Thanks for the review, Scanty-Kneesocks, and I'm...glad you appreciated the Saburoabuse ;) I might throw in a mix of pairings, most definitely DoroXkoyu, perhaps giroXnatsu, maaaayyybe fuyuXsabu (*is shot...with hail stones), but don't expect any declarations of undying love. Just a li'l bit of fluff here and there.

So sorry for the wait. You know...life.

Warning: this is a bloody long chapter, and unfortunately mostly filler, so if you skim-read, you won't miss much.

Chapter two: A dream of three lions

The trio of beasts slowly, arrogantly circled the pyramid. They knew, knew, that their food and sport were just moments away. No one moved, probably no one could move. Except Koyuki. She held her own against the monsters, fighting and beating and slashing their faces with her knives like the beasts slashed at hers with their claws. Dororo tried to move his legs, he tried to move anything, he needed to move something. He needed to rush to his friend's side, needed to fight with her, needed to save her. But he couldn't- just couldn't. Fear, fear, cursed fear had petrified him to the spot on which he stood, as it had done with everyone else- except the brave Koyuki.

And then she fell, the fight lost, and the three beats ate to their fill and Dororo still couldn't move.

"NO!"

"Dororo?" Koyuki was right next to her frantic friend, hand on his shoulder. Dororo had bolted upright, breathing heavily and raggedly, the fragments of the nightmare still clinging to his shaking eyes. Everyone else had been woken by his scream from their few hours of rest they managed to snatch after the hail storm passed. "Are you alright, Dororo?"

The blue ninja wiped the sweat from his clammy forehead with the back of his clammier hand "Just...just a...a terrible dream..." He finally was able to say.

"Well, I was having a rather nice dream." Keroro grumbled "Thank you so much for ending it..."

"Sergeant..." Fuyuki dismayed. He sat up and rolled his neck, stretching the aching muscles. Napping inside a metal statue wasn't exactly comfortable.

Koyuki patted Dororo's shoulder kindly "It's alright now, Dororo. The dream's over and you're awake now." She smiled reassuringly.

He didn't look back at her. He might've been awake, but the horrendous memorises were still fresh in his mind, and every glimpse of anything, anyone around him, rekindled those memorises. Trying to do something to focus his mind on something else, he tugged lightly at his mask. It clung to his face uncomfortably, still sodden from the rain shower hours ago. "Did we sleep in soaking clothes?" He enquired, loudly enough for everyone in the head to hear even if they were half asleep.

With that, everyone shifted, testing and feeling their closes to see if they were still soaked. Which everyone's were. "Great," Natsumi sighed irritatedly, "the last thing we need is to all get colds and fevers."

"Maybe if we build a fire, we could dry off?" Fuyuki suggested, pulling his jumper sleeve and wringing it out.

"I didn't see anything we could use," Giroro replied, "no trees or plants...I didn't even see anything we could use for food."

That hit everyone hard. Being a little damp and chilly was one thing; slowly starving was something entirely more agonizing.

"I'll go out and look for some." Koyuki suggested with a smile. Dororo watched his friend stand and walk to the edge. A heavy, hard lump trapped any words halfway up his throat. Mercifully, Natsumi called out to her "Don't go too far, Koyuki-chan. Just around the pyramid." so Dororo didn't have to force himself to. But watching her disappear out of the head still wrenched his gut. "Move...Move..." Finally, finally, Dororo moved.

"I...I shall come with you, Koyuki-dono!" He ran out of the head to meet her, not even a metre away from the gouge. She smiled sweetly at him, as usually did, and pointed up to the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

"We should scout the area first. Just a quick look around the immediate area."

"A good idea, Koyuki-dono." And with that, the two ninjas leapt from the stone steps of the pyramid into a running landing on the green metal of the statue that protruded from it, with near inhuman speed. Quickly, they reached the hand, and propelled themselves into the near black sky, Koyuki landed neatly on her tip-toes to the highest lick of golden flame of the torch, and Dororo landed neatly, lightly on her shoulder. With the adrenaline sliding fluidly through his veins and the breeze on his face as he flew through the air, the nightmare was momentarily cleansed from his mind, and as he landed gently on his companions shoulder, he felt as though he could still be on Pekopon. And staring out into the barren land...it wasn't that bad. It had its own beauty, as everything did, no matter how buried under ugly scars of a blood red ground and bruises of a blackened sky.

"We can gather up some hail stones and melt them for water." Koyuki said, pointing to the blood red ground peppered by little white orbs.

"Hmm..." was Dororo's mere answer. He pressed his palms together and twined his fingers into the correct symbol for his Assassin Magic. The land before him bended and warped towards his eyes, or at least, that was how it looked. The casting of 'All-Seeing-Eye' altered his sight as though his eyeballs were the lenses of a pair of binoculars.

