This took several days to write because I'm going to be honest, I got distracted watching tv. I rewatched an anime with my little sister and then watched the lego batman movie and it was so good I read a bunch of fanfiction for that fandom.
But I got back to this!
I hope it's okay and not too disjointed.
Keroro put his head on his knees as he hugged them tightly. He didn't want to look at anything. And at this current moment he didn't want to see his platoon mates disapproving looks or disappointment in him. He just wanted to hide away.
They all wanted out of Natsumi's room. But Keroro wasn't making a sound or a peep. Instead he was thinking about Fuyuki and how angry the boy was at him.
He could see that the rooms lights were on and that despite being a prisoner, Giroro was still armed with a gun and polishing it. He seemed to be sitting as quietly and as depressed as Keroro was, but he was keeping himself busy in a very Giroro like way.
Tamama pouted and sighed next to him. "What'cha doing, Giroro?"
Giroro was silent for a moment. "Guarding Kululu. If we have to be prisoners he should be one too, instead of using his stupid little floor panels to escape. I mean he's the one who's majorly at fault for most of this." Giroro pointed out blaming Kululu for the fact Natsumi hated him.
"Ooooh going to blame me for the fact that you've ruined your chances with Natsumi forever? Ku, ku, ku. Sounds like fun. You do know that if I suggested killing someone because they were a disobedient prisoner and they had no relation to Natsumi, you'd probably have stopped anyone from stopping me." Kululu pointed out.
Giroro grit his teeth. "You're horrible. I am nothing like you."
"Oh? So you're not a loyal keronian? I had no idea that being a proud keronian soldier was so horrible. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu teased.
Giroro pushed the gun into his face. "I am loyal! I'm just not you."
"By that you mean blood thirsty?" Kululu asked. "You've got blood on your hands. Ku, ku, ku. Don't lie to yourself and say you're better than me. You, Dororo, Keroro, you're all soldiers. And we all know what soldiers do. They kill."
Tamama tilted his head wondering why he wasn't included. Was Kululu thinking his youth meant innocence. He could cause mindless destruction too!
They were all silent from Kululu's words.
"I…." Giroro shook his head. "It doesn't matter. We were beaten and we were prisoner's now. A soldier's duty is not just to follow orders but to follow the laws of war and be honorable once you've been beaten. Being a good prisoner of the code of conduct too."
Kululu scoffed disgusted that he would just give up like that.
Keroro tried to ignore Giroro and Kululu yelling at each other about who was at fault and who wasn't. Instead he focused on the voices coming from outside.
"I'm still ticked that we had to use my room as a holding cell." He could hear Natsumi's voice and her tapping her foot.
"I could make a wooden hut outside if you want, Natsumi." Koyuki offered.
"No. I mean I'm annoyed, but I think Mom was right. My room is the safest to guard. It's the safest place to keep them while we think about if the whole kidnapping my father thing was a serious issue and how to deal with the fact that they almost straight up murdered him." Natsumi's voice was still coated with hurt, but now it sounded like she was trying to stand strong and figure out the best path of justice.
"Uhhh...Natsumi? You do realize that Kululu was the one mostly at fault for that murder thing. I mean sure it sounded like he was making a ton of points to gather the others to his side that stopped them from moving to directly stop him at the current moment, but still...Mostly Kululu's fault." Saburo pointed out.
Natsumi frowned. "A bystander is still guilty."
"She's right." Koyuki agreed. "I learned about it at Natsumi's school. It's called the bystander effect. If someone is stabbed and you do not help because you think someone else is going to help but nobody does because they're thinking the same thing aren't you also guilty of just watching a man be stabbed?""
Saburo was silent. Her psychology and philosophy was right. He sighed, letting her blame the other frogs. "All right...So we going to take guard shifts or something?"
"Yeah, we'll switch between the three of us. Momoka simply doesn't have the time to offer to be a guard and she's a little..." Natsumi sounded like she was trying to come up with the words.
"Weak at times?" Saburo asked.
"Don't tell her I said anything like that. Fuyuki's still fuming so we're the only one who can guard those stupid frogs." Natsumi reminded.
"Are your mom and dad talking about what to do with the keronians? Who's figuring out their punishment?" Koyuki asked.
"Them. I...I didn't want to weigh in on it. It was too stressful." Natsumi confessed.
Keroro stopped listening at that point. All he knew was that Natsumi, Saburo and Koyuki were switching in between themselves to guard them.
He knew he couldn't continue just hiding from his platoon. Keroro drew his head up a bit to see what was going on.
Dororo was in the corner crying as usual. He kept uttering the words "Koyuki hates me." He looked worse than Keroro was feeling.
Tamama looked sad but he was mostly looking at his feet, unsure of what to really do.
Giroro and Kululu continued to argue. Giroro looked like he was sad and mopey that their pekoponian friends hated them, but his sadness usually resulted and appeared as anger. This time it was channeled towards Kululu.
"I still think this whole thing is your fault! The kidnapping, the straight up almost murder. You crossed a line with that." Giroro hissed.
"Ku, ku, ku. Oh yeah? The kidnapping was my fault? Even though the keron military was the one to order us to do it? It was somehow my fault that we weren't smarter about it like us wearing bad disguises that the captain probably made?" Kululu asked.
"It was my fault that the captain's forged note was absolutely terrible?" Kululu asked yet again trying to get Giroro to understand just how stupid he was. His voice was shaking in anger.
"Yes. Yes it was! You never gave us more information on Keron's orders. You never asked more about them. You realized how important these orders were from Keron and you left it up to Keroro to organize the whole spectacle, so he obviously failed and gave us away." Giroro yelled. "He's Keroro!"
"H-hey.." Keroro's voice was a squeak. Did Giroro really think that little of him?
"Well sorry for me thinking that our captain was supposed to...I don't know...LEAD US!" Kululu threw up his hands in anger. "And I didn't tell you much about why we were capturing Haru and the stuff like that because Keron didn't give me any information themselves!"
"...Seriously? They gave you nothing to go off of?" Giroro asked.
"Yeah. Just told me to ask about the aliens he had encountered in his travels. I didn't mention anything about that part though for two reasons, 1. when he encountered us for the first time he mentioned that we were the first aliens he had seen. He could have been lying of course, but he would have played dumb if we asked that specific question. 2. I wanted to have a little bit of information at least over you. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu was just a jerk in the end.
Giroro punched him. He saw Kululu's first point but not his second.
"So because Keron didn't give you any information on why we were questioning Haru, you were mad?" Tamama finally asked. "And because of that you felt like crossing...That line?" He sounded a little disgusted.
Kululu laughed. "Ku, ku, ku. I admit my approach in killing Haru was a bit obtuse. I shouldn't have felt so rushed. Keron did give us orders after all. Should have tortured or something before threatening to kill. Then after that failed I should have killed him. My methods were juvenile."
Giroro stepped on him because he was being bad. He just crushed his face under his foot. There was a crunching sound of bones.
Should I intervene? Kululu's obviously getting quite beat up. But...He probably deserves it too. Keroro recalled. Still Kululu was his platoon member.
That meant it was Keroro's job to stick up for him and be the one to punish him. Not that he had ever successfully punished Kululu in his life. Heck, he was also a victim of Kululu's large pranks, destroying gundam models and moving them out of their spaces.
Kululu had once sold him a model saying it was rare for a super large price but it wasn't even a gundam model.
Keroro remained silent while Giroro punched Kululu. But eventually Dororo's loud wailing broke the silence.
"Stop this guys! We all know who's at fault here!" Dororo's voice was like a whine, and he sounded way madder than usual.
Keroro looked up. That's right. Dororo is always the voice of reason. He'll probably sort out Giroro and Kululu's issues saying we all took part in the kidnapping. Something wise and grandfatherly.
"Yeah, you tell him, Domomo." Keroro smiled.
