Disclaimer: FLCL and all characters within it are property of Gainax, any original characters, places, etc. are my property.
Author Note: Uh, Chapter up, please Read and Review, thanks all. Oh and if you have a hard time reading Atomsk's letter, read it phonetically.
Naota stomped towards his room, his footsteps echoing loudly and mirroring his confusion and rage. He would NOT let Haruko twist him around her little finger like she had done those years ago. He was just some stupid twelve year old then, he was a wiser, more intelligent Naota now. He wouldn't be manipulated so easily!
Resolved on how he would keep the situation in control, Naota went straight to the door, slid it open, and stalked inside, opening his mouth to give Haruko the lecture of her life. The only problem was…Haruko wasn't there! Naota wearily scanned his rather small bedroom with his eyes, bringing his arms up slightly, ready to ward off another bass blow. After a moment of utter silence, Naota slowly backed up, unsure of where Haruko lurked.
" HIIIIIIII---YYYAAAA!!" Haruko squealed, falling from above Naota' her bass on her back, and landing sitting on Naota's shoulders.
" Get….Off….Me…." Naota said, acid filling into his voice as he whirlwinded his arms in an attempt to keep his balance. For whatever reason, Haruko felt strangely heavier than he would have expected for the slimly built alien.
" Oh Ta-kun, you're nothing but skin and booonnnneeesss!!!" she sang, horribly, again, unslinging her bass and strumming a chord. She quickly pulled some spicy curry bread from seemingly out of the air and began jamming them into Naota's gaping mouth.
"MMMFffff!! PAH! I HATE that spicy stuff!" Naota spat out the bread almost immediately, grabbing Haruko under the arms and trying to toss her. He failed horribly, however, as Haruko wrapped her legs around his neck and began to play her bass in a completely unconcerned manner.
"You said you wanted answers Ta-kun, I'll give them to you if you really want'um" Haruko leaned over to look Naota straight in the eyes, upsidedown, noses practically touching. Naota, wide eyed, merely nodded. This would be the first time he'd ever get a straight answer out of Haruko, he wasn't about to mess it up by saying something stupid.
"Well, let's see, the reason I came back happened about…a year ago I think. Maybe it was earlier than that, maybe later, you see one time I had gone to this one Martian bar and I got so totally loaded that I was riding around on my Vespa through nothingness for we-" Haruko stopped when she noticed Naota glaring up at her menacingly as she went off topic, Haruko smirked ever so slightly, leaning back hard on Naota's shoulders and began to unfold her little tale.
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" Haaaaa! Atomsk is MINE you annoying little vultures!" Haruko challenged a veritable hoard of mutants, freaks, aliens, and other general low-lives who had come to gain Atomsk, the Pirate King's, powers.
" We founds it! Wes keeps it!" A rather stupid and extremely ugly Martian, (then again, by our standards, puss oozing heads were never considered attractive), said, raising up some weird mix between a lawnmower and a chicken glued together, revving it. The rest of the crowd of punks seconded the speaker's words with threats of breaking, maiming, torturing, and even Gweeblorpin.
Haruko said nothing, her unusually somber attitude causing some of the alien punks to shift slightly as she stepped back, holding a B.C. Richton Warlock guitar in a downward slant, hands tight around the neck of the guitar as if she were wielding a great axe.
" Come on boys! Let's get her! Or are you all just a bunch of Mortins?" the ugly spokesman Martian called out to the mob at its first signs of weakness. It wouldn't do any good for the leader of the fearsome "Yank-a-Tentacle" Pirates, the most feared gang in all ten galaxies!
"Oy! I ain't no Mortin!" called back one Neptunian and rushed forward, wielding a huge harmonica that gave off a white-like aura. Haruko wasted no time in stepped back and yanking her B.C. Rich forward, she moved so fast that the Neptunian had no time to react as the base of the guitar buried deep into its skull, cracking its head to pieces and killing it instantly.
" Anyone else?" Haruko asked sweetly, though the blue blood that ran in small rivulets down her scooter helmet and face really seemed to suggest that the mob do otherwise. Not completely devoid of all common sense, the thugs did leave, in a rather unorganized matter. Most ended up hopping onto one motorbike and falling into nearby wormhole pockets that scattered their organs across the galaxy.
" You may have scared me band o' pirates, but I'm getting' duh Pirate King's powers!" the ugly Martian, whose name tag was clearly read as 'Hello, my name is Zort', screamed as he rushed at Haruko.
