"Aw, we're too late! They already took care of it!"
"By the looks of it," Rampage mused as she and Corsair landed on a building to the south of the battle scene. "Oh, there's Infinity!" she noted on spotting a certain lady in grey standing the crowd of costumed heroes forming a family circle near what was left of the subway monster/Orphan that caused the explosion which brought the two women from Ryuunosuke-shima. "She must've dealt with it with a mini-Infinity Wave."
"That's her super attack, right?" Corsair wondered.
"Hai . . . eh?!"
"What?"
Rampage blinked as her eyes swept to their left, she glancing down into a nearby alley. There, a young girl -- about ten or so, Rampage estimated -- was crouching over a glowing magical circle imprinted into the concrete floor. Standing guard nearby was an older woman, about Rampage's own age, in what appeared to be a school uniform of sorts. With a bluish-silver sword taking the place of her lower left arm. "Doesn't that look a little bit odd?" she then wondered, pointing.
Corsair looked herself. "Yeah, that is a little weird," she then noted before thinking, Jewel, scan them. What's going on with them?
Images then flooded her mind as the Jewel began a deep scan of the two women who had attracted its Host's attention. The younger of the two is named Alyssa Searrs, it reported in a more firmer version of Moroboshi Ataru's voice. She is a girl who has undergone metabolic upgrading which allows her to channel photon energy from a transdimensional source close to this world's natural satellite. This grants her the ability to control a device currently in transatmospheric orbit about us as we speak. Not to mention create specifically-directed dimensional breeches which, no doubt, allowed the creature just destroyed by Infinity to emerge into this dimension.
Corsair blinked. As Moroboshi Ataru, given his problems with concentrating on things that didn't involve beautiful women and -- ultimately! -- finding some way of bedding them, such an explanation would have flown over her head. Tanenobu Tariko wasn't so inhibited. So you're saying she's the cause of all this, right?
Exactly. As for the older-looking of the two, she is a combat android of quite advanced manufacture. To her peers, she is Miyu Greer. Her proper designation is M.I.Y.U. -- 'Multiple Intelligencial Yggdrasil Unit.' After taking a brief scan of her primary memory core, it appears she was construted for the purpose of being Alyssa's personal guardian.
Keeping anyone trying to interfere with whatever Alyssa-chan's doing?
Exactly. Both are affiliated with an organisation called 'the Searrs Foundation,' based in the habitation you know as 'New York City.' They are a secret cabal dedicated to the ushering in of the 'Golden Millennium' -- their terms -- by manipulating a group of young women native to Nihon, which they currently designate 'Valkyries.' And, by what M.I.Y.U. currently believes, the young lady currently with Rampage's friends and the Sailor Senshi is one of these women.
Corsair glanced over at Kuga Natsuki. Scan her. And what the heck's that robot doing standing beside her, anyway?
The Jewel then gave its Host a quick lowdown on the lone rider of the HiMEs and her Child, drawing up the same conclusions Sailor Mercury had just done -- but with a greater amount of accuracy given the Jewel's ability to literally tap into the mana and ki nodes of Earth and beyond to get as detailed a scan as possible of whatever interested its Host. "I get it now," she then spoke up.
"What did the Jewel find out?" Rampage asked.
"Typical 'world conquest by a secret society' bullshit," Corsair replied, and then she gave her companion a quick lowdown of what she had just learned.
Rampage took that in, and then she gazed on Alyssa. To her enhanced eyesight, it appeared that the blonde American elementary school student looked to be in pain. Had she felt the backlash of what Infinity had done to the creature she had brought into this world? A closer look. Yes, Alyssa seemed to be in a state of shock, her eyes filled with tears as she tried to recover herself from something which had nearly driven her unconscious. A glance to Miyu Greer. The android was constantly shifting from gazing in the direction of Natsuki to watching Alyssa. Rampage was quick to see the note of worry crossing Miyu's face as she looked on her charge, that instantly vanishing when she then focused on her classmate from the Fuuwa Academy.
"They're throw-aways, then," she spoke up.
"Excuse me?" Corsair wondered, she blinking confusedly.
"Throw-aways. Special foot soldiers for this Searrs Foundation you told me about. Designed for a specific job in mind, then -- if what I understand how these groups work -- they'll be cast aside like scrap when their usefullness comes to an end." Rampage gazed on her friend. "At least, that's the way it often seemed to happen back home on Yiziba when someone decided she or he had enough of the constant fighting and tried to impose some overwhelming sense of order on the planet."
Corsair took that in, and then she shook her head. "Sickening."
"It is that."
Both women jolted, then spun around as three people landed behind them. Two of them were instantly recognisable to Rampage. "Superman! Captain Marvel!" she called out, and then she blinked on seeing the young woman in red, white and gold standing beside the World's Mightiest Mortal. A quick look as her own enhanced senses pierced through the magical veil any heir of Shazam possessed when it came from noting the many similarities between her real self from her Marvel-self, and then she gasped before she hissed, "Mai-san?! Is that you?!"
"It's Lady Marvel now," the World's Mightiest Princess replied with a wink and a raised finger to her mouth in a shushing motion, and then she smiled. "It's good to see you again so soon." She then waved to the two men who had just accompanied her from the Rock of Eternity back to Tokyo. "It seems these two guys just can't seem to get back to where they belong, ne?"
