Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Catalyst, chapter 9:INTERVENETION
"Wait," said the skeptical, questioning voice of Andrew Sora Warrest from 31 miles away, over the phone. "So you hired a BODYGUARD for the girl even though the only apparent danger she's in is either that of suicide or Vash?"

"What do you mean ONLY Vash?!" Came the somewhat irritated, anxious reply of Jason Cain Lethium Wenterz. "Man, that guy's a psycho and you know it!"

"Well.... Don't get me wrong, I know he's screwed up, but... do you honestly think he'd hurt the girl?"

Jason sighed. Andy just didn't get it. It had been a mere 15 minutes since he'd hung up on Shanty and 5 minutes after that, Mr. DragonBall Z hair had called. And Jay had spent the past 10 minutes explaining to said Rocker-of-the-scarlet-Dragon-Ball-Z-tresses that he had found a co-lyricist and had just successfully hired a body-guard for her. Unfortunately, Andy obviously didn't consider the apparently "small" chance of suicide or Vashoutoh Malluste tracking her down sufficient reasons to hire a protecter. Hence: this conversation.

"Andy," Jay said firmly. "Trust me, this guy's more than just a reckless emo, he's gonna make a move. I don't know, I've just got this really, really bad feeling that he's a second Brendon Micheals."

"Er, Brendon who...?"

"Dude, don't you remember?! Brendon Micheals, the guy I knew when I was, like, 14? The one who was so jealous of me for winning back-stage passes and tickets to a David Bowie concert that he poisened my mother to death so I would have to go live with my dad and step-mom in Chicago? THAT Brendon Micheals...? Remember?" After saying this, he shoved a rather large Christmas cookie in his mouth. Munch, munch, munch, munch... (Yes, he was eating Christmas cookies in the middle of May. Incoherent poets are too cool for correctly timed traditions.) He was also flipping through the pages of one of those absurd celebrity gossip magazines. You know, the ones that claim Jack Black is related to Big Foot and that Dick Van Dyke and Miley Cyrus are secretly dating and getting high on marajuana together? Yeah, it was an old guilty pleasure of Jasons to read such magazines. (Not that he actually believed their bazzare claims, but, hey, at least they were entertaining.)

"Oh yeahhhhh..." Andy remembered. "That was back when you lived in Baltimore, right? Yeah, okay. But Jay, even if Vash is crazy enough to murder her or whatever, how would he possibly find out?"

Jay thought this over. He was about to agree and concede that he might've been a bit paranoid in hiring Shanty to watch over Yuki, when he came across a picture in the magazine of himself with Yuki. Now, here's the twist: It was a picture of him kissing her on the fore-head outside the air-port. Here's the twist to the twist: The caption above it read: "LONG-LOST NIECE OR SECRET LOVER?" And, finally the twist to the twist to the twist: In smaller text, below the photograph, blazed the question: "Who is she, what's she doing with Jason, and why doesn't Nicole know about this?" (Now, it was that last question that made our human Mardi Gras decoration particularly paranoid at the possiblity of his singer/actress/super model grilfriend, Nicole Rosson, seeing this article.) Jason was so shocked that he started to choke on the Christmas cookie he had just stuffed into his face. Aw, dammit! thought Jason, this can NOT be happening. How, oh how, could it possibly be happening? Oh, but it was. Now that the girl was in a magazine with him, there was no way Vash wouldn't find out about her. Oh, sure, he probably didn't read celebrity gossip publications, but news traveled fast. After all, there was that lovely little thing called the internet to consider... Not to mention, e-mails and phone calls. Therefore, in less than 24 hours, the gossip of his so-called "love affair" with a high-school student would no doubt spread all over the interweb. Oh, not that andybody in their right ming would believe the lies of such an absurd magazine. After all, this was the exact same trash that said Paris Hilton had a huge crush on the prime minister of Canada. It wasn't his reputation Jason was worried about. Seriously, not even a psycho like Vashoutoh Malluste would fall for such out-rageous, scandelous Hollywood dribble like this. But Vash would still no doubt be curious about the picture. About the girl. About why Jay seemed so close to her. And above all, what she had to do with Jason. After that, it would only be a matter of time before he started looking for answers. Looking for answers by tracking down Yuki. And once he found Yuki... Oh, Gawd, let's not even think about that. Jason felt feverish with paranoia. (However, it also could've had something to do with the fact that bits of Christmas cookie were now starting to invade his lungs.)

