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Bass, the great and terrible had yet to even utter its first note before Umeko had set her mind on fishing. Adorning her back was a simple bamboo fishing rod, and in her hand was a harpoon already skewing a monstrous looking crab, bubbling, and snapping at the stoic woman. Dressed in a red Hawaiian shirt decorated with a variety of white tropical flowers, which she paired with a set of blue—similarly decorated swim trunks. Knee deep in the strange water of the Atlantic, she slid her tea-shades down her nose, looking over her shoulder at the fishy tormentor that occupied a tragic portion of the beach, as well as all of the attention anyone had to offer.
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The mission ahead of her was destined to be a challenge. Yet it was not the monsters or aliens that occupied her mind, no, far from it. She had taken it upon herself to fish, in an entirely futile attempt to subdue the increasingly problematic bass. However, this proved to be a challenge greater than she anticipated. Fishing was a tranquil activity, a moment to relax, and become one with nature while one were seeking to remove creatures from it. At every turn, she had been distracted. Barely able to harpoon, constantly being thrown off of her rhythm while reeling in what to her knowledge was either a red snapper or a colossal deep sea squid. A few hours had been dedicated to inconvenient beach fishing and still she had next to nothing to show for it.
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She could more than sympathize with the mission issuers, for in this moment, she too was a victim of the bass. Her many years of recreational fishing had proven to be for naught, and she only spun further into existential crisis with the constant assailment of the fish’s taunting, repetitive, overly simplistic song. Struggling with violent fantasies of roasting the bass over the mouth of a volcano, she sighed once again, long, and hard, “How troublesome…” Shifting her heels, she shook away such idle thoughts, tossing her captured crab into the stammering maw of the bass.

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Ever since she had been whisked away from her life of normalcy, she had developed a decently strong threshold for audacity. Today, that threshold had been passed by a degree that may have reset her back to pre-Earth-Chan levels of patience. Revving behind her and her batty ally—on a sidewalk, in broad daylight—was the bright white sports car. Ume tried to stare past the pitch black window to give the driver a look of contempt she didn’t know she was capable of.
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Its door flipped up, and out stepped a retro-futuristic cyborg, hanging wires and all. Pointing a large caliber pistol first at the bat, and then mechanically at Ume, he said nothing. Wasting no time, Ume fired a bolt of lightning from her Superimpopser, knocking the large pistol to the ground. Fluttering off, she flew away at her meager top speeds, her companion flapping wildly in a futile attempt to slow down enough to keep pace with Ume. The first shot was fired, narrowly missing Umeko as she bounded behind a corner. Soon enough, the hum of the electric engine followed her.
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With a door swung open, her peruser, with his large shades and even larger pistol had his eyes set on the young woman. She wasn’t prepared to outrun anything, let alone an unoutrunnable car. Quickly running out of time, she fumbled through her terrain data, landing on the dunes. Switching out the storm, and not even bothering to stop flying, she slotted in her next terrain. This little patch of street morphed into a desert. The street ready supercar was hardly ready for sand and quickly found itself trapped. Umeko, no longer in flight, came tumbling down to the sand. While the cars wheels continued to spin wildly, Umeko ran off, aiming to reach her destination before the man realized he could leave his car and shoot her to pieces.

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Ume smiled as Dahlia described her history of painting as something she had dabbled with in college. It was something they shared, "It's tha same with me, really. In university I studied tha work'a European romantics, where they tried to capture the 'sublime'. During summer, I tried to capture the land around my aunt's house, and never could. Figured painting wasn't fer me." She responded, keeping a casual tone as her eyes and hands remained pointedly focused on canvas and brush. Her eyes dropped a bit as she her spoken words finally caught up with her own thoughts, forming an inspiration.
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Her field had begun to spring to life, inspiration rooting deep within. Focusing headlong into the every important choice of greens; blending mostly with muted grays and blues. Much of the detail hadn’t been developed, simply a color palette. She had yet to dip her brush into the important space of the sky, not while she hadn’t yet set the horizon. Hills came to life, hoping to fame out and draw the eyes towards the expressive cave that Dahlia had brought to life. Eyes intently carrying her pointed intensity towards focus; her hand danced through the process of drawing long blades of grass swaying.
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There were no references to go off of; purely memory or rather dreams. Her mind had zoned on directly to a place of great significance to her, a place of truth: The Nara prefecture. Many summers had sent her to visit her aunt in the country, summers filled with playful exploring of the forest. This idea fresh in her mind, her field would develop patches of woodland; trees bending under the force of the wind. She wouldn’t be able to populate the horizon until she had developed the heavens, bringing her great pause. Having set the stage for a storm, she racked her head around its intensity. Far too intense would take away from Dahlia’s cave; she needed to strike a delicate balance. As if set to a timer, she removed her attention from the canvas to her palette, just in time to miss the physical rumbling of the canvas.
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She wouldn’t be able to put forth any of her intense focus towards the “sky” dilemma”. Breaking through the white noise of wind blowing, cicadas chirping, and crackling of thunder was Dahlia’s voice and the powerful sting of her supernatural strength tapping at her shoulder. Meekly, she was pleading, while they were in such a pleasant place taking part in fun–mostly insular activities. Something had to be wrong, even if it was something as mundane as a lack of wine.
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Whipping head bobbed head around to meet Dahlia, her eyes widened once she figured out what had been causing her so much issue. At her feet were the oily remnants of a spill, and clearly, she was far too mortified to handle it directly. These sorts of accidents were bound to happen, especially in a setting where wine was so free flowing. Understanding, she stood up, rushing to get a set of damp rags, “Oh. I’ll get that, don't fret."
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The stains of the monsters that Dahlia had dispatched under Ume’s nose hadn’t had the time to form a permanent mess. Taking her eyes off of her clean-up job, she failed to realize the set of eyes staring back at her through the oily residue. Their tiny, tiny pupils shifted, staring directly into Dahlia’s eyes in the seconds before they met their permanent oblivion at the hands of Ume’s callous nonchalance. Setting the rags on their shared table, a ways away from their fruit plate, Ume was once again hard at work.
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Noticing that once again, Dahlia had done away with the idea of there being something more obviously creeping in the cave, she wondered if this struggle was the corner store of her anxiety in this setting. She wasn’t one to offer any unsolicited advice or artistic suggestion. Personally, Ume felt the lack of a clear antagonistic force added a terrifying mystique. All of this alongside their instructor's warnings against the very real dangers of chasing intertextuality.

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This first person that Ume had the pleasure of meeting appeared to be just as confused as her. Another misplaced tourist, perhaps? Still, Ume nerves were frayed; she had been the victim of quite the existential rug pull. For now she might have been able to keep pace, she didn’t get a lot out of this stranger, only a few rushed out phrases. English hadn’t been her strong suit, and the fact that she could intuitively understand whatever was being said to her hadn’t struck her yet, “C…c..close?” She repeated, in English, nervously. ‘Nearby?’ She thought to herself. For a moment it seemed to her that it was simply the fact that she had kept up with English language movies keeping up with her.
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As many thanks as she owed Barbara Stanwyck, she certainly owed many more to the squirrelly woman who had narrowed down her search. Politely bowing, she was ready to be on her way, “Ookini... Thank you.” She slowly and carefully replied. Relaxing her terrified breath, she attempted to get a lay of the land. While her literacy was much stronger, she wasn't confident in her ability to navigate a foreign city.
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As her eyes moved from street signs to broken business windows, something occurred to her; clarity. She no longer needed to unpack and attempt to match what was written with fading vocabulary. It wasn’t just English; Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Cantonese written here and there were as clear as her own native tongue. Curiosity took hold; her class description made no note of comprehension, only understanding of terrain.
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Maybe she didn't even need to navigate. Her mind returned to the floating menu that assailed her upon arrival. Going against her better judgment, she attempted to visualize it once more. Earth-Chan’s GUI would, rather unceremoniously, mark a clear path through the city to the stadium. However, at the end of the waypoint, Ume noticed a red circle in the center, and a dwindling number labeled [participants].
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Struck with a reminder that she had 10 minutes to get to the arena before ‘Elimination’, Ume fully understood her reality. Snapping with the fervor of a spooked rabbit, she darted off in what was–only a few fleeting milliseconds ago–the opposite direction. She was trapped in a deadly perversion of her own world for the amusement of a terrible higher power… clearly. With her revelation ringing in her head she took a moment to stop, “As the Gods Will!” She exclaimed in native Japanese, her mind fleeing from the baseball related horrors her imagination was hasty to concoct.

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Directors had the star power, Ume knew this. Even so it hurt to hear the ever present fact that the cinematographer, the editors, and many others often slipped through the cracks. She would never hold it against anyone, for a lot of the crew fell to the wayside. Thankfully, Seika was leaning into her ronin ways, expressing her desire to learn and grow. While work loomed ahead of them, Ume was intrigued by the prospect of discussing the work of some of her heroes, “I can tell you all about Saito, Nakai and Miyagawa.” She suggested, before she got way ahead of herself. What she was a bit ambivalent about was going over her own work, which had fallen more into the B-picture range, as proud as she may have been.
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Either way, this light banter wasn’t terribly intrusive, this was a silent film after all. Sekai had taken ‘action’ to heart, it seemed. There was passion behind her way with the sword, and certainly a lack for the slimes that stood in her way. It made for properly compelling stuff. Even in the downpour that she confirmed was a direct result of her interference, “Sorry, I should have warned you; my class allows me to switch up the terrain, and make it rain.” She simply followed up. The full details weren't necessary, not while her actress needed to focus on slaying the vicious slimes before her.
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The slime problem had ceased to be in a flash of purple and silver. Ending a pitch perfect chiburi, after some clever editing at least.
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Ume bluntly declared, “Wrap.” In English. Abruptly calling the storm off she approached Seika, “Thank ya so much for yer time, you do excellent work. Ya gave me lots of great material to work with. I’ll keep in touch, once I see my editor, I’ll get you the full short.” Even watching through the rough footage, Ume was lighting up. Ushering in her return to filmmaking was a powerful feeling, even with all the work she had ahead of her for such a small amount of footage. Shutting her camera with a heavy click, she gestured toward the greater LA, “Ya hungry? I promised ya lunch.”
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[Fin]

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