[Episode 225748] [Episode 225748]"So who do you suppose that girl was?"
A shake of the head. "Don't know," Satoshi Aisuru — known to all around him as "Megane" — said with a shake of his head as he and the three other core members of Lum's Stormtroopers sat in the living room of the Aisuru home. They had just watched the news, seeing their beloved Lum go out to help the police catch a pair of criminals on the Higashi-Kantô Expressway just outside of Narita International Airport, who had — as the news reports were now stating — been after an orphaned boy from America who had come to Japan to seek out his grandfather. A grandfather who had, according to the latest reports, been found and was now being escorted to the Bokutô police station in Sumida to meet up with his lost grandson. "They didn't mention the name of that girl who was close to Lum-san, not to mention that other girl."
"What do you suppose is going on here, man?" Hiroyuki Daremo — "Kakugari" to everyone else — demanded as he stared at their leader. "If these Noukiites who came to Earth today are as powerful as Ran-chan said they were, would they try to drive Lum-chan off the planet and send her home?"
The other Stormtroopers gasped in shock. "DON'T SAY SUCH THINGS, MAN!" Megane screamed out as he glared Kakugari down, and then he winced as the burned areas of his skin protested the overt use of his larynx hard. "Damn…!"
"That would be something Ataru would do, the bastard!" Akira Urayamu — "Chibi" — then said with a shake of his head. "He proved it at the end of the Tag Race. Tricking Lum into agreeing into letting that dragon burn us down!" He pointed to the television screen, which was now showing the sports news. "Hell! I'll bet it was that red-haired Noukiite girl Ran-chan told us about earlier on, the one who flew into town when she appeared at Ataru's house! Ran-chan called her 'She Who Speaks To Dragons!'"
"Why is Lum-chan allowing Ataru to get away with this?!" Kôsuke Shitto — "Perm" — snarled. "Doesn't she see what he's trying to do?!"
"She can't see it, Perm," Megane breathed out. "Even now, she's too much caught up in her delusions about Ataru to realise the truth. Try as we might, try as Mendô might, try as even Lum-san's friends from space might, no one can make her see that Ataru wants to destroy her heart once and for all!" A snarl escaped him. "But we can't give up hope yet, guys! He's gonna slip up big time and we're gonna be there when it happens! Don't you worry about that! We'll win in the end and Lum-san will be free!"
The others nodded in solemn understanding. They came together originally right after the First Tag Race as a club dedicated to ensuring the beautiful, angelic Lum would remain on Earth so they could woo her and perhaps win her love. They had used Ataru at the time to bring down a space taxi so they could travel to Uru to see their goddess in person. But Ataru directed the taxi back to Earth where, when he couldn't bring up the funds to pay for the aborted trip, he ended up provoking the "world oil theft" incident that was only stopped when Lum came and (with some persuasion) managed to make the irate taxi driver back off and return the oil back to Earth.
That had set the four boys off on the primary mission they followed right to this day: making sure that Ataru never did anything that would break Lum's heart to the point where she would return to Uru and never come back. That was the ultimate nightmare to all four men — as well as all of those in Tomobiki who soon saw themselves also as "Lum's Stormtroopers," who were concentrated mostly among Tomobiki High School's male population — when it came to the Oni: to never see her again.
And they did succeed to a certain extent. All four of them spied on Ataru constantly, and then called in Lum to enjoy watching her deliver her "divine retribution" on the insensitive, perverted bastard. They also egged Lum on to remove Shinobu Miyake from the equation — helped along by Shûtarô Mendô's later entrance into all their livers — so that Ataru didn't have ANYONE to fall back onto so that he could gain some sort of strength to force Lum out of his life. Even Ataru's PARENTS went along with it, gladly accepting Lum (and later her cousin Jariten) into their lives as their own family and — this STILL made Megane laugh when he thought of it — acting as if their own son didn't matter whatsoever.
