cucurbit
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Jack hefted the knife. The blade did not glisten or reflect at all. In fact, it was rather dull. But it would do for what he needed it for. He sneered and looked at his victim. She was trembling and taking a few halting steps back.
“Wha-what do you want?” She asked. Her voice was loud and the words were halting. Jack ignored that and simply raised his weapon, poised to deliver a lethal cut.
He started walking. She screamed and ran. Jack made no move to increase his pace. For this task, there was no need for haste. Suddenly, a new voice made itself known.
“Hold it right there.” The voice was thick and somehow both high pitched and deep at the same time.
Both Jack and the girl, Cindy, looked at the newcomer. He was a large man, in several ways, and sported badly maintained facial hair. His clothes were not fitted for a man of his size, and looked like they had not seen a washing machine in weeks. The shirt sported the image of some anime character on it, but Jack did not know which one. But the weirdest thing of all was that the man had a katana on one hip and a large, ornamental Japanese gourd on the other. To Jack, the only thing he was missing was a fedora and he would fit so many stereotypes.
“Uh, can I—“Jack started.
“Silence villain!” The intruder shouted. It looked like that had taken a dangerous amount of breath to do. “I am here to carry out justice and will not listen to evil!”
Jack glanced from Cindy, who shrugged, to the three-person camera crew. Todd looked unsure of whether to keep recording. Jaimie’s arms looked ready to fall off from holding the boom mic for so long. Dave looked just as confused as any of them.
“Uh, dude, can you leave, we’re—”
“No excuses!” The intruder said, holding up an arm. He turned to Cindy and gave a smile that Jack thought was trying to be charming. Cindy hugged her arms close to her chest and took several steps back. “Don’t worry, mi’lady, I shall protect you from this maniac.”
Cindy spoke, a bit nervously. “What’re you talking about? This is—”
“No need to be afraid. I am well prepared.” He shot Jack a look that was probably supposed to be intimidating. “I came well armed to deal with the likes of you. Take this! Thousand seal gourd!”
He clumsily pulled the gourd off his belt, pulled the cork, and held it out. The man looked surprised when nothing happened. Everyone else present just looked confused.
“Is this a joke?” Jack asked. “Because if you want in, then—”
“Damn!” The man cried. He threw the gourd to the ground. It hit the pavement with the sound of cheap plastic. “I can see your powers are too strong for this. Very well, I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.”
He unsheathed his sword in a way that Jack assumed was supposed to be menacing. When it was exposed, Jack could easily see several things. Even though he was not an expert on any kind of weapon, he could tell this was a cheap mall sword that would break before it did anything else. He wondered if it would bruise a toddler. The second was that the man had as much idea on how to weild it as Jack did his knife. That is, none at all.
“That’s right, tremble in fear evil doer. This is real Japanese steel, held in the hands of someone who has been studying its use for years.”
Dave snorted. “Did he really just give a ‘I’ve been studying the blade’ line? Who does that it real life?”
Jack shook his head. “Look, man, if you want in, then—”
The man shouted something like a battle cry, held his sword over his head and started running. He ran with all the grace of a drunken toddler and the speed of a lazy turtle. Jack almost felt sorry for getting out of the way, but the guy had a lot of bulk. Getting hit by that much weight would not be fun. The man stumbled as he brought his sword down, missing by a wide margin.
“Dear lord, you’re bad at this.” Jack said. The man recovered after a few seconds and tried again. “Look, if you really want in the movie, just tell Dave. He’s the director.”
“Oh hell no. Don’t bring me into this.” Dave said, shaking his head. The man finally stopped swinging.
“Movie?” He asked, apparently genuinely confused. “This is a movie?”
“Yeah? You…you didn’t actually think I was going to murder someone in broad daylight did you? Plus, the very obvious camera crew and the fact that I’m holding a prop knife.” Jack bent the tip of his knife back and forth. “Wait, were you serious about all this? Did…did you think this was real?”
The man did not answer.
“I think he did.” Cindy said. “I bet he also thought that jar thing was going to do something.”
“The…the salesman said it was legit.”
She went and picked up the discarded toy and rapped her knuckled against it. “It’s plastic. And you really trusted someone who said magic is real? You got ripped off. I don’t care how much you paid, it was a rip off.”
The man hung his head. “I…I just…I wanted to be cool is all.”
“And you thought going after people with a toy jar and a mall ninja sword was going to do that?”
Jack actually felt a little sorry for the guy. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to disappear. Jack sighed.
“Look, what’s your name?” He asked.
“Steve.”
“Okay, Steve, well, we’ve got a movie to film, but you can stick around and, uh…” He thought as fast as he could. “Make sure there’s no more confusion. You know, make sure nobody else makes the same mistake you did. After we’re done, we’ll see what happens, okay?”
“Really?” The man’s hefty face lit up. Of course, that could have been the sunlight reflecting on the pizza grease, but still. “I can do that, sure!”
“Great.”
Steve loped off, not even bothering to get his toy from Cindy, who just tossed it aside. Dave looked like he would need some headache pills soon, but everyone got into position quickly enough. Although Jack could tell there would be a lot of things to talk about after shooting was done.
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Yeah, I know I should've done something Thanksgiving related, but whatever. I'm not exactly operating at 100%, and this is what I came up with.
