"I do not see what you are so upset about," Sakaki's abductor said in stilted Japanese. "I have already told you that you will not be harmed."

The towering girl didn't respond. She sat in the back of Xond's personal rocket ship, elbows resting on her knees, staring at the floor. The spy looked her over critically; she was certainly very pretty, but this continued silence bothered him. Had he messed up and captured the Prince an imbecile?

"If you wish, you could consider this your chance to save the world," Xond smiled thinly. "But I am certain one of my superiors will explain to you in more detail."

Sakaki looked up at him then returned her gaze to the floor. Folded up like that, pressed to the wall by the rocket's flight, she sure looked a lot smaller. Maybe she wouldn't be tall enough after all… short as he was, Xond had a hard time making height judgments sometimes.

"I was joking about the probes, by the way. Our medical scans are carried out by spectrograph wave. We discerned your biology as soon as you entered my vessel."

Nothing. She was supposed to be quiet, but…

"Say something!" Xond snapped. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, but still didn't respond. "Damn it all, woman! Open your mouth!" he bawled, drawing his needle ray.

"Please don't shoot me!" she implored in a tiny voice.

"That's more like it," Xond whirled the weapon on his finger and holstered it. "I apologize. I was never very good with prisoners."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Well… I should let somebody with better interpersonal skills tell you. But accept my word!" He held out his fist, index and pinkie extended. "No probes, no implants, no mind control and no cattle mutilation. That is on a Space Scout's honor!"

Sakaki took a few seconds to process this. "Er… space scout?"

"I was discharged for beating up another Scout, but you can still take my word."

"Th… thank you." Sakaki was too tactful to verbally add the, 'I guess' that hovered in her voice anyway. Xond huffed and went back to the cockpit.

"Aliens?" Yomi sputtered, "Are you- are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm pretty sure!" Kaori replied wildly, "He had a flippin' ray gun!"

"Are you okay, Ms. Osaka?" Chiyo knelt next to her friend, who sat heavily on the ground, rubbing her eye distractedly.

"Oh, my God, it's all real!" Osaka said with a dizzy smile. "I have the Guardian of the Earth, here!" She blinked and suddenly paled. "Oh, my God, it's all real!" she repeated, terrified. "I… have the Guardian of…" and then burst into tears.

Kaori ignored her. "What are we gonna do? They've got Sakaki!"

"Everyone, calm down! We have to stop and think about this," Yomi commanded, holding out her hands. "Panicking won't help anything."

"Let's talk it over at my place," Tomo offered, helping Osaka up.

"Sure… wait, why your place?"

Jun wove through traffic on his trusty motorbike, swiftly leaving the police behind on the congested road. The mission had gone well, but he'd picked up some unwanted attention in the last juncture and had to find a Pay-N-Spray fast! He cast a swift glance over his shoulder at the mired police cars, but when his view returned to the front, there was a car in his path and he was suddenly sailing through the air.

After flying about twenty feet and slamming head-first into a concrete wall, he picked himself up off the ground, unfazed. The police had yet to catch up, but there was another problem… a trio of Triads closed in on him, wielding handguns and knives. "You picked the wrong street," their leader sneered.

Jun was stone-faced as ever as a M6 appeared out of thin air in his hands and he took aim…

"Tomo, would you get over here?" Yomi asked severely.

Tomo paused and handed the controller over to Osaka, who'd been sprawled on the floor next to her, watching intently. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she advised. Osaka nodded, an eerie look coming into her eye.

…then at the last minute, Jun changed his mind. The M6 vanished and he drew his katana through the lead Triad. The second was decapitated and the third impaled before they could even raise their guns. Next, the Yakuza walked swiftly to a car and thrust his blade through its window over the driver's throat, who meekly relinquished his vehicle.

"Thank you very much," the criminal said dryly before speeding away.

"Honestly, you learn that aliens abducted one of your best friends and you're here playing that stupid video game?"

