Note: All names but mine and Keeley's have been changed to protect us from the people we are making fun of. All Fushigi Yuugi characters belong to the people they belong to. Anyone that gets offended by anything in this story…uh…too bad ^_^
So, Keeley and I are in this weird place. We got sucked through my computer. We attacked a band of slavers, and we WERE winning at first, but eventually someone had to come along and pull our toasties out of the fire. That someone was a very good looking guy with the AOL symbol on his biceps. Oni. Yeah. He beat the heck out of all the bad guys, then disappeared the minute Keeley and I made it clear that we didn’t want to fight him ourselves. That left us alone in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to follow him, since he’s the only person we know in this crazy place.
It was hot, dusty, and tiring. No water, no end in sigh. I thought we were going to die.
“Geeze, Rachael, stop whining.” Keeley looked at me. “I told you, as soon as we get over the hill, there’s a city.”
I straightened up. “Oh, yeah.”
At the crest of the hill, we paused looking down at the city below us silently.
Finally, I broke the stillness. “Geeze, what a sad-ass little city.”
Keeley wrinkled her nose. “No kidding. I was expecting something more impressive.”
The city, kind of spread out below us, was small. The streets were irregular, and it was sort of surrounded by a dumpy, potato-shaped wall.
“You think that building in the middle is a palace?” Keeley wrinkled her nose again.
“Well, it’s bigger than everything else, and it has column type things and it looks like someone was trying to put aluminum foil on the roof, so, yeah.”
She looked at me. “It just seems kind of run down.”
“No shit, Sherlock. The whole place looks like the urban renewal poster site. But, that guy’s in there somewhere.” I smiled. “Let’s find him.”
Keeley rolled her eyes, and we started toward the city.
I’ll give the city one thing: the inhabitants definitely weren’t slouches. The minute we stepped in the gate, they started watching us with enough intensity to burn a hole through the nose of the shuttle.
“Rache, why are they looking at us like that?”
“Think for a moment, Keeley, what do we look like to them?”
We certainly DID look a bit…uh…different. I was dressed in my standard jeans, t-shirt, flannel tied around my waist, and combat boots (Carolinas, to be precise). Keeley was dressed a little neater than me- a blouse and slacks. She must have just gotten off of work when she dropped by.
Keeley looked at me, then looked at the people around us. “Oh.”
A heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I stopped, too shocked to think.
“Hey there, girl…” The hand loosened a little as the scent of alcohol washed around me. I fought back the urge to gag.
“Hey, what gives?” Keeley had kept walking for a few seconds after I stopped. She turned around, her eyes widening.
I got pissed. The second time today someone had tried to grab me. “Hey, asshole, get your hands off!”
“What??” I was roughly spun around to face a very drunk man. A very ugly, with questionable personal hygiene, drunk man.
“Uh…Rache…” Keeley seemed to be trying to get my attention. I ignored her.
I was in no mood to deal with it. “I said, get your hands OFF! Do I need to spell it out for you, asshole?”
“Why you…” The man drew back a large fist and tried to punch me.
I blocked with a three star, pushed him over, and landed another three star on his temple. GOD I love Shao Lin. He went down like a ton of bricks.
I didn’t have time to celebrate, however, because several somethings jumped on me, and my head made abrupt contact with the road.
“Ungh…” I tried to open my eyes.
Multi-colored stars exploded in my vision. I decided to just keep my eyes closed for a while. I could dimly hear people talking in a kind of annoying background chatter. I wanted them to shut up.
“Ungh…” I said again in my oh-so-intelligent fashion. I was trying to talk, but things felt muddled.
By my ear, there were a few clicks, almost unbearably loud. I immediately felt better, good enough to open my eyes. I was suddenly looking up into someone else’s eyes. Let it be noted that they were very beautiful eyes, but weren’t exactly what I was expecting to see.
So I screamed. Hey, in that situation, I bet anyone would have.
The eyes immediately withdrew from my vision. I wildly tried to sit up, but a large hand pushed me back down.
“You’re not well enough to sit up yet. Please just calm down.” I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Let me up! Keeley! Where are you?” I continued to struggle.
“I’m right here, Rache, would you just calm down already?” Keeley sounded exasperated.
“Oh.” I stopped struggling. “What happened, Keeley? And who is this guy?”
Keeley let a very dry not creep into her voice. “You attacked the captain of the palace guards.”
“He was drunk! He started it!”
“I don’t think they cared. A guard squad jumped you right after you put his lights out, and did their best to grind your head through the pavement.”
I moaned softly. “No wonder my head hurts. So, are we in jail?”
“Nope. This guy showed up right after that, and shooed the guards off. It was funny.”
I was trying to look at the guy, but a grating sensation in my neck made me change my mind. “So who are you, then?”
The man paused in his tapping. “I’m Tavi. A…healer.” The tapping resumed.
I sighed. “That tapping is driving me insane.”
Keeley snickered. “It’s a short drive.”
“Shut up.”
The tapping paused once more. “I’m almost done. Just hold on for a few more seconds, please.” There were a few more taps, then a final sounding click. “There. All done.”
I felt great. “Wow…what did you do?”
I looked over. The man was snapping a laptop shut. “Just used my ability to heal you.” He smiled, a little shyly.
I smiled back, suddenly shy as well. This guy was cute. Second cute guy I'd seen in one day. Wow.
“Ability?”
I suddenly remembered that Keeley was in the room as well. I tried to stop staring at the guy.
Tavi smiled. “Yes. I’m a seishi.” He unbuttoned his shirt partway to he could show us his shoulder. A symbol glowed on it in silver.
“HTML?” I sad, disbelieving.
He nodded. “I can use this,” he pointed at the laptop, “to alter reality. So I changed reality to where you wouldn’t be hurt anymore. It takes a lot of energy, though. I probably won’t be able to do much more until tomorrow.”
I nodded. “We know what seishi are, but who are you a seishi of? Seiryuu? Byakko?”
He shook his head. “No. The God protector here is named Bob.”
“BOB???” Keeley and I couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.” He looked slightly uncomfortable. “He’s a more behind-the-scenes kind of god. None of us really know much about him, but something bad must be happening if seishi are appearing.”
I nodded. “I can see that. We’re just misplaced for a moment here. I’m Rachael, and this is Keeley, my better half.”
He didn’t laugh. No one ever gets that joke.
“Uh…so…hey, while we’re cooling our heels here, can we meet you Miko? We can smack some sense into her so she doesn’t turn into Miaka.” I grinned, imagining how much I would LOVE to smack Miaka.
Keeley was smiling as well. So we both hate Miaka. Deal with it.
Tavi looked more uncomfortable. “As far as the Miko thing goes, well…we were hoping…” He cleared his throat nervously, looking at Keeley.
“What? No. NO. Absolutely not. You’re kidding.” She waved her hands.
“Huh?” I felt confused.
“Actually, I was going to ask if you thought your friend would like to do it.”
“WHAT???” We were both startled.
Tavi turned to me. “Rachael, will you be the Bob no Miko?”
I went into brainlock. “Uh…”
Tavi and Keeley were both staring at me.
“Uh…”
Keeley smirked slightly, and Tavi started to get the hurt puppy dog look.
“Uh, oh, what the hell. I’ll do it.”
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