And in the distance, in the very distant distance, even when being viewed with the 'All-Seeing-Eye', was a speck. Well, a little more than a speck. But Dororo could see it, and then he intensified the energy being poured from his soul in the magic, seeing the thing that was a little more than a speck a little closer.

It was a tree. Two trees, actually. Similar to the ones on Pekopon, but too different to even be classed as the same; the trunks were long and thin, like crooked fingers with milky white bark. Instead of leaves, they had dangerously pointed black needles spiking from the base to the tip of the trunk and along the sparse branches. And on the sparse branches were sizeable, balloon shaped, pink things...Fruit. Food.

Dororo immediately jumped down the Statue of Liberty and hot-footed it to the rest of the group, closely, loyally followed by Koyuki. "There is an oasis...of sorts." He announced. It took an amusingly short moment for everyone's eyes to grow as large as a Keronian's.

"Seriously?" Keroro squealed happily "Does it have food? Water?"

"I did not see any, but the trees do bear fruit." Dororo answered "Hopefully, it's edible..."

"How far away is it?" Giroro asked, standing up.

Dororo thought for a moment. Everyone was exhausted from the previous walk and the hail storm, Saburo was even injured, so a trip like this... "Very far." He answered.

"We still have to go," Fuyuki said , "I mean, it's something. We can't just starve because it's too far to walk."

"But what about Saburo-senpai?" Natsumi asked. She hadn't left the wounded boy's side since she'd dragged his lifeless, bloodied body out of the near-fatal storm. "He's still too weak to walk."

"Nah, I'm fine." Saburo smiled coolly, getting to his feet with great effort. Then he fell back down. "O-or not..." He mumbled sheepishly, holding his sore head in his hands.

"Saburo-san, you should definitely stay here," Koyuki said, with unusual authority, "and maybe you, Fuyuki-san and Keroro-san, could stay here with him?" She knew perfectly well that the trek to and from the small oasis would be much too far for both of them. And someone would need to stay with Saburo.

"What if something happens?" Giroro huffed "These too can't do much if something dangerous comes at them-"

"Hey!"

"We can't really argue with him, Sergeant."

"-and Saburo won't be able to do much without half his head either."

"Unfortunately very true." Saburo sighed groggily.

"Hmm..." Dororo closed his eyes and thought deeply "Koyuki-dono had the brilliant idea of gathering the hail stones and melting them for water."

"It...It wasn't that great an idea, Dororo..." Koyuki blushed. Natsumi didn't even try to hide her grin.

"This is what we could do; we could separate into a base party, scavengers and a third party." Dororo began "The base party shall remain here, where we make camp, to hold the fort and keep stock on supplies of food and water we find. The scavengers will do as their title as search the area for food, water, whatever useful supplies we may find. The third party shall search the area immediately by the base camp, but their main priority will be to protect the base party."

"Protect the base party from what?" Natsumi asked.

"...From whatever they might need protecting from." Giroro finished "It's a good idea, Dororo. But now we just need to decide who is in which party."

"Well..." Fuyuki spoke up, making everyone turn to face him as the pacifist boy was never known for having ideas towards military tactics, "...the base party won't do much except for staying here, right? So, naturally, those would be the weaker fighters. The scavengers would have to be the physically strongest people to walk long distances and carry stuff and...Protect themselves if they need to. The third party would probably be the second fittest people...I-I guess..."

"Th...That's brilliant Fuyuki-kun." Momoka said in quiet awe.

"Yeah, you could work for the army," Keroro grinned, "as long as it's the Keron army!"

"I...I think that would make me a traitor to the Earth, Sergeant." Fuyuki sweatdropped.

"And an outcast from the family." Natsumi added. From the seriousness in her eyes, Fuyuki gulped nervously.

"Back to the point..." Giroro grumbled "...Who wants to volunteer to be in the base party?"

Fuyuki automatically raised his hand, and after a few seconds of thought, so did Saburo and Keroro. Upon seeing that the objects of their affections were staying behind, Momoka and Tamama raised their hands.

"Wait, Nishizawa-san," Fuyuki interjected, "you're a lot stronger than me, and Saburo-san since he got hurt. You should probably be in the third party."

"I...Wh...You want me t-to protect you?" Momoka squeaked. She wasn't sure to feel happy or upset that it meant he couldn't protect her, but she was certainly amazed.

Fuyuki nodded "Yeah, I'd feel safer if the two of you were here to 'Impact' any...thing that tries to eat us."

Dororo's attention snapped to what the Pekoponian said. Things...eating them...It re-conjured the horrible, horrible images of his nightmare. But wait. Fuyuki was known to have prophetic dreams as well, was he not? Could he...? There's no way...

"What about you, Kururu?" Saburo asked his yellow companion, shaking Dororo from his thoughts "You're not...exactly...the best of fighters. Maybe you should stay behind with us too?"

