Reasonable Beings

Shirogane and Lettuce emerged from the ocean in a spume of glittering water, the evening sun falling on their faces. She felt him beginning to move in her arms; he opened his eyes, coughed, and began treading water opposite her. She relaxed her hold on him, keeping her hands on his arms for steadiness.

"Lettuce … ?"

"Shirogane-san! I'm so glad … " She looked back into those turqoise eyes she had admired for so long with intense relief. She had him. He was alive. Everything was going to be all right.

"Lettuce! Shirogane! Here we are, is everything all right?" Came the happy, but exhausted voices of the team in their nearby speedboat. They hauled up Shirogane first; the ever efficient Keiichiro even pulled out a warm blanket, despite the blonde man's half-hearted grumbles (between sneezing) that he was not made out of glass and would be just fine. Next, Zakuro and Ichigo, the strongest of the girls, reached out their hands to Lettuce in the water.

"Grab on, Lettuce," said Ichigo, smiling. "You must be exhausted."

Lettuce looked up at the welcoming group in the boat, then down into the wild blue depths of the ocean. Her heart was still beating fast; her porpoise tail was still in evidence, proving that the turbulent emotions which had gripped her underneath the surface were still there. She thought of a pale, stormy face, last seen watching her over Shirogane's shoulder. A muscular arm raised to block her, which she had swept aside as lightly as a feather. Surely she wasn't that strong, even as a Mew Mew? Surely being alone with a sworn enemy should have cost her more than this?

Something was strange. And her scientific, logical mind insisted on finding out what.

"Can you wait for me?" she asked, on impulse. "I … I still have some unfinished business down there."

"Not another Chimera?" asked Keiichiro, looking alarmed. "The scans haven't shown any – "

"No, it's not that. Please wait for me, everyone! If I'm not back in twenty minutes – " She swallowed hard. "Then go back home. I'm sorry. I have to do this!"

And with a flick of her powerful tail, ignoring the alarmed exclamations of her friends, she was gone.

Forgive me, she thought ruefully, arrowing downward in the same direction she had come before. But this is the one chance I've been waiting for.

Pai was just about to teleport away when she caught up to him, in that halfway state where the water around him rippled like a pond with a stone in it.

"Pai-san!"

He re-materialized and raised one fan in front of him like a sword.

"What do you want, Mew Lettuce?

"I need to talk to you." She stopped, facing him in as upright a position as she could manage with a tail that was meant to be horizontal.

"I have no desire to talk to you. Either defend yourself or leave."

Lettuce, normally so shy about speaking to strangers, found herself so filled to the brim with hope, fear, anxiety and something else fizzing inside her that she said the first thing on her mind.

"How large is your species' population?"

Pai's eyes widened. Whatever he had expected from her, it was not this. He had looked just as thunderstruck for a moment when she had reminded him that, like herself fighting for Shirogane, he had loved ones to protect.

"Why?" he snapped.

"Earth's a big planet, Pai-san. There are plenty of uninhabited areas. Isn't there room enough for both our races?"

The awe in his face disappeared as quickly as it had come. It was like watching a door slam.

"Whatever gave you a foolish idea like that?" he asked disdainfully.

The old Midorikawa Lettuce would have cringed and fled. But Mew Lettuce was made of sterner stuff than that.

"The Blue Knight nearly killed Kish-san," she reminded him, her soft voice carrying clearly. "Pudding could have suffocated in your tunnel experiment last week. Neither of us wants to see our friends hurt anymore."

Pai lowered his eyes briefly as she mentioned Kish, but when he looked back at her, they were black as thunderclouds in his white face.

"What would you have us do then, Mew Lettuce? Live on the charity of your human governments like so many beggars? Put ourselves on display for your scientists to gawk at?"

"Humans aren't as intolerant as you think!" she shot back, indignation adding to the fizzy rush inside her transformed body. "Pudding calls Taruto-san her friend. Ichigo-san almost cried out of compassion when she saw the data on your planet's living conditions. And I … I admire you."

Pai's eyes, which were really a deep purple rather than black, seemed to settle and soften as she spoke. He lowered his fan. They were two steps closer to each other, face to face. How had that happened? Fired up by her speech, she must have swum closer without even realizing.

"You … admire me?" he asked incredulously.

