"You wanted to see me, sir?" Giroro marched into Keroro's office, saluting. The room was metallic and plain, much like every other room on the ship, but had a large desk in the centre of it, and a large, holographic map of Pekopon set into the back wall.
"Ah, yes, Corporal, regarding the plans we discussed yesterday," Keroro pulled out an electronic pad from his desk draw, "Sergeant Major Kururu pinpointed the locations of probable campsites from the info Private Tamama and you came back with after your patrols."
"Campsites?" Giroro repeated, curiously. In the back of his skull, his soldier's instinct was buzzing. In this type of context, 'campsites' either meant refugees, or...
"The Pekoponian Resistance," Keroro confirmed, a stern look in his big eyes.
The corner of Giroro's mouth twitched. He could see where this was going, and he was liking it. Blood was rushing a little quicker in his head, and there wasn't even a gun in his hand, but his trigger finger quivered in eagerness.
"Corporal Giroro, I want you to go to each of these locations on this map," Keroro tapped the touch screen of the electronic pad, and a map of the north of Japan appeared, "and eliminate any and all Resistance movements."
"Yes sir," the red corporal nodded, grinning broadly. Pekoponians had a habit of being some of the most ferocious fighters Giroro had ever seen when they were cornered. And now he was being told to go out and find the most cornered, most desperate of them? Hell, the mere premise of it was making his battle-hungry bloodlust surge dangerously. "What do you want me to do with the Pekoponians I find?"
"Usually protocol," Keroro waved his hand dismissively, appearing not to care for the fate of the planets inhabitants, "but it needs to be done quickly. I have already sent the request to headquarters for a few more soldiers, but you need to do as much as possible before they arrive. We don't want to lose face in front of these guys, do we?"
"Understood, sir. When do you want me to start?"
"Um, now, please?"
"NEE-CHAN!"
And then she was gone. She was just...gone. A patch of scorched ground was all that remained of his sister.
"NO!" Fuyuki screamed. He tore his eyes from that patch of scorched ground and looked past the thin stream of violet smoke that was wafting from it, and looked directly at the green invader that still held the spherical device.
"That was my sister!" his throat almost ripped and hot, wet tears streamed down his cheeks, "You killed MY SISTER!"
The alien pointed the device at him, and he saw its stubby finger hover over the button again. Fuyuki felt his heart stop, his blood become ice and his body become stone. He didn't want to melt, he didn't want to die, he just wanted his sister back- he didn't want to die! His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord and he heard a pitiful whimper escape from his throat. The first alien he's even seen, and now it's going to kill him, just like his sister, with the press of a button-
"GET BACK IN THE SKIES, YOU FROG SCUM!"
Fuyuki's eyes snapped open again, just in time to see a man, tall and angry and scared, hurl a brick at the invader, smacking the side of its body, knocking the device out of its hand.
"GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND LEAVE US ALONE!"
The man kept throwing handfuls of rocks at the invader, kept it on its knees in a rain of rubble. "RUN, KID! RUN!" The man ran out of rocks.
Fuyuki was just about to turn on his heel, to flee like the terrified child he was, to run and run and run away from the murderous green alien and his random angry saviour and the scorched ground where his sister once was. But the device still lay on the ground. Without particularly thinking, he snatched it up and pointed it at the invader and pressed the button.
Fuyuki inhaled sharply, shocked by the sudden rush of waking. He grumbled sleepily, rubbing the dust from his eyes. "I hate sleep." He stretched the cramp out of his neck while absent-mindedly rummaging through his backpack. He pulled out the thing from his dream. The round, black device with lots of big white buttons and an antenna on it. The weapon that murdered his sister. The weapon he would have used to kill the alien, if the damn thing didn't jam when he pressed it. The "Kero Ball", apparently.
"Alien technology doesn't look that impressive, really," he thought again, as he examined it. Still, it was impressive enough to kill his sister, to tear that strong, determined, kind, smart girl from the face of the Earth...
He shoved the thing back into his bag. If he looked at it for too long, he got the incredibly tempting urge to smash it with his bare fists, to image the frog-like face of that alien on the metal, and to pound it into the ground until it was scraps. But then where would he be? No, he needed to keep that deadly gadget for just a little bit longer...
Something wet and warm slid down his cheek, dripped off his chin. Fuyuki sniffled and wiped his face with the back of his hand, spreading the grime around his fresh face even more. It had been a while since he cried...one month and five days, vaguely. Strange, considering that during that month and five days, he felt like sobbing until his eyes were dry every damned day.
But sobbing was not walking, and he needed to cover as much ground as possible in unknown, but obviously short, space of time.
He stood up and crawled out of the trench that was once a park bench that served as his bedroom for the night, blinking against the bright sunlight on his face. "North is...that- no...that way."
Fuyuki stopped dead in his tracks. Some fragment of something shiny was sticking out of a pile of rubble. It looked metallic, and had red and white paint on it. He felt a lump grow in his throat as he tentatively walked up to the pile, and tried shifting some of the rubble on top of the fragment. With each piece of rock and concrete he removed, a most horrible string of thoughts was weaving in his mind.
