Melody Mew Mews
Chapter 7
A Bitter Rivalry; Justice lies in a traitor!

" I think she's coming to."

" Mr. Akasaka, she's waking up!"

Saline fluttered her eyes open to find she was surrounded by figures blurred by her vision. One leaned into her face, breath against her red cheeks.

" Well doncha just look darlin?" A voice asked with a heavy southern accent. Saline squinted her eyes to clear up her vision. The persons face settled, revealing to be Angelica with her head turned side ways and staring from the corner of her eyes. " Well we here got ourselves a cutie pie, how ya feelin little lady?"

Saline giggled at Angelica's antics as did the other two; Marissa and Cassidy. Saline's face scrunched up.

" Well, sweet niblets! What's the matter pretty lady? Need a truuuuuuue loves kiss?" Angelica coed before faking a spit. " Shirogane, how 'bout a rough 'n tough varmint like you give sleeping beauty over here a kiss?"

Shirogane mumbled something in annoyance, then glared at Angelica.

" It was a joke, don't get your panty hose in a bunch blondie!" Angelica reverted back to her normal voice.

" Where's Crystal?" Saline asked meekly with half lidded eyes. Marissa frowned.

" She got beat up pretty bad and is sorta-um- not well?" Marissa bit her bottom lip.

" Not well?" Saline got on her elbows with a panicky voice. " How 'Not well' ?"

" She's not hurt or anything! She needs to be alone." Marissa said as Saline stared at her blankly.

" Should I go talk to her?" Saline made a move to get up.

" No, no!" Angelica pushed her back down. " Trust me, she doesn't need you right now!"

" Is she mad at me?" Saline asked, disturbed by the statement.

" No, she's just in one of her bad moods."

" Oh." Saline said disappointedly.

" Anyways, what in the name of Jonas happened to you?" Angelica asked, emphasizing the word 'Jonas'. One of the most prominent features of Angelica was her undying love for the Jonas Brothers, especially Nick, that none of the other girls really understood.

" I don't know, Kisshu was chasing me and right when I thought he'd finish me off, he left." Saline cast her eyes down. " I just remember being scared, fearing for my life when he took out his dagger."

" It's alright now, you're safe." Angelica coed and then hugged her. " Next time we'll be there, I promise, okay?"

" It's alright, I know you guys were doing something important, I could feel it." She sighed and let her hand reach down for her pendant. Once she took it out, she felt the cool metal with her thumb. It felt so soothing to touch it, like a great weight had been lifted off her. She ran a finger on the symbol on it; a cool, light colored, crystal.

"Let's start. I'm sure you're all searching for answers." Ryou said, standing up and walking aimlessly towards them.

" We should wait for the blue mew, Crystal was it?" Keiichiro pondered as the girls jumped up.

" NO!"

" Alright, alright!" Keiichiro shook his hands in front of him defensibly. " Then let's begin with our objective."

" A few years back in the middle east, roughly around Iran, an unidentified flying object attacked a flight commander. He witnessed the ship to be triangular and glowing moving at the speeds faster than any jet in the world, even counting the ones built today. The ship locked all controls of the jet, enabling the pilot to use weapons when being attacked with strange glowing orbs. Strange thing is, the orbs circled him, despite the fact that he was moving faster than the speed of sound. A few months ago, we too detected a ship similar to the description of the pilot."

" Is it just me or does this sound like a messed up Si Fi movie?" Saline asked nervously as angelica remembered her same response.

" Just listen." Ryou raised his voice. " It was a crazy idea at first but eventually it seemed like the only option. We decided to create a batch of super humans ourselves after the government had denied our idea and the idea of an alien invasion itself. We needed to make a group of willing soldier harder, faster, better, stronger!"

" WE were willing?" Angelica asked quietly, dumbfounded.

" Is he quoting Kanye West?" Marissa's eye twitched.

" We set out all over the world collecting DNA from various animals." Ryou continued, ignoring the comments. " We found that only a small number of animals had the traits we were searching for, those animals were Red Data, in other words endangered. After the vigorous work of collecting the DNA, we started to search for a group of people who were compatible. We thought it would be best to have the group know each other, so they could work better. The only group of people compatible were here, so we set up our base and began monitoring you guys. After we were sure there wouldn't be dangerous side affects we injected the eight of you."

" Wait! Eight?" Saline stood up in surprise. " But there are only five of us!"

" The others haven't activated their pendants yet. Who knows, they never may unless you guys find them."

" Shouldn't you guys know who you injected!" Angelica retorted.

" It's not easy, we didn't spend hours on end trying to find you guys. We found you five, the computer found the other three, so we have no idea who the others are." Ryou sighed.

" What we do know is that the other three are girls and that they have been in Tampa in the past few months." Keiichiro informed.

" Well that narrows it down." Angelica replied sarcastically.

" How do we find them?" Saline asked while analyzing possible solutions in her mind.

" Simple, all of you have a distinct tattoo on your injection area." Ryou stated a matter-of-factly.

" Yeah! We'll just strip every girl in Tampa down and search them for a tattoo! Brilliant!" Angelica clapped her hands together and put on a mocking grin, that is until Ryou shot her a penetrating glare.

" And let's mention that these pendants-" Keiichiro held up three gold pendants; one turquoise, one orange and the last a deep yellow. "- will automatically magnetize to which ever girl it belongs too!"

" Alright, this is far from the subject but what does he want?" Saline rubbed the her hands together with unease.