"Jay...?" came Andy's concerned voice somewhere through all the choking. "Are you okay?"

More coughing. Less breathing. Finally, Jason was able to spit out the horrid Christmas tree-shaped antagonist of his lungs into a napkin. (And into the trash-can it went, the hell-spawned little assassin of suger and sprinkles. Okay, thought Jason, no more trying to inhale Christmas cookies and read celebrity gossip at the same time...)
However, when Jay did speak again, he sounded anything but jubilant at his victory over festive sweets of suger, sprinkles, and suffocation. He sounded sick and dread-stricken. "Aw, Andy, you will not believe this, I-" Just then he was interrupted by his phone alerting him that somebody else was trying to get on the line. "Hold on, man. I got another call." And, indeed he did.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Wen Wen. It's me." At the sound of his girl-friends voice, the panic started to set in deeper. She did NOT sound happy. Not quite furious either, but definitaly not happy.Oh, crap! thought Jay, maybe she saw the article!

Nevertheless, he managed to keep his voice casual. "Hey, baby. What's wrong? You sound down."

"Well... It's just that some girl called me a minute ago and told me it was raining sperm." At this, Jason had to to stifle a laugh. Poor Nicole got prank-called all the time. "And then I hung up on her but she kept calling me back and saying a bunch of hurtful ----. And some of it was that you were cheating on me with some high-school girl named Linda or Melinda or something lke that. Oh, not that I believed her, of course. But, uh, then I saw this picture of you kissing some high-school age girl on the internet, and- oh, don't worry, I don't believe any of the rumors or anything- but,uh, out of curiousity: who is she?"

Sigh... So she HAD seen the gossip and photograph. And even though she said she didn't suspect a thing, Jason could tell she was worried. Then again, him telling her that the girl was his bands new co-lyricist would probably only sound more disconcerting. After all, since Jay was the lyricist, that meant him and Yuki would be spending alot of time together, writing songs and such. Oh, not that Nicole actually had anything to worry about. Jason wasn't into under-age girls. Espcially not under-age girls like Yuki. Besides, she obviously wasn't attracted to him at all, either. He thought her awkward and boring, she thought him sinister and vapid. (Not to meantion the whole him once writing a song titled "The Only Good Thing about Divorce is You Get to Sleep with Your Mother.") Therefore, there was very little chance of them even becoming friends, much less lovers. But Nicole had been cheated on before by her previous boyfriends and it had all usually started with them trying to convice her that the potential "other woman" was merely a "friend" or "colleague." But that so-called "friend-ship" had always seemed to develop.
Therefore, no way in Hell would Nicole be calmed down by the whole "she's just my bands new co-lyricist" speech. Hence the next thing that came out of Jasons mouth:
"She's, uh, my niece. You haven't met her yet because she lives all the way in Maryland so we don't get to talk much. But, you'd like her, she's a good kid."