"Mom's motorcycle was painted red and white."
The last time Fuyuki had seen his mother, or her motorcycle, was when she left for work, two months and five days ago, on the day that the aliens invaded.
He had moved enough rubble that he could see the scrap of red and white metal for what it was; just a scrap. It could have been torn from anything, a street sign, a car; it didn't have to be from her motorcycle. And there was no sign of any other motorcycle components, there wasn't a wheel or anything else lying around..."But if it had been melted, there wouldn't be, would there?"
He picked up the metal fragment, wondering if it really was once a piece of her motorcycle...and just where she was. In the two months and five days he had been walking, he had not seen anyone. He occasionally thought he heard people, scurrying about like rodents in the dead of night, but when he got up to look, there was no one. Where had everyone gone? Some must have been melted, obviously, others perhaps buried under broken buildings, but an entire population does not just disappear without a trace- not this fast.
Then again, Fuyuki knew of a colony vanishing under mysterious circumstances in the sixteenth century... "What was it...Roanoke Island...Ronake Island...? God, I miss my books..."
Still...The fact that he had seen no one unnerved him, greatly. As horrible a thought as it was to think, there should be at least...bodies to be found. But looking down at the scrap of metal in his hands, he thought it better that he hadn't crossed passed with a certain someone...his mother. If he found her...her corpse, he would fall apart. He just knew he would. But if he found her alive, after a brief, impossibly wonderful reunion, she would no doubt ask him where his sister was. And he would have to break the news to her that her only daughter was dead, and all she was left with would be him.
Maybe it was better he saw no one...Maybe it was better that he would never know his mother's fate.
Tossing the scrap back onto the heap of rubble, he swallowed down the lump in his throat, and carried on his way.
"Progress report, Corporal," Keroro's voice crackled over the communicator in Giroro's helmet.
The red corporal slowed the pace of his hover pad so he didn't crash while speaking to his sergeant, "I'm only ten klicks away from the first campsite."
"You mean you have even got there yet?" Keroro huffed, irritably.
"The map you gave me isn't much use- everywhere here looks the same!" he snarled back. Well, everywhere did look the same. Big piles of rubble, little piles of rubble, one big city of ruin under a blue sky.
"Argh, well, just hurry it up, okay? I'll send Private Tamama out to deal with some of the other camps since someone's being a lazy, slow frog today."
"I swear, if you weren't my captain..." Giroro grumbled under his breath as the communicator went silent again, his trigger finger twitching dangerously.
Suddenly, just out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something. Considering the fast pace his hover pad was travelling it, and how small the something seemed from this distance, it was a wonder how Giroro actually managed to see it. But that was what military training did for you. It took already keen senses and heightened them to the point where the red soldier could now notice any movement among the debris and rubble.
Giroro halted his hover pad, and watched, and observed and grinned upon realizing what it was; a Pekoponian.
One lone Pekoponian clambering about in the ruins of his city.
He snickered as he saw him trip up his own stupid, over-sized, ten toed feet and fall flat on its stupid face. But then he silenced himself, realizing that sniggering and spying from afar was more suited to masochistic scientists with swirly spectacles. Weaponry, assault, aiming and firing was a soldier's job.
"Ooow, that hurt."
Fuyuki picked himself up off of the ground, his face stinging and slightly grazed, and brushed the dust from his clothes. He was, admittedly ashamedly, glad that no one was around to watch him trip over his feet and fall flat on his face. Embarrassment wasn't something he needed during an alien invasion.
Taking advantage of the break in his walking, he took a brief look around the area. More of the same, really... save for one thing. Further up what was left of the road, the aliens must have neglected or their weaponry missed one building. Just one building. It was a squat little thing, one wall slumped inwards a tad, with the glass of the two front windows blown in, most likely from an explosion. It also had one of those gimmicky neon signs hanging by a thread-like wire in the corner of one of those empty windows. The red neon light was flickering pathetically, just barely illuminating the one word of the sign; "OPEN".
The tiny building that had structurally survived an alien invasion was a store, and stores had food in them.
Fuyuki felt his feet moving by all themselves, propelling him forward so fast he barely felt the ground beneath his soles. The sheer wonderful, beautiful prospect that there was food- actual food, just waiting a little bit up the road from him made his heart dance in his chest, his stomach moan in relief and impatience.
He tumbled through where the glass window should have been, and fell onto the hard lino flooring. Without even being fully aware, he was on his feet, at one of the shelves, and was ripping into packaging. Then he saw the food in his hand. It was a bar of chocolate, nothing too fancy, just the general, cheap type of chocolate you could afford plenty of with your allowance. He could only stare at it...it was like a precious jewel, a sapphire or even a diamond. He knew what it was, he just didn't know what to do with it now that it was in his hand. For a painful moment, he forgot what the action of eating was. The instinct had left; he was not getting food, therefore he didn't eat, therefore the instinct wasn't needed. But then his brain clicked, he shoved the chocolate into his mouth, moved his jaw up and down, and swallowed. There was food in his stomach- actual food!
