he is vomited on. DISGUSTING! "That is foul! What the hell is wrong with you, you damn filing cabinet?" He shakes off what he can, but it's still there. On his favorite shirt. On his pants. On his shoes. The orange haired teen shakes with repressed fury coupled with his own urge to vomit all over the filing cabinet. He swallows, shoving that urge down before he swings a fist at a flat plane of Balrog, even as the water washes all over the place, soaking him. Now he was puke-y /and/ wet. GREAT.
Ichigo Kurosaki hits Balrog with his ME SO ANGRY jab.
Li Syaoran lets the elemental seal go, the writing on it dissolving away as the magic it contains is used up. Li himself is strangely dry, although the sloshing around his feet means his pants are going to be dripping wet fairly soon. "Right," he says, reaching his sword down and slowing to a halt. With two quick snaps of his blade, he cuts the laces of his roller skates, freeing his feet.
Li winces a little as he ends up ankle-deep in water. Ew, wet socks.
He crouches low, then, and leaps high into the air with a shout, trailing water droplets as he turns a flip over the arena, drawing a large card from his pocket with his free hand, then sending it spinning into the air. Meiling pumps her first excitedly as Li reverses his sword and drives the point into the card.
"THE FREEZE!"
A large white fishlike creature with red eyes soars out of the card and dives down toward the water-soaked arena below, passing into the watr, and then the floor. With a crackling sound, the temperature drops about a dozen degrees as the paltry amount of water on the floor is quickly turned into a blanket of magical ice.
Problem #1: The floor is wet, Envy's still wearing skates. Problem solved: Envy quickly kicks off the skates and dips his feet into the water.
Problem #2: How to get across a wet floor when you have no control over your footspeed. The shapeshifter puts a hand to his chin as he ponders a solution...
That's when Problem #3 hits: How to move when some dumb magical kid freezes your feet in ice. "W-W-What!?"
Buttercup continues helping encourage people to run away by making them think EVIL is afoot. This lasts right up until the WATER hits. And it is in short order frozen over. Hmmm. The chaos is serious, and Buttercup is woefully underprepared for it, so she just hovers a lot lower and shouts, "What the heck is going on here!? And why did you just turn the skater bowl into a skating /rink/?" Headscratch. Powerpuff confoozed!
"Oh, hi!" Shinji says, because he is a polite young man. He waves at Sakura, and even at the weird monster things-he's spent a few days in the Hub, and slowly gotten used to the Weird. Sure, he's dripping wet, but that's no reason to be-oh snap superfast fuzzy thing. "Aaah!" Shinji shouts, panicking as he swipes his arms wildly, desperately trying to remember his grappling skills from Eva training.
To his amazement, he feels something small, fuzzy, and shuddering like Pen Pen after a chocolate martini. "I...I caught it?" Shinji blinks, seemingly shocked that he has, completly by accadent, done something right. He smiles his little 'My lips hurt when I do this!' smile, looking down at the shuddering Clow Spirit. "I...I caught it!"
FREEZE.
Shinji blinks, as everything turns to ice. And then he feels it. "Oh no w-w-woaaaaaah!" Shinji yels as he kicks his feet, trying not to slip. This motion is all The Dash needs-Shinji Ikari blinks, almost comicly, as his hold on the card is broken open like a cheap zoo peanut at a monster truck ralley, and Ikari the Younger literarly shoots around the frozen floor of the rollerskate rink, his slipping being increased to some kind of crazy NEO slip.
"...Uwah..." Sakura shivers as the room suddenly gets a lot colder, and the big puddle of water is frozen over with a thick, sheer sheet of ice. Her skates are left half-buried in the ice, which is why it's fortunate that she's able to pull out of those skates and make her way onto the ice in...her socks.
This is quite slippery, and it's only a moment before she just goes careening onto her bottom, muttering. "Owowow...-Li, look!"
The little green creature breaks free of Shinji's grasp, zipping around on the ice as it finds that its paws no longer go where it wants them to go! It paws about, spinning helplessly, squeaking and puffing up in anger until it finally zooms, at full-speed, into the corner of the rink.
And falls over, stunned.
Sakura knows her cue when she sees it, and pushes off the edge of the rink to glide, on her socks, over the ice to where the little creature lies dizzified. She raises up her staff, speaking out a chant as another magic circle appears.
"Return to your true form, CLOW CARD!"
There's a bright green swirl, and the sense of something being sucked inside of something else, as the creature transforms into a burst of green magical energy and then into a card depicting the creature, with the words "THE DASH" written in English on the bottom. It floats to Li, while Sakura sighs and shivers again.
"Wawawaaaaaagh!" Balrog is knocked over by Ichigo's punch. The water causes him to slide back quite a bit, eventually hitting the wall. Then, the water freezes. Balrog is now stuck in the ice, unable to move. He flaps his flipper wildly for a bit, trying to escape, with no luck. Eventually he falls back on his motto: "Missiles solve everything." There is a faint whirring as the panel on his back (now facing downward) opens. Then, Balrog is rocketed out of the ice by the explosion caused by ten missiles being launched straight into the ground.
Balrog misses Balrog with his Missiles are Dangerous attack.
Shinji Ikari has reconnected.
Bloo just misses being caught by the freeze.
"Coco," He snaps his fingers.
"Coco, coco?"
"I need ice skates so I don't slip," Bloo explains.
"Coco Coco, Coco coco coco!" Coco huffs.
"No, I'm not taking advantage of you," Bloo rolls his eyes, "I just can't help the friend in need without ice skates. It's very important."
"Coco...." Coco mumbles before she sets her butt on the ground, pops up leaivng a large plastic egg behind, and then steps away. They open up to reveal brand new ice skates (Bloo sized).
Bloo hops into them and hops over to Shinji.
"Hey there, pretty crazy day isn't it, what with the magical girl stuff. I see that sort of thing on TV sometime, but it just isn't as fun when you can see it on the news too, you know?" He examines his fingers, "What's your name there, buddy?"
Okay, now this is just getting out of hand, and not in a good way. As Ichigo starts yelling at the toaster-oven, the Quiz glances in his direction--and the sight of the mess sets off alarm bells. Her eyes narrow behind her mask. There is a blur of motion, made worse by the Dash, and the Quiz is suddenly hovering in the air behind Ichigo, arms crossed across her chest. She looks at him, at Balrog, and at the floor near the two. "/Dirty/," she spits. She seems to be focusing on Ichigo, now. The Quiz raises her hands to shoulder-height, looming over the teenager while being careful not to touch him. She is starting to glow, faintly.
"AGH!" bellows Ichigo as Balrog /blasts free/ of the ice with /missiles/. He tries to run, but only succeeds in turning halfway, feet locked in the ice, and falling flat on his face.
This hurts more than can ever be known.
Ichigo Kurosaki hits Ichigo Kurosaki with his Oh God My Spleen attack.
Envy sighs with a shiver and cracks his feet out of the ice with little effort. He can regenerate from frostbite, but he's starting to wonder if they'll revoke his archvillain's license for antics like this. Caught unawares yet again, oi. "And all this chaos for what!?"
