"MEW MEW STRAWBERRY!"

"MEW MEW MINT!"

"MEW MEW LETTUCE!"

"MEW MEW PUDDING!"

"MEW MEW ZAKURO!"

"METAMORPHO-SIS!"

Today hadn't started well for Ichigo. First she'd woken up late from trying to call and message Aoyama all night then she'd had to rush to the café even

though she was still late! That had led to an argument with Shirogane but then an apology from Keiichiro, soon she found herself being irritated by both

Mint and Kish, having to help clean up after Pudding had dropped a cake whilst hopping around on a unicycle. By the time she finally had a break and had

gotten through to Masaya, she'd had to leave due to a Chimera Anima alert down at the docks. So much for a break. Come to think of it, that break would

be over by the time this was all done. GGRrrr!

By the sea a giant Chimera Lobster was tossing ship containers around. At least there were no aliens around, not that she could see.

She pointed at the lobster. "Let's get this done quickly! I have to have some time to relax don't I?"

Mint shrugged behind her. "Whatever you say, Ichigo-san."

"Let's go!"

The girls leapt up and took different positions around the lobster. The three aliens hovered above it.

"Ribbon strawberry check!"

"Ribbon Mint echo!"

"Ribbon Lettuce rush!"

"Ribbon Pudding Ring Inferno!"

"Ribbon Zakuro Spear!"

"HO-RAI-DEN!"

"KUU-RAI-SEN-PUU-JIN!"

The anima roared in pain. This was going to be fairly simple; it was too big to be particularly fast-moving. The burning red plates covering its body

combined with its enormous size prevented mush movement. It did, however, have strength on its side.

Ichigo's pendant started flashing.

"Oh, Akasaka-san?"

As usual, Keiichiro spoke through it. "Mew Ichigo, I've had another alert of a Chimera Anima!"

"Whaa? Another one? Where is it?"

"Other side of Tokyo, it's going to take some time to get there."

She sighed. "Ah, alright, we'll get there."

Ichigo turned to her friends. "We're going to have to split up."

Pudding grabbed hold of Tart. "I'M GOING WITH TARU-TARUUU!"

"Agh! Get off me!" as usual, Tart protested and struggled and eventually gave up. "Fine. I usually end up stuck with you."

"YAAY!" Pudding squealed as she practically suffocated Taruto in another hug. "TARU-TARU!"

"There's no time to make a big deal out of this!" Pai interrupted. "Lettuce!"

Looking slightly flustered and pink, Lettuce jumped when he mentioned her name. "Yes? Pai-san?"

"You and I will stay here with Pudding and Taruto."

Tart crossed his arms and stuck his nose up. "Why do I always get left with you?"

Pudding punched the air with enthusiasm. "Yes, nanoda!"

Pai turned to the remaining mews. "The rest of you go to the second Chimera Anima."

Ichigo nodded. "Of course!"

Zakuro, Mint, Ichigo and Kisshu obeyed their orders and started to run towards the next location.

"Oh, and Kisshu!"

Kish turned back at Pai's voice. "Yo?"

"Don't get distracted."

Kish smirked but didn't say anything, not to Pai at least. Instead he called for the three running ahead of him. "Hey! That's pointless; I can get us there

faster."

The three turned back and stood around Kisshu and with another smirk in the others direction he teleported them away from the docks.

()()
(0.0)
0(")(")

They found themselves in an area where there was mountain-like terrain, fresh air and a river flowing by slowly.

'Other side of Tokyo,' Ichigo thought grimly. 'This wasn't even in Tokyo, was it?'

"Where is the anima?" Mint asked. There was no sound of anything, just leaves rustling in the trees, water trickling, a light breeze went past… No chaos

usually caused by a Chimer anima.

"Is- is there even anything here?" Ichigo asked. She turned to Kisshu and frowned. "Or did your teleport mess up?"

He held up his hands. "Nothing to do with me, my teleportation's perfect."

She muttered under her breath. "We'll see about that!"

"I heard that, koneko-chan." Kish told her.

"Aargh!" Ichigo growled in frustration. "WHY ARE YOU SO NOSY LATELY!"

"Hush!" Zakuro snapped. Ichigo stopped yelling and looked down at Mew Zakuro. She was knelt down by the ground and staring straight ahead, but not

really looking at anything, more like concentrating.

"Oneesama?" Mint breathed. "But we can't hear anything."

"It's not what you can hear," Zakuro said softly. "It's what you can feel…"

Everyone (exception Kish) got closer to the ground. Soon, very soon, they were sure they stared to feel something.

The ground shook beneath them. Zakuro shot up, Mint shrieked, Ichigo fell flat on her face, Kisshu stumbled. The tremors were so strong they made

rumbling sounds.

