The Samurai's Companion

Chapter 1: Evelyn Atwood

"I shouldn't tell you this, but I've been having these weird dreams like every single night for three weeks now where I'm being contacted. Not by ghosts, exactly, but people from other histories, where things turned out differently than they did here. And they're all envious. And they all say: You are so lucky. You live in the best of all possible worlds. And you don't even know it."
― Dexter Palmer, Version Control

Evie was lost.

She was standing stuck in the middle of a giant, trashy, black and red city with nothing but a brown rucksack on her back.

There was the sound of loud buzzing traffic above her head and Evie slowly looked upwards. Her dark eyes nearly popped out of their sockets from bewilderment. Flying cars! Legitimate flying cars that one could easily find in a futuristic sci-fi movie were currently zooming overhead. Despite the oddity, the only thing that the blonde young woman could bring herself to wonder about was how in the world was the traffic being managed up there with no lanes?

Evie's eyes focused up towards the sky only to see... that there was no sky to see. It was completely obstructed by a thick heavy smog. Even the tips of the tallest building seemed to disappear into the yellowish brown nothingness. It was a hopeless and claustrophobic sight. Nope, she didn't like this place one bit. She turned around to go back where she had come from, but... where was the gate that she had entered? It was right there a moment ago.

Evie rubbed her eyes and looked again. No. It was completely gone! Reaching out about with her arms, she prodded the empty air as if making sure that it didn't suddenly go invisible. After a minute or so, she finally gave up and let her arms drop to her sides.

"What on earth?" she muttered, completely baffled.


Not knowing what else to do, Evie began to just walk. That is when she noticed that the streets were filled with the strangest of creatures. Robots, aliens, mutants, androids... she swore that she got a glimpse of perhaps a human or two, but then she noticed that they either had a tail or gills. Evie couldn't help but stare. Was there some sort of Star Wars or Star Trek convention going on? She heard nothing of the sort being planned. Nor did this look like Kyoto anymore.

Taking a deep breath to try and stay calm, Evie grimaced and covered her mouth with her hand. Ugh! The air was putrid! How could anyone just casually walk around breathing in these machine fumes?

The city was extremely dull and dirty. The only thing that was bright about it were the numerous screen projections of some black ogre with flames for eyebrows and branch-like spikes for hair. The screens were scattered all over the place with him advertising all sorts of commercials such as fast food and vacation resorts.

"That's one hell of a mascot..." Evie muttered as she eyed one certain projection of the ogre resting on a hammock at a white sandy beach while holding a martini and winking at the audience. In the meantime, the (why were they in English?) words "Aku Island Resort. You wish you were here, but you can just keep dreaming" flashed over it. She knew that Japan was weird but this was on a whole different level. It was almost like the devil himself rose up and took control over the government. She looked at another projection of the ogre and snorted.

"Aku is always watching YOU!" it said. His eyes were just staring down at the crowd below.

It was all so ridiculous that Evie couldn't help but give a soft giggle.

Deciding that walking around aimlessly wasn't going to help her find her way back to the To-ji temple, Evie tried to talk to a random passerby. "Umm, excuse me?" she gingerly poked his shoulder and he turned around. Evie tried very hard not to recoil away from the giant fish with big round unblinking eyes. It wore a helmet filled with water and it walked using its fins. But no matter how creeped out she was, it would be incredibly rude to behave so. Besides, it was probably only a costume.

"C-can you p-please tell me where I am? I-I am rather lost. I'm looking for the To-Ji Buddhist Temple?"

A very... VERY realistic looking costume. She could make out every fish scale!

The creature stared blankly at her and a few bubbles escaped its unmoving mouth.

"... It's in Kyoto? ... In ... Japan?" Her voice kept growing softer and higher pitched as she kept adding on words. At the same time, she began to shrink back. The lack of any response was nerve-wracking for her. "Uhh, Planet... Earth?" Speaking of which, did he even understand English? Goodness, this was becoming awkward real fast.

