hurricanrana

“The hell’re you sneakin’ off to?” A voice cut through the afternoon air as I tried to slip out of the Rabbits’ quarters. …Probably would have written it off as something over the intercom at first, if there weren’t a familiar form in a motorcycle helmet slumped on the couch. Wasn’t the worst person to find just loitering around, but it was pretty close. Blackburn, the second-least-likely person to ever stop giving me shit for this, next to V.

Fuck.

“You goin’ on a date?” Least she had the dignity to sit up when she started to pry. Sort of. Much as Blackburn ever bothered to. “You’re just about showin’ off your tits, Cooldown.”

…Fucking hot today. Not all of us get to walk around in freak suits with air conditioning.  Not usually jealous of Sab, but…

“Don’t give me that shit, man. It’s about the Ninth, ain’t it? Mal’s busy doin’ aide shit with Annie, ‘n the Warmasters are showin’ Mary the ropes. So you’re doin’ diplomat shit too, right?” ...Sounded like she was bored. But I didn’t want to get shit all day for going out on a date, or whatever. She’d just give Kong the wrong idea.

Told her the plan. Grab Kong on the way out. Burger Suplex, little bit after the lunch rush. Catch the Warriors game, probably stick around for the postgame riot. America in a day.

“Sounds like a date.” A hiss of static – a snicker, run through the speaker in her helmet.

It was her first time in the U.S. Wanted to give her the tour. Baseball game isn’t a date. It’s not even worth sitting through.

“Gay.” I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to try and punch her stupid fucking helmet inside-out. Probably would have tried anyway, but the last time I broke my fucking hand. And that’s really hard to do.

…Yeah. I realized later it probably sounded like a date to her. She and her girlfriend didn’t usually miss a Warriors game. Had to call it on account of the Ninth visiting, she was probably pretty pissed off. Just kinda hoped Kong didn’t get that idea.

---

“…Hole. You live in a hole. That’s the most charitable way I can describe it.” I looked over long enough to give her a dirty look, but…shit. She was smiling, just a little. Bit back what I was going to say, and gave hime-sama my sincerest apologies for the state of our living quarters. It was, after all, a Rabbit hole.

There went the smile, as she looked like she was trying to wish me dead. …Worth it. We made dumb small talk to break up the monotony of the trip. Burger Suplex wasn’t too far away from HQ – we were pretty sure Eightball owned the place. It was right next to most of the Eighth’s auxiliary housing and offered discounts for magical girls.

Pretty much lived there, most of the time - at least, when I was green. Most nights anymore, Nakajima or Wright cooked. Or me. Burger Suplex had the best fucking food in Santa Destroy, though. Fresh beef, no processed meat slurry bullshit. They had a guy in the back that powerbombed the cows to death every morning.  …Kong seemed much less impressed by that fact than I was, but fuck her.

Fuck did she know about burgers, anyway?

Knew what I wanted right away when we got inside, but it was harder to tell what she wanted. All I’d heard was that she really liked pancakes, or something. …Thought about making those for her instead of taking her out, but she’d be missing out. Didn’t need to get any weirder, anyway. Ended up throwing out suggestions until somethin’ clicked. Really seemed sad the breakfast menu wasn’t available, though. …I’d remember that for next time.

Got a large Hurricanrana Combo and a Hassy. She got a Half-Nelson and some iced tea. …Tea tasted like shit, we ended up splitting the Hassy. Coulda told her that was coming. Ended up splitting the fries, too. …Things got a little weird a couple of times, when we reached for the same one. First time we both just grabbed it and ripped the thing in half. I just let her have the rest. She didn’t even seem to notice, but I dunno if I normally would’ve, either.

This whole fucking thing really put me on edge. This host shit wasn’t me. This was stuff Annie usually did, but she’d just gotten promoted to Equerry. Had a job to do now.

So much easier when I could just stab people.

---

Home. She made that noise again when I brought up the baseball game. Didn’t seem to be a fan. …Neither was I, but Mary had tickets. Good tickets she couldn’t use, right up front. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to take Kong to a movie. Tried to tell her the riots were usually worth hanging around for, and reassured her that there were always riots.

Annie told me once that the Warriors were a lot like the, uh…Henshin Tigers or something, over in Japan. Osaka. Shitty team with obsessive, violent fans. Every time I’d been to a Warriors game, they’d lost, and people started tilting cars and beating each other with pipes. We started using the riots to train new girls. The ones that got through it conscious and mostly not on fucking fire usually went on to become Eversors, and a couple of those Eversors eventually became Rabbits.

Wasn’t me. We didn’t get off that easy. But I wasn’t going to take her to the fucking gardening section in Black Market. Wouldn’t inflict that on anyone else, not as long as I lived.

…She didn’t really understand the Henshin Tigers thing. Guess it wasn’t that big a deal over there, either – just Annie being Annie.

Most of the conversation as the game started was about how it was way too fucking hot out to be sitting in the stands. Kind of glad it wasn’t just me, but I guess she didn’t bring lighter clothes. Definitely her first time in California. Wish I could’ve lent her a lighter shirt or something.

Things quieted down after the first pitch was thrown, and I was pretty sure that was that. This whole thing was probably a bust. Should have just taken her out to a bar or something. Nothing to see in this city unless you want to see broken people kill each other. …At least, that’s what I got stuck on. Barely paid attention to the game, up until she nudged me in the side.

“I think I could kill the batter from here.” When I looked over, she had that small smile again. …Barely more than a tug on the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was really thinking about doing it, but god knows I usually did. It…probably wasn’t right, that once we started talking about killing, it all spilled out. Conversation came…easy. We both liked our work. The people we worked with. Our roles in this fucked-up world. We told stories. Laughed a little. Could barely hear each other over the game we were ignoring.

After it was over, we sat in a parking lot on the hood of my shitty old Crown Victoria a few blocks away, watching the fireworks. And the fires. There was always a riot after a Warriors game, but for a change, this one was a celebration riot. The Warriors won their first game of the season. Some new guy they picked up in Alabama hit a grand slam his first time up at bat. …Mary was going to be pissed she missed it.

…Wouldn’t have minded if it lasted a little longer. Even though police sirens wailed in the distance, it was…peaceful. Kong reminded me of a battlefield, after the dust had settled. She had a grim serenity to her, even if she was probably even more awkward than I was.

…Made her pancakes before she headed back. Just once. …Didn’t really mean anything.

Just wanted her to know...we were friends.