After their little detour through time Ataru and Lum were both feeling a little paranoid and inadvertently distant from each other. The guy who called himself Paradox made them feel a little uncomfortable with his implication that he could appear at any time and he knew more about their future than they did. But it was the future itself that bothered the two the most.
Lum was clearly the more bothered by the two. That was only natural after seeing a future where she married Rei instead of Ataru. What made it worse was that she didn't know how to prevent it. Paradox had implied this wasn't set in stone, but if things continued as they were it would be what happened.
'What would happen that would drive me and Darling apart?' She thought, doing some cooking to keep her hands busy. 'I don't want to lose Darling, but if I try to keep him with me no matter what that's only going to drive him away more. Everyone knows that trying to prevent the future from happening is more likely to ensure it than prevent it.'
She jolted for a moment, and a sliver of hope came to her. 'Wait, so does that mean that future was self-fulfilling? It'll only happen if we obsess over the idea it will happen? Get it in our heads that it's unavoidable? Does this mean that the best way to avoid it is to do nothing?'
While the oni girl was trying to work things out, Ataru was out for a stroll since he was feeling a little restless. And more than a little hungry. Problem was he had no money on him and he didn't want to go to Ken's just to bum a snack. And like Lum the future experience was on his mind, but not the same part of it.
'I knew I'd have to deal with some problems thanks to this alien watch, but that guy made it sound like someday the fate of the world will be on my shoulders. How the hell does he expect me to take that in?'
This train of thought was interrupted by the sweet scent of something cooking. Ataru couldn't help but sniff the air a few times. 'Smells like someone's making something outside. I wonder what.' With no reason not to he tried to follow the scent trail. 'This would be so much easier to do as Wildmutt, but I don't want to spook anyone right now. Well, not unless it was Megane.'
The scent led Ataru back to the empty lot where Lum had originally set up the wormhole to help them get to school faster. Of course now it was removed both to prevent others from using it as well as prevent them from taking more accidental time trips. But in the lot someone was seated in front of a tent tending to something over a fire.
"Cherry?" Ataru asked himself. Memories of his last encounter with the short monk came to him, and with his hunger he decided to do something about it. "Hey!" He called out while coming up to the monk.
Cherry turned to him with a bored expression, continuing to fan the flame underneath a metal sheet held above it. "Oh, it's you. What brings you here? Want to know what other kinds of terrible luck will haunt you soon?"
"You owe me some food." Ataru stated.
Cherry laughed. "Yeah, good luck with that kid." He then returned his attention to what he was making, which to Ataru looked like a single giant manju dumpling. But it was a rather hot pink color, like Cherry had used food coloring for some reason.
"I'm not joking here. You screwed me out of some sukiyaki and I'm not letting that go." Ataru claimed.
Cherry looked like even shrugging apathetically wasn't worth the effort. "That was the oni girl's fault, not mine."
"Bull! My parents had some saved for me when I came home, yet you invited yourself in and snatched it up! You stole my favorite dinner right out of my own house!"
Cherry continued his 'what's your point?' approach to his accusation. "I had every reason to believe you weren't coming back. It would have been a crime to let that food go to waste."
"Well I survived so you owe me reimbursement." Ataru stated.
Cherry put down his fan and carefully picked up the manju. "It'll be a cold day in hell before you get any boy."
'What an ass.' Ataru thought, feeling more motivated for something that most people would probably consider low. But anyone who knew Cherry would be hard pressed to find fault with Ataru's intention. Before the monk could sample his self-made dessert, Ataru reached out and snatched it from him.
"Give that back! You dare steal from a monk?" Cherry asked.
Ataru stuffed the manju in his mouth, still a little too warm for comfort but worth it to screw over this guy. "Now we're even." He smugly said as he chewed.
"That was no ordinary manju you idiot!" Cherry argued, actually making an attempt to take the dumpling out of the boy's mouth. This just prompted the teen to chew faster and swallow.