"It's Dororo." Dororo frowned. "And I was going to say that this is Keroro's fault." He glared.
"W-whaaaat…?" Keroro gasped.
Dororo put his head in his face, "And now all of our friends are mad at us because of it. Lady Koyuki...Lady Koyuki is angry with me." He cried for a moment into his hands. "I am sooo tired of being blamed for Keroro's messes. This happened all the time when we were kids!" Dororo just bawled his head off.
"Wait, how is this my fault?" Keroro could agree that it was his fault, he just didn't know why it was specifically his. He needed a reason.
"You're the leader! You're supposed to have a final say in if things get violent or not. You had us fight our friends. You made sure that Natsumi and Fuyuki would feel personally attacked by that letter, writing about their father leaving them. And then you dragged the rest of us down with you!" Dororo accused.
Keroro shut up. He slumped and let Dororo yell at him. He's right. My forgery brought no happiness to anybody. It was a big mistake on my part. I thought it sounded right and made sense, but Fuyuki was incredibly sensitive about the 'his father leaving issue'. His lips tightened as Dororo continued throwing insults.
"It's childhood all over again. I always take the fall for you! Well no more! Destroying my relationship with Lady Koyuki is too far. I want no more part of you." Dororo yelled.
"Fine. That's fine." Keroro agreed absorbing the insults. He just felt sad. He was sure everybody felt the same way Dororo did. Fuyuki obviously did.
Dororo, Fuyuki, Giroro, Kululu, Natsumi. Literally everybody hates me. And I deserve it right now. Keroro hid his face back in his knees. He didn't want anyone to see the sad expression on his face.
It felt like Dororo yelled for hours. Keroro was sure in reality it was only a half of an hour but who knew with Dororo. He really was letting out all his sadness and every single instance Keroro had wronged him. The anger/trauma switch had been switched and Dororo was ready to talk.
Kululu was watching with some amusement from under Giroro's foot as Giroro continued to step on him, his gun pressed up against Kululu's cheek. Giroro was distracted by anger primarily at Kululu.
Tamama looked like he wanted to do something but sat on the bed wondering what to do. Despite the fact that they were in prison Dororo and Giroro were still armed and had weapons.
Keroro eventually got tired of Dororo's list of Keroro's crimes. He needed a distraction. And what better way to distract himself than with toys?
Keroro brought his head out of his knees and looked around. Natsumi's room was cleaner and more well organized than Fuyuki's room, but it didn't have as many cool things to poke. Most of her valuable possessions were not in fact toys, but CDs and posters with her precious radio. She also had numerous gifts from Giroro on her shelves which she probably wasn't sure where to put. They were all very random or war oriented.
Keroro eventually spotted a weenie level of 'toy'. His eyes locked onto some stuffed animals on the bed. Not my type of toy at all, but at least it's something. Holding and playing with this should make me feel better and should help me de-stress.
He'd be back to his less guilt feeling self in mere minutes with a toy. Toys sapped all other things about reality out of you. They distracted you from your fears.
He stood up and climbed onto the bed with Tamama.
"Oh, Mr. Sergeant! You've decided to join me on the bed." Tamama smiled. "Did you want to jump on it together?" He smiled. "It's not my idle situation to get closer to Mr. Sergeant, but it is a situation...After all that horrible woman isn't trapped in gay baby jail with us..." Tamama said with a sinister air under his breath. He didn't seem to realize he was talking out loud for that last part.
Giroro sighed annoying most of what Tamama said. He couldn't care less that Tamama was still competing with Angol Mois, even in this situation. He wanted to speak up about this place being gay baby jail, but he really couldn't speak against that argument.
His attention focused on Keroro as Keroro grabbed one of Natsumi's 'toys', her teddy bear. "Stop!" Giroro ordered.
"W-what? Why?" Keroro asked moving the bear around and laughing to himself as he made silly voices. "Is something wrong, Giroro?" He said in a silly voice.
Giroro brought his gun off of Kululu and pointed it at Keroro. "It takes a certain amount of commitment for Natsumi to use her room as our prison. We should respect her and not touch her things." Giroro said. "Touch anything of Natsumi's and I'll bullet you."
Kululu slithered out of under his feet to touch all of her clothes. "Oh look at me! I'm touching your precious Natsumi's socks~ Ku, ku, ku."
"Kululu, how dare you!" Giroro was about to shoot as Kululu threw one of Natsumi's skirts at Giroro's face.
Giroro was unable to dodge. The skirt touched the cheekbone.
"Well, guess by your own rules you just touched Natsumi's things too. She's going to be so mad. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu laughed.
Giroro screamed. "AUGH! I betrayed Natsumi's trust and touched her skirt!" He pounded his fists against the ground.
"Not like you didn't already betray her trust. She hates you for kidnapping her father. Already screwed up your chances to not even date her, but even be in her life positively. Ku, ku, ku. Blowing up some toy thieves won't magically make her forgive you." Kululu reminded just to be a jerk.
Giroro's eyes were glaring with pure hatred at Kululu for touching Natsumi's stuff, Keroro for the same reason, and at himself for hurting Natsumi.
And when Giroro got angry he took it out on literally everyone by just blasting his gun wildly. "Keroro! How dare you make us do this plan? Why couldn't you have made it that the pekoponians didn't hate us?" He growled ready to shoot.
"Keroro took away something more precious than ever this time. I won't forgive him. It's all his fault!" Dororo yelled.
"You probably should have had a smarter plan, captain. Ku, ku, ku. Your note forgery was so bad." Kululu pointed out.
Keroro dropped the toy on the ground and backed up. They were all yelling at him. What did he do? "I-I'm sorry, guys..."
"Sorry isn't enough." Giroro growled pointing his gun at Keroro. "You may not be able to fix this one. We don't want anything else to do with you-"
"STOP IT!" Tamama let out a loud yell and jumped between Keroro and the oncoming crowd of hate. His arms were extended to defend Keroro.
Giroro put his gun down. After all he had nothing against Tamama at the current moment. "Why? It's his fault." Giroro reminded.
"Keroro has literally been at fault for everything bad that has ever happened in my life." Dororo glared. "Give us one reason to not keep on yelling and expressing our anger."
Tamama frowned. "We're a platoon. We're in this together. It wasn't Mr. Sergeant who ordered us to capture Haru. You're making him into a scapegoat. It would be better to have no scapegoat at all and just stick together. All we have is each other." Tamama reminded. "Anyway I support Mr. Sergeant in whatever he does. He's our captain after all. Keron chose him for a reason and you have to respect that."
Tamama's words got to Giroro and he backed away.
Keroro put a hand on Tamama's shoulder, telling him it was okay to stand down. Tamama...You didn't abandon me when everybody else was so mad. You aren't mad at me. He wasn't sure why. Was Tamama just butt kissing to get a higher rank? He did know that Keroro couldn't promote him, right?
Still what Tamama was doing helped Keroro. He hadn't expected anyone to come to his aid. It made him feel surprised and more than anything grateful. Tamama was on his side. He hadn't expected that, but he was so happy.
His platoon mates really listened to Tamama. It was as if they were surprised that someone would come to Keroro's defense too and they decided to give in and listen to him for once. Dororo went back to his corner and Giroro went to his own corner.
Kululu didn't escape the room yet, noticing that to his disappointment Saburo had disconnected his floor panels. He lay on the floor rather bored.
"Sorry, Keroro, I guess...Tamama's right. We're a platoon. Platoons are supposed to stick together. That's true loyalty. I should know the keronian soldiers code of loyalty more than anything." Giroro said his voice muffled due to the fact that he was facing the wall and sitting in the corner.
"That's all right. I've made everybody into a scapegoat loads of times. It would be unrealistic to expect that I'd never be one." Keroro was trying to recover. He knew Giroro, Dororo and Kululu were still mad at him. They just weren't yelling yet.
