NNWM2k16 - Chapter 2
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It was not unlike Atma’s adventures with women started with an international scandal. Someone who managed to get high up enough in power would accuse her to their local news of something foul and warn the people of their area not to travel to United States lest the Last Great American Asshole have her way with them and probably disease them, using drugs or some other method they believe of wherever it is conspiracy theorists come from. They still probably believe toilet seats cause AIDS and if you shake hands with a Protestant, you can no longer be friends with the Pope, even if it’s that cool new pope that’s okay with atheists and such.
This time around, it started much much closer than Russia or the rebuilt Brazil, and took place in an area of Northern California that if you told most people its name, they would have no idea what it was there for, despite knowing a few rather infamous things about it. Marin County. A hub of upper class rich white bread boringness and blandness, situated right between where our heroines were camping and exploring strange new visions and dimensions and San Francisco itself. It was unavoidable to drive through to get to where the girls were if you were heading north from San Fran itself, unless you wanted to go through some weirdly heinous detours that would make your trip far longer than it deserved to be. Marin County was a bandaid, and it was better to take it off in one go than let it linger and fester by going around it and pretending it didn’t exist.
And that would be one of the things it was known for that you probably didn’t know that’s where it got its start, or at least enough rocket fuel to jettison across the world and spray its noxious self all over fearful parents everywhere. Marin was one of the harbingers of the long-standing Anti-Vaxxer movement, which is where people believe if you vaccinate your kid against some of the worst possible shit in the world, it’ll give them developmental issues, which is somehow a trade off they’re just unable to cope with and would rather their kid rotted and died than risk something that the person who invented the theory later retracted after displaying his red and beaten ass to the world.
It was something that thoroughly enraged Atma anytime the subject came up, her only sibling being one with developmental issues himself, but one of the most gentle and sensitive people you would ever meet. If you dared imply he was imperfect because he was healthy or because of some stupid fucking paranoia because you saw a drop of mercury in the shape of a triangle with an eye once or some other Illuminati bullshit, she would beat you within an inch of your life and hope you’d allow a hospital on yourself long enough to survive and come to your senses about how modern medicine worked. Even her own gods knew that vaccines kicked ass, so she couldn’t even stand by a religious exemption, and as far as she was concerned the only exemption she should have is from the law when it came to dealing with such ignorance and public health risk such as this. Thankfully, since becoming one of the Kings of California, she labeled all of Marin County a toxic site, and did so with glee. The only other things there its a notable place for besides being between the beautiful Wine Country and San Francisco is George Lucas’ property tax raising ass lived there, and the only good thing to come out of it was Tupac Shakur, and he was either dead or the Illuminati’s actual and only greatest work in hiding him. He couldn’t save it now, either way.
So what better place for the news to break, leaked from the real villains of the story, that this “Atma” character that had once saved Belarus and left a dear friend there to protect it as the new King of Belarus, ousting the mad scientist Nadezhda and chasing her off to Brazil to recover, where she and Katsuragi were seen restoring peace from the woman’s insane fascist cyborg empire and became the new King of California instead, was all doing it so she could possibly take over the world and ruin it with her gross, sexual morals and rampant, resin-caked hedonism? You would probably guess the UN or something, but you would be wrong. That doesn’t make it believable, and just because it’s over the top doesn’t mean it’s good. Shit, this story wasn’t funded by Michael Bay. It wasn’t even funded at all. Stories just, like, happen man. They’re all inside us or some hot inspirational garbage. Eat your flouride, kiddo.
Back at Atma and Katsuragi’s abode lay a very lazy pair of women known only as Koshka and Hikage. They were the Queens of California, so to speak, the dearest darlings of the two Kings, letting them do the hard work as they lived a life of couch-induced luxury and eating only the finest of fried starches and doing lines of the finest and whitest coke off the nicest daggers Hikage could wield. While their two Kings were out doing whatever it was they had to do to maintain the peace, they would keep each other busy, satisfied, fed, anything to keep from going insane from boredom. It’s not that they couldn’t fight, hell, both were probably more deadly than their Kings, it was just. It was work. Fuck work.
