Standard disclaimers apply
(begin opening credits)
(sung)
- - -We hate Animes
- - -What's with these guys anyway?
- - -Tiny mouths and hubcap eyes
- - -Repair bills are on the rise
- - -Karl better soon get wise
- - -Before it's one of use who dies.
- - -Dr. Karl Stoopenstein
- - -Had a little to much wine
- - -Now we're stuck in space and time
- - -Tell us, just what was our crime?
- - -Now we're the
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -Nine to five we're curing ailments
- - -Of people purely fictional!
- - -Toni's got an attitude
- - -Let her bark, her bites hurt more
- - -Heather's got both her eyes glued
- - -On every single guy's barn door.
- - -Mike's a romantic
- - -Pam's a mystery
- - -Karl's always frantic
- - -Brain the size of a flea.
- - -Life's a little dangerous
- - -Doctors only raise a fuss
- - -Screaming out our final plea
- - -All we want's reality!
- - -Cause we're the
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -Nine to five we're curing ailments
- - -Of people purely fictional!
C R A S H ! !
ANIME HOSPITAL
by J L Morreale
episode # 5
Royal Pain in the Neck
Heather and Mike had made it to the cafeteria for lunch early, and the
energetic nurse was showing off some of her artwork to Mike. Mike patiently
flipped through her sketchbook, and seemed to be genuinely impressed.
"These are quite lifelike, Nurse Farley," he said as he turned another page.
"You're very skilled. It disturbs me, however, to see so many drawings of
Doctor Stoopenstein getting killed."
"My favorite is the one where he's in drag and stuck in the Urotsukidoji
Universe," Heather said brightly.
Mike simply winced.
Toni and Pam finally arrived, and Toni glanced at the sketchbook. "Say, those
are pretty good!" she said. Mike turned a page, and then quickly tried to turn
to the next one, but Toni stopped his hand and looked closer at the picture.
Mike was averting his eyes and blushing furiously, while Toni's jaw dropped in
stunned disbelief. With a perplexed look on her face, she tilted her head one
way to look at the picture, then the other way. Finally, she looked up and
said to Heather, "You drew these, didn't you?"
"Do you think it's lifelike?" Heather asked with a bright look in her eyes.
Toni looked back one last time at the picture before Mike turned to the next
one. "Well they look real, if that's what you mean, but I don't think the
human body can bend like that."
Heather smiled and said, "Oh, yes it can,"
"Nurse Farley!" Mike said, shocked.
Two tables down a small gathering of animes was in the midst of a heated
argument. With the exception of hair styles, two of them looked remarkably
alike. They were both short and had ice blue hair to match the nearly vacant
looks on their faces and the words leaving their mouths in a seemingly
uninterested monotone. Their companions were doing their best to prevent the
argument from going any further.
"Rei, maybe we should just leave," one of them, a young boy with a pensive
look on his face said.
"Ruri, you're not getting anywhere, especially by calling them all 'baka'
every second word," a young man said. For that matter, both of the young men
shared eerie similarities as well. The two girls simply ignored their
companions and continued their debate on which version of "Star Trek" is the
superior.
After lunch, Heather remained behind to finish her latest picture. Finally,
she put her book away and started to head off for work. Before she got far,
though, she noticed something lying off to the side of the hall. She walked
over to where it was and noticed that it was a strange pair of glasses. She
bent over (at the waist, just in case there were guys watching.) and plucked
them up from the ground and studied them
critically.
They were round, like spectacles, but had a strange yellow tint to them, and
the ear clips felt like twined hair. Curious, she put the glasses on, and
peered through them.
Just then, a doctor passed by, and Heather started to turn away when she
whipped her head back to look at him. Her jaw dropped as she followed the
doctor's path, but that gape quickly transformed into a openmouthed grin.
Heather slowly put her hands together and began to rub them in anticipation.
Toni sat at the front desk and searched through her immense stack of papers
for a file when the front doors flung open with a snap and a rush of air burst
into the room. Toni's hair began to rise up, but she caught it and stuffed it
into her collar, mumbling, "I hate that effect." A lovely, girlish laugh
filled the lobby and a man in thick robes and a Harlequin-like mask quickly
came in. Following him was a gurney moving of it's own volition.
