An Utena Tale (part 1) By: Douglass Weeks Standard Disclaimer: The cast of Utena belongs to B-PAPAS, directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, story and original character design Chiho Saito, published by SHOGAKU-KAN, series structure Yoji Enoto, produced by TV TOKYO/YOMIURI ADVERTISING. They were used without permission for a non-profit purpose. The one thing in this story which does belong to me is the plot, and Doug (aka. me) belongs to me as well. It was a beautiful day on the campus of Ohtori Academy. The sky was blue, the clouds were light and fluffy, the sun was bright and Chu-Chu along with all of his (her? its?) relatives were scampering around, going about their mousy (monkey?) business. Naturally a day as brilliant as this was merely a wind-up to something truly terrible. Ohtori's entire student body was on edge (and the nurse's office was swamped with students who'd fallen and ended up cutting themselves on it) and when lunch came and went without any unnatural occurrences the tension increased ten-fold (ruining several games of poker). At this point, students began to turn their attention towards a certain group of people around whom trouble had a tendency to gravitate towards. Disconcerting things were always going on around them, but today the most disconcerting thing was that none of this particular group's members (I have neither the time, space, nor inclination to list them all) seemed to be causing any mischief. The Dean of Students was of course the prime suspect, but he was nowhere to be found, causing some people to wonder if he'd taken his manipulative abilities underground (this in turn had a good portion of the student body glancing worriedly beneath their desks for the rest of the day). Nanami was the second most likely suspect, given her propensity for elaborate (if poorly planned) schemes. However she seemed to be enjoying herself without causing trouble for anyone else, for once (the reason for this was that she knew the elephants were out sick with vicious head colds and thus she had a day to enjoy trample free). In a similar manner every notorious personality on campus was accounted for, with the sole exception of Wakaba (she'd had a falling out with Saionji following what had popularly become know as (shower)Watergate and had sworn that she would kick him out of her room, or something. It was the "or something," that had most people worried). Actually there was one more person unaccounted for, a young man who lived in a rather peculiar dorm room beneath the dueling arena. However common consensus was that he was simply a foil upon whom massive amounts of physical abuse could be wreaked for comedic affect and was incapable of executing any sort of plot on his own, devious or otherwise. When the school day ended uneventfully the students all returned to their rooms, many bearing sandbags and shovels to await the coming disaster (the student bookstore sold all of its copies of Surviving the Apocalypse: For Dummies in a record fifteen minutes). However, there were two students who were not going to wait for Armageddon to come crashing down around their ears. Two students who intended to seek out the evil in its lair and vanquish it. Two students who were willing to fight until their mallet and spatula dropped from their respective cold clammy fingers. And those two students were…Well, if you really need me to tell you then you deserve to be on the receiving end of the aforementioned weapons of mass destruction. Our fearless heroines were decked out in their finest…err…well… you decide. Becka was wearing one of Akio's finest straightjackets, along with a deerstalker cap (a la Sherlock Holmes) and puffed furiously on a bubble pipe. Karen (seemingly the more pragmatic of the two) was wearing her traditional conquistador's outfit, although she had traded her rubber chicken for Becka's genuine Morish-Dutch sword (the genuine Morish-Dutch hand had a hangnail and was taking the day off). The way that she carried the sword demanded respect from everyone who saw her (especially as every now and then she would carve her initials into the pants of a random student). Unfortunately for our two intrepid slayers-of-evil-and-any-other-icky-thing-that-crossed-their-path, everything was normal, normal, normal. So normal in fact that the most abnormal thing that they encountered was Utena and Anthy sunbathing in the grass. An encounter such as this of course had an obligatory comment associated with it. Unfortunately, no one wanted to be the one to say it, so they stared at each other in a silence that was fast becoming uncomfortable. "Fine," Karen said with a sigh, "I'll do it. So what are you two doing out here dressed up like that?" The silence returned as everyone stared at Karen, sweatdrops