The fish gave a sudden wheezing laugh, startling Evie. He stood there holding his belly as he laughed before finally calming down and giving the blonde a soggy pat on the head with a fin, causing her hair to stick up. "Good one, kid." Evie gaped as he stalked off, chuckling to himself while muttering in a gurgling voice, "Japan, ha! What will they think of next?"

Once she had gotten over her initial shock, Evie patted down her hair back into place.

Well, that certainly did not go the way she had planned.

Evie didn't have time to come up with a plan B when she was suddenly shoved aside. She yelped as she fell to the ground, landing painfully on her butt. She felt something crack beneath her weight and she cursed her bad luck. 'Ugh... it was a new iphone too.' And to top it off, Evie was certain that she was going to have a rectangular bruise down there too. She looked up to see a rather peeved looking robot. "Wha-?"

"Move it, skin-bones!" the robot snapped at her with a mechanical voice.

"I'm... sorry... I didn't mean-"

The robot didn't listen to the rest of Evie's apology and just motored on.

"Oh goodness, dear me! Are you alright?" a concerned voice with a British accent spoke up.

"I think so, thank-" Evie turned her head until she was face-to-face with a blue dachshund dog wearing a safari hat and a red bow tie, "... you."

Did the dog just talk?

"Here now, can you stand? I would assist but I'm afraid that you would be too heavy for me. My most sincere apologies."

Evie's eyes became wide as saucers! The dog was most certainly forming human words with his mouth. Not only that; he was standing upright on his back legs! No matter how much she racked her brains for an explanation, there was just no way that it was a person wearing a costume. It couldn't be a robot either. His movements were too fluid.

She screamed. "AHHHH!!!! A demon dog!!" she scrambled backwards while pointing.

"Good heavens! Where?!" The blue dog turned around, ears perked up in fearful alert.

"She's talkin' abou' you, ye dimwit."

Evie gasped when a black Scottish Yorkshire Terrier smoking a pipe appeared, followed by a yellow bulldog. All of them stood on their back legs and wore safari hats.

"Me?" the British dog exclaimed in surprise before giving a hearty chuckle and turning back to Evie. "My dear lady, I assure you that I am no demon." He did not seem at the very least insulted.

"But... you can talk!" Evie accused.

"Quite so," he agreed with a pleasant nod.

"And you're walking on two legs!"

"Quite so."

"And you're wearing clothes!"

"A perceptive young lass, aren' che?" The Scottish dog crossed his arms.

Evie's pale cheeks turned pink at the sarcasm and she stopped pointing, feeling rather foolish. She cleared her throat, "sorry, I'm from... out of town."

"Clearly," the Scottish dog scoffed. "You don't see me fussin' over yer appearance."

"Now, now, no harm done," the British dog brushed off the apology with a wave of his paw. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sir Colin Bartholomew Montgomery Rothchild III, Rothy for short. And these are my associates, Sir Angus McDuffy..."

"Aye," Angus nodded in greeting.

"And... ugh...Drifus, you're drooling again."

The bulldog looked sheepish before giving his head a vigorous shake, sending drool flying everywhere including his two friends and Evie. Noticing what he had done, Drifus gave a low "sorry."

"That is Sir Drifus Alexander." Rothchild finished dryly before pulling a handkerchief seemingly out of nowhere and wiping himself off.

"Right..." Evie shook her wrists as she stood up, trying to fling the slobber off. That's disgusting...

"And may we have the pleasure of knowing your name?" Rothchild asked.

"Evelyn Atwood. I go by Evie." She replied, finally calming down. "Please, can you tell me where I am? I am really lost."

"Most certainly," Rothchild beamed. "We are currently located in the Central Hub of the city. Sector D."

Evie frowned slightly. "This city wouldn't happen to be Kyoto, would it?"

"Ki-yoto?" The dogs looked at one another and Angus shrugged. Rothchild turned back to Evie, "I'm afraid I have not heard of this Ki-yoto. Is that where you are from?"

