Out of This World – Bad Timing
"Girls be aware that we just picked up another energy signature coming towards you so be even more careful as we have no idea if you're walking into an ambush or not," Ryou said.
"Copy Ryou," Ichigo said through her little Masha pet that acted as the Mew Mew's transmission device.
Ryou muted his end and looked over at Keiichiro asking, "Any idea what it is that just came out?"
"It registers as a pure human being that much I'm certain of, but his readings are just as off the chart as the spectral energy we picked up earlier. If I had to calculate I'd say that whatever it is rivals or beats the spectral energy," Keiichiro replied still pushing buttons on his computer.
"How far away is it from the girls?"
"Based upon calculations from how fast it's moving. I'm going to guess about 25 seconds behind and closing."
Ryou took a deep breath and unmated his transmitter and spoke to the team again, "Ichigo, the other energy source is closing on you and will be within striking distance in about 25 seconds so make sure you're all ready in case it's a full on ambush."
"Do you have any idea what it is?" Ichigo asked.
"It…appears to be a human being," Ryou seemed hesitant to reply to her.
"A human?! Is it someone from the Saint Rose Crusaders?!" Berry asked.
"If it was someone from the Crusaders he would have been their leader by a long shot. This human is like nothing we've ever seen here on Earth before. It makes me wonder if it actually even IS human. Maybe he's able to trick sensors into thinking its human or something. Until you can get visual verification make sure you're well aware that it could be anything and it's closing in fast," Ryou communicated.
"Ichigo look!!" Mint pointed out up ahead. It appeared the ghost had already eaten, or tried to eat some people as they appeared disfigured and horrifically changed like mutated humans. The sight alone made Ichigo's stomach churn in knots at such a grotesque sight.
The people were on the ground moaning in pain writhing in agony and up in the air holding a human by the throat there was the ghost appearing to eat or whatever it was trying to do. "Bah…you're no good," the ghost complained leaving the human as a disfigured mess of what he used to be and tossed him to the ground like a rag doll.
Ichigo doing her best to be courageous pointed at the ghost and yelled out, "Hey, what are you doing here hurting people! Explain yourself!"
The ghost looked down and he took on his human form slowly landing on the ground a light of excitement in his eyes. "What…is this feeling I'm getting! It's like…all sorts of unique DNA infused into your bodies?! Oh I MUST take that!!" The ghost opened his mouth wider and wider and lunged at the girls suddenly. Thanks to their enhanced reflexes due to the DNA infused within their bodies they were able to successfully dodge out of the way without taking so much as a scratch.
Ichigo grit her teeth and said, "Ok Mew Mews let's do this! Mew Mew Strawberry!!"
"Mew Mew Berry!!"
"Mew Mew
Mint!!"
"Mew Mew Lettuce!!"
"Mew Mew Pudding!!"
"Mew Mew Zakuro!!"
All 6 of the girls screamed in unison, "METAMORPHASIS!!"
Nothing happened at all. There was neither a flashy transformation nor any change into battle attire. All of the girls stood there unsure of what was going on. "Try again everyone!!" Ichigo yelled out.
Once again all 6 of the girls yelled out their transformations and once again there was no change at all. The ghost by this time was enjoying watching this whole spectacle unfold in front of him and he laughed, "It's been a while since food was as playful as you girls! Usually they all struggle and beg for their lives! How bland they taste!"
"How disgusting can you BE?! Eating human beings?!" Berry yelled at the ghost as if by instinct forgetting she wasn't a Mew Mew at the moment.
"So that's what you call everyone on this planet? Human beings? I wonder if that was what I ate earlier. They had INCREDIBLE amounts of DNA and even spiritual energy!! I had to store most of it in my cheek folds when I decided to have a midnight snack! You girls will make a fine addition to the food storage as you have DNA richer than just about anything I've ever seen!" The ghost opened his mouth again and charged quite a bit faster this time right towards the shocked girls.
"Masaya!!! Help me!!!" Ichigo thought as she could feel the ghost's breath coming closer and closer when from a distance away a shot of pure energy collided with the ghost sending it flying in the opposite direction. The girls looked over and noticed a navy armour clad individual holding an arm cannon out in a fixed position as if it had just fired. "W-What?!" Ichigo said stuttering.
"Don't just stand there get the hell out of here damn it!" the warrior yelled at them.
The ghost shook what appeared to be his head and looked over at the Navy clad individual and screamed, "How the hell did you find me?!"
