The Trouble with Love Potions
Chapter 3: Plans
Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik football and I make no money from this fanfiction.
"Ahito! Ahito!" Micro-ice shouted, shaking the sleeping boy a little bit- he didn't have any time to mess around.
"Oh, huh?" Ahito mumbled, sleepily, raising his head, unintentionally revealing that he had been resting his head on a (now slightly squashed) bouquet of pink roses.
Well that wasn't a good sign.
"What are you doing out here?" Micro-ice asked, although he had a feeling that the answer would only confirm the suspicions that he already held. "And who are the flowers for."
"They're for the most beautiful, kind and wonderful girl in the Zaelion Galaxy," Ahito said, dreamily.
"Right…and that would be?"
Ahito shook his head at Micro-ice, as if it were a totally stupid question. "Mei, of course- she's my dream girl."
Micro-ice groaned as Ahito drifted back off to sleep- it was worse that he had thought- now there were puns involved.
"Mei, you're my guardian angel…" Micro-ice heard him say in his sleep, as he was walking away- he felt fairly certain by now that Ahito was definitely under the influence of a love potion and frankly collecting more evidence would just have been creepy.
Meanwhile…
After a long search, Tia had managed to locate Thran- he'd holed himself up in some obscure room, apparently to get some peace and quiet whilst he worked on some new programme for the holo-trainer.
So far so normal (normal for Thran at least).
"Hi, Thran," she said, her voice startling him.
"Oh yes, hi," he said, already sounding immensely bored with the conversation. Well that could be a sign she guessed- but surely it wasn't possible to fall in love with one's mechanics work? She wasn't even sure she accepted the premise of a love potion anyways.
"So…you want to take a break?" she asked, tentatively.
"I can't, I have to finish this…there's so much I have to do…"
"Why? You selling that stuff?" she asked, half-jokingly.
"No."
It was at this point that Tia realised that it was extremely awkward trying to keep up a conversation with someone who refused to co-operate.
Giving it one last shot, she figured she might at well just come out and the question. "
"Hey, do you happen to suddenly be in love with someone today?"
"What?" he said, looking up from his work for the first time.
"Nothing, forget it," she said, making a hasty exit.
She tried to collect her thoughts as she walked along the very lonely corridors- he was certainly acting a little odd but whether it had anything to do with this so called love potion she had no clue. At least it had been a momentary diversion from thinking about Rocket. She sighed, thinking about him and, despite her better instincts; she pulled out her holo-phone and tried to call him.
He didn't take that call, leaving her just feeling worse than ever- he was ignoring her, she just knew it.
She really hoped this was just because of some love potion.
Meanwhile…
"D'jok, I wanted to talk about…" Mei said, entering his room, trailing off as she took in his physical appearance- he looked particularly ruffled, and there appeared to be fresh bruises appearing on his face. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing," he said, sullenly. "Just leave me alone."
"Were you in a fight? With who?" Mei said, coming over to take his hand.
He pushed her away, standing up dramatically. "I said, just leave it, Mei. God you're just like your mother- always meddling in other people's business."
She just stood there in stunned silence as he pushed past her, stomping out of the room without giving her a second look.
She stayed there for a while, waiting for him to come back, knowing that this was not her D'jok- that he wouldn't have said that to her when she was only trying to help him. When he knew that she had a few issues when it came to her mother.
She blinked back tears and tried to shake it off; she would get to the bottom of this no matter what it took.
They all met back at around the same time, converging back at Mei and Tia's room- Ahito having vacated the hallway space outside it, leaving, however, the bedraggled roses outside the door.
"What are these?" Mei asked, picking it up gingerly.
"I'll explain later," Micro-ice said, rolling his eyes- even he knew that this wasn't smooth on Ahito's behalf.
They quickly discussed their findings, collectively concluding that a) something strange was definitely afoot and b) since the love potion lead was the only one they had, they might as well follow up on that.
"Okay," Mei pondered. "If we're saying that it is a love potion then I guess the best thing to do would be to go back to where you bought it and see what the owner has to say."
"That might be a problem…I don't remember exactly where it was and anyways, it was on the Shadows' planet- it's not like we can just hop on over there."
"Do you think maybe there'll be any info online- they might sell them on holo-bay," Tia offered.
20 minutes searching disabused them of the notion that there might be anything useful on the internet- there was just too much bogus stuff to sort through.
"We could ask Artegor- he lived with the Shadows for years- maybe he encountered it in the past?" Mei said, just throwing out any old idea that might have a vague chance of working.
"No, absolutely not- that man is creepy," Micro-ice said, crossing his hands in front of his chest.
"Then I guess we'll have to speak to Aarch about it then- I mean he also lived there for a while," Tia said, smirking.
Micro-ice just pictured it- Aarch looking at him sternly as he related the whole sorry tale, how he would then proceed to lecture him about his irresponsibility in buying a love potion, he'd probably make him run extra laps or something…
He sighed, defeated. "Fine, let's go see Artegor."
'And just hope he knows something,' he added mentally.
I have honestly no idea why it took so long for me to sit down and write this chapter- well, it was probably just laziness. Hopefully the next one won't take as long. Please review!