Elizabeth: This time, he blames the University of California.
Bakacal: Yeah. Great school, annoying apps process.
Col. Cisneros: All colleges are like that. Trust me, applying to Annapolis was like boot camp in itself.
Bakacal: Typical government. (Sees a government lawyer) Yeah? Go sue me. (Supreme Court appears) Ack! I didn't mean it! (Runs away with Supreme Court in hot pursuit and John Roberts shouting "traitor!") (from offstage) Take it away, Liz!
Elizabeth: (nods) Bakacal does not own anything except for his own characters. Several characters are copied from or inspired by existing characters or real people, most notably Kana's angel Fuu and Colonel Cisneros and her angel Sandra. Bakacal does not mean any rudeness by such homage paying. In addition, Miki Hatsuharu, Lina Paiya, and Kurokoneko are owned by Motokonobaka and are used with permission.
Bakacal: (from offstage) I also don't own the US Naval Academy, the University of California, California State University Hayward (East Bay) or the Supreme Court. So, don't really sue me, OK?
Battle 5
Reinforced Resolve
Kamehameha Memorial Stadium, Friday afternoon
"Where is he!"
A panicked Ogata ran through the hall, desperately scanning the area for any sign of our favorite mad scientist. The receptionist had told him that he had left early that morning for the Honolulu Merritt Hotel. Which was all well and good, but when Ogata called the hotel, he was told that no such person had been seen on the hotel grounds. Ogata felt ready to cry when he thought about the literal mountain of paperwork on his desk. Virtually every piece of paper had a space for the signature of "Ichiro Mihara", and he needed them signed before the Global Cup opening ceremonies the next day.
"Icchan go boom!" shouted a familiar voice as a jack in the box wearing a white lab coat and glasses exploded from underneath the linoleum floor of the hallway. Ogata let out a short gasp as Ichiro Mihara straightened himself into a rubbing-his-chin pose. His glasses glinted in the light.
"That's not funny!" Ogata shouted. "You just took about ten years off my life! We've got a mountain of paperwork for you to examine, and it needs to get done today!" He cringed. "I even cut a deal with the technical staff to stay until six today so you could get the work sent in on time!" Icchan grimaced.
"I had important field research," he said, dusting the rubble from his lab coat. He turned to face Ogata. "I'll take care of it," he said. "Just get me a pitcher of cold hot chocolate in five minutes." Ogata stared.
"Why?" he asked, knowing the answer already. Icchan's glasses glinted menacingly.
"Die!" he shouted at Ogata, who screamed and quickly ran down the hall. When he had left, Icchan sighed and looked at the destruction he had caused.
"Oh well," he thought as he walked to his office.
Honolulu Merritt Hotel, around the same time
The man sat at a table in the cafe, sipping a cup of coffee as he typed on a laptop computer. He was a thin man of average height. His glasses and already graying hair made him look much older than his forty five years. His eyes darted back and forth under a relatively thin pair of glasses. A waitress approached his table with a pot of coffee.
"More coffee, sir?" she asked. He looked up, nodded, and returned to his work.
"No sugar or cream, please," he said without looking up. The waitress smiled as she poured. She looked over his shoulder at the monitor.
"You work with Angelic Layer?" she asked him. He nodded.
"I'm a systems manager for Piffle Princess," he said as his fingers continued to type at almost breakneck speed. The waitress nodded.
"I was quite the deus back in the day," she said. "They called me the Queen of the Layer at school." The man nodded as he continued to type.
"Really," he said, not asking a question or disbelieving her. "What was your angel?"
"Winia." The man nodded as he typed. "Speed type. Created on October 8, 1997. Deus Norma Wilkins of Pearl City, Hawaii. Impressive win-loss record of 67-8. One of your losses was to Miki Hatsuharu in the Hawaii States Tournament. One of your victories was against Ensign Chris Soryu of the United States Navy, who was also competing in the Hawaii States Tournament." The waitress gaped.
"How did you know that?" she asked. The man smiled and pointed to the computer screen.
"It's all right here," he said. "I told you, I work for Piffle Princess. I was also Ensign Soryu." The waitress stared.
"You're Ensign Soryu?" she asked. Chris nodded.
"I was," he said. "I resigned about a year after that. I've been working at Piffle Princess ever since."