Koshka was the original babe of Nadezhda, and their breakup was a major catalyst for her snapping. A Russian woman, the oldest of the group, a real cougar with a cracked-out mind for science and technology, she was the better half and the only one of the pair willing to use her powers for good or for awesome instead, and she came to America looking for more to do and instead finding Atma to be that more to do than anything any school could provide. She was deaf as shit, but she didn’t give a fuck. At least Hikage kept quiet enough usually, and even if Koshka could hear, she wasn’t much for big speeches anyways. They communicated, usually via french fries and drugs.
Hikage was an odd serpent, with yellow slit eyes and green shimmering scaly hair like one, a slithering tongue, a sharp disposition, a wicked bite, plenty of knives, and a snake running up her trousers, leading to Atma annoyingly asking her if she could see her trouser snake about ten thousand times an hour. She did cocaine. She let Koshka do it with her. Together, they fought not a lot of crime, but did fight through an impressive Netflix backlog. Gotta do something when your main job in life at that current time was to be hot and a lot. And maybe flash a titty now and again.
So come that evening on KRON4 news, live from Marin, stood one of their underpaid and not quite all there reporter women. They weren’t the most funded station in the area, but they still put an insane amount of typoes in their closed caption, giving Koshka a headache and making Hikage almost show an emotion as she’d respond to Koshka’s frustrated facial expressions with a small “heh” she knew she couldn’t hear, but it had to come out one end or the other, and it was better that one than the other. The reporter stood in no particularly important or relevant area, close to the rpiarian zones that dotted the county. For all the filth that lay within, it was all moral decay, none of it ecological, and the County’s beauty belied the nastiness within. You win some, you lose some, and with Marin, you lost a whole fucking lot for being in such a lush looking area. I guess it would be okay if you were a lush and drank to numb the pain of living in such a boring place. On top of all the heinous ethics banding about the peoples’ minds and souls within Marin, there was just a whole hell of a lot of nothing going on ever. You would have to go into the city to find entertainment, or go up north to where our heroines were to get some real food and real drugs, but if you were in Marin, you were probably too bland to even do the classic, homemade meth that flowed freely from Lake County in the north east of Sonoma. All its sins came from Satan tainting the land personally with her claws.
“Good evening, this is Terisa Estacio, here with KRON4 news. An anonymous tip given to the Marin County sheriff today has claimed it has solid evidence that the newly elected Kings of California, one woman who solely goes by Atma Weapon and the other one who unabashedly calls herself the Hooter King, Katsuragi, are not the heroines that they claim the state has needed. Elected last year after going on a quest to what was called Neo Brazil by a mad scientist named only Nadezhda, they managed to stop her before she could launch weapons into space and take over the world. But the evidence turned in now claims that that was merely propaganda used in their election, rigging it in their favor so that they may soon enact martial law and imprison civilians within the state, making us all slave laborers and from there, moving onto Congress and the White House, and then very much taking over the world like the woman they claimed was going to do lest they stop her.” she paused to catch her breath as the screen changed from the local Marin ecology to a recent photo of Atma and Katsuragi blessing an LGBT pride parade down in the city, looking good and classy for once and mingling with the audience collecting donations to fund HIV research and other very good things. They always figured that one would come in handy if they needed to look good.
“It’s hard to believe the two women, shown here using state funds to help victims of LGBT-related hate crimes during San Francisco’s annual pride parade earlier this year, who have also done so many other things for the state, could have these accusations thrown at them, but it continues. There is also a note at the end that said the assistant to Nadezhda, a young woman from Japan named Yozakura, is especially innocent and the fact they would incarcerate a lady like that on house arrest is only a sign of what’s to come for America and her more pure and freedom-loving children, be they naturally born citizens or immigrants. While the evidence hasn’t been released yet or what it is exactly or how the anonymous tipsters got ahold of it, the sheriff has said this is ‘troubling’ and ‘appears to be solid’ and is having their bets look into it now for validity. If true, Atma and Katsuragi could be forced to abdicate and be arrested on high treason and crimes against humanity, amongst other things in a long laundry list of immoral things the anonymous tipster has claimed they’ve done.”