So the little girl in the pigtails can put the green fuzzy thing back into a card. "Now we're getting somewhere," the shapeshifter muses. Forming a pair of ice skates and a cheerful smile, he slides over to Sakura and Li effortlessly. "Oi, hi there! What's going on?"
There is a pause in Buttercup's yelling questioning as the Quiz begins...glowing. And hisses something that sounds like something a SUPERVILLAIN would say! Well, there's only one way to deal with that. Completely ignoring Envy, Buttercup zips over to the Quiz, and floats there imperiously, despite being three feet tall. "What do you think you're doing!?" she demands, in the dangerous tones of someone who likes to hit things and hasn't been able to do so for several hours.
The ice and water begin to disappear almost immediately as Li dismisses their effects, touching down lightly on the floor of the rink. With a shit-eating grin on his face, Li reaches up and waits as the Clow card drifts over toward him.....and then snatches it out of the air, glancing at it.
"Four," he says quietly....and then gets blindsided by charging girl.
"Way to go, Syaoran!"
*GLOMP*
"Waugh!" Li drops to the ground, keeping his sword stuck out to one side as Meiling nuzzles his shirt. "Are you inSANE?" he says. "You could have im....ulp." Li regards Meiling's shining eyes with unbridled terror, thankfully broken off by Envy's question. "Huh?" he says expressively.
The Quiz slowly turns in mid-air, still glowing ominously--the frozen, vomit-covered Death God is free, for the moment. "/Cleaning/," she says, disgust still evident in her voice.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch out!!!!" Balrog flies through the air, flapping wildly. He can normally fly, but the dizziness and general confusion has thrown him off. It looks like the gods of Irony have taken a special interest in Balrog tonight. His trajectory has sent him fly straight into the gathering of Ichigo, The Quiz, and Buttercup.
"Um." Shinji's first instinct is to look for whoever else the strange little blue blob on ice skates is talking to. He takes a moment to give a glare of utmost loathing and righteous indignation to Li as they pass by the angry little wizard-Shinji's glare sort of like being hit in the face by a kitten-and continues to look for whoever this guy might be talking to as he spins forward.
Finally, Shinji realises, he must be selling something. Perfectly reasonable reason to talk to him! "Um...Shinji?" Young Ikari manages-its a little tough to speak, even as he's skidding to a stop what with the lack of Stuff going on.
Sakura sighs, making her wet-sock way back to Li. Another card that /he/ got instead, what with his "clever ideas" and "having the right power ala Megaman" and all. "Well," she insists as she nears the Happy...Couple? "I'm gonna try a lot harder, and I'll get the next one! You'll see! Still, at least it was sealed..."
Oh, an Envy. "Hooee? Is something up?" She doesn't notice any kind of Shinji-Glare, or maybe she's just blissfully glareproof.
The ice melts, and along with it goes Envy's skates as he goes back to barefoot ankle-wrapping. Just in time to step back and out of Meiling's way. The floor's still pretty gosh darn cold though. Brrr! "J-Just... curious about that little green fuzzy thing and whatever it was you put it into," he says, turning his androgynous but completely cheerful smile towards Li. "That was some pretty neat magic you pulled off too. I've never seen anything like that back home or in Karakura. Speaking of which, I think we might want to go somewhere else before Kurosaki takes the roof down on top of all of us..."
Bloo gives Shinji a reassuring, expert pat on the pants leg. "Nice to meet you, Shinji. I'm Bloo. I'm an Imaginary Friend." A pause, "No, not yours, but let's just say I have experience with these matters. I can tell you're feeling pretty down today, what with getting the ground frozen underneath your feet and the expression on your face, you look miserable. But luckily for you, I have just the thing that will cheer you up!"
"Coco!" Bloo calls out, "I need a piano." Coco sighs, naturally, sits down and pops out a Bloo sized piano complete with stool. Bloo sits on it and starts hitting a horrible cacophony of entirely unrelated notes.
TONG TONG TONG TONG!
"Er, Bloo," Wilt offers, sliding over, "Here, how about you talk to him, and I'll do the background music."
"What? I'm a wonderful musician!" Bloo protests.
"Er..." Wilt stammers.
"Well, I'm a better singer, I understand Wilt. You want me to -truly- shine. Very well, play the mediocre instrument!"
Coco glares as Bloo hops off the seat as Wilt rolls his fingers against the piano expertly, despite having to hunch over and only having one hand.
"Right now you are down and out, and feeling really crummy." Bloo sings sympathetically.
Wilt smiles at Bloo, he seems to be understanding! Coco cocos in surprise!
"And when I see how sad you are... It sort of makes me... Chummy!"
Coco sighs aggravatedly and says, 'Coooocooooo'.
The ice melts, and Ichigo falls the rest of the way to the floor, splooshing in the water in a pretzel-like heap. Then he starts swearing. Loudly.
He's not quite hopping mad, but he flings himself to his feet, covered in box-vomit and water and wordlessly yells at pretty much everything. It's at this point he notices Rukia's gone and he quiets his angry. "Oi, Rukia! Where'd you go? Rukia?" It's like this that he sloshes out of one of the still open fire exits, calling for his Not Really Girlfriend.
"This is my normal expression..." Shinji mutters Bloowards, idly wondering why Sakura's just letting that weird hat kid /take/ the card she sealed up. Maybe its a girl thing? He wants to go help his faction-mate out, but he's sort of crashed into a wall and been trapped by piano-weilding imaginary friends. He's about to say 'excuse me', when what Bloo is singing hits him.
"...C-chummy?!" Shinji Ikari sputters, a put-out apon look on his face.
Buttercup hover. Hover. WHACK.
Buttercup is almost, ALMOST, bowled over by Balrog. Except, being a Powerpuff, she instead grabs the giant box and piledrives him, then returns to hovering ominously over the Quiz.
"Cleaning?" she says, cocking her head to the side. She either hasn't noticed Ichigo or is completely misconstruing what the Quiz is talking about. "Well...cool!" Smile! "Powerpuffs also do cleaning!"
And then she zooms forward and tries to knock the Quiz clear across the room with a punch as strong as a wrecking ball. "Cleaning CLOCKS!"
Buttercup gets a glancing blow on Balrog with her SMASH attack.
"Sorry, Shinji, it's our nature! Nothing I can do! It's... Schadenfreude! Making me feel glad that I'm not -you-!" He jabs an arm stub in Shinji's direction cheerfully. He seems to be having a wonderful time!
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco..." Coco speaks wisely.
"Broadway musicals solve everything, they have to or people won't by tickets because they don't want to be depressed." Bloo explains to Coco as Wilt plays.
For the record, the Quiz was going to elaborate on that statement--that glowy aura there is a bit of showoff for the Power of Ultimate Stain Remover, and she was just going to clean the robot puke off poor Ichigo.
Unfortunately for her, she's struck by said robot before she can open her mouth.
The Quiz takes the hit hard; she's knocked backwards in the air, and sent reeling. This means that Buttercup's own attack smacks into her that much harder. The hazard-suited supervillain goes flying right into the far wall, striking it at high velocity. It takes her a moment to pick herself up, and when she does, bits of paint and plaster come with her. There is a vaguely Quiz-shaped imprint in said wall, as well.
