El Hazard belongs to AIC and Pioneer.
Another lost fic.
El Hazard: Resistance
Nanami swore under her breath as she tripped again and barely caught herself. She pulled her hand away from the woman leading her down the corridor and stopped. She refused to go a step farther with this woman until she had some answers.
"For the last time," Nanami ordered sternly, glaring through the blindfold covering her eyes, "Tell me where you're taking me!"
"Please, Ms. Nanami!" Quawoor Talus begged. "We're almost there. Just a little farther. Please?"
Nanami growled, but relented. She held out her hand and let the young water priestess take it. She started walking down the corridor again.
How had she been roped into this? Quawoor had come to her at her restauraunt and said she needed her help for a holy rite. At first Nanami was going to say no. She had a business to run, after all. But Quawoor had begged and pleaded, telling Nanami that she was still new to Florishtica and that she was her only real friend.
Nanami had been a little surprised and flattered by that remark. Sure, she and Quawoor had gotten to know each other in Cretaria a few months ago, but she wasn't sure she'd call Quawoor a "friend."
"Rival," was closer. Ever since the young priestess had arrived, she had been making eyes at *her* Makoto chan.
She growled again as she thought about this.
Quawoor heard her and reassured her. "We're almost there."
Nanami could feel the air change and figured they were near an open window somewhere. She took a breath and smelled fresh air. That's when she heard it.
"Ms. Afura, is the blindfold *really* necessary?"
"Makoto chan!?"
"Nanami?!" the young boy's voice replied. "Are you here too?!"
"Hey! You kids are here?!"
"Sensei!?" Nanami and Makoto cried out as one.
"All right, girls," they heard Miz say. "Take 'em off."
Nanami blinked as the blindfold was lifted. She squinted at the light that suddenly invaded her eyes.
"SURPRISE!"
Her eyes focused, allowing her to see what was going on. They were in the main ball room of the Royal Palace! The place was packed with people. The royal family, foreign dignitaries, their friends...almost everyone they had met since coming to El Hazard. She looked to her right and left and found Makoto and Mr. Fujisawa standing on either side of her, both in a similar state of surprise. A banner hung from the ceiling.
"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!" the banner read.
"Wha...What's going on?!" Makoto asked in shock.
"Do you not remember?" Rune Venus asked, approaching him from the crowd before them. "It was one year ago today that I was attacked by Bugrom and two strange men saved me."
Fujisawa blinked. "Today's the day we arrived," he noted.
Rune smiled and nodded.
"An anniversary party!?" Nanami cried. "How sweet!"
"So there's no religious ceremony you need me for?" Makoto asked Afura.
Nanami threw a look to Quawoor and Afura, who were both shaking their heads.
Mr. Fujisawa sighed and turned to Shayla Shayla. "Then I guess that story you told me about a secret cache of wine was just to get me here, huh?" He sounded disappointed.
Shayla grinned. "Of course not!" She walked a few feet away and slapped a nearby crate with her hand. She opened the crate and pulled out a bottle. She blew the dust off it and showed it to Fujisawa. "Would *I* lie?" She grinned smugly.
"Shayla," he said, wiping a tear away, "You really are my favorite priestess..."
A woman cleared her throat behind him. Fujisawa turned and found his wife standing there, holding little Yoshi in her arms. "I thought *I* was your favorite priestess," she said with an tinge of jealousy.
"Um...."
Nanami giggled and decided to once again rescue her sensei. "He means that since you retired, she's his favorite priestess."
"Yeah!" Fujisawa said, jumping right in. "That's right!"
Miz only smiled.
The party went on from there. Friends and relations were patting them on the back, congragulating them on making it through their first year. Most of the attention was given to Makoto and Mr. Fujisawa, who, for the most part, were seen as the primary heroes of the Bugrom War. Nanami mingled with the guests, but her glance kept falling on Makoto.
She knew why. She had always known why.
Even when they were back on Earth, she had known, but she had never thought to say anything. She thought she had time on her side. Now...
She sighed and walked to the balcony. "Demons, priestesses," she whispered. "And me," she sighed. She looked out at the stars above Roshtaria, at the Eye of God. "Why did you have to take him?" she asked the Eye, and through it, Ifurita.