The scene changed to pan over the sheriff’s office real quick before switching back to focusing on Terisa. A look of concern was on her face. “There is no solid accusations yet, but I have to admit I’m worried. For being our first Kings, they have been awfully kind rulers, albeit a bit eccentric. We’ve already, as a state, survived some harsh recall processes and impeachments, but this one would leave quite a bit of hurt behind to clean up, not to mention how expensive it would be to remove some of their more bizarre luxury items from their offices in Sacramento. But that’s California for you. We’re nothing if not resilient. We’re called the Golden State for a reason, and I’ll believe in my Kings until the end. It’s most likely not much more than an elaborate prank by someone of a rival political party. For KRON4 News, this is Terisa Estacio. Back to you at the station.”
While the cameras changed from the outside air of Marin and its waters running by, water that is unable to wash away any of the filth dug in below or above it, as those at the main desk shuffled papers with equally concerned looks, Hikage and Koshka traded their own perturbed expressions, though theirs’ reflected more one of annoyance and exhaustion. This again? Nadezhda was sure to be flung somewhere in space right now, and Yozakura had been locked up with Ryobi since that day Asuka and Ayame humiliated her on live television when her and the Cyborg King’s plans had gone to tell thanks to them and what Kat and Atma did to their empire. So who could it possibly be out for their blood this time? And why the emphasis on Atma? And couldn’t they have come up with an original plan to call her out? This had happened in the last two acts, as noted when this series of strange journeys started in Belarus a few years ago. What was next, slapping her visage on the side of a milk carton or putting out a missing pet poster for “this horny bitch of a dog” and putting down her dog breed as “Irish wolfhound” even though Atma was Scottish, and immensely so?
Koshka flipped open the laptop they kept nearby to leave each other notes on. The first thing, besides “This shit again, am I correct in this supposition?” that she asked Hikage was “Was it just me or did the newslady look like she was having a case of the heartbreaks when word got out that they might be in trouble? The captioning on this channel’s not always great, so I assume it’s something else she meant by ‘a great pounding by the seat of the kings’ and not, uh, some new euphemism.”
Hikage shrugged and snorted a bit. “Yeah. She said Pride Parade. We’d know if our two were up to no good and sleeping with the press. Besides, the morning reporter lady’s got better cleavage. I would see Kat going for a great pounding on that, but not this one.”
“I dunno, between those two? Tits are tits. And now that they are honest to fuck legal kings, they get to have Miss Hooters Harem contests once a week in various parts of the state. Remember when they hosted it at that big lesbian festival in Palm Springs this spring?”
“Ah, right.” Hikage began to type back, her free hand twirling one of her many, many knives around, wondering if this was true, if there were any assassins already around the house, and if so, which direction to throw this in, but more than likely it’d be used to snort more coke to keep them alert through this. “How could I forget that? Kat and Atma came home bragging they had invented ‘a very lesbian way of giving and receiving paizuri’ which is not something I’d like to Google ever again.”
“At least they’re not boring. And they shared the technique with us right away.”
“That’s true, at least. At any rate, they should be home by morning, so we can hold out here. If worse comes to worse, Ryobi and them next door still owe us for not locking them up in an actual prison forever, and if they want to keep it that way, we can always pay them in cheap beer to play lookout if you’re paranoid they’ll get us.”
“Paranoid? Well, yeah, usually. But over this? Whomever it be can’t be THAT smart if they’re using Marin and KRON4 as a trusted way of breaking the news. Even Nadezhda wasn’t that much of a threat; she just liked to hear herself talk. Good thing I’m deaf, heh.” Koshka reached into a drawer on the table and pulled out a small brick, slamming it on the table, a couple of crisp $69 bills that Katsuragi got made of her immediately upon becoming king (a piece of tender legal only in weed dispensaries and those special kinds of massage parlors, which Katsuragi also made legal to go along with it, calling it Proposition “Nice!”, but also an excellent way to snort the straight stuff, the only thing straight about the busty blonde.) tucked in with it for that special delivery. “Come on, just in case, let’s make sure we can stay up until the kings get home. Let them have today.”