The pain that had panged in his gut for...God, he didn't know how long he was tormented by it, but now it was being beaten back, tiny morsel by tiny morsel. Fuyuki kept unconsciously stuffing food into himself for a good long while, satiating his stomach until the pain didn't burn anymore, until it dissolved out of his body. No longer waging war on his starvation, he was conscious of his actions again. He wiped the chocolate mess from his face with his sleeve and took a look around. It now occurred to him that he was in the candy isle of the store, and curiously, the store had not been looted.
If the rest of Japan was just a homeless and as starving as him, would they have not taken some food from a shop with extraordinarily easy entrance? Maybe the rest of Japan were simply better people than he was. Or maybe there was no 'rest of Japan' anymore.
Fuyuki shrugged off his backpack and began loading it up with every packet and bar and loaf of food he could stuff into it. He dimly thought of how difficult it would be to now carry the bag, but continued stocking up, nevertheless.
"Halt!"
Fuyuki froze. His blood turned to ice and his heart stopped. He had no idea what compelled him to look up, he didn't even have the slightest idea on how he was able to look up, but when he did he immediately wished he had been killed before he could.
It was one of them. The aliens. This was one was on a hovering saucer, except it was red and the thing it was pointing at him actually looked like a gun and it had big, mean eyes.
The food in his gut turned solid and heavy and poisonous. The bag felt as though it was a chunk of granite.
"Put down the bag and put your hands behind your head," the red alien commanded.
The bag was heavy and the straps were digging into the flesh of his hand but Fuyuki didn't want to put it down. He had had it for years, it was of his planet, he knew exactly what it was. And when looking at something you haven't got a clue about what it is, what it's called, why it's pointing a gun at you, how to get away from it; the little things like knowing you're holding your backpack are a lifeline.
Particularly when you have in your backpack a weapon of alien origin.
His hand shot into the backpack and snatched out the Kero Ball, pointing it directly at the red alien. The red alien looked alarmed, but didn't lower its weapon. It gulped, then sneered. "Put that down. You don't know what it does."
"I know," Fuyuki stammered, everything but the hand that held the Kero Ball trembling uncontrollably, "I saw it used against my sister. I know what it does a-...and I know how to use it!" The last bit of his sentenced was shrieked, as if his brain wanted him to roar the alien into submission, but his throat wanted to scream for mercy.
The side of the frog's mouth twitched, perhaps with irritation. The sharp eyes were boring into him, staring him down. "I'm going to give you one last chance, Pekoponian. Put that down." The tone didn't imply this alien had much patience.
Fuyuki's eyes flitted nervously to and from the alien, the alien's gun, and the Kero Ball. His eyes finally settled on the button closest to his thumb.
"Put it down!"
Fuyuki pushed the button and felt himself get thrown out of reality. Suddenly, he was somewhere that wasn't a place but was almost a place, with light and dark and shape but not location, and then suddenly his feet were on the ground again, a blissfully long way away from the red alien and the store. "Flash transport..."
Then the red alien saw him, and aimed his gun again. Fuyuki shoved the Kero Ball in his backpack, threw it over his shoulder and started sprinting. His blood was screaming in his ears, his chests was burning and he kept sprinting away from the pointed gun. He saw a ditch surrounded by rubbish and rubble, dead ahead of him. He could jump in, hide, survive. He was getting closer to it with each bound- he could, he could get there!
Then there was an explosive sound; a gunshot mixed with a laser. Then it felt like the left side of Fuyuki's lower back was hit with a sledgehammer, only the pain was in his flesh and muscle as well as on the surface of his skin. He felt a strangled scream erupt out of his throat and then...everything...just...slowed...
He saw the bottom of the ditch move towards him and his blood swim away from his face, realizing he was being knocked from his feet from the impact and falling into the ditch. He knew his face connected heavily and quickly with the hard, gravelling pit, but didn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything save for the pellet of fire and evil inside of his back, and the scarily miniscule amount of air in his lungs. He tried to look up, but things were moving away from him, growing fainter and thinner. He saw- God, he hoped he saw- a beaten mattress sagging against the short wall of the ditch and reached out for it. He knew he still had to hide; the red alien had a hover craft, it would be here any minute now, and the red alien would use its gun again.
He didn't know how he had managed it, but, gripping the edge of the mattress, he had pulled it towards him; it flopped on top of him, pressing the hole in his back. Another tortuous scream almost ripped itself from his lungs, but now there was no oxygen to fuel it, no matter how much he gasped.
He knew he couldn't gasp too much. He had to keep quiet. Or it would find him and use its gun again. He had to keep still. He put his cheek against the ground and kept his body as flat as he could under the mattress. His bag was tucked under his chin. Something wet and warm had covered his lower back and was soaking through his clothes.
And then he began to feel very cold, and sleepy.
He was under a mattress- that would keep him warm. He was going to have a long wait before that red alien and its gun went away- why shouldn't he take this opportunity for a nap?
So, Fuyuki closed his eyes and fell asleep with one last thought ricocheting around his brain;
"I've been shot, haven't I?"