"When I came to Pekopon, Keron was first in my heart. I would have done anything for our planet. If they had actually ordered us to kill Haru, I might have done it….Yelled at you for following Keron's orders and kidnapping Haru? I would have never done such a thing. You may have screwed up with a bad plan, but you were doing the honorable thing of following Keron's orders." Giroro rambled.
"Then why are you yelling at me now…?" Keroro asked. But he already knew the answer. Giroro had changed since he first came to Pekopon. And that was all thanks to one pekoponian.
Giroro's change had been one of the most substantial that he had watched. Sure, Dororo had changed his name and changed most completely but that had been over the course of months. Dororo had a slow change where he had gotten to know the planet and Koyuki.
Giroro had changed over night. Keroro was still shocked by how that was even possible. Was love at first punch that powerful of an emotion?
"No wonder Natsumi hates me. She definitely hates me now after all." Giroro moped. "I'm still trying to be loyal to Keron, but I'm bullcraping both my jobs." He shook his head. "Keron is supposed to be the most important in my heart but slowly...Natsumi's becoming more and more powerful. I screwed up this battle by putting her above the planet...And the worst thing?" Giroro's rambley existential crisis continued, "The worst thing is I would have done the same thing over again. But I wouldn't even follow Keron's orders this time. I wouldn't risk hurting her."
Keroro didn't know what to say.
"How can I be mad at you for screwing up this plan if I know for a fact if I could redo it I wouldn't even go along with what Keron themselves ordered us to do because it would make a girl sad?" Giroro asked. "I'm the most unloyal soldier there is to Keron."
Keroro stared at Giroro, wishing desperately he could say something to make him feel better. I know how he feels. I disappointed my friend too. But...There's nothing I can really tell him to help him through his existential crisis.
He knew now that Tamama would be there for him while Fuyuki was mad. But he didn't know who could be there for Giroro or Dororo who were both abandoned by their pekoponian friends.
We'll all be here for each other. Keroro reminded. That's what the private said. We're a platoon. He couldn't have Tamama's comfort all to himself.
"It's okay." Keroro tried to comfort. "We all made mistakes. But we're here for each other."
Dororo glared at him for a second. "You said that when we were children too. But it was always your mistakes and you weren't there for me."
Keroro ignored him. He just hoped Giroro and Dororo started feeling better soon.
Kululu ignored Giroro's sad ramblings and existential crisis about Natsumi hating him. It was just lovesick moping as usual after all. It made him pathetic and completely unable to think.
"Ku, you and Dororo both are kind of pathetic to be so focused on the fact that the girl you like is mad at you, instead of thinking about important things like trying to pinpoint what mistakes we made with Haru so that if we repeat the process over again we can do it more successfully." Kululu sounded irritated that they had failed.
He was the only one still thinking about the mission.
Giroro glared at him. He was about to scold him for still thinking of the mission and then he realized that there was no reason to scold him. Kululu was the only one at the moment up to keron's level of professionalism.
Dororo frowned. "I- I don't like her, well I do, like as a friend, but not in the way Giroro feels for N-natsumi." Dororo stuttered.
Kululu ignored him because he didn't have time to deal with Dororo's romance drama. "Besides all of the captain's various mistakes with the note forgery and having a downright terrible plan, I think things went south when you all let him free and started believing he was a psychic." Kululu put his thoughts out there.
"Can we not talk about this right now?" Giroro sighed. "We're all still moping. Although we won't fight because Tamama made some good points-"
"We still need to capture him and question him. Don't you want to be a good soldier in Keron's eyes? Don't you want to complete our mission and learn what Keron was keeping from us?" Kululu asked.
Giroro was silent. He wanted to be a good soldier but he also didn't want Natsumi to be mad.
"Why do you think Haru was lying about being a psychic?" Tamama asked.
"Ku. Obvious. He said the obvious that you all wanted to hear. That your hearts were filled with love to trick you all into not invading. As I said before you would have realized it was a lie if he had said the same to me." Kululu pointed out. "There's not an ounce of love in my heart."
They all nodded in unison. That was a very true statement.
"I don't think he was lying." Dororo finally spoke up. "About being a psychic, I mean. Haru spent a very long time studying the occult. It's very likely that he mastered the secrets of how to see into someone's true heart through his research. It's a possibility at the very least." Dororo shrugged.
Kululu stared at him. "Everybody knows that Giroro is lovesick. It's as plain as day."
"H-hey! That's not true." Giroro glared.
"You loving the planet is also common knowledge. It's easy enough to see that Tamama's in love too. And the captain's obsessed with toys." Kululu shrugged. "Those are all easy observations. Even a stranger could find it out."
"So...You're saying it's not that hard to fake being a psychic?" Tamama asked. "Hehehe...Maybe I can trick that woman. Tell her that she has a future far away from this planet."
"Priorities. We're discussing Haru right now." Kululu reminded.
Tamama shut up.
Keroro frowned. "But...But if it's so easy to observe us and just be a fake psychic…." Keroro reached up to his head remembering the pain Haru had been in when he had touched him. Had that been faked too? "Why was his answer for me so different? I mean, sure it's clear he just faked it with the toys...But after he touched me and tried to read my mind like he did for the rest of you h-he..." Keroro paused.
"Pretended to be in pain?" Kululu asked.
"I...I don't know if he was pretending." Keroro hugged himself. "He asked me...He didn't seem sure what I was..." He didn't want to repeat it. He still wasn't quite clear as to what Haru was asking about. He didn't understand.
What did Haru think he was?
Kululu was silent for a moment just staring at Keroro. He didn't have an answer for him. He didn't exactly know himself.
Still the mystery didn't press on Kululu's mind nearly as much as it did Keroro's. "Well never mind all that." He quickly brushed it under the rug. "What matters is he was clearly lying about the lovesickness of you three to get you to release him." Kululu pointed at Giroro, Dororo, and Tamama.
Giroro glared and got his guns out. "I'm not lovesick."
"Me neither." Tamama said cracking his knuckles. They were both approaching Kululu ready to beat him out.
Kululu seemed to embrace the fact that he was enticing violence against himself.
"Ummm...I'm not lovesick..." Dororo corrected. "Unless you mean lovesick for the planet! Then yes, of course I am!" Dororo smiled.
"Ku, ku, ku. Yeah, just keep telling yourself you're not on the level of these fools." Kululu grinned. "Mister I'm going to cry in a corner all day about how a certain black haired ninja hates me. Are you sure it's the planet you love so much?"
Dororo took a step back. "Giroro, Tamama. You can beat him up now."
"Thanks Dororo." Giroro smiled. "I'll punch him for you too. Since you're not that into violence."
"Yes, well it seems I unfortunately do not see the violence happening to Kululu right now. I am preoccupied by a pretty bird." Dororo lied obviously. "Punch for two."
Giroro was more than happy to oblige.
Keroro just stood back. What happened to the platoon sticking together? Is it really that important for lovesick anger squad to get their revenge?
Probably. It sure looked like it was important to them.
Keroro went back to sitting on the bed as the group beat up Kululu. He was still lost in thought about the subject Kululu had brought up- that Haru had faked being a psychic.
Keroro wasn't too sure there was nothing going on with Haru. "What am I? What did he mean by what am I?" It was still one of his primary thoughts, floating around and buzzing around his head.
Why wasn't I just lovesick too like the rest of them if it was all faked? Why did he look in pain? Keroro wondered.
"He probably meant you were an idiot." Kululu said in between punches. "You know, like 'oh god this guy is so stupid what is he'? I'd be in shock and hurt from seeing you begging me to give you a psychic reading too. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu responded.
Keroro frowned. So Haru was just insulting him in the end? "It's not that obvious to see I'm an idiot!" He frowned. "I mean I'm not an idiot!"
Everybody stopped punching Kululu and just stared at Keroro. Keroro was very wrong.
Haru lay on the couch, moaning in pain. He had been saved by his family but parts of his head were still bleeding.
