Rude Awakening? [Open]

[cancounttofive]

Characters: Yotsuba Koiwai! Kowai Yotsuba! It's Yotsuba! featuring (much to his chagrin) Nero! Other characters welcome.
Setting/Location: A little inn in district nine 1
Date & Time: Day 0, wake up time!
Warnings: Depends on how Nero reacts to Yotsuba waking him up like that...
Summary: Yotsuba wakes up. Incidentally, so does everyone else,

Comments

[roulettespin]

Weird stuff's always happening to Nero. And sometimes, okay, sure, he doesn't exactly mind it. Kinda cool to save the world. Kinda a pain in the ass, too, but he heals fast these days and he likes kicking ass. Always has. So it's not like he was complaining, or at least, when he was complaining, it's not like he was too pissed off. Had his moments. But he worked it out.

This is weird, but it's unfamiliar weird. Not like, demons to fight and Kyrie to save weird--that's regular weird. And his first instinct, when someone wakes him and there's jumping and shouting and the bed's sahking, is to do what he always does when he's being attacked.

Fight back. Fight better. Stay alive.

Not too much about him feels natural, but this instinct? Everyone knows it. Demon, human, animal, it doesn't matter. Everybody wants to win, right? Nobody wants to die.

"GREEAHHHH!!!!"

Not his finest warcry, but he's tired and confused and there's definitely a gun and he's not paying attention to size, to the tone of the voice, to anything but get it off me and also get the drop on it, get the drop fast. His right arm comes up, and he's looking for the throat, talons and all.

[cancounttofive]

"Daaaaaaaaah!" Yotsuba cried out, falling back. Luckily her quick fall backward as well as her small size seemed to be keeping her out of harm's way for the moment, but it wouldn't for long, not if she could help it! (Unfortunately for Yotsuba, she had little concept of real danger.)

She rolled now to the back of the bed and stood up quick, 'firing' off her water gun in every direction, which probably meant the covers were started to get quite soaked by now.

"Stupid alien! Give back Daddy or I'll make you cry!"

[roulettespin]

"The hell--"

What is this bullshit comes to mind, but his instincts are good enough that when he hears a kid talking, he stops fighting. Especially 'cause nothing's gone for his throat yet, and groggy as he is, as fast as his heart's pounding, he can't sense it--that thing that dogs his every freakin' move. Danger.

"Huh?"

So what the hell tried to kill him, then? And who the hell is this green haired kid? "What're you talking about?"

[cancounttofive]

Yotsuba paused in her assault. She was almost out of water anyway, and somehow she had ended up wetter than her opponent. Hah! It must have used some kind of alien power to send her water attacks back at her! Was her gun ineffective?! (Of course, she would never blame her own frantic shooting for this.)

"You're an alien," Yotsuba began by way of explanation, "And you took Daddy. So give him back. Or you'll cry!" She pointed her water gun at him again. Ah, wait, didn't the gun not work on the alien? No, she would make it work! She would just have to defeat the alien with effort and guts!

But first, because she was so nice, she would let the alien plead for its life.

[roulettespin]

Again, not the best response, but now his head's starting to hurt and anyway, he's being attacked. By a little kid. So there's that, too; the whole thing's just messed up. "Huh?"

He lifts his hand, his good one--or his bad one, depending on how you look at it--to rub the side of his head, pushing hair out of his eyes, trying to clear out his thoughts. And maybe, you know, figure out what's even going on here. "Who are you? Could you put that stupid thing down? I'm not an alien, so calm the hell down."

Where do kids get this stuff, anyway? Aliens?

...

Well, okay, maybe it was the arm. Looks a little 'alien' to most people. And maybe he did try to kill it. Her. Whatever. But that was self defense and it was totally justified. Jeez. Kids.

[cancounttofive]

"I'm Yotsuba," she said on impulse before looking agape. Wait, if she told the alien knew her name then did that mean it would be able read her mind? "Stay out of my head!" she shouted, just to make sure it wouldn't.

Yotsuba hadn't noticed the arm so much during the actual fight (which everyone could plainly see she had won), but she did as Nero spoke, and without losing a beat she pointed at it with her free hand. (Daddy had told her not to point at people, but this was an alien so that made it ok! ...Right?)

"What about that? Any way you look at it, it's definitely alien tech!" she said, parroting a line she had heard on the show, "You must be an alien!"

Because of this she didn't lower her menacing weapon just yet. "Now tell me where Daddy is!"

[roulettespin]

There just isn't a way to physically make the noise he's feeling, so he manages to hold it back, but man, man, what'd he do to deserve this? You save one lousy little town and all of a sudden you're getting this kind of crap--it almost makes being a hero not worth it. Where's the praise? Where's the love? Where's breakfast in bed and getting to sleep in? This wasn't what he was expecting, and it blows.

"Stop shouting. I don't know where your daddy is!"

Hold on a second.

"So...you've got parents?"