As if the beautiful demon god wasn't competition enough, there was also Shayla and Quawoor. After Ifurita had deactivated the Eye, Nanami believed it had become a waiting game. If Makoto figured out the Eye and got Ifurita back, then he was lost forever, but there was that one speck of hope, that one sliver of light that he would fail, that just this once Makoto Mizuhara would fail at something and he wouldn't unlock the Eye of God.
If that happened, Nanami figured that of course Makoto would come to her. They had known each other since grade school for Pete's sake! Why wouldn't he!?
The answer, she found, was simple. Shayla Shayla and Quawoor Talus. Both of them were beautiful, exotic, powerful women who genuinely seemed to care for him. Shayla she figured she could handle. She had a fatal weakness, her temper. Quawoor was another story. She was kind, gentle, outgoing, and beautiful.
All of a sudden, Shayla's weakness was Nanami's. Compared to Quawoor, Nanami looked liked a fire-breathing bitch. Then again, next to Quawoor, *anybody* looked like a fire-breathing bitch.
She sighed again. If Ifurita never came back, Nanami *still* didn't stand a chance.
"Nanami? Are you all right?"
Nanami turned and saw Rune approaching.
"You don't appear to be enjoying yourself. Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah, Princess Rune, I'm fine," she told the leader of the Alliance dejectedly.
"You don't appear fine," she said, taking a place next to the young woman. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?"
Nanami sighed again. "You wouldn't understand, Princess. Not until you've loved someone and couldn't be with them."
Rune was silent for a long moment. "Then I would understand," she whispered. Nanami blinked and looked over at her, only to find the young Princess staring up at the stars.
Nanami didn't know what to make of Rune's sudden change of mood. Except for Galus, she hadn't known the Princess had been interested in anybody.
"Let me guess," Rune said. "Makoto?"
Nanami nodded. "I just can't compete anymore," she told Rune quietly. "At first I thought I could...now..."
"Nanami, do you love Makoto?"
Nanami stood up and faced Rune, anger ran across her features. "Of course I do!"
"Then...you must never give up," Rune said quietly.
Nanami was stunned into speechlessness. She blinked as she saw a tear run down Rune's cheek.
"Never," the Princess repeated. "No matter how...difficult...it may seem, if you really love someone, you must keep trying. If not..." She trailed off.
"If not, what?" Nanami asked quietly.
"If not...then it's the same as saying you've never loved them at all."
Nanami was still in shock. She had no idea that Galus had meant so much to her. His betrayal must have really shook her.
"But how can I compete?" Nanami whispered. "Look at the competition. Say for a second that Ifurita doesn't come back, fine. Quawoor is so pretty and graceful...and eventually Shayla's going to realize just what a body she has. Either way, I strike out."
Rune said nothing.
"You know, Princess, there are times when I wish I was more like you."
Rune blinked in shock. "More like me?"
Nanami nodded. "You're a princess. You're beautiful, graceful, and you practically ooze refinement."
"I wouldn't say that, Nanami," Rune said with a smile.
Nanami sighed. "If only it weren't so damn hopeless."
Rune placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "If you like...I will help you."
Nanami turned to her in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Rune smiled. "Meet me in my chambers tomorrow evening." With that last ominous remark, she walked away. Nanami blinked after her for a moment, then caught sight of Makoto talking with Mr. Fujisawa and Dr. Staloughbough.
She made her way through the crowd towards them. As she was pushing her way forward, she caught the tail-end of a conversation between Fatora, Rune, and Londs.
"The northern territory is the last hold out," Londs was telling the princesses. "The resistance there is surprisingly strong."
"Send more troops. The sooner they're wiped out, the better," Fatora said cruelly.
"Londs," Rune told him, "Send what reinforcements you feel best..."
After that, Nanami lost track of them. She was still heading toward Makoto.
"I mean, can you imagine it?" she heard Makoto ask. "Look what we've done with the power's we've gotten."
"Whatcha all talk'n about?" Nanami asked with a smile.
"Oh, hi Nanami," Makoto said with a smile.
"Makoto was just telling us how fortunate we are that no other humans came from Earth," Dr. Staloughbough told her. "I must admit, I have never thought of it in the way he describes, but you and your powers have undoubtedly had a major impact on history. Children will one day be reading about you in Roshtarian schools, Ms. Nanami."
