Alien Logic

2. Earth is for the Lovers and Space is for Everything Else

So, it's official. My school is full of freaks – and since I'm friends with, like, EVERYONE that means I'm a freak by association (not that I probably wouldn't be labeled one if I was an outsider sweat drops). Anyways, so one of my friends in Youth and Government – a club for people going into politics for all those who don't know – thought it'd be a good idea to sneak pot into the capitol building… WHAT A MORON! So now he's suspended and that's all anyone knows. Apparently something else happened, but everyone who was on the trip isn't allowed to say what, even though obviously one of them slipped… no one knows anything, but obviously the teachers were the ones who found his pot or else wouldn't he be in juvy or something?!

It just amazes me how dumb people can be so, err, dumb… let this kid be your anti-drug.

Anime/manga are mine ).

Back to business – thank you's and virtual schoki go out to: MisstresoftheNight, Jeimii-chan1989, KeiiyakoMinto (awe, I liked the long review, on account of I felt the same lol), Tsukiko AlienWitch (alien girl? laughs no, it's kish and ichigo FOREVER!), MewPurin, Tuliharja (thanks – I always thought Tart would be a mini-Pai and played around with the idea… didn't turn out half bad. And berry is, like, the demon version of ichigo…), Lilyflower-314, shyro13, abuseaursome, Safaia Bara (answers: 1. Pai? Have a pairing? Him, not sure looks away whistling and 2. a la mode will NOT play a part. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist. I'm not fond of berry… sorry if you like her… I did watch a few episodes because you said her bf was cute and HE WAS! So thanks. And rants are always allowed.) pinky strawberry angel (my first reviewer for the story!! Just for that, you get extra love. And believe you me, no aliens+no ichigo it pretty much sucks by a couple of miles away lol). You guys give me the fluffy feeling that I love! I hope this chapter gives you the same.

By the way, I still don't own Tokyo Mew Mew… heh, almost forgot that…oops.

--

It had been a quiet day, much unlike what was expected by Pai.

Kish, who usually zipped around emblazoning himself in each room of the entire ship like it was his job, had been still. He had kept to himself, alternating between sitting around and having more 'Ichigo Dazings' than the normal amount and rocketing over to the window to see if he was any closer to Earth –

Any closer to her.

"What a pathetic lovelorn fool," Pai would mutter irritably to himself as Kish went about his newly adopted routine. How did he get like that? Especially over the Mew leader? It was just beyond him, and the more he thought about it the more his head pounded.

Tart wasn't much better either, much to his utter dismay. Tart was usually helping out Pai in whatever way he could, cleaning (someone had to…), cooking (someone had to do that too…), or babysitting Kish. He was the same, but he was more… what's a good way to put it…

"DOES ANYBODY HERE HAVE A CLUE WHAT PERSONAL BOUNDRIES ARE? AND IS IT SO HARD TO PUT DISHES AWAY WHEN YOU'RE DONE EATING? WHAT HAPPENED TO TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS WHEN YOU LEFT A ROOM? DOES ENERGY CONSERVATION MEAN NOTHNIG?"

… hmmm, there was no good way to put it. He was a dangerous mix between an angst-filled hormonal teenager and a mom.

Pai was fond of neither.

For some odd reason that he just couldn't grasp, it bothered him. It bothered him that his friends were so out of it that they were unlike themselves. It twisted up all the nerves he had, making it hard for him to even maintain his normal personality traits. Maybe that's why, when he passed by Kish giving the cool glass a glazed hopeful look, he stopped behind him and said something.

"I don't like it."

He heard a low rumble – something he had identified as a poorly contained chuckle – come from Kisshu. He scowled. What was so humorous to him?

"What, may I ask, is it that you don't like?"

His tone sounded amused. Was he playing with him? Had he thought that he – Pai – was entertaining? He made a mental note to never, ever state even the most elementary of thoughts he had on how his shipmates handled anxiety. Ever. But, since he already dug his hole, he mine-as-well fill it back up, too.

"I don't like how you and Taruto are acting."

"Why's that?" he laughed, still looking out the window.

Pai hovered with a scowl on his face. He hadn't expected Kish to actually ask him why he felt the way he did, just accept it.

"I do not feel the need to justify myself," he answered truthfully.

"Humor me."

"You are being immature," Pai said, trying not to snap back as bitterly as he would have liked. He needed to work on keeping his emotions in check. "I'm the only one getting anything accomplished."

A full blast laugh came from Kish as he spun in the air to give Pai a questioning smile. "From what I hear, Tart's been 'accomplishing' a lot, too. What, doing the dishes and conserving energy all by himself is no easy feat!"

Pai's eye twitched and he teleported to his lab for some solitude in the middle of Kish's roaring laughter.