“Long live the Kings, then.” Hikage typed, slicing the bag of cocaine open with a switchblade, not even having to look at it to give it a good, clean cut down the middle of it, scooping a bit of it up midair and handing it to Koshka. “Cougars first.”
Koshka nodded and let Hikage balance that on the knife (which she held pinkie out, of course) and rolled up her $69 bill and snorted it in one go, rubbing her nose after and, while not as precise and impressive as Hikage (she preferred good ol’ fashioned Russian firepower if she had to bring someone down to her level), cut her a line and held it there for her to snort off and up into outer space, or at least her brain. Same difference, some days.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Off in the distance, back up the Russian River, Katsuragi and Atma were sitting on the banks of the sand in nothing but loincloths that revealed a bit much in the back and front, encouraging Ayame to be free and doing the same, fishing poles nested upright in some rocks as they fished up a mighty pile for a mighty dinner. Going on a vision quest of that caliber made a woman hungry, and Ayame had always wanted to just sit and grill fish on a stick and eat it open and raw like that in the cozy, thick bushes of nature, but that’s what she said.
“Come on girl, eat up, fish is brain food, which means you can be the smartypants behind the boob throne we rule from. Besides, the brain is the biggest, sexiest organ in the body, just after my own tits.” Kat grinned, biting Ayame’s ear and spurning her on, making the poor apprentice blush deep crimson.
“B-breasts aren’t organs, Kat!” Ayame squeaked.
“Wanna see MY organ?” Atma replied, lifting her loincloth up and giving Ayame a face-first tour of her sacred Redwood Forest, with plentiful leaves and foliage.
“A-atma! You two are mean!” Ayame huffed.
“Nah, you’re just cute and easy to rile up.” Kat grinned, letting the poor girl go and get some more fish to eat. She looked back up at the stars, leaning in the sand, about ready to open her big mouth again and let us all know that yes, those stars do indeed look like a certain part of the female anatomy, but instead she let out a large sneeze.
Atma went to say “By Amaterasu’s tits, you’re blessed” since she knew it’d make the blonde happy, but she let out a sneeze herself.
“Someone must be talking about you two...” Ayame said meekly. “I wonder who? Well, besides me, but you know I am. So I wonder who else.”
“The wives of the world.” Kat guessed. “Seriously, though. If it’s any wives, it’s probably our girls. They miss us and are just too tough to call us and say so. Well, Hikage would have to. I dunno how you sign over the phone. Is it like calculator speak? If Koshka types 80085 into the phone while Hikage is on it, does that mean she’s flashing us? That’s hot. Deaf girls rule.”
“I’d say if only Koshka could hear you now, but...” Atma laughed. “I dunno, it could be anyone. We are the Kings of California, after all. Who knows what scandalous things people think we’re up to on our weekend forest retreat? All I know is when we get back tomorrow, I wanna read the steamy fanfiction that’s going to make the headlines of every paper.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Nearby, a goat bleated as its throat was slit open in cold blood, bleeding out on a pentagram dug in the dirt deep within the heart of Bohemian Grove. A couple snaps of firewood cracking in embers went with it, as a group of those in dark burgundy colored robes, stained in the blood of filthy enemy hippies, devout followers looking for salvation, and unfortunate livestock stood around the splatter of sacrifice and chanted quietly.
“Wonderful work, Demon Lieutenant Hearst. Your journalism was at some of its downright most yellow today, it was almost pure gold. Good to see death hasn’t taken that brain of yours.” the one called the Devil-Master Communicator smirked.
“Thanks, boss, but it’s not going to be as gold as the state will be once you clean up the acts of those disgusting, trouble-making succubi that disguise themselves as nobility once and for all.” Demon Lieutenant Hearst bowed.
“Soon...”
“Soon...”
The poor goat bleated out its last as the sun set and turned the forest pitch black, the last thing it saw was the faint light of the fire it was hoisted over to roast for all eternity, Hell arriving for it early on Earth.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
As the knife that killed the goat clattered on the ground, so the one from Hikage and Koshka’s coke snorting rest on the table. The stage was set for a sunrise that California would not soon forget, rising up like an all-seeing eye from a towering pyramid.