"You couldn't just once do a mundane entrance, could you?" Toni said, but
since she hadn't said it loud enough to be heard, she simply welcomed them
with a "Aren't vampires supposed to not get sick, Miyu?" Yes, Toni thought
with some satisfaction, That's much more diplomatic.
The gurney wheeled its way to the desk, but stopped a few feet away. Larva
fell next to it and hovered protectively over the girl.
Miyu slowly lifted to a seated position on the gurney and said, "It is so, but
there is a very rare disease. A group of shinma found it and I was infected."
Toni rolled her eyes and said, "Lovely, another 'rare disease' left to us to
find a cure for. You don't look too worse for the wear. What've you got, a
toothache?"
Miyu giggled and said, "No, I have Contrary Hemolitis. I am powerless when too
close to non-shinma, and anyone who gets too close to me develops an
uncontrollable urge to suck my blood."
"I bet Himiko wasn't very teary eyed when she heard about that."
Miyu simply stared at her with her penetrating eyes. Toni breathed a sigh and
said, "All right. I don't know how we're going to treat you under those
circumstances, but I'll have them set up a room for you."
"Thank you."
Larva and the Gurney floated to the waiting room, while the other people in it
parted to form a wide berth for them. Toni watched them move away and said, "I
hope Takahashi doesn't catch wind of this. I could just see 'Vampire Forest'
popping up in the RumikWorlds."
Suddenly her bemused expression faded away, and she gasped in shock. Had she
seen something familiar out of the corner of her eye? She turned to her left
and saw a young girl pass down the hall. The girl was about seven years old,
and was clutching a Sailor Moon doll inn her hands. She had two tails of hair
clipped to her head, to make her look similar to the likes of Usagi, though
her hair was a dark raven black. She bounced down the hall and out of sight
with a giggle, and Toni took a nervous gulp.
"No. Please say I didn't see what I thought I just saw," she said to herself.
She shook her head and said, "No, I saw it all right. Damn, I can't believe my
luck." She picked up the phone at her desk and tapped a few numbers and said,
"Hi, Dexter? I need to you stand in for me for a bit. An emergency just popped
up."
Not waiting for him to show up, Toni stepped out from behind the desk and left
down the same hall the girl had gone down.
Several minutes later, in one of the examination rooms, a trio of doctors were
trying to figure out how they could treat Miyu without succumbing to the side
effect.
First they tied a rope around one of the doctors and let him slowly creep up
to her with a stethoscope. He edged up to her, nervously. Beads of sweat
formed on his brow as he got closer and closer to her. Meanwhile, Larva looked
on silently from a corner. He had been given explicit instructions not to
interfere, and after a nod from Miyu, he agreed to do as he was bid.
The doctor came closer and closer to Miyu, until he was just a foot away, and
then he began to twitch as he struggled with himself. He was mumbling
something, but it took a while before anyone could make out what he was
saying.
"Ventura, ventura, space people. Ventura, ventura, space people..."
"It's not working!" one of the doctors cried in alarm, and started to strain
on the rope. "Quick! Haul him back!" The other doctor also strained against
the rope, and they quickly pulled him away from the influence of the disease.
"You want to explain to us again why your buddy can't just do this for you?"
one of the doctors asked Miyu.
"The disease can only be cured by a human. Shinma may only make the problem
worse," Miyu explained patiently.
They all sighed and formed a huddle to discuss what they would try next.
Soon they were using ten-foot poles to try to examine her with their
stethoscopes and other instruments. "This sucks." one of the doctors said.
"Why can't we have some of the advanced technology they have in the future
universes. That'd save us a lot of hassle."
"Because those things don't really work, that's why," another doctor said
irritably. "You know those things are only cosmetic and only work when they
film one of the shows that they do. When they get real injuries, they have to
put up with our stuff."
The complaining doctor let his pole drop and said, "Well this isn't going to
work. We'd better try something else."
Just then, the little girl that had caught Toni's attention poked her head in
the doorway and looked around. Her face brightened and she said, "Larva! And
Miyu! Wow! this is sooooo cool!"
The three doctors spun around and one of them said, "Hey, no otakus here. Beat
it, kid."
