Girl Meets Lucy
by Rob Morris
Harper stood in front of the middle-school class, an uncharacteristic disappointment in her eyes.
"This is not on me. Did I or did I not use the words 'Above Your Pay-Grade' emphatically?"
Farkle nodded a very Farkle-nod.
"You also added 'Makes Dark Knight Returns look like Super Friends'. Although it wasn't quite that far. Now, 'Devilman'..."
Harper had an actual glare for Farkle, and she didn't do glares, which made it all the worse. Even Farkle caught it, and Farkle didn't always catch glares, which made his follow-up scarier.
"...which I totally haven't read, only YouTubed the happier anime where the girlfriend didn't get her...purse stolen."
Harper looked around at the amusement, and for once, she did not share in it at all.
"So you all know what happened to Miki's...purse. Great. Will your parents be calling Mister Yancy about this, too?"
Riley was beside herself, as Riley might well be, and both of them were silent. Maya was only half again so upset, even though the thought of possibly losing Harper Lee Burgess as a teacher had shaken her perhaps more badly than her BFF.
"We certainly didn't do this to get you in trouble. My Mom understood your disclaimers..."
"You mean my explicit warnings not to read or view it?"
Maya's faux-dismissive response was just a touch off her usual mark, though you would have to know her to know this. Sadly for her, almost everyone she knew was within a hundred feet.
"Yeah, like that. Well, my Mom agreed that I probably shouldn't have read it till at least next year."
Lucas saw an opening that took them away from what they had looked at, and to him, it was distance as welcome as any city rooftop, or any open field back in Texas.
"What's so magical about next year? So you're a freshman in High School? Tobacco, alcohol-this thing. Maybe there's some things you're just built ready for-or not."
The tone in his voice had not only his would-be girlfriends concerned for him, and showing it. Lucas tried to shrug it off.
"I'm a man who likes dogs, okay?"
Zay for his part tried to act nonchalant, though parts of the series in question were like they had drilled inside his skull.
"There's stuff that gets to you. The slasher movie you stayed up for when you were just 11. The magazine under the adults' bed that was supposed to stay there-and wasn't all that great anyway. I could have waited on this one. Plus that one fire-and-sugar girl? Could she make up her mind like, ever?"
Harper shook her head.
"Not until the end of the series, though she's pretty version dependent. Like Naru from Love Hina-who I would have been delighted to have you read. I mean, what you picked up on is to dark manga what the Voltron dub is to Mecha in America-the gateway."
Riley finally spoke up, startled from her sort-of stupor.
"THAT-sorry-that was the gateway? I'd hate to see what's just past."
An inspiring if challenging student like Maya always appealed to Harper. But no teacher worth their salt disliked having a studious straight arrow like Riley. That to some extent made her all the more disappointed.
"Then why, after I said clearly 'Not For You' did you go right for it?"
Riley in her halting answer sounded more like a teen than most times in her life.
"Because-it was there?"
Happily for Harper, Riley's father, her own gateway to John Quincy Adams Junior High School, came by with news after class was done.
"Okay. Most parents have taken the attitude 'Hey, Kids and the Net-whacha gonna do?'. Some few objected, but since their kids told them you had strongly warned against it after your brief mention of the series, they were satisfied whose fault it was. One couple originally from Minnesota did object to you using The Dark Knight Returns."
Harper was ready to cry.
"Cory-not again!"
Cory Matthews, student and teacher, waved his hand in reassurance.
"They have no problems with the story - they just don't like Frank Miller."
Harper breathed a sigh of relief.
"Understandable. So has Topanga calmed down?"
Cory laughed.
"Oh-oh right. Like I'm REALLY going to ask her that. Get real. But yes, she has. I cited to her that this was proof that you are not yet a parent. If you were, you'd have known that telling a kid about something is tantamount to them going for it. It's like gulls to a lighthouse - or geeks to a longbox. You've just created a causal paradox that you yourself caused. You have truly entered - The Kid Zone!"
