The Misfits meet System-san

Misfits:

Alice looked to the side where the bus was to see that it was still full of little kids having a great time while the four old ladies were packing the last of the picnic stuff into boxes. They were behind the bus, closer to the amusement park, but they could still monitor the kids on the bus.

Just then, a man walked in from the opposite direction, wearing overalls with 'Bus Driver' on them.

"That must be Jenkins," said Alice.

Then she took a double take.

"Actually, it's not. That's strange..."

"Actually, actually, that's the maintenance man who was removing the arrestor cables!" said Drayden, "Why is he now dressed as Jenkins?"

With puzzled expressions, they watched as the man opened the front door of the bus - which happened to be facing away from the ladies - and then climbed in.

"Maybe there are two bus drivers?" said Bronsen.

The man started the bus, but he slowly went forward instead of going in reverse to back out of the parking area. Over the kerb, onto the grassy slope, and slowly down the slope. Aiming for the gap in the arrestor fence which he had just made. Towards the chain link fence overlooking a long savage drop.

Four teenagers, all matters about their rules of engagement for their group relationship forgotten, watched this with blank faces.

The bus driver hopped out of the slowly moving bus, slammed the door behind him, and rapidly strode into the trees. The bus kept on chugging slowly down the slope.

"What..." said Bronsen.

Drayden and Cassy just sat there, stupified expressions on their faces.

Alice did also, but after a second or so, she slapped the side of her head with her hand as if to wake herself up.

"Argh! We have to stop the bus. Get up, everybody!"

Snapping out of their paralysis, they sprang up and raced to the bus.

"Someone needs to get inside and put on the brakes!" said Alice.

"But I can't drive!" said Drayden.

"Me neither," said Bronsen.

"I can!" said Cassy.

She put on a sprint and reached the bus door. She got a grip on the door handle, but it didn't open.

"Shit! He must have locked it!" she said.

Just in case it was merely stuck, she put her total weight onto it, lifted her body, and put both feet onto the bus side just outside of the door frame. But even with this leverage, the door handle didn't budge. Instead, for her efforts, her feet slipped, and she fell off the side and landed in a highly unladylike arrangement of arms and legs sprawled all over the place. The other three got a good look at her panties.

“Cassy, this isn't the time for that... Shit!” said Alice.

The shit was because the bus's rear tyres were coming dangerously close to Cassy's head. Fortunately, Bronsen was able to move fast and drag her body away.

The bus kept on trundling along. Fortunately, the grassed area was moist after recent rains, and so the bus's tyres were making deep tracks. Thus, it wasn't picking up speed, but it wasn't slowing down, either.

"We gotta stop it!" screamed Drayden.

At this point, Alice saw a boulder, about 40cm in diameter and 60cm long, sitting to the side and a little to the front of the bus, not doing anything in particular.

"Wedge that rock under the back wheels!" she shouted.

Drayden, Alice and Bronsen dashed over to the rock, bent down and picked it up.

No, they tried to pick it up.

"Oh damn, this is heavy, lift you stupid men!" said Alice.

The stupid men and one girl re-exerted themselves and, with much effort, managed to get the rock up just above the ground. By now, Cassy was up and moving, although there was dirt all down the side of her clothes, and blood was dripping here and there. Nevertheless, she joined in the effort. Staggering, they moved sideways towards the bus while the bus inexorably moved down. Thus, the rear wheels were almost up to them by the time they got the rock to the bus.

The next problem was - how to get the rock in front of the wheels? The gap between the bus and the ground wasn't enough to allow them to place the rock easily.

"Shit, lean the rock on the bus side and push it backwards and force it into the wheel bay!" said Bronsen.

The rock, titled at an angle and touching the bus's side, made a scraping sound as it scratched a line of paint. As it came to the wheel bay, all four teenagers pushed it hard so that it fell against the tyre. The tyre gripped it, pushed down and thus flicking up the other end, and then the tyre just slowly rolled up and over and down the other side. There was a grinding, squealing sound as the bottom of the bus scraped over the rock, and then the bus kept going.

Drayden was hopping on one foot.

"Shit! Shit! It hit my leg!"

His trousers were torn, and there was blood dripping down.

Alice looked ahead, searching for something to use.

"Everyone! He only disconnected the cables at one end; the other he left attached!" she said.

That was enough for the others to get the idea. They all sprinted ahead and picked up the nearest cable end. It had a solid plate with a ten-centimetre hole in it. But now the problem was - how to attach it to the bus? This problem was even more difficult because the bus's front tyres were almost at the cable as it lay across the bus's track.

"Try to get it looped over the front axis - shit, the tyres are already over the cable," shouted Bronsen.

"Hold up the end and hope the back wheels snag it!" said Cassy.

Bronsen held up the end and pulled it as tightly as he could. The cable was running under the bus, scraping along its bottom and out to the side where Bronsen was. Unfortunately, the back wheels just went over it. In so doing, the cable was snatched from Bronsen's hands.