"Oh... Okay." The worry had completely drained out of Nicoles' voice. Success! She had bought it. And, really, why shouldn't she have? After all, Jason was a notorious doting uncle. It would make perfect sense for him to give his niece a bit of a good-bye kiss before she headed back to her home town. And thus that suject of conversation was abandoned. At least, for the next hour or so. During that hour Jay and Nicole talked and joked of such things as obsessed fans, stupid musicals, tours, prank-callers, managers, small Spanish dogs that any reasonable person would drop-kick, and candy bars. Alas the joyous verbal merry-making of the 2 was promptly then brought to an end by one very pissed-off Andy Warrest. For, soon after Awndrew arrieved at the residance of you-know-which-non-benevolant-Human-Shield, he then proceeded to glare daggers at Jason for forgetting about him on the tele-phone and telepathically demand that Jason tell him what he had discovered that was so horrible/shocking/choking hazard-like. Now ordinarily, Jay would've just ignored him, but it was very difficult to do so when he wouldn't stop sprinting about the room, whimsically screaming: "THERE ARE DEAD SCENE KIDS LIVING IN MY CLOSET!!!!!" And: "OH MY BULIMIC PIGS!!! WAFFFFFLLLLLLLLESSSSS!!!" And so Jason had to hang up. Because, let's face it, when there's a hyper Asian guy with red, colossal, wax-like spikes for hair running up one wall, on the cieling, and back down the oppisate wall like a ninja, thus acting like he's on about 10 pounds of speed, while screaming about the gothic-looking, eye liner-wearing cadavers living in his closet and syrup-accompanying breakfest foods, how can you even think of concentrating on a word your girlfriend is saying? ("Shyeahhhh. Just TRY to ignore me and not make me do annoying and distracting things, I dare you!"-Andy Warrest.)

"Man, why'd ya have to do that?" said Jay, obviously irritated at being made to hang up. "Nicole was about to tell me about her..." And then he said a vulger slang term for a certain part of the female anatomy which I refuse to repeat.

"To TELL you about it? What, now that you've seen it a million times she has to TELL you about it...?" retorted Andy, rolling his eyes.

Jay considered this. Andy had a point there, he had spent lots of time with a bare-No-way-in-Hell-am-I-ever-saying-where'd Nicole. Not to mention, once you've seen one I-ain't-gonna-say-what, you've pretty much seen them all.

"So, anyway," Andy proceeded, "What's so shocking that you had to start choking on your cookies and worry me half to death?"

"Awwww, you were worried about me?" Jay gushed in a teasingly girly voice.

"Yes. I mean, if you ruined your singing voice nearly choking to death, that would mean I would have do the backing vocals. And if I did the backing vocals, then I would surely accidentily awkaken an ancient, horible, fluffy race of monsters from ten thousand years of slumber and then the world would be over-run be said horrible race o' fluff, and it would be all my fault because... well, let's face it, I can't sing for ---. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that you mantain your singing, er, screaming voice."

"Well, if you say so, Sir Pointy Head, but I know somewhere deep down you LOVVVVVVVVE me!"

"That's Sir STARBURST Head to you, punk! Now shut up and tell me about your horrifying discovery."

And, well, Jay did not shut up, but he did tell Andy about his horrifying discovery. (Because how could he possibly have pronounced coherent sentances and shut up at the same time?) By the end of the explaination, Andy was frozen with aghast dread. Frozen with aghast dread to a point where his usually slanted jet black eyes widened almost to the size of an owls. He only had 1 thing to say about Jay being caught in a rather questionable pose with a minor on camera. And that thing was a timid, dread-stricken: "Oh, shit."
Jay nodded gravely. "Yeah. I know."

"And why where you kissing her on the fore-head and reaching up her shirt, again?"

"Well, I had to put the tracking device on her and I didn't want her to notice so... Yeah, the kiss was just a distraction." ("And I suppose I would've found it perfectly normal for you to nearly yank my arm out of its socket and kiss my fore-head, then...?"-Yuki)

Andy gave him a quizzical, somewhat patronizing look and asked: "Why didn't you just buy her shoes with a tracking device already in them and then give them to her?" ("Because then I wouldn't have been able to creep out the people reading this half as much as I did with the kiss."- Jason Cain Lethium "I-am-scary-and-proud-of-it" Wenterz.)

