A/N: Today while I was outside, I spotted tiny blue flowers everywhere. It's definitely forget-me-not season. Unfortunately, that means it's also skunk cabbage season. Quite a pretty flower but... so gross-smelling.

Well, that's my pointless info for you today.

First few days of keeping an alien in secret, and Teri was already sick of it.

If he had once thought younger siblings could be annoying, he realized now that they were little angels compared to what Latata was. For someone who could not hear, that Keronian was extremely loud at everything he did. Teri had to make a huge effort just to get him to shut up.

It didn't help that Latata was a curious little thing, either. He was only curious enough to get into trouble, as it seemed—like seeing how a primitive Pekoponian TV worked by turning it on (at full volume)—or taking frequent peeks through Teri's personal notebook to keep himself updated on Teri's odd and embarrassing young love life with his tutor—or deciding that he would see how sufficient his Pekoponian captor was in Pekoponian "Junior High," by situating himself in Teri's backpack, little to the boy's knowledge, and playing stowaway. The short-term results of this test were no, not very sufficient, hence the need for a tutor. The long-term results were many silent fights between the two of them.

It was hard enough keeping anyone from seeing Latata, like Teri's family, or his school, and especially Hope. Luckily, after a long and ambiguous explanation to her, he managed to get her to agree to meet him after school at the school for tutoring, instead of over at his house. (Much thanks to Latata for Teri making a fool out of himself in front of her 99% more by acting weird to keep Latata's secret.) Dealing with the alien himself was a totally different thing.

One day—it was a Saturday, and the days were just beginning to get a little colder—Teri came up to Latata and plopped a bag down in front of his face.

"All right, Latata. Today's the day you've been waiting for—we're gonna look for the rest of your platoon for you," he said to him.

Latata stared blankly into his face.

"Oh. Right." Teri took out a notebook—one separate from his personal one—this green one was exclusively for conversing with Latata, since Teri couldn't speak any Keronian Sign Language and Latata was deaf. He wrote down the day's plan, then held it in front of Latata's face.

The blue Keronian rubbed his chin as he read the message, grinned with excitement, and then scribbled out a response underneath. You're not kidding me? Frog have mercy! This is superb! Now I'll finally get out of this house! No more secrecy, no more hiding from your family, no enduring your annoyance, no more having to clean your room for you, no more eating that awful food you feed me, no more having to sleep in your closet, no more using your backpack for combat practice, no more accidentally reading your long, long paragraphs in your notebook about that Hope person you've always been talking about, no more—

Teri took the notebook out of his hands suddenly and snapped it shut, giving him a stern look in the eye. While Latata shivered, he tossed the notebook and pen to him, then gathered up his bag and tied it shut.

Briefly, he wondered if he should feel bad for lying to Latata. The guy just wanted to find where the rest of his platoon went, that was all. But Teri knew that invading the planet wasn't in the least bit okay, and that was something that Latata ought to learn—even if Teri had to teach him the hard way, by pretending that he was going to help him look for his platoon when he was ACTUALLY using Latata to… look for his platoon.

The only twist—what Latata didn't know—was that in the bag Teri had just tied shut were all the alien-unfriendly essentials to capturing the next Keronian he found. Nets. Rope. Large sheets of cloth. Tranquilizers. Pepper spray. Firearms. He was actually rather surprised about all the things he happened to find in the storage room under the stairs, as well as in the fridge.

"And you, Latata"—In front of the Keronian he dropped another sack.—"are going to be riding in here."

Before explaining in written words, Teri picked up Latata and placed him into the burlap sack, which he slung over his shoulder. As Latata popped his head out from the sack, Teri grabbed the green notebook to explain to him the vitality of keeping low.

Remember. Your invisibility badge-thing is broken, right? That's how I was able to see you, he wrote. You want to make sure that no one else does, though.

Why not? Latata wrote as a response.

If other humans saw an alien, they'd go into a panic.

That's what we want, though.

No. No, it is not. That's not what I want. And haven't I been the one to give you a place to stay this last week? So you've got to do everything that I say.

How old are you, Pekoponian? asked Latata.

Thirteen, why?

You act like such a child.