hanging off the back of their heads. " Ka-chan!" Becka hissed. "They're supposed to ask that!" "Well, since it's been said, lets not waste our time by saying it again and pretend that we did," Utena said. Becka sighed then tried to remember the line that was supposed to come next. "What are we doing?" Becka said, her voice dropping into a suitably heroic tone. "We're searching out evil in its lair so that we can destroy it!" She attempted to strike a pose as heroic as her voice, forgetting that she was still in the straightjacket. The resulting tangle was…unpleasant to say the least. "We're looking for anything unusual. Anything strange. Anything out of the ordinary," Karen explained. "Would you consider that unusual?" Anthy asked, pointing behind them. When they turned to look, they saw a room. A rather familiar room. A room that was usually lacking a ceiling and found beneath the dueling arena. Although it was currently sans ceiling, it looked as if it had possessed one not to long ago. In fact, it looked like someone had added a ceiling, then hacked it out with a sword (which coincidentally, is exactly what happened, more or less. Less actually). However, the most truly unusual thing about this room was not the fact that it was so far from the arena, but that every few seconds, it lifted itself about a foot off the ground, slide a few feet forward, then set itself down again. Karen blinked several times. "Dorm room aren't supposed to walk," she said. "We know," the other three replied. "That's weird." "We know." "That unusual." "We know." Since Karen had her back to them, she didn't notice the fangs that were sprouting from the other girls' mouths. Before Karen could say anything else, Becka clamped a hand across Karen's mouth (yes, I know that Becka was still wearing the straitjacket. Don't ask me how she did it, I don't know. I'm sure it's some sort of girl thing, like doing the splits *the narrator, noticing that someone was fondling the hilt of a Morish-Dutch and looking in his direction, wisely shuts up*). "Let's check it out!" Becka shouted, her pipe bubbling furiously. Without further delay the four of them marched over to the moving room and watched it as it moved with its funny lift-slide-drop rhythm. "We should stop it," Karen said. Although no one actually opened their mouths, a distinct 'we know,' could be heard lingering in the air. "No problem," Becka said, turning towards the room and brandishing her spatula. At least, she would have brandished it if she still hadn't been in the straightjacket. "A little help?" she asked, imploringly. Utena rolled her eyes and stepped forward to undo the jacket. Meanwhile, while everyone was busy with that, Anthy walked up to the room and between hops knocked on the door. To everyone's surprise there was an answer. Two answers to be precise. "Come in," the female voice said. "What?" a slightly muffled and rather familiar, male voice asked. As our intrepid quartet entered the room, four jaws (and one bubble pipe) hit the floor. Although none of them had been in this particular room before, they had never imagined that it resembled anything like this. Off to one side there was a familiar computer, with several hastily patched holes in it that looked like they might have been caused by falling swords, and that was where any semblance of normalcy ended. The bed covers were the most god-awful shade of green, a green that extended to the throw rugs on the floor and the walls seemed to be in a state of assimilation, similar to what the Borg did to people on Star Trek (except that the Borg were much nicer about it). Nearly the entire wallspace was covered with posters of Saionji striking various poses in various outfits (including a full sized poster of Saionji in nothing more than what god gave him (which raises obvious questions about the sanity of the decorator). Oddly, several of the posters had sections cut out (although the occasional remaining snippet of red hinted at what might have been there). Various bits of Saionji memorabilia lined the shelves, including Student Council SaionjiTM with a sword of Dios and rose slicing action grip. The four notables stood in the doorway, aghast. "I always knew that he was a little strange, but I didn't think he was strange like that," Utena said, nodding toward the poster of Saionji in his *ahem* natural splendor, the only bit of cover coming from a strategically placed rose. "I haven't seen a taste in decoration this poor since Saionji gave Wakaba's room the Anthy makeover," Karen said. "Don't say that name!" the female voice shouted. That was when everyone's attention was torn from the décor and they noticed Wakaba sitting on the bed and wondered why they hadn't before (I could tell you, but then I'd have to-*the narrator disappears