I know it's been quite a while since I've updated. But I haven't abandoned you. I've returned with a new chapter and everything, see?
"Blah blah blah, blah. Blah Oxygen molecule blah blah," the teacher mumbled up at the front of the class. Alice could, and did, imagine that what the teacher was saying was actually something coherent and potentially important and if Alice were able to find it within herself to focus on the noises the teacher was making beyond the low rumble coming from its throat she'd probably find that she understood it. She didn't do this however and so no sense was made from what the teacher was saying.
"Psst," Ryuu whispered from the seat next to her. "That was pretty neat up there yesterday."
Alice didn't respond verbally but she made a tiny nod of her head to acknowledge she'd heard him.
"Psst," Ryuu whispered again, "Are you mad at me? It seems like you've been ignoring me or something."
Alice looked over at her new friend and smiled distractedly, "I'm not angry with you. I'm just lost in thought." Right after she said this the door of the classroom blew off its hinges and flew across the room, into the far wall. Right behind the door flew a school teacher, her eyes wide in fear and adrenaline and her feet and arms desperately searching for ground. To top off the parade of weirdness Naota entered, his bass held like a gun.
He scanned the room briefly and then his eyes alighted upon Alice. "Ha! Come with me!"
Rewind to several minutes ago, just outside the school.
Naota opens the door and steps inside. Just inside the door, against the wall, leans someone in a heavy coat. "Your N.O. has started acting up again hasn't it?"
"Not mine," Naota smiled at the man, "mine's been consistent since adolescence. You should know that though. You've kept tabs on me all these years after all."
"I can't confirm or deny that."
"Of course you can't."
"Where are the fluxuations coming from then?"
The dark haired young man could only smile back at the older reddish haired man in sunglasses.
"I need you to tell me Naota," the man became stern.
"Why..." Naota began to pull his Rickenbacker out from behind his back, "Why on earth would I tell you?"
"Dammit, Naota! Do you want the planet to die?"
The bass was now held out in front of Naota, like a bat, "I stopped caring about this planet a long time ago."
Bass flashed upward and deflected a bullet aimed for the eye. Naota spun and used the momentum to propel himself towards his adversary. The man dodged out of the way and bass collided with hard plaster. Bass won and hard, shattered pieces of plaster flew everywhere. Naota's head turned slowly around to face where the man had jumped to.
"This is crazy," the man said, "you're human. You should care about your planet. What did she do to you?"
Naota raised an eyebrow, "Did to me? She didn't do anything to me. She just showed me everything. Naota's outline seemed to shiver and before the man could react Naota was directly in front of him. "I'm going to win Amaro," a suspiciously hard, red bass collided with the side of Commander Amaro's head and sent him flying through the air.
"Ha! Come with me!" Naota grabbed Alice's hand and she, for whatever reason, found herself rising out of her seat and being pulled along by an excited Japanese man.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked him as he pulled her down a hall littered with unconscious bodies.
"You'll see," he smiled back at her and continued leading her along.
The sunlight stuck Naota's face in such a way that his maddened smile almost seemed kindly. Alice almost forgot for a moment that back in the school, in the darkened hallways, his smile had seemed to shine with an evil malice intent on destroying her. She didn't forget though and she finally ripped her hand away from Naota's and stepped away from him, rubbing her irritated hand irritatedly. "This is kidnaping you know. You kidnaped me. That's criminal. You're a criminal. Where the hell are you taking me anyway?"
Naota gestured around him. "We're here."
She looked and her eyebrows raised, "there's... nothing here."
"Oh there's quite a bit here," Naota gestured about him at the empty lot surrounding them.
"What's here then? You got me. All I see is an abandoned lot."
"Well then you aren't awake as I thought. I see a number of things. One of them is indeed an abandoned lot. However I also see a grass lot, a place to smoke pot, a place to fuck, a place to die, a place to fight-"
The last three resonated hard with Alice and she looked over at her captor, now significantly more scared than prior.
Naota looked at Alice, concern on his face, "Now really. You don't honestly think I'm attracted to you?"
Alice blushed fiercely and looked down at the ground, "I uh. I didn't... I..."
He gently took hold of her chin and lifted her face back to stare at him, "Alice, I'm much to old for you. Maybe in a few years... When you're older and more mature."
"Hey!" Alice's embarrassment, while still there, was now overshadowed by her anger, "I'm plenty mature! I'm a fucking adult!"
Naota knelt down and stared her directly in the face, "Saying fuck doesn't make you an adult. It's something else. Something much more important."
"Oh, Mister Wise Old Asian dude, what might that be?"
He stood back to his full height and started walking away. "I'm not telling." He laughed maniacally and jumped onto a motorcycle (actually moped but Alice doesn't know much about bikes) ,that she was quite certain had not been there a moment before, and took off.
And like that Alice was left abandoned in a strange empty lot, no idea where she was. And then she got a headache.
Back at the school Alice's class, and entire school for that matter, were in complete disarray. Ryuu, Jun, and Daiki took advantage of the chaos to escape the school grounds. "Where to now?" Jun asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Daiki replied, "We're delinquents now so our only option is to go stand in alleyways and smoke.
"Is that really our only option? I find I really don't like cigarettes though."
"I don't either but what can you do? We're delinquents," Daiki threw up his hands in defeat.
"But couldn't we buy leather jackets and slick back our hair to be delinquents?"
