There and Back Again: Nothing Just Ends on Oban
Chapter 4: Molly's Ever After
Warning: Anyone who is entirely immortal suffers from chronic insanity, even the sanest ones.
Pairings: This is not a Molly/Jordan, it might become a Molly/Aikka, but for now there are no pairings.
Disclaimer: We don't know French…that'll probably give you a clue.
Ten years had passed since the great race of Oban had come to an end and only a select few on Earth had been aware of its coming and passing.
One of those few was a Ms. Eva Wei, age 25 and currently attending her second to last year at the University of Akron.
While, it was Ms. Wei who had, in fact, gone to the Oban star race, many will insist that it was actually Molly, Ms. Wei's temporal alter ego, who had been to the preliminary race on Alwas and then the finals on Oban.
This could explain why many non-Earthers, plus the Avatar, had the peculiar habit of referring to the young Earth girl as 'Molly'.
After returning to Earth, Molly's, or shall we say Eva's, relationship with the rest of the Earth team had changed.
Eva's relationship with her father seemed to be always a learning process. Don Wei had to learn how to be the parent of a fifteen year old girl – who was still growing - and rapidly realize that his little Eva was now 'all grown up'. Eva, on the other hand, had to realize that Don Wei would need some time before he could comfortably be a parent, again.
Eva never started referring to herself as 'Molly', again. This was mostly because of Don Wei; he seemed to have issues with Molly.
As for Stan and Koji, Eva met up with them on occasion, mostly during the few times they were working for a team, along side Miguel, and that team just so happened to be going against Don Wei's team on the track near her new school.
In other words, for about a week, each year. She could only visit on the weekends, though.
She mainly called them to know how they were and sometimes asked if they could help her with her homework for her Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery class, after she got into university.
Eva is currently majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
When Rick had returned to the Earth he had decided to simply announce that he had decided to become a coach. When asked why, he simply answered with the world famous 'no comment', before moving on to do something else.
By the time, Eva and the rest of the Earth team had returned, Rick had been on a plane to Europe to coach a racer from Belgium.
In cases like these, it was always easier to use e-mail and vid-phones to keep in touch.
Nonetheless, non-Earth communication was always a drag. It normally took weeks, or a month or so, to send or receive a card and setting up interplanetary vid-phones normally mandated that someone important had to be making the call.
Someone like Prin…er…King Aikka of Nourasia, perhaps?
It wasn't really that surprising to find out Aikka had finally succeeded the throne. It had to happen someday.
He seemed to have made it an honor bound oath to call Eva at least once a month, ever since his succession. These kinds of calls had to be OKed by both parties one week before, just in case.
With this sort of dedication to a friend, heaven and hell couldn't help but wonder why he refused to let her know that he was engaged for the last six months.
There were bets placed by their ancestors on whether he truly liked her and some of the more straight-forward of the lot, simply stated that he didn't want her to stop receiving his calls.
Some angels thought it was more likely that he, like any reasonable male, had a healthy fear for an enraged female. Demons thought, otherwise, of course.
Whatever it was, they hoped he'd tell her soon. The fist fights in heaven and the gang wars in hell were starting to worry those in charge.
Vid-phones were in most cases too problematic when it came to interplanetary calls. Almost nobody on Earth needed to use them.
The Avatar had no such trouble. Apparently, Jordan had been serious…and so had Sotai.
While snail mail was mostly a formality, nowadays, it was one of the few things he could make Shinji and Sotai do without there being anymore consequences – other than gaining unholy amounts of paperwork on his desk.
This unholy forest of white pages was only a faux formality, really.
The Avatar NEVER needed to know what utterly boring happenings were ensuing on the Scrub planet of Alwas or whether the leepers – lion humanoids with great voices - were late doing there annual festival or not.
But, Sotai felt that this was a perfectly good form of equivalent exchange.
The first of the Avatar's assistants to do the 'highly commended' job of the Avatar's mailman was Shinji.
He got yelled at A LOT. Jordan sent the poor guy out to send a letter to his mom at an hour that was equal to 3 am in said area's time zone.
Scared the poor woman to death, seeing a 2.10 m. werewolf trip on her coffee table.
