//------------------------------// // Lupin // Story: Lupin III: Horseshoes and Hand Grenades // by Abremelinthemagus //------------------------------// (Alright sorry for the short Prologue. If you’re at all familiar with Lupin III then you’ll know that it’s a highly visual and fast paced series, which can make it very difficult to write. Especially the opening chase scenes, which usually have no dialogue and are heavily reliant on music. Because I can’t hope to match that level of insanity in writing, I’m just going to let you imagine your own opening chase with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiTH9Ho48cE playing.) The day started so normal… actually scratch that, it started normal for Lupin III and his gang. A half hour beforehand and after a stop at a Gas Station for breakfast. Lupin III and his partners Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa had just stolen Giordano Bruno’s diary from the Vatican archives using a combination of, brains, brawns, cunning, 5 smoke grenades, sleep inducing bubblegum, a holographic Marian Apparition, and a Spirit Halloween cardinal costume. The heist was going so well at first, but as to be expected, waiting for them in the Borgias apartments (Lupin wanted to use the bathtub) was Inspector Zenigata accompanied by the Swiss Guard. As per usual the chase was intense and somewhat humorous, with the Obilissco del Piazzo being knocked down as the main centerpiece. All and all, with the exception of Goemon settling for a chicken sub, it was a pretty normal day or at least it was until Lupin started fiddling with the book.       Out of nowhere a great shimmering rainbow portal appeared, Jigen who was driving at the time, as rule avoided space time tears, rainbow or otherwise. It is very likely he would have continued this streak if they weren’t blocked on the only exit. Jigen also had a rule not to get arrested at all costs, especially by people considering heretics. So swallowing his pride and his convictions, and ignoring Lupin’s desperate protests about how Roman jails were nice this time of year, Jigen raced through the portal.        For the most part entering a random wormhole would deter even the most well trained police officer, besides by their logic their quarry was as good as dead anyways, so why waste the effort? This line of thought however, was not good enough for Inspector Zenigata who due to a mix of determination, obsession and masochism jumped in right after them.  Now the day was not so normal, as Lupin and Jigen were now falling at least 2 miles down in a fiat. Goemon being Goemon, had immediately jumped off the careening hunk of yellow metal leaving his friends alone, presumably confident in their survival. The two crooks who remained in the car were by no means as confident.           “THE BREAKS JIGEN THE BREAKS.” Shouted Lupin as he desperately attempted to buckle his seatbelt as the car continued it’s death roll towards the presumably hard ground.    Jigen shot back at his partner “ HOW THE HELL IS THAT GONNA HELP US?!”  his life choices in instant regret as he furiously puffed his second cigarette. The used ones kept in the ashtray flew out the windows of the plummeting vehicle like a volcano of nicotine filled confetti.  “JUST DO IT.” Screamed Lupin who had given up trying to fasten the seatbelt and was then attempting to tie it into several kinds of knots, before he settled on sailor’s for convenience.  His tie continued to smack his face over and over again. At this point green ground was already visible, and became more visible each second.      “FINE!” Jigen shouted, his free hand furiously gripping his hat as he slammed his foot unto the breaks. With the grace and finesse of an Elephant ballerina, a white parachute emblazoned with Lupin’s face shot out of the car. The two men breathed a sigh of relief as they gently floated towards the ground, grabbing each other’s shoulders for good measure. This moment of peace was cut short by the parachute catching on fire as the car once more began to accelerate towards the swampy ground.          The car landed in the marsh with a non lethal KAPLOOSH! That sent repent murky waters out in a miniature tidal wave, the uproar of water assured the two men were thoroughly soaked. “Well,” Mused Jigen through heavy pants, “at least it’s,*huff* over.”. Before Lupin could respond the airbags activated right in Lupin’s face. All Jigen could hear was some muffled shouts that were presumably an insult. He ignored this and lit another cigarette, the one in his mouth put out by swamp water. Cut to Black Typed white font appears on the background. HORSESHOES AND HAND GRENADES     Despite the popular saying, the two waterlogged thieves were by no means thick at the moment. In fact it was relatively clear that one of the things fueling their ability to push the waterlogged FIAT out of the muck was sheer hatred for each other. “URGH.” Lupin groaned before he took a break and put his back to the car, “What hell was that for?!”     “Listen.” Jigen rasped between grunts. “Being here beats.” He gave another grunt as he took an arduous step through the muddy water, ‘’Being burnt at the stake!”     Lupin groaned at Jigen’s ignorance  “First of all, they wouldn’t have done that! And second of all  how do you know that? We don’t even know if we’re still on the same freaking planet.”       “Oh yeah.” Replied Jigen, the Fiat’s tires groaning as it’s front wheels made purchase on solid ground. “Tell that to the guy who’s book we stole!”         Lupin stopped for a minute realized he was getting left behind and ran up to the car, pushing once more. “This isn’t the sixteenth century Jigen. Or at least it wasn’t then.” At the moment it was entirely possible that the diary had sent them to the outskirts of Rome under the reign of Pope Clement VIII, especially as it was neither’s first brush with time travel.  “Anyways I bet you were just mad that you’d have to wear orange for a week!”     “YOU KNOW DAMN WELL I DON’T LOOK GOOD IN ORANGE.” Shouted Jigen with a surprising intensity that caused Lupin to flinch. “Besides, you’re the one who messed around with that damn book in the first place.” Lupin gave a huff and a pout, showing that he conceded to being at fault in his own childish way.  It was true he did mess with the book, but it was just so tempting with its weird designs and language only he and around 20 other people could read, if anything it was the books fault for being so interesting. Besides most of human progress had been made by men and women sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.      With a few more heaves, several curses and a crapton of grunting the car was out of the swamp and free to land with a disconcerting groan. The sounds of the water that rushed from the doors cracks nearly drowning out all the noises of the forest. “Well.” Panted Lupin as he collapsed against the car, “That wasn’t so bad.” He too fell to the floor with a comical thump, which left Jigen alone to survey the area after sufficient wringing of his hat.      From what Jigen could gather from his admittedly limited knowledge of botany and ecology, the swamp they were in was surprisingly unextraordinary for a place accessed by portals. Mangrove like trees with dirty green hanging leaves dominated the landscape, their trunks going into the water like octopus tentacles in search of prey. The few patches of solid ground including the one he happened to be standing on had sparse coverings of sickly brown grass. This was comforting, grass meant they probably didn’t have to add dinosaurs to their list of concerns. Really the only thing that’d be noteworthy were some of the flowers, many of which were garish shades of pink, green and blue, though once again nothing unheard of in the tropics. Still, the air was too cold to be tropical. The temperature brought up childhood memories of New Jersey in the spring, when his dad would drop him off at his uncle’s for Hebrew school, when he had business to attend to.          Jigen’s mind continued to wander through memories of throaty consonants and heavily bearded old men wrapping him on the knuckles until a sound rang out. It sounded like a woman’s scream mixed with hoofsteps and several cracks. Instinctively he unholstered his gun and stood still as a stone, waiting to see if whatever was making the noise would coming towards them. He sucked in his breath, and continued to tightly grasp his Magnum. Despite his cool exterior, Jigen was afraid, to be fair other men in this situation might be terrified, but for Jigen being scared was bad enough. It wasn’t that he was worried he couldn’t hit it, he had a microsecond aim and could shoot rivets off billboards after all. No, the real worry was whether his rounds would work at all on whatever was out there. He knew they had some explosive rounds in the trunk but by the time it would take to open it, it may be too loud and more importantly, too late. Jigen silently cursed Goemon as he cautiously leaned down to rouse Lupin. “Pssst.. Buddy?”       Lupin looked up groggily  “What is it Jigen, can’t you see I’m resting.” His voice was more tired than angry or even irritated, almost endearingly pathetic.       “Yeah.. well I’m afraid we got company so now might not be the best time.” Another cacophony echoed throughout the woods as if to back up his point, rousing Lupin from his pseudo slumber. The apelike man rose, walther clutched shakily before the two of them slid down behind the FIAT. “Any idea what it is?” Asked Jigen.     