"Any word from my daughter?" Invader asked one of the troops under his command. "She should have come back by now."
"Sadly no sir. But we did receive a distress signal from one of her escort ships. Sir, it's not good." The oni soldier replied.
"Not good? What happened to my little girl?" Invader said, leaning over the shorter oni as if he were going to eat him.
'Are we really sure this guy isn't part Pantophage?' The oni soldier asked silently. "The fleet was ambushed somewhere between Earth and Neptune by an unknown assailant. We suspect they were after the cargo."
"The cargo that was on my daughter's vessel." Invader said to himself, fearing the worse.
"The escort were unable to identify the assailant, but we're certain of two things. That your daughter managed to make it to the surface of Earth alive, and that the escort was able to prevent the assailant from following. We're looking over images of the enemy to try and identify them."
"So my daughter's alive but she hasn't been able to make contact." Invader thought out loud. "Either she can't, or she suspects doing so is a bad idea." He paused to think for a bit then smiled. "But I think I know how we can establish safe contact with her."
Ataru was out for a walk, looking completely normal like he was just heading to the store or something. Yet behind and above him trailed Lum, looking very suspicious.
'Going out to see one of his friends huh? Well this friend better not be a girl. Especially that girl that took advantage of him. Even if we aren't married or technically engaged, Darling is mine.'
Ataru turned down a corner and while doing so looking towards the sky, certain that he was being followed by a persistent green-haired girl. But Lum went down rather quickly, almost like she was falling, all to get out of his sight. Unable to see her, Ataru shrugged and kept walking, again followed by Lum.
After a while Ataru stopped at a house, one that looked normal for the suburbs of Tomobiki. In front of it was a green car with the hood up, and a teen boy working on the engine. "Hey Ken!" Ataru called up.
'Darling has a male friend?' Lum asked herself, genuinely surprised.
The teen stepped away from the car. The first thing Lum noted was that he wasn't Japanese. He had flat black hair, a black short-sleeve shirt worn over a grey long-sleeve shirt, a light blue jacket with oil stains, and blue jeans. His physique was more muscular than Ataru's was, like he worked out.
"Hey Ataru, I hear you've been having a rough week in class."
"Tell me about it. Why haven't you been there lately?"
"Oh, this and that's been going on. Like this guy trying to get me sent back to the states." Ken answered.
Ataru chuckled. "Oh, like you're going back without a fight."
"Yeah, but the whole program that brought me here is trying to make sure I don't get too comfortable. At least that's how I'm taking it." Ken said before closing the hood of his car. "I don't get it. I mean, I've heard of guys on student exchange programs getting citizenship in their new countries before. Why is it so hard for me to get it here? The good news is they can't deport me until I'm graduated."
"And yet they take you out of class for several days?" Ataru asked.
"Hey, I don't claim to understand social services. I'll stick to my cars thank you." Ken said, patting his car as he said it. "So what's this who wanted to show me?"
"Let's go to your room. I can't have people see me use it out here." Ataru suggested.
Lum couldn't hear what they were saying, but she was still suspicious when the two boys went inside the house. 'What are they going to do? Bet they're going to look at dirty pictures. Boys will be boys, whether they're from Uru or Earth. I guess there's no reason for me to stick around.' She thought before flying back to the Moroboshi household.
"So what's up?" Ken asked, sitting on his bed while Ataru stayed standing.
"I figured you might get a kick out of this." Ataru said, showing his omnitrix.
"Some new watch? That's it?" Ken asked, highly disappointed. Ataru ignored that and searched for an alien he could use, and pressed the knob. Ken looked with wide eyes as his friend's skin turned black with green lines streaking thru it. Ataru's face lost all features and was replaced by a single green ring, but overall he kept a basic if thicker and featureless humanoid shape.
"Some watch, am I right?" The new alien asked in Ataru's normal voice, the ring on his face glowing with each word. "I call this form Upgrade."
"Don't tell me you managed to swipe more from that alien babe than just her bikini top." Ken stated.
"Ha!" Upgrade laughed. "Actually, you're technically right. With this watch, I can become ten different aliens. And I'm thinking of having a little fun with them. Don't miss school tomorrow."
Ken grinned. "This I gotta see. So what can this one do? It looks like living metal to me."
"I'm still figuring out what these forms can and can't do, but from what I'm told this alien can fuse with technology and upgrade it, hence the name I gave it. I could try something with your car if you-"
"No way man. I've told you before, no one drives my car but me." Ken insisted.
"Even if I could make it fly?" Upgrade asked.
Ken raised an eyebrow. "Tempting man, I'll admit it, but not while you're still new to this. Why don't you use this to disable the parental lock my foster folks have on the computer?"
"No sweat."
"Darling? You okay?" Lum asked when Ataru came home. He looked a little dazed.
