Hoshi no Guu (Star Piece Quest) (M)

[Guu]

The group, being lead by Banii, traversed the city, gaining curious glances the entire way. The city wasn’t used to this level of concentrated weirdness in one location. The four arrived at a small house towards the edge of the market district. It was tiny japanese inspired building, except the front sliding door has a cute little cartoon depiction of Banii’s face hanging from a hook in the middle. The front yard was a garden composed of various flowers from lilies to daffodils. The bunny clad lady gracefully clanked her high heeled boots on each stone that navigated through the growth, her mind focused on stepped on every single one in some sort of rhythmic order. The other three followed suite, but trudged normally.

“So why is this debriefing happening at Banii’s place?” Guu, addressing the elephant in the yard.

“Well, my place is a wreck, both because I haven’t lived there in weeks and because it’s a bachelor pad, so yeah, wreck.” Chuck exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head while averting his gaze, blushing. “As for Melony, she lives here with Banii, so it all defaulted to her place.”

“But wouldn’t they assign a secret meeting hall or something?”

“Well, best not draw attention to ourselves, we don’t know who to trust nowadays. A friendly gathering at someone’s house is a lot less suspicious.”

Banii landed on her front porch, making a large thud on the grained wood. She used the momentum of her walking to do a small 360 twirl in place before stopping at the front door.

Guu was surprised to see that most of her house was built like a dojo. About 80% of her floor was composed of cushy training mats, and the same percentage of walls was lined with mirrors. On the mat was a large assortment of training equipment; everything from weights to aerobics bars.

The rest of her house was composed of a small kitchen, dining room, and a loft connected to the rest of the house by ladder where two sleeping mats were laid out.The pink one noticed many posters and wall scrolls of dancers, particularly ballroom and ballet. Potted flowers were placed sporadically all over the living space.

Banii walked out onto the mat and placed one of her ankles on one of the high rise bars. She twinged in pain at the tension in her upper thigh. The ease of her actions felt like she had done everything leading up from when they arrived at her house a million times before. Considering Chuck didn’t even bother to question why this took priority over the debriefing, she figured her assumptions were correct.

Melani however, was quick to playing the gracious host. She pulled out a chair and waved for Guu’s attention. The princess, getting the hint, moved in and took a seat. Chuck got his own chair while the melon made her way to the kitchen.

Standing on top of a stool, she set a tea kettle on a burner and prepared a bag. The ceramic, flower painted, tea bag container was conveniently placed within stubby arm length’s distance from the stove.

“So, where’s the research?” Chuck asked expectedly.

This gave Guu a bit of a shake. Between the watermelon making tea and the playboy bunny doing ballet stretches, she forgot the demon ninja had existed. After a few seconds to straighten her thoughts, she stuck her entire arm into her mouth. Banii caught sight of this in the corner of her eye and lost her balance, toppling to the ground. Even the demon ninja, someone well aware of the pink one’s antics, wound up reeling back a bit at the sight. She pulled her arm out of her month, her hand clutching onto Luke’s research. She plopped it casually in the center of the small table, nearly knocking over a vase full of daisies.

“Heh, I guess some rumors about you are true.” Chuck said, laughing nervously.

The demon soon delved into the research, trying to shrug off what he just witnessed. Banii quickly joined them at the table, no longer in the mood for exercises.

Not too long after, Melani approached the table carrying a tray of three teacups. She neatly placed each cup in front of each person at the table, each one a hell of the reach from where she was standing. After she was finished, she took a seat in a high rise baby chair at the opposite end of the table from Banii. Almost on cue, the bunny girl lifted up the cup and took a large sip from it, giving an audible satisfied coo.

“You’re tea gets better every day!” She said gleefully.

Guu stirred her drink, staring deep into the brown liquid. At one end, she feared drinking it as she didn’t want to experience the horrors of urination it down the line, but at the same time she didn’t want to be rude to her new travelling partners.

Eventually, she settled to taking a small sip. She lifted the cup to her lips and poured a little bit in.

’Watermelon flavored.’ She thought. She didn’t want to contemplate the implications of this revelation.

“Alright, I think I’ve figured this out.” Stated Chuck, bringing Guu back to reality, saving her from coming up with a compliment for the tea.

“What did you find?” Asked Banii, moving in for another sip while not breaking her gaze from the demon.

“According to this, the Star Piece is located deep within the Old Bog.” he began, flipping through the pages. “It lacks a definite location, but at least we know where we’re going.”

Guu has never heard of the Old Bog, though she wonders how old could a location in the omniverse possibly even be; all her sources on the dataverse suggests this universe hasn’t been around long enough to warrant that title.

Maybe the name of the place is not meant to be literal.

“The bog, huh?” Banii replied. “We’ll need to gear up for that kind of trip.”

The bunny girl stood up to tower over the group.

“Okay, so how about me, Guu, and Melani go buy supplies, while you plan out our trip, Chuck.”

“Okay,” Said the demon, barely paying attention as he poured over the research.

“Alright, let’s go girls, time to go adventure shopping!”