This is a relatively short chapter considering the ones that have come before it. And this one is Easter themed, so that our brave and awesome Tokyo Defenders can finally get through April. It's only taken about a year and a half for that to happen.

Chapter Fifty-One:

"So, explain this holiday again?" Rin asked as she studied the Easter decorations they had spread out all over the Café and smoothed out the skirt of the nice dress she was wearing.

"Easter is where Christians celebrate Jesus dying on the cross, then resurrecting three days later, that third day being Easter Sunday," Lettuce explained.

"So, wait," Rirī said. "At Christmas, we celebrate His birth, now we're celebrating His death?"

"Not His death, His resurrection," Zakuro corrected as she straightened the silver cross around her neck.

The alien siblings still looked confused. Zakuro sighed.

"The pastor will do a better job at explaining," She said.

"I sure hope so," Rōzu said as she followed her siblings out the Café door. "Because I just don't understand how bunnies fit into all this…"

"Do you think anyone's going to mind that I'm Shinto?" Masaya asked.

"Just don't stand too close to me," Ryou said.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be nearby when the lightning strikes you."

"Oh, this is going to be a long day, isn't it?" Ichigo said, groaning softly.

Little did she know how right she was.

An hour later, the older five Cyniclons seemed to have a better grasp on the human holiday of Easter.

"But I still don't understand!" Rōzu exclaimed as the team walked down the street leaving the church. "Why bunnies and eggs? The pastor didn't explain about those things…"

"Well, then I'll explain it for you."

Everyone froze at hearing Topaz's voice.

The alien girl teleported in mid-air a few feet away from the Tokyo Defenders, a hand on a cocked hip.

"Finally, you all came out." She said, tossing her pale-pink hair over her shoulder. "I thought that guy would never stop talking. It took forever…"

"That's kind of in his job description," Jade pointed out.

"What the heck is that on your head?" Mint asked, wrinkling her nose.

"What? These?" Topaz said, reaching up to touch the fuzzy pink bunny ears perched on top of her head. "Just getting into the spirit of things."

"Yes, because you just needed a second pairs of extremely long ears," Rirī said dryly.

"What do you want, Topaz?" Pie demanded in a growl.

"Well, I came to answer Rōzu-Chan's question, of course," Topaz said, winking flirtingly at Pie, who ignored it. She spread her arms wide. "It's to add to the fun to the festivities!"

"Not… really…" Ryou said, sweat-dropping some.

"Well, fine, it adds to my fun," Topaz said. She clapped her hands together with a grin. "Now, who wants to go on an Easter Egg Hunt?"

"Not us," Ichigo said irritably.

"Hmm. Too bad then," Topaz said with a shrug, turning around in the air so that she wasn't facing them. "It's a shame. Not only is my hard work going to waste, but the entirety of Tokyo is going to be destroyed because you refused to go on my hunt. Well, whatever."

"Wait, what?" Homare said, eyes going wide.

Topaz smirked, having them all hanging onto her words and staring at her.

"It just so happens that I have hidden, somewhere in the city, an egg that I have rigged to explode at precisely six o'clock this evening," She explained as she turned around again, crossing her legs at the ankles and leaning back in the air, arms over her chest.

"What happens if we can't find it before it explodes?" Rin demanded.

Topaz's smirk grew some.

"Just hope that doesn't happen," She said. She held out her hand palm up. "I'll be nice and give you some help. The egg will look and feel exactly like this."

The air around her hand shimmered and a hot-pink, glittery egg appeared in her hand. She tossed it down towards Pie, who caught it in both of his hands.

"Good luck!" Topaz said with a giggle, teleporting away.

"Okay, insanely pink, sparkly egg. Or, in short, Topaz in Easter Egg form," Jade said, glancing at the egg in Pie's hands. "Easy enough."

"Oh no…" Tart said, his face pale. "It's not that simple."

"What do you mean?" Lettuce asked worriedly.

Pudding swallowed hard, looking at her teammates.

"Yesterday, Pudding and Taru-Taru helped the day-care workers hide eggs all over Inahora park for the day-care Egg Hunt, na no da," Pudding explained. She raised a trembling hand to point at the egg. "There were at least two dozen that looked exactly like that, na no da."

Ryou looked up and saw a store front, where the pink glitter eggs laid in the display case along with glitter eggs of different colors beside white stuffed rabbits.

"You could find those at any store in the city selling Easter stuff," Ryou said.

"Any one of them could be the real egg, even the ones in the stores," Pie said grimly.