The little girl pouted, but left.
The doctors looked at each other. "Any more ideas?"
"Robotics from Stoopenstien's lab?"
"Do you really trust them?"
"No, not really."
"Well, I'm starved. Let's go get a snack and talk this over. You stay put,
Miyu. We'll figure something out."
The three doctors left, and Larva floated over to Miyu to take her hand with
concern. Miyu simply said, "Larva, can you turn on the overhead TV for me? I
don't want to miss today's episode of 'As the World Turns.'"
Heather was striding down the halls of the East wing, trying to remain
inconspicuous, but every time a guy passed by, be it doctor, nurse, or
patient, she lowered her gaze to his crotch and followed him with her eyes as
he passed by. She had a silly grin on her face, and was having trouble
suppressing a giggle.
Suddenly, Toni ran up to her and said, "Heather! Have you-" she stopped and
said, "What are those stupid glasses?"
Heather turned to look at her and jerked her head back in surprise. Quickly,
she fumbled with the glasses as she took them off and said, "I'm, uh, going to
a party where everyone wears glasses like these. They're really nothing." She
laughed nervously while Toni watched her skeptically. In an attempt to change
the subject, she said, "So, what did you want to ask me?"
Toni forgot all about the glasses and she said, "Have you seen a little girl,
about seven years old, with dark hair and Usagi-chan Hair Clips (tm)? I think
she went down this wing."
Heather thought about it, or rather, she pretended to. With as much attention
as she'd been lavishing on the guys, just about anyone female could have
passed by her without her noticing. "Well, no, I guess I haven't. Why, who is
she?"
Toni's eyes constricted with discomfort and she said, "Just an otaku that
doesn't belong in the halls. I have to go now," She ran off down the hall as
fast as her legs would carry her.
Heather watched her disappear down the halls and mumbled to herself, "I didn't
know she had a tattoo there." She shrugged her shoulders and turned back down
the hall, reaching for her glasses again.
"Now then, where was I?" she said with an evil grin. "Ah, yes, now I
remember." She chuckled to herself, and started to put the glasses back on.
Suddenly she stopped, and lowered the glasses to watch Mike chatting with
another nurse about something. Her mouth twisted into a grossly impish grin
and she glanced down to realize that she still had her sketchbook with her.
Slowly, she put the glasses on and pressed her back against the wall, and
waited for Mike to walk off. She quickly followed him with as much stealth as
she could muster while nearly falling into a fit of mirthful laughter.
* * * Commercial Break * * *
[The scene is a fairly sophisticated laboratory, with many beakers and test
tubes containing bubbling liquids. A brainy looking fellow in a lab coat steps
in front of the camera, holding a clipboard in his hand.]
Scientist: The value of taste tests have been relied on for nearly seventy
years, so when we developed our new cola, we naturally resorted to such tests.
The results were quite revealing.
[Cut to a isolated room with a long wooden table. Sitting on the table are
three soda cans that are stark white and have the letters "A" "B" and "C"
written on each respectively.]
Scientist's voice: We asked a large sample of people to try out each soda and
tell us which they preferred. In order to avoid bias, we only let them know
each by a letter, so that there would be no brand-name association. Once the
choice was made, we provided each tester with a case of the preferred soda to
determine its effects. The results were astounding.
[A girl is shown drinking the can with the "C" on it]
Scientist's voice: Those who preferred C-kola lost several dozen IQ points and
developed an uncontrollable urge to produce excessively bad cooking.
[Another girl is shown drinking the can with the "B" on it]
Scientist's voice: Those who preferred B-kola gained several dozen IQ points,
but became excessively violent and developed an uncontrollable urge to create
ridiculous looking robots.
[Yet another girl is shown drinking the can with the "A" on it. She crushes
the can and poses with her arms flexed victoriously]
Scientist's voice: Those who preferred our brand, A-kola, became incredibly
strong, fast, and beautiful. In addition, they were immediately propositioned
by a large number of hentai-perverts. The ones who drank B-kola and C-kola
were also propositioned by a large number of hentai-perverts, but didn't deal
with it quite
as well as the ones who drank A-kola had.
[Cut back to laboratory and scientist.]