"Not so nice when someone acts like your food is really theirs now is it?" Ataru taunted then turned to walk away. Only before he could take a single step, he froze like a board and even started shivering like he was back on Neptune.
"That was no mere manju you fool. It was made for purification purposes, a way to purge the body of impurities from within. With someone as touched by bad luck as you, I can't imagine how this will affect you." Cherry claimed.
Ataru kept shivering almost to the point where the word 'vibrating' was more apt, but then it really got weird. His body got wider from head to toe, like he was being stretched from both sides horizontally, and the omnitrix was beeping with an alarming tone. The stretching ended rather quickly and a bright alarm burst out like a flash grenade, making Cherry shield his eyes.
'Huh? What was that?' Shinobu asked herself, turning to see the flash of light in the distance, and she wasn't the only one to do so. 'Is that Lum doing another weird alien thing here?'
Curious and angry at the same time, she headed towards the flash while everyone else decided to act like it never happened. Less trouble for them that way.
When the light died down, Cherry looked to see what had happened to the young Moroboshi. What he saw made him drop his staff. "Am I seeing double?"
Ataru looked at himself and saw nothing wrong. "What the heck was that?" The weird thing was, right next to him someone said the exact same thing at the exact same time. So naturally Ataru turned to see who had shown up just then, only to see the face of Onitaru.
"What the hell?" Both boys shouted, jumping back and pointing at each other.
"This is certainly an unexpected result." Cherry commented, picking up his staff. "Maybe the bad luck attached to this child has been manifested and can be dealt with now." With this in mind, he jumped at Onitaru. "Oni out, luck in!"
The two boys hadn't been paying attention to the monk up until now, but Onitaru saw him coming and immediately created a quick earth spire that hit him from below and sent him flying.
"This is your own fault!" Cherry called out as he soared away.
"Who the hell are you?" Ataru thought, getting ready to use his omnitrix in case this was a threat. But when he tried setting up the selection screen, it hissed in a way he had gotten familiar with. "What the-?" When he actually looked at it, the faceplate was red, like it was inactive and in reset mode. "That's impossible."
"What's wrong with the watch now? Is this some kind of hidden feature or something?" Onitaru asked, looking at himself. Nothing was different, but the faceplate that was attached to each alien form was red too. That was definitely not normal.
"How the heck should I know? Lum didn't exactly bring me a manual buddy." Ataru pointed out.
It was at this point that Shinobu came close enough to see the situation, and naturally she had no idea how to react. "Is that Ataru... and Ataru?"
"Well Lum's got to have some idea of what's wrong." Ataru offered.
"She just brought us the watch you idiot. She doesn't know anything about it. Heck, she can't even name half the creatures we turn into." Onitaru argued.
"You got a better idea?" Ataru challenged. "Wait, why am I literally arguing with myself?"
"Fine, let's go see what she has to say." Onitaru conceded, and the two ran back to the Moroboshi house.
All the while Shinobu stood there, not having a clue what to do next.
'Maybe it's best I pretend I didn't see that.' She thought before walking home, in somewhat more of a hurry than before.
"Where's Lum?"
"I think she's out at the moment Ataru." Kinsho said, her back currently to her 'sons' as she dusted a credenza.
"Where is she? When will she be back?" Onitaru asked.
"I don't know, and I don't know. Why? You miss her already?" The boy's mother teased a bit, her back still to them.
"Look behind you." Ataru told her.
The middle-aged woman turned around and saw her son... and one of her son's alien forms... right next to each other. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, her whole body stiffened, and the cloth she had been dusting with fell from her hands.
Then she screamed, prompting both boys to cover their ears, and she fainted.
"She took that better than I thought." Ataru commented.
"How will Lum react?" Onitaru asked, moving to move his mother to the couch. Ataru joined in.