It was not unlike Atma’s adventures with women started with an international scandal. Someone who managed to get high up enough in power would accuse her to their local news of something foul and warn the people of their area not to travel to United States lest the Last Great American Asshole have her way with them and probably disease them, using drugs or some other method they believe of wherever it is conspiracy theorists come from. They still probably believe toilet seats cause AIDS and if you shake hands with a Protestant, you can no longer be friends with the Pope, even if it’s that cool new pope that’s okay with atheists and such.
This time around, it started much much closer than Russia or the rebuilt Brazil, and took place in an area of Northern California that if you told most people its name, they would have no idea what it was there for, despite knowing a few rather infamous things about it. Marin County. A hub of upper class rich white bread boringness and blandness, situated right between where our heroines were camping and exploring strange new visions and dimensions and San Francisco itself. It was unavoidable to drive through to get to where the girls were if you were heading north from San Fran itself, unless you wanted to go through some weirdly heinous detours that would make your trip far longer than it deserved to be. Marin County was a bandaid, and it was better to take it off in one go than let it linger and fester by going around it and pretending it didn’t exist.
And that would be one of the things it was known for that you probably didn’t know that’s where it got its start, or at least enough rocket fuel to jettison across the world and spray its noxious self all over fearful parents everywhere. Marin was one of the harbingers of the long-standing Anti-Vaxxer movement, which is where people believe if you vaccinate your kid against some of the worst possible shit in the world, it’ll give them developmental issues, which is somehow a trade off they’re just unable to cope with and would rather their kid rotted and died than risk something that the person who invented the theory later retracted after displaying his red and beaten ass to the world.
It was something that thoroughly enraged Atma anytime the subject came up, her only sibling being one with developmental issues himself, but one of the most gentle and sensitive people you would ever meet. If you dared imply he was imperfect because he was healthy or because of some stupid fucking paranoia because you saw a drop of mercury in the shape of a triangle with an eye once or some other Illuminati bullshit, she would beat you within an inch of your life and hope you’d allow a hospital on yourself long enough to survive and come to your senses about how modern medicine worked. Even her own gods knew that vaccines kicked ass, so she couldn’t even stand by a religious exemption, and as far as she was concerned the only exemption she should have is from the law when it came to dealing with such ignorance and public health risk such as this. Thankfully, since becoming one of the Kings of California, she labeled all of Marin County a toxic site, and did so with glee. The only other things there its a notable place for besides being between the beautiful Wine Country and San Francisco is George Lucas’ property tax raising ass lived there, and the only good thing to come out of it was Tupac Shakur, and he was either dead or the Illuminati’s actual and only greatest work in hiding him. He couldn’t save it now, either way.
So what better place for the news to break, leaked from the real villains of the story, that this “Atma” character that had once saved Belarus and left a dear friend there to protect it as the new King of Belarus, ousting the mad scientist Nadezhda and chasing her off to Brazil to recover, where she and Katsuragi were seen restoring peace from the woman’s insane fascist cyborg empire and became the new King of California instead, was all doing it so she could possibly take over the world and ruin it with her gross, sexual morals and rampant, resin-caked hedonism? You would probably guess the UN or something, but you would be wrong. That doesn’t make it believable, and just because it’s over the top doesn’t mean it’s good. Shit, this story wasn’t funded by Michael Bay. It wasn’t even funded at all. Stories just, like, happen man. They’re all inside us or some hot inspirational garbage. Eat your flouride, kiddo.
Back at Atma and Katsuragi’s abode lay a very lazy pair of women known only as Koshka and Hikage. They were the Queens of California, so to speak, the dearest darlings of the two Kings, letting them do the hard work as they lived a life of couch-induced luxury and eating only the finest of fried starches and doing lines of the finest and whitest coke off the nicest daggers Hikage could wield. While their two Kings were out doing whatever it was they had to do to maintain the peace, they would keep each other busy, satisfied, fed, anything to keep from going insane from boredom. It’s not that they couldn’t fight, hell, both were probably more deadly than their Kings, it was just. It was work. Fuck work.