Lupin snorted, “Why should I know? We could be on another planet, we should be happy we can even breathe here!” He whispered back harshly. Then a feminine scream was heard, the words themselves were muffled and muted by the crashes and growl save for what sounded like ‘Trixie;. Hearing this feminine cry of distress Lupin bolted up, his gun now cocked.         Jigen grabbed his Jacket attempting to pull him down, “What the hell are you doing?” The anger in his voice mixing with fear so as to become even more potent.     “A girl’s in distress, we have to help her.” Lupin said with a surprisingly steely determination as he shook Jigen off and began to slowly creep towards the bushes that shielded them.     “What happened to ‘we’re on another planet?” Jigen shouted as he attempted to grab onto Lupin’s shoulder, his grip even firmer but to no avail.      “How does that change anything?” Asked Lupin who was still too focused on rescuing a potentially non existent damsel to rescue from definitely existent danger.     “Other planets don’t have girls!” Said Jigen just short of a scream before anxiously covering his mouth, the sounds stopped briefly before resuming.          “Well how would their populace reproduce then?” Lupin smirked, he had clearly beaten Jigen with is irrefutable logic.        “You know what I mean!” Growled Jigen as he rushed up besides his red jacketed partner clearly not wanting to be left alone. “Besides even if there are girls, how do you know it’s not just trying to lure in prey?”     Lupin turned around and playfully flicked Jigen’s hat, “Come on Jigen, where’s your sense of chivalry? Of adventure.”         “I don’t know, probably a few lightyears away in Italy maybe.” He deadpanned, realizing that no matter what he did he could not persuade his companion to stop his potentially suicidal choice. Lupin already in a romantic mania, potentially with horny undertones did not deign to give that quip a response and began to part the bushes. His eyes focused intently even before he split the leaf cover like the red sea. Jigen in contrast was trying his best to stifle the shaking that was currently attempting to overtake his body, something that sight that was revealed to them certainly didn’t help with. In front of them down a small hill was what appeared to be an old fashioned Romani wagon, being menaced by what could only be described as some kind of prehistoric reptile that was just being held back by purple light beams. His cigarette fell to the floor, it looked like he now had to worry about dinosaurs after all.     By the time Jigen’s mind had fully registered just what the hell was happening Lupin was already running down the hill at near superhuman speed, his walther waving furiously as he began to scream. Mostly shouts of ‘Hey’ and ‘over here!’, Lupin figured that when dealing with a non sapient adversary he probably didn’t need to think of creative insults to get its attention. With a snarl the beast turned it’s attention towards the screeching primate and let out a mighty roar before returning its focus to the wagon. A small part of Lupin’s ape brain was telling him this wasn’t worth it, but he held his ground regardless.  “YEAH!” Lupin shouted, waving his gun in the air giving a shot either in an attempt to scare it or in an attempt to get its attention, even he wasn’t really sure.     The reptile let out a low growl at what must have been a tiny pop to its cavernous ears.. Now the creature’s focus was on him and it was coming much faster than something that size should.  Lupin fired several shots into the leviathan, but against the thing’s scaly hide, all they managed to do was piss it off more. The creature now stared at Lupin eye to eye, it’s cold breath against his face smelt of reptile urine and carcasses. At this point all Lupin could do was let out a nervous chuckle as the beast loomed over him, giving him a few sniffs for good measure. Ironically enough the beast recoiled and swatted Lupin with its heavy armored tail and sent the unfortunate felon flying. Lupin’s last thoughts before hitting the ground was that he was vaguely insulted by the thing’s rejection of him.      In the meanwhile Jigen, who had currently been watching the affair in a state of shock and horror had had enough. Eating random aliens is one thing but no million year old brute, with the exception of Pops had the right to lay a claw on Lupin. At that moment the beast was ambling towards his fallen compatriot who was currently asking if he wasn’t good enough to be eaten. Jigen groaned internally as he began to aim, he’d have time to groan externally later as he began to sus out a target. His magnum was a fair deal stronger than Lupin’s walther but he doubted a few KEs would make much a difference to the thing. No, if he wanted to get the thing he needed to take out the soft bits.    