The warrior laughed and responded, "Oh you mean your little parlor trick of escaping to another dimension? Please, I mastered that trick YEARS ago. Make no mistake about this however you specter whatever the flip you are. I have no intention of allowing you to harm ANYONE else, and I ALSO plan on getting back ALL of the DNA you stole from these people AS WELL as the ones you took while you were in MY dimension.
The conversation went over the entire Mew Mew groups' heads and they had no idea what he was even talking about. "Ichigo!! ICHIGO!!" Ryou could be heard communicating through the Masha unit, "Respond!! What's going on out there?! Why haven't you transformed?!"
The ghost chuckled as he appeared to breath out some kind of spiraling energy wave taking advantage of the sudden communication, and the spiraling energy wave began to take shape in the form of a giant crystalline lizard. "Have fun playing with him everyone. If you'll excuse me I've got more important things to find!" the ghost laughed and disappeared quickly.
"Damnit!" the warrior yelled as he dashed forward quickly realizing what it was the ghost had just released and quickly pulled out what appeared to be a beam saber quickly blocking a sudden downward thrust by the fully materialized crystal lizard. The warrior struggled as the mighty blade of the lizard pushed down lower and lower upon him as he struggled to protect the group of girls who were directly beneath its wide edge. "What are you still doing here?!" He screamed, "GET OUT OF HERE!!"
"But, what about you?!" Ichigo asked.
"I'll be fine!! I can't do a whole lot though if I have to protect you girls this close to the battle! Get to a safe distance and I'll take care of this!" He grunted as the blade pushed down closer and closer, and his grunts became louder and louder.
"Ichigo! Listen to him and fall back!" Mint suggested bluntly. "If he intended to hurt us I think he'd have already done something."
"What's going on out there?!" Ryou again asked his team frantic this time.
Ichigo nodded and led her team a distance away from the battle ensuing and the warrior chuckled. "Aright Zargonian, you wanna fight?! Well I'll give you one!!" the warrior's saber pushed the blade backward and the blunt side hit the lizard square in the forehead stunning him. The warrior jumped back and aimed his arm cannon at the stunned monster and screamed, "Moonlight, BLAST!!" A highly focused beam of pure energy fired and destroyed the crystallized lizard with one mighty ka-boom. The crystallized remains twinkled along the sun and glittered down like snowflakes on a sunny day. "Damn…I won't know where he's gone with Windstrom scanning the databases," Aaron realized as he finally had a moment to relax. Before he could react again he was surrounded by the same girls who had earlier retreated to a safe distance.
"Who are you?" Ichigo demanded to know.
"Well this is great…" Aaron thought, "I go from being a good guy to a bad guy."
"Tell us or prepare for a beating!" Berry backed up Ichigo.
Aaron powered down and changed back into his non armoured form and said, "I need to speak with your leader Ryou Shirogane."
"What?"
"I'll…explain what's going on when you take me too him. It's a matter I think he as well as all of you would like to hear about."
"What about the people that are here?!" Lettuce worried about them.
"They'll be ok. Though I have no idea how long they'll look like that or if the effects are reversible or not."
"So they'll just stay there and suffer!?"
"Look…I have no idea what we're dealing with here, and the longer we stay here and talk the less time we have to find out anything about anything. I can't talk about it out here. The ambulances should be here soon to take care of these people."
"He's right," Zakuro's cold but honest words resounded.
"So let's meet Ryou…"
"You said you were looking for me?" a voice was heard off in the distance.
"Ryou!" Lettuce seemed surprised to see him.
"You didn't answer the transmission and all I heard was static after that so…I had to make sure you were all ok," Ryou's smooth voice replied.
"So you're Ryou Shirogane," Aaron studied this gentleman up and down slowly.
"And you are?" Ryou replied back studying down Aaron.
"Aaron, Aaron Tsukino."
"You don't look Japanese at all," Ryou referred to his blue eyes and blond hair.
"You're right, I'm not Japanese."
Ryou looked him over once more and finished, "Let's take him back to the base Mew Mews. We can't stay here when there are ambulances on the way.
The group of girls agreed and 'escorted' Aaron back toward their base of operations. Café Mew Mew. As they walked back Berry said in a somewhat sheepish tone, "Um, I wanted to…thank you for saving us back there."
Ichigo agreed, "Yeah, thank you for the help."