It wasn't that the kidnapping was actually that rough. In fact the keronians had been rather gentle about it and he could probably easily recover from it. However Kululu had electrocuted him several times to knock him out and his body was in considerable pain from that.
Aki held her husband's hand, Fuyuki and Natsumi by his side too.
"Do you know anything about these injuries?" Natsumi asked Fuyuki and her mother. It looked like a bunch of various head injuries, perhaps one puncture wound by the tranquilizer.
"I know it looks bad." Fuyuki could only say the obvious.
"Thanks Mister obvious!" Natsumi growled mostly out of stress and worry. "You're supposed to be the smart one. I can't believe this."
"When have I ever been the smart one?" Fuyuki asked. "I'm the nerd one. You're the one who gets better grades than me."
Natsumi couldn't argue that. Fuyuki was only smart about his specific field of interest. He also was able to make leaps of deductive reasoning in mysteries, but he wasn't medical smart or mathematical.
"I know sports injuries. Some sports have head injuries but none have...Electrocutions." Aki frowned, not sure what to do about this. "I'm considering taking him to the hospital but I'm not exactly sure how to explain what happened."
Natsumi didn't really want to take her father to the hospital. They'd keep him too long and ask too many questions. She tightened her grip on his hand.
"Okay, I brought some heavy duty bandages from the invasion meeting room!" Angol Mois came through the hallway. "Just like you asked. I stole from Giroro's stash so nothing should be bleeding through."
Aki took the bandages quickly and started wrapping them around her husband's forehead.
Angol Mois watched her do so, but had a rather calm expression on her face. Obviously she didn't know Haru so she wasn't as worried but she always radiated with a rather optimistic outlook. And it was bumming Natsumi out.
Natsumi glared at her.
Angol Mois frowned, and looked around, pointing to herself. Me? She wondered. Natsumi was glaring at her? What had she done?
Natsumi's hand tightened into a fist. "D-did...Did you know about it?" She tried to keep calm.
"Natsumi. I already told you this. I don't think Mois had anything to do with it. She seemed quite out of the look and was more than happy to locate where the Keroro platoon's ship had gone." Aki glanced at her daughter only mildly scolding her for the harsh tone.
Angol Mois shook her head. "I'm sorry for what happened to your father. I had no idea what was happening. I guess the platoon didn't include me on this plan. Maybe it wasn't something they thought I could help with and that's why they didn't give me details. I'm sorry he got hurt though."
"You knew it could happen." Natsumi didn't care what Mois said. She just accused. "You knew someday that someone would get hurt from one of their invasion plans."
Angol Mois took a step back. She knew why Natsumi was accusing her and getting angry at her. Natsumi didn't have the mental strength to talk to the keronians right now and confront them so Angol Mois- who wasn't actually directly involved with anything, was the closest Natsumi could get to being confrontational.
"I...I didn't know someone would get hurt someday. Uncle was always very innocent about his schemes. They were always rather harmless and kinda dumb to be honest." Angol Mois tried to defend. "They were small scale. That's why they never worked." She reminded.
Natsumi frowned. "But you knew that invasion was the most important thing ever to Giroro and his friends! You never wondered if someone would get hurt? I don't believe that. You spent time helping their invasions. You knew they were aliens. That they would hurt someone if they had to." Natsumi pointed to her father. "We...We all knew they would hurt someone..." She recalled Giroro having his gun.
Really she was thinking of Giroro mostly.
Angol Mois sighed. "I'm sorry that I didn't know about this plan. I should have woken up earlier and gotten information on what was going on. I don't know why they hurt your father, Natsumi." Angol Mois apologized. "But I don't think any of the platoon meant to or would hurt someone- save for Kululu who has never been secretive of that fact that he has the potential to be more than a harmless menace." Mois reminded.
They all frowned. That was very, very true.
"I would hardly call Kululu a harmless menace…." Fuyuki tried not to get involved with Natsumi and Mois fighting.
"Just because the frogs aren't secretive about the fact that they're invaders or cruel and dangerous like Kululu doesn't give them an excuse to kill my father." Natsumi frowned. "Which might I say, Kululu tried to do."
"Well I don't know why he did that." Angol Mois tried to keep herself apologetic while distancing herself from other people's crimes. "But might I remind you that I have nothing to do with this. It's not like he told me 'hmm Mois I really feel like killing Natsumi's father tomorrow."
Fuyuki looked up really worried. "Did he say that?"
Angol Mois frowned and did not answer. Her face expressed a look that Fuyuki could only read as 'I'm 75% sure he was joking at the time.'
They just all frowned at her. They couldn't really blame her for being ignorant.
Natsumi finally cooled down. Angol Mois couldn't change the past or the frogs future.
The platoon was now no longer arguing. They weren't crying. They were just silent as they all reflected on past actions in the room, leaning against walls and being various different expressions of 'bummed out'.
Keroro knew he wasn't feeling any better than his platoon mates. Heck, all of them were feeling miserable, even the ones who were acting a little stronger like Tamama and Kululu. Tamama didn't like seeing his friends fighting and looking sad and now was under the blankets saying he was in 'blanket town' and Kululu was grumbling about how Keron didn't trust him enough. He was drawing doodles of himself doing what Keroro could only guess as violence against whoever had wronged him- Keroro's father if he remembered correctly.
I'm the platoon captain. My job is to cheer them up. Keroro recalled. It didn't matter how he was feeling. His heart could remain heavy.
He needed to make them feel better, feel like they still meant something.
"Do...Do you all remember how we felt the day we were chosen for this mission on Pekopon?" Keroro knew they might not all have the same feelings in common with him. Some of them experienced sadness more than anger, some were more angry. But pride in their planet was something they all knew.
"Y-yeah. Of course we do. It's a feeling you can't really forget." Giroro replied.
"We were all super proud of ourselves." Keroro smiled. His words felt strong and although they were filled with optimistic lies to trick them all into feeling better he was starting to believe in them. "I felt honored that out of all the keronians on the planet I was chosen as the leader of the recon mission to Pekopon."
They all listened to Keroro reminiscing. It looked like they really needed it, Keroro could read in their faces that their loyalty was wavering a little in the mission and Keron due to their vast number of failures.
Giroro looked to be questioning his loyalties yet again. Dororo's face was still wet with tears, Kululu looked to be trying to hide extreme self-esteem issues about the fact that for some reason Keron didn't trust or believe in him enough to give him the full information on the mission, and Tamama just seemed to be lost in reminiscing.
It was working. They all seemed to be lost in thought remembering happier memories- their own pride when they had been picked for this mission.
"You were all hand-picked to be on this mission by Keron. Keron believed in you. They knew that this mission was hard and they picked all of us for our various skills." Keroro smiled.
"B-but...We keep failing them. We haven't invaded yet. We weren't able to get what they wanted out of Haru." Giroro reminded.
"But we have proven that we're the top platoon time and time again when they send obstacles to take us out of our position. Like the Garuru platoon? We beat them. We are victorious. Keron trusts us. They know we're a good platoon." Keroro smiled.
God. I love being charismatic. Sometimes I even convince myself about what I'm saying. He already felt somewhat cheered up.
Keron knew that they would get the information out of Haru. Even if they did things their way. They believed in them.
"You each bring unique talent to this platoon and only you can do your mission." Keroro tried to continue to boost their self-esteem. "Me, I was picked to be your charismatic leader…."
Giroro rolled his eyes. Dororo laughed. Kululu scoffed.
"Private! You have the unique skill of being able to deal with the front lines. You have strong skills in hand to hand combat and explosions. You may be the first line of offense, but you're also one of our strongest members. You're uniquely special." Keroro complimented.
Tamama grinned from ear to ear. He squealed in the cutest way possible. "Mr. Sergeant complimented me! And he's completely right about all those things!" He rolled around on the bed in pure joy.
Keroro smiled. "Dororo, you're an assassin that can't be spotted. You're very skilled in stealth."