Oh yeah… that would defiantly be the final time he ever showed Kisshu he had emotions.

It was better to pretend they were a thing everyone else had.

He could live just fine with that.

--

It was so close now.

They were hovering a few kilometers away from a satellite and had a perfect view of their destination.

Earth.

A hot breath seeped through his loose lips, smearing the glass with an opaque mist as his wavering eyes stared at the planet in wonder. It was a perfect orb shape, crowned with fresh green land and deep blue waters. Not even the clouds could stretch out enough to hide the perfect world from his greedy view. He wanted to take it all in, commit the beauty to memory.

Recollections of racing through emerald fields dotted with thin trees and vibrantly shaded flowers rushed through his mind. He loved his mission, but it was such a great feeling to be out in nature thinking about how right it felt sometimes. He'd sneak out just to enjoy what he wanted. What he was told he needed. What he was ordered to get.

It wasn't hard to remember why he had been so quick to anger when he first arrived in the city Tokyo.

The smog that put unwanted pressure against his lungs, the filth of the litter that clogged streets – the streets themselves that hid the rich ground crying for sunlight below. The buildings that blocked the sunlight… it was disgusting.

His people had been demoted to living underground. They had all this to themselves and this is how they choose to repay this precious planet?

Embarrassing.

He shut his eyes and relaxed. He was stereotyping an entire species based on… well, the entire species.

Though, were they really all that much better?

Hadn't his people poisoned their undergrounds?

A warmth touched his face, and realized he was smiling. A picture of Ichigo connected to his thoughts. She was smiling at him the way he saw her smile at Masaya. Laughing with her eyes squinting in joy and her cheeks flushed with delight. How could he be so jealous of an entire species when there was at least one of their kind who deserved what he thought he did?

"We can safely teleport down from here." Pai's calculating tone cut through his thoughts.

He arched a perfectly sculpted brow. "We? I thought you were 'dropping us off on your way to the next galaxy?'"

"I figured I could focus on research I never got a chance to look into before," he said. Kish dismissed any other motives he had; he was just happy Pai would be there too. "But it will be straining to teleport down. There's a twenty percent chance we won't make it down where we want and we'll be just outside the stratosphere. This doubles with each time we do it within approximately a day due to our distance. It might be a good idea to just get what we need and set up some sort of base down there during the duration of our stay… which will not be long, mind you."

He snorted. "Whatever you say, Pai."

Pai liked the sound of that, even though Kish said it sarcastically. Last time they were here, Kish was the leader of their team. Now, he was. That was a nice change, he thought.

"Go get Taruto," he ordered briskly. "We need to make sure we have all necessities first since we aren't making second trips."

"Don't you need someone to go down and scout for a safe place?" Kish asked, suddenly aware that he will have some free time to himself. "Find somewhere we can go down to and take our stuff to?"

He tilted his head slightly. "Yes, Kisshu, I do. That's why I need you to get Taruto. I'm going to have him do it."

Kish's eyes got wide and he teleported over to glare at Pai, who was leaning over his work with no care for Kish's anger. "Are you crazy? Why the hell would you do that?"

"He keeps missions in mind and stays focus, carrying them out until they are complete," Pai answered. "Though he may be somewhat distracted by his impulses to go and find Mew Purin, he will do all he can to do what he needs to get down first, rather than you."

"Rather than me?"

"Yes," he said. "That's right. You seem to enjoy getting distracted. Every job I ever gave you hasn't been done until the last minute if at all."

"So? Those were boring jobs like 'guard the algae no one cares about with your life,'" he complained, recalling a recent even on a swampy planet where Pai abused his powers.

Pai rolled his eyes. "Wasn't that the same algae that you bumped into then proceeded to step on?" Kish whistled. "Besides, Mew Ichigo could very well be wondering around and I think if you had to choose between helping Taruto and myself and wooing her… well, you know what you would pick."

--

"Kish?"

"Yeah?"

"How'd… you… know…"

"Know what?"

"Don't interrupt me!... Now, I wanted to ask you. How'd you know when… when you… ya know…"

"No, I don't."

"Lemme finish! Now, how'd you kn-"

"Know what?"

"ARGH! ...You know what? Forget it! It wasn't important!"

Kish arched a brow at Tart, who walked ahead of him in a huff. "What was THAT about?" he asked himself.

"Tart, are you angry? You know, if you can't concentrate on teleporting to Earth I can always take your place."

Tart snickered. "Psh, as if I'd give up the opportunity to prove to Pai I'm not a screw up like you." Kish resisted the urge to smack his head. "He trusts me to zip back an' forth three times with the odds against me? Sounds like fun."

Kish lost this battle, and he wasn't too happy about it. Pai and the runt (who wasn't so much of a runt now, but it's too late to change his nickname) were both against him.