"You were like super ultra powerful blasting that ghost!" Pudding chirped in.
"You're welcome," Aaron nodded not really smiling or scowling, "I'm just glad you girls didn't get hurt." Aaron continued to think, "These girls are only in High School, they've got their whole lives ahead of them…I can't let them end up like…" he quickly moved on from that thought and replaced it with thoughts of, "I'm a winner; you can do it Aaron; You're gonna make friends with these girls." The expression on his face relaxed slightly as he no longer felt so uptight or anxious and he let out a relaxed and deep breath."
Ryou stopped and asked, "Something up?"
Aaron shook his head, "No, just switching the mental channel in my mind."
"I see," Ryou found it somewhat difficult to understand hearing an expression like that. It had been about 25 minutes since they had left the scene of the battle and were now standing in front of a very vibrant looking dome topped café.
"Café Mew Mew," Aaron thought knowing exactly what this place was.
He studied the cutesy design for a few moments before Ryou said, "This way please." The doors opened up and out popped Tasuku who instantly hugged Berry.
"TASUKU!!" Berry freaked out her face turning red.
"Thank God you're ok! I feared for the worst when Ryou rushed out without saying anything!" Tasuku replied glee in his voice at seeing Berry.
"Aww the love-birds are together again!" Pudding said in her cute tone.
"P-P-Pudding!!" Berry blushed even harder.
"Awww she's embarrassed!!"
"Pudding please," Lettuce patted her head, "let's try to stay focused for the moment."
Pudding nodded in her cute monkey like manner. "Man all of a sudden I could use something to drink," Aaron quickly changed the subject.
A gentleman who appeared quite a bit taller than everyone else bowed and responded, "Would you like some tea sir?"
"Keiichiro," Ryou turned around.
"Errr, sure, thank you," Aaron said.
"Please have a seat while you wait and excuse the mess," Keiichiro smiled as he moved back toward the kitchen area. Aaron moved over and relaxed in the chair putting his feet up on the table totally relaxing.
Ryou sat down across from him and asked, "So what is so important that you needed to speak with me directly?" The rest of the girls sat down as well. Ichigo sat down next to her boyfriend and laid her head on his shoulder as did Berry on Tasuku.
Aaron looked at Ryou and then out at everyone else and then back at Ryou and said very bluntly, "Why can't everyone here transform into Mew Mews?"
Everyone looked surprised and Ichigo stuttered out, "W-w-what are you talking about?"
"I saw how none of you could transform into Mew Mews." Aaron pointed to Ichigo, "Mew Mew Ichigo." He pointed to Berry, "Mew Mew Berry." To Mint, "Mew Mew Mint."
"I'm Mew Mew Pudding!" Pudding blurted out randomly.
Aaron couldn't help but chuckle a little at her constant enthusiastic tone, "Yes you are Mew Mew Pudding." Aaron pointed to Lettuce, "Mew Mew Lettuce." Finally he pointed to Zakuro and finished, "Mew Mew Zakuro."
"How do you know about everyone?" Masaya quickly but quietly stated.
"And you would be Masaya. Or…many years ago you were Deep Blue."
Masaya stared at him his eyes slanting more with anger and he again re-iterated firmer this time, "How do you know about everyone?"
Aaron looked over at Ryou completely ignoring Masaya's question, "if I am correct and this is based off what I've heard you say…even though I've never heard it said by you directly, you said that when the Earth was in danger the DNA would activate in their bodies and they'd be able to change into Mew Mews."
"That's correct, but the DNA has been inactive for so long that it might take a few tries for it to reactivate, and even then without constant use they won't be able to keep form for very long."
"So in other words because it's been so long since they've used that DNA that it's like an engine that needs time to kick start and warm up."
"In a sense I guess you could think of it that way."
"That…would explain a lot," Ichigo said.
"Ichigo?" Berry looked at her.
"My cat ears don't pop out anymore, in fact I don't remember anytime in the last year I've seen them come out at all."
"When I first touched down I was unable to scan any active Mew Mew data within their bodies, and while I can see that them not being used in a long time could do that, the DNA in their bodies should still be active to the point where they are active upon scans. They'd be weak from non-use but not completely inactive."
"I apologize for the long time it's taken for your tea," Keiichiro brought the cup of tea out, as well as a cup for everyone else in the room unexpectedly.
"Thank you, sir," Aaron responded kindly.
