A/N: This is actually what nine-year-olds do in the wild, I swear.

The Junior Pekopon Protection League was a secret organization that had been started by the four kids only a year ago, when they were still just seven and eight. It had been a fun concept at first, save for the fact that they didn't really do anything other than occasional investigation and capturing of an alien, which they always had to later hand off to the actual Pekopon Protection League, located in the Nishizawa estates. So, while their Junior PPL had been helpful, they decided it was about time to start doing stuff on their own.

Precisely why Kohizou hadn't told another soul, besides the ones of his three friends, about what he was going to do and where he was heading.

It was the middle of the forest, located just off of Middle Tokyo's gradually diminishing buildings. Kohizou had his mask back on to conceal his identity as he waited there. After a couple of minutes of the peaceful forest silence, he sat on the ground with his knees out, his sword laying in his lap. He shut his eyes and breathed in the air of late summer. A leaf fell just by his elbow.

His eyes opened. The presence was behind him, although it hadn't made a sound upon walking up. Kohizou stood up, his small sword still in his hand.

"Ah, so you already know that I'm behind you," spoke a gruff voice.

"If you were thinking of doing something nasty, it's not going to work."

He heard a clink of metal. "You're quick to judge, boy."

"I hope you're pretty quick, too. Shall we begin?"

"I think we shall."

Instantly, Kohizou whipped around to face his opponent. The alien was old-looking and battered; not in a feeble way, but more of in an intimidating one. His skin took on violet shades, apart from the occasional reddish or pink scar. On his head, a tricorne hat; in his hand, a sharp cutlass blade.

Kohizou was not frightened. Swiftly, he brought his sword up, his forearm guarding his face, and watched as his opponent flicked the cutlass out at his side. They made eye contact for a brief moment. At once, the alien charged at him with his shoulder leading the way as he swung his cutlass through the air. Kohizou vanished; suddenly, he was behind him.

Luckily, the alien's instincts were sharp. He swerved around and drove the cutlass at the boy, but Kohizou swiftly brought his sword up to guard himself. The two blades met and clashed together in an awful sound of metal meeting metal.

The alien reached his hand down and brought out another cutlass, surprising Kohizou. He hadn't expected for the alien to have two of them. This would be more difficult than he expected… he would have to retreat momentarily. Kohizou jumped backward, darting into the safety of the trees, where his opponent could not detect him.

For a nine-year-old, he was quite skilled in combat, and he enjoyed it, too. Lessons in karate and kendo paid off, as well as his other rigorous secret training that he partook in. Society was still in need of his kind. The entire planet was.

There was always backup. Feeling around in a secret pocket in one of his front cloths, Kohizou picked out an assortment of extra weapons. All of a sudden, his alien opponent found numerous kunai knives headed his way, and began to dodge them from all directions. The boy was fast, indeed—almost as fast as himself, he had to admit. But not enough.

The alien was quite skilled in using two swords. With his double cutlasses, there was no need of a shield. He simply just brought both swords in front of his face, crossed them, and was able to deflect all the kunai knives that were heading toward him at a mad speed. Eventually he kept only one guarding himself, while he used the other sword to cut through the forestage in search of Kohizou.

"Ah! Don't do that!" he shouted from somewhere nearby. Kohizou instantly covered his mouth, realizing the stupid mistake he'd just made. He stopped throwing knives and darted away to reappear behind the alien.

As he turned around and swung his cutlass at him, Kohizou managed to duck before it swept his head clean off. His opponent, becoming irritated, whipped out a pistol and aimed it at him. A beam of steaming light shot out, which Kohizou deflected with the thin blade of his own sword. The beam instead shot upward into the sky—neither fighter took his eyes off the other.

"You're good, kid," the alien complimented. He charged at him with the cutlass; Kohizou managed to keep him at bay with the side of the sword he had.

Kohizou smirked and pushed the cutlass of him with the blade, creating sparks. "I practice."

"So do I. Years and years of it."

"You're at a disadvantage, though."

The alien charged at him again, though Kohizou dodged him by quickly stepping back.

"Why do you say that, now?" He threw a grenade at him, which the boy jumped away from.

"The patch over your eye. You have to rely on just the other because of it."

"You wear a mask on your face. Is that any different?"

"At least I can see through mine," Kohizou pointed out.

"You think that a man can't fight with both his eyes? We'll see about that."

"I just think we should make it even, that's all." The voice had come from his left; however, Kohizou was suddenly at his right side. He grabbed the cloth over the alien's eye and tore it off quickly.

For just a moment, an expression of uncertainty flickered across Kohizou's face. His opponent used these few seconds of weakness to do the same to him, grabbing at the cloth by his eyes and stripping it off. They stared at each other.

"Y-you unmasked me…. I mean, I don't usually wear a mask, anyway, but still…."

The alien bent down on the ground and picked up the piece of cloth, fastening it back over his right eye. "I cannot fight you anymore that you have seen that."

"So, I win?"

He tossed both cutlasses at the ground. "Draw."

"Aw…."

"I'm not here to pick fights with children."

Kohizou gave him disappointed eyes. "It's because I haven't practiced enough, isn't it?"

"N-no! I just can't waste any time in my mission, that's all."

"Then why did you agree to fight me?"

The alien didn't answer, of course. He sat down on a log as tried to retrace where he could have went wrong. He had only been attacking a Pekoponian creature at first—just some furry mammal with a large tongue and nose—when that boy dropped out of nowhere and demanded that he fight him instead if he was really looking for someone to duel. He, of course, had agreed.—Why back down from a fight?

