Thursday, November 21, 2013

Insert Inadequately-Detailed Water Story Here

Mizunashi Akari. Distant Blue. Head Prima of the Aria Company.

Akari woke up that day and started off as usual, and continued with assisting her understudy, Ai, with her training. Ai was coming along well.

Akari herself was still fantastic as always, a beautiful hair fluttering in the wind as she guided the gondola through the ornately designed canals of Neo-Venezia. A striking beauty herself,

Akari was no doubt an extremely skilled undine.

(To the readers of this story unfamiliar with the Aria fandom... Akari's not the Sue. She's the main character. I just felt I had to do justice to the extreme detail and description done to everything in the manga. The art in there is something words can't quite do the justice to.)

Aika and Alice were coming along well, too. Of course, the Queen of Roses and the Twilight Princess (er, um, not that Twilight and definitely not that Twilight Princess) were up there with the other undines from Himeya and Orange Planet. (And yes, again, I'm just being overdetailed, again. And extra-detailed for Society members reading this but unfamiliar with Aria.)

Anyway, that day, everything changed.

Yet another shuttle had landed on the planet Aqua (formerly Mars) from Manhome (formerly Earth). Out came Arina, a girl who had come to Aqua to change her life. Shortly after Arina's landing she caught sight of Akari steering her gondola and immediately decided she wanted to be an undine. And instead of signing up with the big companies like Himeya or Orange Planet, she joined the smallest - the Aria Company. Akari was happy to have another understudy (albeit it being a lot of work), but she warned Arina that without a training course on Manhome, it was going to be a long and hard training...

...she was wrong.

Arina learned easily, and steering the gondola came naturally for her. So naturally, in fact, it was like she'd done it her whole life. Arina was so amazing in fact that she was promoted straight to Prima (the highest position, and the position of Akari, Aika, and Alice) from Pair, with the title "Azure Rose". Only Alice had accomplished that feat, but Arina was special.

She'd passed the Prima exam after only two days of being a Pair.

Now that Arina was at the same stage as Akari, she had a large degree of freedom. She assisted in Ai's training (Ai was too awed at Arina's amazing skill to be jealous of the fact Arina had overtaken Ai at so fast a pace). And after hearing Akari's story about her mentor Alicia, Arina immediately decided to do something about it and did the impossible.

She convinced Alicia's husband to let Alicia continue being an undine at the Aria Company.

Soon, Alicia was back at the Aria Company, helping out like she always had. Akari was even happier now, and with three mentors, Ai quickly passed the test to become a Single. Later, Arina helped Akatsuki accept that Alicia was married, and somehow discovered deep hidden feelings for Akari in there. Akatsuki and Akari quickly became a couple.

And in the end, there was nothing more stunning than the beautiful, slender figure of Arina as her long hair flowed in the wind and her gondola pike made ripples in the water as she slowly proceeded through the canal letting enough sun through to enhance her beauty. (This time I wish I was being detailed enough to pay homage to the manga.)

...I think you get the point, because I really can't write like this for the rest of the fic.

-

In the Society...

"You know what I want."

Aster sighed and put her chopsticks back down into her ramen bowl. "No, normally I'll let you have my ramen, but I haven't eaten anything all day."

"Oh, really?" Akai pulled another of her many slasher smiles. "Well, then..."

And she pulled out a vuvuzela and blew it in Aster's face.

"Oh god no not that kyaa no not that!"

Aster screamed and tipped over the ramen bowl as she ran.

"Shame," said Akai. She looked at the jun-akuma. "Okay, we've mastered a bowl of fruit. How about a bowl of ramen?"

The jun-akuma held out a bowl of Korean ramen.

"...close enough." Akai took the bowl and started gobbling it down.

Aster returned, hair disheveled, and panted. She held out a volume of Aria and tossed it at Akai.

"Hurry up and read," said Aster. "We're goin' on a mission kyaa."

Akai blinked, opened the volume, and flipped through it quickly.

"...scenery porn. Geez, someone has nothing better to do than draw all day."

-

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaah~ So pretty!"

Chrys looked around happily as she stared at all of the surroundings.

"Usually when we enter manga fandoms, they're sketchy, but look at the water and the buildings and - "

"Yes, it's pretty, let's just find the Sue," said Akai, rather disgruntled. "I was finishing my bowl of ramen..."

"I'm just thankful she didn't make this into yuri," said Aster. "A lot of fanfic writers do that kyaa."

"Okay then." Akai stared at the scenery of Neo-Venezia. "Well, given that the sparse amount of land in existence is full of stairs, and given that I'm a lazy ass, we're not getting very far if we don't have a boat."

And immediately Akai went over to a nearby gondola, knocked off the undine using it, threw her to the ground, knocked her out, and got onto the boat. "Get in."

"That's not going to be faster than walking," said Aster.

"Y-y-you hit her!" said Chrys.