"Wow! I never really thought that!" Her expression turned pensive. "But, Makoto, why is it a good thing that no one else came with us? I mean, I wouldn't want anyone else to be trapped here or anything, but I kind of miss my old friends. I sometimes think I would be less homesick if one of them were with me."
"Yeah, Nanami, but think about it. We've already had a major impact on this world. Look what you're brother..."
"*EX*...brother..." Nanami corrected him.
"Er...Yeah. Anyway, just look what Jinnai's done with his power, and all his power is is the ability to communicate."
"With bugs," she commented darkly.
"Right, but it was enough to nearly bring Roshtaria to its knees."
"And what about you, Nanami?" Mr. Fujisawa asked. "If you hadn't been at that feast when Galus was there..."
Dr. Staloughbough shuddered. "Don't remind me. The repercussions may have been disastrous. I sometimes have nightmares about what might have happened."
"You see, Nanami?" Fujisawa asked. "Thanks to powers which don't seem that wonderful, an entire world has been changed forever."
"I guess I never thought of it like that."
Makoto nodded. "Now what would have happened if someone else from Earth had come here? Someone like your bro...er...Jinnai?"
"Depending on the power he acquired, he could've plunged this world into darkness," Staloughbough told her.
"Well, then," Nanami said, "I guess it's a good thing that no one else came with us. Isn't it, Sensei?"
Fujisawa blinked. "Huh? Oh, yeah," he said woodenly.
"Are you okay, Sensei?" Makoto asked.
"Yeah, I just zoned out for a second. Lost in thought, I guess."
"Are you sure?" Nanami asked.
"Yeah, Nanami. I'm fine." Fujisawa smiled. "Now where's the bar again?"
"Honey? Sweety? Snookums?" Miz balled her hands into fists and shouted at the top of her lungs. "DAR-LING!!!"
Fujisawa flinched and turned to her. "Huh? What's wrong, Miz?"
Miz Fujisawa flopped down next to him on their bed back in their small but cozy house on the edge of the city. "Didn't you have a good time, Sweety?"
"Oh, I had a great time," Fujisawa told her, patting her hand affectionately.
"What's bothering you, Sweetheart? Can't you tell your own wife?" she asked, a little hurt at his reluctance to talk to her.
"It's nothing," he told her. "Something Makoto said at the party...It's just bothering me a little."
"How so?" Miz asked.
He smiled. "It's just that..."
Before he could finish, crying started from the nearby crib. Miz got up and went to her son, shushing him back to sleep.
Fujisawa watched his wife cuddle with his son. His thoughts leapt back to the earlier conversation he had with Makoto.
I'm just being paranoid. Of course they went home...
Despite this self-reassurance, Mr. Fujisawa did not sleep well that night.
Groucho held up a Bugrom hand and stood stock still in the middle of the country road. The Bugrom behind him, four orange bugs carrying a pallet of stolen supplies, stopped dead in their tracks. Groucho held up the spear he was carrying and searched the trees on the side of the road.
Nothing.
He turned to the waiting Bugrom and spoke in the guttural Bugrom language. They nodded and picked up the pallet again. Groucho started to turn back to the road when something struck his spear.
His head snapped up as he watched his weapon fly straight up into the air. It reached the apex of its climb and started down again. The purple bug reached out to catch his spear and watched amazed as it stopped right in front of him, suspended in the air a meter and a half off the ground.
The bug blinked in shock.
The staff of the spear suddenly swung up and struck him in the face! Groucho heard the crack that told him a part of his exoskeleton was broken, but before he could react to that, the spear swung around again and struck the side of his head. Groucho collapsed to the ground, disoriented.
The spear spun and seemed to turn to the other four bugs, who were staring at the spectacle in shocked amazement. They blinked as they heard a sensuous, human, female voice come from the general direction of the spear.
"Anyone else here wanna fuck!?"
Before they could react, something fell out of the sky and landed on the left rear Bugrom. The "object" looked down at the bug he had squashed and cracked his knuckles. "Hmmm...Got something on my shoe."
By now, the last three bugs had recovered from the shock. One of them approached the new intruder while the other two advanced on the spear.
The bug sized up his opponent. He was thin, lanky, and wore an evil grin below his spiky, black hair. This grin was now directed at the Bugrom approaching him.
"Care to go for a ride?" the boy asked.