"What was that?" he yelled.

Before anyone could answer, the earth burst open behind them and once the soil and the dust had cleared, they saw the giant Chimera Anima. And the

alien with it.

()()
(0.0)

"…INFERNO!"

The lobster got caught up in Pudding's Pudding Ring.

Pudding landed on the dock. "What do we do now?"

"Can it break free?" Lettuce asked in a timid voice.

"If we send any more attacks we could destroy the Pudding Ring." Pai said simply. "We should just leave it."

They stood there looking at the huge pudding ring and the anima in it. It all seemed too easy. It was a pretty poor anima.

Soon there was a flash of pink light and both the jelly and lobster were gone.

Lettuce broke the silence. "We should go help the others."

Pai took a moment to think before responding. "Yeah, we should."

The four of them turned to teleport away, but then…

"AH! HELP, NANODA!"

"Pudding-san!" Lettuce cried out as a second Chimera Lobster pulled itself out of the water and used its antenna to drag Pudding into the air.

"Ribbon… LETTUCE RUSH!"

"HO-RAI-DEN!"

"FUU-HYOU-SEN!"

When the three attacks hit it, the lobster squealed as the antenna holding Pudding was broken off. Pudding unwrapped her leg and prepared her weapon.

"Ribbon…Pudding Ring… INFERNO!"

"KUU-RAI-SEN-PUU-JIN!"

Pai used his attack to dissolve the pudding ring and the Chimera Lobster with it.

"What is going on?" Tart shouted and pointed to three more lobsters emerging from the sea.

"H-how many are there?" Lettuce shook.

Pudding stared in amazement. "Aaahh, so many animas, nanoda!"

"Everyone, get ready." Pai told them.

()()
(0.0)
(")(")0

"AH! Seems we're all ready." Kiko floated high above the chimera anima and looked at them all closely. "Oh, how strange. There's only three of you, plus

that pathetic thing over there."

Kisshu gave his enemy a glare and held up his swords. He spoke slowly. "What… did you call me?"

Ichigo stood in forwards. "Listen!" she spat. "Because of you and your Chimera Animas we've had to leave our friends behind with another, we've had to

give up all our spare time and we've had to cope with aliens returning and the constant threat of the entire Earth being destroyed! You have your planet,

and we have ours, why should you come back after all this time?"

Kiko seemed to ignore her speech. He frowned. "Another? This is the only Chimera Anima I've released today."

"Don't lie!" Mint butted in. "There's another anima down at the docks! How else could it have gotten there if you didn't release it?"

"Oh! At the docks! Right, I get it now. We've had to dump our rejects into your sea. True, it's a threat to the environment, but that's nothing compared to

what you people have done! Earth should be destroyed in no time ready for us!" He let out a laugh and raised his sword. "CHIMERA ANIMA! GO!"

The chimera anima couldn't have been an animal; it was too… too messed up. It had a head like a Komodo dragons, a body like a ferret and tail like a seal.

Somehow it had burrowed into the Earth, probably thanks to those claws on its feet and was possibly the strangest Chimera Anima they'd ever

encountered.

They all jumped into the air as the dragon/ferret/seal charged forward, sending up chunks of soil and rock as it went.

Mint flew above trying to get the best weak spot. She clutched her bow ready to fire. "Agh! Where do I hit?"

Kisshu flew up behind her and lifted her higher. "Try there, bluebird."

Mint didn't like being told what to do by someone like him, but she did as she was told just this one time. "RIBBON…MINT ECHO!"

The arrow hit the side of the body and damaged one of the legs. She realised it couldn't burrow or charge if it hurts its legs. "EVERYONE!" she called.

Looking down she saw Mew Zakuro on the other side of the anima. "Oneesama! Trap the legs!"

Zakuro nodded and summoned her cross. "RIBBON…ZAKURO SPEAR!"

"RIBBON MINT ECHO!"

Now two legs on either side were damaged, it couldn't move so far now.

Kiko watched from above and saw their plan. "That's definitely an improvement to make on the next one."

"There won't be a next one!"

Kisshu teleported next to Kiko and held a sword up to his neck.

Kiko sighed. "Oh please, Kisshu, you couldn't beat me last time! You had to have a girl save you."

"Indigo's certainly got a lot of faith in you to let you go fight so many times."

"Which is more than can be said for you. Traitor."

Kish the anger rise and he sent his second sword aiming at Kiko's stomach.

Before he could be injured Kiko defended himself with his sword. "You keep on trying, but you keep on losing!"

The two of them quickly became locked in a fight, each attempting to spear the other and both managing to block the attacks.