"Shit, that hurt!"

Now Bronsen had scrapes on his arm and hands and his own offering of blood.

"I know, hook the end of the cable onto the tow hitch!" said Cassy.

Drayden, currently the closest to the cable end, picked it up and struggled to drag it after the moving bus. Alice and Cassy joined him, and they were barely able to drop the hole in the cable end plate over the tow hitch.

Alice screamed in pain.

"ShitShitShit! I've mashed my finger!"

The tip of her index finger looked frayed, and yet more blood was flowing out, fortunately not too much at this stage.

Once the initial burst of pain was over, she managed to ignore it. She and the other three watched with morbid fascination as the bus rolled forward, over the walking trail, and hit the chain link fence.

It held.

For a few seconds.

There was a series of screeching sounds; the poles bent over, and the front wheels went over the fence.

The front of the bus slithered across the fence before jerking to a very abrupt halt. The arrestor cable stretched from the tow hitch, around one of the arrestor fence poles, and out along the fence to its point of attachment, a hundred metres away. There was a creaking sound as the cable stretched and the pole leant over slightly, but everything held.

"Oh shit," said Cassy.

The bus’s front wheels were over the drop, its back end up in the air, and its middle pressed on the edge of the cliff face. It swayed a bit, and every time it moved, the cliff edge under the bus crumbled, with dirt falling off and dropping away.

Now that the teenagers had time to notice other things, they could hear a lot of yelling and screaming from the bus interior.

Alice looked back. The four old ladies were converging as rapidly as they could. She looked further afield. A couple of adults were running along the inside of the amusement park's chainlink fence —presumably, they were running to an exit. Another couple of figures were sprinting up along the trail, but they were far away.

"Where are the adults when you need them?" she said, "Now what?"

Cassy had spotted a small, double fist-sized rock. So she grabbed it and moved to the back of the bus. She put her other hand onto the bumper bar, now above her head. Bronsen, seeing this, added his muscle and, gripping her legs, shoved her entire body up. He didn't even notice that his head was next to her short skirt. She put one foot onto the tow hitch and hoisted herself up using the handgrips next to the back window. Being made from safety glass, it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces when Cassy attacked it. The sounds of children screaming and shouting doubled in intensity. Cassy brushed the rock along the bottom of the now vacant window, dislodging most of the remaining small pieces of glass sticking up from the seal, and then propelled herself into the bus interior.

Since she landed on a few, this caused even more shouting and crying from kids.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" she said, but this didn't slow her down in grabbing the nearest kid and shoving her out of the window. Bronsen took the kid, put her on the grass, and looked around.

The four little old ladies, gasping for breath, had managed to get down to them. The two teenagers that had been running towards them also arrived.

"Oh, you're the two girls from Alice's class... Just catch the kids as we throw them out of the window!" said Bronsen.

"Yes, and the old ladies can look after them, but keep them away from the cable!" said Alice.

Without waiting for a reply, Alice reached up to grab the bumper bar, and Bronsen threw her up. Balancing precariously, she took the next kid handed to her by Cassy and hoisted her to the two teenagers. Then she clambered into the bus. Drayden closely followed, who also got a boost from Bronsen. Alice and Drayden tossed two more kids out of the window, who were caught by the teenagers. Finally, by swinging on the bumper bar and hooking his feet over the cable, Bronsen managed to get up and inside all by himself.

Inside, of course, was chaos. Cassy was making her way down the steep slope that was now the bus interior and was still apologising, but since she was grabbing every kid within reach and tossing them up the hill to Alice, the children weren't calming down. In fact, the noise level of the kids' screaming was increasing.

Most of the children were still in their original seats, jammed up against the backs of the seats in front. Cassy methodically worked her way down, using the seat legs as ladder rungs. She would grab a child and shove them up to Alice, who then passed the parcel to Drayden. Drayden treated the child like a hot potato and got rid of them as quickly as possible by handing them to Bronsen.

Since the bus was making continual jerking motions as it slowly slithered further over the cliff's edge, Bronsen was brutally tossing the kids out of the window with all the force he could muster.

Those two teenagers who had run up to the bus were getting quite the workout, catching flying children and pushing them in the direction of the closest old lady. The older ladies were also getting an extreme workout of a different sort, attempting to calm down a whole collection of mostly hysterical children.

Every time Alice held a kid, her mashed-up finger screamed at her in pain. In fact, by now, she was starting to scream out loud. But she kept on working.

“Bloody hell, how many children are there?” said Alice.

The bus corridor became steeper, and the height difference from Cassy up to Bronsen became higher. The Misfits had to work harder for each child. But, at least the number of children was going down. Finally, there were only three children left. By chance, they had fallen off their seats and were down at the front of the bus. They were, in fact, Jenkins's grandchildren, plus an extra boy in a red T-shirt. Cassy frantically climbed down, grabbed all three, and struggled upwards. Alice took them, screamed a little bit, and then managed to climb up a few seats, allowing Drayden to get them. Being a bit stronger, he climbed back up three seats, thus allowing Bronsen to take over. Bronsen, the strongest and most agile, scrambled madly up the remaining seats and tossed the three kids outside.