Koshka was the original babe of Nadezhda, and their breakup was a major catalyst for her snapping. A Russian woman, the oldest of the group, a real cougar with a cracked-out mind for science and technology, she was the better half and the only one of the pair willing to use her powers for good or for awesome instead, and she came to America looking for more to do and instead finding Atma to be that more to do than anything any school could provide. She was deaf as shit, but she didn’t give a fuck. At least Hikage kept quiet enough usually, and even if Koshka could hear, she wasn’t much for big speeches anyways. They communicated, usually via french fries and drugs.
Hikage was an odd serpent, with yellow slit eyes and green shimmering scaly hair like one, a slithering tongue, a sharp disposition, a wicked bite, plenty of knives, and a snake running up her trousers, leading to Atma annoyingly asking her if she could see her trouser snake about ten thousand times an hour. She did cocaine. She let Koshka do it with her. Together, they fought not a lot of crime, but did fight through an impressive Netflix backlog. Gotta do something when your main job in life at that current time was to be hot and a lot. And maybe flash a titty now and again.
So come that evening on KRON4 news, live from Marin, stood one of their underpaid and not quite all there reporter women. They weren’t the most funded station in the area, but they still put an insane amount of typoes in their closed caption, giving Koshka a headache and making Hikage almost show an emotion as she’d respond to Koshka’s frustrated facial expressions with a small “heh” she knew she couldn’t hear, but it had to come out one end or the other, and it was better that one than the other. The reporter stood in no particularly important or relevant area, close to the rpiarian zones that dotted the county. For all the filth that lay within, it was all moral decay, none of it ecological, and the County’s beauty belied the nastiness within. You win some, you lose some, and with Marin, you lost a whole fucking lot for being in such a lush looking area. I guess it would be okay if you were a lush and drank to numb the pain of living in such a boring place. On top of all the heinous ethics banding about the peoples’ minds and souls within Marin, there was just a whole hell of a lot of nothing going on ever. You would have to go into the city to find entertainment, or go up north to where our heroines were to get some real food and real drugs, but if you were in Marin, you were probably too bland to even do the classic, homemade meth that flowed freely from Lake County in the north east of Sonoma. All its sins came from Satan tainting the land personally with her claws.
“Good evening, this is Terisa Estacio, here with KRON4 news. An anonymous tip given to the Marin County sheriff today has claimed it has solid evidence that the newly elected Kings of California, one woman who solely goes by Atma Weapon and the other one who unabashedly calls herself the Hooter King, Katsuragi, are not the heroines that they claim the state has needed. Elected last year after going on a quest to what was called Neo Brazil by a mad scientist named only Nadezhda, they managed to stop her before she could launch weapons into space and take over the world. But the evidence turned in now claims that that was merely propaganda used in their election, rigging it in their favor so that they may soon enact martial law and imprison civilians within the state, making us all slave laborers and from there, moving onto Congress and the White House, and then very much taking over the world like the woman they claimed was going to do lest they stop her.” she paused to catch her breath as the screen changed from the local Marin ecology to a recent photo of Atma and Katsuragi blessing an LGBT pride parade down in the city, looking good and classy for once and mingling with the audience collecting donations to fund HIV research and other very good things. They always figured that one would come in handy if they needed to look good.
“It’s hard to believe the two women, shown here using state funds to help victims of LGBT-related hate crimes during San Francisco’s annual pride parade earlier this year, who have also done so many other things for the state, could have these accusations thrown at them, but it continues. There is also a note at the end that said the assistant to Nadezhda, a young woman from Japan named Yozakura, is especially innocent and the fact they would incarcerate a lady like that on house arrest is only a sign of what’s to come for America and her more pure and freedom-loving children, be they naturally born citizens or immigrants. While the evidence hasn’t been released yet or what it is exactly or how the anonymous tipsters got ahold of it, the sheriff has said this is ‘troubling’ and ‘appears to be solid’ and is having their bets look into it now for validity. If true, Atma and Katsuragi could be forced to abdicate and be arrested on high treason and crimes against humanity, amongst other things in a long laundry list of immoral things the anonymous tipster has claimed they’ve done.”
