"My friends! My fellow Onis!" Invader called out in the Hall of the Voice, located in the heart of the capital city of Uru, Onishuto. As the cheers and chatter died down, the large warlord took a deep breath. "Today, my friends, we must admit that most terrible of things, the one thing we are always loath to admit to ourselves." With that, his shoulders slumped. "We have been beaten."
A deafening silence fell over the crowd as they awaited Invader's next words. Despite the news blackout that followed the sudden return of the warlord's personal cruiser to Uru, the rumours were flying as to what had just happened on Earth, especially when it came to Miss Lum and her Terran husband. Now, the rumours would be put to rest and the truth be known.
"As you know, my daughter decided that, after all the times he has defied her wishes and chose not to respect their marriage, she would punish her idiot husband by forcing him to either admit his true feelings to her -- or else face having his and his Earth friends' memories forever wiped out of her and her friends from beyond that world. We had all hoped that, after so long, Lum's stupid husband would have seen reason and allowed the truth to come out . . . " Here, Invader dramatically paused before he hoarsely declared, "But he did not.
"He did something far worse.
"He made a pact with . . . " Here, Invader paused as he struggled to overcome the raw terror he now felt before he finished. "They-Who-Must-Never-Be-Named."
A horrified shriek filled the Hall as that news sank in.
"So what did your old man say, Oyuki?"
The crown princess of Neptune took a deep breath. "Father was most disturbed by this development," she replied. Oyuki, Benten and Lum were in an antechamber close to the Hall of the Voice. The echoes of Invader's speech -- and the crowd's understandable reaction to said speech -- were quite noticeable to the three friends. "He immediately ordered that all use of the Central Warp Chamber in the direction of Earth be halted for the unforeseeable future. If we are forced to move snow away from our cities, it will be dumped on Mars instead." She then gazed on the Fukunokami biker girl. "Has the news gone to your planet?"
"Yeah, Lum's dad called my dad and told him just before he came here," Benten replied before she watched as Lum stood up to walk over to the window and gaze at the growing evening over Onishuto. "Lum . . .?"
Oyuki looked herself. "Lum-chan . . . "
The Oni princess remained in place, her shoulders slumped, the energy that seemed to drive her from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed seemingly gone from her, perhaps never to return. She remained quiet for a moment before she took a deep breath. "What do I do now?" she timidly asked.
Benten shrugged. "Can't do a thing, now. Your dad's grounded all flights anywhere to the inner part of Neptune's star system. Can't use the Warp Chamber to get to Earth. No space-taxi'll take you there, that's for damn sure. And I ain't gonna risk flying my bike there if any of the You-Know-Whos are still there. Face it, Lum: Moroboshi didn't just beat you, he wiped you right off the map! He's got all the ace chips now and he's playing them."
"The only hope you might have, Lum-chan, towards reconciliation with Ataru is that he might show mercy in the long term," Oyuki noted. "But after what you allowed to happen thanks to what Carla-san accidentally unleashed . . . "
Lum shuddered as the Neptunian's words pierced through her heart, her eyes brimming with tears of shame as that ugly truth sank in. Oh, yes, that was truth, wasn't it? Using her spat with Ataru -- something that had been provoked thanks to Rupa's great-grandfather Upa and the "promise" he had made to Lum's own great-grandfather Traveller -- as the chance to finally force him to admit what she knew he truly felt about her . . .! And actually allowing a worldwide ecological disaster to carry on unchecked in doing that, not to mention threatening to obliviate the memories of everyone on Earth of her time there . . .!
She had felt justified in cornering Darling like that.
It would have worked.
It should have worked!
But it didn't.
It had, in fact, turned into a total ROUT!
And no doubt, Lum knew, Ataru felt justified in retaliating the way he did.
By allying with THEM!
They-Who-Must-Never-Be-Named.
Forcing Lum's people -- forcing Lum -- to face the one race in the whole of the Universe the Onis would never want to face again!
What could she do . . .?
What . . .?
As Lum contemplates the ashes of her dreams, we . . .
(Posted Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:23)
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