"Meet Eliyora"

"Hey guys?" Sprx said one morning. "The radar just picked up something in the atmosphere." The rest of the team hurried over to the scanners and saw an indistinct shape on screen, making its way towards the surface.

"Try to zoom in," Chiro said. Sprx complied, but got no result. "What in the world is that?" Chiro wondered aloud. Just then, a hailing signal was received by the Super Robot.

"Vessel to Monkey Team! I mean no harm! Repeat, I mean no harm!" came the message.

"Hmm. That voice sounds familiar," Antauri muttered.

"Well, whoever or whatever that is, they sure know who we are," Sprx remarked.

"Monkey Team to visitor. We have received your message," Chiro responded.

"Good. I don't want to get shot down for no reason," came the reply. "I will be landing shortly."

"Understood," Antauri said.

"Hm? That you Ani? Hiya!" came a suddenly enthusiastic response before the connection was cut. The team was confused by the sudden change of the visitor's tone, but Antauri just blinked.

"Ani?" he muttered, slowly starting to smile. "There's only one being in the entire cosmos that calls me Ani." Antauri immediately left the Robot, followed quickly by his increasingly confused friends. Soon, a teardrop-shaped ship landed by th Robot's feet. The hatch opened and out came...

"Another robot monkey?" Chiro exclaimed. Everyone else was equally surprised, except for Antauri.

"Nee-chan! It is you!" he said happily, a big smile on his face.

Before them stood a purple robot monkey girl with dark brown eyes, two ponytails that hung to halfway down her back, and a blue sash tied around her waist. She looked at the silver monkey bemusedly for a moment before saying, "Ani?"

Antauri nodded. "I've missed you, Nee-chan."

The monkey smiled. "Wow! You really are full-metal now!" She then tackle-hugged him, sending them both crashing to the ground. "I've missed you too, Ani! So very much!"

Gibson politely cleared his throat, drawing attention to the monkey team. The girl got off of Antauri, grinning apologetically. "Sorry. I kinda didn't see the rest of you standing there," she said. "My name's Eliyora. I'm glad to finally meet you all. Ani's told me so much about you guys in his messages."

"He has?" Chiro asked. "Funny; he's never mentioned you."

"Yeah, I asked him not to," Eliyora replied. "It's risky enough keeping in touch with Ani. I figured the less people who know about my personal contacts, the better."

"Huh? Why?" Chiro asked.

"Hey, is it alright if we talk inside?" she asked.

"Oh, right. Sure," Chiro answered. They all headed back into the Robot, where Eliyora quickly claimed the first seat that she saw.

"Nice," she said, streching. "This is so much better that my ship's cockpit. Now, any questions you guys have, fire away. Be warned, though, I might not answer them all."

Otto spoke up first. "Were you created by the Alchemist like the rest of us?"

Eliyora blinked, then said, "Meh?"

Antauri laughed. "No, she wasn't. Nee-chan wasn't 'created' at all."

Eliyora finally understood what they meant. "Oh! No, I'm not a creation. I'm just really clumsy!" she said brightly.

At Otto's confused look, Antauri elaborated, "When I was still training on Koralodol, Nee-chan had a little accident. To this day we still don't know what happened, but she somehow managed to fall down a deep ravine."

Eliyora shuddered. "A deep ravine on a crystal planet. It was a miracle that I didn't die. It was really bad. The bones in both of my arms were broken so badly that they looked like warped pipe cleaners,my spine was fractured, I had three broken ribs, one of which punctured a lung, and I had done some serious damage to my skull. A Varon Mystic that was nearby used his powers to keep me alive long enough to get me to their ER, and they implanted cybernetics using data that they had gathered by examining Ani and Mandarin. It was the only way to save me."

"That sounds like it hurt," Nova remarked.

"Actually, the damage to my spine numbed my nerves at the time, so I didn't feel anything at all," Eliyora replied.

"I'm not sure if that's better worse worse," Nova mumbled.

"Say, how'd you meet Antauri anyway?" Sprx asked, effectively changing the subject.

"On Koralodol, of course!" Eliyora quipped, smiling wider than before. "When I first went to Koralodol, Ani and Mandarin were in training there. I still remember the first time I met you guys."

Antauri nodded. "Yes, I do as well. When you greeted us, the first thing mandarin said was, 'Do you have an intelligence enhancer too?'"

"What?" Chiro asked, confused.

"It was before my accident, so I had no cybernetics, but I was still intelligent enough to surprise everyone. See, I'm from a world of intelligent monkeys. I'm not trying to insult anyone," she said quickly," but my people didn't need computers in our heads to reach this level."

"Didn't?" Gibson asked.

"Yeah. My homeworld was destroyed and there weren't many survivors. I'm just lucky that I was one of them."

"Oh! I'm so sorry," Nova said.

Eliyora smiled. "Thanks, but it's fine. it happened a long time ago." She smirked. "Besides, if it hadn't happened, I never would have found my calling in life."

"What do you mean, your calling?" Gibson asked.

"Why, my mercenary work!" she answered happily. "I'm a roaming mercenary. I do a little bit of everything, for a price. Hell, pay me enough and I'll fight your wars for you!" Her grin turned dark. "It's made me more enemies than friends, which is why I limit my personal contacts. I don't want the wrong people to find out about the people I care about. They would hesitate to use them against me."

"Sounds like you live dangerously," Chiro said, admiration clear in his voice.

"There's no better way to live," Eliyora replied. "However, even someone like me needs a break every now and again, which is why I came here in the first place. Is it okay for me to stay on Shuggazoom for a while? No one would ever look for me here. Most of my enemies don't even know this planet exists." Antauri smiled brightly at the idea, but allowed Chiro to make the decision.

"Well, I don't see why not," Chiro decided, much to Antauri and Eliyora's delight.

"Thank you Chiro!!" She sprang up and tackled Chiro in a suffocating hug. So suffocating in fact that Chiro was turning blue by the time Antauri managed to peel her off of him.

"Hey, hang on. Where's she gonna stay?" Sprx pointed out. "I mean, it's not like we have extra rooms in the Robot."

"Oh, no worries," Eliyora said. "My ship is my home. I have everything I need in there."

As she turned to leave, Antauri cleared his throat and asked, "Nee-chan, you will behave while you're on Shuggazoom, won't you?"

Eliyora looked at him for a moment, then gave a feral grin "Don't worry, Ani. I'll make it clear that I'm a merc and not a part of the Monkey Team." She then bolted before anyone could respond.

Antauri sighed. "I was afraid she would say that. Nee-chan can be so immature."

"Antauri, what does 'Nee-chan' mean anyway?" Chiro asked.

"Well, it's kind of ironic that I took to calling her that after learning some of her native language," Antauri said evasively.

"But what does it mean?" Chiro asked again.

Antauri turned a pale pink. "It means 'big sister.'"

IWANTTOEATMYFRENCHFRIES

Eliyora: Well, here's a little one-shot for all to read and enjoy. I hope you like it! Don't hesitate to tell me if you do! Do not, however, flame me.