Ryou appeared to be in deep thought as if pondering everything that had been explained and looked at Aaron once more asking, "Do you have the scan data of when you touched down and would you be willing to share that data with us?"
"I would, however…my Windstrom central computer system is currently running a multi-dimensional database scan and considering it will take several hours for him to finish that up I'll have no way of accessing nor giving you any information properly."
"Multi-dimensional database scan?" Ryou seemed intrigued.
"It's a little complicated to explain, but once I get the word that Windstrom has completely his scan I'll give you all the data I've picked up."
Aaron took a sip of his tea and jumped a little surprised. Keiichiro looked over and asked him, "is it too hot for your liking?"
"N-no! It's just I haven't had tea this good in…years…"
"Keiichiro makes the best tea in all of Japan," Mint said sipping on it, "Don't you agree Zakuro-onee-sama?!"
Zakuro simply gave a slight nod not really giving any verbal response. "Pudding can do tricks while you drink your tea Aaron-chan!" Pudding started doing all sorts of fancy tricks.
Aaron looked over at Ryou and whispered to him, "I think it would be wise to scan them all once again and see if something happened to their DNA. Just to be safe if they're going to be fighting I know you can't take any chances right now."
Ryou sighed and agreed, "At this point after what you've just explained I would agree that it would not be a good thing to send the girls in if they no longer have the ability to transform into Mew Mews."
Aaron nodded, "One other thing, I'm not going to be able to do any long range scans if that ghost shows up again so it's going to be very difficult to find where it's at if he comes back. Do you have the ability to track him at all?"
Keiichiro nodded and responded, "Ryou is a very intelligent young man who has helped lead many advancements in tracking and his current technology has allowed us the ability to track energies of that nature. Aaron looked back over at all the girls who were still watching Pudding perform her various tricks; Mint hung off Zakuro talking her ear off; Lettuce starting to clean the place up and the love bird couples cuddled up next to each other; and pointed over to them very confused with Keiichiro chuckling and responding, "this is very normal."
Ryou looked at Aaron's shoulder and noticed that there was a dark crimson spot that was somewhat large. "Aaron, are you bleeding?" Ryou motioned to his shoulder.
Aaron looked his right shoulder and just blinked, "Must be where he got me the first time."
"You should get that cleaned up!" Lettuce said frantically as she continued to clean the messy café.
"I'll be fine; I'll just bandage it when I get home later."
"It looks rather large are you sure you don't want us to take care of it?" Keiichiro offered to help.
Aaron thought about it for a second and responded, "You're right, I should get it taken care of now I guess."
Keiichiro smiled and pointed to the stairs going toward the second floor advising, "Right this way please sir." Keiichiro quickly glanced at Ryou who nodded.
Once Aaron and Keiichiro had gone upstairs Ryou looked over at everyone else and spoke up, "Mew Mews, we need you all to head downstairs to the base, I'm going to be running some scans on your Red Data DNA to see what's going on."
"What if we can't transform anymore?" Berry asked concerned.
"If we can't transform anymore, then the only person who is going to be able to stop that ghost is Aaron," Zakuro spoke for once.
"Until we know for certain that you can't transform you shouldn't worry about it. Now if you'll please follow me downstairs we'll begin.
Upstairs…
"So Aaron," Keiichiro smiled pouring some alcohol onto the cut on Aaron's shoulder, "How old are you anyways?"
"I'm quite a bit older than everyone else downstairs."
"I see, so you must be about my age then. You see I'm 26."
"Well since you told me your age, I'm 24."
Keiichiro poured a little more alcohol on the wound and dabbed it with a cotton swab to clean up the blood. He took the swab and placed it into a Petri Dish on the counter and sealed it up before moving back over to his patient. "I notice you have a lot of scars on your body. How long have you been doing this kind of work?"
Aaron shook his head, "For a long time we'll say."
"So what do you do where you're from?"
"I'm a self made multi-millionaire."
Keiichiro stopped for a second and chuckled, "Sounds like you and Ryou might know each other. Ryou comes from a wealth family in the United States."
"Yeah, I do know him, but I know he'll never have heard of me. Not to sound like I'm unimportant or anything but if he did know of me I'm sure he would have said something by now."
"Ryou is not always as open as you might think. Maybe you don't know him like you figure."
Aaron chuckled as Keiichiro started to wrap bandages around the dressing he had placed on the wound. "You're right. I do hardly know him that well so I apologize for my preconceived notion about him."
