A couple of things before we begin. Firstly, before anyone asks, this is largely inspired by the Zatsuza fic Rou wrote yesterday (which is excellent and can be found
here). Secondly, this is the first thing I've written in years, so I apologise in advance if it's a little wooden. Thirdly, this is an
incredibly silly concept. I have this planned up to a few updates ahead, but really this is just a spur of the moment idea I got last night, so anything could happen. Oh, and just in case - fourthly, if you don't know who Hibachi is,
this should give you a basic idea.
Got all that? Excellent. Well then, let's get this trainwreck moving. :moogy:
---
Hibachi's Great Revival!---
A dull orange glow filled the room. The object emanating the glow had been there for years, if not decades, waiting patiently to be found by anyone daring enough to make it through a state-of-the-art military fortress. This was no easy feat, to be sure, but the lack of...
visitors... lately had been unusual, to say the least.
If it had been capable of feeling most emotions, it might have been worried. As always, however, this feeling was replaced with an almost abstract kind of fury; not angry at anything in particular, but feeling anger all the same. It almost missed the countless days spent in a frenzy, raining destruction on its
visitors. It was very rare that one of them would last more than a minute; rarer still were those who actually bested it. Even if it had been capable of such things, however, it would not have begrudged those losses; on the contrary, a
visitor surviving longer meant more time active, and with things as they were...
It moved its vision over to the huge blast doors at the entrance of the room.
Why isn't anyone visiting?Its eyes stared daggers into the reinforced titanium, almost as if trying to summon a
visitor by sheer force of will. To no avail, of course.
As often happened, an unpleasant thought crossed what passed for its mind - had it been forgotten? Logic would dictate that people would remember an entity of such ferocity, but it had been years... and those humans had
such short memories.
Eventually, it moved its vision away from the door, the anger dulling slightly. Regardless of was going on outside those doors, it was sure it would be
visited when the time was right. Until then, it would wait as long as was necessary. Turning its consciousness off to preserve its energy, it fell into what could almost be described as a sleep, with only the most basic of sensors operating in case action was needed.
Time passed.
Years later, the door opened once again. A small ship flew deftly into the room, firing a spray of yellow bullets into the chamber as quickly as the guns could handle - only to have its pilot stop shooting in confusion after a few seconds.
The glow was
gone.
---
Chirp. Chiiiiiiiiiiiiirp."Ahhhhh..." Hibachi yawned while stretching her arms. Lazily, she opened her eyes to find herself in the pleasant shade of a forest glade, the leaves of the trees just beginning to turn a golden--
...Wait, what? Forest? What happened to my room? Why am I in a forest? ...Did someone move me?!Confusion and panic threatened to overwhelm her for a moment; she'd never even seen a forest before. How would she get back to her chamber? Scratch that, how would she even survive in a forest away from power?!
Wait, wait. Stop with those thoughts. I'm Hibachi
. If I can take out the best the human race has to throw at me, a forest can't be too much trouble, surely. I can handle this.Calming down slightly, her thoughts returned to the question of how she'd arrived here. Hibachi frowned; she couldn't see how anyone could possibly have moved her without her realizing, but at the same time there was no other possible explanation for what was going on. Looking around, she decided to take stock of her surroundings. She was in what appeared to be a large forest, albeit one without any familiar kind of life at all; there wasn't a tree or plant in sight she recognized. None of her usual sensors seemed to be working at all, which besides being extremely worrying--
Was I alone so long that I... stopped working? Did something happen to me?--meant that she couldn't tell how far the forest went or whether there were any people around.
Well then, she reasoned,
I think some exploration is in order. Flapping her wings slowly at first, she gradually sped the wingbeats up until they emanated a low buzz, allowing her to hover about a metre off the forest floor. Picking a random direction, she flew nimbly forward - head first into a tree.
"Ow!" she yelped, falling back to the ground. Rubbing her head tentatively, she was annoyed to find the beginnings of a lump forming. Sighing, she resigned herself to the headache which was sure to follow, if the buzzing ringing through her ears was any indication.
...Wait, buzzing? I'm sure headaches aren't supposed to do that.Confused for the second time in as many minutes, she looked for the source of the sound. Left, right, directly away from the tree - nothing. Just before giving up in annoyance, however, she felt an extremely light weight land on her head - so light, in fact, that if she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings, she probably wouldn't have realised it was there at all. Looking up, she found the source of the sound, and a small grin made its way onto her lips.
"Bees!"
A small group of bees were emerging from a modest hive high up in the tree; evidently, they were searching for the source of the disturbance that had crashed into their home so suddenly. Giggling to herself, she felt confident for the first time since awakening.
If I have my bees to do things for me, everything's okay. This will make a lot of things easier. Now, what should I do with them first?Clearing her throat, she addressed the small swarm that had appeared.
"Okay, bees. Where are we?"
Watching the swarm, she waited as they... completely ignored her question. A few of them flew around her, clearly wondering what this strange trespasser was, but most of them were either flying away to check for danger or floating lazily back into the hive. She could hardly believe her eyes; she was being ignored by her own subordinates!
"Hey! Bees! I'm talking to you!"
Exclaiming this, she waved her hands around to try and draw their attention, almost swatting one of them by accident. The bees surrounding her buzzed louder for a moment, and then swiftly flew off to her right. Hibachi gritted her teeth in irritation.
"Damnit, what are you doing?! Get back here!"
Almost instinctively, she pointed one of her arms at the escaping insects and let loose a short stream of flashing purple arrowheads. Curiously, however, the bees almost seemed to have anticipated this; moving sharply out of the way, they avoided the bullets entirely, leaving them to hit another tree a few metres onward.