Harper lay her head down on her desk.
"I love that flawed little niche series, and will defend it on every list you can name. But just for this week, I wish to God that I had never heard of Elfen Lied!"
Cory looked at the students - his kids, even those that weren't by blood, milling about in the hallway, looking not quite as active as usual, as though a corner they'd peered around contained sights they weren't ready for.
"You may not be the only one."
RILEY'S ROOM
Maya's tone had regained some of its sharpness.
"So we're all going to talk about our feelings? Riley, our lives are too talky as it is."
Riley had found a bit more of her footing.
"My Mom and my Dad want this, and they talked the other parents into it. It'll just be another of his classes, but they can see if we were scarred or anything. It also gives Harper cover, in case the school suddenly pursues anything in the future."
That seemed to settle that issue for Maya, but as one might guess, she had plenty of others.
"Alright, then. But what is there really to cover? It was way harsh, and the conclusions to draw were all obvious ones. Right?"
Riley smiled, seemingly finding much more familiar ground.
"Right."
Seemingly. Maya started.
"Director Kakuzawa?"
Riley filled it in.
"Delusional Monster."
Maya.
"Professor Kakuzawa."
Riley.
"Thought he was a player, but he was just another piece."
Maya winced.
"The Unknown Man."
Riley breathed in.
"COMPLETE Monster."
Maya felt the flow, whether it was there or not.
"Doctor Arakawa?"
Riley knew what she had to say.
"Be careful what you wish for."
Maya began back to the major characters.
"Chief Kurama?"
Riley recalled a quote her folks were fond of. Just not the exact quote.
"All evil needs to thrive is for good to sit on its butt. He's lucky he had Nana."
But nothing so sharply drawn can ever keep two people on the same page forever, as Maya now learned anew.
"Nozomi?"
Riley shook her head.
"Nice, but kind of not needed. I can see why the anime cut her out."
Maya looked astounded.
"How can you even say that? She teaches them the song for which the series is named-its themes are all right in there."
Riley smiled.
"But Lilium is just so nice!"
Maya shrugged.
"It's wonderful. But Elfen Lied is based off of, ya know, Elfenlied. Nozomi brings that, plus her story is like Mayu's-something that could actually happen to real people."
Riley swallowed some words.
"Next character."
Maya went for her near-namesake.
"Mayu."
Riley thought herself safe again.
"Tough plucky kid. Smarter than a lot of the older characters."
Maya looked like she was trying to avoid looking away.
"I dunno. I thought she was a little ungrateful at times. She suspected Kouta on a dime, took digs at him, only called him and Yuka her parents in the anime. They gave her a place. They sacrificed to have her there. Two college kids gave her a better home than she ever knew, but she's out playing patty-cake with the beachfront psycho?"
Riley couldn't look away, but this was not from a lack of desire to do so.
"Look at all she had been through. Of course her trust was hard to earn. Those digs were just what an anime daughter does to a hapless Papa. She showed gratitude. As to Bando, she wanted to see who he was, beneath that rough exterior."
Riley sat back down, and nodded for the next character. Maya obliged.
"Nana."
Riley hoped for a ceasefire.
"Nice. Sweet. Needed to get smarter, and eventually did. The babies thing-well, she was just a little girl."
Maya seemed to perk up.
"Basically agreed on Nana. So Yuka?"
Riley moved forward without caution, certain the divide was done.
"Hurtful, a bit resentful and entitled, plus that cousin thing is hard to get past, even with it being legal in Japan."
Maya sighed.
"She was the mother for the whole house. She did her best in a situation where her guy's brain wasn't fully with them. She was the girlfriend who didn't murder his family. She even gave up a good college just to be near him. The hitting-well, anime girls have issues up the wazoo, and then back out again. Well, in her case, maybe just up and in. But still, no contest - plus, she had Kouta's kid."
Riley shook her head.
"Un-proven! Okay, how about Kouta?"
Maya felt obliged to not hold back, even if this had been her usual way.
