"We need what?!" Rachael was leaning against the front desk at the Fushigi Yugii convention looking like she was going to go over the desk and strangle the man who was wisely backing away. "Whaddya mean we need six more people?"
"I'm sorry miss but it say's so right in the brochure, 'All participants in the Seishi competition must be in a group of eight so as to have seven Seishi and one Miko.' " The poor guy frantically waved the brochure at Rachael as if hoping to shield himself from her glare, which has been know to send professional hit men running for their mommies. I peeked over Rachael's shoulder at the brochure, yup, there is was in black and white... how on earth had I missed it?
"How on earth did you miss that Keeley?! I was depending on you to take care of everything and you said you had it under control!"
Oops, now she was glaring at me… "Urm…umm…sorry?"
"Now what do we do? The only reason we came to this stupid convention was so we could be Seishi and goof around!"
"Umm, excuse me, I have a suggestion." The very brave guy from behind the counter spoke up before Rachael could pound me into a greasy spot on the carpet. I have resolved to name my first born child after him, whoever he was. "There are six people standing over there by the front desk who didn't know about the number restriction either, or were kicked out of their group, you could join them and-"
And the next thing I knew I was being dragged helplessly along behind her. I didn't get a really good look at our potential Seishi-mates until we were only a few feet away and I started walking on my own, and then I almost wished I hadn't. There in front of me was the most unusual bunch of misfits I'd ever seen, six girls about the same age as Rach who was 18 and I who was 20, stood and sat near the main desk, and that was about the only thing they had in common.
Leaning against a wall was a girl in tight black jeans that had more holes in them than a sieve, a black midriff shirt with the name of a popular and notoriously obnoxious metal band written across it, and a black leather jacket that screamed rebel. To compliment the outfit, she was extremely pale, although it wasn't due to makeup that I could tell, and black lipstick and eyeliner. Her black spiky hair finished the entire look, or maybe it was the combat boots or the collar with spikes, I couldn't decide.
Sitting across from her in perfect contrast was a little mouse of a thing, dressed all in pink, from her little slippered toes to her pretty ruffled dress, she even had a little pink bow in her long, flowing blond hair. It was enough to make me go into sugar shock, either that or shock that a grown woman would actually voluntarily dress like that.
Sitting next to her was a yuppie type girl who was dressed in a pair of tan slacks, a tan polo shirt, tan socks and tan loafers. It kind of matched her short, perfectly groomed brown hair and her brown eyes that looked out at the world from, you guessed it, tan glasses.
I was beginning to wonder if we were all supposed to have a color scheme, until I saw the girl sitting away from the others in a overstuffed chair and frantically hacking away at a laptop. She was wearing a ratty pair of jeans that I would have killed to posses, a shirt that might have been white if it had been washed recently and a worn flannel shirt that screamed color, even if the colors didn't necessarily work well together. I had the feeling the designer had been having a colorblind day. Her hair was a dusty blond and pulled away from her face in an untidy ponytail. Green eyes looked out of thick black glasses that perched on a freckle covered nose.
Standing in the corner, flirting with the bell boy was a girl in a what could only be described as a slinky red jumpsuit, red heels--and boy did she fill out that jumpsuit. Her long, flaming red hair trailed over her shoulder as she ran a red fingernail along the poor bellboy's cheek and down his neck. Another person with a color scheme, what was up with that?
With all the crazy dressed people, I almost missed noticing the girl in jeans and a T-shirt like Rach and I were dressed. Well, jeans and a T-shirt for me, shorts and a tank top for Rach, she always wears less clothing than I do due to the fact that I'm always cold and she wears shorts in the middle of winter and says she's too hot. But this girl was sitting on the floor reading a book, which made her look even more normal, she was beautiful, her golden skin and almond shaped eyes showed her oriental heritage. I stood for a moment, staring at the entire lot of them and leaned over to Rach who was staring in a similar manner.
"Don't they look a little… you know… weird?"
