Author Notes: Sorry it took so long to get this up. I had to deal with finals week in college, as well as work on episodes in "Life of an Agent".
Episode 3: Unexpected Encounters
"I gotta say," J began as he sat in a chair opposite the desk of Eisaku Iijima, current mayor of Tokyo, "Aside from the Ouendan, you seem to be the only person in this town who hasn't freaked out by my appearance."
"They were the ones who told me what's going on, so I'm less likely to consider you a threat; especially after you showed up to save me from a Rombulan invasion," Eisaku said, his expression pleased, which quickly turns to remorse, "But I'm afraid even I can't get the people to calm down from this endeavor, so you've pretty much wasted the visit."
J sighs as he crosses his arms and looks down at them, "If that's the case, I suggest you get somewhere safe so they don't start using you as some sick tool to drive Tokyo further into panic."
"We have everything we need to keep the mayor office safe. But you may be right. I'll have staff chart someplace out of the sight of anyone who'd want to cause us harm."
Just as Eisaku finished his suggestion, the doors fly open. J spins around to find a secretary woman standing in its place; her eyes bulged and her body shaking as if she was cold.
"Y...you have...an appointment...mayor..." she shivers before dropping to the floor. Standing behind her is another Kahn-Droid, staring at both J and Eisaku expressionlessly. The mayor shutters slightly as he gets up.
"What...what is this...!?" he squeaked. J frowns as the Kahn-Droid skulks into the room, his body swaying as though he were drunk.
"Agents..." he mutters, raising his rifle towards Eisaku, "...are...GO!!!" he finishes by firing several rounds at the panicking mayor.
"Get down!" J yells, jumping over the desk and tackling Eisaku. The desk, which became an unfortunate shield, shook with each blast that hit it.
"What's going on!?" Eisaku cries, "That clone is Rombulan material! He should've been affected by the music playing throughout this entire building!"
"These droids were built after our Commander," J said, "And since he's all about music, not even Barney the Dinosaur could stop him."
Eisaku throws his hands onto his head in exasperation, "What're we gonna do!? I don't wanna become a human popsicle."
"One thing you can do is praise life insurance."
"What!?"
J reaches out from one side of the desk, grabs one of the curtains hanging in front of the large, office window, and tears it off its hinges. Eisaku watches as he scoots over to the curtains on the other side of the window, doing the same. He ties the curtains into a tight knot before taking one end and tying it to the revolving chair.
"Brace yourself," J shouts as he ties the other end of the knotted curtains to the foot of Eisaku's desk. He then kicks the chair at the window, the impact shattering a portion of the glass. The mess of curtains around the floor began to follow the chair's decent until it snagged into a straight line, nearly taking the desk with it.
Eisaku glances out the window to see the chair dangling a couple feet above a pole bearing the flag of Japan. Terra firma is another two stories down, making it impossible for anyone to survive the fall if they were to let go of the makeshift rope.
Another hail of beams hit the desk, causing splinters to appear. Eisaku panics as he glances over to the door where the Kahn-Droid is wildly firing at them.
"What'll we do now!?" the mayor yelps, shakily.
"Hold your breath," J mutters. Before Eisaku could ask again, the pompadour haired Agent grabs him and leaps out of the window, grabbing the curtains just before their body left the room.
Eisaku screams, holding on tight to J as he slid down the curtains until his feet planted themselves on the chair dangling at the end. The added weight causes the desk to drag towards to the shattered window, slowly bringing the two further to the sidewalk until it caught onto the jagged part of the glass. Eisaku shakily looks down to find they were still a story and a half away from safely landing on the ground.
From the office, the Kahn-Droid had leapt onto the desk, staring at the two before pointing his rifle and firing a hail of beams at them. J mentally panics as he began swinging the makeshift rope around to avoid getting caught in the blast.
"Now what!?" Eisaku cries, "We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. At this rate, we're done for!"
J grits his teeth, trying to contemplate another way out when he felt the chair descend even more. He looks up to find that the knot holding the two curtains together was starting to unravel. By the time he realized it, the curtains become undone, sending the two plummeting towards the hard cement of the sidewalk.