There was just one thing he was confused about. Why is it that Pekoponian children are so strong? he wondered. Headquarters did not notify me of this fact. Nor did they even warn us that our anti-barriers do not even work on the Pekoponian children.

"What is your name, mister?" Kohizou asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

Should I tell him? he wondered. I suppose we have fought now, so I must have to…. "I am Staff Sergeant Zurere, the leader of the Zurere Platoon."

"Oh. I'm Kohizou." He held out his hand. Zurere did not shake it. "So, Mister Zurere…."

He looked up at him. "What is it?"

"You don't happen to belong to the ship that crashed, do you?"

His pupils shrunk. How did this boy know about that…?

"Because, uh…." Kohizou twiddled his index fingers. "It's sort of gone now, so…."

"WHAT?"

He had his cutlass again; it was pointed at Kohizou's throat.

"Answer me, Pekoponian boy. Where is our ship?"

"I—I don't know. Really." Kohizou gently pushed the edge of the cutlass out of the way of his neck. "Now that I've told you about your ship, will you tell me why you're on Pekopon?"

Growling, Zurere slipped the cutlass back into his belt. "It's the mission that Keron sent me to do. Invade Pekopon."

"Oh." Kohizou's expression did not change. "Well, I'm part of the Junior Pekopon Protection League, and I'm going to protect Pekopon. So I can't let you invade."

"Sorry, what?"

"You don't have your platoon, right, Mister Zurere? So you can't invade without their help. I'll just have to make sure you don't join up with them again."

"…Wha—"

Before Zurere could finish the word, Kohizou had already pressed his fingers together in a hand signal. A poof of smoke surrounded the alien and when he looked down, he was tied in rope.

"I'm sorry, but we really can't let you invade."

"You're making a mistake, boy." Zurere narrowed his eye at him as Kohizou began to carry him off. "I would have let you go, but now you've just made enemies with the most fearsome Keronian space pirate ever to set foot in your galaxy."*

Zurere was certain that he would be able to escape, he just needed to think of how…. From the inside of what he could only assume was the Pekoponian Kohizou's prison cell for him, he saw that all doors were virtually nonexistent, his hands were tied to the wall, and the windows were foolishly let open, though he had no hope of reaching them since Kohizou had confiscated all his weaponry and he was still sort of tied up…. Oddly, even though the trap was dreadfully primitive, it worked efficiently enough.

He only had one last defense. He would need to call for backup to save him from this humiliating entrapment. Lifting his leg, Zurere touched his toe to the top edge of his other boot and pushed at it until it slipped off. He turned it over so that the buckle was facing upward; not a buckle, but actually a secret communicator. With his foot, he quickly entered a command.

There were two audio messages on it sent from a few days ago, and two electronic ones. Zurere pressed a button with his foot and waited as the audio filled his ears. They were static-y, but still audible.

Senior Private Dokiki reporting to Staff Sergeant Zurere… went the first message. The ship has completely vanished. If you will allow me, I must halt scouting momentarily to investigate where it has gone. This is quite concerning. The message was sent just the other day. Quite frightening indeed.

Frowning, he considered her message of urgency. Yes, it was concerning that their ship vanished. Without the ship, they would be unable to contact each other again and rejoin.

The next message was much more assuring, however. New Recruit Pulala reporting to Staff Sergeant Zurere…. Pulala had been speaking in a quiet voice when it had been recorded. The infiltration mission is going smoothly; I should be in the control center of the NPG in no time. Also, I would like to request some background information on the PPL. From what I've heard of it, it may hinder the mission. That message was from five days ago.

He tapped the communicator again with his foot, searching for another audio message, but there was none. He growled. Of course there wasn't. One of his members could not press a button to save his life; the other one could not record an audio message for reasons which he could not help. Instead, he entered the command that would show him the visual message, and craned his neck to read it.

Private First Class Latata here! Hey, Zurere, my man. I just got captured by a Pekoponian and I don't know how to escape from him because Dokiki didn't give me any weapons. All I have is this communicator that's kind of useless because everyone's ignoring my messages to them and I don't know why. Think you could help me out maybe? Thanks! Because I know how reliable my captain is that he would never get kidnapped by a Pekoponian like I just did! The message was from about a week ago.

Zurere grimaced, his face twisting into angered expressions. Latata, oh, Latata. There was no part of Zurere that found surprise in the Private's early discovery by the Pekoponians. Noticing that there was another of Latata's messages, he read that one, as well.

Private First Class Latata again! So guess what? The Pekoponian who captured me said we were going to go out and look for you guys today! How nice! So you'd better send me a message of your location, because I have no idea where you are! You guys didn't leave me, did you? But we're going to look around the ship first to find you guys, if you're still there. So just tell everyone to go to the ship so I can find you guys again! I really hate living with this guy! Thanks. Oh, by the way, how much food do we have in the ship's fridge? I'm STARVING right now!

That message had been sent that morning. It was late evening now. Amidst Latata's ramblings, Zurere realized with shock what he had been saying. Latata had gone out to search for Zurere and the others that morning. He probably didn't find the ship like he thought he would.

I can't really rely on LATATA to find me, now, can I…? Zurere wondered briefly, until he realized dismissively, no. Definitely not.

With his other leg, he slipped his other boot off and tried to use his foot to activate the response communicator. He moved his foot away when he saw that the screen had cracked completely. It must have broken during his fight with the Pekoponian Kohizou. Not like he would have been able to type a response to Latata, anyway, since he had no toes to do so.

It was hopeless, then… unless he chose to hope that Latata would be able to get the message on his own, perhaps along with that Pekoponian he was with. It was risky but it was all he had.

*Try "the only Keronian space pirate ever to set foot in your galaxy."