"I'm fine. I've just... seen things. Things I can never unsee." He answered, sitting down. 'Damn, I can't believe what kind of fetish porn they have on the internet. And being Upgrade made me see it as if it were in the same room as me instead of behind a monitor. What sick twisted freaks would find THAT stuff arousing?'
"Who did you go spend time with?" Lum asked, being careful to sound simply inquisitive rather than accusing.
"Oh, my best friend Ken. His real name is Kevin but it's easier to call him Ken in Japanese. He's an American who came here back when we were still in primary school. Said he had a lot of problems back home so his parents got him in a student exchange program. He took it hard, it felt like his family was telling him to scram, so he figured if they wanted him gone he might as well go. He's been here in Japan ever since, and he likes it here more. He gets some trouble for being a gaijin, but at least he doesn't feel unwanted in his own home here." Ataru explained, seeing no reason why not to.
Lum looked confused. "What's an American? Some separate species you share this planet with?"
Ataru chuckled. "Yeah, if that makes it easier for you to understand."
"I better check this species out." Lum thought out loud.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Ataru joked.
The next day Ataru went to school and was glad to see Ken was there too. Over the years the two had sort of developed a friendship of need, being the two who fit in the least with others in their classes. Ken for not being Japanese and Ataru for being a troublemaker. They were lonely most of the time, and so they naturally spent some time together and from there friendship developed.
Up ahead, heading into the school, he saw the only other person he could call this friend, Shinobu Miyake. She had been his playmate since they were kids, which was probably the reason she was the only girl in school who tolerated him despite his behavior. Ataru was well known as a pervert, not a deviant one or the kind that harassed women, but the kind that liked to look at dirty pictures and girls when they didn't want to be looked at. But of course to the girls ANY pervert was a bad kind.
Shinobu had been on Ataru's mind a lot lately. Back when Lum's people were apparently pretending to invade Earth, when he thought the world rested on his shoulders Shinobu made him a deal, if he could win the game of tag with Lum and save the world she'd marry him. Ataru perked at the idea, mainly because if he was married than he might get to experience a real relationship with a girl, both sexual and nonsexual. Yet when he did win, Shinobu refused to acknowledge she had every said anything of the sort.
Frankly it was offending Ataru quite a bit.
"Hey Shinobu-chan." He said as he came up to her.
"Morning Ataru." She replied back, giving him a bit of a cold shoulder because of Lum always trying to be around him.
"So what gives?" He asked, simply to get it out in the open.
"What?" Shinobu asked, confused.
"Remember a certain promise you made?" Ataru stressed. "If you've got a good reason for breaking it I'd like to hear it."
Shinobu frowned. "You want a reason? Alright. It was a fake promise. I never intended to keep it. For crying out loud Ataru, why would I want to marry an immature guy like you?"
Ataru blinked then frowned. "Then why say such a thing in the first place?"
"Call it momentary insanity." The brunette girl replied, looking away and picking up pace to get away from him.
Ataru made no effort to catch up to her, not needing to since they went to the same class anyway. 'That's low Shinobu. Really low. But if you think I'm not going to do anything about it, you're wrong.'
Later the girls of 2-4 were in the locker room changing for gym. Shinobu had a pensive look while undressing. 'Maybe I was too harsh on Ataru. I mean, what kind of friend am I to say that to him? I know he's not the greatest guy around, but he's really the only one I know I'd even consider an option for spending my life with.'
She mentally sighed. 'He seemed so eager to commit to me. How many boys these days do you see like that? Even as adults? Maybe I should have said I never said when we'd marry rather than I was never serious. I'm sure if I talk to Ataru again he'll understand. As long as that outer space bitch doesn't get involved again.'
While she was thinking to herself and changing clothes, she was unaware that Ataru was already having his little revenge.
"Agh! What is that smell?" One of the girls said, repulsed, covering her face with her shirt. Shinobu sniffed the air and practically gagged, and she wasn't the only one.
You see, a small vent connected the boys locker room to the girls, and it have been used in the past before for boys to try and inappropriately peep on the girls. As a result, school policy was now specifically done so that boys and girls didn't use the rooms at the same time. And like the old saying goes, ladies first.
Ataru was now in the form of a large insect-like creature that if he had to compare it to anything on Earth it would be a dragonfly. It had the same basic body shape and wing style, but it had four eyes on movable stalks, a humanoid mouth, and a scorpion-like stinger for a tail. It was also the size of a small horse, and came with a rather unpleasant odor according to Ken and Lum. Thus he dubbed it Stinkfly.
Ataru had snuck into the locker room earlier and transformed, and now he was spitting green ooze into the vents and batting his wings from his side to push the stench towards the girls room. "I guess now it stinks to be you Shinobu-chan."
Unable to take the smell, the girls fled the locker room, going out into the hallway where the boys could see them, and they weren't fully dressed.