with a 'eep!' as Becka glares in his direction*). "Umm…Wakaba, what are you doing here?" Utena asked. "I finally told Saionji to either get out of my room and take all his Anthy crap with him or I'd do something. He didn't move out, so I did something. I got a new room." "Shouldn't you have taken one that didn't already have someone in it?" Karen asked. "She took it over while I was taking a nap," the rather familiar, muffled male voice said. "Finders keepers," Wakaba said smugly, crossing her arms. "I go to sleep with everything all nice and normal, and I wake up in a shrine to Saionji." "Don't say that name!" "Where are you?" Utena asked, as all four looked around the room for the source of the voice. A trap door slowly opened up in the middle of the floor and a pair of odd eyes peered out (odd because they had pupils. Apparently the shadow girls hadn't returned his contact lenses yet). "What are you doing down there?" she asked. "I got tired of the rain always getting into my room, so I had a roof added on. I also figured that it would keep the swords out of my hair. The ceiling worked in both regards, except that the swords that it kept from embedding in my head just piled up on top of it. Finally, they all got frustrated, hacked the ceiling out, and tried to do unpleasant things to my tender flesh. I got away from them, but ever since then they've been flying around, trying to kill me." "You're being chased a murderous flock of flying swords," everyone repeated, sweatdropping. "A million swords of hatred…" Anthy said with a shiver. "No, more like a couple dozen swords of general peevishness." "So where is this *ahem* flock of swords now?" Utena asked. Before he could reply, a sound filled the air, a sound that was reminiscent of air rushing very quickly over a narrow metallic surface. His eyes grew very wide and the trap door shut with a bang! as his head disappeared back beneath the floor. Several seconds later what looks like several dozen swords flew overhead, whistling as their blades sliced through the air. They paused briefly above the dorm room, as if looking for something, and not finding it flew off glinting brightly. Before anyone could do more than sweatdrop, they heard a cry of, "MY SHINING THINGS!" and the Akio-car flew overhead, Miki standing behind the wheel, waving his dueling foil. To everyone's surprise the Akio-car was at less than showroom standard: it was dented, scratched and battered. Apparently Miki has been very careless about how he'd been driving (especially considering that that car is, for all means and purposes, damn near indestructible). As the car sailed overhead the sword slipped from Miki's grasp and plunged into the room, embedding itself up to the hilt in the trapdoor and everyone sweatdropped again as the car disappeared with a fading cry of, "My shining things!" The trapdoor creaked open as its occupant lifted it, sweat dropping profusely and clutching what was left of his bangs. "That was way too close," he said, eyeing the protruding blade. "I need to give you two something," he said, looking at Becka and Karen, then flushing bright red as he noticed the lecherous grins floating around the room. "Get your minds out of the gutter." He turned and started rummaging around beneath the trap door. "I know that they're here somewhere. I had everything nice and organized, but then the onion princess came along and dumped it all down here." At mention of that particular nickname Wakaba hopped off the bed and given as how his head was level with both the floor and her feet, proceeded to kick him in the teeth. He spat her shoe back at her head with deadly accuracy. Well, it would have been deadly accurate is she'd been ten feet taller and standing six feet to the left. He returned to rummaging for a while before he passed out two books to Karen and Becka. Glancing at the titles revealed that one was 1001 ways kill someone with out actually killing them: A Trekkie's guide to Death, while the other one was Contrived Resurrections: For Dummies. "This is just in case something…bad happens to me," he said as he glanced over at the sword and then up at his ruined haircut. A familiar sound filled the air and he vanished beneath the floorboards. The swords paused again, but this time the leader conversed in sword-speak with the sword embedded in the trap door, which wriggled free and happily flew up to join the rest (apparently, it didn't know what they were looking for, since it didn't tell them that their preferred target for perforation was right below). The trap door lifted again as the swords flew off again (apparently they'd lost Miki). "Is the flock of swords gone?" "Actually," Karen began thoughtfully, "I'd say that the proper term would be an armory." "Err…well," he began, before