Eisaku screams again as J, out of desperation, swings his free arm up in hopes of grabbing something to stop their fall. Luckily, his hand caught the ball of the flagpole half a story from where the chair had snagged. The pole starts to bend from the added weight, bringing the two even closer to the sidewalk.
A wild shot bounces off the flagpole an inch from where J hung on, startling him as he instinctively lets go. Thankfully he was close enough to the ground to not break anything in his body. Eisaku went limp in J's arm, pale in the face and trembling from the experience of jumping out the window, then going on a joyride of death towards safety.
"I don't feel so good..." he slurs dizzily. As soon as he finished, beams rain down on the two. J outmaneuvers the shots with so many dazzling pivots, skips and twists he may as well be dancing in the rain from hell.
"I think we overstayed our visit," he yells as he makes a dash down the sidewalk and out of the line of fire.
- - -
"How would you be able to find the mayor's office in this place?" Spin asks as he looks out the window of the gondola. The blimp hovers several hundred feet over Tokyo; the nearly identical buildings all but overwhelming the large City.
"The only way to find the right office is if Iijima-san's van is parked near the vicinity," Hajime said as he looks out the window with Spin, "If I can talk to the secretary inside, we might be able to at least know how the outcome went."
"Well, we'd better find it soon," Morris said nervously, "Cause we just got ourselves a bit of a situation up ahead." Both rookies looked ahead to find a couple spaceships flying towards the blimp, each bearing two Kahn-Droids.
One of the Kahn-Droids points at the blimp, shouting "GO!" as he did. The other three point their rifles and opened fired, forcing Hajime and Spin to stumble back inside the gondola to avoid getting hit. Derek grits his teeth as he steers the blimp around, trying to fly away from the onslaught as it followed after them, eventually leaving the civilization of man and entering the woods of Japan.
The Kahn-Droids look at each other, one of them nodding, then the rest as the space ships they stood on separate and surround the blimp in a pincer formation. All four hold up their rifles and unleash another round of shots at the windows, forcing Spin, Hajime and Morris to duck under them.
"Them dawgs don't give up, do they!?" Spin shouts amidst the hail of beams that continue to zing around them.
"Hey, they're replica of the Commander!" Derek shouts back, "When has he ever studied up on surrender!?"
"Yo! Get down!" Morris shouts as he grabs Derek and yanks him away from the stirring wheel. Seconds after hitting the floor, a wild shot zooms through the window and slams into the back of the gondola, blowing a hole in the door.
"Hey, anyone else feel like we're falling?" Spin asks. Hajime peeks out the gondola window to find that the balloon making up most of the blimp had holes torn into them from the flurry of blasts.
"I think it's because we are!" he yelps, pointing outside.
"Do you think panic qualifies in the job description?" Morris asks, more panicked than he looks.
"I don't know. I think we need to check if we get out of this place alive." Derek said in the same manner.
- - -
Kai pours another mug of tea as he continues to watch the newscasters ramble on about the Rhombulan invasion. He begins to worry about the wellbeing of the other members of the squad, wondering if he should be out looking into this investigation instead of sitting around and watching the news unfold.
His thoughts are immediately cut off by the sound of propellers flying overhead. He assumes it was just a helicopter passing by several minutes before hearing a thunderous splash, followed by the ground shaking slightly. Snapping his head towards the doors leading to the backyard, he gets up and heads outside, noticing some smoke half a mile from the dojo.
- - -
Ryuta stood on the roof of one of the office buildings, overlooking the streets of Tokyo. The area seems less crowded than usual, seeming to indicate the Rhombulans did more than harass the Japanese community.
Despite the lack of occupants walking on terra firma, he can't seem to find any Agents from as far as his eyes can scan. Sighing in frustration, Ryuta crossed his arms and closed his eyes, going into deep concentration. With each beat of his heart, he can feel the burning spirits of the few people braving the outdoors. Of the spirits he senses, one of them, pulsing with jiving rhythm, caught his attention. This spirit appears to be running from something while carrying another, less than jiving, but highly panicked spirit.
Ryuta opens his eyes and looks to his right where he felt the pulse of the spirit, his frown increasing as he runs to the edge of the building and leaps into the ally below.