"Well, I promised Osaka," Tomo said simply. "And besides, this is heavy shit, man. I mean, this is HG Wells heavy shit. What have you seen in our relationship to this date that makes you think I'm capable of contributing in any way?"

Yomi simmered for a moment, seeing that once again her friend had managed to weasel out of doing anything important. "Good point," she said grudgingly. "Go back to your game."

Tomo wandered back and yelped, "Aw, man! Osaka, they were just pedestrians! You didn't have to… oh, hey, my Katana skill went up. Good job!"

"I worry about them," Chiyo commented softly.

"Think of it as catharsis," Yomi advised. "All right, let's get thinking. Kaori, do you have any idea where they took Sakaki?"

"No," Kaori had focused like a laser on Operation: Rescue Sakaki. Now that everyone was on board, she didn't have time to be overwrought. "Except that they probably went back into space. He made a crack about someone being really eager to meet her."

"I don't know what we can do, then…"

"Have ya called the cops?" Osaka asked, eyes locked on the game.

There was a general pause. "Uh… we, uh, didn't think to," Yomi admitted, embarrassed. "But what could they do?"

"Depends… the government mighta been coverin' the aliens up for years. In that case, plenty!" At this, Yomi sighed. She was used to dealing with crackpot conspiracy theories from Tomo, but now was not the time.

"Dude!" Tomo yelled gleefully, "What did that guy ever do to you, Osaka?"

"He was there." Ah. That was simple enough.

"And what should we do about Ms. Osaka's egg?" Chiyo asked. "We should help her, too, right? To get to that island?"

"Yeah, but… I can't believe we're seriously talking about this." Yomi rested her forehead on her hands. "Alien invasion and a roadtrip to Birth Island, of all places. An unshielded person wouldn't last ten minutes there."

"Roadtrip… so we'll need a c-" Chiyo swallowed a little. "A car. Or bus tickets, or something. And please, I would like to take this chance to veto involving Ms. Yukari, please."

"A car would be best; we won't have to depend on other-"

"Wait a second!" Kaori protested, "What about Ms. Sakaki?"

"If you have any ideas, I'm all ears," Yomi returned, "But it doesn't look like we can do anything to help her. And if Osaka's egg is really the guardian…"

"But-! But she-!" Kaori sagged. "Oh, damn. You're right… I just hope she's all right."

Chiyo put a hand on her shoulder. "We all do. I'm sure she'll be fine… she's the toughest one of all of us." (She made a mental note not to let Kagura hear her say that.)

"Right," Yomi added, "If they took Ms. Sakaki without hurting her, they're probably not planning to. What's the worst thing that could happen to her?"

"A fate worse than death…" Xoltan mused.

"What are you talking about?" Xethnex snapped. The second-in-command ran pudgy fingers through his hair and straightened his ill-fitting uniform. "She's going to marry a Prince! Don't Earth girls dream about that sort of thing?"

"That's a bit of a stereotype, actually. Being grabbed by a maniac like Xond and forced to marry (well, assuming Xolarus forces her) said Prince is probably more of a nightmare. And don't-" Xoltan flinched away from his superior out of reflex, "Hit me just because I said something you'd rather not hear."

Xethnex harrumphed. "Wasn't even thinking about it. Ah! My liege!"

Prince Xolarus glanced over from arranging his gold cape in a reflective wall and started towards them. Makeup artists and hair people swarmed around him, only to be scattered like flies before Xethnex's flailing arms. "Good day," Xolarus said.

"Are you ready to meet the girl?" Xoltan asked excitedly, "Nervous?"

"A little," the Prince admitted, "I mean, what if she doesn't like me?"

"Oh, come on, of course she'll like you! You're like an intergalactic pimp or some-!" He stepped swiftly back from Xethnex to avoid a healthy backhand. "Right, forgot about that word's connotations. But seriously, you'll be fine, man. I mean, my liege."

"I hope so. Xond's rocket is docking as we speak."