"Not necessarily. Topaz said that the one we're looking for is a perfect replica of this one," Ichigo said, tapping the egg once with her finger. She ducked across the street to the store display, her teammates following. "See? These are plastic. They're hollow on the inside, to put candy in. See that thin line? That's where the egg opens."

"This one isn't like that," Kish said, gingerly plucking the egg from Pie's hands. He weighed it in his hands and shook it some. "It feels like a real, hard-boiled egg. You can't hear anything moving around on the inside."

Zakuro held out her hand and Kish placed it in her palm.

"Even if there was an egg made out of Styrofoam, it wouldn't feel as heavy as this," Zakuro said. "We just need to find the egg that is heavy, doesn't make a sound when you shake it and looks like this."

"Well, where do we start?" Keiichiro asked. "There are probably dozens of egg hunts throughout the city. Topaz could have easily hidden it among those."

"I doubt she would have done otherwise," Rin said. "I get the feeling she does want us to find it for some reason."

"We're going to need to split up," Mint said. "It'll take too much time if we stick together."

"Mint's right," Masaya said. "We'll cover more of the city if we're in groups of two or three."

The others nodded and quickly paired off: Pudding and Tart; Kish and Ichigo; Masaya and Homare; Rin and Keiichiro; Mint and Shinji; Pie and Lettuce; Ryou and Zakuro; and Jade, Rirī and Rōzu.

"We know where most of the eggs are hidden for the Day-Care egg hunt," Tart said. "So Pudding and I'll start there."

"There's a lot of Easter stuff in the shopping district," Mint said. "We'll check out those stores and after all of those, we'll work our way around to other shops."

"We can look at some of the other daycares and kindergartens in the city," Rirī said.

"I know when I was in elementary school, our school held an egg hunt," Lettuce said. "We can look at some of the school yards."

"Hospitals, especially children's ones, will hold them if the weather is fair," Ichigo said.

"I think the zoo is holding one, too," Homare said, grabbing Masaya's hand. He nodded to confirm. "We'll check that out."

"And the rest of us can check out other parks and playgrounds," Ryou said. Rin, Keiichiro and Zakuro nodded.

"I still don't understand what the deal is with the bunnies," Rōzu grumbled.

"Good luck, everyone!" Kish said.

With that, everyone began running off, calling cabs or teleporting away.

They just hoped they found what they were looking for soon.

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"I'm not going," Cayenne said stubbornly from where he lay on his bed, staring up at the red-brick ceiling.

"Don't be a stick in the mud, Onii-Chan!" Bell said, bouncing the mattress some from where she sat beside him.

"Yeah, Mylo says this can be a bit of a vacation, too," Pepper said from where she stood at her older brother's feet. "There's beaches, and warm water…"

"And cute little skirts and super-duper adorable shirts!" Bell said enthusiastically.

"Lots of food, and plenty of places to explore," Chile said, standing beside Pepper.

"And just another one of Mylo's elaborate goose-chases," Cayenne said dully. "No, I'm not going, and you can't make me."

"Is that so, Cayenne-Chan?"

Cayenne's frowned deepened slightly as his vision was flooded with pink and smiles.

"Why do you have those furry eyesores on your head?" He asked blankly.

"To look cute, of course," Topaz said, reaching up to free her hair from the headband with bunny ears. "Come on, Cayenne-Chan, it'll be fun! We'll find the element, relax for a while and then we'll come back to Japan, as ready as ever to defeat the Tokyo Defenders!"

"They could always find your egg, Topaz," Cayenne reminded her. "You weren't exactly subtle with the hint inside."

"They won't figure it out until it's too late," Topaz said. "Besides, even Pie-Kun isn't smart enough to find out in time. By then, we'll be long gone."

"And I'll be right here, enjoying the peace and quiet for once," Cayenne said irritably.

"Aw, Cayenne," Topaz whined, purposefully making her eyes seem bigger than they really were and pouting slightly. "It won't be fun without you! I'll have no fun without you! Please? Pretty please will you come with us?"

Though Cayenne tried, he couldn't resist looking into her pale purple, crystal like eyes. He sighed and sat up.

"I hate when you do that, Topaz," He said, unable to rid his mind's eye of the image of Topaz that had just been before him. "Because you know I cannot say no to you when you look at me with those eyes."

Topaz beamed as Cayenne hauled himself to his feet and grudgingly began to pack.

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"If I was an egg hidden by Topaz, where would I hide?" Ichigo asked out-loud as she and Kish observed the Children's Hospital's Egg Hunt being set up by staff and volunteers.

