Portal 2 spoilers and Payback influence ahead.
NOTE: I realize a sequence in this chapter would work a whole lot better in a video form. Please bear with me. -Jack
Click here for chapter 10
Kshzzzt!
The inhibitor signals scrambled once more.
Miyuki was talking to Spy at the main street, close to where Sniper's camper van was parked beforehand.
"When I go out in my normal clothes," she said, "I sometimes get mistaken for an office lady."
The naive Space Core human stepped backwards while his head faced the two. "Lady, I got a secret for you," he said while the core on his forehead twitched in circles. He took a step forward. "No, come closer," he whispered.
Miyuki replied, "I'll be right there." However, the voice she just spoke in wasn't really hers. She took a step toward the departing Space Core.
"Well played," said Spy. He gave a thumbs-up, believing Miyuki was creating a distraction.
"Good luck," Miyuki said to Spy.
Just then, the three of them heard a rough voice coming from the stage: "I suppose I should cut to the chase and haul out the big guns." They turned to look.
Strong Bad was in front of the stage. "Dance contest!!!" he announced.
Soldier was already on the stage with shovel in hand. "Hooah!" he called. Then a song played as he gave out a roar and whacked his helmet with the shovel. The song, however, seemed like a polka cover.
Bang your head! (whack whack whack)
Metal Health will drive you mad
Demoman was next on stage with his stickybomb launcher. As a hip-hop backing track played, he ducked, then crossed his legs and spun around. With his left hand, he thumped his chest twice and threw an outward v-sign.
Pyro was carrying a different axe with a rusted gray head that was wrapped in barbed wire. He flipped his axe over and mimed playing a guitar as some riffs played around him. He finished off with a windmill-like strum and raised his hand into the air.
Spy was once again holding his disguise kit/comm device. He nodded to the malicious sounding doomsday-like music that played, then suddenly stopped and turned slightly to his right. "I'm afraid not," Spy claimed. He was not going to perform his spycrab taunt in front of people like Strong Bad.
Engineer, with his Frontier Justice shotgun in his robotic Gunslinger hand, grooved to the electronic dance song from earlier.
Get d-d-down, get g-g-get get down
BEEP!
Engineer's PDA "build" device in his inventory sounded a warning, causing him to stop. He thought he kept his dispenser at a well-hidden place, but someone was tampering with it at a most inopportune time.
"Damn dagnabit!" he yelled. He ran off down the stairs at stage left as his PDA beeped again.
BEEP!
Heavy was next. He had red boxing gloves on. They were something he preferred not to wear because he would rather use his finger-gun. Of course, Strong Bad also wore boxing gloves.
"You have Killing Gloves of Boxing," said Heavy as he stated the name of the gloves. A boxing bell rang twice and an 8-bit soundtrack played as Heavy performed four uppercuts into the air.
Scout, hyperactive as he was, jogged in place at an unnatural speed while a rock theme played.
Gotta go faster, faster, faster faster faster
Strong Bad had enough of this random bit. He claimed, "Uhh, this dance contest is neither contesting nor dancing very well."
Meanwhile at the inhibitors, Sniper returned to the primary inhibitor with his kukri, a giant silver machete, in hand. He chuckled to himself as he ran toward the small white box with short-corded earphones beside inhibitor #2 and struck it with his kukri.
WHACK!
Knowing that striking the box would cause a randomly fitting song to play depending on the situation, Sniper ran back to the primary inhibitor and struck it as well.
WHACK! Kshzzzt!
Knowing that striking the box would cause a randomly fitting song to play depending on the situation, Sniper ran back to the primary inhibitor and struck it as well.
WHACK! Kshzzzt!
Scout was just past stage left. He was now holding a double-barreled shotgun known as the Force-A-Nature, a role Scout also gave himself. Suddenly, a cheerful Dutch song started playing.
Weet je wat ik wil
een opblaaskrokodil
Om in de zee te drijven,
tussen de lekkere wijzen.
een opblaaskrokodil
Om in de zee te drijven,
tussen de lekkere wijzen.
Scout could not help but slap his thigh and gallop in place. "Whoo hoo hoo!" he shouted.
Haruhi was standing just beside the wall below the concrete seating. She seemed to enjoy Scout's impromptu performance, and happily called out, "Yes! You totally understand, don't you?! Yeah! That's it!" For all her eccentricities, Haruhi was rumoured to have made random hand gestures to this song, while wearing a baseball helmet and a cheerleader outfit, after an evil clone of superslinger2007 the persona was defeated nearly two and a half years ago.