- - -
The gondola laid, lopsided, in a wide, manmade hot spring surrounded by trees and stones. Hajime held onto the corner of the gondola with a dome-shaped device strapped to his back that had fallen out the destroyed door in the back of the gondola. Morris props himself onto his hands and knees, spitting out hot, mineral water while Derek found himself waist deep in the same substance, his knees sticking out of the surface.
"Well, at least the spring broke our fall," he coughed.
"Are you sure it broke our fall?" Spin groaned, sitting in the same position as Derek only with his back against the floor of the ruined gondola, "I think our fall broke it."
"Let's just hope they don't start searching the woods for us," Hajime groaned, pulling himself to the surface of the gondola.
"You know, it's very rude to be using the onsen without proper cleanliness," said a voice. Hajime glances over to the source to find Kai standing a few feet from the bank of the onsen, holding his tea mug and looking more relieved than displeased.
"Try telling that to gravity, Chief," Hajime grumbles, rubbing the pain on the side of his neck.
- - -
J comes to a screeching halt several miles from the mayor's office where the Kahn-Droid was last seen. He grits his teeth in annoyance before seeing Eisaku's van sitting on the curb behind him. He pries the door open and tosses the trembling Mayor into the driver's seat.
"Best tell everyone to stay indoors, then get yourself somewhere safe!" he suggests.
"Bu-but what about you!?" Eisaku stutters.
"Don't worry," J said with a cocky grin, "I've gotten myself out of worse situations." He then slams the door and runs off, leaving Eisaku alone to watch him disappear behind a corner blocked by a wall of hedges.
J barely made it two blocks before catching sight of a figure running towards him. Cringing, he turns to run another direction only to find another coming towards him at the same pace.
"Well..." he mutters in annoyance and worry, "Some vacation this turned out to be."
A split second after finishing his sentence, a pair of hands shot out of the hedges behind him, one wrapping around his chest while the other clamped around his mouth. J muffles a yelp in surprise before being swallowed up by the hedges.
He tries to pull free from the grip, but a sudden cold and bitter feeling, two to be exact, rushed into his heart, forcing him to halt his struggle. He stands completely still as the sensations move towards each other, stop, look around, then pass by, continuing on their way.
Once the feeling completely vanished, J felt the hands that grab him release their hold, dropping him to his hands and knees. Startled by the whole experience, he scrambles away from where he stood, then turns to look at who apprehended him, huffing a sigh in relief when he finds Ryuta standing before him; his back to the wall of leaves as he looks to what was on the other side.
"How about a warning next time?" he complains. Ryuta eyes him with a cocky grin.
"Well, if I did that, I wouldn't get you out of there in time, now would I?" he asks rhetorically. He looks to the hedge again before turning back to J, "Come on. Let's get out of here." He heads out of the area behind the hedges with J following after him.
- - -
The female Rhombulan walks into a room filled with computers, focusing on an elderly man strapped to a chair-like device, his arms and legs bound to wires that connect to the computers as a visor covers his eyes. The man twitches every minute, the corner of his mouth drenched in saliva from the lack of consciousness.
Every monitor along the walls of the room showed various Rhombulans wandering around Japan, doing activities that normal people would do. With each twitch the man made, the monitor flickers, turning the Rhombulan into the appearance of everyday people.
A Rhombulan walks up to the woman and salutes her.
"Good-day-ma' am," he said, "Have-you-come-to-check-up-on-the-Commander-of-this-planet?"
"Yes," she said slyly, "It seems that you're doing a good job keeping him busy." She looks at a couple of monitors replaying recent events. One of them involved Hajime and Spin's encounter with the Kahn-Droids, except the rookies have been replaced by Rhombulans. Another showed two Rhombulans in the Mayor's office escaping the viewpoint of the camera as shots rang out at them, "By forcing the Commander to believe he's been fighting Rhombulans throughout most of the day, we'll make sure the entire community comes to hate those Agents and force the Ouendan to take them down."
Another Rhombulan rushes into the room.
"We-have-a-problem," he said, "The-two-organizations-of-music-have-somehow-found-each-other. What-shall-we-do?"
