Priss and the Genie of the whiskey bottle!
By
David (Fido) Lindquist
DISCLAIMER: Bubblegum Crisis is owned by ADV. All
the other characters are own by their own companies.
I'm just borrowing them for a bit. C&C and comments
will be greatly appreciated.
Special thanks the Gary Kleppe, Scott 'Zoogz'
Jameson, and Stormy for prereading and the one hour
participants for comments. Thank you.
Note:This is set in the same universe as an earlier
story I wrote called Sneak Pique. it can be found in
the R.A.A.C archives.
-----------------------------------------------
The red motorcycle drove slowly through the production
lot roadway, much to the disgust of the driver. The
15 kph speed limit was very well posted. Despite that,
she contemplated breaking it. The only thing that held
her back was the knowledge of what awaited her if she
got caught.
Priss Asagiri knew that well. Mainly because she had
broken it before and been caught.
She was sentenced to four hours of 'sonic
punishment'. Being strapped to a table and forced to
listen to 'The TeleTubbies' Greatest Hits' over and over
does wonders for a person's attitude.
Priss shivered slightly at the memory and dismissed the
thought. While she loved living on the edge, there were
some things even she wouldn't risk.
"A person has got to know their limitations." she
reasoned then let out a sigh. "Too bad I found one."
As she made a right turn, her thoughts shifted to her
current problem.
She was supposed to have been at a 'Ranma/ BGC Fanfic
shoot' two hours ago but had hit a snag. The boy who had
given her directions got them wrong and that meant one
thing.
She was lost.
Really lost.
*Damn it! When I get my hands on that Hibiki kid, I'll
rip him a new... *
A vibration from her jacket pocket disrupted her
train of thought.
*My pager,* she thought angrily, *Probably that
damn director again. *
Stopping her bike in front of a studio warehouse,
Priss pulled the device out of her pocket and
checked the number.
"Yep," she said. "It's the dork."
Priss cursed silently as she made her way to the wall
phone that hung by the main door then dialed the
number. It rang twice before it was answered.
"HELLO!" the male voice growled out.
"What the hell do you want?" Priss said irritably.
"WHERE THE @#$@ HELL ARE YOU?!"
"BEATS THE @#$% OUT OF ME!" she screamed back.
There was a pause on the other line for a few seconds.
"Where are you at now?" the voice asked tightly.
"STUDIO 34, YOU @#%$@!"
"Stay there, okay? We'll send a car for you."
"What the @%#%$ ever!" Priss slammed down the phone.
*God I hate working with fanboys!* she thought, then
walked back to her bike and waited.
Ten minutes later, Priss noticed that the clouds were
growing dark.
*Great. Rain,* she thought then frowned. *Better get
under cover.*
Walking over to studio door, she grabbed the handle
and gave an experimental tug. It slid back easily.
Priss then looked inside.
The warehouse looked old. Cobwebs hung at various
points along the ceiling and dust was gathered along
the floor. Rows of boxes and crates were stacked as
far as the eye could see.
*Whoa,* she thought. *There sure is a lot of junk in
here.*
After she made sure there was enough room, Priss moved
her bike into the warehouse. She barely missed the
downpour by seconds.
Fifteen minutes later, she noticed that the rain
wasn't easing up. As a matter of fact, it was steadily
getting stronger. Just watching it fall sent a chill
through her body.
*At least I'm not out in that mess!*
Almost as if on cue, her pager went off again.
Priss instantly had a feeling that she wouldn't like
what was going to happen next. Reluctantly, she pulled
out the pager.
"Crap. What the hell does he want now?" she muttered.
With a sigh, she looked at the outdoor phone. While
the phone had a plastic awning for protection from
the elements, the ten feet between there and the
doorway didn't.
"Damn."
She stood at the door edge for a few minutes then
with a yell that would have made a warrior princess
proud, she ran to the pay phone. In response, the rain
seemed to intensify. The end result left Priss totally
drenched by the time she reached the protection of
the awning.