"Why'd you resign?" asked Norma. Chris stared at her. Then he seemed to go into a trance. His eyes seemed to glaze over as he was lost in thought.
"Personal reasons," he said after a while. "Graduating from Annapolis only obligated me for five years of service, so when that time expired, I resigned. Besides, I wanted to spend more time with my family, but the Navy wasn't exactly family friendly. You know what I mean?" Norma nodded.
"I would have enlisted as a cook or something," she said, "but being a single mother and all, they wouldn't take me." Chris sighed.
"You wouldn't want to serve anyway," he said sarcastically, his voice rising with each syllable. "They pay you a fraction of civilian pay with the off chance of getting killed, and what do you get in return? A medal and a pinkslip and a "sorry we screwed up your life". Trust me, being a soldier isn't what it's cracked up to be." He noticed several of the patrons staring at them. He smiled sheepishly and returned to his work.
"Well," he said, "that's just my opinion." Norma nodded and walked away to refill the coffeepot.
"Only those who have seen hell truly know what it looks like," Chris said to himself as he continued to type. After a few minutes he went online via the hotel's wireless internet network and sent several files to Icchan's inbox.
Meanwhile, at the layers, a heated battle was taking place. One of the contenders was Ritsuko Kobayashi, Japan's number seven deus. The other was an American, but not a member of the national team. She was nonetheless quite skilled. Her speed type angel was slim and graceful. It wore a white leotard and a white cloak, carried a rapier and a small circular shield, and had brown hair and brown eyes. The deus herself was a short girl with black hair, black eyes, and a slim figure. She was quite short for her twenty years and looked far too young for her Cal State Hayward T-shirt. The battle had just begun, and neither angel had taken any damage. Yet.
The white angel charged at Hikari and lunged with the rapier. Hikari easily blocked the attack with the shoutou and attacked the white angel on its follow through. The white angel quickly put up the shield to block and with some fancy wristwork landed several hits on Hikari. The damage meter ticked down to just 96 but Hikari was forced to retreat several inches. Sensing an opening, the white angel attacked with a series of quick slashes and jabs. The length of the rapier was such that it was safe from Hikari's counterattacks. The damage meter clicked down to 80 as Hikari was pushed closer and closer to the edge.
Ritsuko felt herself growing more and more agitated as her angel was pushed back. Her opponent was quite skilled. She nodded as Hikari was finally able to block some of the attacks, but the two swords made Hikari, a light speed type, too slow to counter attack before her opponent was able to attack again with the lighter rapier.
"Think, Ritsuko," she thought to herself as Hikari was just barely able to keep up with the flurry of attacks. "What can I do to make Hikari faster?" A light bulb lit up in her head.
"Of course!" Ritsuko thought. Hikari quickly dropped the tachi and used the shoutou to block another rapier strike. It then charged in, slamming the white angel's chest with the wooden blade before it could defend itself. The white angel's damage meter dropped to 70 almost instantly.
"Kote! Kote!" she thought, remembering the videos she had seen of a superb American deus her mother had met when the Worlds were still new. With two quick strikes, Hikari hit the white angel's hands and disarmed it. Then, Hikari showered blows on the now unarmed white angel and reduced its damage meter to 0 as the clock read 8:40. The audience applauded as the white angel picked up its weapons, bowed to Hikari, and leapt from the layer into its deus's arms. The deus smiled.
"Thank you for this fight, Kobayashi san," she said in polite Japanese. She spoke with the confidence of a native speaker, and the seeming undercurrent of energy in her voice reminded her of Tamayo.
Chris left the cafe with the laptop under his arm. He walked with a very slight limp; one had to watch him closely to detect it. Even late in the afternoon, the Hawaiian sun was shining brightly. He was sweating slightly under his T-shirt as he thought about how it would take him a while to get used to Hawaii again. He was born in on a Navy base in Germany but grew up in Honolulu with his mother and sisters. He never saw much of his father, an infantryman in the Marines who unfortunately put his career before his family, prompting his wife to get a divorce. When he became an IS manager in the Navy, he made sure not to repeat his father's mistakes. Of course, this cost him several coveted promotions, and after he was passed over a third time, he resigned as soon as he could.