"If I were Topaz, I'd do as little work as possible," Kish said with a small frown.

"Which means?" Ichigo asked.

"Have someone else hide it for me," Kish said, grabbing Ichigo's hand. "Come on. We're volunteering."

The two quickly ran over and Ichigo asked,

"Is this where we sign-in?'

"Oh, hello," An elderly lady said with a smile. "You two are here to help hide the eggs for the children?"

"Sure are!" Ichigo said perkily.

"Oh, good, you've arrived just in time," The lady said. "We just finished filling them all with candy and are ready to hide them."

Kish and Ichigo quickly exchanged a glance.

"So, um, this is going to sound weird," Kish said. "But, uh, were there any eggs you couldn't open? Maybe one that felt like it was hard-boiled or something?"

"No, not that I'm aware of," The lady said, shaking her head. "All of ours are plastic."

"Not one that was bright pink, very sparkly?" Ichigo asked.

"No, but that does sound pretty," The lady said thoughtfully. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," Ichigo said quickly. The lady didn't seem to think anything of it and immediately passed a basket of eggs to the two and walked away.

"So, what do we do now?" Kish asked Ichigo in a low voice.

"Well, we hide the eggs, I guess," Ichigo said with a sigh. "At least the kids will be happy."

"I just hope the others have better luck," Kish said as he plucked a pale blue egg out of the basket.

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"There's so many stores, where do we even start?" Shinji asked as he and Mint walked around the mall.

"Any one of them could have Easter displays," Mint said with a frown. Suddenly, she smirked mischievously as she glanced at one. "Shinji, I apologize for the side of me I am about to show you."

"Is it cunning, mean or involve being a diva?" Shinji asked.

"All of the above."

"Awesome. Show away."

With that, Mint led him over to a store.

She picked up one of the display eggs in the window.

"Miss? Please don't mess with the display," A worker asked.

Mint turned to her with blazing eyes.

"Do you know who I am?" She demanded.

"N-No…" The worker said, shrinking slightly under Mint's burning gaze.

"My name is Aizawa Mint," She said. "Daughter of Aizawa Shigeo. The man who happens to own not only this entire building, but can have you fired in an instant for disrespecting me and the Aizawa name."

As the woman looked like she was about to faint, Shinji tried hard to hide his smirk.

Mint truly was an amazing actress.

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"Alright, so here's a map that Sensei has of the areas the eggs are," Tart said as he showed it to Pudding.

"We can skip the area we did, na no da," Pudding said.

"No, Topaz could have put it behind us," Tart said, shaking his head. "Now where should we—"

"Pudding Nee-Chan? Taru-Taru?"

The two jerked to look at Heicha and her brothers, their father standing behind them. The kids each clutched small bags to hold eggs in.

"I didn't know you two were coming," Mr. Fong said.

Pudding and Tart glanced at each other and grinned.

They had just acquired help, whether they knew it or not.

"A pink egg?" Honcha said, wrinkling his nose at the thought of something so girly.

Pudding nodded.

"Very pink and very sparkly, na no da," She said. "And hard, like a boiled egg."

"And the alien with the pink hair who likes Wūshī-Chan hid it?" Chincha asked.

"Yeah, Topaz." Tart said with a nod.

"She's weird," Heicha said with a small frown.

"Yes, yes she is," Tart said with a sigh.

"Why is it important to find this egg?" Mr. Fong asked, suddenly suspicious and worried.

"It… might explode later on today, na no da," Pudding said, biting her lip.

"Good to know," Mr. Fong said with a frown. "In which case, if it is here, we are going to have to find it first. We'll split up to try and find it over the various areas."

And so, Tart and the Fongs divided up to spread out over the area on the map, hoping that it would indeed be where they were looking.

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"There's no way they're going to let us look for the eggs," Masaya said, glancing at the banner at the zoo. "There's an age restriction."

"So, what can we do?" Homare asked, biting her lip as she drummed her fingertips against her chin. Suddenly, her eyes brightened. "We're too old, but not Rōzu!"

"Great idea," Masaya said, already bringing the phone to his ear. Within moments, Rōzu was at the zoo.

"So, what did you need me for?" She asked.

"You're going on an Easter Egg Hunt," Masaya said. "And we're your responsible guardians."

Rōzu frowned briefly, but nodded.

"No one's going to notice if we teleport," She said. "We'll cover the entire zoo that way."

"And then we can join up with Rirī and Jade afterwards if we don't find it," Homare said. She grabbed Rōzu's hand. "Come on, let's get started."

