Disclaimer: If I owned Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo and Kish would be together, Masaya would have discovered his love for Mint… yeah. I don't own it.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Pudding sat down on the couch to wait for the entire five seconds it would take for Tart to appear. She was armed with the non-teleporting injection created by Ryou and Keiichiro, but her stomach churned at the thought of using it to hold one of her friends hostage. She just… didn't want to hurt Tart.
Forget didn't want to—she couldn't! The yellow monkey mew dropped the injection on the ground just before Tart came.
Bad idea. Very bad idea. "Pudding, I'm so sorry," whispered Tart, looking uncharacteristically sad. He didn't really know why this saddened him, but it did. The young alien seized the girl by her arm and teleported her to the ship.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
"Tar-tar! That was mean!" yelled Pudding as soon as her feet touched the ground. The child brushed herself off indignantly as she surveyed her surroundings. "Why did you do that na no da?"
"Well, it was Kish's idea…" Tart's words faltered under her glare. "I know, I know! I'm sorry, okay?"
Apology having been made, Pudding's anger vanished and she reverted back to her usual, cheerful self. "Well, that's okay! After all, I was told to kidnap you!"
"What?" yelped Tart, shocked that, well, that the mews would sink that low.
"Yeah, but blame Shirogane-san. It was his idea, not mine!"
"Erm, yeah well, don't worry, he'll know it's not your fault you didn't take me. Kish is going to Café Mew Mew right now to make a ransom demand."
"Um, that's not a good idea…" Pudding began.
"Why not?" Tart asked, confused. He didn't really see any flaws in their plan. What could the mew mews do to prevent them from carrying it through?
"Well, because we were going to take whichever of you we got first. Except Pai. Mint said she didn't think you'd even want Pai back for free!"
"You won't be able to hold Kish," Tart reminded the girl, amused. "He can teleport! Remember?"
"No, he can't if we give him the teleportation preventer that Shirogane-san and Akasaka-san invented!" Pudding told Tart. "I'm not sure how it works, but he won't be able to teleport away."
"What?" exploded Tart. He'd never expected the mews to come up with something so advanced. The alien fumbled for his cell phone, only to have it knocked out of his hand.
"I can't let you warn him," Pudding told tart, strangely serious. "I want to go back home, and I want you all to surrender and quit destroying the Earth!"
"Damn it Pudding, give me the cell phone!" Tart seethed. The child rarely cursed, but he was angry now. He was really angry! This was just… unjust!
"You shouldn't curse, it's bad," the monkey girl preached, still holding the phone out of her younger friend's reach—not that that was hard. Tart seemed to have forgotten his ability of flight and was now standing on his tiptoes, trying in vain to grab the phone.
"Just give me my phone back!" the boy screamed, frustrated.
"Catch me first!" taunted Pudding. The girl took off down the hallway of the ship, racing away with the phone.
"Pudding, wait!" yelled Tart, dread coiling in his chest. The yellow mew mew had no idea what could happen. If Pai was around… "Watch out for—"
Slam! Pudding ran right into Pai, bounced off the eldest alien, and landed hard on her back. Pai planted his foot on her stomach to prevent the girl from escaping. "Well well, what have we here?" Pai asked softly, staring coldly into the girl's suddenly terrified face.
"Pai!" Tart skidded into the hall, his faced flushed, breathing hard. It appeared he'd still forgotten his abilities of teleportation and flight. "Pai, let her up!"
"Oh, most certainly," Pai agreed. The purple-haired alien hauled Pudding to her feet. "After all, she's human. She'll have to walk to reach the torture chamber." The man's lip curled into a malevolent sneer.
"No Pai, wait!" Tart seized Pudding's other arm and tried in vain to hold his ground. What had been funny when it was Masha they'd caught suddenly… wasn't. "Pai, you can't torture her!"
"Why not?" the older alien queried lazily. "She's a human; even worse, she's one of our greatest enemies. This girl is a mew mew, which I assume is why you took her. Besides, I haven't had a victim to torture since that fluff-ball months ago. I've wanted to test the pros and cons of acids over bases for a while now." Throughout this small speech, the man's voice remained dangerously quiet.
Pudding's breathing was shallow with terror. She'd seen the state Masha had been left in. "I haven't done anything!" she gasped.
"I don't care," Pai replied dismissively. "You're a human. You're destroying your beautiful planet for your own petty conveniences, while my people lie dying on the world we were forced onto! That alone is reason for a slow, painful death!"
"No—Pai, we're holding her for ransom! She has to stay okay; it'll give us more to bargain with!" Tart protested, still catching his breath from his sprint through the hallways. Tart wasn't in very good running shape.
"Fine then, I won't permanently harm her," Pai conceded. As he spoke, the man was inexorably dragging the kidnapped girl towards a door labeled with strange symbols.
"Don't hurt her at all!" Tart begged. Why did he care? It was Kish who considered Pudding a friend, not him! Pudding was annoying!