Kshzzzt.
Danny was now seen shouting to his right. "Calm down. Calm down! Don't get a big d**k!"
Meanwhile, in the middle of the field between the main street and the stage, Heavy took another bite of his Sandvich. "Nom nom nom, om nom." He then began to sing a song.
However, because a brigade leader was in the area, her loyal "SOS supporter" had to be there too. With a special red armband, personally given by Haruhi, fastened onto her left sleeve by a safety pin, Konata munched on a sandwich that looked almost like Heavy's. She then skipped off happily as Heavy sung, "Sandvich and me going to beat your a**!"
Yutaka also ran past. She moaned as she tried to catch up with Konata.
"Yah!" Sniper cheered while raising his fist into the air. He then hit the primary inhibitor with his kukri.
WHACK! Kshzzzt!
Engineer was in the room that Soldier found Mio in. He had a mining light attached to his construction helmet. He chuckled and then turned it on. Ritsu, who was sitting at her drums, gasped and threw her hands in front of her face.
Sniper realized he was watching archive footage of the Engineer.
Kshzzzt!
Engineer was now shown standing in front of an increasingly annoyed Mio. He turned his light on again, causing Mio to whack his head with both hands.
POW! A metallic clang went off, and Engineer collapsed with a moan. Sniper's that good of a marksman, so of course he could recognize that clang of a critical hit anywhere.
From the archive clip, Engineer called, "Meeeedic!"
POW! A metallic clang went off, and Engineer collapsed with a moan. Sniper's that good of a marksman, so of course he could recognize that clang of a critical hit anywhere.
From the archive clip, Engineer called, "Meeeedic!"
Kshzzzt!
Engineer was now inside the Australium donation room. He stood in front of his dispenser, while Azusa was nearby, happily nibbling on a fancy-looking cupcake with her right hand.
Sniper remembered that there was an attempted Dispenser sabotage. At that moment, he realized he wasn't watching archive footage; this was happening live.
Engineer struck his dispenser once with his wrench, then turned around to address Sam and Max as well as Azusa. "Now just stop trying to mess with my contraptions," he warned.
"Umm..." Azusa began, but before Sniper could hear what she had to say, the inhibitor signal scrambled.
Kshzzzt!
Tsumugi was once again in front of Heavy. She had her closed left hand on her chest with her right hand wrapped around it. Suddenly, she made a personal declaration.
"Honey sweet tea time," she cheerfully said.
"No! Is not tea time," Heavy replied. What he saw happening nearby could not warrant any "tea time" one bit.
Pyro was using his flamethrower to unleash a bright orange flame while he laughed. Beneath the blast of fire was Konata. Her special "SOS supporter" armband was still on her left arm, and her black hardcover Death Note was on the ground beside her, but Konata, who was in a visible panic, had crouched to avoid the attempted ambush.
Meanwhile, Spy was on the floor between the stage and its concrete seating. He took his knife in his left hand and went into a fencing stance with his right hand raised behind him for balance. Spy began a maneuver with two quick slashes in front of him. "Just lay your weapons down and walk away," he quipped, before he thrust his knife forward. He returned his knife to his right hand as he turned toward the stage, and chuckled to himself before he disappeared into his cloak with a whooshing hiss.
Onstage, Ritsu was quickly and repeatedly moving her right arm back to her forehead and forth in front of her. Unfortunately for her, she was still unable to pull off her headband.
A teenage girl walked onto stage right and looked at the strange touchscreen instrument that had been laying there for the entire day. She wore the same uniform as Ritsu-- dark blue jacket, blue ribbon, and light blue pleated skirt-- but her jacket was buttoned up. Then, as suddenly as she walked on stage, the girl turned around and started to perform air guitar.
"Jakka jakka jan jan jakka jan, jakka jan!" the girl mimicked as she suddenly peeked at Ritsu, surprising her in a misguided attempt at communication. "Jakka jakka jan jan jakka jan, jakka jan!" Ritsu was visibly shocked.
Zoey appeared on the inhibitor screens with her blue-hat magician visual alias, and a concerned look on her alias's face. "You think, one day, it's all just gonna go back to normal?" she asked.
Kshzzzt!
At that moment, the air-guitar girl heard some high-pitched squeaks to her right. She looked over and saw The Cheat walking towards her with the Gibson Les Paul guitar. With a few more squeaks, The Cheat raised the guitar over his head with both arms.