Finally, some good luck. Because once he gets this tot back to where it belongs, it'll stop asking him questions. Especially uncomfortable questions, since what happened to your arm isn't exactly PG-13. "Nngh. ...Yotsuba, right? Sure doesn't sound like any name I've ever heard. Whatever. I don't know where your dad is, but I sure as hell intend to find out."

Because man, this kid's not his problem!

[cancounttofive]

"That's right, alien. You'll take me to him," she said sternly, keeping up the appearance that she was the one in charge here.

Somewhat satisfied with his answer, Yotsuba jumped off the bed (well, after she jumped on the bed a few times first, just for good measure. These beds were really good for that!), but kept her gun pointed at him. Had to be sure he wasn't going to try to dart off while she wasn't looking.

But... now what where they supposed to do? The movie hadn't really gone into this sort of thing. A perplexed look came over her face as she considered her options.

"You better have a plan to find Daddy!" she burst out suddenly. That's right! She'd make the alien do it!

[roulettespin]

"I told you before, I'm not an alien!"

This is starting to get on his nerves. There's a pain between his eyes and he still feels like he slept underneath one of those spitting, stinking demon toads--technical name "dead 'cause I killed 'em all, and now they probably smell worse"--but the worst part is that he's telling the truth, this kid, this Yotsuba, doesn't believe him. Used to happen all the time back in Fortuna.

Nero, are you responsible for this? Funny thing was, nobody ever listened to him when he said no. And a lot of the time it kinda was--but not like they thought. What the hell was the point of explaining things?

More importantly, how the hell was something supposed to prove they're not an alien?

"Just calm down." That sounds about right. "Gimme a second to wake up, here." He can do that. "...the name's Nero, by the way. Not alien, not whatever. Nero. Got it?"

[cancounttofive]

"Nero," Yotsuba repeated, and she paused for a moment like she was appraising the name. Then her eyes lit up like she had just had a revelation. "So you're a Nero!" She nodded proudly to herself, like this was all so simple now.

But soon her expression turned aghast. If he wasn't an alien, then that meant... "The aliens took you too?!" She put her hand back to the trigger of her 'gun' and did a sweep over the room, looking away from him for an instant. Ok. The coaster was clear.

Then she realized something even worse. She turned back to him, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. "Then you have no idea where Daddy is!" How were they supposed to find him now?!

[roulettespin]

"Not a Nero. Just Nero." A slight grin. "Got it memorized?"

Okay, so maybe certain people have catchphrases and they should stick to 'em, and nobody else should take 'em. It almost sounded right. But then he just sounded like a total asswipe.

He wishes he had a bandage to hold the arm back maybe, at least in front of people who aren't used to this kind of thing, who might...assume stuff. Easier to spring it on 'em later, when they know you're not a demon and haven't already tried to shoot you. Usually with a gun a little more powerful than a watergun, but that's beside the point.

"And yeah, I don't know where your daddy is. You think you could describe what he looks like for me?" And then they'll try to find him, and then Nero won't have to babysit a kid, and everything'll be just peachy.

If only life worked out that way.

[cancounttofive]

"A just Nero." Yeah. Well, she'd get it eventually. Maybe.

Yotsuba's eyes lit up when Nero asked her to describe her dad. She liked talking about him! "Daddy's this tall!" She stated, raising her arms high above her head, even going so far as to rise on her tiptoes, but it just didn't seem like enough...

She clambered back onto the bed again and raised her arms. There, that seemed better! "This tall! But he's not as tall as Jumbo. He doesn't wear a tie or pants a lot because his office is in the house." That sounded like a sufficient description to her.

[roulettespin]

Okay, so her dad's a midget and she's a few cards short of a deck. Sounds like a great family already.

And still, somehow, less messed up than Nero's.

That's the real kicker, he thinks, glancing around to see if there's anything he can use for a makeshift sling. Something to wrap that arm up so nobody else calls him an alien. Although it's possible there's people out there he needs to make a solid first impression on, a don't fuck with me impression. In which case...

"No tie, no pants, kinda short." He nods, standing, flexing the fingers of his bad hand, then his good one. "Got it. Sounds like a real winner. C'mon, let's find him."

The sooner they located this idiot, the sooner Nero'd be free. And he likes the sound of that.

[cancounttofive]

"Yeah!" Yotsuba jumped off off the bed, landing squarely on her feet, her arms raised in the air as if she had just made a gymnastic landing. Perfect ten!

"We have to find him because..." Her smile faded for a moment, replaced with another look of confusion. "OH!" Her face brightened as she remembered, and she hit her fist to her palm in an 'ah-ha!' moment. "He was kidnapped by aliens!" That was it! ... Wait! That was bad!

"AH! Daddy was kidnapped by aliens!" she shouted, aghast. "We have to hurry!" With that, Yotsuba made a dash for the door. Time to save the day!

[ooc: End here, yes? Sorry for how long this all took. Fail me.]