The Bug paused and blinked. Then, without warning, the boy struck! The Bugrom didn't know what to make of it. Humans, as a rule, did not attack it. They ran. They cowered. They fled. They screamed in fear. They begged.
They did not attack.
So was this boy a human?
Another thing humans don't do...is *fly.*
And yet here he was, being carried hundreds of feet into the air by this boy....
Perhaps he's not a human after all....
The boy grinned as the wind whipped through his hair. Odd, but the bug wasn't even struggling. He looked as if was going to wet himself.
"Whoops!" the boy said in mock fright...and let the Bugrom go.
The Bugrom plummetted to the ground below.
As this happened, another bugrom hit the ground, its arm broken. The spear shaft that broke its arm hovered before the last Bugrom. The bug made a quick grab for the spear, but it darted away and struck back, striking the Bugrom's knee with a crack!
The bug fell to one knee and looked up as the spear struck him in the face. He fell backwards, unconscious.
"EXO-BONEHEADS!"
Groucho, who was just rising and preparing another attack turned and saw his leader/god/general/chancellor standing fifty feet away. He blinked. His antennae waved in puzzlement.
"You can't defeat them like that, you idiots!" Jinnai screamed. "Retreat! Follow me!" With that, their human leader turned and ran.
Groucho looked at the surviving Bugrom and shrugged before chasing after his leader as fast as his insectile legs would carry him. The other Bugrom followed, abandoning their stolen treasure.
The thin boy landed on the road in front of the pallet and watched the bugs run away. He turned to the trees. "Okay! Let's go!"
A patch of trees disappeared, revealing a nook that had been cut out of the forest. Hiding in this nook was a horse-drawn wagon on which sat several blue men and driven by two humans. The cart pulled up alongside the pallet, and the Phantom Tribesmen within began loading it with the supplies looted by the Bugrom.
The spear that had routed the Bugrom soldiers fell to the ground with a clang.
"Jeez! It's fucking freezing out here!" the same feminine voice exclaimed.
One of the cart's driver's, a young boy of about eighteen, jumped from the cart with a blanket. He approached the fallen spear cautiously and held the blanket out. "Um...Reiko?" he asked. "Where are you?"
He flinched as the blanket was pulled from his hands. "Right here," he heard. He watched as the blanket wrapped around something right in front of him, something he couldn't see. The blanket was pulled tightly around the invisible figure, revealing that it was, indeed, a woman in there.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "Were you injured?"
"No, Toshio, I'm fine," the figure beneath the blanket, Reiko, replied.
"Let's go!" the other driver called out. "We only have another few seconds! I don't want any signs!"
"Do not worry, Masaru," a soft, feminine voice told him. The driver turned and found a blue-skinned woman approaching from the trees. "There is plenty of time." Once again, Masaru Akagi, captain of the Shininome High karate club took a moment to admire the woman's beauty. Her sharp, angular, elvish features added to the exotic look brought by her pale, blue skin. Her long, blonde hair flowed down her back almost to the back of her knees. Her jade-colored eyes were capable of showing untold menace or surprising compassion.
The moment passed.
"They could bring back reinforcements, Milady," Masaru told her respectfully.
Duchess Neldala smiled. "From their perspective, they've already found reinforcements and are moving to ambush us." She pointed down the road. "About a kilometer that way."
"How long can you hold them there with your illusions?" he asked.
"As long as there are stars in the sky," she told him with amusement. "Or breath in me."
"Milady," one of the Phantom Tribe soldiers called out. "The supplies are loaded."
"Then it is time to depart."
Neldala sat next to Masaru at the head of the wagon, and it began to roll down the road. Akio flew into the air to act as a lookout. Everyone else walked next to wagon as it creaked along.
"You seem troubled, Masaru," Neldala pointed out. "You have reservations about your coming mission?"
"It seems like a great deal of risk with very little to gain from it," Masaru told her.
"The risk is necessary. Misdirection is the key, Masaru. One way or another, the Roshtarian threat will soon disappear."
Masaru gave her an appraising look and nodded.
Toshio walked next to Markio next to the wagon. The young woman held the blanket close to herself. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again.
"Yes, Toshio," she said, a little annoyed. "They were just bugs."
"Sorry,"
He didn't realize it due to her power, but Mariko was looking at him. "It's okay. Glad to know that someone worries about me, I guess."