"Maybe so, but they haven't fully regrouped," the woman said, "Therefore, they can't reach an agreement that all can accept, which still puts them at risk for the loophole they so naively created."
"Auntie, Mommy's leaking again!" calls a child-like voice. The female Rhombulan glances over to a girl with ice-blue hair, wearing a black kimono with blue bunnies on the tail of her sleeves, "I asked her if I can play with Uncle and she just screamed and spilled salty water from her eyes."
"Oh, those naughty boys," the Rhombulan said, pretending to be shocked, "They must have said something to your Mommy to make her lose precious water."
The girl cocks her head to one side, "I wanted to bring Uncle here so she wouldn't lose anymore water, but she just makes a face and continues to leak. Is he really so bad she can't speak about him?"
The female Rhombulan walks over to the girl and places a hand on her head, "Now don't you worry about Mommy, dear. She's just scared that Uncle will take you away from her, that's all." She winks, "But as long as she's not looking, I can let you play with him."
The girl beams at the offer, "Really, Auntie!?"
"Go knock yourself out." The girl squeals and runs out of the room. The female Rhombulan giggles as she continues to stare at the Commander sitting in the chair-like contraption and twitching every minute.
- - -
"Come on..." Chieftain grumbles as he hits a button on the control panel of the desk, "Why won't the blimp respond?"
"Something get your goat, Chief?" Foxx, the silver haired Diva, asked as she walks into the command room.
"I'm trying to get a hold of the blimp to inform them of J's shift in whereabouts," Chieftain said, "But the transmitter won't respond." He sighs and rubs his temples, "I have a bad feeling something happened to them."
"You did tell them about the device I installed into the compartment in the blimp, did you?"
"What device?"
"You forgot already!?" Foxx complains planting her hands on her hips, "The backpack transceiver I created a week ago! I gave you the transmitter that controls it!"
"Wait a minute!" Chieftain frowns, picking up a white, universal remote, "You're telling me this TV remote's supposed to be a controller for the device!?"
"Well, it would've been fancier, but the Commander cut back on our funds, so I had to improvise," Foxx points to the remote, "Just press the 'power' button. It should give out a signal that activates it."
Chieftain stares at the remote some before pressing the "power" switch on the upper left corner.
- - -
"What did you do to me, anyway?" J asked as he drove the convertible down the street, "The instant you grabbed me, my entire bloodstream ran cold like someone had injected cryogen into my heart."
"I figured the best way to keep you still was to momentarily connect our spirits so you'd be able to see what was going on behind the hedge," Ryuta said, sitting on the right side of the backseat, his arm resting on the side door.
"Our spirits?"
Ryuta places his left hand on his chest, "You may not think it, but if trained properly, a heart can do more than pump blood through our body. By using our heart as a physical radar, we have a more accurate way of knowing who we're dealing with before responding to their call."
"I see, so that must explain why you didn't judge us as quickly as everyone else in this country."
Ryuta took his hand off his chest, "Those droids impersonating your Commander weren't that hard to figure out since automatons rarely have spirits fueling their existence."
J laughs a bit, "Yeah, that's true. But even so, I don't think it was their intention to directly force us at each others throats, knowing we wouldn't be dumb enough to consider each other a menace to society."
"No... But the Rhombulans know that if none of us can agree on a solution that won't endanger the planet, they can continue to use those fakes to harass Japan until that scenario comes to light."
"I'm amazed they didn't come to the whole loophole theory before. I mean, they looked completely caught off guard by our entrance and performance."
"It's most likely because they didn't realize there was another organization with the same earth-saving goal as ours. That's why they didn't put up much of a fight when you took the stage and encouraged everyone to beat them back."
"How'd you think that?"
"Do you remember the time that meteor came barreling towards earth?"
"Are you kidding? Two months and people still won't stop talking about it. EBA wasn't involved with the meteor's destruction, yet half of the community in America thought we had some sort of hand in motivating people to firing some kind of spiritual energy towards it. Our Commander took the credit instead of informing them that we didn't even step out for something that disastrous. We thought it was crazy that we would accept credit without at least investigating the matter. But after giving it some thought, we felt it best to just take it and move on."