Keiichiro smiled and replied, "Its fine, and thank you for such a fine conversation. You should be ok now." Aaron moved his shoulder getting used to the bandages on his shoulder and slipped his white dress button up shirt on as he was still wearing the dress suit from the board plan and then slipped the dark blazer jacket over. "If you would like I could wash those garments for you as the blood might ruin such good clothing.
Aaron was hesitant to do so and shook his head, "Don't worry, I'll have it dry cleaned before the blood sets in for too long."
"Would you like to wear something more comfortable right now? I'm sure Ryou has something that would fit you. Or perhaps I might?"
Aaron again shook his head, "Thank you for your generosity but no thank you I should be ok. Besides…I'll be heading home to change soon anyways."
"And where might that be?" Keiichiro smiled brightly.
"I'll explain later."
Keiichiro nodded and bowed, "I see."
Aaron slipped off the medical table and walked back downstairs to the main floor followed behind my Keiichiro. "Kei," Aaron decided to call his name short, "I apologize for my secrecy in all of this right now, as I said I will explain it all shortly so please don't think I'm some kinda closed hearted human being."
Keiichiro chuckled and replied, "You and Ryou can be so much alike sometimes, but do not worry, I fully understand your position and if I were in your shoes I'm sure I would react the same way to everything going on."
Aaron felt a relief and responded, "Thank you."
"Not a problem. I'm sure Ryou would like you to meet him in the basement so if you would just follow those steps over there I'm sure you'll find him."
"What about you?"
"Oh I should continue cleaning this place up. It might be our base but it still is a very popular café after all and business is still needed don't you agree?"
Aaron chuckled, "I get ya." Aaron moved toward the stairs through the kitchen mentioned by Keiichiro and down into what appeared to be a dark base of operations. "Not a bad setup could use some pillows for a more homely feel," Aaron joked as he descended down. When he reached the bottom Ryou was pushing buttons and running all kinds of scans it appeared. "So what's going on?"
"I'm checking Berry out," Ryou responded.
"How long until the scan is complete?" Aaron asked.
"A couple of minutes."
Aaron took a deep breath and relaxed, "well if that's the case then I wanted to apologize if I seemed harsh to you all earlier; especially you Masaya."
Masaya seemed a little surprised and responded, "Its ok."
"I don't want you all thinking I'm some kind of hard-ass who won't explain anything, but understand I will explain and answer your questions in a little bit of time. Even yours Masaya so please just bear with me for a little bit."
Masaya was uneasy by his response but agreed, "All right."
"How were your injuries? Not bad I hope!" Lettuce asked.
"Oh you mean the cut? It was nothing, no wonder I didn't feel it bleeding," Aaron sheepish chuckled, "And I've been injured worse many times so it doesn't hurt at all."
"I've been meaning to ask you Aaron, why are you wearing a suit?" Mint asked.
"Uhhhh, how do I put this?" Aaron said thinking about how to respond. "I didn't get time to change after a business meeting and as such, I ended up still having this on after de-transforming from my armour."
"So you're a businessman?"
"Indeed, I'm a self made multi-millionaire."
Everyone seemed surprised and Ichigo responded, "Incredible!! You're just like Ryou aren't you!?"
Aaron shook his head, "Uhhh…I doubt it. I mean we might both be wealthy, but our wealth comes from different fields I'm sure."
Ichigo chuckled and responded, "I mean you're both very young and very rich."
"Well what about Mint? She's quite wealthy as well."
"I see someone knows a good thing when he sees it," Mint puffed up her sarcastically rich ego.
"Well who else can afford an outfit like that? That thing alone must have cost over 35,000 yen (about 350 dollars if I'm not mistaken). Not to mention the shoes are at least 25,000 yen. I mean you have to be pretty well off to pick something like that up."
"The scan's complete," Ryou said turned the attention back to Berry who was exciting the modified CAT scan chamber.
"So what have we got?" Aaron asked as Tasuku helped Berry out of the tube.
"From what I can see there appears to be some kind of…substance that's blocking the Red Data DNA from activating and it appears to have cocooned itself around only the Red Data DNA. Aside from that everything else appears normal."
"Which means…"
"Which means that until I can find out what that substance is and how we can get it off the DNA strands, there's no way you'll be able to become Mew Mew's again."
Everyone gasped and Pudding cried, "B-b-b-but what about that evil ghost?!"
"Talk about bad timing…"Aaron thought.