Dororo frowned. "Because people forget about me! But I'll take what I can get." He said with an amount of salt.
"Giroro, you've got an arsenal of weaponry. You're the most skilled in combat and war by far." Keroro complimented.
Giroro grinned as well. "It's true." He agreed.
"And Kululu's good with computers, inventing and engineering, body chemistry, pretty much anything to do with intelligence. He's just an all around super genius." Keroro finished up his statements.
Kululu actually gave a thumbs up. Keroro's speech was even getting to him. "I guess you're not that bad of a captain if you know all that."
"Keron picked us because we're special. Just because the full Keron forces couldn't be with us when invading Pekopon doesn't mean they believe in us any less. We were sent first because they knew we could do this job on our own." Keroro continued his dramatic speech. "We were meant to invade Pekopon. Our planet had faith in us. And we were meant to succeed in anything they believe we will succeed in."
Everybody clapped. The speech made them feel fabulous.
I can see it. Their thoughts were all mostly the same as they looked at Keroro and an imaginary bright light shined behind him. The Keroro of back then. I see him for just a moment.
Giroro clapped and cried from just Keroro being somewhat inspiring. His standards were very low. All their standards were remarkably low.
Eventually Giroro saluted. "So what do we do now then, Sergeant Keroro?" Giroro asked. "We were chosen by Keron for this mission to interrogate Haru. However we failed and our pekoponian friends are mad. How do we remedy that?"
At this very moment he had complete faith that Keroro had answers.
Keroro thought for a moment. "We did things wrong last time, with capturing Haru."
"Because we didn't wear disguises?" Kululu suggested.
"No, because we were too violent about it. Keron just wants us to ask him a few questions. We all assumed kidnapping was there too, but I...I don't want to kidnap him. Keron believes we can do it." Keroro frowned. "Our plan is to break out of here, apologize to the pekoponians and ask Haru questions non-violently. To not get mad when he doesn't know what we're talking about. Keron believes we can do this. We just have to believe in ourselves too."
Dororo stared at Keroro. He liked the non-violent part of this plan but he wasn't too sure why the pekoponians would forgive them if they tried to question Haru again. "Why will they forgive us?"
"We don't know we will. But we have to try. As long as we do nothing worthy of their anger they should be fine." Keroro explained. "Fuyuki may be horrified by what I did and he might not understand how important it is for us all to obey Keron's orders but...If we don't hurt his dad or separate him from his dad he'll be fine. It's just a sensitive issue."
Everybody gave a slow nod.
They didn't all know if they wanted to risk their friends anger again, but they all wanted to be loyal Keron soldiers. And Keroro was right. All Keron wanted was to question Haru. They just had to be much nicer about it.
"So we break out." Tamama spoke up. "How? It sounds like nothing's guarding the door, meaning likely it's Koyuki. And she's one of the tougher ones! She's got weird voodoo magic."
"Ninja arts." Dororo corrected. "Ninja arts."
Keroro frowned. "Well...There must be a way to get out. We've got assets. Like..." He tried to list their assets.
"Tamama's impacts?" Giroro suggested.
"Sealed by Koyuki's voodoo magic." Tamama frowned. "I won't be able to bellow out an impact for 24 hours."
"Dororo's ninja arts?" Giroro asked.
"Uhhh...That's also been sealed by Lady Koyuki." Dororo frowned. "And I wouldn't use it in this circumstance. I'm glad we've decided on the non-violent and non-kidnapping route, but I don't think this is any closer to the path of forgiveness." He crossed his arms. "What about your guns?"
"...Let's just assume from here on out that all our cool stuff has been sealed by Koyuki, okay?" Giroro threw up his arms in defeat. "My cool guns...I can't summon them."
"Giroro, you've had multiple guns throughout the time we've spent in this room!" Keroro reminded.
Giroro sighed. "Those I brought in. And I used up all the bullets on Kululu."
They all glared at him.
"Well Kululu. You're the only one with useful stuff. What you got?" Keroro asked.
"Nothing. Saburo hacked my floor panel privileges. Ku, ku, ku. Without my panels I can't retrieve inventions. And I can't access my computer panels. I've got my headphones but all they can do is make noise, connect to the radio, other cool things and the most important, do little helicopter things. But none of that will help us escape." Kululu thought for a moment. "Actually I still have my phone. That's an asset."
"What asset does your phone have? I bet you have some cool super genius program that will put this entire house under our control!" Keroro cackled to himself.
"Ku, ku, ku. Nope. All it's got is bubble popping games. My computer does that to the house, not my phone. I didn't trick out my phone." Kululu replied.
Keroro frowned. Even their inventor was useless!
"What about you, Keroro? What assets might you have that aren't sealed?" Giroro asked.
Keroro thought for a moment. He closed his eyes trying to go through his mind a list of assets associated with himself. Finally he figured it out. "Mois! Mois's my asset!"
Kululu looked startled. "You...You can't count that as one of your assets. She's her own person. And she's not here to break us out."
"Y-yeah! You can't have that woman save the day so that you fall even more in love with her!" Tamama cried. He knew Mois would do anything for Keroro and that technically she was his asset, but he didn't want to know that.
Keroro grinned. "But she is part of the platoon's assets. She helps us out all the time. She'd be more than happy to break us out."
"And how are you going to ask her for help?" Tamama asked trying to not make Angol Mois play any role in this. He didn't want her to have any part.
Keroro pointed to Kululu. "Kululu said he has a phone. We'll just text her. I mean as the communications officer that is sort of her thing."
Kululu sighed. He tossed the phone to Keroro. "Fine, but I don't want to drag her down into our problems. She'll listen to you, so you do it."
Keroro opened the phone. "Where's Mois's contact number?"
"You...You haven't memorized it?" Kululu asked. "Ku, ku, ku." He shook his head feeling a little bad for Mois, "It's under sparkly eyed demon. Which I'm 90% sure is her real name."
Keroro clicked under that contact and tried to write a quick text to Angol Mois. He tried very hard to respect Kululu and Mois's privacy by not looking up and reading any of their texts which he noticed mostly consisted of Kululu insulting various platoon mates and gossiping.
"Hey Mois. It's me, Keroro. The platoon is locked in Natsumi's room. Koyuki and maybe Saburo are guarding the doors. Natsumi probably isn't because she's not being loud and angry. I was wondering if you could break us out? I'd be real happy about it." Keroro wrote.
He waited to get a text back. Eventually Mois replied to him. "Why do you want my help now? You didn't tell me anything about this plan that you were doing recently. You didn't include me on it or ask for any help or advice. You still haven't told me what's going on."
Keroro sighed. "She's...Kinda ticked that we didn't tell her what was going on…I suppose that's halfway my fault because I didn't wait for her to wake up and join our invasion meeting?"
Kululu looked off to the side. It was all his fault because he was the one who had made sure Mois didn't know. "Tell her we'll explain later."
"We'll explain what's going on later. Don't worry, nothing violent will happen. Just please...Help us Mois. We don't want to be failures anymore. We want to help Keron. Do it for me, Keroro. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you what was going on." Keroro apologized.
"It's not you I'm mad at Uncle. I kinda expect you to leave me out of plans now. Kululu's the one who usually keeps me informed." There was a moment of silence on the other end. "I'll break you out but only because you asked. And tell Kululu that he should have a reason he didn't include me."
Keroro handed the phone back to Kululu. "She agreed to help!" Keroro felt victorious.
Kululu frowned. "Oh come on! She was asleep! That was my reason!"
Keroro looked at him.
"Also because she has morals. Okay, so I'm not perfect. I might have specifically 'forgotten' to tell her. It wasn't my brightest move." He sat down. "But as you said, captain...We won't be violent about the Haru interrogation this time. So there's no need to not have Mois in it."
Keroro nodded. They could include Mois now, and hopefully she'd be a worthwhile asset.