"Ya mean they actually HAVE those?" said Jay, surprised. This time, HIS eyes widened. (Not half as much as Andy's did, though.)

In reply, Andy nodded, giving him an obvious "how could you not know that?!" look.

"Oh..." murmured Jay, not-so-obviously recoiling from the sting of Andy's telepathic "duh"s and "you're an idiot, aren't you?"s. Fortunately he then managed to come up with an excuse as to why buying Yuki objects with tracking devices already in them wouldn't work: "Well, yeah, but then there wouldn't be any gurantee that she would wear the shoes and they would just sit in her closet gathering dust. So I needed the tracking device to be on her skin." And thus Jay's dignity was saved.

Or, at least, it was until Andy informed him that: "Jay, it didn't HAVE to be in a shoe. They also have 'em in cell-phones. Paranoid parents use 'em on their kids all the time."

"Oh...." Again with the defeated murmuring. Again with the telepathic "duh"s. And again with the excuses to save his dignity. This time, he went with the classic, frustrated "Well, I didn't know about 'em at the time, okay?!" However, it came out sounding more like: "Well... I didn't know about them, Andy." He then shot Sir Starburst Head a glare that carried the impatient telepathic message of: "SO JUST GET OFF MY ASS ABOUT IT, OKAY?!!!"

And evidently Andy got the message, for that was the last Jay heard of it. No, Andy had other things to be curious about. One of them was, out of all the prodigious poets in cyber-space, why had Jay designated Yuki as the potential co-lyricist? The answer he received was quite simple.
"Well..." said Jay. "I just liked her style the most." The answer Jay didn't give him, however was quite complicated. Oh, not that the what Jay said wasn't true- he did like Yuki's poetry very much. But the entire truth was a bit trickier to explain. You see, it wasn't Jasons writers block alone that had caused Yuki to be the co-lyricist. In fact, Jay had already written about 4 songs for the new album which where perfectly acceptable. Oh, not to say that those 4 songs had come easy, for they hadn't. But, no, the main reason Yuki had been chosen were the words Jasons late 4-year-old niece, Maria, had murmured on her death-bed last year right before she died. What made this particularly abnormal was that Maria had been asleep when she said these words. She had been sick, in bed, with a fever, completely konked out. The only person in the room at the time had been Marias' mom, Jasons sister, Lilly, who had been sitting by her daughters bed-side, worrying and wondering, when, all of the sudden, the frail little victim of pneumonia had said: "Read it and laugh...." There was a pause. "Maria...?" Lilly asked, unsure if her daughter was just talking in her sleep or becoming delirious. "Read it and laugh. Because we're all too damn apathetic to care, much less cry," Maria went on. "And you're only one scar away from losing all your humanity. But the REALLY sad part is, you think you're better off that way. 'Keep your head above the water'...? No, forget the water and the waves. Just keep your heart above the flames." At this point, Lilly was completely convinced that there was something wrong with her daughter, because, well, when's the last time you heard a mere 4-year-old girl talk like this in her sleep? And so, the worried mother tried to awaken the apparent medium from her trance by calling to her and shaking her gently. And yet, Maria kept on reciting: "Because when apathy is the closest you'll ever get to happy, you can only imagine what passion will do to you. Especially when you've got no one to share the it with. But if it's any consolation, that last 'I don't need you' was only half true. Because this so-called immunity to being lonely only works half the time..." There was another pause. For a few God-forsaken seconds, it seemed as if Lillys' "little angel" had gone to join all the other angels. But Maria was still breathing. Eventually Her eyes opened oh-so-slightly, as she turned toward her mother, and whispered in a sickly and choked up version of her own innocent voice: "Mommy...?"
Lilly leaned closer to her daughters ashen face, her eyes over-flowing with love and concern. "Yes, sweetheart?"
Maria opened her mouth to speak, coughed, and tried again."I-I see the King..." And Lilly could tell from the expression on Maria's face that she didn't mean Elvis. "He wants you to write down what I just said and show it to Uncle Jay. An-and mommy?"
"Yeah, hon?"
"I love you." Maria was gone by the time her mother finished saying "I love you too."