Haruko eased back on the guitar neck, ducking under the chicken mower that the Martian wielded and bringing it spinning about to impact just behind his knee, sending him sprawling forward. Showing absolutely no mercy or hesitation, Haruko hopped to her feet and buried the guitar deep into the back of the Martian's dead. She slammed it in so hard that she had to really heave up on the neck of the guitar to pull it out of the messy pulp that the Martian once called a brain-housing.
Haruko sighed, visibly and uncharacteristically tired, wiping a yellow gloved hand across her forehead, which only served to smear the greenish-blue blood of her attackers across it. One look at the glowing, unmarked, and red lunchbox, she forgot her fatigue quickly. Haruko wasn't sure how, but somehow Atomsk had become stuck in one of her hyper-active floating mine traps, which coincidentally looked like a lunchbox.
Moving forward, inch by inch, Haruko gingerly took off her one yellow glove and touched it to the top of the mine/lunchbox. Finally, she would capture the Pirate King's powers by eating the damn near impossible to catch Pirate Monarch. Licking her lips in anticipation, Haruko lifted the lunchbox top open, waiting for some spectacular event to happen, like a whooshing of color, immediate power, SOMETHING. Instead, all she saw was a bunch of spicy curry bread rolls and a ripped piece of parchment taped to the inside of the lunchbox, some scribbled words on it.
Haruko, too intrigued at the moment to unleash enough alien woman rage to DESTROY several worlds, ripped the note off and brought it up to her face quickly, her eyes scanning the note. It read…
' To Who itt Mey Consern,
The powr of teh Pirat Keeng iz ownly eh pees of teh puzle, two unlok hiz tru powr, yu must find eh N-O Chanel strawng enuf to pul my map peeces from. Fede teh perzon wit teh N-O Chanel dis spezial curry, 1 taste wil doo it end you can pul out the map peeces when teh conditions ar met. Thiz iz not the Pirat King Atomsk who rote dis note.
Much Luv end Looting,
Atomsk'
A series of crude drawings were made underneath the scribbling that acted as a map, pointing straight back to Mabase on Earth. Wasting not another word or silly sentence, Haruko slapped her goggles over her eyes, hopping on her nearby Vespa, leaning down and smacking the gas. The Vespa's one-dimensional flight engine roared to life, the wheels spinning and squealing, sending the grayish red sand that acted as the ground for this alien planet out in great blasts behind it. Haruko was coming back to Earth.
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Of course, Haruko told Naota absolutely nothing of this. Somewhere between the quotation marks and the letter "H" she had already gabbed a mile a minute about how strong Jupiter's "Blast-duh-Monkey" shake had been and this bad Chubshin she had taken had led her to think she was something akin to Jesus Christ for seven parsecs.
Naota had given up long before she had stopped talking, moving over to the edge of his bunk bed, crossing his arms, and just looking angry as he waited for Haruko to shut her mouth. He wondered if he was even surprised that Haruko never got to the actual story and after a moment decided he wasn't.
"…and that's why you should NEVER bet that the Alabaster Monkeys would EVER win a game of baseball!" Haruko finally finished, dropping forward lazily so that she landed right in Naota's lap.
" Are you listening Ta-kun? Hmmm?" Haruko asked, knowing full well he hadn't been, but got up and moved so very close to him that he could feel her hot breath on his face. Naota, now used to the extremely flirtatious and sometimes downright obvious ways of Haruko, scowled heavily at the beautiful alien woman.
"Alabaster Monkeys? " Naota grumbled the question, obviously trying to show Haruko the contempt he held for her incoherent ramblings and constantly being vague about why she had come back.
" Yeah! They're great! " Haruko remarked, leaning back on her haunches and grinning prettily, she seemed content to just stare at him after that for the longest time that Naota finally had to throw up his hands in disgust and begin stalking out of his room.
"Glad to see you too…Naota." Haruko smirked and whispered, plucking a chord on her bass and leaning against the wall.
"What did you say?" Naota asked, sticking his head back into the room. She had definitely said something and Naota wondered if it had any relevance at all to her return, though he reprimanded himself mentally for his foolish hoping.
" I said I'm hungry Ta-kun! Let's go grab some grub!" Haruko said cheerfully, strapping on her helmet, grabbing Naota by the arm, and practically dragging him out of the house to the Vespa that was parked neatly on the curb by the Nabada household......