With a delighted squeal, the girl quickly scooped up the guitar into her arms and snuggled it. "Gitah!" she yelled excitedly. "Oh, thank you so much, sir!" The girl's name was Yui. She was a lead guitarist and a lead vocalist, and was thought to have gone missing earlier. She wore two thin yellow clips in her brown shoulder-length hair. Yui was also the rightful owner of the red and orange Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar, which she affectionately named "Gitah". However, Yui was in the city for one reason.
At the inhibitor room, Sniper felt amused. "If your strategy is to build confidence, it's working," he quietly spoke.
Then, as if in reply, Sniper heard Yui speak. "Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot!"
Sniper remembered that Heavy told him that Yui enjoyed headbobbing with "Gitah" to a certain electronic dance song. He ran over to the "music box" and struck it with his kukri, knowing that it would surely play this song now that she was around.
WHACK!
Yui happily took advantage of the song that was playing. She bobbed her head to the rather quick beat, but found herself tiring out her head and neck with a moan. Yui then picked up "Gitah" from the floor into a guitar-playing position and swung her body back and forth, along with "Gitah", to alternating beats at a pace she was more comfortable with.
On the floor in front of the stage, Pyro was watching. "Excellent!" he said in his muffled voice as he gave a thumbs-up. He continued to nod his body to the beat along with the flamethrower he was wielding.
"Ohhhh my God!" Soldier yelled as he ran past, behind Pyro. He could not stand a sweet innocent young girl like Yui one bit, and preferred chasing down that other girl.
Engineer ran in beside Pyro with his wrench in hand. "Would you look at that!" he said cheerfully. He began to nod to the beat as well.
Medic also ran in and placed himself to Pyro's left. He looked back and called, "Good to go!"
The dance song faded out as another girl's voice was heard. "Uh they're-- really? Y-y- are you serious? You guys booked the arena and stuff?!"
"Yes!" Medic replied.
Francis's visual alias reappeared on the inhibitor viewscreen. He chuckled, "This is gonna be good!"
Zoey seemed to agree. "Huh. Check this out," she said.
Kshzzzt!
A green onion, which was not one of the deadly missiles, was thrown onto the stage. Just then, a pink-haired girl with golden yellow eyes ran up onto the stage excitedly and skidded sideways to a stop to Yui's right.
She called out, "This is gonna be so freaking awesome!" Her name was Akira Kogami. She wore a white school uniform with gray features: a shirt with lined patterns along its collar folds and a bow on her chest, as well as a gray pleated skirt. Akira's shirt sleeves were too long for her short arms, which often led to them flopping around. As a veteran actress whose fame had come and gone, Akira was often generally too self-centred and egotistical for her own good. However, today was different.
Akira got the chance to step into the limelight once more. The strange circumstance? She was beside a young guitarist who sounded almost like her.
"What?" Yui asked Akira excitedly. "Tell me, tell me, come on!"
Akira eagerly replied, "You're kidding! We can't tease the fans like this!" She then flung her floppy right-handed sleeve outward toward the group, which now expanded to include Demoman, Heavy, Scout, and an uncloaked Spy.
A syncopated drumbeat played. The mercenaries who were present at the stage area cheered, while Pyro looked around in presumed confusion.
Sniper, who remained in the inhibitor room, cheered as well.
Louis appeared on the inhibitor viewscreen. "Yeah, baby, yeah!" he cheered at the song choice. Then a bass and guitar riff kicked in.
The viewscreen switched to Danny on a couch supposedly watching what was going on. He was nodding his head to the beat while eating chips.
Back on the stage, Yui continued to swing "Gitah" back and forth as she looked at Akira stepping side to side, seemingly waiting for a cue.
Engineer was now inside the Australium donation room. He stood in front of his dispenser, while Azusa was nearby, happily nibbling on a fancy-looking cupcake with her right hand.
Sniper remembered that there was an attempted Dispenser sabotage. At that moment, he realized he wasn't watching archive footage; this was happening live.
Engineer struck his dispenser once with his wrench, then turned around to address Sam and Max as well as Azusa. "Now just stop trying to mess with my contraptions," he warned.
"Umm..." Azusa began, but before Sniper could hear what she had to say, the inhibitor signal scrambled.
Kshzzzt!
Tsumugi was once again in front of Heavy. She had her closed left hand on her chest with her right hand wrapped around it. Suddenly, she made a personal declaration.
"Honey sweet tea time," she cheerfully said.
"No! Is not tea time," Heavy replied. What he saw happening nearby could not warrant any "tea time" one bit.