"That news may have spread to more than just the people on this planet," Ryuta said, "A month after the meteor incident, we were going about our own business when this beam came out of nowhere and turned most of us to stone."
"And you were the only survivor?"
"At first, I thought I was because during the attack I came down with a fever and had to lay low for a while. From what I saw on the news, the only other members of the squad who managed to escape were Hajime and Sayaka, one of the members of our female squad. Unfortunately, with our respected teammates turned to stone and the two barricaded in separate buildings for safety reasons, it seemed as though this was going to be one Ouen we wouldn't be able to fully acknowledge as 'Daai Seikou'."
"And that's when you heard about us?"
"American Ouendan... That's what the newscasters called you when you showed up and encouraged everyone to fight back the Rhombulan invasion. Though your first attempt ended in failure, you had enough of a trusted community to help you to break out of that rocky predicament and continue your battle. The energy that came from the planet was completely different from the fighting spirit the squad was able to encourage everyone to build up, yet it was enough of a power to destroy most of their forces and drive their battalion out of our universe."
"Yeah, I was amazed we were able to destroy most of their forces with just singing and dancing alone. Our Commander began researching this phenomenon he calls 'jive power' in hopes of using it for future planet-threatening incidents." J eyes Ryuta from behind his amber shades, "I think it has something to do the last mission we went on where a couple of sister celebrities got stranded on an Island and called on us to help them survive."
"How so?"
"It was strange. After a rescue plane picked them up, this strange bird showed up and poured ash all over us. The moment we returned to base, almost everyone came down with a fever and had to close up early. By morning we had recovered and business went on up until the invasion."
"A strange bird..." Ryuta mutters, looking down a bit.
"Is something wrong?" J asked worriedly. Ryuta shook his head.
"Nothing. Just feeling nostalgic."
"Nostalgic? You mean you've seen that bird before?"
Before Ryuta could say anything there was a thump on the hood. J yelps and hits the brakes, causing the convertible to come to a screeching halt. The two look to source of the noise to find a rabbit made of ice standing on the hood, looking back at them with a twitching nose.
The two stare at the rabbit, then each other as it cocks its head to the side before sinking into the hood of the convertible. J suddenly feels the stirring wheel drop to a painfully freezing temperature, forcing him to yank his hands off, watching it and the panels in the front seat slowly coat with ice.
"Whoa!" he yelps, "What the...!?"
The two got out of the car and ran over to the hood. J pries it open, finding the entire engine freezing over the same way as the panels in the front seat.
"What's going on!?" he yelps again. He and Ryuta soon hear childish laughter and look towards the woods, finding a small, ice blue aura glowing in the distance.
"I found you, Uncle!" the aura said.
"Uncle?" J mutters, looking over to Ryuta, "Do you know this kid?"
"No...I don't..." Ryuta mutters, "But...for some reason my heart pulses with a sense of familiarity...as if she's known me for a long time..."
"Mommy wouldn't let me play with you because she's afraid you'll take me away from her," the aura said, "Everytime I mention you, she starts spilling water from her eyes. Auntie says it's because you hurt her so much that she's loses water when she hears your name. But I believe that you aren't the kind of relative that would do such a thing."
"Okay..." J mutters, scratching his head, "This is starting to get weird."
The aura giggles as it disappears into the woods, "Come play with me Uncle! Come play before Mommy sees you!"
"Maybe we should leave," J mutters.
"I wish I could," Ryuta mutters back, "But I want to know what's going on and why my heart keeps pulsing this familiar sensation." He wanders off into the woods. J looks at the convertible wearily before following after him.
After what seemed like an hour, the aura disappears. Both cheerleaders stop and look around, finding they were in the darkest part of the woods.
"She wants to play in here?" J asked, "I can hardly see my own hand, even if I took my shades off."
Ryuta eyes around the area before blinking and looking up behind J, finding the ice-blue haired girl sitting on a tree branch a foot over them. She giggles as she reaches into the sleeve of her kimono and pulls out a black squeeze bottle. Holding it over J, she squeezes the base, causing black goo to ooze out and land just an inch from him. The Agent nearly jumps from the gushing sound as he turns to see the girl make a somewhat circular motion around him.