The scene changed to pan over the sheriff’s office real quick before switching back to focusing on Terisa. A look of concern was on her face. “There is no solid accusations yet, but I have to admit I’m worried. For being our first Kings, they have been awfully kind rulers, albeit a bit eccentric. We’ve already, as a state, survived some harsh recall processes and impeachments, but this one would leave quite a bit of hurt behind to clean up, not to mention how expensive it would be to remove some of their more bizarre luxury items from their offices in Sacramento. But that’s California for you. We’re nothing if not resilient. We’re called the Golden State for a reason, and I’ll believe in my Kings until the end. It’s most likely not much more than an elaborate prank by someone of a rival political party. For KRON4 News, this is Terisa Estacio. Back to you at the station.”
While the cameras changed from the outside air of Marin and its waters running by, water that is unable to wash away any of the filth dug in below or above it, as those at the main desk shuffled papers with equally concerned looks, Hikage and Koshka traded their own perturbed expressions, though theirs’ reflected more one of annoyance and exhaustion. This again? Nadezhda was sure to be flung somewhere in space right now, and Yozakura had been locked up with Ryobi since that day Asuka and Ayame humiliated her on live television when her and the Cyborg King’s plans had gone to tell thanks to them and what Kat and Atma did to their empire. So who could it possibly be out for their blood this time? And why the emphasis on Atma? And couldn’t they have come up with an original plan to call her out? This had happened in the last two acts, as noted when this series of strange journeys started in Belarus a few years ago. What was next, slapping her visage on the side of a milk carton or putting out a missing pet poster for “this horny bitch of a dog” and putting down her dog breed as “Irish wolfhound” even though Atma was Scottish, and immensely so?
Koshka flipped open the laptop they kept nearby to leave each other notes on. The first thing, besides “This shit again, am I correct in this supposition?” that she asked Hikage was “Was it just me or did the newslady look like she was having a case of the heartbreaks when word got out that they might be in trouble? The captioning on this channel’s not always great, so I assume it’s something else she meant by ‘a great pounding by the seat of the kings’ and not, uh, some new euphemism.”
Hikage shrugged and snorted a bit. “Yeah. She said Pride Parade. We’d know if our two were up to no good and sleeping with the press. Besides, the morning reporter lady’s got better cleavage. I would see Kat going for a great pounding on that, but not this one.”
“I dunno, between those two? Tits are tits. And now that they are honest to fuck legal kings, they get to have Miss Hooters Harem contests once a week in various parts of the state. Remember when they hosted it at that big lesbian festival in Palm Springs this spring?”
“Ah, right.” Hikage began to type back, her free hand twirling one of her many, many knives around, wondering if this was true, if there were any assassins already around the house, and if so, which direction to throw this in, but more than likely it’d be used to snort more coke to keep them alert through this. “How could I forget that? Kat and Atma came home bragging they had invented ‘a very lesbian way of giving and receiving paizuri’ which is not something I’d like to Google ever again.”
“At least they’re not boring. And they shared the technique with us right away.”
“That’s true, at least. At any rate, they should be home by morning, so we can hold out here. If worse comes to worse, Ryobi and them next door still owe us for not locking them up in an actual prison forever, and if they want to keep it that way, we can always pay them in cheap beer to play lookout if you’re paranoid they’ll get us.”
“Paranoid? Well, yeah, usually. But over this? Whomever it be can’t be THAT smart if they’re using Marin and KRON4 as a trusted way of breaking the news. Even Nadezhda wasn’t that much of a threat; she just liked to hear herself talk. Good thing I’m deaf, heh.” Koshka reached into a drawer on the table and pulled out a small brick, slamming it on the table, a couple of crisp $69 bills that Katsuragi got made of her immediately upon becoming king (a piece of tender legal only in weed dispensaries and those special kinds of massage parlors, which Katsuragi also made legal to go along with it, calling it Proposition “Nice!”, but also an excellent way to snort the straight stuff, the only thing straight about the busty blonde.) tucked in with it for that special delivery. “Come on, just in case, let’s make sure we can stay up until the kings get home. Let them have today.”