It should have worked. But it didn't. It seemed that every time something happened to make things even harder for Ataru, he gained some sort of weird strength to keep going, keep pushing back no matter what. Mendô came into their lives and began charming all the idiot girls in the class? Ataru still chased them! Shinobu dropped him like a hot potato? He still chased her! Benten beat him down every time she visited her friend? He still came after her! Oyuki, Ran, Kurama and all the rest? Same thing. And no matter how much everyone tried to make him conform, he wouldn't.
And then came THAT day.
The invitation to a wedding between Ataru Moroboshi and a woman named Elle.
QUEEN Elle of her own planet!
It was a disaster of the first order. And what was worse, the Ellsians were more than prepared to match anything Lum's people could do to shield Ataru away from them. It was only by the grace of the Fates that Elle turned out to be as much of a pervert as her would-be husband, what with her Refrigerator of Love and her hundred thousand "cute boys," all preserved in cryo-suspension so she could keep their "love" for her pure and intact. Ataru rejected her — after all, he was not going to share any of "his" girls with other men! — and allowed Lum to take him away back to Uru, where she tried to force him to the altar. He resisted her then and bolted for freedom…
Six months ago, outside the Urusian capital city of Onishuto…
"No way! Let me out of here!"
"Darling!"
"Get him!"
Ataru lunged over the crowd, having stripped free of his tuxedo as he made a burst run for the main doors. "Darling, come back here!" Lum screamed out as she flew after him.
"Get out of my life!" Ataru yelled back as he made the door.
What happened next would remain totally unclear to those who were caught in the chapel that day. Ataru's hand lashed out at the door, slamming into it palm-first in some sort of open-handed strike. The door then seemed to light up for a moment before it then exploded into a sea of fragments that blew outward into a storm of shrapnel that blew down the whole military honour guard that had been standing on watch outside. As soon as the way clear was opened, Ataru seemed to look back on everyone else, a cruel, inhuman smile on his face as his hand slammed down again, this time hitting the concrete floor of the chapel before he leaped into the large commons beyond the chapel.
And just as Lum herself made it to the doorway — with the majority of the crowd still several metres behind her — it seemed as if the ground itself suddenly bucked UP to throw everyone off their feet and into the air…
…just as the chapel's high ceiling exploded DOWNWARD, that fronting a huge wave of fire and brimstone that nearly burned everyone inside alive…
"It was a dragon!"
The other Stormtroopers spun around to gaze on their leader. "What?" Perm demanded.
"A dragon, Kôsuke!" Megane snapped as he slowly surged to his feet and staggered his way to the window of the living room to gaze on the growing evening over Tomobiki. "Six months ago, on Lum-san's home planet, just before she and Ataru disappeared for a whole month and we spent all that time in the hospital getting burns and broken bones healed! Remember when the chapel ceiling collapsed on us? The fire that came down?"
The other boys paled. "You mean like…?" Chibi gasped.
"Hai! Like four weeks ago!"
Silence fell over the room. "Damn! You mean to say that Ataru's been in contact with the Noukiites ALL THIS TIME?!" Kakugari wondered.
"Perhaps indeed!" Megane said. "Ran-san stated that the Noukiites always loved to take over planets that the Urusians actually hallmarked for their own interests, remember?" It wasn't exactly what the rose-haired Urusian had said aboard her scoutship/home hours earlier, but for Megane and his friends, such didn't matter. "She also confirmed that a planet in Alpha Centauri — FOUR LIGHT-YEARS away from here! — was a world under Noukiite control." A grimace. "What if, somehow, someone from Noukiios — say that K'ekhech girl — came to Earth one day when Lum-san and we weren't looking, met up with Ataru and made an offer he couldn't resist?!"
The other boys took a moment to process that. "So when Lum-chan tried to get married to him six months ago, he broke free of the chapel, then called down that dragon to nearly put us into our graves!" Chibi exclaimed. "And he was taken away who-knows-where, perhaps to some place on Noukiios where he got to be with a whole bunch of girls! But…!" He then shook his head. "What happened to Lum-chan?"