Soaked to the bone, Priss quickly punched in the
number. However, the voice that answered on the other
end wasn't what she had expected.
"Nene?!?" she shouted. "What's going on?"
"Priss! Glad you got my message," a cheerful and
somewhat drunken voice replied. Priss heard the sounds
of a party in the background. "They called off the
shoot!"
"They WHAT?!?"
"Yeah! It was that idiot directors fault!" Nene
said, "After he got off the phone with you he threw
a tantrum and broke the weather machine! It's raining
like crazy here!"
"No kidding," she mumbled, then spoke up. "So what
happens now?"
"Well, me and the rest of the cast are throwing a
little party while Sylia and the special effect people
try to fix it."
Priss then heard a voice call out over the phone.
"Hey, Linna! *Hic* Wanna find out why they call me 'wild
horse?'"
It was immediately followed by a loud thump and someone
shouting, "RANMA NO HENTAI!"
"Owwww... I was only kidding, ya stupid..., "
The rest was drowned out when Nene's voice came back on.
"The director took off for his office. He said to go on
home and be here early tomorrow."
Priss frowned slightly as a nagging suspicion formed in
the back of her mind. "Okay, when's my ride coming?"
The answer confirmed her suspicion.
"It isn't. The director took it when he left."
With a sigh, Priss tried not to rip the phone off
the wall. "Great. Now, how in the hell am I supposed
to get home?!?"
"Don't know. I don't think we will be leaving for a
bit either," Nene replied. Then the background noise
grew louder. "I gotta go! Take care, Priss-chan! Bye!"
Priss barely got the chance to reply before she heard
the receiver go 'click.' She stood frozen in place,
then slammed the receiver down and stormed back to
the warehouse. The rain sizzled off the anger-induced
battle aura she generated.
Once she was inside, and able to push out of her head
the thought of what she would do to the director when
she next saw him, Priss began to take stock of her
situation. She was still somewhat wet, hungry and stuck
in an old storage warehouse until the storm passed. A
gust of wind made her add 'soon to be cold' to her problem
list.
*I need clothes,* she thought. *This place MUST have
some costumes I can use.*
With the decision made, she began her search.
***********
The warehouse was a lot larger than she'd first suspected
but as she searched the various boxes, Priss realized
that there was a very good reason for it. She was in one
of the 'Distasteful Fanfic Props' warehouses, or as they
were commonly called, 'Dumbass Fanfic Props'. The place
where items went when the fanfic ideas that spawned them
suffered a premature, and in most cases a very deserving,
death.
The first item was a large box of what looked like wind-up
pikachus, which wasn't that unusual except for the fact
that half of them had mallets while the other half wore
a black-haired pigtail. It was then that Priss noticed a
tag on the box that said 'For use in the Ranma/Pokemon/James
Bond crossover "The Pikachu who malleted me."'
Since it wasn't what she was looking for, Priss moved on. A
few boxes and more strangeness later, Priss found something
very useful. A crate full of 'Meals:ready to eat' destined
for a fic called 'Hello Kitty: War is hell.'
She checked one of them and was somewhat surprised to find
out that they were the real thing. She took one and made
a note to come back and get a few more later on.
Finally, she came across a bunch of clothes set aside for
a BGC fic she'd been offered but turned down. She didn't
remember what it was about but with the title being 'Pretty
Cutey Daring Magic Girl Nene!!' she didn't want to know. A
part of her just hoped the box would have what she needed.
"Here goes nothing," Priss said, as she took off the lid.
Once she saw what they were though, the Knight Saber
sigh in frustration. Every single piece of clothing in the
box screamed one word.
Cute. The kind of cute that could create instant diabetes
at a glance. So cute that they would have been outlawed in
most states as a menace to society. Reluctantly, she picked
one of the least offending article of clothing, a strapless
blue summer dress, and checked the tag.
"... and it's Nene's size, too. Figures."
She started to put it back when a strong wind blew through
the warehouse. It n wouldn't have been so bad if she'd
been dry but with the still damp clothes she wore, it had
the effect of dropping ice down her back.
