The Past Bites
Mini Mew: Update alert! Update alert!
Me: Thanks Mini Mew! I've got the next chapter!
Kalaa: Yay!
Kaiyo: 'bout time.
Azzuen & Melina: (grins)
Me: Let's get started! I do not own TMM or MMP.
Chapter 8
/Kalaa's P.O.V.
The four children stared at the screen, shocked at the footage. The mew mews were fighting a man in blue, who had supernatural powers. He even called on a giant ship, which he called the 'final mew aqua'. Then he left to it to destroy the world.
They watched the entire show, to dumbstruck to do anything else. They saw the battles between the mews and the chimera and Pai on the ground. They watched Tart die and the ship have several holes in it, and the mew aqua flowed out in destructive waves. They watched Pai die protecting the mews, and that's where the news flash ended, as the cameras were wrecked.
Kaiyo switched off the TV, and they sat there in stunned silence for several long moments.
Finally Azzuen broke the silence. "Just how much of the mews lives is a lie? And how is it going to affect us?"
Kalaa shook her head. "I don't know Azzuen..."
"It's like their entire lives are built on lies. Like a storm waiting to break." Melina said quietly. "How are we going to get rid of the clouds?"
"Perhaps it is a storm that has to break." Kaiyo said suddenly, solemnly. Kalaa looked at him. "There's been too much lying, to much deception in their lives, that they've formed a whole network of lies. And the web is just getting tighter, with us." He shook his head. "How many times as mom lied about me, to her friends and to her boyfriend?"
"Why did mom pretend I never existed?" Azzuen asked.
"You're mother is a mew mew too?" Melina gazed at him. Azzuen jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards his wings.
"What other explanation would there be for me having the same animal DNA as her, as well as having her face?"
"Mint?"
Azzuen nodded. "I'm positive. It has to be her, I just know it! Her voice resonates in my heart, if she isn't my mother nothing makes sense."
Kalaa continued to stare at the floor. There was just so much to digest. She hadn't known anything about Deep Blue or the Battle for Earth. Forget the lies the Master had fed her since birth. The entire mew mew story left her head spinning wildly.
"Kalaa?"
"I don't know what to believe anymore." Kalaa whispered. "I don't."
Kaiyo smiled sympathetically at her. "I understand. I don't either." They all nodded in silent agreement. "None of us do."
"The mews had plenty of lies." Kalaa murmured. "How about the al...how about dad and uncle Tart and Pai-san? What secrets are they and the rest of their race hiding away in the shadows of doubt?"
The only response was something that was becoming common among the group: a helpless shrug.
"We should be getting into the computer now." Melina said, breaking the silence.
Azzuen nodded, and the four of them left for Cafe Mew Mew.
/In the basement, Cafe Mew Mew
Kaiyo opened a window, and Kalaa slid in. "I hope Melina and Azzuen won't get found out." Kaiyo said worriedly. "It's too soon for that."
Kalaa nodded, and then headed for the computer.
Kaiyo scanned the files and eventually stopped on one. Project Mew Mew. Kalaa silently slid a data stick out of her pocket and into the HSB area and began to copy the data.
/Upstairs
If there's one thing Melina knows how to do, it's distract people. She pestered Ryou and Keiichiro with ENDLESS questions about cooking and the cafe and related topics that Azzuen just hovered around, completely unaware of the fact someone was watching him.
Mint was sitting at her table, putting down her tea to gaze at the cobalt-haired boy standing with the other girl who was questioning Ryou about the cafe. His face seemed familiar, so familiar. She felt like she should know him, but the name stubbornly retreated to the untouched depths of her mind. He looked so much like her...
Azzuen finally got the feeling someone was staring at him, and he looked over his shoulder. Mint was sitting at her table, pretending not to notice him while she drank her tea. His heart lurched. What if she recognizes me?
Mint looked away when the boy looked at her. When she felt like it was safe, she looked back at him. His blue eyes and the hair framing his young face continued to frustrate her as she tried to remember who he was. Finally, she dug up a memory: a hospital bed, her dance partner Mike leaning over her with a huge smile on his face, a tiny baby with soft cobalt hair...
It hit her like a bolt of lightning-her baby! The little one who was kidnapped when she had been at a recital. The boy who she thought lost forever, the boy born of her erotic night with Mike. AZZUEN!
Azzuen saw realization flash on his mother's face and his stomach flipped over. What should he do? Take off? But what if Melina was discovered too? And where would he go? She'd definitely follow him. And how could he lose her?
I'm trapped. Oh crud! As if an answer to his frantic thought, his walkie-talkie rang. He lifted it to her ear.
"Azzuen! We're ready to go! Are you?"
"Yeah, we're done here!" Rapidly he thanked Ryou and Keiichiro for the time, grabbed Melina's hand and ran for the day. Unfortunately, Melina's hat came off in the rush, and her raven hair obscured her face. Cursing under her breath, she stopped to grab it and took off, just before people shouted in recognition and began to give chase.
"What happened?" Kalaa hissed in shock as Melina and Azzuen ran out the door like the hounds of hell were after them.
"Melina was discovered. And mom recognized me."
Kaiyo paled as people streamed out of Cafe Mew Mew. "Oh crud."
"Exactly. Now we have to get out of here!" The four kids ran like mad into the park.
/Cafe Mew Mew
Ichigo watched as people tore after the raven-haired girl in confusion. "What was all that about?" She turned to Zakuro, who had her hands over her mouth and had a look of shock on her face.
"Zakuro?" The wolf girl didn't answer, she just ran out the door.
Keiichiro gazed out the door. "Why is Melina out of the hospital?" He muttered.
"What is it, Akasaka-san? What's happening? You know, don't you?" Lettuce asked, her eyes darting from the door back to Keiichiro.
"We're your friends." Pudding added. "You can trust us na no da."
"Zakuro had a child." Keiichiro replied bluntly. "She actually six months pregant now."
There was a moment of shocked silence. Keiichiro went on, "The press found out about it, and they've been hounding her and her daughter Melina since she was born."
"Who's the father?" Mint asked, eyes wide.
"Me." Keiichiro replied quietly, before heading back into the kitchen.
End chapter
Wow, a web of lies. It's getting tighter and tighter, isn't it? Will Kalaa and her friends outpace or outwit the crowd? And what will Mint do now that she's found her son? Stick around and find out!
Oh, and please R&R! It makes my day!