AKA 2-05

A Kitsune’s Ascent

2-05: Eyefish pizza, anyone?

Emo Frankfurter Dude normally did not get up any time before one p.m. This is because he was sane and the rest of the world, particularly his family that claimed mornings were good and wholesome, were insane and beyond saving.

Unfortunately, his boss’s best friend just happened to be one of those morning lunatics, and worse yet, had reached out to Emo Dude about helping him get in shape.

The gnomes had shown Emo Dude he was fucking out of it they could overpower him, so he’d made a horrific mistake and agreed to a 9:00 a.m. training session.

“I. Hate. You. So. Much,” Emo Dude panted, face down on the ground from where they’d concluded their five smile jog.

Bobby, the bastard, was bouncing in place, only lightly sweaty in his muscle shirt. He flipped his luxurious hair and looked at Emo Dude, smiling so brightly it felt like a laser straight into his skull. “C’mon bro, don’t be like that. Exercise is good for the soul, refine’s your body and mind, too,” Bobby said, acting like the god damn smiles were nothing.

“All. My. Hate,” Emo Dude gasped out, flipping Bobby off. The bastard of an oni just laughed.

“C’mon, time for a little reward for keeping up. Pizza’s on me,” Bobby said, grabbing Emo Dude’s arm and dragging him up.

“Anchovy, or — cough — I cut you,” Emo Dude grumbled.