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"Why did we let Rōzu go to Homare and Masaya?" Jade asked with a frown as she studied the banner announcing an Easter Egg Hunt at a daycare center. "At least we could have attempted to fit in."

"Maybe not but…" Rirī muttered. Suddenly, she had an idea. She held her hand out palm-up.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Jade asked, arching an eyebrow. Suddenly, a parasite formed in Rirī's hand.

"Playing just as dirty as Topaz is," Rirī said. She bit her lip. How had Kish shown her to do it?

"Again, what exactly are you doing?" Jade asked as Rirī began to shape the jellyfish parasite into something.

"A trick Kish once showed me," She said, trying hard to concentrate. "Kind of make a spy system… Fly on the wall… He used this to plan a prank on some older students once…"

Jade watched as the tip of Rirī's tongue poked out in between her muttering, "Almost got it… almost got it…" then…

"Ah ha!" She said proudly. "Got it!"

She showed Jade what rested in her hand, a small fly, but quite different from other flies. For starters, this one was hot pink.

"Each lens in its eye will be on something different, but it will only report back to me when it sees the egg, or what looks to be the egg," Rirī explained, then sent it off.

"Nice," Jade said, watching the Chimera Fly as it buzzed off. "So, uh, would it be a bad suggestion to make more of those little suckers?"

"Not a bad one at all," Rirī said, already bringing out more parasites.

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"This is getting us nowhere," Ryou said irritably.

"Especially since I think we're lost…" Zakuro said, glancing around the wooded area of the park.

Rin sighed.

"I'm going to find a map and I'll teleport back here, so don't move," She said before she teleported.

"This doesn't make sense," Keiichiro said. "Why would Topaz, or Topaz on Mylo's orders, choose now to send us out all over the city for what could entirely be a wild goose chase?"

"Who knows with them?" Ryou said, looking up at the trees. Suddenly, he caught the sight of something pink and shimmery in the shadows.

"Do you see that?" He said, pointing up.

"Definitely something pink," Zakuro said. "The egg?"

"Possibly," Keiichiro said with a frown. "Only one way to find out."

"Right," Ryou said, taking off his jacket and passing it off to Zakuro before rolling up his sleeves. Keiichiro sighed but did the same thing. Zakuro merely watched as the two began to climb the tree, though with not much luck.

"Okay, so I know where we are now and we're—" Rin said as she teleported beside Zakuro. She frowned as she followed Zakuro's gaze. "What are they doing?"

"Climbing a tree." Zakuro answered.

"I can see that," Rin said. "Why are our boyfriends climbing a tree?"

Zakuro pointed.

"Something pink and shiny up there." She said.

Rin glanced up and nodded.

"Um, they do know that if they had just waited for me, I could have flown up there and checked, right?" She asked.

"Probably not," Zakuro said dryly, shaking her head. "But I wasn't going to deter their manly quest up the tree for the pink, shiny object."

Rin sighed.

"In which case I better go see what it is before they break their necks," She said, taking to the air.

Ryou grunted as he pulled himself up to another branch, hearing Keiichiro close behind.

"We've got to be almost there…" He said in between pants.

"I sure hope so," Keiichiro said, feeling dizzy. "Is it just me, or is the air getting a little thin?"

"Nope, just you, sweetie bun."

The two glanced up to see Rin sitting on a tree branch beside where their pink, sparkly object was.

"No need to go farther, boys," She said. She twisted her hand, revealing that she held the object in her fingers. "A cupcake wrapper isn't worth our time."

"A cupcake wrapper?!" Ryou said in both dismay and anger. He was climbing a tree for a cupcake wrapper?

"The bird whose nest this is apparently thought it was pretty," Rin said, pushing herself off the branch and hovering down to them. She smirked slightly. "Sorry you boys had to make all that effort for nothing."

Keiichiro sighed.

"Well, that was a waste of time," He said, letting go of the branch and falling to the ground.

He landed on his feet at less than six feet in the air. Ryou quickly followed him to the ground, brushing off his hands on the sides of his pants.

"You guys weren't much for tree climbing as kids, huh?" Zakuro said as she passed their jackets back to them.

"Of course we weren't. We were nerds. Now let's just find that stupid egg," Ryou growled, throwing his jacket over his shoulder and beginning to stalk off.

"We want to go the other way," Rin called behind him.

Fuming, Ryou did a quick U-Turn.

Wisely, none of his companions made a comment.

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"See anything?" Lettuce asked hopefully as she stood on her toes to look over the gate.