Jigen slid down the slope internally cursing himself as he got close enough in range for his plan to work, cursing himself and Lupin under his breath the entire time. Then he took a deep breath, and screamed. “HEY BASTARD! HOW ABOUT SOME EYE SURGERY!” The beast turned with a snarl as Jigen steeled himself. For Jigen the world had begun to cool, time seemed to slow down as things such as taxonomy or electric bills lost their meaning. It was if everything besides advanced trigonometry had been put on hold in his mind, and his only fuel source was his desire to get the job done. His breaths felt heavy, but calm as his finger began to rest on the trigger as the beast seemed to waddle in an awkward slow motion dance towards him.      To the creature who unbeknownst to Jigen and Lupin and most likely itself was called a Tarassque, this is what happened. Two primates showed up and made loud annoying noises, the primates threw rocks it and it became angrier. Then there was more shouting, two of the same loud bangs and all of a sudden all it could see was red. Not in the sense that it was angry, if it was sapient it’d have known it was almost always angry, but literal red as it’s eyes became  bloody nonfunctional messes. It roared in agony unused to physical pain as another piercing sensation hit its uvula filling its mouth with the taste of its own bitter black blood.          Jigen watched as the monster writhed and roared, knocking down several trees in the process as it continued on its blind mix of warpath and retreat. He smirked, partly out of relief that his gun still had some use, partly from relief, and partly because of the sheer absurd pointlessness of the situation. Some groaning from the floor alerted him to the reason he risked his ass in the first place. He reached his hand down and slowly but steadily began to drag Lupin up. “Hey man, you alright.”     “Yeah… I’m fine… just humming a little song called ouch.” Lupin eyed his partner woozily, a bit ashamed of what happened. Normally he’d do better in situations like this, after all he’d beaten gods before so what could one measly dragon be to him. As he continued to shakily ascend into the setting sun’s last few warm rays he decided to save his pride and chalk it up to being unprepared. After all, his arsenal of gadgets was made to confuse, distract, encumber and disorient mammals, not destroy massive reptiles. Lupin’s fantasizing was cut short by a fist to his shoulder. “HEY WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?” He screamed at Jigen’s scowling face.    “What for? You could’ve gotten yourself freaking killed!” Lupin tried to think of counterargument before settling on turning around with a huff and heading towards the wagon. Jigen was once again on his tail, “Hey where the hell do you think you’re going.”     “I’m going….to see if we can get a little reward for our services.” The expression on Jigen’s face showed that perhaps he should’ve chosen his words better. He didn’t mean that, and as of late rarely did with anyone besides Fujiko, but if it made Jigen uncomfortable he decided he might as well stick to it. As Lupin approached the wagon he began to make out a camp that fit the whole, Hollywood depiction of Romani shtick its owner had going. There was a shoddy firepit, various lamps and cooking utensils, a couple miscellaneous crates and several clotheslines that stretched from the wagon to the varying trees. He took special notice of the clothesline, if he could see what the inhabitants wore he might be able to tell how many arms, or more importantly breasts they had on average. Yet instead of four armed gowns, or three legged skirts, he found a variety of capes. No pants, no shirt, no shoes, no service just capes. What kind of person alien or not would spend all this time and effort to shield themselves from the elements only to waltz around with nothing but a cowl?     The sound of feminine panting and scampering drew Lupin to the side of the carriage as he gingerly placed a hand on it’s side. “It’s ok miss.” He said making sure to emphasize his tone, “We don’t mean you any harm, we just wanna know where we are.”       His only response was a very loud, very shrill and very intelligible “GET AWAY FROM TRIXIE.” as more sounds of movement could be heard.     “Just calm down alright, all my friend and I want is answers.” He heard more nervous movement. Now it was time for the serious maneuvers. “Alright just to show we don’t mean any harm I’m dropping my gun.” With a loud thump the Walther dropped on the floor, but this intended conciliatory gesture only caused the woman to screech.     Lupin shook his head, this woman whoever she was, was either traumatized or completely hopeless. She didn’t even seem that concerned for himself as she ranted and raved, just someone called Trixie who she seemed to hold in incredibly high esteem. She seemed like a grade a nutjob, but harmless and timid enough not to be that much of a problem.     