"What do you mean?" Kakugari asked.
"She disappeared for the same amount of time! No one knew where she went, not even Lum-chan's father!" Chibi stated, and then he blinked as that thought-train came up with a very dark idea. "Oh, man! You don't think…?"
"What?!" Perm barked.
"That Lum-chan was taken prisoner by the Noukiites and…!" Chibi then waved his hands in helpless frustration as he tried to bring up the right term to describe what he was thinking. "Well, y'know, brainwashed into helping them…!"
Silence.
"Akira…do you have any DAMN idea what you just SAID?!" Megane gasped.
"Holy shit! It makes sense!" Perm moaned.
"Yeah!" Kakugari breathed out. "It explains four weeks ago, how Lum-chan didn't seem to care about what Ataru did to all of us…!"
Megane shuddered. "ATARU, YOU BASTARD!" he screamed out, the thunder of his voice making the whole house around them quake. "HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO OUR LUM-SAN?! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS! I SWEAR IT!"
The other Stormtroopers were on their feet. "What do we do, man?" Perm demanded.
"We inform everyone of this!" Megane snarled as he glared at his friends, his glasses aflame with passion. "We do this in such a way that Ataru doesn't suspect we're onto him! Then we find some way to get this message to Lum-san's father! There's no way in HELL that he'd tolerate this happening to his own child! And then…! Then…!" A cackle escaped him. "Then Ataru will be destroyed once and for all!"
Insane laughter then echoed from the Aisuru home, causing passers-by to stare at it fearfully before they made warding gestures with their hands to chase away whatever evil spirits were haunting the place and ensure they would not be harmed…
Meanwhile…
"Eh?! Two more of them came here?!"
"Just a couple hours ago," Ran confirmed with a nod as she enjoyed tea with Benten and Oyuki, who had flown down from the Neptunian princess' personal yacht on the Fukunokami's airbike to get some news from their old middle school classmate. "Landed at the airport east of town and met up with the MiBs and some locals before getting involved in some weird shootout on the way in."
"Who was it exactly?" Oyuki asked.
"The Black-Haired Bandit Slayer and her adopted sister."
Oyuki's jaw dropped. "The Ladies Kachnuk and Kingch'eng?! What are they doing here?!"
"Turns out that somehow, a Noukiite dragon came to Earth some years ago and met up with a local martial arts legend, guy named Ranma Saotome over in Nerima to the east of here," Ran replied. "K'ekhech found out about it and came to Earth right away to find Saotome. Kachnuk and Kingch'eng came in afterward because the Dragonspeaker never told anyone on Okusei or elsewhere she was coming here to find the guy."
"So what happened?" Benten asked.
Ran stood, walking over to Mr. Big Screen — her personal visual entertainment centre — and tapped controls to replay the local news. The two visitors from outer space remained silent as the whole scene from the moment a certain truck left Narita Airport to the point where the two bandits out for Randy Hammond were made to surrender to the highway patrol thanks to help from not just Lum and Ranma Saotome — the news media had been pretty descriptive of his curse, which made Oyuki gape and Benten laugh — but three of the most famous free warriors of Noukiios.
At the end of it, Oyuki breathed out. "So it has happened."
Benten looked at her. "First contact."
A nod. "Hai. As of now, the United Nations are aware of the Imperial Dominion and what they could offer them. And with the example K'ekhech-dono and her friends just demonstrated to them in support of the local peace officers apprehending those two criminals who were trying to kidnap that poor boy — even if Lum-chan herself came to help along with Saotome-san and those two other girls — it will no doubt make a very profound impression with the leaders of the United Nations in New York City. Not to mention the leaders of the various nations across the planet."
"Damn! No one in the Federation's going to like that," Benten warned.
"Do you think Lum-chan is trying to make it happen that way?"