"Negative," Pie responded, shaking his head.

Lettuce sighed.

"This is the fifth school, and two of their hunts were already done before we even got there," She said. "Pie, there's got to be at least a hundred elementary schools all over the city. We can't possibly get to them all by six."

"I am aware," Pie said grimly, wrapping his arm around Lettuce's waist and leading her away from the gate. "We are going to have to be more selective in our process."

"How?" Lettuce asked. "We don't even have the slightest clue as to what would help Topaz choose a place, let alone any one of these schools."

"She wants us to find the egg, whether she has said so or not. This makes it difficult, but not impossible." Pie answered. "For example, I doubt she would put the egg anywhere on the outskirts of the city, or near the coastline. She would not go too far out of her way, and potentially not too far from their base."

"So we want to look around there," Lettuce said with a nod. She frowned. "Something still feels off about all this… Like we're not looking at this the right way."

"I understand what you are saying," Pie said with a nod. "Topaz has been uncharacteristically clever. So clever, we are left second-guessing ourselves. And rightfully so."

"And if we fail, if we can't find it…" Lettuce said, voice trailing off.

Pie squeezed her hand.

"Perhaps we should try not to think about that," He said. Lettuce smiled and nodded in agreement.

They had to devote all of their mental strength to finding the egg.

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"Where can we look now?" Kish asked. "The children's hospital was a bust, as were the other hospitals in the area. What should we do?"

"Let's meet up with Jade, Rirī and Rōzu, maybe they need help," Ichigo said, pulling out her phone. She hit the button that connected to Jade's cellphone.

"Moshi-Moshi?" Jade said, out of breath when she picked up.

"Hey, Jade, Kish and I couldn't find the egg at any of the hospitals so—"

"Perfect! Rirī and I need help. Badly."

Ichigo frowned.

"Is… everything alright?"

"Just get here now!" Jade begged.

"Oh… 'kay? Kish and I'll be right there…" Ichigo said, hanging up. She and Kish exchanged a glance.

"What in the world was that?" Kish asked.

Ichigo sighed.

"I'm honestly a bit afraid to find out…" She said. Still she took Kish's hand and they teleported.

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Rōzu gazed up at the tree where a pink sparkly egg rested, then turned to Masaya.

"Let me get on your shoulders," She said.

"You can just fly up though," Masaya said.

"Yeah, and everyone here will know I'm an alien, now kneel down before I jump on you," Rōzu said, hands on her hips. With a small sigh, Masaya got on his knees and let Rōzu climb on his back. He carefully stood up and let her crawl up to stand on his shoulders.

"Be careful you two," Homare said, biting her lip worriedly.

"Don't worry, Homare Onee-Chan, I do this all the time with Pie, Kish and Tart," Rōzu said, trying to stand on her toes as much as she could without Masaya losing his grip on her ankles.

"Your brothers are also much stronger than me," Masaya said with a grunt as Rōzu accidentally dug her toes into his shoulder. He was suddenly wishing they had thought to have her take off her shoes prior to this. "Even though you don't weigh much, you're still ninety pounds on top of me, so if you could make this quick..."

"I've almost got it," Rōzu said, stretching her arm out just a little further, biting her tongue. "Ah ha, I've got… eep!"

With that, the two came tumbling down, Homare cringing as she could do nothing but watch. Rōzu used just enough of her powers to prevent herself from landing too hard on Masaya. She gave him a shy smile.

"Sorry I made you lose balance, Masaya Onii-Chan." She said.

"It's alright," Masaya said as he sat up dizzily. "You got the egg, didn't you?"

"Yep!" Rōzu said, looking down at her hands. Then she frowned. "We got it, but's it's not the right egg."

With that, she proceeded to open the plastic egg, which revealed a small packet of jelly beans.

"Well, we wouldn't have known unless we tried," Homare said as she helped the two to their feet.

"We're running out of time," Rōzu said. "We've been here for two hours now and searched the entire zoo. It's already three o'clock. There's only three hours left."

"Let's go back to Jade and Rirī," Masaya said. "They probably want more pairs of eyes to help them."

With that, they found a secluded corner and Rōzu clasped hands with Masaya and Homare, teleporting.

However, they suddenly wished they stayed at the zoo.

"Oh my gosh!" Homare gasped, her hand to her mouth.

Masaya groaned.

"Just as I was wondering if our situation could get worse," He said.

Rōzu sighed and pulled out her stone.

"Only one thing to do now," She said. "BATTLE-FORM ROSE, METAMORPHO-SIS!"