The girl eventually stops squeezing the bottle, turning it over to prevent anymore from spilling out. At that moment, the sound of slithering fills the otherwise silent environment. J and Ryuta looked around them, trying to figure out where they came from seconds before J yelps, lifting one foot up only to feel something yank it back down.
Ryuta looks over to J, finding him slowly sinking into the ground. The girl giggles again as the head Ouendan snaps his attention towards her.
"Do you like it!?" she asks, bouncing her legs up and down, "It's a game Auntie invented called 'Struggle'! If I can make a perfect yin shape with this ooze, then you have to try and escape its strong grip! I haven't seen this game before, but Auntie says its fun!"
Ryuta looks back at J, finding him already up to his shoulders in the ooze, his right arm sticking out to avoid getting pulled down with him. Not wanting to figure out what happen if he "lost", he grabs the exposed arm and pulls on it in an attempt to get him out, barely getting anything but more decent from the hapless Agent. The girl cocks her head to one side, noticing both cheerleaders twisting their face in a teeth-baring, eye-squeezing-shut expression as the struggling continues.
"How strange," she mutters to herself, "Uncle and that man he's pulling are making a face just like Mommy's when she's about to lose water."
The girl watches Ryuta continue to pull J's arm, which is now the only thing left sticking out of the surface. The monstrous grip eventually pulls him to his hands and knees as his arm starts to go into the substance.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Ryuta uses the ground as support to try and pull his arm out, but even that isn't saving him as his body begins to drag towards the goo that consumed the BA-2 Agent. The girl cocks her head to the other side upon seeing his expression worsen.
"Uncle? Why do you make that face?" she asked, grabbing Ryuta's attention as he shoots an agonized, but confused look towards her, "You're making the same face Mommy did when she loses water. But I haven't seen a drop come out of your eyes. Why is that?"
"Lose water...?" Ryuta grunts as he keeps his remaining arm planted on the ground to try and hold his head out of the substance, "Y...you mean like crying...?"
"Crying? What is that?" Ryuta became completely baffled by the question, but was in too much strain to show it. He accidentally loosens his grip on the ground, causing his head to get yanked below the surface. Panicked, he stabs his fingers into the ground and grabbed a clump of grass, managing to keep what little was left of him from being completely submerged.
Ryuta shuts his eyes from the jolt of his arm nearly snapping from the grab. After a couple of seconds, he opens them to find he and J were in some kind of underground cavern, shaped like the yin that tried to pull them in, five feet over a pool of lava. He finds J still grabbing onto his wrist, staring at the bubbling, fire colored liquid in a calm, but terrified manner.
"I heard Japan had various volcanoes making up the Island. But this is ridiculous!" J yelps, "We must be 3000ft underground."
"I doubt it," Ryuta said, looking up at his hand still trapped within the roof, "Judging from where my hand is we should be no more than a foot below the surface. This pool must've been conjured up after she used that goop to draw the yin."
"Man! If your niece is this crazy, I'd hate to see how the rest of your family acts."
"Crazy..." Ryuta mutters, "Or completely misunderstood."
"What makes you say that?"
"You don't feel it too? This sense of innocence mixing in with the joy she's having seeing us struggle like this?"
J frowns as he concentrates a bit, feeling the same sensation as Ryuta, "You may be right. What kind of person would raise a child and make her believe that danger is a fun pastime?"
"Who do you think? From my understanding, those Rhombulans may have known about this girl's powers since she was a newborn and decided to raise her into some twisted little stepchild who doesn't know half of the emotions that make a human, and believes that torture is like a game children play in the park."
"Then what kind of connection does she have with you if she keeps claiming you're her Uncle?"
"I don't know..." Ryuta mutters with a sigh before eyeing the surface, "I may have to visit the Nocturnal Amazon Island when we get out of this hellhole."
"When?" J cringes, looking down at the pool of lava waiting to incinerate them both, "More like 'if'."
End Notes:
1. If you've read "Life of an Agent", you'll know what the whole spirit seeking deal is. But in order to keep the fanfics from being completely jointed, I changed some of the characteristics of the ability around.
2. In case you were wondering, this fanfic, unlike "Life of an Agent", takes place roughly a month after Elite Beat Agents.