Rampage laughed. "Well, as I always see it, it's a never-ending battle," Superman noted with a chuckle, and then he glanced at Corsair. "Who's your friend, Rampage?"
Rampage introduced her companion with code-name and her current real name. Before anyone else could say anything, a flash of light heralded the arrival of Infinity. "Hi, guys!" she called out with a raised hand and that every-lasting smile of hers. "Whatcha all doing up here, anyway? We're all down there!"
Before anyone could react, Infinity teleported them to ground level. "Hey!" Lady Marvel called out in shock. "Warn us before you do that, huh?!"
The Sailor Senshi gasped on recognising the members of the Justice League who had appeared, their eyes -- yes, even that of Sailor Mercury! -- going wide as they drank in the very hunky features of the Man of Steel and the World's Mightiest Mortal. The others who had met Tokiha Mai earlier in the day in Niigata were quick to recognise the other Marvel in their midst. "So you decided to take up Shazam-sama's offer, eh?" Heart Player asked.
"Had no choice," Lady Marvel admitted, and then she blinked on seeing Natsuki staring in wide-eyed shock at her. "Hey!"
Like any native of Yiziba, a HiME like Kuga Natsuki wasn't deterred by the magical screen masking the true identity of an heir of Shazam, especially when there hadn't been any sort of major physical changes to the looks when the lightning came down. "To- . . .!" she started to blurt out.
Infinity appeared before her in a blinding flash of energy, causing her to scream out. "No real names!" she hissed.
Natsuki caught herself, clapping a hand over the lower part of her helmet's visor. Seeing the normally calm lone rider freaking out like that, Lady Marvel nearly fell over in a heap of giggles. That was just so funny . . .
"Mai-san . . . "
Miyu was also not inhibited by what was meant to deter normal people.
"Mai-san is a Marvel . . .?"
This was not good.
Not good at all . . .
"Um, excuse me for asking this, but are you that girl who had that flying dragon this morning when Gojira tried to come ashore at Niigata?" Mercury then asked.
"Hai, that's me!" Lady Marvel replied, she quickly glancing up to a nearby rooftop to take note of Windtalker's presence. "Sorry I didn't make myself more open when I had to come in, but my clothes were in the cleaners!" She gave the studious Senshi a wink and a grin. "You probably know how it is, ne?"
"Hai, that's true," Mercury noted with a smile and wink of her own.
"So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen," Windtalker said into her headset, it hooked into her portable videocam unit, it currently transmitting out on every known frequency to ensure every news service on the planet. "The name of the mysterious dragon-tamer who came to Niigata this morning to help calm an angry Gojira, who only wanted his son Minira returned to his side. No doubt not wishing to place her family and friends in danger should her real name be revealled, Lady Marvel decided to call on her great pet, Kagutsuchi, to help calm the King of Daikaijuu and ensure he was reunited with his boy. That proves it, viewers! Japan has a Marvel!"
Across a whole country -- those who were watching the transmission thanks to smart station directors who knew a very good thing when it was literally handed to them on a silver platter -- people broke out in spontaneous celebration.
For a nation where conformity was imposed on them through thousands of years of harsh, unyielding tradition, it was understandable for Japanese to secretly long to burst free of the social constraints those self-same traditions, to freely act as they really wanted. It was that selfsame feeling, of course, which often made them look so enviously at the United States of America and its gallery of impressive metahumans, with all their colourful costumes and vast powers. Oh, Japan did have their own native heroes -- people like the Sailor Senshi for example -- but when one noted that all of those girls wore the same model of uniform (despite different colours and powers) -- well, it just wasn't the same. And yes, there were the odd natives of places like Nerima and Tomobiki, people such as Saotome Ranma and the late Moroboshi Ataru, who were quite colourful in their own right. But in the end, those incidents were highly concentrated in those selfsame parts of Tokyo. It didn't really seem to affect the remaining parts of the Home Islands and their citizens.
But now . . .
This very morning, a whole group of wildly different people had appeared to capture the imagination of a people who were, in a way, literally starving for something unique to touch their lives. And what a cast of characters they all were: the handsome and gallant Mustang, the super-smart Prodidy, the super-strong Rampage, wild and passionate Warwind, the deadly Caltrop, the omnipotent Infinity, the animal-talker Lady Lofting, the mind-reading Soul Searcher, the aply-named Heart Player and Ampbibian, the car-driving boosoozoku Wild Rider, plus Windtalker, the one who revealled the great stories to all . . .
And now this ultimate gift from the Fates.
A Marvel!
Ever since his first appearance in Fawcett City, the people of Japan were quick to sense the astounding uniqueness of Captain Marvel. A man as strong, as powerful, as Superman himself -- but clearly acting with a spirit which was no different than the legendary Momotarou, the Peace Boy of Japanese myth. For a nation whose citizens are well versed in reading the actions of others, it was quite obvious: the World's Mightiest Mortal was clearly a child himself in spirit, even if not in form. No one in Japan had ever spoken out about that, of course; the Captain very rarely visited the Land of the Rising Sun when performing his work. But people here knew, even if they didn't know the exact story of how a boy had been blessed by the Gods to become Their living champion in the realm of mortals.
But now . . .
Now . . .
Japan had a Marvel of their own.
It was a wonderful day indeed.
But amongst those watching this, there were those who were not pleased by this development. And among them were . . .
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(Posted Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:17)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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