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"Well, at least you got a cute dress out of it," Shinji said as he squeezed Mint's hand as they left the shopping center, the tormented and terrified staff happy to see their backs.

"Yes, but that took way too much time," Mint griped. "We're never going to get anywhere else, or get to anything as easily, as we did here."

"There's got to be an easier way," Shinji said. "Maybe we can narrow down our options." Topaz had on those stupid bunny ears, maybe a kid's shop or costume shop has an Easter display that she nicked them from."

"Topaz is always showing up in new outfits, human designer ones at that," Mint commented. "She could put the egg in a boutique as an excuse to steal a new outfit."

"Any ideas where to go first?" Shinji asked.

Mint nodded.

"I've noticed she has a favorite designer," She said. "He has a boutique downtown that's open on Sundays. Well. Not to the general public, at least."

Shinji grinned.

"Right on," He said.

They paused when they heard the people on the street gasp and start muttering.

"What's going on?" Mint said with a frown as she turned. She gasped as she saw the television screen up on the side of a building.

"Is that…?" Shinji said with wide eyes.

"It is," Mint groaned.

"Why is it pink?" Shinji asked in dismay.

"I think the color is irrelevant," Mint said, tightening her grip on Shinji's hand. "But getting to it and stopping it is. Come on!"

The two took off down the streets of Tokyo without another word.

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Pie paused as they walked down the sidewalk in front of the elementary school where parents and children were filing inside.

"An egg hunt?" Lettuce asked, not seeing many indicators that this was the reason for the gathering.

"Wait here," He told Lettuce. "I will go find out."

Lettuce nodded and then watched as Pie somehow managed to blend in with the crowd. She shook her head, trying to figure out just how the alien who towered over most of the other adults was able to become invisible in a matter of seconds.

"Spy training must be a wonderful thing," She muttered to herself, wondering if she could ever be that stealthy.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite girl."

Lettuce cringed as she turned to face Hiroki.

"Hello, Hiroki," She said, forcing a smile. "What a pleasant surprise. How are you?"

"Better, now that I've seen this pretty face," Hiroki said, cupping Lettuce's chin. "Haven't seen you in a while, babe. Our paths don't cross much lately."

"I've been really busy with schoolwork and at the Café," Lettuce said, pulling away.

"Yeah, about that," Hiroki said, getting closer to her, not noticing that Lettuce was trying to pull away. "You were supposed to ask me."

"Ask you what?" Lettuce asked in confusion.

"If you could go on another trip with those losers from Café Mew Mew," Hiroki said with a frown. "You told me you would."

Lettuce scowled and felt her blood boil, which was quite unusual for her. She didn't even feel like this when Topaz openly flirted with Pie earlier.

"I didn't tell you I would," Lettuce said, coolly and firmly. "And it's none of your business. I don't have to ask you for anything. And my friends are not losers. They're the best friends I've ever had."

"Oh, come on, we both know that's not true, and the proof is standing right here," Hiroki said, reaching over to stroke Lettuce's hair. "I'm your best friend. Aren't I?"

"They've gotten me through some tough times," Lettuce said. "And—"

"Missing me?" Hiroki interrupted with a smirk.

"Do you think everything revolves around you?" Lettuce demanded.

"Only when it involves you," Hiroki said, moving his hand over her cheek, not noticing Lettuce's rather obvious discomfort. "My girl."

"She is not your girl, and if you wish to keep those fingers, it is advised that you move them now."

Lettuce breathed a sigh of relief as suddenly Pie was standing there, eyes burning as he glared at Hiroki, who just returned the same smoldering gaze.

"Must you always get in the way of everything I do?" Hiroki demanded as he arched a brow at Pie.

"Only when it concerns Lettuce." Pie responded.

Hiroki scowled but turned back to Lettuce.

"I don't know what's taking so long, but when you're finally ready to get rid of him, I'll be waiting. You'll know where to find me," He said.

Thankfully, with that he stalked away.

"Perfect timing," Lettuce said to Pie. "Thanks."

"You are quite welcome," Pie responded. He studied Lettuce for a moment, then said, "Are you alright?"

"Let's just go find that egg before my day can get any worse," Lettuce said with a sigh. She did, however, quickly smile when Pie pulled her to his side and kissed the top of her head, his arm around her waist. That definitely improved her mood.

"So, the school?" She asked.

"A spring play being put on by sixth graders," Pie explained. "Not a single mention of eggs or anything remotely resembling one."