By the time the riot that naturally ensued was done Ataru was human again and no one was aware he hadn't been in one of the girls angry victims for being looked at.
"It had to be Ataru's fault! He caused the stink in the locker room!" A girl accused while the class stood out in the yard. Numerous girls immediately agreed with her.
"How could it have been him?" Ken asked, covering for Ataru since he heard what Shinobu said to him and thought that was a low blow. "He was right there with the rest of us as you harped on us for seeing you all. Despite the fact you ran out knowing full well we have to wait in the halls." That was a lie of course, the part about Ataru being in the group of boys at the time, but no one could remember anything for certain in that riot.
"It had to be Ataru. Who else is that messed up?" A girl declared.
Ken leaned in close to her, scaring her. "Do you have any proof? Or are you accusing just for the fun of it?" The girl backed away, scared.
'This is why it's so hard for you to get a girlfriend Ken.' Shinobu thought, feeling a bit sorry for the American boy. He had never been one to open to others, even moreso here because he was so different than the rest of any school he attended. But he was loyal to Ataru, his one and only friend, and because Ken was so imposing there was an unofficial rule of 'If you want to hurt Ataru Moroboshi you'll have to go thru Ken Levin first'.
A custodian came out and spoke to Onsen-Mark and a few other teachers. "I found this weird green stuff in the vent. My guess is some kind of wet mildew was growing inside there and stunk up the place."
"See?" Ken asked.
"There, that should do it." Lum said, reconnecting two severed wires from the inside of her UFO. "The third oxygen tank's shot to hell, I might as well scrap it. And my weapons are beyond repair, well, beyond my ability to repair them if nothing else. At least the flight mechanisms still work, but not as well as before. And my communicator, I don't think I should risk trying to see if it works."
All of a sudden Lum felt a chill, and she shivered. "Don't tell me the heating is going out on me too."
"Not quite." A voice said from behind.
Lum gasped then turned around with a smile. "Oyuki! Boy am I glad to see you."
"I am glad to see you are alive and well." The queen of the planet Neptune said to her childhood friend. "Your father is worried for you. He heard you were attacked on your way back here."
"I was. I was the lucky one though. The others..." Lum said, melancholy.
"Your father didn't want to risk contacting you directly, in case the threat was still around. But we presumed that any such threat is only looking for signals sent to and from you, not Neptunian warp technology." Oyuki stated.
"Thanks Oyuki, I really appreciate it."
"I can take you and your ship to Neptune so you can be transported back home to Uru where you'll be safe." Oyuki added.
"What about the Earth? Won't-?"
"They will manage until help arrives to ensure your assaulter is taken care of. And if we must, Neptune will provide help to our sister planet." The cryokinetic woman reassured.
The electric oni was silent for a bit, then sighed. "I am grateful Oyuki, but I can't leave Earth just yet."
"There is nothing you can do about this threat." Oyuki pointed out.
"It's not me I'm worried about. Someone I care about is in danger too, and my mission on this world is still technically incomplete. I have to stay."
"Then I will attempt to keep you stocked and see if I can reassign some men to repair your ship." Oyuki said.
Lum blinked. "You're not going to try to convince me to do otherwise?"
"Would you have listened if I had?" Oyuki countered.
Lum smirked. "You're right about that. Dad's not going to like this."
"You staying should motivate him to act sooner then." Oyuki stated, making Lum chuckle.
After school everyone was walking home and Shinobu was giving Ataru the cold shoulder during the duration when they had to walk the same route.
"Maybe you should show her the watch." Ken said, wishing for the umpteenth time that driving to school wouldn't be a waste of gas. He was as far as he knew the only student of Tomobiki High to own his own car, a gift from his foster parents who were more real to him than his biological parents, so he wanted to show it off a bit. Unfortunately he had to pay for his own gas, and the trip to and from school combined with the student parking fee wasn't enough to justify showing off his wheels.
"What good will that do?" Ataru asked. "Once she learns where it came from I'll be lucky to remain on a first name basis with her."
The road forked and Shinobu was finally able to turn away. Once she wasn't followed she sighed sadly. 'I just want things to go back to normal. But as long as that horned skank is hanging around me and Ataru cannot have a relationship. It's hard enough just to have a friendship with her trying to spite me. So until she leaves, by force or by choice, he needs to believe there can't be anything between us. Maybe then Ataru will become a better man.'
"Excuse me." Someone asked, making Shinobu stop. "Can you tell me where Tomobiki High is?"
"Oh, down that way and to the right about five blocks. You can't miss it." Shinobu said, pointing behind her.
"Hmm... you've got a nice aura."
"What?" Shinobu asked.
"Oh sorry, got ahead of myself. You see, my name is Sakura and I'm a Shinto miko, but I'm applying for a job as a school nurse. Health is kind of a favored topic of mine for personal reasons. But I'm still a miko and I can tell you've got the right kind of aura for the job."