Oh, it is so on.
Buttercup will have roughly five seconds to notice the water beneath her bubbling in an ominous fashion. A fin breaks the surface, followed moments later by a pair of slavering jaws--an enormous shark is now lunging at Buttercup. Yes, the water is not that deep. No, you don't want to know how that shark got there. But it's there, caring not for logic or common sense.
Meiling leans in toward Li, speaking quietly to her affianced. "Who is this guy? he seems kind of weird?"
"I don't know exactly," Li replies. "I've seen him before. I think he's a friend of hers."
Meiling hmmphs and nods. "I see. Well," she says, standing up (and pulling Li after her). "That does sound like a good idea, ojii-san, but Syaoran has to take me home. I think I'm catching a cold fromt he...ah...ah..." Meiling leans forward and gives a barely-audible, high-pitched 'tssh.'
Syaoran tries not to groan. Ugh, he's going to be playing 'Syaoran, honey, can you bring me...' for the next three days if she gets sick. or, more specifically, Wei will. This is why the Li residence has a chain of command.
"As you wish," he acquiesces, nodding respectfully to Envy.....who gets a look. This one feels weird to his senses. "Oy, you," he calls out to Sakura. "Are you and Daidouji-san going to be all right getting home?"
"Hoee? Oh," Sakura insists, "we'll be fine! This person is, um..." She looks Envy over. "Kind of familiar! Sorry, sir, not to be rude. Thanks for complimenting our magic, but we really can't talk about it too much with strangers!" She gives a gracious bow. "Besides, there aer lots of places that have magic. I heard the Emerald City even has a big wizard who can do anything!"
Is she trying to deflect attention? Maybe, a little! But it can't hurt to try.
"Um...oy, poor Mr. Strawberry. He had a rough time because of the card. Maybe I'll send him a note later. Oh, bye, Li! Bye, Meiling!"
Shinji Ikari is trying to get up, really, he knows he's on duty and everything, but this little blue guy is really good at giving Shinji a case of the...well, Shinjis. Envy is not noticed as a known criminal for reasons best left to the imagination. "That's not very nice..." Young Ikari mutters, trying to stand back up.
He blinks as a shark attacks Buttercup, and wonders if he should've brought his Eva.
More secrets. "Ah, I understand," Envy nods knowingly. There are always other venues to find out what he wants to know, you see. "Well then, safe travels and... ooh, a fray!" The androgyny's eyes light up at the sight of Buttercup and the Quiz taking each other on, and he quickly leaves the kids and their cards behind to bound over ot the DJ's booth. "This needs a soundtrack..."
"I didn't say it was nice," Bloo explains to Shinji, moving to cut him off by standing in his way. "But everybody does it! You ever clap when a supervillain falls, breaking his plot devices? And ain't it fun to watch jedi masters succumb to their vices? And don't you feel all warm and cozy, watching that guy fall and get drenched? That's Schadenfreude! People taking pleasure in your pain!"
Wilt says, "Er, Bloo, I think there is a supervillain fight -here-."
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco."
"Magic shark summoning abilities?" Wilt eyes The Quiz, "Isn't that a little silly?"
Balrog crashes into the ground (after hitting a few obstacles) and slides through the water into yet another wall... upside down. The crash on top of the general chaos of the night is enough is enough to knock him out cold, to awaken in the morning, when everyone has left, hopefully with no pranks done to him.
"Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?" Shinji says, dully, hoping that by humoring the evil little blue thing, he can get away without it trying to eat him. Also, its this, or the lady that can summon sharks. Shinji Ikari may have a heroic streak, but he knows he cannot fight sharks when not in his giant robot. Instead, he chooses to look apologeticly at Sakura, because he is good at this, and then turns back to Bloo.
"What's that? Some kinda..." Shinji pauses, whicing as he remembers just what happened the last time someone mentioned the word 'Nazi' in the Katsuragi Household. Poor Kensuke couldn't walk for a week! "...non-nationalist fascist word?"
Actually, Sakura just has a poor memory, and Envy's such a shapeshifter that it's hard for her to identify him right away. But she doesn't like revealing her secrets to non-IPA strangers, when and if at all possible. "I guess safe travels to you, too...hoee? Is that Buttercup?" She cups her hands, calling out to the flying superheroines.
"Buttercup! Why are you fighting the Secretary of...America?"
"Yup!" Bloo says, putting on a Hitler mustache and then a pair of dracula teeth. He has never had to deal with the Certain People. "It's...uh...It's...." He looks over to Wilt uncertainly.
Wilt shrugs his shoulders. He doesn't know German.
Coco however jumps in, "Coco! Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco!"
"It's German for Happiness at the Misfortune of others!" Bloo smiles fangedly.
Bloo adds, "I'm fluent in German," to Shinji, breaking the rhythm a little but it's a dialogue part anyway.
Buttercup is EATEN BY A SHARK. However, this does not last long, because after a moment she explodes out of its mouth, whips around to the tail, and...slaps The Quiz with it.
Turning back to the others, she says, "She was gonna do evil things to the berry guy! I had to stop her or she would turn him into a bunny or something!"
Shinji Ikari blinks. "Happiness at the Misfortune of others?" Shinji scratches his head, trying to remember the last few times the only German he knows seemed really happy.
"...that is German." Shinji agrees, nodding. He has this stupidly fond little grin on his face, too. Filtering through his mental list of Asuka's triumphs, he snaps his fingers, and sings. Why?
MAYBE THE MUSIC IS JUST IN HIS SOUL, DAD, OKAY?! MAYBE ITS JUST IN HIS SOUL!
Anyway, "...like, watching a vegiterian being told she just ate chicken?" Shinji asks.
Meanwhile, Envy is discovering the joy of 8-track. "How the @#$* do you get this stupid @#$* to work!?"
The Quiz is very nearly fish-slapped. Fortunately for her, the Dash has worn off, and a quick burst of Super-Speed puts her out of range of the shark. Poor shark. She eyes Buttercup again, not buying the excuse--it's /puke/, people, you expect her to act rationally when puke is involved?
At any rate, the Quiz clasps her hands in front of her, almost like she's getting ready to throw an invisible baseball. There is another soft glowy effect, and when she spreads her hands, a little sparkly star of sorts emerges from within. It floats gently in Buttercup's direction, taking advantage of the fact that she's distracted--and if it gets there, it will bob up and down in the air.
And then it will explode violently, possibly with a BANG screen panel akin to the old Adam West Batman.
Sakura still isn't sure why the Secretary of America was going to turn Mr. Strawberry into a bunny, but she takes Buttercup's word for it and watches for the moment. Tomoyo films.
Bloo claps his stubs together, laughing like a crazed maniacal blue hyena. "Or watching someone's head get stucked by thugs inside the trashbin!"
He doesn't seem to use the original lyrics when they are not appropriate for people under the age of 7.
Wilt says, "Er, what's it doing now?"
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco coco coco..."
"I don't think she's throwing an invisible explosion, the explosion is really visible, it has a panel and everything."
"Cocoooo..."
"Oh, I see! Wow, that's pretty clever!"