noticing Wakaba at his computer, adding Saionji wallpaper and icons. "NO! I let you Saionji-ize my walls! I let you Saionji-ize my floor! I even let you Saionji-ize MY bed, but Dios be damned if I let you Saionji-ize my computer! Someone get the onion princess away from there!" The mention of her nickname had the desired effect of pulling Wakaba away from the computer. However, once away from the computer, she proceeded to kick him rapidly and repeatedly in the teeth. He responded by spitting back a veritable flurry of shoes (where he got them from is a mystery, since Wakaba was still wearing both of hers). Demonstrating the same accuracy (or lack thereof), everyone was forced to duck and run for their lives. Ones of the shots, even less accurate (but just as deadly) as the rest, flew straight at the computer, shattering the monitor and blowing out the power, which dropped the room and the (oddly) well lit space beneath the floor into shadows. "Did you know?" "Did you know?" "Did you hear?" "Did you hear?" Two new feminine voices issued from beneath the floor. "It's not nice to be mean to the shadows, to banish them with light." "It's bad." "It's very bad." "Such behavior is unacceptable." "Such behavior should be punished." A terrified shriek ripped it's way up from beneath the floor, and the trap door was nearly torn off of its hinges as he came shooting from beneath the floor. However, he only made it halfway out when he suddenly stopped, and slowly started to slide back through the trap door. He clawed madly at the floor, tearing up one of the throw rugs, and shredding the floorboards into something finer than excelsior. A blood-curdling scream erupted from his mouth as he disappeared back beneath the floor and the trapdoor slammed shut behind him, it was suddenly cut off. What followed was a hideously scary laugh (think Darth Vader crossed with Mr. Burns crossed with Naga the Serpent, throw in a dash of Nanami, a smidgen of Kodachi, and just a pinch of Akio, multiply that by ten and that's still nowhere near as scary as this laugh). Evening fell, a night as perfect as the day that had preceded it. The student body was ready to soil its collective pants out of sheer terror (the dispensary was buying Prozac and Valium by the metric ton and still having trouble meeting the student's needs). However, some people never seem to let anything phase them, even when that anything is impending doom. Becka, Karen, Anthy, and Utena are all gathered in Utena and Anthy's room, chatting over bowls of shaved ice and ignoring Chu-Chu, who was suffering from a terminal brain freeze. Suddenly, a familiar blood curdling shriek emanated from outside, but was cut off in mid-scream and replaced with the sound muffled thrashing. Wondering if this might be the trouble that everyone had been expecting all day, they went outside, but to their intense disappointment, didn't find any trouble. Instead, they found a certain familiar young man caught in the clutches of Anthy's inflatable octopus (who was on guard duty that night). They freed him from the octopus, then went back to the room and returned to their shaved ice (he took Chu-Chu's, since the monkey (mouse?) was still suffering from a brain freeze). "What happened to you?" asked Utena, noting that he was a little more battered and bruised than usual. "The Shadow Girls again. You know all that stuff about a woman scorned? Well it apparently applies ten-fold when you apply it to shadow girls flashed." It took him several seconds to notice the lecherous looks turned his way. "Not like that! Get your minds out of the gutter. At least it was only the two of them." He shuddered. "That third one really scares me." "Ahem," Becka looked at him and then pointed at his head, which was uncharacteristically bare. "Why aren't I wearing anything? Well, the flock," he paused and glanced at Karen, "I mean the armory of swords settled down for the night, and I left my room…rather hurriedly." He shuddered again. "Besides, if the entire armory came after me at once… I don't think that my good ol' copper pot will be much help." He turned an looked towards Becka and Karen, "Please keep those books handy, just in case." "Why are you here?" Utena asked rather pointedly. "Slumber parties are generally by invitation only. Especially girl's slumber parties." For the first time, he-. "That's enough!" Becka shouted. "Don't you have a proper name? You're always referred to as he, or him, or by some stupid nomenclature! You have a name, what is it?" "Umm, well, let's see what I've been called previously." At that point, everyone pulled out a script (from Dios knows where).