TITLE: Put Your Game Face On
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa
SYNOPSIS: Jo and Maria may never bet on sports again.
DISCLAIMER: Burst Angel is owned by Gonzo. I don't own the rights to the lyrics for "New York State of Mind," but hopefully Mr. Joel will not decide to sue me. I am making no money off writing and publishing this fic.
AUTHOR'S WARNING: Definitely a creation of my Silly Muse. Put down all food and drink.

8

8

"I do not believe this!" Meg ranted. "Why did this have to happen today!?" She was strapped into the pilot's chair of a cybot, but of course, the controls wouldn't work: She'd been kidnapped (again) by (yet another) glowing brain. The cybot had squatted down into vehicle mode so it could race down the megahighway; a monitor in the control panel showed Django pursuing them through the clear, cool January night.

"I should be used to this by now," Meg went on. "God knows I get captured so often I really am starting to wonder if I do this to myself deliberately. But why today – why TONIGHT for Chrissakes? Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. TODAY! And I'd been good for a few weeks. I should have known. God hates me, that's what it is."

A panel opened in the con troll panel and two arms popped out. One had a camera on the end of it, and the other had what looked like a gun.

"You want to shoot me?" Meg exclaimed. "All right, SHOOT ME! Go right ahead. Won't do anything for you; Jo will just be a little more mad when she vaporizes you. I don't care. Because if I'm not home in two hours, three at the outside, my life might was well be over."

"Why?" an electronic voice asked. "What's your problem?"

"What's my problem?" Meg said. "You really want to know? All right, I'll tell you…"

Partway through her explanation, the electronic voice interrupted: "Wait – that's tonight!?"

8

8

When the cybot screeched to a halt, Jo almost lost control of Django. She skidded around the stopped cybot and sent Django into a role to bring him to a halt. She got the robot on its feet and aimed one of his guns at the cybot, but it just sat there.

"What now?" Jo growled, her tattoo glowing.

Static crackled over the speakers. "Jo?" Meg's voice said. She sounded cheerful.

"Meg?"

"Hey, Jo! It's all right. You can stand down now. Pinky and I made a deal-"

"Pinky?"

"Yeah, that's what the glowing brains calls himself. Anyway-"

"The glowing brain calls itself Pinky?"

"Yeah. Anyway, we made a deal. I'll explain on the way back to the trailer."

The cybot started up, weaved around Django, and headed down the highway.

"What just happened?" Jo wondered as her tattoo faded.

8

8

As Shiho Kazami pulled her car up to park besides Sei's trailer, her frustatration at Kyohei for having called her at three o'clock in the morning was blunted by the sight of the two giant robots parked next to the huge truck. One looked like a standard industrial cybot with wheels showing it could fold into a vehicle, but the other had ostrich like legs and blades sticking out of it.

She got out of her car, lifted her portable karaoke machine out of the trunk, cautiously ascended the steps to the trailer, and knocked on the door.

Kyohei Tachibana slid the door open. Dressed in his chef's apron, he looked tired and bleary-eyed, although hardy distressed by the presence of the giant robots. "Oh, hey, Shiho," he said. "Thanks for coming. C'mon in."

Shiho followed Kyo into the trailer's living space. She recognized Jo standing behind the sofa with another girl with long white hair, a blade on the end of her braid, and all but her nipples and privates exposed by her revealing outfit. Amy sat at the kitchen table in footie pajamas next to Sei, who was dressed for the day. She could see Meg's head as she sat on the sofa, her hair dyed blue, and a glowing brain about the size of her head floated next to her, sitting on a platform with tentacles and cables hanging from it. All were focused on the giant screen TV; Shiho recognized the American football game on it.

As Shiho began to freak, Meg turned and half glanced over her shoulder; Shiho could see Meg had a blue stylized lowercase 'ny' painted on one cheek. "Oh, hi, Shiho!" Meg said. "Glad you could make it. I think you know Sei and Amy; the chick with the blade fetish is Maria, and my glowing friend here is named Pinky."

"Pinky?" Shiho said, barely keeping fear out of her voice.

"Yes. Did-"

"The brain is named Pinky, Meg?" Shiho calmed….a little.

"Yes, Shiho. Did you bring it? Does it have 'New York State of Mind' on it?"

"Yes. Why do you need this now?"

"Yes," Jo said. "The game isn't over. It's still in overtime."

Maria added, "And the Patriots have made it all the way to the Giants' twenty yard line."

Meg had turned her full attention back to the TV. "Oh, ye of little-" She broke off as a play started. The Patriots' quarterback faded back from the colliding mass of players and threw the ball, but a Giants' defensive lineman leapt into its path, caught it, and began running down the field for all he was worth. Meg rose out of her chair, fists clenched (revealing she was wearing a New York Giants jersey), as the player raced down the field, the opposing team hot on his heels, fanning out behind him like a comet tail. But as close as they came, they didn't catch him. He made it to the Patriots' end zone and hurled the ball down. Touchdown.

Meg jumped up and down, echoing the cheering from the TV and the exuberance of the Giants' mass hug. "Yes! Yes! Suck on that Patriots! Whoooooooooooooooooooooo!" Pinky bobbed and glowed next to her. Sei sighed and opened her cell phone to make a call.

Meg stopped jumping; she and Pinky turned to Jo and Maria. "Ladies?" Meg said with a smile. "I think you want to start practicing."

Jo sighed, took the karaoke machine from Shiho, and turned to Maria. "C'mon." Maria followed Jo to the living quarters in the rear of the trailer.

"Ok," Shiho said, "I'm not a trained killer or a mob princess, but if I fly into hysterics, I think I can be very annoying. So will someone please tell me what is going on here while I am still relatively calm?"

Kyo nodded. "Well, Pinky used to be human," he explained, "and when he was human, he spent a year as an exchange student in New York City-"

"So he knows Meg?" Shiho asked.

"No," Kyo said, "but like Meg, he is a fan of the New York Giants, who just beat the New England Patriots in the Superbowl."

Meg cut in: "Don't understate it, Kyo. After a hard fought battle, the Giants finally achieved victory over their arch rivals in overtime."

"I stand corrected," Kyo said. "Anyway, Meg found this out after she was kidnapped by Pinky, and it turned out that both Jo and Maria had made pretty much the same bet on the Superbowl. So now that the Giants have—achieved victory," he added quickly to placate Meg, "Jo and Maria will have to go to Ikebukuro Station at lunch time on Tuesday and sing 'New York State of Mind.'"

Sei clicked her phone shut; she and Amy came over to Kyo and Shiho. "Shiho," Sei said, "I've arranged to have a Bailan-owned restaurant opened. You are welcome to join the rest of us for breakfast."

"That's kind of you, Ma'am," Shiho said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sei said as piano music sounded from Jo and Meg's room, "but it's not entirely kindness. I've also arranged to have the bar opened-"

Jo and Maria's off-key voices came out of the piano music:

"Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood
But I'm takin' a Greyhound on the Hudson River line
I'm in a New York state of mind..."

Meg and Pinky were the only ones who didn't look like their teeth were on edge (though to be fair, Pinky had no face).

Sei finished: "I'm going to want to be blind drunk when I explain this to my grandfather."

THE END