Shinji Ikari has never seen Avenue Q. Its just a concidence that a lot of the things he's thinking of in his attempts to humor Bloo are, in fact, the lyrics to the song. Really.
"Um...being on an elevator, when somebody shouts 'Hold the door!'" Heh heh, Kaji.
Distracted powerpuffs are at minus Lots to dodge. Buttercup turns her head back around to regard Quiz just as the blast goes off, and Buttercup goes FLYING, rocketing back through the rear wall of the rink and into the alley outside.
Silence descends.
The Quiz watches as Buttercup is blown through a wall. She's still hovering in mid-air, and after a second or two, she turns to face Sakura and her obsessive camerawoman. She gives them a very intent look, and then says: "His shirt was /dirty/." Again, total disgust when she says the D-word."
Suddenly...
DISCO STAR WARS!
Envy pumps a fist. "Got it!"
The lights go on, the spotlights start to swing, and the disco ball is lit up...
... and then the lilting sounds of Mako die in a horrid mass of molten tape. Envy growls and runs a knife through the 8-track player. "No wonder everybody switched to CDs."
"...Aaah! Buttercup!" Not really paying a lot of attention to The poor Quiz, Sakura dashes through the doors and outside, to try to find out where her friend whizzed off. Meanwhile, Tomoyo snaps, and a team of women in black suits keep filming inside the disco while she herself follows young Sakura.
Several moments pass. Buttercup is lying in a cratered brick wall. "aaaaagh," she declares, sitting up and rubbing her noggin. "I got hit with a sound effect balloon...never knew they hurt so much!"
"No!" Bloo says, remembering the Duchess, "Darn it Duchess, that's what stairs are for, AhaHAhaHAhAhahaha!!"
Wilt worries about Bloo sometimes.
Shinji Ikari thinks. And thinks. And thinks. And starts to sneak off, while the blue one is laughing insanely. Wait, his go, um...oh, right, Kanji! "How about...straight A students getting Bs!" There, that should distract him, Shinji decides, refusing to enjoy this for his own health, if nothing else.
"Hoeee~. I didn't know the Secretary was so mean," Sakura admits as she offers a hand to try to help poor Buttercup out. "Do you want to just go and have some sherbet with Tomoyo and me? We caught the card, and the place is kind of a mess..."
Once it becomes apparent that Buttercup is /not/ going to burst through the wall she just got put through, the Quiz floats over to the nearest patch of dry ground and settles down. She takes one last glance over her shoulder before calmly walking out of the flooded, smashed-up roller rink. She has important Secretary of America business to attend to, after all.
Envy sneaks out a back way. "What a total waste of a night. Might be interesting to find out more about those kids' cards though..."
"Bwahaahahahahahaha!" A pause from Bloo, "Hey, where is he going?"
"I don't think broadway helped." Wilt admits to Bloo.
"B...but Broadway always helps. For every single problem someone has, broadway has already thought of it and developed a musical just to deal with it! It's ingenious!"
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco."
"No I don't think he wants coco, Coco."
"Coco coco!"
"Oh, you mean -coocoo-. Well he's certainly weird if a broadway show doesn't cheer him up, it always works with Mac. He rolls his eyes at me and sometimes slams doors in my face when I sing really loudly."
"Er, Bloo..." Wilt raises a finger.
Shinji Ikari ran away.
Don't tell me /you/ wouldn't, either, suckers.
Ikari the Younger sighs, rolling his eyes as he hears the Imaginary Friends finishing up. "Well, that could've gone better." Shinji mutters, preversly wishing he had finished the song. He decides he'll blame Misato for that. "/Imaginary friends/ think I'm weird. ...welp, at least I've still got laundry." Shinji nods to himself, heading home. Laundry would never betray him!
Later that evening at Foster's.
"So Basketcase, I really don't know what the deal with that crazy kid is." Bloo tells his fellow imaginary friend.
The mad basket of laundry replies, "MAYBE HE IS ON THE RUN FROM THE MAN, MAN! HE IS TOTALLY FIGHTING FOR LA RESISTANCE!"
"But he didn't like broadway musicals!" Bloo complains.
"Woah," Basketcase replies, "That -is- weird."
Armstrong sighs. Not only is he skating at insane speeds, but going headfirst into the wall completely flattened his afro. Since everybody else has left or is leaving and the kids remaining are doing funky transformations, obviously its time to reveal his secret too. A white flash of alchemy overtakes the Disco King from foot to head, leaving in its place the wild-haired and scantily-clad cute form of everyone's favorite shapeshifting homunculus. "Not quite as flashy as that kid's sword trick, but it gets the job done," Envy notes with a satisfied smile. "Now... to figure out just what the hell's going on."
Shinji Ikari, just needed to get the hell out of the apartment. His roomates were either avoiding him or grousing at him, Ayanami told him she felt safer fighting with her red-headed rival than him-which is fair enough, since a mad scientist managed to use a ray gun to send Young Ikari and his giant robot on a rampage where he almost killed the stoic young woman-, and his old man hadn't even come by to tell him how much of a screwup he is.
When you're dissapointed that your evil genius father hasn't yelled at you, Shinji reasons, its time to get outside and do something becides mope. After writing a quick, 'I'm not running away, really, I swear, just going out!' note and feeding Pen-Pen, Shinji Ikari decided to let fate be his guide!
"Y'know, fate, one of these days you're going to tell me what it is I did to you." Shinji mutters, looking at the rapidly emptying roller rink. His instincts say that this is a good time to turn around and go home, but, Shinji considers his words last night. He's a member of the IPA-a space cop! He can do things becides hit giant monsters with his tempermental giant purple robot, now! Heck, its part of his job! "Becides, its a roller rink. What could happen?" Shinji convinces himself, using his skills as a social recluse to weave through the crowd, trying to get inside the building.
Nervously, Ikari the Younger pulls out his IPA badge, holding it forward like a talisman of power. "Um, h-hello? I'm...Shinji Ikari, with the I-IPA, and I'm h-here to help!" Real commanding, Shinji, the Shinji-Within-Shinji quips. As for the actual Shinji, he wonders if it'd be worth trying to flip off the voices in his head.
Li Syaoran scans the arena quickly. "No idea where it is," he says, shaking his head. "but even if we can see it, that's not gonna matter. We can't catch the damn thing unless we stop it fir..." Li brightens. "Got it!"
The young man raises a slim piece of paper up into the air. "Suiryuu!" he shouts, driving his swordpoint up. "SHOURAI!"
Water immediately begins issuing from the slip of paper, spouts of it that spiral in a rapid circle, quickly beginning to douse the floor of the arena (and probably most of its inhabitants) with rather quite a bit of water.
.....that isn't a white sundress, is it?
Oh my.
"Hey kid, what are you doing? You're supposed to be moving out, not in!"
Rukia blinks. "What, but--my friend is--" And then, she's fireman-carried onto the bigger man's shoulder. "HEY! What are you DOING?!"
"This is for your own good!"
"Let go, I don't need to be rescued! Hey...HEY!" And she is almost kidnapped by the Good Samaritan. It would've been easier, if she hadn't been struggling. And then...water.