"Umm... thanks, but I'm not interested in being a miko." Shinobu told the older woman.
"Alright, I won't press the issue. But if you had proper training like me you'd be surprised what you can do." Sakura replied, then headed in the direction the teen girl had pointed out.
"Like what?" Shinobu called out, stopping Sakura.
Sakura looked towards the teen girl. "When you're strong enough you can get rid of what troubles you."
"Even onis?" Shinobu added.
Sakura grinned as if silently laughing. "Especially onis."
"Let's talk more." Shinobu said, walking towards the miko.
Ataru got home and he saw his mom was in a good mood. "Hello my fantastic son."
"Let me guess, Lum's ideas of selling pieces of my body worked."
Kinsho nodded. "Like a dream. We were able to get rid of the mortgage completely and we've got enough left to splurge a little. I'm serving up sukiyaki tonight."
Ataru's mouth started to water. "Great, but don't get carried away. I'm sure the jewelers will get suspicious if you show up with valuables on a daily basis."
"No problem, I'll rotate from district to district to repeat the process. Getting train tickets will be no problem anymore now."
'Yep, she'll bleed Diamondhead dry.' Ataru cringed. "Where's Lum?"
"Out in her spaceship, trying to contact her home I think."
Up in space, Vilgax was still recuperating, looking over details of what his new body would be like. Some possibilities offered were immediately rejected, he wanted a body that was similar to his original one so he wouldn't have to waste time getting used to the new form. But there was no reason he couldn't keep the basic shape of his species without making a few improvements.
He was pulled away from his work when an alarm went off. "So, someone's heading this way. How large a fleet?"
"Just one." The computer told him.
"One fleet? Be more specific." Vilgax ordered.
"Just one ship Lord Vilgax."
The octopus-headed alien was confused. "One ship? They know we're weakened. They're here to finish us off. All power to defenses."
"Sir, if we do that it will take us a Vilgaxian week longer to repair the ship and your own life support will weaken a bit." One of the crew members maintaining the ship protested.
"If we don't we'll be destroyed and we'll die anyway." Vilgax objected. "And since we can't escape, we will defend ourselves. Shields up at maximum."
"Affirmative." The computer told him. The barriers went up, and Vilgax waited to see who was coming his way.
To his surprise it was indeed one single ship, but while he had been expecting something massive and powerful like a Star Destroyer, it was a small fighter style, the kind a single soldier would pilot.
"What?" Vilgax asked. "A single soldier? That's even less of a threat to us than the oni ships had been."
"I wouldn't count on that. If we weren't using shields a single well-aimed shot from that ship could destroy the integrity of our own." One of the crew members clarified.
"Take down the shields and fire." Vilgax ordered.
"To what purpose sir?" The crew member asked. "That will just drain power even further."
"Just do it!" Vilgax ordered.
"There is no need. The ship has already started entering the planet's atmosphere." The computer pointed out.
'It ignored me completely? Hmm... the pilot must be aware they cannot win against us, so they're trying something else. They might even be seeking reinforcements from the planet. And they'll come at me with fully prepared soldiers. This one must be really smart to make such a maneuver.'
The spaceship was descending in the air over Japan, looking for a landing place.
"Unknown aircraft, you do not have authorization to be in this airspace. Identify yourself and state your purpose." A human from the military radioed, picked up on the spaceship's communicator.
The pilot did not respond.
"Unknown aircraft, if you do not comply we will conclude you are a threat and we will engage you as such." The military man claimed.
Again the pilot did not reply. However, he pulled out a piece of paper with things to say in the native language. "Request... permission... to land."
"Identify yourself." The radio repeated.
"Request... permission... to land." The pilot repeated too.
"You're not from around here. If you are lost we can guide you to a landing site. Do not do anything hostile or we will open fire." The human stated, and the signal went silent.
Two fighter jets showed up along the edges of the spaceship not long after that. Up close they could clearly see this vehicle was not made on Earth, and they considered shooting it out of the sky right there. But they were under orders to escort it first, so they did their job.
The spaceship was taken to a military base away from the major metropolitan areas of the Kanto region. Once it landed soldiers were ready for anything, especially when the ship opened and the pilot came out.
To their surprise it was a rather good-looking man, with green hair and horns like the oni they saw not too long ago. Although Invader had been the only male oni they had seen so this guy looked more normal by comparison.
One of the generals came up to him. "What is your business for returning to this planet? Your kind were told to leave after we won our right to remain self-governed."
The oni held up a photo of Lum and pointed to her.
"Please be more clear. What does this mean?" The general asked, only for the oni to point again. "Can you understand what I'm saying?"
"Hungry." The oni said.
'Apparently there is intelligent life out there in the universe, and this guy's not part of it.' The general said to himself.