"Lum…"
Seated at a private booth in the small officer's lounge aboard the Redet Glory as she nursed a shot glass of Fukunokami super-vodka, Shigaten Benten could only shake her head as she gazed on the scene outside. Where a dozen craft looking like Terran atmospheric cargo jets were now hovering around the giant Urusian cruiser…and dozens of metahumans in their wild and crazy costumes flying around in the skies over town if they weren't actually on the ground interacting with the local folks.
Well, isn't THIS the fuckup to top all fuckups?!
Moroboshi Ataru…
…he was actually one of They Who Must Never Be Named!
And what was worse…
…he had actually transformed Lum into one of the You Know Whos!
And while it had been for a righteous reason…
…the fact that Benten — like all sensible people in the local cluster — was scared spitless of Them could easily spell the end of a very long friendship.
And that HURT!
Feeling tears in her eyes, the biker-babe could only sniff as she took a sip of her super-vodka as her heart churned over what had just been revealed over the last couple of hours. How Lum had discovered that her whole marriage to Moroboshi was built on a ton of lies provoked by the Men In Black and their magical pals in the International Confederation of Wizards to make Earth seemed less threatening to the Oni when the Tag Race was launched a year ago. How someone — a Terran who had been allowed to become of the You Know Whos; What's his name? Destructo or somethin'…? Benten wondered — had shown up at the Moroboshi home to actually make the guy remember what he had been made to forget. And how that had prompted another Terran who had become one of Them — and this was none other than INFINITY! — to awaken and then get all the others back on their feet. And how one of them — the cute guy calling himself the Warlock; Damn! If he wasn't one of the You Know Whos, I'd date the guy! Benten thought as she blushed on remembering the handsome features of the man born Harry Potter — sensed something off about Lum. Then, with the help of a girl named Wildflower, he unlocked the greatest secret of the Oni warlord's daughter.
And now…
Whoever are flyin' those ships are probably roundin' up all of Ōgi's morons right now, Benten hummed as she gazed out the window at the city scene beyond. That'll really make that dork upset…but this time, all his ships aren't gonna save him in case all of Moroboshi's pals decide to have a 'Mother of All Fight Scenes' on their collective asses. If that happens…! She then shuddered.
What the hell happens to all of us?
"Benten."
Benten perked on hearing that voice, and then she snarled. "Look, Pepper! I ain't in the fuckin' mood right now…" she said as she turned…
…and then blinked. "What the fuck happened to you?!"
Standing before her was a raven-haired Seishin-Urusian — Aruka Ran's sub-race were sometimes referred to as "Gaki" — with dark eyes. Unlike others of her kind, Banchō Pepper never bothered to disguise her tapered ears, even on the few times she had come to visit Earth. However, said girl was not wearing her normal green halter-top jumpsuit. Instead, she was in a full-body suit that was a dark grey in shade, covered with all sorts of interesting tech modules that were connected to each other with glowing conduits. And in her left hand was a crystal that glowed as white as a star. Noting the neutral look on her face, the Fukunokami blinked. "Y-y-yo, Pep! Wh-where the hell did you get that weird suit?!" No response. "Pepper…?"
Without another word, Pepper's hand lashed out to allow the crystal to touch Benten over her cleavage. The Fukunokami didn't dodge in time before contact was made…
…and then she watched in horror as the crystal SANK into her very skin…
…and then the memories came!
The main lounge…
"Are you alright, Maria?"
Telepath had tensed on feeling something warp through her from some place aft on this ship, which had been quickly noticed by the Batman. Blinking as she tried to focus on what just happened, she then shook her head. "Felt a bolt of pure fright by someone on the ship, Bruce," she confessed as the Dark Knight Detective placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "But it just blanked out. I couldn't focus on it…"
"What's the problem?"
Both turned as the Warlock came up to them. "Something just happened, Harry," the woman born Maria Kennison reported. "But I can't seem to sense it anymore."
"Let me look," the transformed Harry Potter then said as he gestured with his hand.
A second later, a ghostly parchment appeared before him. Gazing on it, he then blinked. "Oh, bugger…!" he breathed out as his skin sallowed.