SPLASH!
Rukia's dark hair plasters over her, the white sundress clinging onto her like wet tissue paper.
Li Syaoran stuns Ichigo Kurosaki with his BOOBS action.
Balrog slows down from The Quiz's 'Power of Inertial Dampening'. He stumbles for a bit dizzily before spotting Ichigo. "Huzzah! What's your name? I hit the wall, and then I spun, and then some green thing hit me, and then I was going faster and faster and faster and I think I hit someone. Did I hit- urk" Balrog stops stumbling, and closes his mouth. He's getting that nauseous look. He stumbles forward a bit towards Ichigo and then... "HURK!"
Balrog successfully targets Ichigo Kurosaki with his Eeeeeeeeeeew action.
Ichigo Kurosaki is no longer stunned.
"Hi, Mr...person from the IPA! I'm also from the IPA! My name is Sakura! Please help us stop the fuzzy speedy thing!" If it isn't obvious, Sakura's shouting while she veers around, trying to catch up with The Dash. And indeed, the water does make it more slippery to get around, especially for the poor creature that starts screeching and...spinning. Yes, now even The Dash is spinning out of control, right through the wall of the rink and towards poor Mr. Ikari.
Meanwhile, Sakura searches through her own repretoire of cards. There has to be something useful in that deck! The Sword? No, that won't help. The Big? No. The Little? Shrinking it will just make it harder to catch! The Mist? Oh, who is she kidding?
Wilt, a tall imaginary friend, is walking alongside a bird that is part airplane and a small Blue creature that seems pretty small, if sly and sexy. Because it's Blooegard Q. Kazoo and he is a professional imaginary friend, and also kind of a jerk.
"Hey, Bloo! I think that kid over there is looking pretty down in the dumps! It looks like he could use a friend!" Wilt says, "You think I should try it?"
"Hmm.... I don't know, Wilt." Bloo says, eyeing Shinji as he steps into the ice rink, "He looks like a tough case. I just don't know if you're up to it, buddy!"
"Er, well... okay, Bloo, but then who? Maybe we could bring him over to Foster's."
"No need, no need. Just watch... The Master." Bloo says, dusting himself off and spraying some sort of cologne into his mouth, "If you follow my footsteps, Wilt, one day you too will be as popular as me." And so saying, Bloo pushes the door open and heads for the IPA kid.
Meanwhile Coco and Wilt shrug their shoulders at each other. They don't seem to be troubled by the various levels of chaos yet.
The Quiz rubs at her aching head with a hand, quickly using Super Healing to prevent the inevitable bruise. She then turns to glare daggers at Buttercup, before realizing that the fuzzy green thing seems to be responsible for this mayhem--and the kids are trying to do something to it. Huh.
The Quiz teleports this time, suddenly disappearing and reappearing a safe distance away from Shinji; fortunately for Balrog, she hasn't noticed his little reaction to being spun around.
"Oh man, /GROSS/!" shouts Ichigo as he is vomited on. DISGUSTING! "That is foul! What the hell is wrong with you, you damn filing cabinet?" He shakes off what he can, but it's still there. On his favorite shirt. On his pants. On his shoes. The orange haired teen shakes with repressed fury coupled with his own urge to vomit all over the filing cabinet. He swallows, shoving that urge down before he swings a fist at a flat plane of Balrog, even as the water washes all over the place, soaking him. Now he was puke-y /and/ wet. GREAT.
Ichigo Kurosaki hits Balrog with his ME SO ANGRY jab.
Li Syaoran lets the elemental seal go, the writing on it dissolving away as the magic it contains is used up. Li himself is strangely dry, although the sloshing around his feet means his pants are going to be dripping wet fairly soon. "Right," he says, reaching his sword down and slowing to a halt. With two quick snaps of his blade, he cuts the laces of his roller skates, freeing his feet.
Li winces a little as he ends up ankle-deep in water. Ew, wet socks.
He crouches low, then, and leaps high into the air with a shout, trailing water droplets as he turns a flip over the arena, drawing a large card from his pocket with his free hand, then sending it spinning into the air. Meiling pumps her first excitedly as Li reverses his sword and drives the point into the card.
"THE FREEZE!"
A large white fishlike creature with red eyes soars out of the card and dives down toward the water-soaked arena below, passing into the watr, and then the floor. With a crackling sound, the temperature drops about a dozen degrees as the paltry amount of water on the floor is quickly turned into a blanket of magical ice.
Problem #1: The floor is wet, Envy's still wearing skates. Problem solved: Envy quickly kicks off the skates and dips his feet into the water.
Problem #2: How to get across a wet floor when you have no control over your footspeed. The shapeshifter puts a hand to his chin as he ponders a solution...
That's when Problem #3 hits: How to move when some dumb magical kid freezes your feet in ice. "W-W-What!?"
Buttercup continues helping encourage people to run away by making them think EVIL is afoot. This lasts right up until the WATER hits. And it is in short order frozen over. Hmmm. The chaos is serious, and Buttercup is woefully underprepared for it, so she just hovers a lot lower and shouts, "What the heck is going on here!? And why did you just turn the skater bowl into a skating /rink/?" Headscratch. Powerpuff confoozed!
"Oh, hi!" Shinji says, because he is a polite young man. He waves at Sakura, and even at the weird monster things-he's spent a few days in the Hub, and slowly gotten used to the Weird. Sure, he's dripping wet, but that's no reason to be-oh snap superfast fuzzy thing. "Aaah!" Shinji shouts, panicking as he swipes his arms wildly, desperately trying to remember his grappling skills from Eva training.
To his amazement, he feels something small, fuzzy, and shuddering like Pen Pen after a chocolate martini. "I...I caught it?" Shinji blinks, seemingly shocked that he has, completly by accadent, done something right. He smiles his little 'My lips hurt when I do this!' smile, looking down at the shuddering Clow Spirit. "I...I caught it!"
FREEZE.
Shinji blinks, as everything turns to ice. And then he feels it. "Oh no w-w-woaaaaaah!" Shinji yels as he kicks his feet, trying not to slip. This motion is all The Dash needs-Shinji Ikari blinks, almost comicly, as his hold on the card is broken open like a cheap zoo peanut at a monster truck ralley, and Ikari the Younger literarly shoots around the frozen floor of the rollerskate rink, his slipping being increased to some kind of crazy NEO slip.
"...Uwah..." Sakura shivers as the room suddenly gets a lot colder, and the big puddle of water is frozen over with a thick, sheer sheet of ice. Her skates are left half-buried in the ice, which is why it's fortunate that she's able to pull out of those skates and make her way onto the ice in...her socks.
This is quite slippery, and it's only a moment before she just goes careening onto her bottom, muttering. "Owowow...-Li, look!"
The little green creature breaks free of Shinji's grasp, zipping around on the ice as it finds that its paws no longer go where it wants them to go! It paws about, spinning helplessly, squeaking and puffing up in anger until it finally zooms, at full-speed, into the corner of the rink.
And falls over, stunned.
Sakura knows her cue when she sees it, and pushes off the edge of the rink to glide, on her socks, over the ice to where the little creature lies dizzified. She raises up her staff, speaking out a chant as another magic circle appears.