Toshio smiled.
Another lost fic.
El Hazard: Resistance
Nanami swore under her breath as she tripped again and barely caught herself. She pulled her hand away from the woman leading her down the corridor and stopped. She refused to go a step farther with this woman until she had some answers.
"For the last time," Nanami ordered sternly, glaring through the blindfold covering her eyes, "Tell me where you're taking me!"
"Please, Ms. Nanami!" Quawoor Talus begged. "We're almost there. Just a little farther. Please?"
Nanami growled, but relented. She held out her hand and let the young water priestess take it. She started walking down the corridor again.
How had she been roped into this? Quawoor had come to her at her restauraunt and said she needed her help for a holy rite. At first Nanami was going to say no. She had a business to run, after all. But Quawoor had begged and pleaded, telling Nanami that she was still new to Florishtica and that she was her only real friend.
Nanami had been a little surprised and flattered by that remark. Sure, she and Quawoor had gotten to know each other in Cretaria a few months ago, but she wasn't sure she'd call Quawoor a "friend."
"Rival," was closer. Ever since the young priestess had arrived, she had been making eyes at *her* Makoto chan.
She growled again as she thought about this.
Quawoor heard her and reassured her. "We're almost there."
Nanami could feel the air change and figured they were near an open window somewhere. She took a breath and smelled fresh air. That's when she heard it.
"Ms. Afura, is the blindfold *really* necessary?"
"Makoto chan!?"
"Nanami?!" the young boy's voice replied. "Are you here too?!"
"Hey! You kids are here?!"
"Sensei!?" Nanami and Makoto cried out as one.
"All right, girls," they heard Miz say. "Take 'em off."
Nanami blinked as the blindfold was lifted. She squinted at the light that suddenly invaded her eyes.
"SURPRISE!"
Her eyes focused, allowing her to see what was going on. They were in the main ball room of the Royal Palace! The place was packed with people. The royal family, foreign dignitaries, their friends...almost everyone they had met since coming to El Hazard. She looked to her right and left and found Makoto and Mr. Fujisawa standing on either side of her, both in a similar state of surprise. A banner hung from the ceiling.
"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!" the banner read.
"Wha...What's going on?!" Makoto asked in shock.
"Do you not remember?" Rune Venus asked, approaching him from the crowd before them. "It was one year ago today that I was attacked by Bugrom and two strange men saved me."
Fujisawa blinked. "Today's the day we arrived," he noted.
Rune smiled and nodded.
"An anniversary party!?" Nanami cried. "How sweet!"
"So there's no religious ceremony you need me for?" Makoto asked Afura.
Nanami threw a look to Quawoor and Afura, who were both shaking their heads.
Mr. Fujisawa sighed and turned to Shayla Shayla. "Then I guess that story you told me about a secret cache of wine was just to get me here, huh?" He sounded disappointed.
Shayla grinned. "Of course not!" She walked a few feet away and slapped a nearby crate with her hand. She opened the crate and pulled out a bottle. She blew the dust off it and showed it to Fujisawa. "Would *I* lie?" She grinned smugly.
"Shayla," he said, wiping a tear away, "You really are my favorite priestess..."
A woman cleared her throat behind him. Fujisawa turned and found his wife standing there, holding little Yoshi in her arms. "I thought *I* was your favorite priestess," she said with an tinge of jealousy.
"Um...."
Nanami giggled and decided to once again rescue her sensei. "He means that since you retired, she's his favorite priestess."
"Yeah!" Fujisawa said, jumping right in. "That's right!"
Miz only smiled.
The party went on from there. Friends and relations were patting them on the back, congragulating them on making it through their first year. Most of the attention was given to Makoto and Mr. Fujisawa, who, for the most part, were seen as the primary heroes of the Bugrom War. Nanami mingled with the guests, but her glance kept falling on Makoto.
She knew why. She had always known why.
Even when they were back on Earth, she had known, but she had never thought to say anything. She thought she had time on her side. Now...
She sighed and walked to the balcony. "Demons, priestesses," she whispered. "And me," she sighed. She looked out at the stars above Roshtaria, at the Eye of God. "Why did you have to take him?" she asked the Eye, and through it, Ifurita.