With a desperation borne from not wanting to freeze to
death, Priss quickly changed into the dress. On Nene it
would have fit perfectly. However, on Priss it was
skin tight. She even had to readjust her top to prevent
certain 'assets' from making an unwelcome appearance.
*Well, at least it's dry,* she thought as she again
adjusted her top. *If anybody ever saw me in this
though...*
Images of her being mobbed by rabid hentai fanboys, with
Leon in the lead, filled her head. While annoying, she
wasn't too concerned about it. However, the next image of
her being mobbed by rabid fangirls...
The rest of the mental image disappeared when she saw
something out of the corner of her eye.
"What the... ?"
Turning around, she walked over to a small case nestled
between a sixty foot blow-up Shampoo doll and a hardsuit
made for a La blue girl/BGC crossover, complete with
external and internal 'attachments', and looked at it.
It appeared to be an old wine case except for the logo of
Jack Daniels on its side.
*No way I couldn't be this lucky,* Priss thought while
she pulled off the lid. Inside, she saw the two bottles.
"Son of a &$*%@!" she said. "One of them's full!"
Quickly, she opened the top and tasted it.
"The whiskey's still good!" she said. Priss grabbed the
box and walked back to her bike.
"Now I can really get warmed up!"
*************************
An hour later, Priss was by her bike, again staring out
at the rain. A slight breeze blew through the warehouse,
which caused a few empty Meals:Ready to Eat packets to
move along the ground, but she didn't care. The bottle
of Jack Daniels had pretty much hardened her to the
cold. It also gave her one hell of a buzz.
"Stupid director," she muttered then finished off the
almost empty bottle.
After setting it down, Priss reached over and tried to
pick up the other whiskey bottle but had to stop when
her top slid down.
"Damnit!"
She immediately pulled her top back up and then snatched
the bottle out of the case.
"Stupid dress!" she muttered.
If Priss hadn't been buzzed and angry, she might have
noticed that the bottle had been resealed and that it
wasn't full of whiskey. Of course, if she wasn't in said
condition, she would have seen the big writing on the
label that said 'Do not open under penalty of death!'.
Unfortunately, she didn't.
The moment the cap came off, green smoke poured out.
"*&%^! It's a prop!" she yelled. Priss then noticed that
the smoke seemed to be hanging in one spot in the
air.
"Oh boy," she remarked, the boredom evident in her
voice. "Trained smoke."
Almost instantly, a man with short blond hair appeared in
the middle of the smoke.
"WHO DARES RELEASE ME FROM MY PRISON!" he bellowed.
"QUIT SCREAMING, DAMNIT! THERE"S A ECHO IN HERE!!!" Priss
shouted back.
"Oh! I..I'm sorry!" the blond answered sheepishly. "It's
hard to see where you are when you are trapped in a bottle
for a long time.'
"Yeah, yeah whatever..'
"So, umm... did you release me?" he asked quietly. Priss
noticed that he was desperately trying not to look at her
chest.
"Yeah," she replied crossing her arms over her chest. " Who
are you and what happened to the other bottle of JD?"
The man stared at her for a few seconds, trying to digest
what she had said.
"That... is a long story," he finally stated. "You want
some coffee?"
Priss looked at him oddly then nodded. Whoever this nut
was, it would be a good idea to shake off some of the
effects of her 'medicinal drink'.
With a wave of his hand a medium sized table with two
chairs appeared beside them. On it was a simple coffee
maker and two cups.
"Shall we?" he asked.
In her state, Priss didn't even blink. She just walked
up to the table and grabbed a cup then sat down. After
adjusting her top again, she noticed that there was also
a plate of donuts and watched as the man took one.
"The coffee's instant. I'm not sure how to make anything
more exotic than that," he said, "but the donuts are good."
"Unuh," she replied then she downed her cup in one shot
and went for a refill.
"Ah... just like Gypsie used to make!" he said then he
grabbed another one and ate it.
After fifteen minute of him eating donuts, Priss was
beginning to get annoyed.