"Return to your true form, CLOW CARD!"
There's a bright green swirl, and the sense of something being sucked inside of something else, as the creature transforms into a burst of green magical energy and then into a card depicting the creature, with the words "THE DASH" written in English on the bottom. It floats to Li, while Sakura sighs and shivers again.
"Wawawaaaaaagh!" Balrog is knocked over by Ichigo's punch. The water causes him to slide back quite a bit, eventually hitting the wall. Then, the water freezes. Balrog is now stuck in the ice, unable to move. He flaps his flipper wildly for a bit, trying to escape, with no luck. Eventually he falls back on his motto: "Missiles solve everything." There is a faint whirring as the panel on his back (now facing downward) opens. Then, Balrog is rocketed out of the ice by the explosion caused by ten missiles being launched straight into the ground.
Balrog misses Balrog with his Missiles are Dangerous attack.
Shinji Ikari has reconnected.
Bloo just misses being caught by the freeze.
"Coco," He snaps his fingers.
"Coco, coco?"
"I need ice skates so I don't slip," Bloo explains.
"Coco Coco, Coco coco coco!" Coco huffs.
"No, I'm not taking advantage of you," Bloo rolls his eyes, "I just can't help the friend in need without ice skates. It's very important."
"Coco...." Coco mumbles before she sets her butt on the ground, pops up leaivng a large plastic egg behind, and then steps away. They open up to reveal brand new ice skates (Bloo sized).
Bloo hops into them and hops over to Shinji.
"Hey there, pretty crazy day isn't it, what with the magical girl stuff. I see that sort of thing on TV sometime, but it just isn't as fun when you can see it on the news too, you know?" He examines his fingers, "What's your name there, buddy?"
Okay, now this is just getting out of hand, and not in a good way. As Ichigo starts yelling at the toaster-oven, the Quiz glances in his direction--and the sight of the mess sets off alarm bells. Her eyes narrow behind her mask. There is a blur of motion, made worse by the Dash, and the Quiz is suddenly hovering in the air behind Ichigo, arms crossed across her chest. She looks at him, at Balrog, and at the floor near the two. "/Dirty/," she spits. She seems to be focusing on Ichigo, now. The Quiz raises her hands to shoulder-height, looming over the teenager while being careful not to touch him. She is starting to glow, faintly.
"AGH!" bellows Ichigo as Balrog /blasts free/ of the ice with /missiles/. He tries to run, but only succeeds in turning halfway, feet locked in the ice, and falling flat on his face.
This hurts more than can ever be known.
Ichigo Kurosaki hits Ichigo Kurosaki with his Oh God My Spleen attack.
Envy sighs with a shiver and cracks his feet out of the ice with little effort. He can regenerate from frostbite, but he's starting to wonder if they'll revoke his archvillain's license for antics like this. Caught unawares yet again, oi. "And all this chaos for what!?"
So the little girl in the pigtails can put the green fuzzy thing back into a card. "Now we're getting somewhere," the shapeshifter muses. Forming a pair of ice skates and a cheerful smile, he slides over to Sakura and Li effortlessly. "Oi, hi there! What's going on?"
There is a pause in Buttercup's yelling questioning as the Quiz begins...glowing. And hisses something that sounds like something a SUPERVILLAIN would say! Well, there's only one way to deal with that. Completely ignoring Envy, Buttercup zips over to the Quiz, and floats there imperiously, despite being three feet tall. "What do you think you're doing!?" she demands, in the dangerous tones of someone who likes to hit things and hasn't been able to do so for several hours.
The ice and water begin to disappear almost immediately as Li dismisses their effects, touching down lightly on the floor of the rink. With a shit-eating grin on his face, Li reaches up and waits as the Clow card drifts over toward him.....and then snatches it out of the air, glancing at it.
"Four," he says quietly....and then gets blindsided by charging girl.
"Way to go, Syaoran!"
*GLOMP*
"Waugh!" Li drops to the ground, keeping his sword stuck out to one side as Meiling nuzzles his shirt. "Are you inSANE?" he says. "You could have im....ulp." Li regards Meiling's shining eyes with unbridled terror, thankfully broken off by Envy's question. "Huh?" he says expressively.
The Quiz slowly turns in mid-air, still glowing ominously--the frozen, vomit-covered Death God is free, for the moment. "/Cleaning/," she says, disgust still evident in her voice.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch out!!!!" Balrog flies through the air, flapping wildly. He can normally fly, but the dizziness and general confusion has thrown him off. It looks like the gods of Irony have taken a special interest in Balrog tonight. His trajectory has sent him fly straight into the gathering of Ichigo, The Quiz, and Buttercup.
"Um." Shinji's first instinct is to look for whoever else the strange little blue blob on ice skates is talking to. He takes a moment to give a glare of utmost loathing and righteous indignation to Li as they pass by the angry little wizard-Shinji's glare sort of like being hit in the face by a kitten-and continues to look for whoever this guy might be talking to as he spins forward.
Finally, Shinji realises, he must be selling something. Perfectly reasonable reason to talk to him! "Um...Shinji?" Young Ikari manages-its a little tough to speak, even as he's skidding to a stop what with the lack of Stuff going on.
Sakura sighs, making her wet-sock way back to Li. Another card that /he/ got instead, what with his "clever ideas" and "having the right power ala Megaman" and all. "Well," she insists as she nears the Happy...Couple? "I'm gonna try a lot harder, and I'll get the next one! You'll see! Still, at least it was sealed..."
Oh, an Envy. "Hooee? Is something up?" She doesn't notice any kind of Shinji-Glare, or maybe she's just blissfully glareproof.
The ice melts, and along with it goes Envy's skates as he goes back to barefoot ankle-wrapping. Just in time to step back and out of Meiling's way. The floor's still pretty gosh darn cold though. Brrr! "J-Just... curious about that little green fuzzy thing and whatever it was you put it into," he says, turning his androgynous but completely cheerful smile towards Li. "That was some pretty neat magic you pulled off too. I've never seen anything like that back home or in Karakura. Speaking of which, I think we might want to go somewhere else before Kurosaki takes the roof down on top of all of us..."
Bloo gives Shinji a reassuring, expert pat on the pants leg. "Nice to meet you, Shinji. I'm Bloo. I'm an Imaginary Friend." A pause, "No, not yours, but let's just say I have experience with these matters. I can tell you're feeling pretty down today, what with getting the ground frozen underneath your feet and the expression on your face, you look miserable. But luckily for you, I have just the thing that will cheer you up!"
"Coco!" Bloo calls out, "I need a piano." Coco sighs, naturally, sits down and pops out a Bloo sized piano complete with stool. Bloo sits on it and starts hitting a horrible cacophony of entirely unrelated notes.
TONG TONG TONG TONG!
"Er, Bloo," Wilt offers, sliding over, "Here, how about you talk to him, and I'll do the background music."
"What? I'm a wonderful musician!" Bloo protests.
"Er..." Wilt stammers.
"Well, I'm a better singer, I understand Wilt. You want me to -truly- shine. Very well, play the mediocre instrument!"