Tamama screamed about how terrible it was that that woman was helping.
She had just reminded Natsumi that she had nothing to do with what the keronians had done. And now here Angol Mois was, getting ready to steal the keys to Natsumi's room from Aki while she wasn't looking.
I'm real sorry...She knew that didn't make much of a difference since she was still going to do it. She hoped Aki wasn't too mad. Aki had been real kind to her when she had woken her up from inside Kululu's lab and asked her to help locate her husband.
She felt bad for turning her back on her now. The woman had a real motherly charm, but she also didn't want to abandon Keroro who needed her and wanted her to help him. I never say no when he asks for help.
Aki was leaning down and tending to Haru. Quickly Angol Mois reached over and slipped the keys off of Aki's belt buckle. She felt her hand shaking just a little bit, a moment of guilt.
She had no loyalty to Keron or whatever mission Keroro was trying to follow. All she wanted to do was help the keronians who were imprisoned.
All she wanted to do was help Keroro. But she felt bad that she had to go against her other friends wishes to do that.
Quickly she ran upstairs to where Natsumi's room was. She made sure to hide the keys in her pocket.
Just as Keroro had told her, Koyuki and Saburo were standing outside the door.
"So you can really make my coin always land on it's side when I say heads or tails?" Saburo asked making light chatter with Koyuki.
"Yeah! I can control the wind with a ninja trick." Koyuki nodded. She was about to put her hands in the sign but then noticed Mois. "Oh, Mois!" She waved cheerfully at the girl. "Did you want to help guard Dororo and the others too?"
Angol Mois shook her head. "I just came up to tell you that Natsumi wanted to talk to you about something."
Koyuki smiled. "Thanks!" She ran off, just as Angol Mois had predicted, to talk to Natsumi.
"Fuyuki was looking for you too, Saburo." Angol Mois tried the same trick on Saburo.
Saburo frowned. "Nice try. But I don't want to leave the door unguarded just to talk to my favorite Hinata. That doesn't work on me like it worked on Koyuki." He looked at Angol Mois for a moment staring at her as if to say 'what else you got?'
Angol Mois frowned. She had one method, but she wasn't sure Saburo's ego was that big to make him fall for it. "What's the harm in leaving the door for just a little bit? I mean, yeah the keronians might escape but you'd easily be able to catch them again, right?"
Saburo listened. His glare relaxed as he thought about her words.
"I mean, you're so cool Saburo. So strong. You'd definitely be able to do it even if they did manage to get out while you were talking to Fuyuki. So what's the harm in leaving for just a few moments? You're tougher and smarter than all of them combined!" Angol Mois complimented her eyes sparkling.
Saburo nodded. "You're right...I mean I could catch them again." He started moving away from the door.
Flattery. It works all the time on these people with egos like these. Angol Mois just shook her head to herself. Saburo, Keroro and Kululu were all the same.
Saburo quickly went off and Angol Mois unlocked the door.
The frogs, who had been pressed up against the door waiting for Mois to free them, cheered. They embraced their newfound freedom.
"You did it, Lady Mois!" Keroro clapped.
"Tougher and smarter than all of us combined, huh?...That's not what you really think, right? I mean I'm obviously smarter." Kululu was petty and just thinking of his ego.
Angol Mois rolled her eyes. "It was flattery, Kululu. To get rid of him. It's easy to convince someone to do something if you stroke up their ego a lot."
"….Do I fall for that trick as often?" Kululu had this horrible suspicion that it had been used on him more than once.
Angol Mois gave a curt nod. She was still mad that she hadn't been told what was going on.
"Well, Lady Mois, sorry we don't have time to inform you of what's going on, but we have an Admiral Papa to question so we can be done with this whole thing." Keroro spoke aloud.
Before Angol Mois could protest all of the frogs that she had freed ran past her and down the stairs.
It was Haru time.
Haru was just now getting up from his injuries. His wounds had stopped bleeding and he was feeling better.
"Admiral Papa! We have a few questions to ask you! And we'll even ask them in interpretive dance if that gets you to answer them for us!" Keroro quickly, leading his platoon, slid down the stairs and declared his desire for knowledge only.
"Interpretive dance? We're going there?" Giroro asked. "I thought we were only going to try to use a lot of the word 'please.'"
"We'll try anything." Keroro replied.
Aki felt around on her belt. "The keys are gone! They must have escaped somehow!"
Natsumi got in front of her father, her fists out. She'd punch them straight back into her room if need be.
Fuyuki glared. He let out a low growl. "Sarge...You came back for him?"
"We won't hurt him or take him from you! I didn't understand how important he was to you before!" Keroro insisted. "Please. Let us do our job and just ask him a few questions."
Haru got to his feet and touched Natsumi and Fuyuki's shoulders. "You don't have to deal with this. Let me solve this problem for once. Let me protect you."
"But the sarge broke free! He's our problem. He was my friend. Let me-" Fuyuki pleaded.
"This is my battle, Fuyuki." Haru stepped forward. "I may not be strong but I'm a smart thinker. I can take care of myself." He glared at the platoon, "I'll fight for my family."
Giroro glanced at Keroro. "What do we do now? We were going to try the non-violent route and all he wants is to fight."
"Well sometimes in anime to understand each other, the characters have to punch each other out before they become friends. Fights bring each other closer." Keroro was unfortunately extremely dumb. "Let's fight him so he understands we mean no harm!"
It was pure anime logic.
Everybody just stared at him. Giroro shrugged eventually. Keroro's advice had led them to okay things before. Might as well try to listen. Tamama nodded.
"Keroro platoon, go! Don't injure Haru too badly. Just get him back on the couch sitting so we can talk!" Keroro ordered.
They all nodded. Quickly Giroro and Dororo ran up first being the fastest of the group. Giroro didn't have all of his weapons but he had more than he had originally said he had. Perhaps he had just lied so that he didn't blow up Natsumi's room.
Keroro was pretty sure he had. He was not out of bullets.
Giroro shot, carefully hoping to only hit Haru's clothing and get him to sit back in the couch. Dororo moved forward to push Haru.
Haru was not strong, but he was smart. And he quickly dodged all of Dororo and Giroro's moves so that they were directed at each other instead of him. Giroro's bullets went straight at Dororo and Dororo's shuriken straight at Giroro.
The two moves hit each other and Giroro and Dororo flew towards the wall.
"TAMAMA IMPACT!" Tamama could not summon his energy beams for a bit because of Koyuki but he could roll himself into a ball and throw himself at Haru.
Haru grabbed a plate from the table and used it as a shield against Tamama. Tamama hit the plate and bounced to the ceiling, not hitting Haru at all.
"Ku, ku, ku. Nice job taking out all our heavy hitters. You're smarter than we first thought. But...I always knew that." Kululu clicked his headphones and his huge amount of wires came out.
Keroro winced. He hoped Kululu kept to the non-violent route.
The wires launched towards Haru and towards his throat as if to knock him out and move him to the couch afterwards.
"Let's just step on them. They're not that high up over there." Natsumi suggested.
"No, this is my fight." Haru reminded. He reached out and before Kululu could move away he grabbed the wires and started tying them together quickly in various boy scout knots.
"AUGH! AUGH!" Kululu just screamed. Not only did it hurt, he hadn't expected them to get tangled.
Haru was tying so quickly that Kululu couldn't get away. Haru looked more like a living weapon, beating all the members of the Keroro platoon on his own than a normal weakling.
Haru eventually let Kululu's wires go and looked around at his handy work. All the members of the Keroro platoon were on the ground heavily breathing, sore and beaten. Keroro was the last one left.
"I...I can fight too..." Keroro finally said. "We just want to ask you some questions."
Haru walked up to him and gave him a light kick to the face.
"Eek!" Keroro fell to the ground. Pekoponian feet were so large!
"You won't hurt me or my family any longer. No alien will." Haru frowned. "You know who has more power now. It's me."
