"Ojou-sama . . . "
Night was falling on Fuuka-jima. As people began making their way home for the evening, a silver-haired woman with eyes the shade of burning chestnuts, she dressed in the orange-and-dark grey uniform of a Fuuka Academy high school student, sat alone in a street side cafe in the urbanised part of the island. Her gaze was unfocused; to any onlooker, she seemed to be deep in thought. In truth she was, but for the woman known to her peers as "Miyu Greer," the literal 'mechanics' of her thought processes were as different from a normal person's as night was from day.
Like most artificial intelligences currently active on Earth today, the Multiple Intelligential Yggdrasil Unit operated on a series of basic root commands, functionary "laws" which could not be overcome by personal choice, that strange concept humans thought of as "free will." Unlike the Azimov-type laws common to robots and other AIs in classic science fiction stories, the laws that dominated Miyu's life had been tailor-fit to allow her to function at her best in her current assignment.
The first priority -- the ultimate priority -- for her, of course, was to protect her young charge, Alyssa Searrs, from all possible harm.
The best way to do just that, Miyu had believed until several hours before, was to stay low and act normal until such time as sufficient supporting forces from the Searrs Foundation could be brought up to finally begin the necessary steps to usher in the Golden Millennium. Only then could Alyssa reveal her own gifts given to her by her father's scientists and lead humanity into a brighter future.
One man had now cast that whole process into serious doubt.
Grigori Stefan Wysynski. Doctor Destructo.
Miyu -- along with her creator/"adopted father," Joseph Greer -- had watched the news the previous night when the Doctor made his appearance in the Tokyo suburb of Tomobiki, he then fighting several members of the metahuman group known as the "Sailor Senshi" and defeating them with frightening ease. That information had been sent up to the Foundation right away, prompting them to order Miyu and Alyssa to Tokyo's Minato Ward to use an Orphan in a test of the Senshi's abilities. That test had proven to be a spectacular failure when a mysterious, insanely powerful woman calling herself "Infinity" used her powers to destroy the Orphan, the backlash nearly killed Alyssa along the way. The poor girl was currently asleep in her dorm room at the Academy, she monitored by passive vital sign units directly linked to Miyu's central processor to ensure that nothing would go wrong with her.
Unfortunately for Miyu, something else happened during that foray into Tokyo that had seriously rocked a lot of people in the Foundation. Tokiha Mai, one of the HiMEs ("Valkyries" in the parlance of the Foundation) Miyu's superiors had taken profound interest in, had allowed herself to be transformed into a female equivalent to one of the two most powerful metahumans alive on Earth today, Captain Marvel of the Justice League. And if that wasn't bad enough, along with Mai/Lady Marvel and Infinity, a considerable number of other metahumans had made their appearance in Japan, they involved in a battle yesterday morning in Niigata which involved the so-called "King of Monsters," Gojira, as well as helping reveal the existence of a cabal of alien spies watching over the Oni princess Lum until her departure from Earth last evening.
Thanks to the appearance of Doctor Destructo.
While Miyu found it hard to draw up conclusions to mysteries without having firm, concrete evidence as proof; she did have an imagination and could make use of it to help in her work. And with what she had seen and heard over the last twenty-four hours, her imagination was working overtime trying to draw up potential plans of action for herself and Alyssa. Plans that might, if the necessity showed her that such was the only way, force her to break ties with the Foundation once and for all.
Fact: Destructo, by his own words, had been transformed after making a visit to a planet of metahumans called Yiziba. A world possessing quite a fearsome reputation among other races, if Lum's reaction to meeting the man was any evidence.
Fact: Destructo had taken profound interest in Moroboshi Ataru, Lum's common-law husband, who had died the previous day. If Destructo was quite powerful, it was therefore a possibility that Ataru might still be alive, albeit in a different physical and/or emotional state than he had been prior to his demise.
Fact: in the wake of Lum's departure, a group of alien spies who actually worshipped the Oni as a living goddess had been revealed. It was this group of spies whom, in fact, provoked a potentially disastrous rampage by Gojira by kidnapping his child, Minira. Fortunately for Japan, the matter was swiftly resolved.
Possible Conclusion: Destructo clearly wanted Earth to be free of any overt or covert alien influence. Aliens who could live on Earth and positively interact with humans -- Superman and the Martian Manhunter, for example -- were clearly more than welcome in the Doctor's eyes. Lum and the Niphentaxians were not.
Fact: the metahumans known as Rampage, Mustang, Prodigy and Windtalker all claimed to be natives of Yiziba, having migrated to Earth in part because of the fact that the power of Destructo had been bestowed on a Terran, not a native Yizibajohei.
Fact: Destructo had made it plainly clear in his interview with an NHK reporter that he had come back to Earth to assist the people here in living their lives according to their wishes, free of any imposed social order.
Fact: Destructo, when he was a child, was witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust. In the wake of that, he clearly possessed an emotional impetus to see his plans driven through by whatever means possible.
Possible Conclusion: Destructo would clearly oppose any attempts by the Searrs Foundation to usher in the Golden Millennium out of the simple belief that since most people did not know of the Foundation's plans, they would simply not approve of them, thus, in effect, equating the Foundation to the Nazis.
Fact: Tokiha Mai was now Lady Marvel. And, most likely in becoming so, she had learned a terrible secret concerning the HiMEs of Fuuka. A secret that now put the people the HiMEs considered their most precious ones in mortal danger.
Fact: Alyssa, thanks to the Foundation's scientists, was in many aspects a HiME in her own right. She even possessed her own Child, Artemis. And while she could not summon Elements, she could use the HiME Star's power to summon Orphans.