"Well, at least we can mark it off our list," Lettuce said. She reached into her purse as she heard her cellphone signal a new text message, Pie's doing the same only a second later. They both glanced at the screens, then each other.

The message gave a location, then read: URGENT! NEED BACK UP!

"Do you think they found the egg?" Lettuce asked as she met Pie's eye's again.

"Here's hoping," Pie said, pulling her aside so they could teleport.

"Oh!" Lettuce said in surprise once they arrived.

"This is indeed a situation where back-up is required," Pie said grimly, reaching into his pocket for his stone.

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"Well, that was a bust," Tart said.

"But we got a lot of eggs anyways," Heicha said, holding up her full basket to show that it was full of pink, sparkly eggs, all of which contained candy. Not only did they find a majority of the eggs like this, but Heicha deftly traded with others for the ones they hadn't found.

"Thanks for the help, na no da," Pudding said, giving Lucha a hug. "I guess we've got to go look other places now, na no da."

"Be careful," Mr. Fong warned, giving Pudding a hug.

"We will," Tart promised as he took Pudding's hand in his. "And, don't worry, we'll find it."

"Good luck!" The younger Fongs chimed as they waved after Pudding and Tart.

"So, where to now, na no da?" Pudding asked.

"Better call Rirī and Jade," Tart said, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket. "They were checking other daycares, and we don't want to go the same places as them, that's counterproductive."

He brought the phone to his ear and frowned as it continued to ring, eventually going to Rirī's voicemail.

"That's odd," He said, lowering the phone. "She always picks up."

"Pudding hopes they're not in trouble," Pudding said with a frown.

Just then, the phone in Tart's hand buzzed. His brow furrowed at the text message and said,

"Unfortunately, it looks like they might just be in trouble. Come on, we better go."

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"That was our fourth park, and we're running extremely low on time," Rin said. "Even if we were to split up now, there's no way we're going to be able to thoroughly search the remaining parks before six."

"Well, we're almost to the next one, so we can decide what to do as we search that one," Ryou suggested.

Suddenly, though, Zakuro frowned as she looked up.

"Um, guys," She said as pointed to the sky.

"Is that what I think it is?" Keiichiro asked.

"Chimera Animal," Ryou growled. "As if this wasn't hard enough."

Just then, they all reached for their cellphones, which gave the location of the park they were just about to enter and asked for urgent help.

Rin's ear twitched as she heard a distinct, "RIBBON MINT ECHO!"

"There's got to be a lot more than that one, come on!" She said, taking off at a run.

"BATTLE-FORM RINDOU!"

"MEW MEW ZAKURO!"

"METAMORPHO-SIS!"

"Glad you two could join this little party!" Tart said angrily as he glared at one of the large, hot-pink flies that were currently buzzing around and terrorizing everyone in the park. There were dozens of them. They weren't really attacking, rather just they were there and annoying and making small children cry.

"Flies? You're kidding me," Zakuro said with a sneer as lashed out with her whip.

"I know, it's so gross," Ichigo said, lip curling as well.

"I've never seen Topaz make Chimeras this bad," Rin said as she threw a fan.

"Well, they're definitely not Bell and Pepper's," Rōzu said. "They couldn't even try to make something as bad as these even if they tried."

"Yeah, it takes a lot of skill to make a Chimera like this," Kish said. "And by a lot of skill, I mean a lack of it."

With that, Rirī hung her head from where she stood beside her friends, sweat-dropping and feeling a vein pulse in her head. This was definitely not lost on her teammates. Her siblings each cringed and exchanged guilty looks as they suddenly realized whose handiwork it was they were criticizing.

"Uh, Rirī?" Lettuce said nervously. "Did you, uh, did you make these?"

"Chimeras aren't my specialty, okay!" Rirī yelled in frustration. "Can we just get rid of them now?"

"Oh, yeah," Mint said, bobbing her head. "Let's, uh, take care of these, um, highly-effective, highly dangerous, very creative, I really don't know what you're searching for here…"

"I'm searching for everyone to shut up!" Rirī snapped before unleashing an arrow.

The rest of the Tokyo Defenders wisely did.

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"Well, that was fun." Ryou said as the entire team sprawled out on the grass once the last of the Chimeras were gone.

"You didn't even do any of the hard part!" Ichigo snapped.

"Yeah, but we still lost time," Ryou said, pointing at the watch on his wrist. "We only have about an hour now."

Rirī groaned and put her head in her hands.

"It's all my fault," She said. "I thought I was making something to be able to look in more places. Then they just kept getting bigger and multiplying… I didn't mean for there to be so many."