Evie's stomach sank like a rock. "N-not exactly. I was touring Kyoto before I found myself here. But at the very least, this country is Japan, right?" Now that she thought about it, she had yet to meet anyone who even spoke Japanese. So far, everything was in English.

"Well, it used to be called Japan several hundred years ago," Rothchild said and scratched his chin in thought. "But now that you mention it," he pulled out a random electronic contraption and began pressing buttons until he got the result he wanted, "aha! There it is. Kyoto! The once thriving capital of Imperial Japan."

Evie looked over his shoulder at the screen. It showed a map of Japan and the red dot, she guessed, was Kyoto. She was about to correct Rothchild that Kyoto wasn't the capital when she remembered, "oh yeah, it was the capital, before they changed it to Tokyo."

"Tokyo?" Rothchild typed that in and pressed search. An error screen popped up. "Hmm, I'm afraid that Tokyo isn't part of our history. You must be mistaken."

Evie couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh as she straightened back up. "How can that be right? It's the current capital of Japan."

The dogs gave her strange looks.

"No, no, Kyoto was the last and final capital before the Aku era." Rothchild explained, though he studied Evie with a confused eye. "And like I said before, this isn't Japan anymore."

Not Japan anymore? How was that even possible? Did she miss something? Evie frowned, the skin between her eyebrows furrowing in puzzlement. "Aku... Aku.... I keep seeing and hearing that name everywhere. He's that derpy ogre on all those ads, right? What's the deal with him?"

The dogs visibly became very disturbed by her words and began to look around nervously. Rothchild took her hand with his paw. "Here, come with me. Let's talk where it's less crowded," he spoke in a hushed voice.

Evie let Rothchild pull her along while Angus and Drifus followed. Once they reached an empty street, the blue dachshund pulled out a different device and planted a scanner/muzzle onto his nose. Evie flinched when he sniffed at her with it but he quickly turned his attention to his computer. His eyes went round at the results, "well! As I live and breathe! Not only are you not from this town, but there are no DNA trace records of you anywhere!"

"What? Le' me take a look at that!" the Scottish terrier ripped the device out of Rothchild's hand and read it. He snorted. "Clearly this contraption is faulty. You have been scammed, Rothchild. I hope you can get yer money back."

"Nonsense!" Rothchild snatched the device back from Angus. "This is of my very own invention and I'll have you know that my inventions are always fault-free."

"Then why is it saying that she doesn't exist?" Drifus finally spoke up as he pointed to the screen.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Perhaps I may have forgotten to adjust the stabilizer..." the blue dog shook the device next to his ear, as if to check for loose parts.

"Uh... I don't mean to be rude," Evie began, growing more and more uncomfortable with the situation. "But what are you all talking about?"

"That is what we are trying to figure out," Angus grumbled.

Rothchild hummed in thought before shrugging and stuffing the device away into his bag. "I suppose we will have to do this the old fashioned way." He turned to Evelyn with a concerned look and asked, "tell me, my dear. Is it true that you do not know who Aku is?"

"Well, now that you mention it, I have heard stories..." Evie pondered for a moment.

Rothchild smiled in relief and nodded to his friends, seeming to accept that answer.

"Isn't he that one demon who terrorized Japan until the Emperor's son finally slain him after becoming a full fledged samurai warrior? It was one of my favorite fairy tales growing up."

...

"Alright then, question number two," Rothchild changed the subject so fast that Evie was certain that she had answered incorrectly. "When were you born?"

"February 14, 1997." There, that was easy. There was no way that she could have gotten that.... Wrong?

Judging by the dumbfounded looks on the dog's faces (aside from Angus; his hat and fur seemed to cover up all possible traces of facial expression), they seemed to believe that it was. Evie began to doubt her own memory. Surely she couldn't make a mistake regarding her own birthdate, right? She knew for a fact that she was born on Valentine's Day, maybe that's why they were looking at her like that? It wasn't the most beloved holiday...