"Well, what do you expect, this is an anime convention after all." I nodded and sighed. "Let's get it over with." We both nodded and moved forward to meet our new companions.
"Umm… hi, I'm Keeley and this is Rachael and we're here for the convention except we just found out you need eight people to do the Seishi thing and since there's only two of us we were wondering if anyone wanted to team up with us and maybe be Seishi with us since there's six of you and two of us and that makes-." Rachael's elbow in my gut cut off my babbling.
"So? Are you interested?"
The girl in black pushed off the wall and walked toward us. "And if we are?"
"Then what the hell are we waiting for? Let's go register!" Rachael was once again in the lead as I followed along and the others straggled behind us. Registration was a snap with eight people and before we knew it, we were standing in line for our Seishi "gifts" each of us got a temporary tattoo and a little plastic ball about the size of a grapefruit, inside would be miniature toys that would represent our "powers". One ball would be empty, that would be the Miko's ball and it meant that whoever had it was our Miko. It was a luck of the draw sort of thing.
As we waited in line we introduced ourselves, I learned that the girl in black was Anita, the little pink sweetie was Anastasia and Brenda was the yuppie. Delilah was the girl in red with the nails, Chuckie was the little hacker and the Japanese girl who we found out was really as normal as she looked was Asata. Rachael and I introduced ourselves it was only a few minutes before we were at the front of the line getting out "gifts".
"I'm really impressed, I spend 40 bucks on a convention and they give me a little toy that was probably about 50 cents..."
"Rach, stop being a killjoy." I poked her in the ribs and got punched for my trouble. We all began to open our balls when suddenly there was a flash of light, I felt dizzy and sick, then the next thing I knew I was freezing my bum off in the middle of a snow field. I opened my eyes and stared blearily around me, the other seven were standing around me, but the convention, the people, and the entire building were nowhere to be seen.
I then noticed that I'd been standing with a monk's staff in my hand…and that I wasn't the only one who had acquired a new toy. When all of us compared notes we discovered Rachael had a Katana, Brenda had a clarinet, something that caused Rach a great deal of distress and it didn't take long for her to confiscate it. Anastasia got a little bag of what Asata said were herbs, Asata found herself in possession of a metal fan, Chuckie got two strange looking bracelets, and Delilah was the proud owner of a sand dollar. What the heck were they for and where they came from, no one seemed to be able to figure out.
Then Brenda started screaming about the tattoo on the back of her left hand. After taking inventory we noticed that we all had them. Strange silver kanji characters had been painted on us in strange places. Rachael's was smack dab in the middle of her forehead.
"Just like Tamahome's!" She smiled proudly.
"And Nakago's"
"Shut up Keeley."
Anastasia's was on her left shoulder, Delilah's was on her left ankle, and Asata's was on the back of her forehead. Much to my embarrassment, after much hunting we found mine under my left breast where my birthmark had been.
"Don't say a word." I glared at everyone around me who were obviously trying not to laugh.
"Hey guys look where mine is!" Chuckie then bent over and dropped her pants giving all of us a view of her rear end and the kanji on her right butt cheek.
"Umm… that's nice Chuckie." I could tell Rach was being polite.
As the others stood trying to find Anita's kanji character, without any luck, I glanced away across the field and then froze. There was a lady fighting with a very hairy creature that looked like it was part wolf, part man. Or was it a guy fighting the wolf thing? I couldn't tell. What I could tell was that he/she was loosing badly. I stood there watching them fight and knowing somewhere deep inside that the person was going to loose. Suddenly I had an uncontrollable urge to help. I raised my hand in front of my face and folded my thumb across my palm, all the while wondering what the hell I thought I was doing... and suddenly there was a light inside of me building up and then bursting out of me and through my hand. I watched in shock as the light flew towards the wolf creature, hitting it and knocking it off the person before the wolf thing was able to strike the killing blow. I stood there with my mouth hanging open at what I'd done as Rach came up behind me. "How the hell did you do that?!"
"I don't know!" I took off running toward the fight with the others close behind.
Get your own Free Home Page