"That doesn't work anymore, teachers have caught on to it. Right now smoking in an alley is the only functional way to be a delinquent."
In exasperation Ryuu threw up his hands, "Would you two shut up? We aren't going to smoke in an alley."
"We're not?" they both asked.
"No. We're going after Alice," he replied.
"Who's Alice?" said Daiki.
"That's the American chick you're stalking right?" now Jun.
"I'm not stalking her!"
"Of course not," Jun laughed.
Alice screamed in both fear and pain as her head throbbed and flashed a bright red. The headache worsened and a strange bump grew larger and larger on her forehead.
Just before she felt like she was going to pass out Naota was there, holding her head up and pouring a bottle of water into her mouth. "Painful isn't it?" he smirked, "You get used to it though... and just when you do it stops forever." With that sentence he grabbed the bump on Alice's forehead and pulled hard.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Alice shouted at him.
"Helping."
"Looks more like you're trying to kill me!"
"That could, maybe, possibly, from another perspective, appear that way. However I assure I am well versed in this sort of medical ailment and I will treat in the most caring and safe way possible," then he frowned, "It's not coming out."
And then Alice's head hurt even more. The reason behind Alice's head hurting even more was that a bass guitar had suddenly struck her in the back of the head. "Out you come!" Naota shouted in a psychotic glee and swung into her head again. Surprisingly, this worked. The bump on her forehead grew at an exponential rate, lengthening and widening until finally it just snapped off.
The object that had just come out of Alice's head was a currently unconscious robot that looked suspiciously like one of the residents of Mushroom Kingdom from the Mario games but much larger. It woke up almost immediately however and any appearance it had like Toad disappeared as its neck stretched to absurd proportions and it's hands became menacing and clawlike.
"Medical Mechanica I'm guessing?" Naota asked the unresponsive robot. "I'm not asking if you are Medical Mechanica of course. That would be silly asking a single being if it were a galaxy wide corporation that used undeveloped planets as a source of cheap resources. No, I'm just asking if you're made by Medical Mechanica."
The robot made no response.
"See because if you're made by Medical Mechanica that means that either they've resumed their interest in this planet and the plant is going to start up again soon or you're just a leftover from inside the empty plant. If it's the first one that's really bad. If it's the second one that's still not good for my current situation but it does bode slightly better for the far reaching future."
This time the robot did make a response. But it wasn't words. Instead it was a large claw hand swiping in a horizontal fashion so as to cut Naota and Alice in half. Naota grabbed Alice by the waist and jumped over the Naota and Alice cutting in half hand only to find the second one coming at them. "Dear me!" Naota cursed and used his bass as a shield against the second hand.
By following the sounds of violence and strife, something Alice always seemed to be around, Ryuu found himself looking at the strangest of scenes.
Alice was buried under an unconscious Naota so her view of the goings on were obscured until the once Toadesque robot lifted Naota off of her. Then her view of the horrible robot was perfectly clear, something Alice was less pleased with then she thought she would be. With fear racing through her head and adrenaline pumping in her blood, Alice shot to her feet and ran like a bunny on fire. While running she spotted that dumb guitar thing Naota always carried around with him and she ran towards it. She didn't know why she ran towards the dumb guitar thing but instinct told her that it was her best chance of not dying horribly.
The scene Ryuu saw before him was something like this. Alice, hair disheveled and clothing covered in dirt and grime, was running with intent away from what appeared to be a large robot with a bulbous head, elongated neck, and claw hands. In one of its claw hand was a sleeping, or unconscious, guy who Ryuu recognized as the weird man who'd broken into the class and taken Alice.
Alice grabbed the Rickenbacker 4001 from the ground and turned to face the robot. It was right in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut and swung the bass with nothing but hope that it would connect with the monster in front of her.
"Alice," Ryuu said quietly, "She swung the bat... or guitar I guess. I think it's a guitar."
Funny things can happen when a person closes their eyes to do something that normally require their eyes to be open. One example could be; when someone's trying to swing a bass at a violent robot that's running towards them and they close their eyes when trying to do so instead of connecting with the violent robot, as the robot was the intended target, they might instead hit their friend, or captor as the case may be, the robot has clutched in one of its hands.
Luckily enough for Alice this served to wake Naota from his trauma induced slumber.
Naota's eyes snapped open and to glanced around him for a second to take in his surroundings and remember where he was. Empty lot he noticed. Frightened Alice he noticed. Gripping metal claw around him he noticed. "Alice!" he shouted, "Hit it in the crotch! That's it's shut off switch!"
"How would you know that?" Alice shouted back at him, she now having resumed her previous tactic of running away from the robot.
"That seems to be a less than important question at the moment. Would you kindly crush this robot's balls?"
"Alright!" Alice whined and turned around again. The robot was seconds away from her. She took aim, eyes open this time, and swung.
"That was astonishing! No wait, amazing! Incredible!" Ryuu cheered Alice as she lay on her back, exhausted. The robot was shut down a few feet away. Ryuu was talking but all Alice could really focus on was Naota as he got back on his Vespa, his Rickenbacker 4001 returned to its place on his back, and started it up.
"I'll see you again soon Alice," Naota called, "I'm not done with you yet." And he drove off.
"Who is he?" Ryuu asked Alice.
She could only shake her head though, "I haven't the faintest idea."
And it's done! This chapter at least. This is definitely the longest I've gone before coming back to a story. Hopefully I won't do it again. I'm feeling inspired though.