The first assistant Molly ever met was Sotai.
Flashback
"You know if keep scrunching up your brow like that you'll look like your neighbors bulldog," the feline teased the studying youth.
Looking up the Earth team's ex female pilot muttered a startled "Aaahhhh!" before falling of her bed and quickly standing up with a ruler as if it were a sword. "Get back or else…I'll hurt you, I really will!" exclaimed Eva.
Sotai was definitely unimpressed and it showed, but she seemed to play along. "Well, I guess I fear rulers, since I'm a messenger girl, I must, most definitely, suffer from Cynophobia. I suppose being afraid of rulers is right up there, too!" the Gazian shrugged indifferently, as she simply stood there looking around the girl's room.
The non-aggressive attitude of the strange alien seemed to give Eva the courage to demand an explanation, "Who the hell are you?"
The indigo-eyed feline raised an eyebrow, "In which way are we speaking here: Philosophically, spiritually, ethnically, or politically? Please, make yourself clear." She added annoyed at how the Earther didn't just get down to business like a good little Terran girl.
Honestly, if she was going to stick around until she got a response from her master's friend this had BETTER go quickly or else Jordan was going to find out how many types of insects could be found on Nourasia and what were their favorite foods, yay.
Taken off guard 'Molly' decided to redo her answer with a "What are you doing here?" It was more practical that way, she guessed.
Sighing to herself, the Gazian found that answering directly seemed to work best for humans.
They were so rough, no wonder they had wars each other year, at every chance they got.
"Well, I'm here to deliver a letter." Yes, it was best to be direct.
"You leave letters in the mail box; you know those box things outside of each house on this block!" Eva answered despairingly, when she saw the question mark floating above the cat woman's head as she shook her head, at the words 'mail box'.
Continuing to shake her head gently, Sotai merely announced, "I was ordered to deliver it in person and, subsequently, return with a response."
The Earther girl sighed, well at least now they were going somewhere, "You could have knocked at the door, before you came in!"
Seemingly taking this into account, Sotai looked at 'Molly' with a confused glance, "But, when I called at the door, your papa slammed it in my face, WHEN I LOOKED HUMAN!!!"
Looking at the feline oddly, Eva just had to wonder what eighteen year old in their right mind still called their dads 'papa', "Right…well, did you do something to upset him?" she asked in an even voice.
Sitting down on the floor, clearly sulking, the Perkgurean's partner only pouted, "I only asked him if I could have some of his ice-cream, but he only screamed at me to go away and that he'd call the cops if I didn't."
Eva ah'ed in understanding, "So, you decided to come back when you knew I was here and he wasn't."
Shrugging once more, Sotai merely told her, "Yeah, well…here's your letter. Please, answer promptly."
As she took the letter, "Uh…so, who's it from?" the human girl asked. Secretly hoping it wasn't another Para-dice – maybe her older sister - out to blast away her house.
Seemingly cheering up at the change of topic, she promptly answered, "Hmmm…well, I call him Avy Jay!"
It was true; Jordan swore she was out to send him to the nut house.
Eva rocked her brain, she was sure she knew nobody with that name. Plus, there was no name on the envelope.
Jordan had yet to get the hang of sending letters. The rules just never stuck.
"He's another one of you non-magic using Earthers." The Gazian added, helpfully.
"Oh, Jordan!" deduced 'Molly', whose entire disposition towards the letter in her hands did a 180.
"Right, him!" mumbled Sotai, faintly.
As she wrote her long-distance compatriot and friend, 'Molly' asked Sotai something, "What's Cinophobia?
Sotai while eyeing a book on her shelf merely responded in stride, "Fear of dogs."
"You fear dogs?" Eva tried to ask in an understanding voice. This WAS a cat girl.
"Not a day of my life." Sotai flatly answered, clearly remembering her lupine companion.
End of flashback
The moral of THAT story would be: Sotai likes to mess with people, so you should probably be as specific as can be when you ask her something.
Personally, Molly liked Sotai better than Shinji.
Give the feline some ice-cream and a book, and she'll be a sweet, calm, childishly cheerful and extremely helpful for hours and she, also, amazingly seemed to be well informed on quite a number of topics like Greek, Latin, and history - just to name a few.