Scientist: The results of Project: A-kola were so impressive we decided to
name it A-kola. If you have a powerful thirst, give A-kola a try.
Scientist (hesitantly): And please do not ask what happened to the ones who
preferred cola "D".
* * * End Commercial Break * * *
The little girl continued down one of the halls, peeking into doors and hoping
to find one of her favorite anime characters in them. She walked with a slight
skip to her step, but froze when she heard the voice call out from behind her.
"Billie! Stop right there!" Toni said, as she ran up to the little girl. Her
look was half-panic, and anger.
"Mo-" the little girl started to say, before the panic side of Toni took over
and she quickly covered the girl's mouth with both hands to squelch her voice.
"Quiet!" Toni said. "Don't let anyone hear you." She slowly eased her hand
away from the girl's mouth and whispered, "What are you doing here? Where's
your dad?"
"Daddy went to get groceries. I wanted to see the animes." She smiled and
giggled. "I like this place. It's fun."
Toni glanced up and down the hall to see if anyone was occupying it. "Never
mind that. I have to get you out before anyone sees you. I thought you knew
better than to come here."
"But I wanted to see Usagi-chan," Billie whined.
"No arguments. Let's go." Toni took Billie by the hand and began to walk her
down the hall. She glanced about nervously, while her daughter hopped along
behind her, complaining softly.
Suddenly Pam turned down into the hall. Before she had time to see them, Toni,
opened the door they were next to and said, "Quick! In here!" They both
stepped into the room, but when she looked around, she saw that it was DR
Stoopenstien's file room, and he was inside, shuffling through one of the
cabinets.
Before he turned around to see who had come in, Toni shoved Billie behind her
and smiled innocently. Karl looked surprised, but brightened when he saw her
smile. "Ah, Toni. So good to see you happy at this time. How may I help you?"
Billie was peeking out from behind her mother's legs at the Doctor. Before
Toni could say anything, she blurted out with, "You look funny, mister!" and
she giggled at her joke.
Toni's eyes widened and she winced. "Don't mind her, Doctor. She's just a lost
otaku that I'm escorting home."
"Ah, we so rarely get visitors so young," Karl said pleasantly. He walked up
and squatted so that he was looking Billie in the face. "And what is your
name, little girl?" he asked, producing a candy.
"I'm Billie Li-" She started to say, when Toni again clamped her mouth shut.
Laughing off, she said, "She's Beldandy's biggest fan, she means. Come one
now, little girl, we have to be going now." Toni wasted no time in getting out
of the room and back into the halls.
DR. Stoopenstein watched them leave and said to himself. "My, that child looks
a lot like Toni. If it wasn't for that hair, I'd swear they were related."
A large crowd of nurses had assembled in the cafeteria and were abuzz with
excitement. They were chatting back and forth about the "presentation," and
more nurses were appearing with each passing minute. Once Heather was
satisfied with the assemblage, she cleared her throat for silence.
"Ladies and gentlemen, but mostly the ladies, I proudly present to you my
greatest masterpiece. I'm sure you will all love it as much as I do." She
stepped off to the side to reveal a cloth-covered canvas. She lifted one hand
and grabbed a piece of the cloth.
"I call this piece, 'Nurse Jones.'" With a grand flourish, she ripped the
cloth away and watched with immense satisfaction as everyone in the cafeteria
gasped. Everyone was silent for several seconds, and then they burst out into
laughter.
"I want to see! I want to see!" Billie cried, as she jumped up and down on one
of the cafeteria tables. Toni had run off to a vending machine to get her a
soda, and had told her to stay put, which she was more or less doing. At her
last leap, she finally got a good look at the picture, and her eyes widened in
surprise.
"Mommy! He doesn't have any clothes on!"
Toni dropped the can of A-kola to the ground and clamped her hands on the
girl's mouth. She looked around, but everyone seemed to be transfixed on the
picture, and laughing at it. Toni breathed a sigh of relief and whispered,
"What did you say?"
"That picture! He's naked!" Billie whispered back, and she started giggling.
Toni said, "Don't move," and started to shove her way through the ocean of
nurses. "All right, all of you, clear out of my way. Come on, move it!"
Finally, she got to the head of the crowd and saw the center of attention.