"This planet is so wonderful and confusing." Lum said to herself as she checked out some of the stores in Tomobiki. At Ataru's advice she wore normal earth clothes and covered her horns to minimize the fuss people would make over her. Right now she looked like an ordinary human girl who just happened to have green hair.
'But the weirdest part is how familiar it all feels.' She thought to herself, walking past a pet store and eyeing a display of lizards. For some reason she couldn't bring herself to look away for a while. 'Not like I'm back on Uru, or any other planet. It's like I've been to Earth already, but I've never been here before the tag race. So why does it always feel like I've been here before?'
Finally leaving the pet store front, she continued on, trying not to let her confusion bother her. The next store that caught her attention was a toy store with a banner saying new action figures were available.
"Maybe I can find something for Ten to enjoy." She said to herself before going in. Another banner was inside on a wall saying 'Collect your own pantheon' and under it was a display table showing several action figures.
One action figure stood out among the others, and she had no idea why, but Lum was immediately captivated by it. So much so that she didn't even see the others.
"Ah, I see you're interested in the Roman figures." One of the store employees said coming up to her, expecting to make a sale. "The Greek ones are the more popular though."
"What is that one?" Lum asked, never taking her eyes off the figure she saw. It was that of a woman with a purple dress and cape with some gold decorating it, and a gold tiara atop her head. In her hands was a gold staff with a blue gem.
"That, that one is Juno, the most important Roman goddess. Girls seem to go for her and Venus the most among the Roman set." The employee answered. "Miss, why are you crying?"
That tore Lum's gaze away and she felt her eyes. To her shock, she had indeed been lightly shedding tears. "What? Why am I crying?"
"That's what I just asked." The employee commented. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah I... I think I'm just not having a good day. Excuse me." She said before leaving, wiping her eyes dry. She had no idea why some toy based on an ancient Earth deity had struck her emotionally, but she had to get her mind off it.
Back outside, her mood less chipper than before, Lum looked for anything to lift her spirits again. The weird thing was she wasn't really sad. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't sad. If anything she felt more like she was missing someone but she had no idea who. The confusion and up-and-down feelings were too much for her, and she looked everywhere and anywhere for something to enjoy.
Among the people out on the streets was a young girl close to her age that had short reddish hair, not as bright as Lum's friend Ran, but she also gave the oni girl a strange sense of familiarity. What made it stranger was that the red-haired girl saw Lum too, and Lum could swear that this girl recognized her. But instead of approach her, this other girl looked a bit sad and turned away, like she was hoping to be unnoticed again.
This was too much for Lum, and she left the air, too distressed to even take to the air at the moment.
"I'm home." Mushin announced when he stepped inside the house. Right away he noticed that the house was a little messier than normal. "Ataru! Clean up your mess!"
"Got a bigger problem here!"/"Got a bigger problem here!"
Mushin stopped in his tracks. 'Why did that sound like two people speaking at the same time?'
"Is someone here with you?" He called out.
"You could say that."/"You could say that."
"Hey stop talking when I'm talking!"/"Hey stop talking when I'm talking!"
'This isn't funny Ataru.' Mushin thought, heading towards the dual voices. He went upstairs towards his son's room where he heard some scuffling around inside and looked in. He saw Ataru checking his desk and some other guy checking the closet. "What are you looking for?"
"Lum's phone number. I can't remember it." Ataru answered.
"Knowing my luck she doesn't even have it on her now." The other guy said. And now that Mushin got a good look at him, he could see that this was an alien version of his son.
The Moroboshi patriarch blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stepped backwards slowly. "I'll leave you two alone. I suddenly forgot what color the beer cans are." He left the room and went back downstairs to the kitchen, his face unreadable.
Instead of heading to the Moroboshi house Lum found herself stopping at a park just out of sight of a children's playground. She came here simply because it was the easiest way to get out of everyone else's eyes. At the moment, what Lum needed the most was some alone time, which she was getting sitting curled up in a tree.
