The images were relayed by hastily set up videoscreens as well as those that had already been in place for the airshow. Rustic-looking cottages and cities, mainly burning or demolished as large tripod robots went about the task of seeking and destroying survivors.
"What the hell?" was Ranma's immediate reaction, as well as an awful lot of people.
Three tripods had gathered at the crash site and now sifted through the debris field.
When they'd finished, the war machines stood for a moment as their occupants consulted. Finally, turning as one, they began proceeding in the direction those airships had come from.
"No, Commander, I have no idea either. We all saw that dome of lightning. We all saw the sky shift. Now these things apparently going through what we've identified as Georgetown circa 1930," said the Captain. "I appreciate your difficulties, but when we have more information we'll send it to you. In the meantime we need you to help with crowd control. Not everyone with our American forces is fluent in Japanese."
"Sir!" interrupted an Ensign. "Spotters indicate three of those machines are approaching."
Kensuke Kenjima ("Ken-ni" to a few) had been at the airshow mainly for the chance to eat some takoyaki. In his opinion, the takoyaki sold at fair booths always tasted better than the ones you got at the local vendors.
He didn't like the military. Never had. Given a chance to protest the military gaijin presence here - he would. If they would just leave, then his business could move into the area and expand.
Kensuke had thought the bright flash and dome of lightning meant that the stupid Americans had set off their nuclear bomb powering that big ship. Stupid Americans were always using their nuclear weapons. The lack of boom meant only that they'd done something else stupid.
Now there was all this bizarre talk about being in America and apparently on the edge of the war. He overheard others talking and what was being shown on these screens, and thought it pretty obvious that the Americans were blowing smoke out of their buttholes again. They didn't want to admit they'd made a mistake and so they were coming up with some wild story.
Still, SOMETHING had happened. Kensuke was on the edge of the affected area and he could see the clean circular slice. On one side was concrete and the base. On the other side was burned ground, charred woods, and what looked like...
Kensuke investigated and determined that the car WAS a very old model. Like something out of the American Prohibition actually. What a shame - it had obviously been restored to near mint condition and then someone had run it into a ditch.
It was in a puddle of water he saw the rings dancing. That brought his attention to the loud tromping noise. That led him, in its own turn, to look up at the huge metal beasts wading through the charred woods.
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(Posted Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:46)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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