"What?" Batman asked.
Warlock gazed on Telepath. "The Weaponeer…"
"Oh, man…"
"This unit has complied with her programming, Mistress. Are you functioning well?"
As the woman born Shigaten Benten — and had now been Gifted with the powers and knowledge of the Weaponeer — shook her head as the two parts of her united soul meshed together, the door to the main lounge then opened to reveal a very upset Aruka Ran. "Who the hell are those guys out there?!" the rose-haired Seishin teenager snarled as she stormed over to the bar to pour herself a drink. "Literally ordering me back to Earth! Who invited them here?! The bone-heads?!" That was a common insult used for Noukiites given their Klingon-like cranial head ridges. "And who are the idiots in the ships flying around this one?! Benten!" she then snapped on noticing her former galactic middle school classmate on one knee nearby. "What's going on here?! Where's Lum-chan?! How can we do anything on this planet if Lum-chan…?!"
"Lum is gone, same."
Silence.
"Benten…" Ran gasped on hearing that odd lilt in the other woman's voice.
Rising up, the transformed Benten turned to gaze with a gimlet eye on Ran. "So is Benten," the Weaponeer then declared. "The transformation bracelet."
Pepper perked. "Understood, Mistress."
She then reached out to clap the two halves of a bracelet over the Weaponeer's wrist. A second later, a transporter-like effect then showered over Benten's whole body, causing her battle bikini and chains to vanish as they were replaced by a standard Yizibajohei jumpsuit in gunmetal grey, that decorated by an insignia on her left breast composed of crossed bayonets over a crusader sword, the whole over a gear wheel with lightning flashes emanating from the diagonal directions. As soon as that transformation was complete, the Weaponeer — ignoring a pale-faced Ran as the latter realised what just happened to the former — turned to Pepper. "Explain how you found my soul-crystal."
"This unit — while riding on her airbike to visit her friends — located the crystal adrift near the heliopause of the Home System, Mistress," Pepper stated. "When the crystal was touched by this unit, the restoration protocol was engaged and this unit proceeded at once to locate a suitable host body for the Mistress."
"And because Banchō Pepper had a problem with Shigaten Benten's reputation as a 'bad girl' in galactic middle school, you sought me out, right?"
"Affirmative."
A sigh. "Okay, I'll fix your mind around in a short bit, Pep," the Weaponeer stated before she sighed. "Hopefully, Infinity remembered to lock up my lab…"
Nearby, on Lum's scout ship…
"AH!"
People perked, and then they gazed on Infinity. "What is it, Ōsaka?" Warwind asked.
Infinity blinked. "The Weaponeer came back, Tomo-chan."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"HER?!" Wildflower gasped…and then she stopped herself. "Hey! Why am I panicking about that?! She was the first one to truly figure out where the damned Show was taking our whole race! It's not her fault that others didn't understand!"
"So who is the Weaponeer now, Ayumu?" Shadow Weaver asked.
A giggle. "It's Lum-chan's friend, Pansy-chan!"
Eyes locked on Tempest. "Benten…?!" the transformed Lum gasped.
"Yeah!" Infinity said. "Some girl from your old middle school found the Weaponeer's soul crystal floating near Yiziba's home system and touched it. Turns out, the past Weaponeer put a 'restoration protocol' on the crystal before my past-self allowed her soul to be dumped into it…and it possessed poor Pepper-chan to go find someone to become the new Weaponeer. She chose Benten-chan!" The Goddess Who Walks Amongst Men then hummed. "And she really looks good with her hair let down, too!"
Tempest moaned. "Oh, those girls…!" she snarled. Pepper — along with two friends, Byōin Ginger (a hybrid between an Oni and a species known as the Nekotengu) and Hisaten Sugar (a Fukunokami-Neptunian hybrid) — had come together as a girl gang when they began attending the same galactic middle school Lum, Benten, Oyuki and Ran had attended. The three young sukebans — who believed their elder schoolmates were the top bad girls of their day — wanted to become the new top bad girls of the block. But given the power and skill of the older girls, Pepper and her friends had been forced to resort to pranks and other tricks to annoy their upperclassmen. All of which really didn't do anything save waste people's time. Lum then smirked as she remembered one little fact about those girls; not even ATARU had been interested in them!