Coco glares as Bloo hops off the seat as Wilt rolls his fingers against the piano expertly, despite having to hunch over and only having one hand.
"Right now you are down and out, and feeling really crummy." Bloo sings sympathetically.
Wilt smiles at Bloo, he seems to be understanding! Coco cocos in surprise!
"And when I see how sad you are... It sort of makes me... Chummy!"
Coco sighs aggravatedly and says, 'Coooocooooo'.
The ice melts, and Ichigo falls the rest of the way to the floor, splooshing in the water in a pretzel-like heap. Then he starts swearing. Loudly.
He's not quite hopping mad, but he flings himself to his feet, covered in box-vomit and water and wordlessly yells at pretty much everything. It's at this point he notices Rukia's gone and he quiets his angry. "Oi, Rukia! Where'd you go? Rukia?" It's like this that he sloshes out of one of the still open fire exits, calling for his Not Really Girlfriend.
"This is my normal expression..." Shinji mutters Bloowards, idly wondering why Sakura's just letting that weird hat kid /take/ the card she sealed up. Maybe its a girl thing? He wants to go help his faction-mate out, but he's sort of crashed into a wall and been trapped by piano-weilding imaginary friends. He's about to say 'excuse me', when what Bloo is singing hits him.
"...C-chummy?!" Shinji Ikari sputters, a put-out apon look on his face.
Buttercup hover. Hover. WHACK.
Buttercup is almost, ALMOST, bowled over by Balrog. Except, being a Powerpuff, she instead grabs the giant box and piledrives him, then returns to hovering ominously over the Quiz.
"Cleaning?" she says, cocking her head to the side. She either hasn't noticed Ichigo or is completely misconstruing what the Quiz is talking about. "Well...cool!" Smile! "Powerpuffs also do cleaning!"
And then she zooms forward and tries to knock the Quiz clear across the room with a punch as strong as a wrecking ball. "Cleaning CLOCKS!"
Buttercup gets a glancing blow on Balrog with her SMASH attack.
"Sorry, Shinji, it's our nature! Nothing I can do! It's... Schadenfreude! Making me feel glad that I'm not -you-!" He jabs an arm stub in Shinji's direction cheerfully. He seems to be having a wonderful time!
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco..." Coco speaks wisely.
"Broadway musicals solve everything, they have to or people won't by tickets because they don't want to be depressed." Bloo explains to Coco as Wilt plays.
For the record, the Quiz was going to elaborate on that statement--that glowy aura there is a bit of showoff for the Power of Ultimate Stain Remover, and she was just going to clean the robot puke off poor Ichigo.
Unfortunately for her, she's struck by said robot before she can open her mouth.
The Quiz takes the hit hard; she's knocked backwards in the air, and sent reeling. This means that Buttercup's own attack smacks into her that much harder. The hazard-suited supervillain goes flying right into the far wall, striking it at high velocity. It takes her a moment to pick herself up, and when she does, bits of paint and plaster come with her. There is a vaguely Quiz-shaped imprint in said wall, as well.
Oh, it is so on.
Buttercup will have roughly five seconds to notice the water beneath her bubbling in an ominous fashion. A fin breaks the surface, followed moments later by a pair of slavering jaws--an enormous shark is now lunging at Buttercup. Yes, the water is not that deep. No, you don't want to know how that shark got there. But it's there, caring not for logic or common sense.
Meiling leans in toward Li, speaking quietly to her affianced. "Who is this guy? he seems kind of weird?"
"I don't know exactly," Li replies. "I've seen him before. I think he's a friend of hers."
Meiling hmmphs and nods. "I see. Well," she says, standing up (and pulling Li after her). "That does sound like a good idea, ojii-san, but Syaoran has to take me home. I think I'm catching a cold fromt he...ah...ah..." Meiling leans forward and gives a barely-audible, high-pitched 'tssh.'
Syaoran tries not to groan. Ugh, he's going to be playing 'Syaoran, honey, can you bring me...' for the next three days if she gets sick. or, more specifically, Wei will. This is why the Li residence has a chain of command.
"As you wish," he acquiesces, nodding respectfully to Envy.....who gets a look. This one feels weird to his senses. "Oy, you," he calls out to Sakura. "Are you and Daidouji-san going to be all right getting home?"
"Hoee? Oh," Sakura insists, "we'll be fine! This person is, um..." She looks Envy over. "Kind of familiar! Sorry, sir, not to be rude. Thanks for complimenting our magic, but we really can't talk about it too much with strangers!" She gives a gracious bow. "Besides, there aer lots of places that have magic. I heard the Emerald City even has a big wizard who can do anything!"
Is she trying to deflect attention? Maybe, a little! But it can't hurt to try.
"Um...oy, poor Mr. Strawberry. He had a rough time because of the card. Maybe I'll send him a note later. Oh, bye, Li! Bye, Meiling!"
Shinji Ikari is trying to get up, really, he knows he's on duty and everything, but this little blue guy is really good at giving Shinji a case of the...well, Shinjis. Envy is not noticed as a known criminal for reasons best left to the imagination. "That's not very nice..." Young Ikari mutters, trying to stand back up.
He blinks as a shark attacks Buttercup, and wonders if he should've brought his Eva.
More secrets. "Ah, I understand," Envy nods knowingly. There are always other venues to find out what he wants to know, you see. "Well then, safe travels and... ooh, a fray!" The androgyny's eyes light up at the sight of Buttercup and the Quiz taking each other on, and he quickly leaves the kids and their cards behind to bound over ot the DJ's booth. "This needs a soundtrack..."
"I didn't say it was nice," Bloo explains to Shinji, moving to cut him off by standing in his way. "But everybody does it! You ever clap when a supervillain falls, breaking his plot devices? And ain't it fun to watch jedi masters succumb to their vices? And don't you feel all warm and cozy, watching that guy fall and get drenched? That's Schadenfreude! People taking pleasure in your pain!"
Wilt says, "Er, Bloo, I think there is a supervillain fight -here-."
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco."
"Magic shark summoning abilities?" Wilt eyes The Quiz, "Isn't that a little silly?"
Balrog crashes into the ground (after hitting a few obstacles) and slides through the water into yet another wall... upside down. The crash on top of the general chaos of the night is enough is enough to knock him out cold, to awaken in the morning, when everyone has left, hopefully with no pranks done to him.
"Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?" Shinji says, dully, hoping that by humoring the evil little blue thing, he can get away without it trying to eat him. Also, its this, or the lady that can summon sharks. Shinji Ikari may have a heroic streak, but he knows he cannot fight sharks when not in his giant robot. Instead, he chooses to look apologeticly at Sakura, because he is good at this, and then turns back to Bloo.
"What's that? Some kinda..." Shinji pauses, whicing as he remembers just what happened the last time someone mentioned the word 'Nazi' in the Katsuragi Household. Poor Kensuke couldn't walk for a week! "...non-nationalist fascist word?"
Actually, Sakura just has a poor memory, and Envy's such a shapeshifter that it's hard for her to identify him right away. But she doesn't like revealing her secrets to non-IPA strangers, when and if at all possible. "I guess safe travels to you, too...hoee? Is that Buttercup?" She cups her hands, calling out to the flying superheroines.