“Long live the Kings, then.” Hikage typed, slicing the bag of cocaine open with a switchblade, not even having to look at it to give it a good, clean cut down the middle of it, scooping a bit of it up midair and handing it to Koshka. “Cougars first.”
Koshka nodded and let Hikage balance that on the knife (which she held pinkie out, of course) and rolled up her $69 bill and snorted it in one go, rubbing her nose after and, while not as precise and impressive as Hikage (she preferred good ol’ fashioned Russian firepower if she had to bring someone down to her level), cut her a line and held it there for her to snort off and up into outer space, or at least her brain. Same difference, some days.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Off in the distance, back up the Russian River, Katsuragi and Atma were sitting on the banks of the sand in nothing but loincloths that revealed a bit much in the back and front, encouraging Ayame to be free and doing the same, fishing poles nested upright in some rocks as they fished up a mighty pile for a mighty dinner. Going on a vision quest of that caliber made a woman hungry, and Ayame had always wanted to just sit and grill fish on a stick and eat it open and raw like that in the cozy, thick bushes of nature, but that’s what she said.
“Come on girl, eat up, fish is brain food, which means you can be the smartypants behind the boob throne we rule from. Besides, the brain is the biggest, sexiest organ in the body, just after my own tits.” Kat grinned, biting Ayame’s ear and spurning her on, making the poor apprentice blush deep crimson.
“B-breasts aren’t organs, Kat!” Ayame squeaked.
“Wanna see MY organ?” Atma replied, lifting her loincloth up and giving Ayame a face-first tour of her sacred Redwood Forest, with plentiful leaves and foliage.
“A-atma! You two are mean!” Ayame huffed.
“Nah, you’re just cute and easy to rile up.” Kat grinned, letting the poor girl go and get some more fish to eat. She looked back up at the stars, leaning in the sand, about ready to open her big mouth again and let us all know that yes, those stars do indeed look like a certain part of the female anatomy, but instead she let out a large sneeze.
Atma went to say “By Amaterasu’s tits, you’re blessed” since she knew it’d make the blonde happy, but she let out a sneeze herself.
“Someone must be talking about you two...” Ayame said meekly. “I wonder who? Well, besides me, but you know I am. So I wonder who else.”
“The wives of the world.” Kat guessed. “Seriously, though. If it’s any wives, it’s probably our girls. They miss us and are just too tough to call us and say so. Well, Hikage would have to. I dunno how you sign over the phone. Is it like calculator speak? If Koshka types 80085 into the phone while Hikage is on it, does that mean she’s flashing us? That’s hot. Deaf girls rule.”
“I’d say if only Koshka could hear you now, but...” Atma laughed. “I dunno, it could be anyone. We are the Kings of California, after all. Who knows what scandalous things people think we’re up to on our weekend forest retreat? All I know is when we get back tomorrow, I wanna read the steamy fanfiction that’s going to make the headlines of every paper.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Nearby, a goat bleated as its throat was slit open in cold blood, bleeding out on a pentagram dug in the dirt deep within the heart of Bohemian Grove. A couple snaps of firewood cracking in embers went with it, as a group of those in dark burgundy colored robes, stained in the blood of filthy enemy hippies, devout followers looking for salvation, and unfortunate livestock stood around the splatter of sacrifice and chanted quietly.
“Wonderful work, Demon Lieutenant Hearst. Your journalism was at some of its downright most yellow today, it was almost pure gold. Good to see death hasn’t taken that brain of yours.” the one called the Devil-Master Communicator smirked.
“Thanks, boss, but it’s not going to be as gold as the state will be once you clean up the acts of those disgusting, trouble-making succubi that disguise themselves as nobility once and for all.” Demon Lieutenant Hearst bowed.
“Soon...”
“Soon...”
The poor goat bleated out its last as the sun set and turned the forest pitch black, the last thing it saw was the faint light of the fire it was hoisted over to roast for all eternity, Hell arriving for it early on Earth.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
As the knife that killed the goat clattered on the ground, so the one from Hikage and Koshka’s coke snorting rest on the table. The stage was set for a sunrise that California would not soon forget, rising up like an all-seeing eye from a towering pyramid.