They walked in formation towards the docking bay, spacemen scurrying out of their way and saluting, ignored. Finally they came to the great, silvery expanse of the docking bay, filled with row after row of sleek rockets. Xond's was just settling down before them, the door hissing open and a ramp sliding down to the deck before its engines even fully died.

Within, Xond bowed to Sakaki and gestured for her to leave first. She took two steps towards the door- and gasped as a tingling wall of force pushed her back with a strange buzzing/ringing sound. Sakaki looked sharply at him, unconsciously smoothing her hair down.

The spy chuckled. "Couldn't resist." He consulted a console next to the door that looked like a kaleidoscope, pressing two buttons that clicked loudly like a tape-recorder's, then moving a slider all the way to the side. "Okay, now you can go through."

Sakaki shook her head and stood away from the door. With a sigh, Xond stepped through and stepped back, then looked at her pointedly. Watching him carefully, she exited the ship and started down its ramp.

Xolarus stared as the vision descended towards him. "She's perfect!" he whispered to himself. Xians have love at first sight too, unfortunately. He had a delirious, wonderful moment to watch her, thoroughly charmed by the way she walked, her timid expression, her flowing raven hair and—let's be honest—her good-sized chest, before his subordinate's voice intruded.

"Maybe you should talk to her first, or at least-" a surreptitious elbow from the second-in-command cut off Xoltan's muttered caution.

"Welcome to my vessel, young Miss!" Xolarus greeted grandly. "I am Prince Xolarus, the heir apparent of Planet X, future ruler of Earth… and your future husband!"

Sakaki stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly pale. "My… my what?"

Every Xian in the bay except for the Prince, from his second-in-command down to the lowly rocket technicians messing with the fuel lines, mentally slapped their foreheads. Bad start!

"So… I'm not the Soul of Light after all?" Osaka asked, vaguely disappointed. The massive form swished through the air above her; she didn't even look this time. A green dress pooled about her as she sat before the shobijin, hands demurely folded. Grass that reached to her shoulders waved in the baking summer wind but mercifully, a bank of fluffy clouds covered the sun.

"This happens from time to time," the priestesses explained. "Normally, we would have you find the true Soul of Light and turn the egg over to her, but Mothra has taken a liking to you. This puts us in a bind."

"I guess that means the SoL is SOL, huh?" Osaka giggled.

The tiny women looked at each other. "Uh, I guess you could put it that way…" Righty allowed, scratching her head. "It's kind of a difficult situation, though."

"There was one other time the wrong person carried Mothra to her hatching…" Lefty started, but stopped when her sister took her arm.

"Are you sure we should tell her?"

"I don't see what it'll hurt." After a considering pause, the priestesses started together. "We decided to bow to Mothra's will and let this woman carry the egg. When she sang with us, it was in discord-but we thought that Mothra would not be wrong. The egg hatched, and Mothra's avatar was corrupted; it was a creature called Battra."

"So what happened?" Osaka asked, interested.

"Atlantis happened."

She grinned. "You mean like with the Sub-Mariner and…"

"No, more like with the hellfire, brimstone and deathrays raining from the sky."

Osaka's eyes widened impressively. "…oh."

"I knew we shouldn't have told her!" Righty hissed.

As if on cue, the landscape about them darkened. A bank of heavy clouds had been rolling in while they weren't watching, apparently. The left shobijin glanced at her sister and spoke. "It gets worse…"

"Oh, no, we are not going to tell her…"

"We can't very well gloss it over, can we? She has a right to know!"

"What?" Osaka leaned forward so that she was almost between them. "What is it?"

Righty sighed. "This is a mistake…"

Nevertheless, she joined Lefty to say this: "The Soul of Light would have the internal strength to support Mothra's growth, but you might not. It's possible… probable… that you will die."

Osaka didn't seem too upset. "Oh… well… I… I can live with that."

"No, no you can't. That's the problem. We can't force you to carry Mothra knowing this."

"What happens if I don't?"

"Mothra isn't born and the space demon is free to do what it will."

The Soul of Something closed her eyes.