You're the one who acts like a child, Latata. Now get back in the sack and get ready to catch your notebook because I'm tossing it in with you.

Satisfyingly, Latata ducked his head back into the sack. Teri popped the notebook in and fastened it closed before heading to the front door with the other bag in his hand and putting his shoes on.

"I'm heading out!" he called.

Somewhere in another room, his mother called back. "Why?"

"Nature walk, Mom. I'll be back sometime around noon or so; no worries!"

He was just about to head out the door when the certain gaze of a blonde eight-year-old caught him in his tracks.

"Girara." He looked at his sister. "Need something?"

She was staring up at him, her arms crossed over her chest. "I know that you're hiding something, Teri."

Teri gave an inconspicuous look off to the side and slowly opened the door.

Girara stepped forward. "You have to show me what you're hiding!"

Her brother was already gone from the house, the door shutting swiftly behind him.

"Urg." Girara pouted and stomped her foot down. Why did her brother have to be so disagreeable with her?

Well—at least he couldn't keep everything from her. He thought he was all that—but he wasn't. As much as it would shock him to believe it, Girara had a secret of her own—one that her brother Teri couldn't ever hope to compare to.

She grinned devilishly.

After telling her mom that she was going out to play, as well, and after putting a jacket on, Girara headed out on her own. The route she took was a familiar one to her—all the way down the block, take a right, head down the next street, mosey in between those two buildings, dash across the sidewalk, enter the trees, look for the one with the funny knot in the center, give it a twist, push on the door that appears, and step right inside to her own secret hideout.

She entered the room and shut the door behind her, smiling a bit brighter, as was usual, when her favorite place to be came into view. The room was much larger on the inside than the trunk of the tree should have been, much thanks to alien technology that assisted with that. From the ceiling dangled assorted lights and whatnot to decorate the room; on the walls, pictures and posters were on display, as well as news clippings or shots of certain important events. In the corner was a shelf stashed with weaponry, both modern and traditional. At the front of their hideout, Girara spotted two of her friends, who she bounded up to.

"Hey, Oblivion! Whatcha doin'…." She poked over their shoulders to see a bright screen that showed a large open space of crater on the ground, completely surrounded by broken trees.

"The trajectory of the falling spacecraft points to this location as its landing spot, and the environment certainly points to that as well, though my satellite photographs don't show any sort of ship here…."

"I… don't really get it, but cool!" Girara put in. "Looks like something crashed there."

"That's what happened, actually." The boy in front of the screen, a kid her age, turned to Girara. "You just came here, but I was telling Neroko about it."

"It's probably aliens again!" Neroko chirped as she turned to Girara excitedly. In doing this, she accidentally whacked Oblivion with her pigtails.

"Ow! Neroko, that hurt…." He rubbed his sore cheek.

"Sorry!" She turned back to him to apologize, whacking him yet again. "Ah! Sorry!"

Girara giggled.

"Um… so…" Neroko pointed her finger at the blonde. "…what's new with you, Girara! Speaking of stuff to talk about, let's talk about summer camp that you totally missed out on!"

Girara groaned, a bit irritated, and frowned at her.

"It was so fun! You totally should have come!"

"I was sick," she insisted. "Daddy wouldn't let me. And it was a really bad sickness, too. I was coughing and sneezing so much!"

"Welcome to my world every single day," said Oblivion as he blew his nose on a tissue.

"Ohhh, is that why you sound so stuffed up and groggy," said Neroko.

Girara put her finger to her chin. "Maybe… I caught what you had last week."

"Shh… don't tell Kohizou that you got sick. Or else he's gonna wig out."

"Eh?" Girara looked around. "Where is Kohizou, anyway?"

"Probably saving a puppy, as usual or something," came Oblivion's monotonous voice between them.

"Nah, I'm sure he isn't," said Neroko dismissively.

From behind them, something swooped down from the shadows.

"Hey, guys! Am I late?"

The boy entered the light and took off the mask that covered the skin around his soft, blue eyes. He gave his short, black hair a toss to fix it up since he was too lazy to use his hands to do so. To the others, it was a stunningly perfect hair-flip.

"Kohizou!" Neroko dashed behind him and jumped onto his back, earning a terrified yelp from the boy as he fell helplessly to the ground.