Finally Lupin had made his way to where the noise was coming from, took one look in front of him, and tried to muffle his squeal. Standing only 50 feet from him was a tiny waist high blue unicorn with huge pleading purple eyes. It was adorned in what looked like a wizard hat and one of the many capes that seemed to sag on the clothesline. Admittedly, even for a guy like him who’d seen more than his fair share of weird stuff, it was hard to tell what it was with the exception of adorable. Seriously if they had these creatures on earth and he settled down, he’d get like three of them.  Then a lightbulb went off, ‘Ooooh’ he thought to himself, ‘So this is Trixie. It’d make sense for some crazy… whatever lady who dresses up her pets to freak out by herself in the woods.’         “Trixie I assume?” He said looking at the horse with a bemused expression as it continued to shake and look around nervously. He leaned against the wall and continued to make eye contact, “I suppose you aren’t used to mommy leaving you alone much huh?” Before he could make a quip about freedom, something happened that shook him to his core.     The tiny unicorn huffed, pawed at the ground…. And spoke.  “THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE IS TOTALLY SELF SUFFICIENT! SHE HAS NOT LIVED WITH HER PARENTS FOR MOONS!”         At that moment, if Lupin’s jaw could drop any further, it’d currently be on the ground. “Y-you can talk!” Why was this so surprising to him? Seriously, he once had to marry a super intelligent Dolphin against his will, so why was this talking horse messing with him so bad?     “Of course the Grrreat and Powerful Trixie can talk Ape! Her eloquence is unmatched!” Lupin could only gasp and stammer as his mind tried to wrap around what heck was going on. The first thing he realized as he stared into the angry miniature mythological creature’s purple eyes, was that the horn probably wasn’t just for show.      Then he remembered, unlike vampires and super dolphins, what he saw was biologically impossible. What was it? Was it a genetic experiment? A cyborg? A talented fursuiter? It couldn’t be a ghost or illusion because those didn’t have flesh and blood predators. Still how could this thing be intelligent enough to hold a conversation. It’s eye to head ratio alone seemed to preclude the development of any substantial frontal or prefrontal cortex. And how did she even manage to turn them? Plus judging by it, no her teeth, she was a trunkless herbivore who had achieved sapience which was less likely still. Besides even if it could reach that level of intelligence how could it possibly replicate human speech with it’s muzzle and short stocky neck? He could chalk it up to some kind of psychic phenomena but the amount of energy needed for a lifeform to run that ambiently seemed impossibly high.        Of course none of this came out and instead Lupin lamely said the following as Jigen arrived on the scene still hesitant and frustrated. “You’re not supposed to talk.”     The Unicorn, Trixie assuming he had interpreted her aggressive third person syntax right was now getting up in his face. It would be an adorable display if her anatomy didn’t break several laws of physics and biology. “What do you mean Trrrixie isn’t supposed to talk. Trixie talks to whomever and Whatever she wishes!” She made sure to point a hoof at Lupin at the last bit. Nice to know that the aberration against biophysics considered him a what.         His mind raced for words but his mouth as per usual when off the job didn’t listen, “You’re a horse.” He stated still dazed and confused. Clearly Trixie did not like this as her expression grew even more adorably angry, her horn starting to glow.      Before Trixie had a just a chance to try and fry Lupin both of them suddenly found Jigen between the two of them, clearly taking this situation much better than Lupin. “Hey uhh.. Lady we just saved your ass!”     “Your monkey insulted Trixie! And Trixie does not own a donkey!” The little horse said, snoot pressed into the air in a suitably imperious fashion.       Before Lupin could shoot back about how only he was the monkey, Jigen continued to speak. “Listen my partner’s a freaking idiot who can’t talk to ladies ok. So how about the three of us calm down, and all of us can figure out what the hell is going on.”   Trixie ran a hoof under her chin before angrily plopping to the ground in a frighteningly doglike manner. “Fine.” She said turning her heads away from the two cons with another dramatic swish, “But if you’re compatriot even insinuates that Trixie is a mare of the night one more time, she’s turning him into a Newt!”