Character Finder, Meiko Watanabe

Walking into the church was a girl somewhat shorter than you with her neon green hair held back with a hairband. But her most striking feature was the obvious cybernetic arm that your StarFleet training helped you to identify as being a sort of titanium-duranium alloy. And the arm was packing what looked like an Ironman repulsor cannon, a miniature phasor bank, and an embedded toaster oven.

“Meiko Wannabe, long time no see,” you greet her.

“It’s Watanabe, James Gardener,” Meiko replied with a smirk. On seeing an Usher Toad looking befuddled, you give an explanation.

“In first grade, I couldn’t say Watanabe and she couldn’t say Gardner,” you said before going back to Meiko.

“I haven’t seen you since…” you stood there trying to remember.

“A month ago when I last updated you on my search for Starfire, whose finding I would have liked to know about weeks ago before I tracked down a character smuggling group in Polar Mongola,” Meiko complained.

“I heard that planet is nice this time of year,” you say with an awkward smile, Meiko’s work in hunting character thieves sent her to some interesting places. Meiko ignored the comment and continued.

“Instead I found out she was safe and sound when I got the wedding invitation this morning.” That explained why she was wearing her prom dress from high school, way before she got her cybernetics.

“We sent out the invitations weeks ago,” your mom hastily explained.

“Was it Errol who dropped off the invite?” You asked.

“Flying Koopa with a ten foot long beard, legally blind and dusty shell? He flew straight into my bug zapper and broke my tv,” Meiko complained, causing you to grimace. Errol the Flying Koopa was one of the oldest Koopa ‘employed’ by the Gardner family and should have retired when your sister Poppy was your age, like ten or fifteen years ago. Errol, much like Errol the Owl from Harry Potter, was about as effective as the owl.

Falling asleep while flying was the least of your concern when it came to Errol. “Did no one notice he spent weeks out delivering the message?” Your family really needs to keep better track of their Koopas.

“It's been days since we got any orders, should we head back home?” A Red Shelled Koopa asked his superior as they maintained their weapons. Around them, other Koopa and Toads were sleeping, eating, or keeping watch of the nearby alleys. The Red Shelled Koopa had a hat made of an unknown animal on his head.

Down the block was the familiar vision of the SuperHeroine Hideaway where several families were entering the nice family friendly daytime version of the place. Some customers were even taking pictures of and with several Toads and Koopa.

“Do you want to explain to Queen Bowsette why we abandoned our post? We will stay until relieved or new orders are received,” the Sergeant Koopa replied. “Now men, let's take the fight to those disgusting furballs.” The Koopa nervously whooped before half of them entered a nearby alley where some suspicious growling and cackling could be heard.

“Well…we thought he finally retired and just didn’t tell anyone,” Your mom shrugged, making you realize something.

“Is that why we have been eating mostly take out for the last few days?” You gave her a deadpan look. On seeing Meiko’s questioning look, you explain.

“They have a vault-like pantry to keep the more rowdy characters out and Errol is the only one with the password after a minor memory erasing incident,” you explain before deciding to bring up a more important note.

“Did you bring him back with you? Or…?” You ask Meiko, hoping that she brought him.

“After he left the invite, he jumped out my balcony before I could stop him and tried to fly off,” Meiko reported curtly.

“Great… we’re not going to see him until Starfire’s baby is born,” you sighed with a pinch of your brow.

“Wait?! Starfire’s pregnant!” Meiko exclaimed, causing other guests to get startled.

“Yup, why don’t you go inside and talk to Starfire about it?” You suggested, so that other guests could approach you. In particular, the puffy haired character who was bouncing slightly nervously by the door.

“We’ll catch up at the reception,” Meiko glared at you before walking off grumbling under her breath. “No one tells me anything anymore.” At the time, your mom left to ‘make sure your father hasn’t broken out the barrels’. You shook your head before you got a face full of pink hair and a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey James, wow it’s finally your big day! I’m so happy it wasn't delayed again after last time. Hiding your presents so long has been exhausting!” Pinkie rambled before you could reply.

“Nice to see you too Pinkie, I didn’t think the bosses would let any character from work show up,” you say cheerfully as she lifts you up and spins you around in a hug. She very quickly sets you down and starts kicking the floor as she gains a sheepish look.

“Well, technically, I’m not here, wink wink nudge nudge,” Pinkie said while winking, including the actual words ‘wink wink nudge nudge’. “I’m only dropping off my presents before they send the blood puppies after me.”

“Well, I could try to…” you start to offer to call the office to let her stay for the wedding but she instead shoves an empty box with some holes in it into your hands. “It’s empty?”

“One moment…” Pinkie said in a sing-song voice as she gathered her poofy hair and then sort of wrung it like getting water out of wet hair. But instead of water coming out, out poured a steady rain of numerous shrunken characters.

You spot the shrunken Mirta from Winx Club that you pulled out of Pinkie’s hair weeks ago, you see several other Winx Club characters including Darcy, Stella, and Tecna. You see a shrunken Shantae from Shantae and a shrunken Princess Zelda from Breath of the Wild. There were several others that you didn’t see before Pinkie closed up the box.

“Little friends for your little ones to play with and to help around your house eventually,” Pinkie said cheerfully. “Now if you excuse me, they just realized my tracker shows me way off campus.” With a rapid fire kiss to your cheek, Pinkie sprinted out of everyone’s sight and was gone.

“Thanks….” You say as another Toad came up and offered to take the box to the gift section of the reception building.

After a second to recover from Pinkie being Pinkie, you turn to the next guest to arrive…