"Kuuukuku. No way, buddy boy." Kururu snickered "I want to see the rest of this place with my own two peepers."

"That sounds reasonable." Saburo hummed "But if you ever call me 'buddy boy' again, I will kill you."

"Ku."

"So...Kururu will be part of the scavenger party, who else?" Fuyuki asked. Giroro, Dororo, Koyuki and Natsumi raised their hands "Okay then...so, to clarify; the scavenger team is you, Corporal, Dororo, Kururu, Sis and Azumaya-san. The base party is Saburo-san, Seargent and I. And the third party is Nishizawa-san and Tamama."

"Are you sure there are enough people in the base and third party?" Natsumi asked, her pretty face crowned with and frown of worry.

"It's what we've got." Keroro answered, rather shortly, "It's kind of a shame that Mois-dono isn't here to help make up the numbers."

"No it isn't." Tamama cut in.

After organising themselves, double checking the sky for any ominous clouds that could threaten to hit them with super hail, and re-asserting exactly where the supposed oasis is, the scavenger party set off. All through the trek, the heinous thoughts of his nightmare haunted Dororo, despite how perfectly alive Koyuki looked as they walked side-by-side.

Natsumi looked back to the pyramid. They were a good distance from it now, but not too far away that she could still rush back to her little brother and Saburo and the stupid frog. It hurt her chest to think about their short parting words;

Fuyuki stood up and hugged her "You be careful out there, Sis." He half mumbled.

"You be careful in here." Natsumi whispered back, gripping his shoulders tighter "Mom will never forgive me if anything happens to you...And I won't forgive myself either."

"I...I'll be fine, Natsumi. All I'm doing is staying in here." Natsumi hugged her wonderful, brave, bloody modest, little brother tighter still.

She rubbed her eyelids to stop any possible tears leaking out. Why did she offer to leave her brother to the elements and surprises and dangers of...this place? It's her job to make sure he wasn't alone and vulnerable. Opening her eyes, her focus settled on the small, red frog walking in front of her. His rifle was slung over his shoulder from the leather strap and his pistol was gripped in his hand. He had two weapons, and everyone back at the base camp had none. He had expertise and experience in fighting and defending and everyone back at the base camp didn't.

"...Giroro." The red frog stopped walking to look back over his shoulder at her "...Can you go back to camp and join the third party?"

His hairless eyebrow arched unexpectedly. "I-it's just...I know Momoka-chan and Tamama will look after them...But they're only two people. And Saburo-senpai is hurt anyway, so he might not be able to do much and...and...and Fuyuki's-"

"I understand, Natsumi." Giroro turned and began walking back to camp, "Here, you might need this." He threw Natsumi his rifle, which in human size comparison was just a bit larger than a pistol, and kept his smaller gun for himself. Natsumi looked at the gun in her hand and then to the frog walking away from her.

"Thanks, Giroro!" She called after him, with a big, grateful smile. He didn't look back, but just kept walking.

"...Please be safe out here, Natsumi." Was the only thing running through the soldier's mind.

"Gaaaah, this is cold, Momochiii!" Tamama whined, picking up another chunk of ice.

"Of course it's cold, it's ice." Momoka replied, trying to give him a light-hearted smile. She had an armful of the hail stones and had to collect even more, even though she was quickly becoming frozen to her bones, much like her alien friend. She bent down to pick up yet another one, and looking back up, she noticed the distant form of one Corporal Giroro.

"Natsumi asked me to be stationed here." He said as he came closer "How much ice have you collected?"

"A lot." Tamama replied "We put most of it inside, so it won't melt too quick. There's a little dent in the floor we can use like a sink."

Giroro nodded and looked deep in thought "Best get more. We have no idea how long we're going to be here for."

Suddenly, Keroro popped out of the gap between metal and stone "Oh, Corporal Giroro, are you back?" The green Sergeant trotted down the pyramid steps "That was quick."

Giroro rolled his eyes "If you can't tell, the others are still out there. Natsumi sent me back so you don't get people killed with your stupidity."

"Harsh."

"I'm gonna check on those two..." Giroro ascended the steps.

"O-oh, I'll come with you!" Momoka chirped "I-I've got to put all these in the 'sink' anyway." She gestured to her armful of ice.

When they got to the improvised camp, they kind of wished they hadn't, since they had just walked in on a very...different scene.

Fuyuki was kneeling above Saburo, who was flat on his back on the cold metal, with the waist band of his jeans halfway down his claves and being held in Fuyuki's hands. When they heard the others approach, they immediately looked up, realized they had been seen in such a position, and flushed bright pink.

"So. Not. What. It. Looks. Like." Fuyuki said, instantly dropping Saburo's pants and standing up.

"...And what does it look like, Fuyuki-dono?" Keroro sniggered.