"You ready to tell me who you are and where the booze
is now or are you going to stuff your face all day?"
"Oh yeah," he replied sheepishly, "I forgot about
that. Well, I used to be a star of a show."
"You do look familiar," she said and grabbed a
donut.
"I... I do? Cool! Sorry. The show was a cult hit and had
a decent following. But after a while, you can only make
fun of so many movies before you get tired so we called
it quits."
Priss nodded. She understood what that was like very
well.
"The fans, however, got very upset. Unfortunately, one
of the fanboys was a tremendously powerful sorcerer. He
kidnapped me, turned me into a genie and sealed me in
that bottle."
"Why?" Priss asked him.
"I have no idea. I think he was a few bricks shy of
a load myself."
Priss shrugged and bit back a remark.
"Okay, so what do I call you?"
"Mike."
"Mike?" Priss said in disbelief. "A genie named
Mike?!"
"It's my name, honest!" Mike replied.
"So, 'Mike', where is the whiskey?"
"Umm... There isn't any. That was my home."
"Terrific," Priss replied. "Well, I'll just use one
of my wishes to get some."
"I don't give wishes either."
"You're a genie that gives no wishes?" Priss
exclaimed. "What a rip off!"
The genie frowned at her response.
"Well, you do get something for your trouble."
"I do? What is it?"
The genie fidgeted slightly in his seat.
"Well... umm... I... I have to kill you."
Priss just stared at him.
"It's part of the curse. If someone frees me I have to
kill them and I'll be free again," he slowly bowed his
head and sighed. "You'll have to excuse me, I've never
tried to kill anyone face to face before. Sure, I've
blown up a few planets but they were by accident! I
mean, who knew baking soda bombs were that devastating?"
Mike the genie looked up just in time to see Priss's
thrown punch connect with his face.
"Owww!" He yelled and held his nose. "What did you do
that for?!"
He again looked up to find himself staring down the
barrel of a very large gun.
"Umm... where did you get that?" he asked nervously.
"Saving it for a rainy day," Priss replied as she
squeezed the trigger. "Like now."
The blast hit the genie square in the face and sent him
flying into a bunch of crates. Smoke and dust blasted
up from the impact to the point of obscuring all sight
around it.
Lowering the cannon, Priss smiled.
*Well, that was fun,* she thought. *At least I got to break
in my new Bun Bun 3000 Blast-O-Matic. 'Never leave home
without it or I'll come over and slice your *&^*%& head
off!' as their motto says.*
As she started to put the cannon back into her cleavage,
where most of the hot anime women keep stuff like that, she
sighed.
*Pity. He was somewhat cute.* Then she smirked. *For a
guy.*
"Umm... excuse me?" A familiar voice said. Priss' blood
ran cold at its sound. "That wasn't a nice thing to
do."
The Knight Saber looked up to see Mike walking out of the
smoke cloud waving his arms in an effort to clear some of
it away. He appeared to be a little singed and dirty but
other than that he was unharmed.
"I mean I was trying my best to be nice about this. "
He never finished his sentence on account of a table
smashing him square in the face. That was followed by
a right cross. Priss punched and kicked him with every
ounce of strength she could muster. Unfortunately, none
of it seemed to slow him down in the slightest. "
"Hey!" SLAP! "Can you... " SLAM! "please... " WHAM!
"stop... " CRASH! "attacking me?"
Suddenly, Mike's head grew five times its normal size.
"ENOUGH!" he shouted. "Someone seriously needs a time
out here!"
The effect of it on Priss was immediate. She stopped and
backed away.
"Hey, that trick really does work," he said while his head
returned to normal. "Damn, I am so good sometimes!"
However, Mike was so busy patting himself on the back
that it took him a few minutes to realize that Priss was
no longer there.
"Aw man... "
*******************
Pulling up her top, Priss ran through the warehouse. Her
best gun hadn't worked, neither had her other plan of
hitting him with everything imaginable and if those didn't
work, slugging him wouldn't do it either.
She needed a plan.
