Warning: Rated for language, intense suspense situations involving children and nudity.
The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
The police arrived at the Morning Star Packinghouse in response to an anonymous tip about gunshots coming from there. When they arrived, they found an amazing scene.
Inside the main warehouse were six men. Two were dead from gunshot wounds, and four others were hogtied with plastic restraints. To add to the strangeness, the men had their shirts pulled up over their heads, including their undershirts, and had their pants and underwear pulled down to their ankles, rendering them effectively naked. One man, a Japanese man, had, "I Am Stupid, Please Take Me To Jail," written in what seemed to be lipstick on his chest. The other men had, "I'm With Stupid, Take Me Too," written on their chests. All of the men had big, red bows tied around their necks. On the floor, close to the Japanese man, were three video cassette tapes.
To top it all off, the kidnap victims Yumi and Hiroki Ishiyama, along with their mother Miko, were sitting there, crying on one another.
Mrs. Ishiyama told her story to the police, how the kidnappers called her before the police came, told her to keep quiet, then had her come here. She then told them of Usagi Nakamura's intentions of torturing and killing them all, then later killing her husband. She even told them about the men in black who had captured the villains, but left out Yumi's friends.
Usagi Nakamura babbled about children and Judgment in merde, or something like that.
A search of the Ishiyama's home revealed a sophisticated video setup had been concealed there. Fibre-optic lines had been run throughout the entire house, with cameras at one end, and a video transmitter hidden in the attic at the other end. The cameras were placed so every room in the house could be watched as well as the outside.
When the police viewed the tapes recovered at the warehouse, they saw the entire scene played out, from three different angles, all corroborating Miko's story. They began hunting for the children seen in the tape, until they received a call from the President's Office, informing them that the children's involvement was a Classified Matter, and not to probe any further. Given what they already had on the tape, the police were more than happy to cooperate this time.
Jeremie and friends left the scene as soon as Taylor Thompson called the police. While they were waiting, Sissi and Aelita busied themselves wrapping their 'presents' to the police. Ann Thompson gave the girls a tube of lipstick to leave their little messages with. Taylor and the men just stood there and shook their heads.
After they were sure the police had everything in hand, they withdrew to the old factory, where the supercomputer was located, for a 'debriefing.'
"God Dammit, Jeremie! What in Hell where you thinking?" Thompson roared, "you damn near got your head blown off with that stupid stunt. What part of 'stay here' didn't you understand?"
"I understood everything, Master Guns," Jeremie replied, looking directly into Thompson's eyes with a smug little smile on his face, "you were dithering about how we were going to distract them, so we distracted them."
Sanka and Gomer were doing a very poor job hiding their laughter.
"And where the fuck did those girls get stun grenades?" he raged, pointing at Sissi and Aelita, "they ain't exactly non-lethal, in case you hadn't heard!"
"Uh, Master Gunnery Sargent, I seemed to have misplaced two of my issued stun grenades," Ann Thompson said sheepishly, barely holding her own laughter.
"Judas H. Priest! I'm surrounded by Idiots! We are definitely over the Stupid Limit today!" Taylor Thompson ended his tirade, was silent for a moment, shook his head, then started laughing himself. The whole group broke down and joined him.
After the laughter released the last of the stress of what had just happened, Jeremie's father spoke, "Jeremie, Master Gunnery Sargent Thompson is correct, you know. What you did was foolish, and dangerous. But for the Grace Of God, you could have gotten yourself and your friends, all of your friends killed."
"What can I say, dad," Jeremie replied, "I'm young and invincible, and sometimes I'll do foolish things. Sometimes, it will be for France. Sometimes, it will be for the World. Always, it will be for those I Love."
With the help of counseling, Miko and her children were eventually able to put the incident behind them. Miko never told her husband all of the hateful things his father had said to her that day; there was no use hurting him any further.
When Ulrich finally got out of the hospital, the Stern family was not there, but the Ishiyama family was. When they brought him out in a wheelchair, Yumi jumped on him and wrapped as much of herself as she could around him. Hiroki, Miko and Takeo said nothing at all.
Usagi Nakamura was tried and convicted in a French Court of kidnapping, assault, attempted murder, unlawful deviant sexual behavior, and sexual abuse of minors. A smart prosecutor got an investigator from the Japanese Consulate to review the video tapes the police recovered, partially to translate the Japanese portions of the conversation recorded, but also so Japan could determine if Usagi had confessed to any crimes committed on Japanese soil. When Usagi told of murdering his three sons, the Japanese investigator's eyes got very wide, as wide as the smile on his face. Those murders had been unsolved for a long time now, and they now had a confession.
Usagi Nakamura wound up spending a very long time in a French jail, with the hope of spending an even longer time in a Japanese jail if he ever got out. And the dark haired girl's statement was very true; he did receive 'special' treatment from the other inmates, every night. And, in the very deepest blackest hours before the dawn, until the day he died, he wished he had stayed in Japan, a bitter, lonely old man.