True to her daughter's word, the picture was, indeed, a nude Mike Jones,
standing languidly with only a nurse's cap on his head. Toni blushed a bit,
and then turned on the other nurses. "Get! Go on! Get back to work, all of
you!"
The nurses all looked like they would object, but when they saw the look on
Toni's eyes, they thought it better to disperse quietly.
"How could you?" Toni said to Heather, once they had all disappeared, and she
had shielded her daughter's eyes with her hands. "How *did* you?"
"With these," Heather said, holding up the glasses. "X-ray glasses that really
work! All I had to do was follow Mike and the rest was easy. Isn't he
gorgeous? He has just the cutest-"
"Nurse Farley!" the voice of Mike said from the other side of the cafeteria.
He was staring at the portrait with complete disbelief, and appeared to be
shivering uncontrollably. "Nurse Farley, you... you..." His hands had clenched
tight enough to cut off the circulation of blood and they became vividly
paler. "Arggghhhh!" He said and smashed one of the tables with his fist, and
then ran off back the way he'd come.
Heather and Toni looked at each other. "Was he crying?" Heather asked.
Toni grabbed a tray and smacked Heather over the head with it.
Mike ran down the halls with tears streaming down his face. He passed by
several nurses who seemed about ready to giggle, but when they so him, thought
better of it. Desperately seeking some place he could go to hide, he just
picked one room and burst into it.
He quickly found a seat next to a potted plant and began to weep for all he
was worth. How could she do it? He wondered. Of all the indecent things she
could possibly do, why this? He could not believe his shame, and wondered if
he could ever show his face around the hospital again. No, of course he
couldn't.
He'd be a laughingstock the rest of his life.
Mike reached over and grabbed a piece of cloth and sneezed into it. He rubbed
his eyes and tried to calm himself down.
"Please continue," a small voice said. Mike looked up in surprise to see Miyu
standing in front of him, or rather, levitating a few inches above the ground
in front of him. He turned to the side and noticed that the cloth he had
grabbed was not a curtain, but were instead Larva's robes. Even more
embarrassed, he let the robes go and tried to stammer an apology.
"No," Miyu, said placing a hand on his shoulder. "Do not apologize. Cry. Your
pain makes you immune. Your tears can heal me. Cry." She gently took his head
in her hands, tracing each tear with her finger before bringing his face to
her chest.
Mike was nervous about finding himself alone with these two, but when he was
offered a way to vent out his grief, he accepted it whole-heartedly. He
expelled enough tears to fill a bucket, and Miyu made sure that each one of
them touched her. As each one did, a faint blue glow began to form a nimbus
around her, until she began to shine like a star.
After a while, Mike finally stopped and said, "I can't cry anymore. I'm
sorry." He looked up at Miyu, his face a mask of pure despair.
Miyu brushed her hand through his hair and said, "Fret not. You have cured me
with your pain. I am ill no longer." She turned to her companion in eternity
and said, "Come, Larva."
They began to fade away from the room, but Miyu looked at Mike, and her face
grew sad. Slowly, she faded back into the room and floated up to him. She
reached out and placed one finger on his brow and concentrated. "I
understand," she said after a while. She released her finger and said,
"Sleep."
Without another beat, Mike's head dipped low as he dozed off, and Miyu
vanished from the room, leaving it silent.
"You are going to apologize to Mike just as soon as we find him Heather! No
arguments!" Toni said as she dragged Heather by one hand, her own daughter by
the other, down the halls.
Heather was very quickly developing a look of defensive irritability, and she
was just getting ready to say something, when suddenly, the scenery began to
melt away. "What the hell-" Heather mumbled, and Toni held her daughter
protectively. Finally, the world stopped twisting, and when it righted itself,
they were back in the Cafeteria.
It was empty, except for the nude picture of Mike, and a dubious looking Pam
sitting at one of the tables. She nodded at their arrival and took a sip from
her coffee cup.
"Pam, what's going on here?" Toni demanded.
Pam simply inclined her head over the picture, where suddenly they saw Miyu
levitating just above it. The girlchild gave Heather a severe look and
suddenly the picture of Mike burst into flames.
"My picture!" Heather cried, and tried to run up to it, but she suddenly found
her way blocked by Larva. "Down boy," she said nervously, but it was she who
backed down under his piercing stare.