"Ahh! Don't kill him just yet!" Oblivion protested. His tone was unexcited, though he wasn't even looking at Kohizou.

"That's a not very nice thing to say," said Girara critically. "So where were you, Kohizou?"

"Well." Kohizou stood up (after finally wrestling Neroko off of him) with a proud smile. "I was saving a puppy, as usual."

Facepalmage ensued amongst the other three.

"So, guys, what's the problem today?"

They all turned to Oblivion, who was more up-to-date on these sorts of things.

"Well… uh… no problem, really." He gestured to the screen behind him. "We just found out that some more aliens are on Pekopon now, that's all."

"Oh, yeah." Kohizou nodded. "I knew that."

"What should we do?" asked Girara.

"Probably nothing." Oblivion pushed up his glasses as they slid down his nose from having looked downward. "If they're invaders, the Pekopon Protection League can easily take care of it. No threat there."

"They're invaders? What? No! But Yutoto's got to invade first!" Neroko protested.

"I said if they are invaders, Neroko," he reminded her. "Besides, we have no idea of the whereabouts of the new visitors at the moment. Nor where their spaceship even went. Obviously they aren't just using their anti-barrier on the ship, or else we'd be able to see it."

"I think we should find them instead," said Girara.

Kohizou turned to her. "You really think so?"

She nodded, clutching her hand at her chest. "I don't think that we should leave this up to the Pekopon Protection League."

"Yeah, they're stealing all the glory," Neroko added.

"Um… the PPL is rather experienced in this field…."

"I think we should take care of this ourselves. As a Junior Pekopon Protection League, we need to do more stuff with aliens, too." Girara reached into her pocket and took out a badge, her own copy of the ones they had all made together a while back. "Right?"

There were frowns in the room.

"Nng, but I can't always be here…."

"Yeah, and how can I protect the planet and help Yutoto invade?"

Kohizou was the only one who smiled at her idea. "I think that's a great idea, Girara! We should protect the planet by taking things into our own hands."

"Hah! See? Kohizou's with me on this."

"Which is why I would like to tell you all something right now." Kohizou made a gesture with his hand, gathering the four of them into a small huddle. He began to whisper.

"Eh? Already?" Girara gasped.

"Can I come along?" asked Neroko. "I'm just saying, as an alien myself I could probably talk to him or someth—"

Kohizou gave her a hard glare. "No. No, you cannot, Neroko. Remember the last time you got me to bring you along to one of these things?"

"Oh yeah…." She thought back to all the police reports that were made.

"I don't know, your idea sounds kind of risky…."

"Well, not to me it doesn't, but anyway, we'll have to see how it goes," said Kohizou. They did have to admit that he looked rather confident.

"Wow, I bet you're gonna be really cool!" Girara told him, earning her a frown from her other male friend.

"Hehe…." Kohizou scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well… not as cool as some people fighting aliens. Your brother namely."

Girara made a grunt and sat down against a wall. "I dunno, Kohizou…. Teri's not been very cool lately."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"He's been acting weird. Really weird."

"Girara, your brother's always acted weird," Oblivion pointed out. "I mean, when I came over to your house last week he barely even recognized me."

Girara brought her knees up to her chest. "Yeah… he's no fun anymore. Half the time I don't even know what he's talking about."

"Kind of like with Neroko," Kohizou realized.

"What? I hate you, Kohizou!"

"Ahh! Don't hit me!"

She charged after him anyway.

"Maybe you just need to talk to him or something," suggested Oblivion.

Girara looked up at him. "You think I should? What if he doesn't wanna talk to me?"

"I dunno. Give him puppy dog eyes. Ought to work."

"How do I do that? Can you tell me please?" she asked him with puppy dog eyes.

He sweat-dropped. "I… think you've got nothing to worry about."

"Great!" Girara did a fist-pump. "Now I'll finally know all of Teri's secrets!"

Meanwhile, Teri sneezed.

A/N: I chose the name "Pekopon Protection League" solely because it can be abbreviated as "PPL," which sounds like "people" in text-speak. My awesome reasoning.

And yes, it is a spoof, if you can remember where else you might have seen a bunch of kids making badges and joining together to making a junior league of something.