Keroro tried to look up at him. He saw Fuyuki cheering and Aki hugging her husband in pure glee.
"Wow, honey! You were sure strong. I don't remember you ever being that strong before. You must have gotten tougher over your travels." Aki complimented and kissed all over his face.
"You beat them!" Fuyuki cheered.
"Y-yeah. Y-you sure are tough being able to do that all on your own and not wanting us to help you." Natsumi's voice had a hint of bitterness. "You sure protected us." Now the word was really bitter, like she didn't particularly like the fact that he had told her to stand down when she had had good ideas on how to beat the frogs too.
"Of course I did! A father protects his kids. I promise to make sure you both never have to fight again." Haru hugged Natsumi and Fuyuki.
Fuyuki smiled.
"...Great." Natsumi said sarcastically. She glanced a little worriedly at Giroro wondering briefly if he was okay after getting his butt kicked. She didn't feel as satisfied after this battle. There was no longer the feeling of betrayal, but there wasn't a resolution to her anger since she hadn't been allowed to fight.
Keroro wasn't paying attention to Natsumi and her issues though. Instead he was focusing on Haru. Crap! He's much tougher than I thought. Maybe Keron wanted us to ask him questions because he's really a huge threat to our invasion.
It couldn't be that he was tougher than Aki. They didn't need a fourth Hinata as their obstacle. Keroro tried to get up onto his feet desperately.
Things couldn't end like this. Not after his rousing speech about how Keron believed in them.
Angol Mois headed down the stairs to see what the Keroro platoon was actually planning. She peered down to see what was happening.
"H-haru...We won't let you defeat us. We're proud warriors of Keron." Keroro actually used his name.
Haru stepped on Keroro's body again. "Don't ever bother try to hurt my family again."
Any normal person would know that Haru was about to step on Keroro or give him the lightest of kicks. But Angol Mois was not a normal person, she was just someone who knew nothing about what was going on who had walked in on a dramatic scene with no context.
She didn't know Haru very well. She didn't know what this serious conversation was about. But to her it sounded like one of Keroro's weird animes where the hero was going to do the finishing blow on a villain.
Oh no! Haru's getting ready to kill Uncle! Angol Mois decided on the spur of the moment. She ran down, letting out a large scream. "NOOO! Don't do it!"
All their heads turned to Angol Mois.
"M-mois? Oh. You must have been the one to steal my keys." Aki frowned with severe motherly disappointment. "I had hoped you weren't involved with this, but I guess you do fly around the bad crowd."
"Mois!" Natsumi was very very mad. Angol Mois had helped the frogs in the end anyway!
Angol Mois bent down to the keronians. She looked at Tamama who was the nearest.
"D-don't touch me." He gasped out.
Angol Mois assumed this was because he was in so much pain. After all, they were all horribly injured. An awful fight must have happened. "Don't worry. I'll help you, Tamama." She vowed.
Haru frowned. "Get out of the way." He demanded. "I don't want them to hurt anyone else again. I don't want you getting caught up in this."
Angol Mois stood up and looked Haru, the strange Hinata that she knew nothing about, straight in the eye. So he does intend to end their lives or stop their mayhem somehow? It sounded awfully serious.
And she wasn't just going to stand back and let them get their (probably rightful) punishments. She would stand up for the Keroro platoon.
"I'm not uninvolved in this. I'm part of the Keroro platoon too!" Angol Mois pouted. "I'll risk the pekoponians anger if it protects them. I'll fight for my friends and my Uncle!"
Before Haru could stop her and plead for her to not, she transformed into her angolian attire before her eyes her pekoponian disguise dissolving. Her spear was in her hands in a more defensive stance verses her usual destructive one.
Haru looked shocked as the disguise evaporated. He took a startled step back, babbling and stuttering a beginning of a word which sounded like it was some profanity.
"I can deal with this-" Natsumi volunteered.
"YOU'RE AN ANGOLIAN?" Haru finally yelled.
Fuyuki looked at him a little confused. "How...How can you recognize that? Hold up, how do you know what an angolian is?"
"What I'm mostly confused about is how you know what an angolian is but you didn't draw the conclusion that I was one when my name is Angol Mois." Angol Mois frowned. She was pretty sure she had mentioned her extended lifespan too.
"I knew you were some sort of alien. Just not a freakin angolian!" Haru's voice was on the edge of panicky. "This is bad. Angolians only show up when planets are marked for destruction...Oh god. Oh god..We're all going to die!" He started hyperventilating.
"First of all, not true. I'm sure we can go on vacation places." Angol Mois frowned but she smiled after a second. "And second, yes! Finally someone gets it! I love it when someone recognizes that an angolian's job is to destroy planets instead of just forgetting that she's an alien and treating her normal." She glanced at Natsumi and Fuyuki.
Natsumi frowned. Now was not the time.
"I thought this place was safe!" Haru screamed.
Angol Mois did not correct him that it probably was. She just held her spear and stood strong. She still had a job to protect the keronians.
Haru continued screaming for a moment, everyone else stood silently. But as their own silence continued they began to hear more sounds coming from Haru's own body.
It wasn't just screaming. It was the distinct sound of buzzing.
"D-dad..?" Fuyuki was the closest to his father. He was still kind of hugging his arm wishing to celebrate a victory over the frogs. His body was shivering.
He hated the sound of buzzing. Fuyuki was more than anything afraid of insects. But he didn't let go because his father was screaming.
His father wasn't moving away from the spot he was standing in, but his arms did seem to be flailing or moving ever so slightly.
When everybody finally looked closer at it, they could notice what was happening to his arms. In a truly horrifying moment that might never clear from any of their minds again, eggs were hatching from his arms. Larvae were worming out of his arms, along with fully grown insects biting their way through his skin, or puncturing it with their heads.
They burst through it as if they were sprouts and he was the soil.
Fuyuki screamed. He finally let go of his father and fell to the ground.
More and more flies erupted from Haru's skin, the skin healing almost magically as soon as one clawed its way through. Then another one would claw through. Soon the air was thick with flies as they continuously erupted from Haru's body.
Nobody could look away. It was true eldritch horror, the most disgusting and gruesome sight that anybody had ever seen. How had that many bugs lived in one man's body? Nobody knew but someone they had.
They all buzzed in the air. And suddenly the group realized that the buzzing could be heard in their minds and not just their ears. The buzzing sounded almost like telepathic words.
"The planet is doomed! Doomed! Doomed! It's going to die!"
"We have to find safety. Quickly. Quickly!"
"We have to warn our people. Go to the others."
"We'll all die here. We have to go!"
"Bob said that there was a reason there were so many earthquakes in the most recent ears. But I never listened."
They were all various panicked statements. It was becoming more and more apparent that Haru's screaming was actually the flies screaming and worry.
Fuyuki curled into a tiny ball hoping to be as small as possible so that the bugs wouldn't touch him. He was shivering and terrified. Those had been in his father? The father he had been loving and trying to protect?
The only one who wasn't in pure shock and frozen to the ground was Giroro. He quickly grabbed a fly before it could fly out of an open window. "What is this? I don't think that many pekoponian bugs can live in a person." He held his prisoner tightly in his hands.
All of the flies were finally out of Haru. Haru looked desperately at Giroro. He felt weak after everything had left him, his arms still covered in broken bug egg shells. "P-please.." Haru uttered a weak please.
Giroro looked at him.
"Please...Let it go." Haru begged.
Giroro looked surprised. "Why? Wasn't it living as a parasite inside of you?"
"They...They are my f-friends..." Haru weakly confessed. "They never hurt me. They never would hurt me."
Giroro looked confused. I don't understand why he would defend something that was living inside of him. Luckily Natsumi had the same thought.
"I don't understand how they didn't hurt you if they were living inside of you!" Natsumi finally spoke up, covering her mouth from disgust. She looked nauseous. "Squash it, Giroro." She requested.