"Y-your people, I mean," she hurried to say, holding up her hands. "You've accomplished so much – teleportation, faster-than-light space travel, even genetic engineering – and all under such terrible conditions. We could learn from each other. Exchange data, you know, like what you were after in the city library a few months ago. But without, you know, the water fleas and general destruction. Sorry. I'm rambling."

"Most illogical," said Pai. "You have every reason to hate us, and yet … "

He shook his head. "You, Mew Lettuce, are a being unlike any I have encountered before."

Lettuce, unsure of whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, decided to pass it by.

"Your Chimera Animae," she argued instead, "They take up energy, don't they? They use up your resources?"

"Indeed." Pai nodded. "Why do you ask?"

"Beause you don't seem to be a people that can afford creating things and setting them loose to be destroyed by us over and over. Isn't that a waste?"

"A necessary expenditure," Pai snapped.

"If you contacted the Japanese government," said Lettuce, holding out her hands in a welcoming gesture, "Or better yet, the American one, because they're wealthier and have never heard of you – then taking care of settlements for your people would be their job. They have money, land and resources to spare. And it wouldn't be charity; you could introduce them to your technology in return. We could help each other."

Pai's hand reached toward hers for the briefest moment, until he clenched his fist.

"Deep Blue-sama will never consent," he murmured. "Your proposal sounds … reasonable … but Deep Blue-sama is our master. Do you understand, Mew Lettuce? We must follow him."

The pain and regret in his voice were clear, and it touched her heart.

"But surely he's a reasonable being! Can't you talk to him?"

Pai-san looked back at her silently for a while, his mouth drawn tight. She could sense an inner struggle behind that implacable façade.

"You risk your life merely by speaking to me," he said finally. "Here you are, alone, against a taller, stronger and more experienced fighter. I could kill you, Mew Lettuce. I could snap your neck with my bare hands."

"But you haven't." Ignoring the shiver running down her spine, which was not entirely due to fear, she flicked her tail and drew herself up straighter. "You let me go, Pai-san. Shirogane-san and his Mew Aqua bottle as well. I believe you're much kinder than you pretend to be."

She smiled, feeling bouyantly confident as a hint of pink appeared on Pai's face and at the tips of his pointed ears. She had made him blush.

"You do not know me, Mew Lettuce," he warned, but his air of menace did not fool her a bit.

"On the contrary, Pai-san. I feel like I've known you all my life."

He looked down at the fan still held in his right hand, then back at her. He held it up and opened his mouth, but his hand froze in mid-gesture. With an inaudible mutter, he tucked the weapon into his shirt.

"Very well," he said brusquely. "We will meet with the leaders of the Mew Project. Mew Lettuce … I … request permission to teleport you to your boat."

He held out both hands.

"All right," said Lettuce, her heart thumping wildly. She would be the second human to be teleported, after Pudding. How did it feel? Was it safe?

Pai approached her and, after hovering for a few seconds with uncharacteristic awkwardness, scooped her up bridal-style. She gasped.

"Have no fear," he said. "It is quite safe."

She hid her face in his broad shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, feeling dizzy and slightly ill, she was floating just above the still anchored speedboat, held securely in Pai's arms. She must have lost her grip on her transformation, or perhaps it had simply run out of power, because she was shivering in a soaked school jacket and two heavy braids were hanging from her head.

The Mew Mews erupted in outrage as soon as they saw what looked suspiciously like a hostage situation..

"Let her go!" Zakuro raised her whip. Mint launched herself into the air.

"No, no, it's all right!" Lettuce called before a fight could break out. "Pai-san and I were just talking. He's here to negotiate a truce!"

"You what?" snapped Shirogane, ignoring Keiichiro's placatory hand on his arm.

"How can you be sure we're not walking into a trap?" asked Zakuro. Mint landed back on the boat and crossed her arms, glaring.

But Pudding tossed her Pudding Ring into the air and caught it again, letting the bells ring out in tune with her delighted laughter.

"A truce? Awesome! Now Taru-taru and Pudding can really be friends, na no da!"

"Way to go, Lettuce!" called Ichigo, smiling, with a meaningful wink as she registered the position in which Lettuce was being carried.

Keiichiro clinched the matter. He stood up from his copilot's seat, gave Shirogane a final 'behave-yourself' look, and swept into a European bow, hand on his heart.

"Welcome aboard, Pai-san."