Once the picture fully disintegrated, Miyu made a sweep of her hand and Larva
took his place beside her. "You will be the only ones to remember that picture
ever existed. Everyone else, including Nurse Jones, will never recall its
creation. Take care, Nurse Farley. You nearly destroyed a good man today..."
Miyu disappeared with Larva, leaving only the sound of her laughter behind.
Pam and Toni looked at each other and nodded, and they both gave Heather a
guilt-inducing stare. Heather cringed under their looks and said, "What? It
was just a joke! Nobody but us remembers it now anyway, so what's the big
deal?"
Toni took another tray and hit Heather over the head with it saying, "You'd
just better be glad Mike doesn't remember it, or we'd make you apologize to
him so fast you'd break the speed limit on the Autobahn. Knowing Mike, he'd
come up with a pretty demeaning task for you to make it up to him, too." She
smacked Heather on the head again.
"I think that might be preferable" Heather moaned, as she clutched at her sore
head.
Mike walked into the cafeteria for their lunch, shaking his head with
bewilderment. "Something wrong, Mike?" Toni asked.
"Nurse Jones," he said to her sternly. "No, uh, actually, nothing's wrong." He
looked at everyone to see if they had guessed that he had somehow fallen
asleep in one of the rooms, but luck was apparently with him. "Nurse Farley,
you look like you've been run over by a train. Are you all right."
"I'm just fine," she mumbled while she lay with her head on the table, both
hands weaved through her hair. She moaned once. Pam and Toni nodded to each
other in satisfaction, and Pam patted her shirt pocket, with had the
impression of a pair of glasses poking out of it.
Suddenly, Billie bounded up from across the cafeteria, where she had just
bought herself a candy bar. "Hi Mom," she said, and Toni didn't even bother
trying to hush her this time. "Hi Nurse Farley. Hi Nurse Kaburi. Hi Mister Man
in the Picture."
As the last was said, all three women jerked in surprise, and dove in to clamp
the little girl's mouth shut.
Preview of next week's episode.
--------------------------------------
C-ko eats some of her own cooking and gets sick! Naturally, while she's in the
hospital, A-ko and B-ko declare total war, with the hospital as the battle
grounds. But this time, B-ko's cooked up a surprise that not even the strength
of A-ko can handle. Anime Hospital survive? Find out next week in "Just B-
ko's"
(begin closing credits, to the tune of "It's the End of the World as We Know
it," by REM)
Look out!
There simply is no doubt
She wants to sink her teeth in you
It's just a thing she likes to do.
She has a destiny, taking out the Shinma
Girl with her own means of taking out the baddies
Vampiric immunities
Larva is a Shinma, an enigma
Who stays by her side
Together and forever contemplating their joint fate
And with Himiko against them in her Shinto way
When they get together you can tell a fight is brewing
And you'd best leave town
She winds up helping Miyu with her magic prayers
Can they ever be friends?
Well,
No
She's a vampire
Guard your neck from bites and your mind from her charms
Run away, it's OK
Girl with her own means, listen to her laugh, neat!
Tell me is she an ally or a monster or a chick
Chick?
She just reported rigamortis
And might bite tight, that is our plight
(Chorus)
She's a pain in the neck and you know it
She's a pain in the neck and you know it
She's a pain in the neck and you know it
But that's no crime
Night falls, Miyu's hour
Don't get caught under her power
Draw a stake, mistake, listen to your bones break
What a fool, can't you tell she's inhuman
Bloodsucking but she has a heart too,
Maybe just a conscience grew
Miyu's lovely, Miyu's laughter
Fight on! Fight on!
There she goes
Drip drip
Oh no
I see no teeth, what's your beef?
both her fangs are underneath
A clever play a clever play a clever play of art
She may be vampiric, she may just be fictional
I can't decide
Chorus
Chorus
Silly bells when she arrives and
Fireballs that she can throw
Larva just stays close
Poor Himiko!!
But what's a princess
without other vamps to rule?
Animation
Slow plot, creepy laughs, tears
You can't stop watching, it's hypnotic
It's the best
Right?
Right!
Chorus
Chorus
Chorus
Chorus