"Buttercup! Why are you fighting the Secretary of...America?"
"Yup!" Bloo says, putting on a Hitler mustache and then a pair of dracula teeth. He has never had to deal with the Certain People. "It's...uh...It's...." He looks over to Wilt uncertainly.
Wilt shrugs his shoulders. He doesn't know German.
Coco however jumps in, "Coco! Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco!"
"It's German for Happiness at the Misfortune of others!" Bloo smiles fangedly.
Bloo adds, "I'm fluent in German," to Shinji, breaking the rhythm a little but it's a dialogue part anyway.
Buttercup is EATEN BY A SHARK. However, this does not last long, because after a moment she explodes out of its mouth, whips around to the tail, and...slaps The Quiz with it.
Turning back to the others, she says, "She was gonna do evil things to the berry guy! I had to stop her or she would turn him into a bunny or something!"
Shinji Ikari blinks. "Happiness at the Misfortune of others?" Shinji scratches his head, trying to remember the last few times the only German he knows seemed really happy.
"...that is German." Shinji agrees, nodding. He has this stupidly fond little grin on his face, too. Filtering through his mental list of Asuka's triumphs, he snaps his fingers, and sings. Why?
MAYBE THE MUSIC IS JUST IN HIS SOUL, DAD, OKAY?! MAYBE ITS JUST IN HIS SOUL!
Anyway, "...like, watching a vegiterian being told she just ate chicken?" Shinji asks.
Meanwhile, Envy is discovering the joy of 8-track. "How the @#$* do you get this stupid @#$* to work!?"
The Quiz is very nearly fish-slapped. Fortunately for her, the Dash has worn off, and a quick burst of Super-Speed puts her out of range of the shark. Poor shark. She eyes Buttercup again, not buying the excuse--it's /puke/, people, you expect her to act rationally when puke is involved?
At any rate, the Quiz clasps her hands in front of her, almost like she's getting ready to throw an invisible baseball. There is another soft glowy effect, and when she spreads her hands, a little sparkly star of sorts emerges from within. It floats gently in Buttercup's direction, taking advantage of the fact that she's distracted--and if it gets there, it will bob up and down in the air.
And then it will explode violently, possibly with a BANG screen panel akin to the old Adam West Batman.
Sakura still isn't sure why the Secretary of America was going to turn Mr. Strawberry into a bunny, but she takes Buttercup's word for it and watches for the moment. Tomoyo films.
Bloo claps his stubs together, laughing like a crazed maniacal blue hyena. "Or watching someone's head get stucked by thugs inside the trashbin!"
He doesn't seem to use the original lyrics when they are not appropriate for people under the age of 7.
Wilt says, "Er, what's it doing now?"
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco coco coco coco..."
"I don't think she's throwing an invisible explosion, the explosion is really visible, it has a panel and everything."
"Cocoooo..."
"Oh, I see! Wow, that's pretty clever!"
Shinji Ikari has never seen Avenue Q. Its just a concidence that a lot of the things he's thinking of in his attempts to humor Bloo are, in fact, the lyrics to the song. Really.
"Um...being on an elevator, when somebody shouts 'Hold the door!'" Heh heh, Kaji.
Distracted powerpuffs are at minus Lots to dodge. Buttercup turns her head back around to regard Quiz just as the blast goes off, and Buttercup goes FLYING, rocketing back through the rear wall of the rink and into the alley outside.
Silence descends.
The Quiz watches as Buttercup is blown through a wall. She's still hovering in mid-air, and after a second or two, she turns to face Sakura and her obsessive camerawoman. She gives them a very intent look, and then says: "His shirt was /dirty/." Again, total disgust when she says the D-word."
Suddenly...
DISCO STAR WARS!
Envy pumps a fist. "Got it!"
The lights go on, the spotlights start to swing, and the disco ball is lit up...
... and then the lilting sounds of Mako die in a horrid mass of molten tape. Envy growls and runs a knife through the 8-track player. "No wonder everybody switched to CDs."
"...Aaah! Buttercup!" Not really paying a lot of attention to The poor Quiz, Sakura dashes through the doors and outside, to try to find out where her friend whizzed off. Meanwhile, Tomoyo snaps, and a team of women in black suits keep filming inside the disco while she herself follows young Sakura.
Several moments pass. Buttercup is lying in a cratered brick wall. "aaaaagh," she declares, sitting up and rubbing her noggin. "I got hit with a sound effect balloon...never knew they hurt so much!"
"No!" Bloo says, remembering the Duchess, "Darn it Duchess, that's what stairs are for, AhaHAhaHAhAhahaha!!"
Wilt worries about Bloo sometimes.
Shinji Ikari thinks. And thinks. And thinks. And starts to sneak off, while the blue one is laughing insanely. Wait, his go, um...oh, right, Kanji! "How about...straight A students getting Bs!" There, that should distract him, Shinji decides, refusing to enjoy this for his own health, if nothing else.
"Hoeee~. I didn't know the Secretary was so mean," Sakura admits as she offers a hand to try to help poor Buttercup out. "Do you want to just go and have some sherbet with Tomoyo and me? We caught the card, and the place is kind of a mess..."
Once it becomes apparent that Buttercup is /not/ going to burst through the wall she just got put through, the Quiz floats over to the nearest patch of dry ground and settles down. She takes one last glance over her shoulder before calmly walking out of the flooded, smashed-up roller rink. She has important Secretary of America business to attend to, after all.
Envy sneaks out a back way. "What a total waste of a night. Might be interesting to find out more about those kids' cards though..."
"Bwahaahahahahahaha!" A pause from Bloo, "Hey, where is he going?"
"I don't think broadway helped." Wilt admits to Bloo.
"B...but Broadway always helps. For every single problem someone has, broadway has already thought of it and developed a musical just to deal with it! It's ingenious!"
"Coco coco coco coco coco coco."
"No I don't think he wants coco, Coco."
"Coco coco!"
"Oh, you mean -coocoo-. Well he's certainly weird if a broadway show doesn't cheer him up, it always works with Mac. He rolls his eyes at me and sometimes slams doors in my face when I sing really loudly."
"Er, Bloo..." Wilt raises a finger.
Shinji Ikari ran away.
Don't tell me /you/ wouldn't, either, suckers.
Ikari the Younger sighs, rolling his eyes as he hears the Imaginary Friends finishing up. "Well, that could've gone better." Shinji mutters, preversly wishing he had finished the song. He decides he'll blame Misato for that. "/Imaginary friends/ think I'm weird. ...welp, at least I've still got laundry." Shinji nods to himself, heading home. Laundry would never betray him!
Later that evening at Foster's.
"So Basketcase, I really don't know what the deal with that crazy kid is." Bloo tells his fellow imaginary friend.
The mad basket of laundry replies, "MAYBE HE IS ON THE RUN FROM THE MAN, MAN! HE IS TOTALLY FIGHTING FOR LA RESISTANCE!"
"But he didn't like broadway musicals!" Bloo complains.
"Woah," Basketcase replies, "That -is- weird."