- Caught off balance by the unexpected reference, Dios blinked in confusion. "Actually, I don't." -Karen flipped through the pages before pointing out a line. "Let's see, you started off as funny-looking guy in a leather jacket" "Then you were RBBLJCM," Utena said. "Rather battered and bruised leather jacket clad man," Anthy explained. "And now you're a masculine pronoun," Becka said darkly, glaring. "Well, I could always go by a feminine pronoun," she (not he anymore) said. This earned him a glare from everyone. "Or, maybe not," he (no longer she) said. "I suppose that if you really have to call me something, you could call me-." "DOUGIE-CHAN!" Everyone sweatdropped as they turned to look at the funny looking short blonde girl who had suddenly appeared in their midst, except for Dougie-chan (no longer him), who had stress veins popping out across his head. "Let me borrow this for a moment," Dougie-chan said, taking Karen's mallet and lining the girl up like a croquet ball. He swung mightily, sending the girl flying through the ceiling, a fading cry of "Whaaaa?" marking her passage across the sky. "That is definitely not what you call me," he (Dougie-chan no more) said as he returned Karen's mallet. "What you could call me is-." "DOOGER!" Everyone face-faulted and turned again to stare at the black haired young man who had appeared in their midst, except for Dooger (this name had better stick around for a while), whose head was almost entirely hidden under stress veins. "This will only take a second," Dooger said to Becka as he borrowed her spatula, then pounded the other guy through the floor. He (okay…forget it, he's back to being he again) handed her back her spatula back to and cleared his throat, "Now, what you-." "Ahem!" He turned around to find himself facing sudden destruction via a giant cooking implement. "No more unauthorized cameos," Becka growled, her battle aura flaring a violent red, "got it?" He nodded vigorously and then went over to the window. "No more introducing my stupid nicknames!" he shouted. "You all have to go home." Sweatdrops slid down the back of the girls' heads as from outside, a million voices groaned in disappointment. Once the voices faded he sat back down on the floor. "Okay, pretty much you can call me whatever you want, but if you have to give me a name, then just call me Doug. Is that okay with everyone?" He started to lean back, but flipped over as he nearly tumbled through the hole in the floor. "Umm, maybe I should fix those up," he said, trying to avoid the glare that Utena was throwing in his direction. He took out his oversized red crayon and proceeded to crayon shut the holes in the floor and ceiling. "Now that that's been-." "LUGGAGE!" A voice shouted from outside. This time, Doug's entire body disappeared beneath popping stress veins. "I'll be right back," he said, brandishing his crayon like a club. He stomped out of the room and for several minutes, the only sounds that could be heard were the kinds of sounds that could only be made by someone using a large red crayon to wreak tremendous amounts of havoc upon a human body. "Now that that's been taken care of," Doug said, returning the crayon to Dios knows wherever it was that he kept it- Dios screamed like a little girl and yanked a towel into the tub to cover himself. "Do you people mind? Really, I have no clue where he keeps that stupid thing!" -"we can finally get back to the story. Umm, where exactly where we?" Everyone leafed through their scripts, searching for where they had left off. "I just said that slumber parties were by invitation only," Utena said, pointing out a line. "I see where we are," Doug said, clearing his throat. For the first time, he noted that all of the room other occupants (including Chu-Chu), were in their pajamas. In particular he noticed Becka's, a rather familiar set of black silk pajamas. "Aren't those Touga's?" he asked. "What's he supposed to sleep in?" "His pajamas of course," Becka said with a grin that made Doug's face turn as red as his crayon. "Forget that I asked," he mumbled. "You never explained why you're here," Utena said. Doug blushed again. "Well, err, I wanted to ask a favor. Could I borrow your shower?" "What's wrong with yours?" Karen asked after everyone had recovered from their face faults. "Well, given how my day's been going, I just know that if I use the regular showers, I'm going to run into Akio," he said, shuddering slightly. "Or Touga might be there," he continued talking, failing to notice that his audience's eyes had glazed over and drool was beginning to gather on their lips as they imagined Touga in the shower, water coursing down his broad expansive chest… Doug's eyes started to glaze over too, but he was returned to reality as Chu-Chu (who had recovered from the brain freeze), tried to impale Doug's foot with a fork (for eating his (her? its?) shaved ice). "Where was I? Oh yeah, Touga in the shower." He