" He?" Keiichiro inquired.

"Kisshu, what does he want?"

" Ah, the alien. Well, we don't know."

" But, what if they're fighting for something good."

" If they were fighting for good, they wouldn't be fighting at all." Ryou's voice sharply replied. He got up and walked straight up to Saline. His eyes were piercing and filled with malice. " And if you ever think of joining them you too will be a major enemy and will be terminated."

Saline's eyebrows arched up and her lips parted. She stared at him as the heat rose to her face and a lump formed in her throat.

" W-why would I join him?" She asked desperately.

" We're not clueless. . .we've been watching all of you."

Suddenly all the other girls faces turned to Saline, silently guessing what Ryou meant about Saline and Kisshu. Saline tilted her head towards their accusing eyes and slowly shook her head.

" Ryou that's enough, Saline hasn't done anything to jeopardize the team." Keiichiro firmly stated to the blond. He turned to Saline and gave a soft smile. " And I doubt she ever will."

" Well, um, then let's start looking for the three girls." Marissa asked rather hopefully just begging to get out of the room.

" Sure, that's a good idea." Keiichiro chirped.

" Be sure to come back here when you're done." Ryou dead panned while sliding back into his computer chair.

The girls nodded and left, splitting up to search for the three girls.

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Holding a small orange pendant in her hand and a cell phone in the other, Saline weaved through the groups of people down town. She texted Angelica, asking for her and Marissa's progress. Angelica texted back with a frowny face. Saline sighed and slipped her phone into her back pocket. She was at least two hours away from home and the sun would start to dim soon. She realized that today was among the few that she didn't have any reason to transform, silently thanking God she rolled her shoulders as if to rid of a heavy weight. It had already been a month since that day at the movie theatres and she still hadn't gotten used to it. She wasn't a complex super soldier, just another kid in the world who didn't have any control over anything and now she was expected to over come extraterrestrials and probably save the world from perilous doom? Great, just dandy. She could barely put on matching socks in the morning. Of course, at first she had absolutely adored the idea. She had a chance to be a super hero, who else could say that? She was now almost like her favorite comic book hero, Batman. But the differences were as plain as day. While batman protected Gotham, a large city with a high crime rate, she protected the world from what was presumably a mass invasion (she could be wrong though, they still didn't know the aliens propose for being here.). She had grown sick of constantly sneaking out, cutting class, faking sick and most of all she was irritated of all the cuts, bruises and sometimes if Kisshu really wanted to get a kick, the horrible burns. She rubbed her arms just thinking about all of it; she really did despise pain. And while on the topic of battle, why in the world did she have to be pink? For Gods sake, out of all the colors in the rainbow! She had wanted the purple pendant after all, it consisting of her two favorite colors; purple and gold. Not that she didn't like pink, but it did catch more attention than the rest of the colors. Saline shook her head rapidly (as people stared and whispered the word 'insane' to each other, much to Saline's dismay.)and mumbled about how stupid she was being, she was so preoccupied that she couldn't even concentrate on finding her soon to be team mate. She also didn't see a familiar blonde walking over to her.

" Hey!"

" Wha-?" Saline replied dumbly. " Oh! Hey Dustin!"

" I didn't know you were going to be around here!" Dustin remarked.

" Oh, you didn't?"

" Uh no. . . .you never called me. . . Remember?"

" Oh, I'm so sorry! It's just that I was sick and some. . .issues. . .came up."

" No it's okay, I didn't mean it like that."

" Are you sure?" Saline gulped, a huge blush creeping up on her face. " I. . .sorta missed you. . .a lot."

Dustin smiled and bashfully rubbed the back of his head.

" I missed hanging out with you too."

Saline frowned. He missed hanging out with here, not really her, he'd never say he missed her.

" Hey are you okay?" Dustin gently put a hand on her shoulder, slightly making her jump.

" Yeah, I'm fine!" A plastic smile instantly plastered itself on her face.

" So do you want to go to the movies of the park or. . ."

" . . .Some where Marissa and Crystal aren't?"

" Ha ha, yeah, probably!"

" Sure I'll call you!" Saline replied. Dustin's face dropped immediately. ". . .Or why don't you call me?"

" That's loads better, and I will call." He mused as Saline's face flushed from embarrassment. " Eh, don't worry about it."

" yeah, well I have to go, so call me tonight or tomorrow or. . .whenever."

" Sure, see you."

" Bye!"

They both headed into opposite directions, only faltering in their steps to look back at each other before turning the corner. From above another familiar pair of eyes were watching both. Filled with malice and rage, they glittered an intense gold under the white light of the sun.

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So, that's the end of chapter 7. Sorry there wasn't any fighting nor any of the aliens, well, except the 'familiar' eyes at the very end (I'm sure you all know who it is). Next chapter will probably contain the latest member of the mew mew family.

Also, now and again check back on my home page because I'll be putting up links to what the characters look like and also a little play list that corresponds to each couple. If you have any songs you think might fit any of the couples ( so far only Saline/Dustin, Saline/Kisshu, also Crystal and Angelica were fighting over Ryou in one chapter and Angelica's practically in love with Pai, so, Angelica/Pai) then in a review or private message just tell me and I'll add it onto the play list!

From now on I'll be updating faster, or at least trying to because schools about to start and I wont have time to write around the first month or two. Also I have a link to my quizilla and youtube up on my profile page.

Again, hope you liked reading the chapter! Please reviewz!