Ichigo tried to shut out the clashing of the metal above her and focused on getting ready to finish off this anima. Mint had broken the first leg; she'd gotten

the second and now the third. Once this last one was done it would be Ichigo's turn to blast the anima.

"…MINT ECHO! Now, Mew Ichigo!"

Ichigo held out her arm to catch the Strawberry Bell. "RIBBON…"

Kiko looked down and saw the attack coming. He knew not to be distracted, but he couldn't help it.

"…Strawberry… SURPRISE!"

In a second the anima burst into pink light and vanished. The jellyfish parasite and the glowing pink orb was all that was left. Wait, pink orb?

Kisshu gave up on his battle and went back down to join the others.

Ichigo held the pink orb. "This… this is a spirit…" she looked at the alien horrified. "YOU'VE GONE BACK TO USING HUMAN SPIRITS!"

Zakuro spoke to her. "Ichigo, calm down. Masha can get it back."

Masha appeared beside her. "Masha will return! Masha will return the spirit!"

Ichigo gave Masha the spirit, but was still mad.

"Well," Kiko folded his arms. "Looks like I'm done. Oh, wait! There's still something I need to do."

The alien snapped his fingers and just as he was about to speak, Kisshu disappeared.

"Kisshu! What have you done?" Ichigo yelled.

Kiko smiled at her and then disappeared himself.

()()
(0.0)

"How many more are there?"

Pudding, Lettuce, Pai and Taruto had been through eight chimera lobsters so far. Every time one disappeared more would come and they were getting

exhausted.

"It's been a while since the last one," Pudding pointed out. "What do you think, Taru-taru?"

Tart opened his mouth… and then vanished.

"TARU-TARU!"

Lettuce looked to her left where Pai had been standing. "PAI-SAN!"

"Where have they gone, nanoda?"

()()
(0.0)
(") (")0

The 3 aliens found themselves in a large, dark room surrounded by fifteen cloaked and hooded figures. Kiko teleported in as well and pulled up his hood to

join the others.

Pai looked around them at each figure and tried to ignore the other two arguing on the floor.

"You didn't have to land on me, runt!"

Kisshu was led on the stone floor with Tart on top of him. He pushed the child off.

"I had a bad landing, that's all! I couldn't help it!" Tart replied.

"Seems that way," Kish stood up and brushed down his shirt.

"Quiet!" Pai told them. "Taruto! Kisshu! No more arguments."

The two of them huffed.

"Perhaps your immaturity caused the failure of your mission."

They all looked up to see Indigo teleport into the room and stand opposite them.

"After all we've done how could you call our mission a failure?" Pai questioned.

Indigo focused on him. "I don't need to answer to you."

"Oh, quit all this," Tart stepped forward. "Why have you brought us here?"

"Silence, child!" their old leader demanded. "You have been brought here so we can offer you the chance to work with us on our mission."

Kish let out a laugh and crossed his arms over for his swords. "HA! Do you seriously think we'd even consider it?"

"Possibly." Indigo continued. "If we told you that your life would be spared."

"We've made our choice!" Tart said loudly. "You weren't there on Earth when we were! You don't understand why we've got to keep fighting for the

humans!"

Pai looked down at Tart. "Taruto…" He leant down and whispered in his ear. "Don't say that around here."

Tart went red. "I'll say what I like!"

"So you three would prefer a death sentence?" Indigo carried on.

Kish clutched his swords tight and glared at Indigo. "You can't imprison us or kill us for saving a race."

"But I can for treason."

"Treason? Is that was this is?"

"It's close to it."

Kisshu held up his zai. "How dare you! How dare you accuse me of treason! I care about my planet!"

The two behind him tried to drag him back, but Kish was too frustrated right now to listen to reason and he shook them off. "No! I wanna give him over

there a piece of my mind!"

Pai gripped his arms. "No, Kisshu! Don't be such a fool!"

Kish started struggling. He eventually got one of his arms free and threw one of the zai swords straight in Indigo's direction. It narrowly missed and

disappeared when it hit the floor.

Indigo stared at the spot where it had landed and then at Kisshu. "I think you've make a mistake."

In a spilt second he lifted up his right hand and out of it shot a streak of yellow lightning that hit the floor in Kisshu's direction. "I won't miss next time."

"Oh really?"

Kish decided to go further and threw his other sword. This time it made a slash in Indigo's cheek.

He touched the blood on his face and held up his arm again.

The lightning flashed across the room, hit Kisshu in the chest and sent him flying backwards.

Pai and Tart went over to him. "Kisshu!"

Indigo spoke again. "This was a waste of time. Next time you disrespect me like that, you will die."

Just as Taruto was going to yell at him, the three aliens were teleported away from the spacecraft and landed outside the Café Mew Mew.