successfully kept his eyes from glazing over again. "And if Touga's there, than you know that Nanami will "accidentally," wander into the wrong shower." His audience was returned to reality as Nanami inserted herself into their images of a showering Touga, and they all had to keep themselves from retching. "And Kozue pops up in the boy's showers from time to time because, well, she's Kozue. I really can't deal with that today." "It's no trouble," Anthy said graciously. Doug smiled gratefully and quickly retreated to the bathroom, but stopped before he could turn the knob. "Anthy, you aren't keeping any pets in there, are you?" "Just my piranhas. Oh, I haven't fed them today. Would you please take care of that?" Doug stared at her, sweatdropping and wondering if she was joking or not. Knowing Anthy, he figured that she probably wasn't. "I'll think I'll use the other shower." "Umm, Anthy, wasn't it the other shower you were keeping the piranhas in?" Utena asked as Doug disappeared downstairs. "Oh dear," Anthy said, placing a hand over her mouth. "I think that you're right." At the moment, a very familiar blood-curdling shriek came from downstairs, and several seconds later, Doug reappeared, glaring daggers (not real ones) at Anthy. He reached behind him, and there was a ripping sound as his hand reappeared, clutching a piranha that had the seat of his pants clutched in its teeth and a fishy grin upon its face. Doug sidled into bathroom, and the sound of a flushing toilet could be heard. Doug stepped back out of the bathroom, careful to keep his back turned away from the girls. "It was the downstairs bathroom, Anthy," he said, then sidled back into the bathroom. Once he was gone, Becka began to scribble furiously on a piece of paper, then folded it into a paper airplane. She launched it out the window, an evil grin on her face. "That'll show him to make unauthorized cameos." "What was that?" Karen asked. "Just a little message," Becka replied as the Akio-car pulled up outside and the Dean of Students hopped out. "Whoops, slight miscalculation," Becka said as she looked at the puzzled looking Utena. "Could you wait in here for just a sec?" she asked as she grabbed Utena by the arm and threw her into the closet. Becka slammed the door shut just as the Dean of Students entered the room, wearing nothing besides a pair of boxer shorts and a shower cap, a bar of soap (rose scented needless to say) in one hand. "You sent me a message?" he asked Becka, holding up the paper airplane, and you could tell by the way that his eyes moved over her when he spoke that he was mentally sizing her up for a straightjacket. Becka smiled and pointed towards the bathroom, a direction in which Akio happily trotted, throwing opening the door, and disappearing into the thick cloud steam that poured out (apparently, Doug liked very hot showers). "I told Akio that Utena was taking a shower and ran out of soap. He of course, was only too eager to help." A by now very familiar blood curdling scream came from the bathroom (at this point it should be noted that the steam in there was so thick that short brown hair looked a lot like long pink hair). The bathroom door burst open and Doug ran out, wearing only his leather jacket (apparently he didn't even take it off in the shower) and what appeared to be a pair of hastily drawn pair of crayon red shorts. As Akio emerged from the bathroom behind him, Doug leapt through the window, breaking it and catching his shorts on the broken glass. He ran screaming across the campus grounds, with the only a strategically placed red crayon to preserve his dignity (I would make a reference to bottoms twinkling in the moonlight, but that's a joke far to obscure for anyone to understand). Akio sighed, disappointed, as that situation had not gone as he had planned it. With a shrug he turned and focused the full extent of his manipulative abilities on those who were still present in the room (excluding those who were in the closet). "Well, I suppose that there's nothing more for me to do here, so I'll just be on my way," he said, suavely, manipulating everyone into thinking that there was nothing wrong with that statement. He tucked a now straightjacket clad Becka beneath his arm and left (I guess Touga won't be getting his pajama's back tonight). "He's gone," Karen said to Utena, as she shook off the manipulative fog. "You can come out of the closet now." Anthy blushed delicately and giggled. Chu-Chu was on his (her? its?) back, laughing uproariously (actually, she (it? He?) was going CHU-CHU-CHU!) "Get your minds out of the gutter," Karen said, sweatdropping profusely Doug sighed as he moved his dorm room along. Even by his standards the previous night had not gone well at all. After his daring break through the window he'd dashed