"He's a platypus. He doesn't do much. Let's face it, he's the sweet damsel in distress, retconned for a new age. All he does is react."
Riley went ahead with the last and most pivotal of the names.
"Lucy is a misunderstood girl who only wanted love. That she did horrible things is not her fault. Humans kept driving her to make evil choices. But in the end, she got nothing but dumped on, even by Kouta."
Maya almost seemed to be shaking with pent-up fury.
"Lucy is a murderer, with piles of bodies and small lakes of blood at her feet. Yeah, she had it rough. That's called life. Some people were rotten to her, but some tried, and usually all it brought them was pain and death. That includes Kouta, who you seem to think should just pshaw off his family's brutal murder. I know that got to you. Every day this week, you look at Auggie and start to cry..."
Riley rose and cut her off.
"Misunderstood!"
Maya met her challenge.
"Murderer!"
As the tension rose, their overwrought minds saw the lights flicker, the windows open, and the wind blow. A figure emerged from the shadows.
"Maybe I can help settle this."
As one, the two friends said the visitor's name.
"Lucy."
In the main area of their apartment, Topanga listened to the argument inside her daughter's room, and then heard it just as suddenly cease. She turned to her husband.
"You called it. You said the issues this would raise with her would hurt more than any punishment. How did you know?"
Cory tried to avoid gloating, which was easy since victorious was not remotely how he felt.
"Since I've known you, you are the queen of order, of not screwing up, of avoiding the hole in the ground on the path. I am and have always been the king of coming back from chaos, and walking right straight in that hole. You teach her what she needs for what the world throws at her. I teach her what she needs for what she throws at herself."
She kissed her man, but also felt the need to correct him.
"That's not a universal rule by a long shot, but thanks. Still, I'm pulling those manga out of her room, first thing."
Cory shrugged.
"Online scan and translations only. Series never saw an American release."
Topanga rolled her eyes.
"So it's plagiarized on top of everything else? I should..."
Plans and crusades were cut short by the arrival of second child Auggie. The little boy started in his usual frank style.
"Is someone out to get me?"
As ever and always, his first words put his parents off their mark. Topanga grabbed him up in a hug.
"Wow, what's that? Why would you think anyone was out to get you?"
Auggie kept right on.
"Everyday this past week, before and after school, Riley picks me up and hugs me, and tries not to cry, but she usually does. Ava and Doy told me that probably means my days are numbered. So did I offend a mob boss, or the CIA?"
Topanga and Cory shared a nasty unworthy thought, of the extremely talkative Ava and Doy taking the place of the orphanage children in the series, which they had examined after the revelation. While neither had found it obscene or even truly horrid (except in bare spots), they were unanimous that Riley should not have been reading it for at least a few years. Cory offered reassurance while filtering his answer.
"Riley read a scary story she shouldn't have. In that story, someone's younger sibling really got badly hurt. It made Riley sad, so she thinks of you. Your big sister loves you, pal. She'll be back to normal soon."
Auggie seemed almost drawn in by the filtering.
"What was the scary story's name?"
Topanga showed the strength her husband had described.
"It's called a scary story that you don't need to know. Now, while your father and I transport the money from the bakery to the bank, you stay put and watch TV. We'll be back soon."
They left, and a frustrated Auggie looked around the tables and floors for his answer, yet found none. Until the phone rang.
"Hello? Hello, Harper. It's Auggie. Oh, you knew? Ok. I'll tell my Dad."
For his part, Auggie only wrote that Harper called. The specifics of the message he recorded another way - via text message.
*A and D - look up what you can about Elfen Lied*
RILEY'S ROOM
Whatever the reality of the Diclonius Queen being present, for the two feuding friends, it was quite real. Lucy sat down on Riley's bed, wearing the clothes typical to her in the manga chapters and anime episodes. With a bit of sense of ownership, she lay back on the bed. Riley nodded.
"Comfy-cozy?"
Lucy yawned, and shook her head.