The bus gave another violent jerk, and the interior went even more vertical.

Alice grabbed a seat hold to stabilise herself but managed to catch her finger.

"Argh!"

She involuntarily let go and fell. She had a soft landing - she landed on Cassy. Who involuntarily let go of her grip, and both girls tumbled down the steeply sloping corridor to the bus's front windows.

"Argh! That hurt Alice!"

"Sorry!"

The girls looked upwards to see Bronsen and Drayden near the rear exit window, looking back with looks of horror.

"Shit! Just save yourselves, and we'll climb up ourselves," screamed Cassy.

But the two boys started to scramble down to help the girls. At the same time, the bus moved even more on its temporary fulcrum.

"Bloody stupid macho boys, just get out, and we will follow!" shouted Alice.

In the typical male behaviour of not paying attention to the female, the boys ignored this and kept going down. The two girls managed to climb up, although Alice screamed every time she had to power-grip a bus seat to hoist herself higher. Cassy was doing her best to help her, so the two girls weren't going as fast as they would have liked.

The boys got down to their location, grabbed a girl each, and climbed up again.

The bus finally slipped over the edge and became vertical. The tow hitch, now supporting the entire weight of the bus, decided it wasn't built for this load and sheared right off. The bus, pointing almost straight down on a steep, but not vertical, slope, started to fall. The front scrapped along the steep slope as it fell, producing enough friction to rotate the bus. So, by the time the four inside realised that things were not going all that well, they were already weightless in a bus that was upside down and still falling and rotating.

Four teenagers held onto each other like there was no tomorrow.

Faces right up to each other, there was a shocked silence for a moment.

The sun must have been at exactly the right angle since the light around them brightened.

Ding!

They ignored the irrelevant sound. Time seemed to slow down; they had plenty of time to exchange looks.

"Well, eternity didn't last very long, did it?" said Alice.

"No, about fifteen minutes, I think," said Drayden.

"Damn, and I'm still a virgin," said Bronsen.

"Now, now, at least we saved the kids," said Cassy.

There was a momentary silence as they watched the ground, currently above their heads but still rotating, getting closer.

"Strange how long it seems to be taking, isn't it?" said Drayden.

"Ah, everyone, this is embarrassing, but I would like to say I love you all," said Alice.

The other three, also looking embarrassed, said the same.

"Hmm, the ground is still getting closer, even if it is taking a long time," said Bronsen.

"Well, then, you all know what I think of this, so on the count of three, let's say it!" said Cassy.

She counted up, "One, Two, Three", and at the three, they all said

"Bullshit!"

The light faded out to black.

Alice:

Ding! You have died!

Fuck.

Bronsen:

Ding! You have died!

Fuck.

Drayden:

Ding! You have died!

Fuck.

Cassy:

Ding! You have died!

Wait, we still haven't gotten to the ground yet!

Sorry, it had to be made a bit sooner due to circumstances.

Well - Fuck.

Narrator:

Somewhere in the infinite depths of the galaxy, there was System-san. Overseeing millions of planets and trillions upon trillions of beings, it had just been given a new assignment. Actually, a whole new planet. Its task was to introduce 'The System' to its inhabitants.

However, this wasn't a System that stepped in and created wholesale change and destruction to its targets. No, fortunately for the inhabitants of planet Earth, it had a gentler directive. Introduce the system to a small number of people and slowly build up the numbers over time as everybody gets used to it.

System-san had its preferences in how its gifts were to be used; however, its programming rigidly constrained it. It had to let the users make their own destinies and choices in using their powers. But, sometimes, System-san was allowed to create some heroes. If some being did something noteworthy enough and said being had a destiny that System-san approved of, then System-san was authorised to grant extra powers, hopefully, so that the being would use them in ways that System-san thought were admirable. It was only through this indirect method that System-san was allowed to act on its own desires to make the world a better place.

Just now, System-san had been observing four teenagers with extreme interest. They were displaying some fascinating and eminently worthwhile traits.

Ding! The first on their planet to be inducted into the System!

Ding! Courage in the face of extreme danger!

Ding! Defiance in the face of imminent death!

Ding! The vast accumulation of karma by risking their lives and saving 35 children!

Ding! Displaying true love and friendship with each other!

Ding! Devotion to each other to the exclusion of all others!

Ding! Entwining their destinies! Yea, unto death itself!

Ding! Total innocence, in all meanings of the word!

Ding! Facing down their fears to do their best!

Ding! Plenty of hormone-induced sex-crazed energy!

Ding! Lots of bullshit!

Yes! System-san could work with these four teenagers. Definitely!

And, as for the bullshit?

Well, the teenagers are in luck; System-san will be delivering loads of it!