"Can this Pepper be brought back?" Terra stated. "I remember how the good the Weaponeer was when it came to making devices that could even affect powerful psis!"
"Oh, I'm sure Yomi-chan could fix her around, Tara-chan," Infinity said. "She'll be okay…" She then perked. "Ah! Yomi-chan just went there now…"
A sigh. "Don't you think you were going a little TOO crazy back then?"
"Hey! My kids were killed by Doctor Death! How the fuck was I SUPPOSED to react?!" the Weaponeer demanded as Soul Searcher — who had been teleported aboard the Redet Glory by Prodigy after she had sensed what had happened to Shigaten Benten — moved to deeply probe the possessed Pepper's mind. "You know what happened back then!"
The telepath nodded…as the door to the officer's lounge opened to reveal Telepath, the Punisher accompanying her. "Oh, Kennison-shōsa! Castle-taii!"
"What happened here?" the leader of the Heroes Alliance asked before her eyes flicked over to the unmoving Pepper. "Oh, my God! What happened to her?!"
"Possession by a restoral program one of the more infamous of the Yizibajohei created before her last death," Soul Searcher explained, ignoring the panicked croak from Ran on her saying that race's name. "You know how desperate people — especially desperate people who know they're dying and wish to preserve their legacy — can act. She's in there deep down. I'll need to spend a little time getting her back to normal."
"Is Archy back?"
The Japanese telepath looked over at the Weaponeer, and then she smirked. "Hope you're up for a same-sex relationship, Benten-san. She came back as Narusegawa Naru; she's a Tōdai — Tōkyō University — aspirant that lives down in Hinata City near Yokosuka. Ataru-kun got her Gifted about two years ago. Ditto with two other girls who live in the same dorm house: They became Courtesan and Fencer. Just a sec'." She then concentrated as she gazed off to the south. «Naru-sempai! Are you there?!»
A pause, and then a voice echoed back in everyone's mind; Soul Searcher used her powers for everyone else to "hear" the conversation: «What is it, Yomi-chan?»
«Your wife's back,» Soul Searcher teased. «Hope you like biker-babes, because this girl's the queen of all biker-babes in this incarnation.»
«Let me see,» Narusegawa Naru — the Archaeologist — then bade.
The transformed Yomi looked at the just-transformed Benten, who was now blushing as her mind picked up the image of her past-self's mate's present-self: A young woman Soul Searcher's height with caramel brown hair that went to mid-back, brown eyes that were behind round-frame reading glasses and a very well-formed body…which was, much to the Weaponeer's private relief, draped in the Archaeologist's typical clothes of a sand-tan jumpsuit with a waist-length overcoat and a hat that could be described as a "fedora" on Earth; the style was common on Yiziba before the Dawn of Power. She was quick to "see" the blush cross the other woman's face. "You're beautiful…"
«So are you,» the Archaeologist admitted before she perked…
The Weaponeer was quick to see two other women walk into the telepathic "view" that Soul Searcher was providing for them. Konno Mitsune — Courtesan — was dressed in a very tastefully-designed jumpsuit-skirt combination that was midnight black in shade and decorated with a vibrant constellation of stars; the cut was designed to accentuate her natural beauty to help attract males so she could entice them and provoke them into engaging in sex with other females…and thus, in the end, help the Yizibajohei reproduce and continue as a race. Aoyama Motoko — the Fencer — was in her modified version of the pearl-white jumpsuit with the crossed edged weapons that served as her personal insignia; in the case of the mistress of Shinmei-ryū, she had created a jumpsuit-hakama combination that would allow even greater freedom of movement than the standard jumpsuit pattern…as well as allow her to stow additional weapons. As both women gazed on the Weaponeer, Courtesan purred. «She's gorgeous, Naru-chan!» she teased. «If you don't scoop her up, I'll take her in an instant!»