As if the beautiful demon god wasn't competition enough, there was also Shayla and Quawoor. After Ifurita had deactivated the Eye, Nanami believed it had become a waiting game. If Makoto figured out the Eye and got Ifurita back, then he was lost forever, but there was that one speck of hope, that one sliver of light that he would fail, that just this once Makoto Mizuhara would fail at something and he wouldn't unlock the Eye of God.
If that happened, Nanami figured that of course Makoto would come to her. They had known each other since grade school for Pete's sake! Why wouldn't he!?
The answer, she found, was simple. Shayla Shayla and Quawoor Talus. Both of them were beautiful, exotic, powerful women who genuinely seemed to care for him. Shayla she figured she could handle. She had a fatal weakness, her temper. Quawoor was another story. She was kind, gentle, outgoing, and beautiful.
All of a sudden, Shayla's weakness was Nanami's. Compared to Quawoor, Nanami looked liked a fire-breathing bitch. Then again, next to Quawoor, *anybody* looked like a fire-breathing bitch.
She sighed again. If Ifurita never came back, Nanami *still* didn't stand a chance.
"Nanami? Are you all right?"
Nanami turned and saw Rune approaching.
"You don't appear to be enjoying yourself. Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah, Princess Rune, I'm fine," she told the leader of the Alliance dejectedly.
"You don't appear fine," she said, taking a place next to the young woman. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?"
Nanami sighed again. "You wouldn't understand, Princess. Not until you've loved someone and couldn't be with them."
Rune was silent for a long moment. "Then I would understand," she whispered. Nanami blinked and looked over at her, only to find the young Princess staring up at the stars.
Nanami didn't know what to make of Rune's sudden change of mood. Except for Galus, she hadn't known the Princess had been interested in anybody.
"Let me guess," Rune said. "Makoto?"
Nanami nodded. "I just can't compete anymore," she told Rune quietly. "At first I thought I could...now..."
"Nanami, do you love Makoto?"
Nanami stood up and faced Rune, anger ran across her features. "Of course I do!"
"Then...you must never give up," Rune said quietly.
Nanami was stunned into speechlessness. She blinked as she saw a tear run down Rune's cheek.
"Never," the Princess repeated. "No matter how...difficult...it may seem, if you really love someone, you must keep trying. If not..." She trailed off.
"If not, what?" Nanami asked quietly.
"If not...then it's the same as saying you've never loved them at all."
Nanami was still in shock. She had no idea that Galus had meant so much to her. His betrayal must have really shook her.
"But how can I compete?" Nanami whispered. "Look at the competition. Say for a second that Ifurita doesn't come back, fine. Quawoor is so pretty and graceful...and eventually Shayla's going to realize just what a body she has. Either way, I strike out."
Rune said nothing.
"You know, Princess, there are times when I wish I was more like you."
Rune blinked in shock. "More like me?"
Nanami nodded. "You're a princess. You're beautiful, graceful, and you practically ooze refinement."
"I wouldn't say that, Nanami," Rune said with a smile.
Nanami sighed. "If only it weren't so damn hopeless."
Rune placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "If you like...I will help you."
Nanami turned to her in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Rune smiled. "Meet me in my chambers tomorrow evening." With that last ominous remark, she walked away. Nanami blinked after her for a moment, then caught sight of Makoto talking with Mr. Fujisawa and Dr. Staloughbough.
She made her way through the crowd towards them. As she was pushing her way forward, she caught the tail-end of a conversation between Fatora, Rune, and Londs.
"The northern territory is the last hold out," Londs was telling the princesses. "The resistance there is surprisingly strong."
"Send more troops. The sooner they're wiped out, the better," Fatora said cruelly.
"Londs," Rune told him, "Send what reinforcements you feel best..."
After that, Nanami lost track of them. She was still heading toward Makoto.
"I mean, can you imagine it?" she heard Makoto ask. "Look what we've done with the power's we've gotten."
"Whatcha all talk'n about?" Nanami asked with a smile.
"Oh, hi Nanami," Makoto said with a smile.
"Makoto was just telling us how fortunate we are that no other humans came from Earth," Dr. Staloughbough told her. "I must admit, I have never thought of it in the way he describes, but you and your powers have undoubtedly had a major impact on history. Children will one day be reading about you in Roshtarian schools, Ms. Nanami."