"Well, I'd rather not walk up stairs, and I've always wanted to ride one of these anyway. Plus, the Sue's not going to kill main characters if we take longer. Get in."

Akai felt more comfortable guiding a gondola with her spear, but the pointed blade quickly stuck too much into the bottom and they had to use the hapless unconscious undine's pike.

Since Aster had actually studied the motions of the undines in the manga, she was in charge of steering it. Aster was nowhere near the level of even being close to passing a test (or getting by unscathed by any undine), but at least they could go forward.

Because of Aster's odd clothing (she obviously wasn't wearing anything normal for an undine, or even anyone on Manhome or Aqua), she got a lot of strange looks but nobody said anything directly to her. After all, if someone saw another person on the street wearing odd clothes, there might be odd looks but nobody would really do anything.

This strange peace persisted until Akai had another of her ideas.

"Hey, we're on a gondola. Isn't the gondolier supposed to sing?"

"Ah, not really. Leave that to Alice and Athena."

"Still, it's boring without it. Here, I'll sing for you..."

And then she yelled in her characteristic loud voice, "CHA-LA! HEAD-CHA-LA!"

This continued on. Some people yelled at her to shut up, and eventually Aster got fed up and put a wide block of ice around Akai's mouth.

"Mmfmfmmmffffmfmfmfmf!" yelled Akai.

-

Ai was biting into her lunch when Arina walked in. Ai blinked.

"Who... who are you?"

Arina pulled back in shock.

"Ai-chan...you don't remember me?"

Akari walked in and looked at Arina. Akari looked at Ai. "Ai-chan, do you know this girl?"

"...Akari-san..." Arina looked about to cry. "You... Where's Akatsuki-san?"

"Akatsuki?" Akari blinked. "Oh, yeah... I haven't heard from him in a while..." She shook her head. "But wait. How do you know him, and who are you?"

"...Akari-san..."

"If you're interested in the company..."

"Akari-san..." Arina, panicked, looked at the ground and saw it.

A sticker backing.

"Um, Miss Mizunashi?" said Akai, walking in with her slasher smile. "I said we were interested in a tour..." She looked at Arina and raised an eyebrow. "Hm...I seem to know this girl. She's an old...chum. Mind if I have a chat with her?"

Akari's expression became cold. "I - "

"Why, it's you!" said Aster, giving her I-will-kill-you face. "We have a lot to... catch up... on..."

Chrys just walked in and blankly said, "...I have nothing to say..."

"You... you..." Arina looked around for an exit. Finally, she defenestrated herself...

...er... threw herself out the window. (I just love long words with eerily specific meanings.)

"Get her!" Akai, always believing in a direct chase route, followed her out the window. She didn't have long to fall as it was two stories.

...Unfortunately, it was a two-story fall.

While Akai was smart enough to put her legs first, she was still human and ended up breaking both legs.

"...ow..." She kept a surprisingly good face, but winced. She turned to the jun-akuma. "And I bet you can't help a broken leg?"

"You idiot," said Aster, appearing by her side. "Now your legs are broken. Come on, we're chasing her." For Arina was now going off in a gondola with the speed of a speedboat with only a pike.

Aster and Chrys loaded Akai into an empty gondola. Aster turned back to Chrys. "Hold on."

She threw aside the pike and pulled out her staff... and drove it into the water.

The gondola took off with the speed of a speedboat and the control of a stampeding rhino. It was surprising that the gondola didn't break from the force of all of the crashes it was making.

"Aaaah..." complained Akai (the pain of her breaking her legs was getting to her).

"Shut up," said Aster. "This is your fault."

"This is not my fault!" yelled Akai vehemently. "Just get to the Sue!"

Aster's gondola smashed forward into Arina's (extremely graceful-looking yet inexplicably speedy) gondola, creating a large smash. Aster wondered how this looked to the other citizens of Neo-Venezia…

Arina smacked Aster in the face, starting to pummel her. Aster flailed, but simply wasn't capable enough to deflect.

Then Akai took out her vuvuzela and blew it in Arina's ear.

Immediately Arina tried to cover her ears.

And quickly, Aster took the opportunity to pick up Arina and shove her into a portal back to the Library.

-

"We caught the Sue. Now I'm bored."

Aster looked around dully, now with nothing to do with her mission over.

"How… how's Akai?" asked Chrys.

"Still in the medical wing. It'll take a while for her legs to heal, but seriously. Jumping off a two-story building? That was stupid, kyaa."
"I was inspired!" yelled Akai from the medical wing.
"Yeah," said Aster. "Can someone take away her vuvuzela? She's blowing it whenever she gets bored."
"Hm…" said Chrys. Then she brightened up. "Wanna go take a trip around Neo-Venezia? It's so pretty…"
"Yeah…and we'll get tipped over when Ai screws up her gondola steering. Eh, let's go get some ramen."
They headed to the kitchen, with Akai yelling in the background, "Remember to get me some too!"

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