Fact: Destructo had told Miyu personally that if one of the HiMEs decided that Alyssa had become an intolerable annoyance, she -- and her father -- could be swiftly dealt with, all by destroying Artemis.
Fact: Destructo had also told Miyu that other agencies had awoken to the Foundation's plans and were now moving to ensure the Golden Millennium would not rise.
Conclusion: Alyssa was now in grave danger.
Miyu blinked as her mind reached that point, and then she blinked as she felt tears appear in her eyes. Reaching up to brush them away, she then paused to stare at her fingertips, they glistening with the liquid her body had just shed. Taking a moment to consider what she was feeling now, she then sighed, her other hand picking up her cup of tea to finish it off so she could return to the Academy.
She loved Alyssa.
While some human emotions were still quite alien things to Miyu, that one -- the most complex of them all -- had been surprisingly easy for her to master.
And that love, well anchored by the root commands in her mind, could only point to one ultimate conclusion.
Protect Alyssa at all costs.
Miyu's head twitched in a nod as she then moved to finish her tea.
It was time now to act.
"To believe that girl's a robot . . .!"
"She sure fooled me, even with her way of talking."
Natsuki took that in, and then she stared briefly at her transformed companion before she turned back to stare at Miyu as the latter stood up to pay her bill. "I knew the Searrs Foundation was powerful and influential -- my mother used to work for that group -- but to have the technology necessary to build something as complex as her . . .?" A shake of the head. "They must've stolen it from someone."
"Most likely," Mai -- now Lady Marvel -- mused.
"Why didn't you tell us that she was eavesdropping on our conversation in the garden this afternoon?" Natsuki then wondered.
"She wasn't threatening us in any way. The chances were there that she already knew about our being HiMEs, to say anything of what the Wizard did for me. And given that, in most aspects, Alyssa-chan is no different than us, I wanted her to hear what I had to say," Lady Marvel explained, and then she peered once more at her android classmate. "She may have an artificial body, but Miyu-san's heart is as human as yours or mine. And it's a good thing that Akane-chan told us that Miyu-san had witnessed her fight with the Orphan who attacked that bus; when you told me about First Division. Chance were there that, if her superiors ordered it, she might have been made to do something against Akane-chan or Harry."
Natsuki nodded. "You sure she's built well enough to take out a Child?"
"Hai."
A wry smirk. "That Wisdom this Shazam gave you is really handy, isn't it?"
Lady Marvel felt her cheeks start to heat. "It is that."
Natsuki looked at her. "You okay?"
"Somewhat," the World's Mightiest Princess innocently replied.
"Keeping watch on something?"
Both girls gasped on hearing that sandpaper-on-steel voice, they spinning around to see something darker than night emerge from the evening shadows. "Batman!" Lady Marvel gasped out, and then she breathed out in relief. "You scared us!"
"Learn to use the Wisdom as well as the Captain does, miss, you'll be fine. You're still new at this," the Dark Knight Detective stated before his eyes focused on Natsuki, who had snap-drawn her Elements and aimed both of them at this dark kami in human form. "Do you have a problem, Kuga-san?" he then asked.
Natsuki blinked, she within a hair's breadth of summoning Duran, and then she slowly lowered her weapons. "Friend of yours?" she then asked her fellow HiME.
"An acquaintance . . . EH?!"
Lady Marvel's head snapped around, her eyes going wide as the mixture of powers within her -- the Wisdom and her own gifts as a HiME -- told her something very ominous. "What is it?" Batman demanded.
"Orphan!" Lady Marvel snapped. "It's near the Academy . . . oh, NO! TAKUMI!"
With a leap, she was airborne. "MAI!" Natsuki screamed after her.
"Bring out your Child!" Batman ordered. "We're going after her!"
Natsuki looked at him, and then she barked out, "DURAN!"
A howl announced the warhound's arrival in an exploding flower of ice. Seconds later, Duran flew off after Lady Marvel, his mistress and the Dark Knight of Gotham riding him as they raced off for the Academy grounds . . .
"Confirmed inter-dimensional breech, Major Lightholler," the electronic warfare officer aboard the CY-199 high in orbit over Fuuka-jima reported, his hands flying over the controls of the aircraft's very sharp sensory suite. "It's definitely one of these Orphans OBUNIT Tokyo warned us about. Range between it and Target Tango about two-ten metres, it moving on him."
"Where's Tango going?" Danitra Jones asked.
"Heading back to the dorms now, Dani. Looks like he was at the library."
"Any idea of what brought this thing out to play?" Chris Lightholler asked.
"Wait one." Controls were switched around to do a detailed meta-psionic scan of the area around the entrance point. "Got a possible source trail!" he then announced. "It's . . .!" he moved to make the announcement, and then his hands flew over the keys to sharpen the scan. "Damn! Source point is the Academy dormitories. Room . . . "
"The Searrs kid, right?" Lightholler asked.
"Yes, sir! It's her," the EWO confirmed, and then he switched back to normal life scan. "Looks like she's still mentally recovering from what Infinity did her this afternoon back in Tokyo. I doubt the Greer 'bot'll realise what's happening. I'm also picking up two people in the room with her. Both adults, male. I'd say with pretty good certainty that they're both First Division rogues working for Searrs."
"Other targets?"
"All in the woods on the path Tango's taking to the dorms, sir. Looks like they decided to call in some insurance so they could make a clean snatch."
Lightholler sighed. "Dani, you take a sniper team and deal with the brat. I'll take the Assault Team down to put the hurt on these fuckin' traitors! Glen, you call OBUNIT Tokyo and tell them we're getting involved!"
"Yes, sir!"
And now we . . .
(Posted Sun, 01 Oct 2006 18:48)
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