across campus, but had gone right beneath the tree that the armory had been roosting in and they'd all woken up and given chase. He had slowed them down some by leading them through an elaborate death trap that Tswabuki was setting up to save Nanami from, then taken refuge in some rose bushes (which would have been uncomfortable under normal circumstances, but were more so, given his state of dress (or rather, un). When the armory had finally gone back to its tree, he'd emerged from the rose bushes dirty, scratched and even more battered and bruised than before. In short, he needed a shower. Again. He'd gone to the regular showers, keeping his fingers crossed all the way that things would get better. That was a foolish wish, now wasn't it? Not all of his predictions had come true, but most of them did. Akio wasn't in the showers, but Touga was, so Nanami kept popping up at inconvenient times (and even more inconvenient places). Miki had been there as well and kept mistaking the highly polished brassware for 'his shining thing,' and glomped the faucets repeatedly and blasting Doug with both very very hot and very very cold water. The final straw was when Kozue showed up and did things to embarrass her brother that quite simply unnerved Doug's pants off (which was quite a feat, considering that they were back in Utena's bathroom). He'd fled from the shower (at least now he had a towel to wear besides his jacket) and gone straight to the dispensary, where he'd downed a dozen Valium (unbeknownst to him, the dispensary had completely run out of both Valium and Prozac and was handing out caffeine pills instead). He hadn't realized anything was wrong until the posters of Saionji had started talking to him, and the dolls on the shelves started to line dance. Then things had gotten really weird. Doug cowered as he heard the armory pass overhead. The day was bright and beautiful, even more so than the day before (all classes at Ohtori Academy were canceled due to massive students absences, most of the student body was too terrified to even get out of bed). His head ached with the last vestiges of his extraordinary caffeine high but at least the colors were no longer melting off the walls, the ground was no longer boiling, and the specters of Akira Kurwasowa, Jerry Garcia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi were no longer trying to get him into a dress. "Damn stupid big heavy room," he grumbled as he heaved it forward another few feet. "Size matters not. Do or do not. There is no try," a green, wrinkled, muppet stated sagely. Doug's stomach grumbled unhappily while he tried to steadfastly ignore his latest hallucination. Although the shaved ice that he'd had the previous night had tasted good, it hadn't been exactly filling, and when you have more caffeine in your system than blood, you burn energy pretty fast. He was moving his room in what he hoped was the direction of Anthy and Utena's room, on the hope that they would let him impose for breakfast. Meanwhile, across campus, Anthy stared preoccupiedly at the rather paltry pile of perishables perching in the pantry. "Oh dear," she said to herself. "That's not exactly a breakfast food, but I suppose that it will have to do." Karen, who was in the middle of a rather pleasant dream that involved herself, Touga, and very little clothing, felt something tugging at her ear. At first she thought that it was Touga, because she could definitely imagine him tugging on her ear with his teeth, but somehow she doubted that he'd be whispering "chu" while he was at it. "Huh?" she asked eloquently as she sat up, dislodging the mouse (monkey?) from her ear. "Chu-chu-chu!" Chu-Chu chued urgently. "What, Timmy's in trouble?" Karen asked, still half asleep. "Chu-chu-chu-chu-CHU!" "Anthy's cooking what?" Apparently, being half-asleep made it easier to understand the monkey's (mouse's?) language. At that point, Anthy entered the room, bearing a steaming pot of…something. "Breakfast is ready," she said, rousing Utena. "I'm sorry, but this was all that I could make. We're almost out of food,"she apologized, setting the pot down and turning to go back to the kitchen for drinks. Utena, Chu-Chu and Karen peered eagerly into the pot, then face-faulted. "Curry," Utena said. "Anthy's curry," Karen said. "Chu," Chu-Chu said, neatly summing up the situation. The three of them shared a glance and the pitched the pot out the window. The Akio car honked happily outside the dorm, depositing a sleeping (and still straightjacketed) form on the doorstep. As it drove away, it failed to notice the pot that plunged out of the sky and landed neatly on the passenger seat. Akio whistled happily to himself as he made his way across the campus. Last night had been very amusing. Not nearly as amusing as the coup he had pulled over on the Creative Information Page, but interesting nonetheless; and entertaining. He yawned and stuck out his thumb and on cue, the Akio-car came to a stop in front of him. He climbed into the driver's seat, throwing his arms over the backs of the seats as the car drove itself off. