Adventures in Parodyverse: Bathtubs and Ninjas, Part 3


    Vinnie and Liu Xi arrived at the Paradopolis Museum of History by taxi.  Though it was the middle of the day, the doors were locked and there was a placard in the glass that said ‘CLOSED’.  That was strange, because the sign right next to it indicated that it was during normal hours.

    Liu Xi ignored the sign and changed the lock into glass, so it shattered when she pulled hard on the doors.  Vinnie shrugged and followed her.

    The museum was quiet, and all the lights were turned down.  That made it easy to hear what sounded like voices coming from further in.

    The Psychic Samurai threw a bucket of iced water over the face of the unconscious Bathtub Ninja.  He was, ironically, lying on his back in a bathtub when he started awake.  His hands were tied behind his back.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I...I thought you were going to kill me,”  he said.

    She leaned over him and whispered, “It’s easier to clean up in a bathtub.  Nobody will miss you.  Though at the moment you are more valuable to me alive.  I need information.”

    Chiaki held up the Chinese sword wrapped in cloth, so he could see the handle with Hatman’s name carved into it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I got that from the museum,”  he quickly replied.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know that,”  Chiaki said.  Then, interrupting him again, “I also know the museum curator gave it to you.  I do not know why, or why he wants Hatman dead.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He doesn’t,”  the Bathtub Ninja responded.  “He just wants Hatman’s head.”

    She squinted, and asked, “His head?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“For the Serious Matter,”  he said.  “He found a way to extract it, but he needs Hatman’s head.”

    Chiaki raced out of the room, leaving the Bathtub Ninja behind, and carrying the Chinese sword.  She took out her cell phone and quickly typed out a text message as she went.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let me take the lead,”  Vinnie whispered to Liu Xi.  He took a folded packet out of his jacket pocket and pressed it into his own palm, keeping it at the ready, as Liu Xi followed closely.

    There was a loud explosion that rocked the museum, and crumbling pieces of concrete and plaster fell around them.  The remaining lights went out.  And that’s when the real noise began.

    Faite was snacking when she heard her cell phone chirp, and she sighed.  She picked it up, and read a text message.  She raised an eyebrow, and went to find Anna to give her a ride to the museum.  She had a driver’s license, but the Legionnaires wouldn’t let her drive any of their cars.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m running out of packets!”  Vinnie De Soth warned as Liu Xi surrounded him and herself with a contrail of pure blue flame.  

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow, I didn’t know she could do that,”  Yuki commented on Liu Xi’s blue flame from the opposite end of the room

    There, Lara Night protected herself, Hatman, and Yuki with an energy shield that buzzed and snapped dangerously as tiny broken fragments of marble from the walls and ceiling impacted it.


    Generating those fragments were reanimated mummies of ancient soldiers who had created a factory of sorts - carving pieces of wall, breaking them into pieces, and hurling them with deadly force.  

    Once in a while Lara retaliated by turning the crackling shield protecting the three of them into a giant plasma ball,which attacked the mummies with powerful blue bolts of lightning.  They cracked and popped and burned with green flame, and then more rose to replace them.

    The reanimated soldiers came from an exhibit a half-floor below, where dozens of mummified soldiers stood at the ready, in a model of an ancient buried city.  There were still plenty of them left.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie, don’t you have a packet that will stop them from reanimating?”  Hatman yelled across the room.

    Almost before he finished that sentence, all of the mummies suddenly collapsed.  Faite had just entered the floor, and the mummies being an aberration, could no longer function in her presence.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What the hell are you guys doing?”  Faite asked.  “Who’s been reanimating souls?”

    Vinnie, Liu Xi, Hatman, and Yuki all pointed at once at Marvin Hallerman, the museum curator.  He was wearing some sort of thin golden crown.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Give it,”  Faite held her palm out as she approached him.  When he sighed and handed it to the teen - now that it was useless - she took it from his hand and then whacked him on the side of the head with it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ow!”  Marvin protested.

    Anna entered just behind Faite, and leaned against the doorway quietly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s been trying to collect a head with Serious Matter for several hundred years,”  Faite told them, keeping her eye on the man as she spoke.  “This stupid crown is new, though.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s mine!”  Marvin insisted.  “It’s mine, and you keep taking it away from me!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ll get it when you grow up!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do you two know each other?”  Yuki asked, interrupting the argument.

    Faite sighed.  “Once, he was next in line to be given Serious Matter after the previous holder died.  But he used it to gain himself power, he abused it.  And I took it from him.”

    Marvin protested further.  “You didn’t have the right to!  Dark Thugos agreed with me!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And this is why he doesn’t make those decisions.”  Faite noted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fine.”  Marvin hissed through his teeth darkly.  “I don’t need a crown.  I don’t need zombies.  You will all die, and I will have Hatman’s head.”

    Smoke started to drift through the room slowly, and dark shapes of men began to move toward them from the walls.  It was twenty seven ninja.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This might be a problem,”  Vinnie complained.  “I don’t have packets for ninjas.”

    Marvin looked around in panic suddenly when just as much smoke began to surround him.  As it cleared a little, he felt the flat side of a sword pressed against his throat, firmly but gently.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You need only to find their point of leverage”, the Psychic Samurai whispered.  She then said to Marvin, “Turn them away, or it will be you who loses his head.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice bluff,”  he said, “But they have instructions to kill you all anyway, whether I’m alive or dead.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then we will solve that problem as we need to.”  Chiaki lifted the blade and stabbed it through his back, and out of his chest.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait!  Wait!  I’ll call them off!”  he choked and blubbered.  “Don’t kill me, please!”

    Chiaki withdrew her blood soaked sword, and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket to clean off the blade, before putting it back in its sheath.

    Hatman took his opportunity to grab the man’s arm and twist it behind him.  “I’m placing you under arrest,”  he said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t think about stabbing him,”  Yuki said to Chiaki.  “That’s really dark of you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a good way to make the ninja lose respect for him,”  Chiaki whispered, and then she smiled.  She turned to leave, and allow the Lair Legion to handle cleaning up, but Vinnie stood in her way, stopping her.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You should have killed him,”  he said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t do that,”  Chiaki replied, and she tried to walk around him.

    Vinnie called after her as she exited to the next exhibit hall, “He’s going to get out of jail, and he’s going to come after Hatman again.”

    Chiaki stopped walking, and she sighed.  “I know.  It’s the price of doing what is right.”  She gave Vinnie a quick, sad look, and then walked more quickly.

    Vinnie felt a little sad as he watched Chiaki leave, knowing that she wasn’t happy leaving the museum curator alive, but he kind of understood.  She would have trouble living with herself, and she would lose all respect from the Legionnaires.

    He saw Chiaki walk back a little bit, and give him a suspicious look.  “That’s a little dark of you to suggest.”

    Vinnie glanced at Liu Xi momentarily.  “I have a lot on my mind,”  he said.


TO BE CONTINUED...


Story written and copyrighted (C) 2011 by Jason Froikin, and may not be reprinted without permission.  Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow.  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin.  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin