Season 1, Episode 6 - The Tree Plot XXVIII - "Audrey vs Vivian the Tongue-Twister"

The fearless trio of Lynn, Audrey, and Mackenzie sat in the back on an unmarked white van a few blocks away from downtown Palmer Beach. In contrast to the cutting-edge, modern architecture and urban planning of downtown, the restaurant known as the Highmoon Tavern of the Eight-Heaven Archway sat in a cramped street under the cover of the gray sky. Yellow banners with red and black Asian symbols hanged across the street; Brazilian cars passed by underneath them, paying no attention to the white van parked across the road from the Tavern.

The Tavern itself was a four-story building. The restaurant was on the first floor - dojos belonging to the Sect of Steel presumably made up the three floors above. The windows on those floors had their blinds pulled down.

Next to Lynn in the van, Audrey did some last-minute stretches while Mackenzie ran a hand along her weapon - all the Rddhi use over the past few days meant that she was going to have to fight conventionally this time around.

If it came to fighting, that is. Mackenzie had another trick up her sleeve - two members of her Rddhi Detection Network scurried around the van, while the other two were already inside the Tavern.

Lynn tried to remember their names, but they always got mixed up in her head. She knew they went A-B-C-D; Abel (?) and Charlie (?) entered the tavern around ten minutes ago to distract the Sect of Steel members inside. Bonnie (?) and Diana (?) stayed inside the van to monitor the situation from afar. All four of them were connected via a mental network formed by the Rddhi, enabling them to communicate thoughts with each other telepathically.

After scrunching her pale face in concentration for a long time, Bonnie finally opened her eyes. “Abel told me you three should be all set to go inside.”

The trio nodded. The Rddhi Detection Network was kind enough to pick up the items they needed to infiltrate the Tavern - and among them, perhaps the most crucial of all, were the aviator shades that each of the girls now wore. Lynn tugged at the collars of her suit, then nodded at Audrey and Mackenzie.

The three girls departed out of the back of the van, asphalt crunching beneath their feet as they crossed the street. Funky music played out of a nearby phonographic shop; a worker from the shop used it as ambient music while he smoked a cigarette outside. He noticed the three girls crossing the street and gave them a nod of understanding.

The trio arrived at the front of the Tavern. Two large wooden doors, their metal door handles shaped like angry dragons, greeted them. Metal beams, painted red, surrounded the door to give off an impression of a Torii gate.

Lynn looked over the two girls again. Behind the shades, she couldn’t see their eyes, but Lynn saw how Mackenzie’s hand trembled slightly around her crude weapon while Audrey kept her hands stuffed in her pockets.

“No road left but the one that leads to the end,” Lynn reminded them. The other two nodded again, and Mackenzie placed the weapon inside her suit jacket. With that, Lynn pushed open the doors.

Oriental-sounding flutes played as they stepped inside. The tavern consisted of a lobby connected to a hallway, with the restaurant area just down the hall. Jewel-encrusted carp statues and subdued paintings lined the red walls of the lobby and hallway. As they stepped past an empty podium where an employee would normally take reservations, they heard cheers and chants coming from the actual restaurant area of the tavern - multiple chairs and tables on a green tiled floor underneath fluorescent lights.

Instead of the expected neat rows, the trio instead found that all the furniture had been shoved off the side. The smoke and smell of cigarettes drifted through the air as a large, shifting crowd of customers, businessmen, and Sect of Steel warriors raised their fists and shouted out bets in multiple languages. Up above them all of them was a wooden shelf displaying a chiseled sculpture of a dragon’s head; you could mistake the smoke as coming from its nostrils.

As they passed around the back of the crowd, Lynn tried to peer through, but the array of patrons was too thick; she tried to glance over them, but she was too short. Audrey seemed to have the same problem; only Mackenzie could see, but the aviator shades kept her reaction muted.

Lynn could imagine what was going down at the center of the crowd, though. In addition to the aviator shades, Abel and Charlie had also purchased, down in the docks of Fore River, two fighting roosters - roosters that were now dueling in the center of the crowd. Every blow made by either of the gamecocks sent roars and ripples through the crowd, utterly distracted by both the blood sport and the subtle Rddhi waves sent through the air by the Rddhi Detection Network.

This presumably kept most of the dojo members distracted. Now, all the trio had to do was head up the elevator to the fourth floor, retrieve the Trowel, and head home. As they moved past the crowd and entered another hallway, they found that the Rddhi Detection Network’s ploy worked well enough to even distract the expected guard at the elevator - he was gone as well.

But right before Lynn could press the call button, a voice called out to them.

“My, my,” an utter jade beauty said, her voice calm and serene. “I think you three are missing the cock fight. What could possibly bring you over here?”

The raven-haired woman was dressed in a black traditional martial arts gi and her eyes shined like emeralds (or, well, jades). Lynn burned the image of her into her memory for later tonight, then stepped forward. The experience at Rodolfo’s had demonstrated she was best suited for talking their way out of sticky situations.

“Sorry, must have gotten lost,” Lynn supposed, the aviator shades doing a great job of keeping her face neutral.

All I have to do is distract her until Abel and Charlie can use their Rddhi mental waves on her and bring her back to the fight-

“Those two boys in there…I presume you sent them in here to distract us?”

Lynn stared at her for a moment. “...no.”

The woman brought a pale hand to cover her mouth as she gave a haughty laugh. “All along, I knew those two boys were just trying to distract us. I’m not like the other fools in there. But I played along, waiting until whoever they were working for arrived. And now…it appears I’ve caught you like spiders in a web, or rats in a trap-”

In a single motion, Mackenzie opened her suit jacket, pulled out the giant fish also purchased from the Fore River docks, and smacked the woman across the head with it. The woman was sent flying into a plaster wall, her face smashing right through it.

As Mackenzie looked at the oil and grease on her hands with disgust, Lynn went to push the elevator button again, but a commotion ripped through the crowd. Already, Sect of Steel members poured into the hallway, swords in their hands.

As the trio readied themselves, a psychic screech rippled the crowd. To Lynn, the screech felt like a crow’s caw, but to everyone else, it must’ve sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Several warriors crumpled to the ground, dropping their swords.

Then, behind the trio, the elevator button dinged and the doors opened. Armed men and women looked at the trio in surprise, and then all hell broke loose.

“Regroup with Abel and Charlie!” Lynn ordered as she and her friends threw away the shades. She built up the Rddhi in her shoes and charged forward, knocking away anyone who still dared to stand. Audrey and Mackenzie followed along, with the three finally reaching the much wider eating area, giving them ample room to work. Abel and Charlie, having given off their psychic screech, were now engaged with the Sect of Steel warriors who survived the outburst.

The two boys only had their bare fists, which wouldn’t do their scrawny physiques any good in a real fight. Right before a warrior could slash them with his sword, Lynn barreled into him, knocking him away. She stood in front of Abel and Charlie, Rddhi sparking through her, as Sect members smashed their swords into the ground all across the tavern.

“Kenjutsu Fire Style!”

“Kenjutsu Lightning Style!”

Infernos raged and electricity crackled as the Sect members went to war with the trio. Lynn snaked her way around several swords, disappearing and reappearing, delivering well-timed elbows and punches to necks and knees.

[KER-POW!]

Audrey ducked underneath a flaming sword, which destroyed the marble pillar behind her. One of the carp statues went flying; she gasped and maneuvered around two more swords to catch it. It felt surprisingly light; Audrey then dodged a sword lunge and kicked the warrior in the hands, knocking the sword away.

“I don’t want trouble!” Audrey exclaimed as more Sect members came after her. But they were looking for trouble, so Audrey sent out vines with her free hand, sweeping their legs out beneath them. When a burly, bearded Sect member wielding a two-handed lightning-covered broadsword with one hand approached her, Audrey took a step back, only to nearly trip over something, just barely keeping the statue in her hand.

“A baby?” she questioned. The baby started crying, so Audrey scooped it up in her hands and rolled away right as the broadsword smacked the ground. With a statue in one hand and a baby in the other, Audrey juggled the two, dodging the big warrior, using any time her hands freed up to extend a long vine. Just as the big man had her, the vine reached its target - the gigantic sculpture of the dragon head. She pulled on the vine, angling things just right (and relying on a ton of luck) for the sculpture to smash into the big man’s face. He crumpled to the ground, the lightning going out in his sword.

[KER-PLUNK!]

Mackenzie slapped several Sect members away with her fish, only for a sword to slice right through it. Her assailant, the inferno around his sword blazing, wore a red headband below his afro.

Mackenzie frowned - in contrast to the speedy Lynn and nimble Audrey, she was much more of a tank when it came to physical fights. But it’s not like she could tank a sword slice. She immediately stepped backwards, his sword slashing through the air where she stood moments ago.

Mackenzie tossed away the two pieces of fish, smacking two Sect members across the face in the process. She then backed up into a counter; she dove away right as the sword sliced into the wood, sending up splinters and fragments. The slash knocked down several steaming bowls of beef fried rice; Mackenzie caught one and tossed it right back at her opponent’s face.

As he stumbled around, Mackenzie slapped both of his ears to stun him. Just as he wiped the rice off his face, he found a palm strike from Mackenzie waiting for him, and Mackenzie put some weight into her strikes.

The palm strike sent the man crashing into a refrigerator for sodas; cans fell around his unconscious body.

[KER-SPLAT!]

The sounds of battle and kung fu fury died away, replaced by the sound of five people trying to catch their breath.

“Get Bonnie and Diana to heal your injuries,” Mackenzie told Abel and Charlie. The two, suffering lacerations and cuts on their bodies from the fight, agreed and respectfully bowed out of the restaurant, roosters in tow. That just left a tavern full of unconscious bodies, three girls, and a baby.

“I think he likes me,” Audrey said with a simple smile as she held the baby and patted him on the back.

“Where’d you get the baby?” Lynn asked as she looked around to make sure everybody really was unconscious.

Audrey shrugged. “I found him somewhere along the way.”

Mackenzie crossed her arms. “Put it back where you found it.”

Audrey looked at her in shock and shielded the baby with her arms. “Don’t you listen to mean Aunt Mackenzie," she told the baby with a gentle tone. "She’s clearly going to be a wine drunk with ten cats in her old age. But don’t worry, I won’t let that happen to you…”

Mackenzie sighed as Audrey cooed at the baby.

Then the baby exploded.

The force knocked the three girls to the ground. As Lynn regained her bearings, she saw that a cloud of glowing smoke replaced the baby. The smoke suddenly transformed with a scream into an animal with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon.

“Demon!” Audrey shouted, only for the smoke-sphinx to collect all three girls in her paws. Despite being made of, well, smoke, her grip was tight and Lynn could feel herself struggling to breath.

The sound of clapping echoed through the tavern. The jade beauty from before walked into the eating area, smoke trailing from her arms, all the way to the sphinx.

“We didn’t get a proper introduction earlier,” the woman said, an angry, fish-shaped bruise on her cheek. “My name is Vivian the Tongue-Twister. I am the First Peak of Mt. Tai, the three elite lieutenants of the Sect of Steel. By choosing to storm our headquarters, you are courting death!”

The three girls struggled to free themselves but to no avail.

“There is only one way to free yourselves,” Vivian explained with a smirk. “I will give you three a riddle. Should you do the impossible and answer it correctly, my Sphinx will free you and I will grant you passage to the second floor. But, should you fail…”

Vivian covered her mouth as she laughed again. “I’m afraid the Sphinx will tear you to shreds!”

“Let us go or I’m going to kill you to death!” Mackenzie yelled out. That only brought out more laughter.

“We shall see who ends up dead,” Vivian said haughtily. “Now, for the riddle.”

She crossed her arms. “Name a color that doesn’t exist.”

The three girls went quiet for a moment. Lynn could feel the claws of the Sphinx around her body all too closely.

“Allow us to consult with each other,” she said, trying to make her voice sound brave.

“Very well,” Vivian said. “You have one minute.”

As the girls discussed among themselves in quiet tones, Vivian had to stifle another laugh.

Fools! Don’t they see? The game has been rigged from the start. There is no answer to this riddle. If something has a name, then it must exist! Therefore, there are no non-existent colors, since to answer, they must give a name!

The decade of training with Hikari has finally paid off. At last, I have perfected the ultimate riddle. To think, ten years ago, I was just picking up scraps off the docks to survive in this cruel world! But now, I have surpassed God to become the ultimate being, for I have created a scenario not even He can solve!

Vivian realized that the girls had finished consulting. She stood smugly, waiting for the girls to dash themselves against the metaphoric rocks of their own futile efforts.

“Well, do you have an answer?” Vivian called out.

Lynn nodded at Audrey, who proudly crossed her arms.

“Neon brown!”

Vivian laughed…but then the laughter gave way.

“What? This makes no sense. Neon brown has a name…yet I cannot imagine it! I have never seen neon brown! And yet it has a name! I…I…”

The smoke-Sphinx disappeared, and the three girls dropped back down to the floor.

“How…how did you come up with this answer?” Vivian demanded to know as she collapsed to one knee, her brain working on overdrive.

Audrey raised a hand and made a peace symbol. “It’s called thinking outside the box, ya filthy animal!”

Vivian’s head exploded. Her corpse collapsed to the ground, smoking trailing out of her neck.

Three gazed at the dead body.

"...oh," Audrey mumbled.

Lynn led them past her, towards the elevator. “Let’s go!”