"Wow! I never really thought that!" Her expression turned pensive. "But, Makoto, why is it a good thing that no one else came with us? I mean, I wouldn't want anyone else to be trapped here or anything, but I kind of miss my old friends. I sometimes think I would be less homesick if one of them were with me."
"Yeah, Nanami, but think about it. We've already had a major impact on this world. Look what you're brother..."
"*EX*...brother..." Nanami corrected him.
"Er...Yeah. Anyway, just look what Jinnai's done with his power, and all his power is is the ability to communicate."
"With bugs," she commented darkly.
"Right, but it was enough to nearly bring Roshtaria to its knees."
"And what about you, Nanami?" Mr. Fujisawa asked. "If you hadn't been at that feast when Galus was there..."
Dr. Staloughbough shuddered. "Don't remind me. The repercussions may have been disastrous. I sometimes have nightmares about what might have happened."
"You see, Nanami?" Fujisawa asked. "Thanks to powers which don't seem that wonderful, an entire world has been changed forever."
"I guess I never thought of it like that."
Makoto nodded. "Now what would have happened if someone else from Earth had come here? Someone like your bro...er...Jinnai?"
"Depending on the power he acquired, he could've plunged this world into darkness," Staloughbough told her.
"Well, then," Nanami said, "I guess it's a good thing that no one else came with us. Isn't it, Sensei?"
Fujisawa blinked. "Huh? Oh, yeah," he said woodenly.
"Are you okay, Sensei?" Makoto asked.
"Yeah, I just zoned out for a second. Lost in thought, I guess."
"Are you sure?" Nanami asked.
"Yeah, Nanami. I'm fine." Fujisawa smiled. "Now where's the bar again?"
"Honey? Sweety? Snookums?" Miz balled her hands into fists and shouted at the top of her lungs. "DAR-LING!!!"
Fujisawa flinched and turned to her. "Huh? What's wrong, Miz?"
Miz Fujisawa flopped down next to him on their bed back in their small but cozy house on the edge of the city. "Didn't you have a good time, Sweety?"
"Oh, I had a great time," Fujisawa told her, patting her hand affectionately.
"What's bothering you, Sweetheart? Can't you tell your own wife?" she asked, a little hurt at his reluctance to talk to her.
"It's nothing," he told her. "Something Makoto said at the party...It's just bothering me a little."
"How so?" Miz asked.
He smiled. "It's just that..."
Before he could finish, crying started from the nearby crib. Miz got up and went to her son, shushing him back to sleep.
Fujisawa watched his wife cuddle with his son. His thoughts leapt back to the earlier conversation he had with Makoto.
I'm just being paranoid. Of course they went home...
Despite this self-reassurance, Mr. Fujisawa did not sleep well that night.
Groucho held up a Bugrom hand and stood stock still in the middle of the country road. The Bugrom behind him, four orange bugs carrying a pallet of stolen supplies, stopped dead in their tracks. Groucho held up the spear he was carrying and searched the trees on the side of the road.
Nothing.
He turned to the waiting Bugrom and spoke in the guttural Bugrom language. They nodded and picked up the pallet again. Groucho started to turn back to the road when something struck his spear.
His head snapped up as he watched his weapon fly straight up into the air. It reached the apex of its climb and started down again. The purple bug reached out to catch his spear and watched amazed as it stopped right in front of him, suspended in the air a meter and a half off the ground.
The bug blinked in shock.
The staff of the spear suddenly swung up and struck him in the face! Groucho heard the crack that told him a part of his exoskeleton was broken, but before he could react to that, the spear swung around again and struck the side of his head. Groucho collapsed to the ground, disoriented.
The spear spun and seemed to turn to the other four bugs, who were staring at the spectacle in shocked amazement. They blinked as they heard a sensuous, human, female voice come from the general direction of the spear.
"Anyone else here wanna fuck!?"
Before they could react, something fell out of the sky and landed on the left rear Bugrom. The "object" looked down at the bug he had squashed and cracked his knuckles. "Hmmm...Got something on my shoe."
By now, the last three bugs had recovered from the shock. One of them approached the new intruder while the other two advanced on the spear.
The bug sized up his opponent. He was thin, lanky, and wore an evil grin below his spiky, black hair. This grin was now directed at the Bugrom approaching him.
"Care to go for a ride?" the boy asked.