Her mind was racing with strange images, of things she had never seen on this or any other planet. The most prominent one at first had been ones featuring an armored woman who reminded her of that Juno goddess, but from there came more. Giant monsters, crossing a desert, being lost, a talking lizard. But all of them had her in it, like she was seeing dreams long forgotten or memories long buried.
"Hey is that you Lum?" A male voice she did not recognize called to her.
"Whoever you are I'm in no mood." She replied as politely as she could.
"Did Ataru do something to you?"
Lum moved to look at who wasn't listening to her, and saw one of the four boys from Ataru's class that was especially interested in her. Perm was what she remembered Ataru calling him, a weird name for him but what was weirder was that there was a girl next to him. Didn't look anything like him so she couldn't be a sister.
"I said I'm in no mood. And no, Darling did nothing to hurt me. How dare you assume that right away!" She hissed with a glare to match.
"He's not here and you're crying. Who wouldn't assume that?" Perm defended.
Lum frowned. "For your information, I don't know why I'm crying. But it has nothing to do with Darling. Some figure in some store got me worked up and even I don't know why. Not that it's any of your business."
"Don't be like that Lum I'm just trying to help out a friend."
"Friend? When did I ever become your friend? I don't even know your name. The only thing I know about you is that you and those other three boys don't like Darling. Why would I want to be friends with people who don't like him? And where are those other three? If they're trying to hurt Darling I'll-"
"Cool your jets girl, he's just with me for the day." The girl alongside Perm said. "Kosuke here does have a life outside Megane's little fantasies."
"Speaking of which, lately he's been a little paranoid. There aren't other aliens here besides you are there Lum?" Perm asked.
Lum looked confused. "Not to my knowledge. Besides, why would it be my business if there are? Earth should be getting used to the fact it's not the only planet with life in the universe."
"Yeah but why is Megane the only one seeing any?" Perm asked.
Lum shrugged apathetically. "Don't know, don't care, not my problem."
The other girl frowned. "Gee, could you be more heartless."
Lum frowned and floated just above the girl. "I don't know this Megane guy so why should I care what's happening to him? For all you know he's just making up stories for attention. Besides, I'm getting the feeling that I'm being accused of something here so if you think I'm doing something say it to my face."
"I don't even know you." The girl defended, feeling challenged in a bad way.
"And yet you called me heartless." Lum stated. "You know what, I don't need this." Before Perm could ask her to stay, she flew up into the air.
After some searching and making a mess, the two Atarus had found a piece of paper with Lum's phone number on it. The human version made it to the phone first and dialed.
"She's not answering."
"Screw this I'm going to go fly and find her." Onitaru declared. He headed for the porch to his room only for Ataru to grab his collar and pull him back.
"Hold it you idiot! If this thing times out and we're apart, what'll happen?"
"How the heck should I know? And you just called yourself an idiot you know." Onitaru replied while struggling to break free.
"I can call myself whatever I want. Now cool your jets and stay here."
Ataru released his oni counterpart and Onitaru reluctantly plopped himself on the floor.
After a bit Lum landed on the balcony and opened the door. "Darling I'm-" She halted when she saw the two Atarus.
"Lum you gotta fix this."/"Lum you gotta fix this."
Looking from one to the other the green-haired alien girl didn't know what to say. "Two... Darlings?"
All of a sudden she fainted.
"Lum?"/"Lum?"
Both Ataru and Onitaru got on either side of her, checking to make sure she wasn't hurt.
"Why is her nose bleeding?" Onitaru asked.
Ataru found himself laughing. "Guess Lum's a bit of a pervert too. Give you once guess what she was just thinking."
Onitaru grinned a bit. "Would it really count as a threesome like this?"
Lum hummed in a somewhat perverse way.
"Let's work on the real problem now." Ataru advised. "Once she wakes up."
Onitaru went into 'their' closet and pulled out a box, taking out the old deck of Duel Monster cards Ataru got when the game just came out. "Wanna play cards while we wait?"