The Archaeologist jolted. «Leave her alone, Kitsune! She's mine!»
A titter. «Possessive girl.»
Courtesan then walked out of view. «None the less — despite what many of our past-selves thought of your past-self's beliefs and actions — it is agreeable that you are one of us, Benten-san,» Fencer then declared. «Curious that you, being Lum-san's best friend, weren't sought out by Ataru-san. You are quite a 'pretty girl.'»
The Weaponeer blinked as Soul Searcher and Telepath both laughed and the Punisher smirked. "What the fuck was with Moroboshi anyway?!" the Fukunokami-turned-Yizibajohei master weaponsmith then demanded. "Going out, finding pretty girls, then persuading them to go to the Crystal to get a Gift?! If he wasn't living with his asshole parents at the time, who the fuck was he living with?!" She then blinked. "Was he alone?"
«No, Ataru-kun had an adopted elder sister who actually turns out to be Earth's first known artificial intelligence…though I suspect that Negako-sama is a lot more than that,» the Archaeologist then stated. «Unfortunately, because she never really experienced life as a normal person, Negako-sama didn't really understand what being a 'big sister' to any one — much less a hyperactive kid like Ataru-kun — meant. So she let him run pretty much on his own when he went out to seek people to bring to Yiziba to get Gifts, like he did Motoko-chan, Kitsune and myself.» A sigh. «Much that I'm glad that he did do that, I wish someone was around to temper his behaviour. That probably explained why those rogues from the MIBs and the ICW did what they did.»
"Too much hoo-uh in what he did," the Punisher noted.
A nod. «Agreed.»
«Benten-san, we'll come visit you as soon as we can arrange it with Chiyo-chan or Elizabeth-san,» Fencer then declared. «We'll see you soon.»
The telepathic communication then faded. "They seemed ashamed of something," the Weaponeer then declared. "What the fuck's happening to them?"
Soul Searcher sighed. "About a year ago — just before our minds were blanked out thanks to our bonds with Ataru-kun — the woman in charge of the dorms where Naru-sempai and her friends lived invited her grandson over to become the new kanrinin of the place," she answered. "She never told him that the dorms had been made all-girl…much less warned Naru-sempai and her friends he was coming. When they all met up…this was just right after everyone's mind got blanked out…"
"Fuck!" the transformed space biker-babe breathed out. "Is he still alive?!"
A nod. "He is. The guy's as tough as Stone Mountain…but hell! You know how naturally aggressive we can be at times. It got pretty hairy at times; he's also a bit of a klutz and he's got a huge crush on Naru-sempai, so he tends to have quite embarrassing accidents around her. She's a bit of a tsundere in this life, so…"
A chuckle. "I hear you," the Weaponeer then affirmed…
The Hinata-sō, minutes later…
"Keitarō! We'll be out for a while, alright?!"
"Y-y-yeah, s-s-sure," a pale-faced Urashima Keitarō sputtered as he gazed warily at the three transformed elder boarders at the Hinata-sō.
Courtesan sighed. "Kei-kun, we're sorry, alright!" she then said. "We told you what happened to us when whoever blanked out Ataru-kun's mind did what they did! Please! There's no real need to be scared of us! We're all okay!"
"Give him time, Sempai," Fencer then stated. "Our past actions with Keitarō-san — despite his great heart — have marked him deeply. And given our reverting back to our normal-selves thanks to what Wyszynski-hakase did for Ataru-san, the change is SO different, he doesn't really have a choice BUT to be shocked. Give him time."
The Archaeologist nodded. "Hai. We'll be back, Keitarō."
"Y-y-yeah, s-s-sure."
With that, the three women teleported away; the Academician had sent over a portable teleporting device to the Archaeologist so they could join their friends without resorting to the sluggish — by Yizibajohei standards — metropolitan Tōkyō subway system. Watching them go, Keitarō breathed out…before he perked on hearing the voice of one of the younger boarders then ask, "Sempai, are you okay?"
A sigh. "I'm trying to be, Shinobu-chan," he confessed as he gazed on Maehara Shinobu. "Anyhow, I'll be in my room. You better go to bed soon."