Pyro was using his flamethrower to unleash a bright orange flame while he laughed. Beneath the blast of fire was Konata. Her special "SOS supporter" armband was still on her left arm, and her black hardcover Death Note was on the ground beside her, but Konata, who was in a visible panic, had crouched to avoid the attempted ambush.
Meanwhile, Spy was on the floor between the stage and its concrete seating. He took his knife in his left hand and went into a fencing stance with his right hand raised behind him for balance. Spy began a maneuver with two quick slashes in front of him. "Just lay your weapons down and walk away," he quipped, before he thrust his knife forward. He returned his knife to his right hand as he turned toward the stage, and chuckled to himself before he disappeared into his cloak with a whooshing hiss.
Onstage, Ritsu was quickly and repeatedly moving her right arm back to her forehead and forth in front of her. Unfortunately for her, she was still unable to pull off her headband.
A teenage girl walked onto stage right and looked at the strange touchscreen instrument that had been laying there for the entire day. She wore the same uniform as Ritsu-- dark blue jacket, blue ribbon, and light blue pleated skirt-- but her jacket was buttoned up. Then, as suddenly as she walked on stage, the girl turned around and started to perform air guitar.
"Jakka jakka jan jan jakka jan, jakka jan!" the girl mimicked as she suddenly peeked at Ritsu, surprising her in a misguided attempt at communication. "Jakka jakka jan jan jakka jan, jakka jan!" Ritsu was visibly shocked.
Zoey appeared on the inhibitor screens with her blue-hat magician visual alias, and a concerned look on her alias's face. "You think, one day, it's all just gonna go back to normal?" she asked.
Kshzzzt!
At that moment, the air-guitar girl heard some high-pitched squeaks to her right. She looked over and saw The Cheat walking towards her with the Gibson Les Paul guitar. With a few more squeaks, The Cheat raised the guitar over his head with both arms.
With a delighted squeal, the girl quickly scooped up the guitar into her arms and snuggled it. "Gitah!" she yelled excitedly. "Oh, thank you so much, sir!" The girl's name was Yui. She was a lead guitarist and a lead vocalist, and was thought to have gone missing earlier. She wore two thin yellow clips in her brown shoulder-length hair. Yui was also the rightful owner of the red and orange Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar, which she affectionately named "Gitah". However, Yui was in the city for one reason.
At the inhibitor room, Sniper felt amused. "If your strategy is to build confidence, it's working," he quietly spoke.
Then, as if in reply, Sniper heard Yui speak. "Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot!"
Sniper remembered that Heavy told him that Yui enjoyed headbobbing with "Gitah" to a certain electronic dance song. He ran over to the "music box" and struck it with his kukri, knowing that it would surely play this song now that she was around.
WHACK!
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Yui happily took advantage of the song that was playing. She bobbed her head to the rather quick beat, but found herself tiring out her head and neck with a moan. Yui then picked up "Gitah" from the floor into a guitar-playing position and swung her body back and forth, along with "Gitah", to alternating beats at a pace she was more comfortable with.
On the floor in front of the stage, Pyro was watching. "Excellent!" he said in his muffled voice as he gave a thumbs-up. He continued to nod his body to the beat along with the flamethrower he was wielding.
"Ohhhh my God!" Soldier yelled as he ran past, behind Pyro. He could not stand a sweet innocent young girl like Yui one bit, and preferred chasing down that other girl.
Engineer ran in beside Pyro with his wrench in hand. "Would you look at that!" he said cheerfully. He began to nod to the beat as well.
Medic also ran in and placed himself to Pyro's left. He looked back and called, "Good to go!"
The dance song faded out as another girl's voice was heard. "Uh they're-- really? Y-y- are you serious? You guys booked the arena and stuff?!"
"Yes!" Medic replied.
Francis's visual alias reappeared on the inhibitor viewscreen. He chuckled, "This is gonna be good!"
Zoey seemed to agree. "Huh. Check this out," she said.
Kshzzzt!
A green onion, which was not one of the deadly missiles, was thrown onto the stage. Just then, a pink-haired girl with golden yellow eyes ran up onto the stage excitedly and skidded sideways to a stop to Yui's right.
She called out, "This is gonna be so freaking awesome!" Her name was Akira Kogami. She wore a white school uniform with gray features: a shirt with lined patterns along its collar folds and a bow on her chest, as well as a gray pleated skirt. Akira's shirt sleeves were too long for her short arms, which often led to them flopping around. As a veteran actress whose fame had come and gone, Akira was often generally too self-centred and egotistical for her own good. However, today was different.