"It's not a futon-and there's no Kouta."
Even if they were somehow in potential peril from Lucy's presence, Maya couldn't resist the opening.
"Or Nozomi-let's not forget that winning moment. Seriously, how are you not in jail forever-for everything?"
Lucy got up from the bed.
"I spent three years in solitary confinement - all because I wanted to save my friend Aiko-who died anyway."
Even Riley, sympathetic though she was, felt the need to call this one out.
"You were also killing and infecting people. Kurama killed your friend, though he didn't mean to. It was doing all that called attention to you."
Lucy fell back, but only just a little.
"What choice did I have? Where was I going to find a world that accepted me, if I didn't go out and make it for myself? The only hope I had of this was reducing the amount of you and increasing the amount of people born like me!"
Some readers online had called the small horns atop Lucy's head for looking like cat-ears. To a pointing Maya, however, they could not look more like those of the devil himself.
"Typical excuse. Oh, I was so the discriminated against. Oh, Kouta knew another girl. Oh, they killed my pwecious little puppy..."
Thus far, this conversation had been much like other ones held near the overlook in Riley Matthews' room. The reality of some encounters mattered less than the lessons drawn from them.
"BACK OFF!"
This all changed as Maya was physically shoved back by an unseen force. Riley caught her before she hit the floor.
"I've got you!"
This would be the only such time something like this would ever happen in the lives of these two friends, no matter what time-transited selves and fictional visitors they entertained. For all of these, Lucy of Elfen Lied would remain one of a kind. Maya was too stunned to be angry, at least for now.
"What just happened?"
Lucy was now the one pointing.
"Yes, what they did to the puppy broke my heart! But do you think that someone becomes like I did with just that? Imagine being surrounded all your life by a sea of hate, and that hate is all just for you, only because you were born. I take it back. Losing that pup didn't break my heart, it burst it. They had already made it so fragile with their whispers and the things they didn't bother whispering, for all the cruelty with the pup, it was just the trigger. The powder? Tomoo and the teachers, and all the others had packed that solid by the time I was five."
Riley saw that Maya was all right, and tried then to calm their unique visitor.
"We know you had it rough. The orphanage. Director Kakuzawa using your mother the way he did..."
But as she was wont to, Lucy turned upon her unrequested ally.
"Don't bring her up. Not when you of all people have it all. Your brother doesn't have to be put down to spare him life as a pawn or a lab experiment. Your mother is strong, educated and present-if not omnipresent. Your Dad's worst failing is trying too hard-which beats leaving you in a field by a billion or so kilometers!"
Maya knew well what it took to actually push Riley into open anger. It was hard to accomplish, and when success came, it was regretted.
"You think I don't know that? I am so aware that I have it all! That only makes me wonder all the more what I might be like if I didn't. If I had nothing to start with, or if what I have right now was just suddenly gone? Who would I be then? When I read you, when I watched you, it made me see that maybe that wouldn't be someone I would ever like."
Fury that couldn't be diverted or put off could be said to be one of Lucy's easy quick weaknesses. Maya was another story.
"You would be exactly who you are right now, just with less stuff. Maybe you'd be a little harsher, a little less sunny, but you'd find a way to be Riley. Having it rough, having it bad? That doesn't do anything by itself. I know how I carry myself, and maybe if I had to carry those horns, I'd be a little worse. So people asked me to change it up. But people give her a break for absolutely everything, and she has a lot of everything!"
Lucy stood her ground - or would have, if she were truly or fully there.
"Not much for compassion, are you?"
Maya shook her head.
"Wow, quick learner, much? But let's talk compassion. Kouta showed you compassion, so you chopped up his family when things looked bad. Nana nicely asked you nicely to come home, and how are her four artificial limbs doing? Yuka was like a sister and Mom to you, when you were helpless, and Kouta was all that kept you from placing her in a body bag. Nozomi..."
Lucy stopped her.
"That was Nyu, and it grosses me out too."
Maya looked around.