He walked over to the layers. It was only around 5 o'clock, so many deuses were still practicing outside. He heard cheers and groans in almost two dozen languages as he made his way through the area. He was about to reach the area his daughter told him she would meet him when he heard a tinny clarinet playing the melody to "Be my Angel". He sighed and reached into his pocket for his cell phone and opened it.
"Moshi moshi," he said absentmindedly as his eyes took in the sights. He grimaced when he heard the voice on the phone.
"Icchan go boom!" shouted the person on the other end of the line. Chris forced a smile. Ichiro Mihara was the type of person who fit the stereotype of a mad scientist- to a point. He was quite serious when he wanted to be which, much to Chris's disappointment, was not often. Even the aging process had failed to dull his wit and flexibility.
"How's the paperwork coming, Icchan?" he asked. He could hear chuckling in the background, but it might have been Icchan himself.
Or he may have just been imagining. When you have a slightly insane genius like Ichiro Mihara as your boss, you never know when you're "just imagining" something. Even though the assignment was only temporary, Chris quickly learned that things were not always what they seemed.
"Splendid," said Icchan. "Don't you just love going through boring documents looking for that obscenely small box that has the X that means 'sign here'? Yessir, nothing like good old fashioned bureaucracy to make a man feel alive" Chris grimaced. With Icchan, reality was just a state of mind.
"Fight the good fight, boss," he said as he prepared to hang up.
"Wait! That's not the point!" shouted Icchan. "Chief Wilson just called in and he says the Angelic Devils have hit again!" Chris quickly woke back up.
"Come again?" he asked.
"The Angelic Devils hit the store in San Francisco," Icchan explained. "They took about thirty thousand dollars worth of merchandise and they threatened to go against our store here in Honolulu tonight." Chris sighed audibly. "Where there is a fad, there will come evil fanatics" he thought, although at more than thirty years old, Angelic Layer was more than a simple fad.
"I didn't think they'd start attacking stores," he said.
"Their Chinese chapters have also been active," Icchan continued. "Five deuses were mugged in broad daylight. Five! If we can't reign them in, President Wang's threatened to 'deal with it'. You know what that means." Chris nodded.
"An outright ban on Angelic Layer in the name of national security," he said.
"Most likely," Icchan answered. "Some of the best up and coming deuses are from China, you know. If we lose the China market, Angelic Layer could take a severe international blow." Chris nodded.
"What have we got in the way of defenses?" he asked.
"The police are there right now," said Icchan. "Can you-" Chris nodded.
"It's been a while since Typhoon and I have really fought, but we can handle it. Just let me pick up my daughter and we'll both be there." Icchan breathed a sigh of relief.
"Yukikaze's gonna be there as well? That's a relief!" Chris nodded.
"We'll be there inside the hour. Ciao." Chris hung up the phone and came across the layer, where Ritsuko was examining Hikari.
"Otousan!" The girl wearing the Hayward T-shirt pummeled Chris around his abdomen. He fell to his knees as Ritsuko looked on nervously.
"Oof! Did you behave yourself while I was gone?" The girl nodded.
"Yup!" she exclaimed. She motioned to Ritsuko. "I made a new friend today!" Chris nodded.
"Arigatou, Kobayashi san," he said. "I hope my daughter wasn't too much trouble." Ritsuko shook her head.
"May chan is a skilled deus," she said. "She should have tried out for the team." Chris sighed.
"That she should have," he said. "Arigatou, Kobayashi san. Come on, May, we've got ourselves a job to do." May nodded.
"Arigatou, Ritsuko chan!" she said. "Wait a sec, take this!" May handed Ritsuko a card. "I've already got about five of her, so you can have this."
"Arigatou, May chan!" Ritsuko called as they left. When she lost sight of them, she put Hikari in her shoulder bag and blinked several times.
"Phew," she said as she checked her watch and realized she had spent close to four hours practicing. "I really got in a good day of practice." As soon as she stood up, her place was taken by a gaggle of deuses speaking in rapid French.
"So many people," she thought as she walked through the crowd. Soon, she left the layer area and had entered the beach. Even in the evening, the beach was quite crowded. There were times where she could hardly see more than ten feet ahead of her for all of the people.