Akira got the chance to step into the limelight once more. The strange circumstance? She was beside a young guitarist who sounded almost like her.
"What?" Yui asked Akira excitedly. "Tell me, tell me, come on!"
Akira eagerly replied, "You're kidding! We can't tease the fans like this!" She then flung her floppy right-handed sleeve outward toward the group, which now expanded to include Demoman, Heavy, Scout, and an uncloaked Spy.
Free your mind
A syncopated drumbeat played. The mercenaries who were present at the stage area cheered, while Pyro looked around in presumed confusion.
Sniper, who remained in the inhibitor room, cheered as well.
Louis appeared on the inhibitor viewscreen. "Yeah, baby, yeah!" he cheered at the song choice. Then a bass and guitar riff kicked in.
I wear tight clothing, high heeled shoes
It doesn't mean that I'm a prostitute, no no
The viewscreen switched to Danny on a couch supposedly watching what was going on. He was nodding his head to the beat while eating chips.
Back on the stage, Yui continued to swing "Gitah" back and forth as she looked at Akira stepping side to side, seemingly waiting for a cue.
I might date another race or color
Suddenly, Akira swung her arms around in front of her and then raised her sleeve-covered hands above her head at her sides.
It doesn't mean I don't like my strong black brothers
Akira raised her left arm up as she took a step, then did the same with her right arm as she took another step and turned around. At this point, Yui stopped bobbing her body and began to follow Akira's movements as best as she could while wearing "Gitah" on her shoulders. Akira swung her arms quickly in a forward motion above her head twice, with one hand on top of another. Both girls then pushed their closed fists back and forth twice in front of them and swung their right arms around as if they held a lasso.
Why oh why must it be this way?
With both arms at head level, each girl gestured to their right, then gestured to their left, and spread out a wave-like gesture twice with both arms. They stepped to the right with four shuffle-like steps while waving their arms down along with the beat. They stepped back to the left with their right arms outward twice. Then they looked to the left and right with their right hand above their eyes as if they were finding something in the distance.
Before you can read me you got to learn how to see me, I said...
Two quick waves with their right hands, and both girls leaned into a crouch as they swung their arms up to the left and right twice.
Free your mind and the rest will follow
The girls moved their open hands in front of their faces, and then swung their arms in a circle and pushed their hands outward. They leaned forward and marched in place for two steps and waved twice with both hands.
Be colorblind, don't be so shallow
Free your mind and the rest will follow
Free your mind and the rest will follow
The girls grooved from side to side while stepping to their left and clapped their hands above their head. They did the same while stepping to their right.
Then, Akira took a bow to her left, while Yui confusedly followed. They leaned back to their right in unison. As Yui whipped out a peace-sign gesture with her right hand, Akira took her arm and threw her into a spin. With a twirl of her own, Akira leaned over beside Yui and waved her floppy-sleeved arms quickly. At the same time, Yui concluded their performance by raising both her arms with peace-sign gestures on her hands.
The mercenaries gave out their loud cheers in unison.
"Yes!" was the shout from Scout and Heavy.
"Excellent!" Pyro and Medic yelled.
"It's a fine thing, lads," Demoman said.
"Whoo-hoo!" Engineer yelled.
"I feel tres bon!" Spy spoke gleefully.
At the inhibitors, Sniper called out, "Good on ya, mates!"
The Critic appeared on the inhibitor screen. He groaned as he threw his head down onto his table. He shrugged and grudgingly admitted, "Big lipped alligator moment". With a gesture, he made the accordion "ta-da" sound play once more.
Be colorblind, don't be so shallow
Then, Akira took a bow to her left, while Yui confusedly followed. They leaned back to their right in unison. As Yui whipped out a peace-sign gesture with her right hand, Akira took her arm and threw her into a spin. With a twirl of her own, Akira leaned over beside Yui and waved her floppy-sleeved arms quickly. At the same time, Yui concluded their performance by raising both her arms with peace-sign gestures on her hands.
Free your mind!
The mercenaries gave out their loud cheers in unison.
"Yes!" was the shout from Scout and Heavy.
"Excellent!" Pyro and Medic yelled.
"It's a fine thing, lads," Demoman said.
"Whoo-hoo!" Engineer yelled.
"I feel tres bon!" Spy spoke gleefully.
At the inhibitors, Sniper called out, "Good on ya, mates!"
The Critic appeared on the inhibitor screen. He groaned as he threw his head down onto his table. He shrugged and grudgingly admitted, "Big lipped alligator moment". With a gesture, he made the accordion "ta-da" sound play once more.