She nodded. Keitarō then walked out of the living room to head into his personal quarters. Once there, he closed the door…and then touched a hidden lock he had placed there shortly after he had moved into the Hinata-sō as its new manager. That lock also activated an impenetrable force-field around his room, one that combined a physical energy defence that couldn't be breached by even Aoyama Motoko's martial arts skills or Kaolla Su's technology with a "notice-me-not" field that would make the other residents of the Hinata-sō — especially Kaolla and the California native who was the adopted daughter of Professor Seta Noriyasu, Sarah McDougal — not think of bothering their kanrinin. Which was good since he wanted some time alone to consider what just happened. "Damn! I wasn't affected by this at all! How on Earth did…?!"
"Because they gained their Gifts thanks to Ataru-kun, Onii-chan," a familiar voice then said as the shadows near his bed morphed into the body of his adopted sister and would-be wife, Urashima Kanako…also known as Shadow Walker. "When the MIBs blanked out Ataru-kun's mind to make him harmless to the Oni girl, they were affected as well."
Keitarō nodded as the shadow-teleporter walked over to gently embrace him. Placing an arm around her to draw her close, the kanrinin then said, "You got your Gift thanks to Wyszynski-hakase. You were the one who helped me get my Gift." As Kanako smiled and nodded while drinking in her adopted brother's wonderful musk, the man who was now the Unmovable One, Stone Mountain, then breathed out. "Even if I didn't realise Naru and Motoko were both Gifted themselves, I'm glad I toned down my reaction to their hits. If I stood up to them full-force, I would have seriously hurt them both."
A sigh. "Don't think about them, Onii-chan," Kanako urged. "Now that the Weaponeer is back, Narusegawa will most likely move out of the dorms to be with her. Konno won't care about where she lives; Courtesan isn't the type of settle down with anyone. And Aoyama will most likely return to Kyōto to be with her family and get her dōjō going again. Once they're gone, we can get rid of the others and return the dorms back to where they're supposed to be." Another tired sigh. "What was Obā-chan thinking?!"
"She believed my 'promise' to Naru was something that had to be honoured at all costs," Keitarō stated. "And given that she was much more in control of herself as the Archaeologist than if she remained a normal girl, Obā-chan probably believed that Naru wouldn't try to hurt me so much. Ditto with Motoko and Kitsune."
A shake of the head. "Stupid old meddler," Kanako spat out. "I certainly didn't mind being adopted into the family, but there are times I wonder if being related — even by adoption — to the family is really worth all the hassles."
"Agreed," Keitarō breathed out. He did care for his relatives, but found their always keeping secrets from him a little too aggravating at times.
That was the primary reason he never revealed his becoming Stone Mountain to any of them, much less Kanako keeping her becoming Shadow Walker from them as well. Given the way some people tended to react to a metahuman relative — especially those who had been naturally gifted by the so-called "metagene" or "X-factor" to become what were derisively called "mutants" in places like America — it was understandable. Kanako could literally slip through the Shadow Realm — a border area of the energy-filled border dimension known to all Yizibajohei mystics as the Chaos — to get from place to place virtually unseen. She couldn't command the shadows like true mystics such as Pansy Parkinson or Minamoto Chikaru — much less the most powerful of the shadow warriors and the only mystic to remain independent of the Cosmic Mage Guild, Moroboshi Ataru's second-oldest half-sister Hirosaki Chikage (known simply as Shadow) — but she could open portals to expose potential enemies to the Shadow Realm, which was quite hostile to the unprotected. And Keitarō was perhaps the most invulnerable being alive; he couldn't be hurt by any known force, much less psionically probed or affected by magic. Given that Urashima Hinata did know of some ways of making people do her bidding — she was an elder of the council that governed all practitioners of Shinmei-ryū, Motoko's family art — that she couldn't do anything to bend Keitarō to her will would really rattle the old girl.
But now…
Obā-chan is about to learn that the world is a much more dangerous place than what she experienced when she was young, he thought to himself as we…
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(Posted Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:40)
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