*A plan? Hell, I need an A-bomb!*
It didn't take her long to run to the other side of the
warehouse. The only time she stopped was to look at the La
Blue Girl hardsuit to see if she could be of any use. After
a quick examination, she decided it would be better to let
the genie kill her. However, when she resumed her flight,
she got disoriented and with all the twist and turns in the
rows, Priss got turned around and ended up going in a complete
circle and ended up right back where she started.
"There you are!' Mike said.
Priss spun around and let out a curse. There wasn't anything
she could do now.
The genie looked at her sadly.
"Look, I don't want to do this either but I've got to!" he
pleaded. "Do you know what's it like to live in a
bottle? No mail! No phone! The Jacuzzi only seats four! Heck,
you can't even get Pay Per view for crying out loud! So, how
about you close your eyes and I'll kill you as painlessly as
possible, please?"
Priss stood there and watched her opponent plead and beg
her to close her eyes, turn around or do something so he
didn't have to see her face when he did whatever he was going
to do to kill her. After a minute of this, she began to get
irritated. After five minutes. she was downright pissed.
"Hey!" She shouted, interrupting him in mid plea. "Are
you going to kill me or what?"
"That's what I'm trying to do," Mike replied as he fidgeted
some, "but this isn't easy."
"Look, just create a gun and shoot me, okay? What an idiot!"
"Alright!" Waving his hand, the genie produced a large
pistol. He aimed it at Priss and slowly pulled the trigger,
then hesitated.
"I'm sorry." he said. "I mean, I'm really, really sorry about
all this."
"Will you do it already! Jesus!" Priss shouted as she threw
her arms up in frustration. The Knight Saber was so angry
that she had forgotten about the problem with her dress
top. Or, more importantly, what said movement would do to
it.
The top immediately dropped down, giving Mike a totally
unobstructed view of her chest. Now, Mike wasn't that much
of a ladies man. As a mater of fact, he was so bad that he
had gone into a seizure while attempting to distract a fairly
homely empress in an escape attempt. Knowing that, one can
imagine what his reaction was to seeing a girl of Priss's
attractiveness without her top.
"Grk..."
*Thud!*
Priss couldn't believe it when the genie froze in place then
fell over. The only solace to her was the grin plastered on
his face.
"What a dork!" she muttered and pulled her dress top back
up. Carefully walking over to the fallen Genie, she squatted
down and touched his face. To her surprise, he immediately
turned to smoke. She watched it as it moved toward then
entered the open bottle Mike had came from.
The Knight Saber didn't even hesitate when she forced the
cap back on. She then noticed something else.
"It's about time it stopped raining. Now to get out of
here."
Checking her wet clothes and found them to have dried,
Priss quickly changed, then walked to her bike, stopping
just long enough to pick up the bottle.
"Wha...what happened?" it said.
"You passed out," Priss replied. She mounted her bike and
put the bottle in a holder.
"The last thing I remember was aiming the gun at you then
I saw heaven...."
"Thank you." The Knight Saber smiled. "But flattery won't
get you out of that bottle."
"It wasn't flattery, but if you let me out I promise I'll
do better this time! Honest!"
"No thanks," then Priss remembered who got her into this
mess. "You have to kill anybody who opens the bottle,
right?"
"No, just the most recent bottle opener," Mike muttered
then shouted. "Hey! I'll give you three bucks if you open
the bottle?"
"Cute, but no," Priss said.
She smiled in satisfaction as the bottle cursed at the
failed plan. Once the sounds stopped, Priss spoke.
"However, I think I know someone who could help you out of
there. How do you feel about Fanboy directors?"
The End!
Afterwords: The rough draft for this was entirely written
during the One Hour Writing Challenges.( I forget how many I
needed but it was a lot!) I'll admit it's not as good as I
wanted it to be but I'm out of ideas on how to improve it.
Please give me some input on this! C&C and comments welcome.
David Lindquist
fido@rma.edu
Quote= "Fanfic writing is like building a car with C&C being the tune-up!"