Not that it would have made much difference, she thought to herself in dismay - aside from a few scorch marks, the tree was left perfectly intact, completely unlike the explosive power she remembered wielding.
Well, this is bad... I don't know where I am, the bees aren't listening to me, and I can barely mark a tree, let alone destroy a ship. What the hell happened?Sulking, she started trying to hover again.
Take it slowly this time, remember. Don't want anything embarassing to happen again. It seemed that while she could only move jerkily at best, if she concentrated she had enough precision to, say, not fly straight into trees repeatedly. It was hardly ideal, but it would probably have to do under the circumstances. Deciding that she may as well follow the bees for lack of any better directions, she turned to her right and slowly began to make her way through the dense foliage.
---
Travel through the forest was uneventful, but unsettling. She couldn't see any other creatures apart from herself between the trees, but just the same she had a constant feeling that she was being watched by hundreds of eyes. Occasionally, she was sure she saw movement from the corner of her eye, but upon turning her head, the forest was still as ever. She tried to convince herself that it was just baseless paranoia - after all, nothing was actually happening - but she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she wasn't alone.
After around fifteen minutes of hovering, she came across a stream, flowing between a group of trees.
Phew, she thought to herself,
lucky I found this. I was getting thirsty. It wasn't all that large - perhaps a metre or two wide, and shallow - but judging from its speed there was likely to be a decent-sized river or perhaps even a lake further downstream. Alighting on the grass to one side of the stream, she kneeled down and cupped her hands together to gather some water to dri--
Hang on. Hands?She brought her hands in front of her face, stunned. One, two, three, four, five slim digits emerged from a small, flat palm. Yes, they were definitely hands.
But... why do I have hands?Quickly going down on all fours, she leaned her face over the stream and looked into the water. Staring back out of the reflection was not a machine, but a young girl in a striped yellow and black garment, her wide, red eyes framed with shoulder-length brown hair. Shaking slightly, she sat down and looked at herself properly for the first time since waking up. Hands, arms, shoulders, chest, torso, legs, feet. It was clear as day; she had all the features of a human.
But what-- how--"Hey! You over there!" A voice shouted from the other side of the stream. Putting the question of what had happened to her aside for the time being, Hibachi looked up and saw what she assumed was a girl on the other side of the lake, though dressed incredibly oddly; her shirt and trousers were bizarrely complemented by a cape, and the green hair and the two
Are those antennae? strange appendages sprouting from the top of her head completed the impression of weirdness. "Yes, you! Were you the one who attacked my bees?"
Attacked her bees?! There are so many things wrong with that..."No, I didn't mean to-- hey, what do you mean,
your bees?"
"I mean exactly what I said.
My bees." She gracefully leapt forwards over the stream, landing a few feet away from Hibachi. "I'm Wriggle, and I have a fair amount of control over the insects in this forest, as well as being the one who looks after them and keeps them healthy. It seemed appropriate." Looking Hibachi over curiously, she asked, "Who are you, anyway? I don't think I've seen you around here before, and the bees didn't seem to mind you that much even after you were aggressive, which is pretty weird. The insects I had watching you on your way here didn't seem to know who you were either."
Insects watching me? That would explain the weird feeling I had on my way here... I can't believe I didn't catch them, though. I must really have lost it. Ah well, time to introduce myself. Must make a good first impression.Hibachi stood up, dusted herself off, and struck what she hoped was an impressive pose. "I," she proclaimed, "Am Hibachi! The ultimate destroyer! The leader bee! Humans shake in fear when they hear my name!" She looked away from Wriggle's face and pointed a hand into the sky. "My full name is the Supreme Weapon of Extreme Hellish Annihilation, but you may call me the Golden Disaster." She turned back to Wriggle, expecting to see a look of awe, or at least respect. Instead--
"Pfffffhahahahahahahahaheeheehehehehe
hahahahaha!" Wriggle was doubled over in hysterics, barely able to stand up for laughter. "The Supreme Hellish We--ahahahaha!"
Hibachi felt her cheeks start to colour. "H-hey! Why are you laughing? It's supposed to be scary!" she complained with a frown.
"Ahahaha, yeah, that was really scahahahaha
haaaa, really scary." Wriggle replied while trying to stop giggling quite so hard. Calming down slightly, she walked over and ruffled Hibachi's hair. "Kid, I don't know if I'd call that a disaster, but that was
golden."
"Hey! St-stop making fun of me! It's not funny!" Hibachi shook Wriggle's hand off, scowling.
"Ahaha, sorry, sorry, but it's a little long for a name, don't you think?" Wriggle chuckled. "You know, I think I'll stick with Hibachi if that's quite all right."
"It's
not all r--"
"Good, good. Well then, Hibachi, what are you doing in this part of the forest?" Wriggle inquired.
"I, err... I don't know." Hibachi admitted. "I just kind of went to sleep and then I woke up and was in this forest. I've never even seen a forest before!"
"...You're a bee youkai and you've never seen a forest before?" Wriggle asked, nonplussed.
"A bee what?" Hibachi asked in confusion before shaking her head. "Wait, wait, that isn't important. Give me back my bees!"
Wriggle sighed. "We've already been over this. They're not your bees. They're not going to obey you regardless of what you do unless I tell them to. Although..." Wriggle looked thoughtfully at Hibachi for a moment. "Hey, can you do that thing again that you tried to hit the bees with?"
"Oh, this?" Hibachi pointed at a nearby tree and fired a stream of five arrowheads, leaving a similar scorch mark to last time.
Ugh, this is going to take some getting used to... that's a pathetic amount. I suppose I'll just have to be careful not to waste them--
"Aha, excellent~" Wriggle exclaimed with a smile. "Well then, Miss Hibachi, there's a chance you could get some bees back after all. How about a little challenge?"