Giroro's grip tightened on it.
"No, wait, Stop!" Haru begged.
Giroro's grip lightened. He wanted Natsumi to have the full explanation before he decided what to do with it.
"They...They aren't normal bugs." Haru tried to explain, "T-they're an ancient race of flies. A mythical alien. I was researching them on my travels and eventually I found them and we became friends. They're connected to everything occult in this world so of course I loved them. But we truly bonded. With them I was never alone. With me, I could protect them. So we entered a symbiotic relationship. I treasured them, Natsumi. More than anything."
"It sounds like they were kind of your alien friends like Fuyuki's bonded onto the frogs." Aki observed, disgusted by the flies herself but trying to make things a bit easier on Natsumi and Fuyuki. "Fuyuki, Natsumi. You both have alien friends. Your father's just the same way."
Natsumi looked down at her father. He looked so much weaker than usual. But his eyes were filled with love and worry for his friends.
She could see that he truly treasured them. Maybe more than me and Fuyuki. But...He still loves them. Natsumi tried not to feel hurt.
"Giroro...Release it." She requested.
Giroro looked at Haru. He didn't believe a word of bull crap that man said about these obviously parasitic creatures being his friends. Giroro glanced at Natsumi who had a look of understanding and pity as she looked down at her father. He just said he treasured this thing most in the world! Even more than his own children probably. This guy was a crap man.
Still, he didn't care about Haru's feelings. It was Natsumi's feelings that Giroro cared about. And she could choose who she wished to forgive and who she didn't want to forgive. That was why she might never forgive Giroro but Giroro would be okay with that. It was Natsumi's choice.
He opened up his hand and let the fly go like Natsumi wanted. Giroro smiled at Natsumi.
Natsumi gave him a soft smile back. And in the moment, Giroro knew that despite what had happened the previous day she forgave him. Because he had listened to her and stood by her side.
Giroro, for once in his life felt like he had made the right choice.
Haru smiled. "T-thank you." And then he collapsed.
Everybody just kinda stared at him.
Keroro was so confused. Fuyuki wasn't sending any of the frogs back upstairs. Everybody was still kind of in shock from the fly thing.
"W-what was that? Mythical alien? I've never heard of anything like that!" Keroro yelled out loud. He was just so confused.
Those things were gross, even for aliens too. Was that the thing that keron had wanted them to question Haru about?
Kululu frowned. "Ku, ku, ku. Yeah...I mean it doesn't bother me too much that you've never heard about it. What bothers me is that even I don't know what those things are. I can't find any information in any documents online or anywhere." Kululu was looking on his computer.
He didn't like to not be the one with information. How could he be an intelligence officer like this?
"Since the information about these fly things seem to be pretty non-existent we can only deduce that that's what Keron wanted us to question Haru about." Kululu deduced. "He might not answer any questions but we can tell Keron what we found out already."
Perhaps they'd actually give them information this time.
Keroro nodded. He noticed that the Hinatas weren't moving to imprison them. Fuyuki didn't even seem mad, he just seemed very frightened, rocking back and forth.
Keroro helped Tamama up to his feet. "Let's go downstairs and to contact the Keron army." Keroro decided.
They all nodded, listening to Keroro's orders.
They quickly went downstairs to the base to transmit a message to Keron.
"H-hey!" Keroro didn't know if the flies were really what Keron was looking for, but it was the best he could guess at. He saluted as he saw the colonel on the other side of the screen.
"Sergeant Keroro. Have you done what we ordered?" The colonel asked. There was a bunch of higher ups of the Keron army behind him.
Keroro nodded. "Umm...We're not sure if this is what you're looking for, but..." Keroro tried not to sound like an idiot. "The pekoponian Haru Hinata started screaming randomly during a point in our interrogation. Suddenly a bunch of flies erupted from his body and fled. He said they were his friends and a mythical alien connected to the occult here?" Keroro's voice was skeptical as he explained what they had seen.
The colonel's eyes widened. "How many flies?"
"Over millions." Tamama spoke up.
There was chattering among the keronians at the other end.
"Fabulous! You've done a fabulous job!" The colonel congratulated. "I didn't expect they were inside of him! I just thought he had met them directly." He confirmed that that was in fact what he was looking for.
Keroro's eyes widened. He was still confused. Why were flies so important?
All of the keronians looked ecstatic as they chattered among themselves. "We've finally located them!" They would say.
"Victory is almost ours. And it tastes so sweet." As they continued to celebrate Keroro just got more and more confused.
The colonel continued trying to look professional despite the fact that he was smiling too. "Listen Keroro Platoon, it is now your number one mission to locate more of those flies. To find their location. This is more important than the invasion by far."
Keroro saluted. "Yes sir!" He was confused why the invasion wasn't as important anymore. He didn't know if he had the right to ask though.
Luckily Kululu was the one to question things and speak up, feeling entitled to information. "So what are these flies? Why are they so important? Ku, ku, ku. If we're tracking them I think we have a right to know."
The colonel frowned not liking Kululu's tone. He glanced at Keroro as if he suspected Keroro probably deserved the information, but Kululu might not have a right to it. He sighed. Kululu made a good point though.
"Those flies are known as the flyians. They are something we've been looking for a while. Long ago eating the flyians brought us to a great age of invading. We can only evolve and advance from eating them." The colonel reluctantly told them. "Unfortunately they fled so we haven't been able to progress since then."
"Was information about them top secret? Is that why we weren't prepared properly for this interrogate Haru mission?" Dororo spoke up.
The colonel didn't hear him.
Tamama repeated Dororo's question so that the colonel could hear.
"Yes, the information was top secret. We didn't want people who hadn't proven themselves to feel like their efforts in advancing society was futile without the flyians. We didn't want them to start desiring something that they might never have." The colonel explained. "But you've now proven yourself. The Keroro Platoon now has access to some of Keron's top secret ancient history."
Everybody smiled. Even Kululu seemed to have an almost childish and proud grin on his face instead of his usual sinister smile.
"The info was all I wanted. Glad to know that locating your bugs finally got me the respect I should have had." Kululu tried to play it cool, but really he was happy to finally be included and not be treated as someone lesser.
"Well, we all want Keron to be strong! So we'll try our hardest to locate the flyians!" Giroro was all ready to make his planet proud.
"Yeah! We'll make you proud!" Tamama smiled.
"As long as it's not hurting this beautiful planet of Pekopon, I will lend my aid. And those flies looked...horrible in Haru." Dororo frowned.
"We'll do a great job." Keroro smiled.
"We know you will. Because you're the amazing Keroro platoon that we hand picked specially for this job. Each of you has unique talents." The colonel told them.
"And Keron has utter faith in you and pride."
They soaked up those words happily. Their planet believing in them and being proud of them was all they had ever wanted.
The flyians gathered in the darkness of a forest where they would have a peaceful amount of silence. The fear was beginning to fade away.
"The planet may be doomed. But I do not think we should abandon it." They seemed to speak as a whole with this sentiment.
They had wished to abandon the planet for their own safety a few hours ago, but that had only been the panic talking they decided.
"Even if an angolian has marked this planet for destruction this planet has been good to us."
"Yes, the food has been good here. The life energy of the pekoponians has been delicious."
"This is our home now. We have made this into our home." They decided.
"We have grown strong. Let us use our strength to fight for this planet to protect it from destruction." The flyians decided.
Happy buzzing was the answer to that proposition. Their goal had been decided.
They would fight to protect the planet they loved. They would survive.
Pekopon would not be destroyed.
Kululu's been an extreme jerk in this fic. To get the plot moving he has to make a variety of mistakes. Even if he's my second favorite he's gotta suffer in some of these stories. Sorry Kululu.
I feel like Gironatsu is kinda taking over again. It's just that it's one of Giroro's primary motives, character wise...
Please review. Even if it's a review on mobile of that you liked it, that's fine! I would love to hear your thoughts.