The Bug paused and blinked. Then, without warning, the boy struck! The Bugrom didn't know what to make of it. Humans, as a rule, did not attack it. They ran. They cowered. They fled. They screamed in fear. They begged.
They did not attack.
So was this boy a human?
Another thing humans don't do...is *fly.*
And yet here he was, being carried hundreds of feet into the air by this boy....
Perhaps he's not a human after all....
The boy grinned as the wind whipped through his hair. Odd, but the bug wasn't even struggling. He looked as if was going to wet himself.
"Whoops!" the boy said in mock fright...and let the Bugrom go.
The Bugrom plummetted to the ground below.
As this happened, another bugrom hit the ground, its arm broken. The spear shaft that broke its arm hovered before the last Bugrom. The bug made a quick grab for the spear, but it darted away and struck back, striking the Bugrom's knee with a crack!
The bug fell to one knee and looked up as the spear struck him in the face. He fell backwards, unconscious.
"EXO-BONEHEADS!"
Groucho, who was just rising and preparing another attack turned and saw his leader/god/general/chancellor standing fifty feet away. He blinked. His antennae waved in puzzlement.
"You can't defeat them like that, you idiots!" Jinnai screamed. "Retreat! Follow me!" With that, their human leader turned and ran.
Groucho looked at the surviving Bugrom and shrugged before chasing after his leader as fast as his insectile legs would carry him. The other Bugrom followed, abandoning their stolen treasure.
The thin boy landed on the road in front of the pallet and watched the bugs run away. He turned to the trees. "Okay! Let's go!"
A patch of trees disappeared, revealing a nook that had been cut out of the forest. Hiding in this nook was a horse-drawn wagon on which sat several blue men and driven by two humans. The cart pulled up alongside the pallet, and the Phantom Tribesmen within began loading it with the supplies looted by the Bugrom.
The spear that had routed the Bugrom soldiers fell to the ground with a clang.
"Jeez! It's fucking freezing out here!" the same feminine voice exclaimed.
One of the cart's driver's, a young boy of about eighteen, jumped from the cart with a blanket. He approached the fallen spear cautiously and held the blanket out. "Um...Reiko?" he asked. "Where are you?"
He flinched as the blanket was pulled from his hands. "Right here," he heard. He watched as the blanket wrapped around something right in front of him, something he couldn't see. The blanket was pulled tightly around the invisible figure, revealing that it was, indeed, a woman in there.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "Were you injured?"
"No, Toshio, I'm fine," the figure beneath the blanket, Reiko, replied.
"Let's go!" the other driver called out. "We only have another few seconds! I don't want any signs!"
"Do not worry, Masaru," a soft, feminine voice told him. The driver turned and found a blue-skinned woman approaching from the trees. "There is plenty of time." Once again, Masaru Akagi, captain of the Shininome High karate club took a moment to admire the woman's beauty. Her sharp, angular, elvish features added to the exotic look brought by her pale, blue skin. Her long, blonde hair flowed down her back almost to the back of her knees. Her jade-colored eyes were capable of showing untold menace or surprising compassion.
The moment passed.
"They could bring back reinforcements, Milady," Masaru told her respectfully.
Duchess Neldala smiled. "From their perspective, they've already found reinforcements and are moving to ambush us." She pointed down the road. "About a kilometer that way."
"How long can you hold them there with your illusions?" he asked.
"As long as there are stars in the sky," she told him with amusement. "Or breath in me."
"Milady," one of the Phantom Tribe soldiers called out. "The supplies are loaded."
"Then it is time to depart."
Neldala sat next to Masaru at the head of the wagon, and it began to roll down the road. Akio flew into the air to act as a lookout. Everyone else walked next to wagon as it creaked along.
"You seem troubled, Masaru," Neldala pointed out. "You have reservations about your coming mission?"
"It seems like a great deal of risk with very little to gain from it," Masaru told her.
"The risk is necessary. Misdirection is the key, Masaru. One way or another, the Roshtarian threat will soon disappear."
Masaru gave her an appraising look and nodded.
Toshio walked next to Markio next to the wagon. The young woman held the blanket close to herself. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again.
"Yes, Toshio," she said, a little annoyed. "They were just bugs."
"Sorry,"
He didn't realize it due to her power, but Mariko was looking at him. "It's okay. Glad to know that someone worries about me, I guess."
Toshio smiled.