Eyes locked on Ran as the Neptunian and the Fukunokami took a moment to digest what the Seishin-Urusian just proposed. After a moment, Oyuki's jaw dropped. "Ran-chan, you just can't possibly be serious!" she stated. "Lum-chan is many things, but a traitor to her own people?! Certainly not! She would NEVER do something like this, not being who she is and who she's related to! Her father taught her better than that!"
"What if you're wrong?" Ran demanded. "The media and the MiBs confirmed it themselves: Lum-chan is FRIENDS with the Dragonspeaker, Oyuki! Yeah, that's not considered illegal on Uru, but it would be frowned on by a lot of people there!" She fell silent as she crossed her arms. "What if she decided she didn't care about what her people want?"
"Oh, fuck, Ran! That is so way out there, it ain't funny!" Benten exclaimed.
"Oh, really?!" Ran demanded as she held up her bandaged arm. "What about what happened four weeks ago?! Remember that?! Darling called down that dragon — which was probably the same one that nearly burned us all to ashes six months ago back on Uru, when he and Lum-chan disappeared for a whole MONTH! — and nearly make us all ashes in our family graves! Lum-chan actually SUPPORTED it, remember?!"
Benten and Oyuki blinked as they took that in. While neither of them had been very much harmed by that dragon's power — the Neptunian had protected her lover using her ice powers, guaranteeing nothing more than first-degree burns on exposed parts of their skins — they had remembered how badly many others had been. And how Lum and Ataru had simply walked away from that, not lifting a finger to help anyone as they headed home, not apologising for their unwillingness to bend during the Second Tag Race or what either tried to demand of the other during that period.
And, both women then realised, since neither of them had been back to Earth or taken any chance to talk to Lum in the wake of that incident, they were totally lost at sea concerning what could be bothering their friend at this time.
"So what's been happening since then?" Benten asked.
A shrug. "Total lack of any sort of communication between anyone here and Lum-chan," Ran reported. "She doesn't even go to school anymore! All this time, she's been on her ship or at Darling's house. As for Darling…" — She shuddered as a burst of rage surged up from her heart, making her fangs splay and her ears taper out. Her beloved Rei-sama had been nearly turned into roast beef thanks to that damned dragon; he was STILL in the military hospital in Toshitto getting his skin re-grown! — "…he's been coming to school, but he hasn't been talking to anyone at all! Mendô's been corralled by his family; there's rumours running through the school that he might be withdrawn to go into private study pretty soon. Megane and his fools are still recovering from the dragon. And none of the girls like Shinobu have been able to do anything with Darling. Every time they approach him, he makes like he's about to whistle down that dragon again and they're running for the hills!"
Benten spat out, "Fuck! He must be having a ball, then!"
"Matter of fact, he is," Ran stated. "Megane spotted him dating two university girls a few days ago. When he and his friends tried to break it up, they all got a kick in the balls!" A shake of the head. "And not a single reaction from Lum-chan!"
Silence fell over the scene as Benten and Oyuki considered that, and then they exchanged a look. After a moment, both then rose. "Arigatô, Ran-chan," Oyuki said.
Ran blinked. "Huh?"
"Give us a chance to talk it over with Lum, Ran," Benten assured her. "We'll get this straightened around. Don't worry about it, okay?"
"I hope so," Ran snarled as she moved to sip her tea and relax in her chair. "I don't want to get run off the planet by those bone-heads!"
"I doubt it'll happen," Oyuki stated.
Minutes later, in the private part of a town park…
"They're gonna break up, 'Yuki!"
Oyuki hummed in delight as she and Benten passionately kissed. "Oh, yes, Beloved! We still have a chance!" she panted before drawing her lover closer to her.
Both were seated on the latter's airbike in a very secluded place, their hands already getting at the other's private spaces so they could enjoy a quickie before going out to find their Oni friend and try to make her finally see reason. Fortunately for them, the park was pretty much empty when they came here to be alone; it would have been too much of a bother to go back up to Oyuki's yacht so they could get in the sack and get passionate with each other before coming back DOWN again to visit Lum.
And that was okay.
They were close.
So close.
And then…
Then…
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(Posted Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:31)
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