And yet, the poor bereaved mother still managed to respect her daughters final wishes. To say the least, Jay had thought it very odd. Very odd and very infuriating. After all , did God REALLY think his so-called "beloved" children so insignificant that He could use their precious last words just to set up another one of his "fateful situations"? That He could simply kill off a sweet-as-can-be little 4-year-old just to request a Mobile Fallout Shelter-composed melody for His lyrics? That He could use one of Jasons beloved nieces as if she were no more than a pawn in a chess game? HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY DO UNACCEPTABLE ---- LIKE THIS AND CALL HIMSELF PERFECT?!?!?! It was events like this that had led Jay to lose faith in "the King." And yet he still kept the paper on which was written Maria's last words. Why? Who knows. Maybe he just kept forgetting to discard it, maybe he believed somewhere deep down that there was a reason for the poem, or maybe he simply never got around to throwing it away. But he kept it. And although as the months passed, he seldom ever looked at or even thought of the poem, he never really manged to completely forget about it. It always seemed to be haunting the very back of his mind as if is was a pair of concert tickets for a blind date that hadn't happened yet. It simply didn't make any sense. Why would God have channeled such a meaningless cynical poem into the mouth of a dying little girl? And furthermore, what was Jay supposed to do with it? He just could not let it go. All the same, a mere half-year later these questions were answered in the form of a young 15-year-old, Baltimorian internet junkie by the user-name of X Shadowme X posting on her Myotaku web-page the exact same poem Maria had recited before she died. At first, Jason was flabbergasted. How on earth could this young, distant, internet teenager, who, according to her, had never once been to Illinois in her entire life, much less met Jay's niece, have known that poem? Was she psychic? Was it a miracle? Was this some sort of sign that he should meet this X Shadowme X? And then, just as Jasons train of thought started to reach it's highest point of what under normal circumstances would be called absurdy, reason started to kick in. Perhaps this poem, suggested logic, was no more than lyrics to a very obscure song both Maria and this X Shadowme X had heard on the radio. Yes, perhaps, neither Maria or Shadowme had really created it, but were simply repeating it. Yes, yes, that must be it. Surely this was no more than a simple coincidence. And so Jason left a comment on Shadowme's post containing the so-called "miracle lyrics" that inquired about the identity of the artist who had wrote them, and thought no more of it.
Thought no more of it, until about 5 months later, he received a rather short response from Shadowme that said: no, Linkin Park had not written the song Jason asked about. And, in fact, it wasn't even a song but a poem she had written while on vacation in North Carolina and was called "Things I'll Never Say to The Lover I'll Never Know." She then thanked him for the comment and, well, that was it.

And with that, Jason was thrown back into the doubt and shocked-into-silence bewilderment the victims of Divine Intervention always experience. Not knowing what to think, not knowing what to believe. Just to make sure Shadowme was telling the truth-and he hoped to God that she wasn't-Jason did a google search on "Things I'll Never Say to The Lover I'll Never Know lyrics." He got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a link to an undiscovered, ultra obscure Myspace band. At this point, Jason was panicking. Why? Well, let's see... He did NOT want to be in some mystical, God-sent plot to save the world, much less some random Baltimorian he had never even met. He did not want to serve a God he scorned for taking away so many of his loved ones. And he sure as Hell did not want some Heaven-sent, life-changing epiphany that would change his perspective forever. He was fine with who he was. So, in the hopes of finding that the mysterious lyrics had been nothing more than some sort of forgin pop song, which would mean he could just forget this whole damn episode ever happened, he shortened his search to the poems title and took out the "lyrics" part. Again, he got nothing. At this, he threw himself on the ground, contorted himself in the most reverant-looking kneel he could manage, closed his eyes tight, and whispered a desperate, beseeching prayer of: "No... Please. Find someone else! I'm no good for this job, I swear! Hell, I don't even know what this job is! C'mon, I'm just an irreverent eye-liner wearing rockstar heathen! I don't even go to church anymore! I mean, You know me, I'm just Jason Cain Lethium Wenterz! I couldn't even keep my mom from going insane much less save the whole damn world!..." After much more hysterical begging, it finally occurred to him that so far nobody except himself had said anything about saving the world. So far, the plot involved nothing more than a poem, a poet, and a dead Maria. Therefore, unless there was an evil scientist who had discovered a sickness that could make pneumonia-infected 4-year-olds recite poems that sounded uncannily like emo love songs written by 15-year-old cyber poets in Baltimore, Jason could relax. So, once again, he attempted to forget about the whole thing and went right back to his life of touring on the road, playing shows, signing autographs, doing interviews, and indulging in the Mobile Fallout Shelter fan-girls obsession with his and Mikeys alleged Shounen Ai-ness. (And to anybody out there who doesn't know what Shounen Ai is: DON'T ASK.) However, no matter how long or how hard he tried to pretend it never happened, whenever he got on of a computer, he always found himself staring into the light blue field of the background of Shadowme's site. Found himself staring into the light blue field of Shadowme's site without ever really recalling why he was there or when he had even clinked on the link to the page. Finally, the "miracle poems" haunting him had driven him so crazy to a point where he had been forced to take action. So he had finally met this X Shadowme X, also known as Belinda, also known as Yuki.(See first chapter for details.) And that, dear readers, is why you-know-which-Baltimorian-chronically-depressed-blogger was designated as Mobile Fallout Shelters co-lyricist. Therefore, if any of you are jealous of Yuki for being picked to work with everybodys favorite incoherent poets/musicians: don't blame her, blame Maria for reciting one of her poems before she died.

"Wen Wen...?" Andy called to him, thus awakening Jason from his reverie, bringing him all the way back to the present. When all Jay did was grunt and continue to stare off distantly into space, Sir Starburst Head was forced to use his high-school nick-name. "YO, MAN-BOOBS!! YOUR PHONE IS RINGING!!" he yelled from somewhere beyond all the nostalgia. And, sure enough, it was.
So Jason picked it up. "Hullo?"

"Hey," it was Shanty. He sounded tense. Worried. Foreboding.

"Oh, hi, Shan-Shan. Where're you?"

"In Belinda's school. I've got bad news."

"Yeah?"

"You know those creepy guys in the black robes and halos who are always hanging around Vashoutoh? They're here. And they've got guns.The ground is covered with what I'm assuming to be their victims."

At this, Jason felt the warmth of his blood abandon his body and the invisible phantom of dread tightening his throat. A shiver ran up and down his back. And even though Jay tried to deny it, tried to feign ignorance, tried to wish away the existence of what the presence of the reapers must mean, what Shanty said next utterly shattered any hope of blissful denial. "Uncle Jay, he's here." Shanty's voice did not have the slightest trace of fear in it. Or at least not fear for himself... "He's here and he knows about Belinda." A moments pause. A seconds pause. A minute's. 2 minute's. And then: "You know what to do," came the icy, murderous reply that sounded so sinister, Jason might've been telling Shanty to rape and murder an entire class of pre-schoolers. And then, the click of Jay hanging up. However, Shanty did not call him back. He did not hesitate a moment longer. For, he did, indeed, know what to do. The bad news was, evidently, so did Vashoutoh Malluste.

Authors note: Hey, sorry the majority of this chapter was so boring. I just wanted you all to know, Vashoutoh's name is pronounced "VASH.OH.TOH," not "VAH. SHU.TOH." (Although, if you think it sounds better the other way, I guess you could call him that... Can't say Vash is going to be too pleased about it though.)
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