In the end, Eva decided to share her wisdom on how to get Sotai to calm down, with Jordan. He needed it much more than she did. What better way to help out a friend, than to give him a solution to a domestic problem that he'd probably have to live with for the rest of his life?
But, Shinji was only nice, if she wrote her response fast enough. He had a low tolerance for horse play and seemed to be just as big of a jerk as Don Wei had been before he had realized who she was.
There were days when he seemed almost silently apologetic that he always treated her that way and tried to at least stay out of her way, as he looked out of her window in what she could only describe as his human form. But, those moments seemed to come only once a year.
The Perkgurean's human form seemed to only be described as tall, dark and handsome but in the weird way that's like the 'kid everybody tries to stay away from, because he seems like a juvenile delinquent that chopped his parents head's off', does.
Sure, he was lean, not too buff; tall enough to talk to him without hurting your neck from angling your head higher than was comfortable; had a sort of wind swept look to his shoulder length hair that was always pulled back into a pony tail; and was dark, enough, with his black trench coat, black slacks and just as black hair. But, his emerald colored eyes seemed to judge your soul whenever you looked into them.
His attitude, too, if he were a girl, would be described as that of a bitchy ice-queen.
Almost like that old hag Miranda - from that old movie she fished out of the basement and played on the old DVD player – the movie's title was something like…'The Devil Wears Prada' or something like that.
Eva didn't, however, figure out why her dad freaked out so much when he first met Sotai. She'd only seen Sotai's human form and her cat-girl form – they HAD first met on Halloween, after all - , but the female Earther never had seen the indigo-eyed girl's real form, EVER.
She HAD seen the shadows literally lurking in her eyes, just like Jordan had mentioned in one of his letters.
Neither Earther knew what to make of that, so they asked an alien about it.
But, King Aikka only knew that Gazians freaked out the Crogs and they never mentioned why.
Deciding to risk asking Sotai about Gazians, the only useful – if you could call it that – information she got was that you should NEVER EVER call a Gazian a 'bitch' or the son of one, if you wanted to have a longer life and actually have something to bury when you died.
However, Sotai was a bit more forthcoming when asked about why the Crogs feared Gazians. Well, sort of. She laughed about that one for a good ten minutes before answering.
It seems that only one Gazian had gone to visit the Crog planet. And, that one visit had scared the Crogs, so much, that they swore to run in fear, no matter what, if they ever saw that Gazian again. In fact, Sotai was pretty sure they taught so in the Crog schools.
Sotai confided to 'Molly' that the Gazian in question was an immortal, part of the Ancients. Jordan had to ally himself with five of the one-hundred and eighty that exist, and this one just so happened to be one of the few that refused to be part of any sort of alliance with the Avatar.
DaCat: Ok I've been sick the last few days…so if this chapter seems weird to you…it's most likely because of that.
Thanks to crazyvegimab for the tip…I didn't know I had the anonymous reviews disabled nnU!!!
By the way, The University of Akron is a real university in the US…I think it's in Ohio.
For those of you who don't know what a Terran is, it's a word that derives from the word terra that means Earth in Latin. It's mostly used in science fiction stories, though, when they talk about humans.
I also plead for help! I'm sort of stuck in a Spanish speaking country where Oban is not only in Spanish but it's also stuck in the first season and all I know about the second one is off of forums and what little I find on know where I can actually see the entire second season?
Fushica I'm not exactly sure about that. I'll look it up. But, if he is, then I'm sure neither one would come to look for him, specifically, they have too much to do, despite what Jordan thinks.
I'm sure everyone would love to know why Satis was more popular with Sotai and Shinji.
SWT: (Evil Laughter) One Gazian made the Crogs cry like babies, LMFAO! Poor Shinji he got yelled at and tripped over a coffee table.
Both DaCat and I enjoy writing this so we are going to do our best effort to not bore you.
Please be patient for the next chapter because we are going to introduce the bad guys soon and believe me when I say you're not going to believe us when we say they are bigger threats than the Crogs and make Sotai go screaming in the opposite direction.