The group was nearly at the torture chamber when Pai's cell phone rang. The alien rolled his eyes, not recognizing the number. He wondered vaguely if he could kill someone through the phone. "What?" the alien snapped, answering it.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Kish sighed and pushed open the door to Café Mew Mew. Ichigo was going to kill him over this, he just knew it. Even though the café opened at six-thirty in the morning during the summer, there were rarely customers until eight. This was the case now.
"Hello! Welcome to Café… Mew…" Ichigo's voice trailed off as she looked up into Kish's face.
"Alien, alien!" Masha called frantically, popping up over Ichigo's shoulder.
"Hey, chill out! I'm not here to fight," Kish protested, spreading his hands out, keeping a slight distance back.
"You're right, you're not!" Unheard even by Kish's large ears, Zakuro had snuck up behind him. The model now grabbed Kish by the back of the neck. "Ichigo, where's the injection?"
"Here!" the cat mew called, scrambling to find the shot. The girl emptied the sinister looking liquid into one of the veins of Kish's arm.
"No! What the hell is that?" Kish yelped, suddenly afraid. Enemies and injections just didn't seem like a good combination to the teenager. Ichigo released his arm and Zakuro released his throat at the same time. Kish stumbled backwards, rubbing his neck with the arm that hadn't been stabbed with a needle.
"It will keep you from teleporting," Zakuro informed him coldly. "Now what were you here for?"
"Maybe I won't tell you. Maybe I'll let you figure it out yourself," snarled Kish. He felt a little bit… hurt, yes that was the word. He felt hurt that Ichigo would do such a thing to him, even though he knew that Ichigo hated him as much as he loved her. That didn't dull the jab to his heart that she would give him something to block one of his important abilities.
"Pudding-san's late," complained Lettuce as she walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. The girl stopped at the sight of Kish and the empty needle in Ichigo's hand. Her face seemed to fall slightly, and Kish wondered why.
"Well, yes, she is," Kish told the porpoise mew. "Hm, I wonder why that could be, don't you?" he asked Ichigo and Zakuro.
"So that's what you're here for." Ichigo's eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at the alien. "What have you done to Pudding?" she demanded.
"Oh, don't worry, she's alive and well and on the ship," Kish stated. "And guess what? You all aren't getting her back until we get a mew aqua. Sorry!"
"Are you out of your mind?" exploded Ichigo. "Well, you aren't going back without the promise to leave Earth!"
"All right, but we'll have to leave with Pudding," Kish replied. "I don't think you want that. Why don't you call Pai and work everything out?"
Ichigo glared at her stalker. "What's Pai's phone number?" she asked the teenager tightly. The girl dialed the number as he gave it to her and waited for Pai to pick up.
"Aotabemono Pizza, how may I help you?"
The leader of the mew team slammed her phone shut. "Funny," the girl snarled, glowering at the boy. "You're in no position to be making jokes."
"Ichigo, you are not going to hurt him," Mint warned her friend. The snobby rich girl had been watching the proceedings from a nearby table, 'taste-testing' a new brand of tea. She set the cup down now to try and help. "Really Kish, what's Pai's phone number? We need to negotiate."
"Fine," muttered Kish. He spelled out the proper number for Mint to dial.
"What?"
"Ah Pai, good morning!" Mint said brightly. "We heard that you're holding Pudding hostage on your ship. Well, I hate to break it to you, but we have Kish."
At the other end, Pai's forehead creased into worry lines. The alien fought to keep his voice neutral as he replied. "Kish would have no trouble teleporting away from weakling humans like you," he uttered coldly.
"Oh really? Would you bet on that?" Like any well-bred, well-raised young lady, Mint was able to keep her voice light and pleasant, ignoring the dig at her race. "Thanks to a new technology of ours, that's no longer the case. Now, we want Pudding back, and we want you to surrender, then you may have Kish back."
"Well we want Kish back, and a mew aqua, and only then will Pudding be let go," Pai replied angrily.
Kish, who'd been sitting quietly until that moment, leapt up and grabbed the phone from mint. "Pai, it's me! Just hold out for the mew aqua, don't worry about me!" No matter what was said about him, Kish wasn't selfish. He just wanted them to get a mew aqua. They could save him when their savior awakened.
"Give me that!" snapped Mint, snatching the phone from their captive. "Well how about a compromise then. Kish for Pudding, is that fair?"
Kish seized the phone again and backed away from his keepers. "Pai don't settle for anything less than a mew aqua!" he yelled into the device. "Don't let anything influence you—"
Mint leapt for her cell phone. Kish flew up out of reach and hovered just barely out of her reach, secretly thanking the café's high ceilings. "I'll be fine! Don't give her back for anything other than—"
Zakuro grabbed Kish's foot, yanked him down, and handed Mint's phone back to the girl. Mint smiled brightly at the older girl then took the phone back, her face hardening again. "Well?" she demanded of Pai.
"You heard him, same as me." Pai's voice was cool and professional over the phone. You'd never have seen the pain on his face at condemning his friend to god-only-knows-what. "A mew aqua. Otherwise you won't get Pudding back. Oh, and you'll want to give us back Kish as well. We'll need him if you want your precious friend back unharmed." The phone clicked shut on the other end before Mint could reply.