"Hey, Ritsuko!" she heard someone call her name. She turned and saw Elizabeth and Nahiyah waving to her. She smiled and ran to them.
"Where have you two been?" she asked.
"Guess," answered Nahiyah. Both she and Elizabeth wore swimsuits, and several men nodded approvingly as they passed. Ritsuko shook her head.
"The pool?" she asked. Elizabeth shook her head.
"The beach, silly!" she exclaimed. "Where have YOU been, in any case?" Ritsuko smiled.
"Last minute practice," she said. Nahiyah noticed the card in Ritsuko's hand.
"What's that?" she asked. Ritsuko showed her the card. After staring at it for a few seconds, Nahiyah smiled.
"So they came out with the new cards already," she thought aloud.
"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth. Nahiyah smiled.
"Didn't you bother to look at it, Ritsuko chan?" she asked. "That's an Angelic Layer card, one of the new editions they're releasing to commemorate the Sixth Cup." Ritsuko read the card, which had a picture of a cat eared Angel dressed in a floor length kimono on it. In the background was a black haired teenage girl wearing black clothing. She looked like a Goth, but her cheek to cheek smile said otherwise.
Legends of the Layer
First Edition
001
Angel: Kurokoneko
Deus: Lina Paiya (USA)
Type: Power
Weight: Middle
A household name in her native United States and around the world, Lina Paiya is one
of the best deuses in Angelic Layer's history. With one of the best win percentages
and the ability to adapt to any layer thrown at her, Paiya has shined like no one else.
She was instrumental in arranging for environmental layers for the Sixth Angelic
Layer Global Cup in Honolulu, Hawaii. Although she is married, she retains her
maiden name for the sake of name recognition. Retired from professional Angelic
Layer, she currently mentors rookies on the Big Island of Hawaii.
"Wow," said Ritsuko, amazed. "So that's Lina Paiya." Nahiyah smiled.
"That photo was taken at the Worlds about thirty years ago," she said. "She looks a lot older now." Elizabeth gaped.
"Environmental layers? I'm impressed. The Global Cup has always been much more conventional than the Worlds. I had no idea that they were planning something like that."
"It's all about TV," Nahiyah said. "People have grown bored of conventional Angelic Layer. The true enthusiasts love the game regardless, but for the casual fan or the total outsider, the Worlds have always been more exciting because of the environmental layers. Besides, it was only recently that the Global Cup came under the jurisdiction of Piffle Princess. Up until now, the Global Cup was a privately financed venture independent of PP, so they didn't have as much money to spend on layers and such. That's also why it's held only every four years. Now, with PP sponsoring the Global Cup, they can actually afford all the trimmings." Ritsuko's eyes were open wide with amazement.
"You really know a lot about Angelic Layer, Nahiyah san," she said. "I had no idea about that stuff." Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
"Whoopdee fricking doo," she said sarcastically. "All that really means it that the competition will be a lot harder than normal, right?" Nahiyah shook her head.
"You're a soldier, aren't you?" she asked Elizabeth. "Don't you know anything about battle strategy?"
"I'm not in the combat arms," answered Elizabeth. "I wouldn't know." Nahiyah nodded.
"In any case, that's the most basic thing about strategy. Disregard terrain, and even a guaranteed victory can be lost. Very important battles in history were decided by terrain. The new battlefields might very well make the difference between victory and defeat."
"Come to think of it," said Ritsuko, "when my mother went through the Japan National Tournament, several of her battles were won because she adapted to the layers." Nahiyah nodded.
"We'll just have to try our best to win," she said. "Let's do our best, OK?" Ritsuko and Elizabeth nodded and the three girls clasped hands.
"May Allah smile upon us in the coming trials," Nahiyah said in Arabic before translating for the benefit of Ritsuko and Elizabeth.
"Let's all go to the finals again, Green san, Nahiyah san" said Ritsuko.
"Here's to victory!" called Elizabeth as a cool breeze chilled the air.
Bakacal: I might have dug myself a bit of a hole here. Introducing an evil group of deuses, environmental layers, many more battles to come, I just hope I can wrap it all up before the second coming of the prophet Zarquon (tribute to Douglas Adams). A lot of America's deuses seem to be current or ex military, ne? In any case, please review! Onegai shimasu! Please?