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a glint and turning, saw a large collection of swords fly across the sky. "I wonder I wonder, do you know what I wonder?" Akio wondered aloud to himself. "Would you call that a flock, or an armory?" Miki seemed to pop out of nowhere and with a cry of "My shining things!" leapt onto a trampoline (that likewise popped out of nowhere) and launched himself at the armory. The swords all altered their paths, causing him to pass right through the middle of the armory without catching a single one of 'his shining things (luckily for him; apparently the swords didn't want to dull their blades on anything other than their intended target *GULP!*)).' As both Miki and the swords vanished over the horizon, Akio's noticed (or more to the point, smelled), something interesting. Looking over at the passenger seat, he say what looked very much like a pot of curry. However, before he could investigate further, he saw something that looked even more interesting: a moving room. Deciding that something as interesting as that deserved immediate investigation, he set the Akio-car on a course to intercept the object of his interest. Doug grunted as he let the room drop and paused to give his aching shoulders a rest. "There has really got to be a better way to do this." "Did you know?" "Did you know?" "There is a better way!" "There is?" "There is!" "But we're not telling!" "We're not telling!" Doug shuddered as the lights beneath the dorm room flickered. The shadow girls had gotten into the fuse box while he had been gone and were amusing themselves by playing with the lights. His stomach growled loudly, making sure that he didn't forget about it's unfilled state. "I can't be far from Utena and Anthy's room. What could go wrong?" His eyes widened in terror as he realized what he'd just said and he tried to clamp his mouth shut, but it was to late, the words were out. He hadn't even had breakfast yet and he'd uttered the most sure fire incantation to summon trouble. He groaned and smacked his forehead then curled up in the fetal position as he waited for the great cosmic anvil to come crashing down on his head. Akio manipulated his way into the dorm room, the pot of curry tucked beneath his arm. "What a terrible sense of decoration," he stated, then fully applied his manipulative abilities to redecorating the room. Beneath the floorboards an odor reached Doug's nose that smelled remarkably like food. He sniffed again, confirming that somewhere above him there was indeed food. He uncurled from the fetal position (deciding that the cosmic anvil would have to wait until he'd eaten) and poked his head through the trapdoor, a fork (that he got from Dios knows where)- "Why don't you believe me? I DON'T KNOW WHERE HE GETS THEM!" -clutched in one hand and drooling in a manner that had not been seen since reason # 8 of "101 Reasons why we love Touga." His eyes fastened themselves on a pot that was sitting on the bed, from which the very food-like smell was coming from (at the same time failing to notice that the bed cover was no longer green, but white leather). "Fooood," he murmured, crawling towards the bed. Akio took a step back to admire his handiwork. The first thing that he'd done was to replace the bed cover and throw rugs with white leather. Then he'd pasted over all the Saionji posters with posters from the official Akio line of interior decoration. Likewise, all the Saionji memorabilia was gone. Student Council SaionjiTM with rose slicing grip had been replaced by a Dean of Students AkioTM (and I'm not going to tell you what its grip did), and chibi-Akio plush dolls that were just so kawaii that they practically begged to have some pretty girl pick them up and clutch them to her bosom (trust me, that is a very very very bad idea). All that manipulating had left him a bit peckish and as he sipped a random iced drink he decided that since there was food on hand, he'd be amiss if he didn't manipulate some of it for himself. Fork in hand (apparently the barrier between the fork dimension and this one was very thin in this room, making it easy for forks to cross over), he helped himself to the curry (noticing neither the other hand that was simultaneously helping itself to the curry, or the pool of drool that was rapidly spreading across the floor). The only thing that saved the room from complete demolition in the following explosion was the incredibly dense layer of ungodly decoration on the walls.