When they came into Pai's lab, he stood up to full height with his infamous face void of emotion, holding onto something his long fingers were carefully hiding. "Taruto, I suppose Kisshu has filled you in on what you have to do?"

"Yeah," he said, smirking at Kish's glower. "I just hafta to find a place in Tokyo for us, come back, and take you guys back there so you can go down with all your stuff to avoid suspicion from the human."

"You are also aware of your percentage of error?"

"Five to ten to twenty," Tart chirped merrily, pleased at the rising numbers – meaning the more danger – meaning excitement – meaning he gets to live up a bit.

Kish muttered something bitterly, but no one heard it.

If Pai showed his feelings through his facial expressions, he would be smiling at Tart's excitement and perhaps even look a bit concerned at the fact he was so eager to challenge logic. But since he had issues with that, he looked utterly indifferent. "Good. If you concentrate enough on a quiet place, maybe a park you could get away from detection. To my chagrin, creating uproars is not something we are to be doing this time around."

"Pity," Kish mumbled, more to the voices in his head then anyone else.

"Time is on your side as well," Pai continued, ignoring Kish's statement and Tart's muffled laughs at it. "It's nearing eleven, it's a new moon, there's no holiday celebrations, and it's colder out so park activity – if it was a worry – is even less so."

Pai gave Tart a penetrating look. Tart realized he wasn't so much looking at him but rather numbers. His calculating stare wasn't directed on him until a full minute after he was done speaking.

"Sounds easy enough." Tart shrugged nonchalantly. He tapped his head briskly with his knuckles, saying, "I already got a good picture of the park in my head."

Kish slammed his own knuckles into Tart's head. The young alien stifled a yelp and whipped around to stare down Kish. "What the hell was THAT for?"

He yawned, "Oh, well I didn't like that picture."

"You couldn't see what I was thinking!"

"Oh to the contrary I can."

"Shut up! You're just jealous Pai trusts me more!"

"And you're just jealous Pai wants to spend some alone time with me rather than you."

"Ewe, that's going to stop there," Pai interjected, not pleased with the turn Kish was trying to force into the argument. Were did he go wrong? "Now, Taruto, before you leave, I have something for you."

Pai held his palm out to Tart. Kish leaned over to see a small, circular silver plate in it. Pai pushed a button and a blank screen popped. The screen was blank until Pai got out a clone of the device and made it pop open in front of his face. Now Tart's screen showed Pai and Pai's screen showed Tart and the tip of Kish's head.

"This is to communicate. Great reception and I plan on leaving this open for the duration of your time down there. If you run into any trouble or get stuck in the stratosphere, open yours and I'll be aware of your location and we can speak. It has to be open, though."

Kish whistled. "Looks nice, Pai – you sure you can trust the runt with this?"

Tart angrily ripped the device out of Pai's hands and stuffed it into a pocket he had in his pants. "I'm going down now, then. By the way, Pai said he likes spending time with me more last week! So hah."

He teleported.

Kish's jealousy from not being able to have Tart's job vanished and was replaced by genuine hurt. He gave Pai a panged expression and gasped. "Did you really?"

Pai shrugged. "I leave my statements open for interpretation to avoid being dragged into conflicts. Like this one, for instance."

Kish narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Let's just say I was there then and I interpreted it as you saying you like me more…"

Pai sighed; he gets rid of one of them and yet their argument continues… he just can't win.

An ache scraped his muscles. That was the most strenuous teleporting he'd attempted for a while. He even struggled to stand and his vision felt blurred. He groped around for something to lean on and found a tree. Relief swept through him as he pressed his sore back up against the cool bark and rested his eyes on his puffs of breath, fighting against the chill of the air.

He slowly smiled.

This was AWESOME.

What a rush!

He had only even felt that pressure a few times before, and never that consuming.

The ache was everywhere, but it made him feel alive – like he actually DID something.

Tart's breath slowly steadied itself.

After a minute his senses were all back on line and the only sting he had left was in his memory. He stood up to his full height and walked out beside a bench. He was pleased with the spot he picked to come to. Nothing had changed at all. It was almost as if –

"TAR-TAR!"

- he never left.

--

I hope this was a good follow up for you guys. Please review, burn, comment, whatever it is you crazy people do these days! Meanwhile, I'll try to fight off the evils of homework projects, insane AP classes, clubs and after school activities galore, babysitting psycho friends (rather vice versa…) and SATs long enough to update a long, well written chapter that inspires you to go save orphans from burning buildings and give them away to parents who want them and have good incomes with a dog named Skip that wins gold medals at dog shows and they live next door to their soul mate!

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… Yeah, I need to go catch up on sleep first…………