"Nyu isn't going to show up too, is she?"
Lucy looked about.
"No, I'm all you get."
Riley took her arms off her chest, and Maya kept on.
"Good. I'm not sure I'd ever let Lucas go as far as she grabs at. But let's go for the gold standard in low. You were going to kill Mayu, just because she learned your secret. Not even your whole secret, but enough to wake up Kouta's memories. You never even thought about tricking her, or anything else. Nope. Not for Pink Lucy. Just kill. A girl who'd seen almost as much as you - another girl who loved a pup?"
Riley had no counter as she joined the accusation.
"How could you?"
Lucy looked down.
"Joke of it was, Kouta found out anyway a couple of days later. You want the tragedy I couldn't help, and the stuff that was all on me? What I almost did to Mayu catches both of them in one stroke. There I am, made to be a killer and made a killer by myself. Just me. Not even the Voice. I was so used to being a monster at that point, I couldn't shut it off anymore. If I'd done it, and she'd been found, that would have woken Kouta's memories of what I did. If I'd gotten rid of her entirely-he would have missed her, and that might have woken him up. Mayu was like my little sister, and maturity-wise, like a big sister to Nyu. But I was so far in what I wanted and what I needed, I almost flushed away what I actually did have. I became so much a monster, the only way I could protect my home is by leaving it for good. Hey-I gotta go."
Maya nodded, feeling drained as though this session had been drawn from a deeper well.
"I actually do get you. I guess I'm just scared that if I give you too much of a break, I'll do the same for myself, and I just can't afford that."
Riley held out her hand, and Lucy hesitatingly took it.
"In all its ugliness, hidden and out in plain sight, take on the world, Lucy. Because if no one draws out the dark, the light just isn't as wondrous, because, what do we have to compare it against?"
Lucy half-smiled.
"I took on the world, Riley. It beat me, and then I died."
Riley shrugged.
"But you got another chance, remember? Just make it work this time."
Lucy finished her fade, looking quizzically at Riley.
"You wouldn't happen to know, Nana, would you? Maya, keep this one grounded, or she'll float off."
Maya winked in agreement as she left, and then looked exhaustedly at Riley.
"So-just when is your Dad having that talky-talk class?"
In fact, that class had gone well, with even Topanga feeling better as they came home.
"You know, so many of the kids had questions about Mayu's situation. Too many kids just like her on the streets. Makes me feel hopeful for the world to come."
Cory had deliberately left a bit more of his normal approach behind for this class, and while he felt like it worked for the serious subject matter at hand, he would be glad to get back to himself.
"For such a grimdark series, where it had good things, it had really good things. I'm going to call this a mistake with benefits. Let's just not have one again, anytime soon."
Riley had a notion.
"For my sixteenth Halloween in a couple of years-I'm going to cosplay as Nana. I'll even work on prosthetic limbs."
Topanga was about to caution on not offending the truly disabled, when a scream occurred. This was followed by Doy and Ava pushing past their elders as they left in a huff. Topanga knew that cry well.
"That was Doy's 'Don't Call Me Dewey' scream."
Cory caught another oddity.
"Yeah, and did Ava just leave without so much as a word?"
Inside, Auggie was sitting dejectedly by the computer.
"I guess I should fess up. We were going to look at the scary story. Doy had a thumb drive with it. Ava helped him get around the blocks everyone put up for it."
Before images of the devilish duo paying unspeakably could form, Auggie held up the thumb drive in question-both pieces of it.
"But someone broke the thumb drive."
Cory stared at the broken data storage device.
"This isn't just broken. It's split perfectly in two."
Topanga used a magnifying glass on the pieces.
"Yeah. Like someone took a laser to it, or something just like a laser."
As phone calls were placed to his play-pals parents and lectures were revved up for Auggie, Riley looked in the corner, and swore she saw a pink-haired devil or angel smile a quick one before returning to her world, and a destined reunion with a special friend named Kouta.
*Thanks, Lucy.*