"It was a good idea, no one can blame you for that," Kish said, wrapping his arm around Rirī's shoulders to comfort her.

"Even without the fly chimeras, I think we'd come to this point," Zakuro said grimly.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked.

"Tokyo is a large city, we can't look absolutely everywhere, obviously," Zakuro said. "But we looked everywhere we thought that the egg could be hidden."

"Still, it almost feels like we've been looking in all the wrong places," Tart said, resting his chin on his knees in thought.

Suddenly, Pie's ears perked up and he got to his feet.

"We have been looking in all the wrong places," He said.

"What do you mean?" Rin asked as she also rose to her feet.

"The egg, it has to be in the one place we have not looked," Pie elaborated. "We have been all over this city. Except one place: Café Mew Mew."

"You think she seriously could have hidden the egg there?" Jade asked.

"Only one way to find out," Keiichiro said.

They were in the kitchen only seconds later.

"Oh, I hate her," Mint griped.

"Really? All along?" Homare said with a sigh.

For sitting on the center of the counter, on a golden stand, was a pink, glittering egg.

Tentatively, Pie reached out and picked up the egg.

"It is the right weight," He said. "This is definitely it."

There was a moment of silence. No one could really believe it, that they were staring at the thing they had been hunting all afternoon, and an hour to spare. It was surreal.

And yet, they were more than happy to be rid of it.

"So." Pudding said. "What do we do with it now, na no da?"

"Well, if we take it into space where there's no air, it wouldn't explode, or at least not in a way that would be damaging to Earth or anything, right?" Masaya asked.

"That's probably the best course of action," Ryou said with a grim nod.

"Now that we've found it, will someone please explain the bunnies now?" Rōzu asked.

"Bunnies are a symbol of new life," Zakuro said. "Now does it make sense?"

"Why are bunnies a symbol of new life?" Rōzu pressed.

"Because they breed like—" Kisshu started to say but was quickly cut-off by Rin, who had a feeling she knew exactly what would be Rōzu's next question if Kish finished his sentence.

"Anyways, Pie and I will—" Rin paused, cutting herself off, ear twitching with a frown. "Does… Anyone else hear that ticking noise?"

"Yes," Lettuce squeaked.

"And it's coming from the egg, na no da!" Pudding said in alarm.

However, before anyone could react, the egg exploded, covering everyone and everything with pink glittery dust right as the clock chimed five o'clock.

There was a second of silence, then Ichigo screamed,

"I'm going to murder Topaz! This is never going to come out of my hair!"

"This is what we wasted all day for?" Kish snarled as he tried in vain to get some of the glitter off his face.

"We still had an hour…" Homare said in an almost whimper as she tried desperately to get the glitter off of the lenses of her glasses.

"Daylight Savings Time," Masaya suddenly said with realization as he tried to knock the glitter off his clothes. "She didn't know about Daylight Savings Time. It went into effect today."

"So this time yesterday, it was six o'clock. Of course," Jade groaned.

Pie frowned as he reached his fingers into the remains of the egg.

"It appears she left a note," He said, dropping the shell to the floor in order to unfold the note.

"What does it say?" Rōzu asked.

"It just has one word on it," Pie said. "Aloha."

"Aloha?" Mint repeated. "That's Hawaiian."

"Yeah, for 'Hello' and 'Good-bye'," Shinji said. "Why would she put that on the note?"

Suddenly, Ryou's back straightened and his eyes became thoughtful.

"Something wrong?" Lettuce asked in concern.

"Maybe… Just maybe…" Ryou said.

Leaving a trail of pink pixie dust behind him as he went, Ryou ran to the door to the basement and down the stairs, barely noticing that he was being followed.

"It was something we noticed years before, but it wasn't Mew Aqua," He muttered as he typed away on the computers.

Suddenly, Keiichiro seemed to realize what Ryou was talking about.

"Ryou, you think that's where another element is?" He asked.

"Another element?" Rōzu repeated excitedly. "Really?"

Suddenly, a map of Hawaii popped up on the large screen. The largest island was highlighted and had pulses at various different places.

"You guys get the next two weeks off of school, right?" Ryou said, without turning around.

"Yeah," Mint said. "Because we're third years, we get a week for self-study, then Golden Week, because the week after entrance exams open."

Ryou then turned with a grin and said,

"Then how do you feel about spending the next few days in Hawaii?"


So, no, third year students in Japan don't really get a week off before Golden Week. But guess what? We're gonna fake it for this story! Woohoo!