Bobby just patted his back.

~~~~

Emo Dude followed Bobby to Slipper’s Pizza. He said it was charming.

Emo Dude saw a man assaulted with an old lady’s slipper thrown like a pasta damned shotput when he said his pizza was overcooked, so maybe the place wasn’t all that bad.

Slowly recovering and ingesting critical amounts of ice water, Emo Dude almost felt alive, or as alive as he ever did when the pizza came out.

He blinked. Bobby blinked.

“Those aren’t anchovies,” Emo Dude observed.

“They sure ain’t. What gives?” Bobby asked the waiter, staring dubiously at the things on the supposed cheese pizza.

“Oh, right, our mistake. Looks like we gave you the new ‘I see you’ pizza with those new eyefish out of Corea,” the waiter observed. “Sorry, just a mixed up order, let me—” he didn’t get to finish his thought as a man at another booth stood up suddenly and took off sprinting outside.

They all collectively blinked. “Uh… want to try the new pizza for free? The guy who ordered it appears to have run away screaming,” the waiter said.

“Vomiting now,” Emo Dude observed as said man barely made it to the nearest trashcan.

“…should we be worried?” Bobby asked.

“No, that’s the first reaction I’ve seen like that,” the server said, scratching his head.

“Ommatophobia?” Emo Dude suggested, getting blank looks. He rolled his eyes. “Fear of eyes?”

“Then why did he order them?” Bobby asked.

“Exposure therapy?” Emo Dude said.

They all shrugged at this, but the waiter turned. “Well, pizza is paid for and free. Enjoy if you want. Taste a bit like shrimp, but sweeter and more buttery. Almost wouldn’t think they were fish.”

Emo Dude and Bobby shared a look, before looking at the pizza.

Every single fish, roasted or not, appeared to be looking back at them. Judgmentally. They were also at least 80% eye.

There was an unspoken deadlock as neither could seemingly decide who was going to try the weird pizza.

“Woah! Is that Eye fish?!” a nine-tailed kitsune carrying Zack by her hoodie clapped her hands and giggled. “Such a premium dish is sold at this establishment?! Truly, little kit, you live in the height of luxury!”

An older man in robes that looked like a noodles damned wizard stepped out from behind the nine-tailed fox and scowled. “Really? What a perfect way to ruin eyefish. You season and grill them, and serve them with sprigs of herbs. At most a light lemon wash. Not with a mountain of cheese and bread. Disgusting,” he said, before snatching up a piece and chewing it. Angrily.

His chewing slowed, and his scowl shifted. “Not bad. For heresy,” he said, but notably did not stop eating.

Emo Dude stared, first at the newcomers eating their pizza, then at Zack, then at Bobby. “Sure, fine, eat our pizza before we even get to try it, that’s fine. You know these people?”

“Oh yeah, I already slept with them and everything,” Zack intentionally joked.

“Awwww! The baby foxxo is too precious!” the white-furred kitsune grinned. “Kitsune love sleeping with others. It’s in our nature!”

“The oversized musclehead would know. We’ve gone to bed in separate rooms, and she sleep-chewed a hole through the wall to invade my bed like a parasite, forcibly taking all my warmth,” the wizard said.

Emo Dude turned to Bobby as Zack was clearly in on this insanity. He mouthed, ‘What the fuck?”

Bobby chuckled. “They’re fucking with you, mostly. Emo Dude—”

“Aptly named,” the wizard said, making Emo Dude take a fucking double take.

“—say hello to Tsukuyomi, the bigger fox girl, Wizard Tim, wizard, and you know Zack. Before you ask, it’s a long story, but they kinda fell out of the sky and are from another world. Something about a demon lord, but eh. They’re stuck here, and I guess they’re stealing our pizza now. Is it good, at least?” Bobby asked.

“Tolerable,” Wizard Tim said.

“Umhmu!” Tsukuyomi grinned as she tried to speak around a piece she snatched from Wizard Tim.

Emo Dude took all this in and decided to be blunt. “So are you seriously a wizard? Show me a magic trick.”

Wizard Tim stopped eating his eyefish pizza and stared, hard. “You challenging me, boy?”

Emo Dude blinked. “Uh, no? I thought it was a joke? I mean, magic’s real, clearly, but no one’s gotten it down just yet. Right Bobby?” he asked, looking to Bobby only to see Bobby shaking his head and mouthing ‘you fucked up’ at him.

Wizard Tim slowly set down his slice of pizza. “I will show you true magic, the likes of which you’ve never seen!” he said, as a small and ethereal wind brushed through the pizzeria.

“Oh! Are we gonna fight?!” Tsukuyomi asked. “That much magic could blow them all away though!?”

Wizard Tim rolled his eyes. “It’s a demonstration. I don’t want to destroy this city. What I am going to show you is restraint level 1. It goes up to ten, and I will be containing it.”

With that, he slapped his hands together. The air became charged, like right before a lightning storm. Slowly, as though with great effort, his hands separated, revealing a perfect black sphere the size of a marble in his hands.

Yet, unlike a marble, something seemed wrong with the air around it. The space was distorted, and light seemed to be drawn into the sphere, instead of bouncing off.

“Behold, Doom, the spell that ended the Astral Harbinger, the spell that ended Emperor Razgull’s tyranny, my signature spell,” Wizard Tim said.

Emo Dude’s breath caught, slightly. He found his clothes felt pulled toward the sphere, even as a glowing barrier arose around it.

“This is something no other mage, or wizard, has ever mastered, and if they ever manage to, I’ll give them a free beer because it was a bitch and a half to pull off. This thing is a miniaturized blackhole. Past its event horizon, you are sucked in and compressed to the size of an atom, and this is its weakest form. So remember this. I am a wizard, and you will remember my name!” Tim shouted, before slamming his hands shut. Space briefly ruptured and there was a crack in the air before it all faded back to normal.

Wizard Tim huffed. “Magic trick indeed,” he said, grumpily eating his slice of pizza.

Emo Dude stared, sweating. “Well, that was metal as fuck.”

“By the Broth!” Zack breathed. “Can I learn Magic like that?”

“Everyone can, it’s just a question of talent and will to try,” Wizard Tim said.

Zack’s tail puffed up, wagging a little as she spoke. “I wanna learn magic. I wanna be able to turn a stick into a sword, and use it to cast fireball while beating up the bad guys!”

“Hmm. Sword and magic is a bit more difficult, but…” Wizard Tim began. “Ah, why not. I always appreciate the drive to experiment and do new things, and you can hardly do worse than Bobbart the Explosive, who tried to combine his Warhammer style with explosive magic. It didn’t work beyond the first swing.”

Emo Dude decided to speak up. “You could always use Dalton’s old construction yard as a testing ground. Lots of shit to cut up, old machinery, etc. Hard to miss. Just go west, edge of city, lots of space, forest beyond.”

Wizard Tim, Tsukuyomi, and Zack readily agreed, while Bobby and Emo Dude decided to follow along to see how it went.

But, while lagging behind the group a bit, Bobby did ask Emo Dude a question. “Isn’t that the place your mom and dad have been trying to get funds to renovate? And like, isn’t the equipment new, they just haven’t found a crew willing to work that death trap?”

Emo Dude nodded. “Yup,” he said, feeling something almost akin to cheer through the sludge of depression engulfing his heart.

“Man, you seriously hate your parents,” the athletic oni said.

Emo Dude sighed. “You have no fucking idea…”

~~~~

AN:

Kitsu: Weeeew! Finally got this one done!

The foxxar was waiting on Hidden for a vacation, and we had to do work for commissioners that delayed this one for a very long time! It was unfortunar fr fr.

HiddenMaster: Yup, was away a bit, but glad to be back on things, and we got this ironed out pretty fast once we got into the swing of it.

Wizard Tim is broken as fuck, but the scary thing is Tsukuyomi is his equal in martial prowess and has cut a maximum level doom spell in half.

Kitsu: Imdeed! In fact, Tsukuyomi has cut through a lot of things to get at the enemy faster.

HiddenMaster: If you would like to support us so we can write yet more wonderful fox words, or any creative words for that matter, or perhaps commission us for a story of your own, check out our carrds below.

HiddenMaster’s Archive: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/

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