"NOT WHAT YOU THINK." Fuyuki's voice went up in pitch several octaves.

"Um-um-Well-I-um-Well-I-I'm-I-should-be-going-then...!" Momoka stuttered, dropped the armful of ice shards in the dent in the floor with the others, and raced outside.

"You should probably go after her," Giroro sighed, "before she becomes certain that you're of...'the other persuasion'.

"Oh great, another girl at school thinks I'm gay!" Fuyuki wailed, racing out after her "That's the last thing I need!"

"So," Keroro began, looking over to Saburo (who still had his pants down) with a sweatdrop cresting his head, "was that 'what-we-thought'?"

"Of course not." Saburo shook his head, rather amused at the idea "My trousers don't have pockets in them, so to keep my Reality Pen safe, I hid it in my underwear. Unfortunately, when I tried to get it so I could use it to build a fire, I found that my jeans had shrunk from getting soaked by the rain earlier on. So...I asked Fuyuki-kun if he, while Keroro was out of the room, could help me out of my little predicament."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly. But I do still need to get the pen out of my underwear, so if you wouldn't mind leaving the room for a moment?"

And with that, the two frogs briskly left. "Dammit," Giroro thought angrily, "if Saburo was gay, then I could be there to comfort Natsumi when he came out!Grr..."

As they descended the pyramid, they could hear Fuyuki and Momoka's conversation- well, they could certainly hear Fuyuki's excuses.

"IT WAS NOT WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE! I SWEAR!"

"It...It's okay, Fuyuki-kun...You don't have to deny who you really are."

"BUT I'M NOT! I'M AS STRAIGHT AS A RULER! STRAIGHTER!"

"Fuyuki-kun...It's alright. I won't think any less of you. I'll always be your friend."

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WOMAN, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO PROVE TO YOU THAT I'M STRAIGHT?"

That certainly caught the attention of Dark Momoka "Well...For a start you could-"

"Momochi, no taking advantage of Fukki." Tamama frowned.

(AN; Please take no offence to Fuyuki denying that he's gay. Fuyuki just seems like one of those boys who would shout and blush and whatnot about how 'not-gay' he is and I wanted to be true to his character- I meant no offence, and just added this in if anyone thought I did. I...I would write up a mini-essay on gay pride/rights but...yeah, it's unneeded, since everyone knows how lovely/awesome you lot are :) )

Suddenly, Giroro's communicator sounded. "Bzzt-G-crkl-ro...zttzelp needkzzzt..ZTTk..."

"What?" Giroro pressed the communicator closer to his ear. "SHUT UP!" He roared to the still whingeing Fuyuki. He heard something. He definitely heard something.

"-ro...Kukuzzt-HELP-bzz-bztk..." Help. It was Kururu's communicator and it was saying Help. "Bzzkt-attacked-zxxtk-" Attacked. They were being attacked- She was being attacked.

"What's going on Giroro?" Fuyuki asked. His voice was level now and his face was blanched.

"I need to go." The Corporal said urgently.

"Are they in danger?" Fuyuki pressed "Giroro, what's happening to Nee-chan?"

"Giroro!" Keroro, who had gone up to the shelter for water, yelled from the opening "Wh-When Keronians hit their head really bad, they throw up right?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Giroro roared. He didn't have time for this. His communicator had gone silent.

"Does that rule apply to Pekoponians, too?" Sounds of retching and coughing drifted from the shelter. Keroro looked back and forth quickly, nervously.

"Saburo-san's being sick?" Momoka's voice trembled "That's bad, that's really bad, h-he might have concussion or..."

Saburo's being sick and might have concussion and Keroro's yelling out that Giroro has to do something to help him and Tamama's squealing about what do they do and Fuyuki's face is impossibly snow white and he's yelling that Giroro has to something to help Natsumi and Natsumi could be in danger and the communicator's gone silent and

Giroro has no idea what to do, he has no idea- "QUIET!"

And they were quiet.

Giroro tried to catch his ragged breath "I'll go...I'll go to help Natumi...and the others..." He turned to Tamama and Keroro "...Y-you two stay here to protect the kids..." He turned to Momoka and Fuyuki "...Do you know how to treat Pekoponian concussion?"

Momoka nodded shakily "I...I used to watch Paul doing the health and safety training with the staff...I-I think I know...I know the basics at least..."

"Right." Giroro nodded. He looked around. Everything was sorted. The communicator was still dead. Giroro nodded again "...Right." He began walking quickly, then remembered that, before the communicator went dead, the words 'need' and 'HELP' and 'attacked ' had been said. Kururu said 'need' and then he swore, he swore, it was Natsumi screaming 'HELP' and Kururu again, saying 'attacked', much too calm. And with no laughing.

Giroro began running...Faster than he ever had done, faster than he ever thought he could.