Assassin Drones: The original saga
Interlude: Intensifying love: a promise to be kept! De Arimasu!
By Alex Young
On an unpaved dirt road a good klick or two near the festival site, 5:00 pm
It was very peaceful out in the back country, until the automated doors built on the road itself slid open. Something was coming up from the rectangular shaft; that emerging something was Raikoume. Not only had she beaten Miezoen, Naozi, and Gial to the end of the shaft, but she also pulled a midair corkscrew and executed a perfect two point landing, all to add insult to injury.
Not that the rest of them wouldn't emerge from this harrowing experience at all. "See? Tolja you'd be surprised." Raikoume taunted just before she took off to her right, with Naozi and Miezoen close behind. What about Gial? He just dove into a large brush pile, hiding from Vector Pursuit as it too emerged from the shaft. After a brief back flip, it scrubbed its rear tires, and burst into Raikoume's direction.
Fortunately for Gial, Vector Pursuit wasn't the least bit interested in him. Gial after having spaced out at that notion, proceeded to claw his way through some more familiar territory. A good several minutes later found him snooping around along another, more parallel dirt road; this time, it's the road where Akina goes out for her afternoon stretch at the hour, not the least bit concerned about the festival going on nearby.
She stopped, as though drinking in this chance meeting with the very creature responsible for the Nishizawa incident. After a while of digging and sniffing about, Gial stormed off in a direction where he may have found something most unusual. Akina on the other hand simply smiled as she resumed her afternoon walk.
Half a mile to the festival site, 6:00 pm. August 20, 2002
Karara and Chiroro were trekking in the woodlands looking for a device known as a love energy extractor installed off site just a few days ago. It was a large, 3 pronged antenna that was about yay tall in comparison to the Hinata home; about as tall as your average combine harvester of course. Clearly Keroro must have been doing his homework about invasions of this nature.
The love energy spectrum has 6 formally recognized classifications: Alpha white, beta white, gamma white, gamma blue, beta blue, and alpha blue. All ranging from very fleeting to totally obsessed respectively. Karara and Chiroro both stumbled across the very device key to Keroro's most insidious invasion plan yet; the love energy extractor. "There it is! There it is!" Karara gushed in unadulterated delight upon its discovery.
Of course, the easiest thing about operating the extractor was turning the damned thing on. All at a push of the big, shiny, red "power" button at its base, which they did afterwards. A somewhat quiet, electrical turbine whirring sound had followed its activation. The extractor churned to life with the radar dish on top of the pumping station to the right of it scanning the vicinity.
With that out of the way, the twins headed over to the festival site, in crystalline accordance to Keroro's plot. Gial skulked his way over to the antenna, as he used the pumping station for cover. "Gial!" Naozi called. "Where have you been?" Ghallig reminded as the rest of his squad approached him near the love energy extraction antenna. "Sheesh! Had to remove the tracking device so that we could throw those two bitches for a loop." Raikoume bemoaned with a face palm for emphasis. "Eeh, whas' that?" Miezoen queried pointing to the antenna.
"Ah, jess. Ah was waiteeng for zat!" Naozi replied as he approached the antenna, with Ghallig taking up guard duties. "You see, zees ees eh louvre energie extrehction antenna." "Oh yeah! That answers my question then." Miezoen replied in apparent satisfaction. Just then, Naozi had a rather fiendish idea for how to extract the love energy just like Keroro.
Naozi would attach a collection hose to Gial's ass end, then he'd have the Amblypygid pump a well sized sample of that energy into his abdominal storage tanks. Gial was a little more keen on the idea than one would normally think. "Come on guys, let's go!" Raikoume called as everyone but Ghallig would follow her lead. "Don't worry about me. I'm just gonna return to guarding the designated landing sites." He elucidated as he returned to resume his original objective.
Meanwhile, at the same unpaved dirt road
It was quiet as usual, even with a strange, salmon colored Keronian armed with a compound crossbow and some hunting gear roaming about. He had spotted a recently excavated mound of dirt along the dirt road he was walking on. "Hmm, looks like he has been here recently." He mused aloud upon inspection of the dig site. He must be interested in Gial to have tracked him all this way.
"I know that he's fairly well traveled, but what is he doing in Pekopon of all places?" He questioned as he broke out his communicator from his makeshift windbreaker. "Kiruru ZX-1, this is Moriri. I think I found my quarry on Pekopon, over." Moriri groused. "Excellent, heheheh. We'll be on our way, soon." The General Kiruru ZX-1 affirmed as he gave the green light for his squad to land on Earth.
Back at the festival site, the Dobaba twins jogged around in their antibarriers amid the hustle and bustle of the summer's end festival. They could easily see that each and every stand had been thoroughly fitted with love energy signature detectors. It would look as though Keroro had been very thoughtful as to have set the energy extraction system to collect only alpha blue love, as it is the most potent form of love energy out there. "There they are!" Karara chirped as she pointed to Fuyuki and Momoka having a heck of a good time.
The twins then decided it best to see if they can't coax some more of that alpha blue love energy out themselves from Momoka and Fuyuki. As the twins made a break for the couple, Natsumi shivered as though in response to the tadpoles' presence. The twins ducked towards a nearby stand. She turned around to see a vacant space where Karara and Chiroro should both be. "Hrrr, something tells me that I'm having stir fried frog legs for dinner tonight after this." She hissed quite venomously, but somewhat inaudibly at that. Inaudible by all, save for Naozi, who's acute hearing could pick up on every deadly detail from that very stand.
"Wooaoaoh holy sheet! Ah do not want to cross peths with zat girl for as long as ah live." Naozi wavered for fear that Natsumi may foil his plot. A good few seconds later however, such fears were as of yet unfounded as she returned to chaperoning Fuyuki and his girlfriend, Momoka. "Raikoume! Miezoen! A little help would be much appreciated!" Ghallig screeched through the intercom.
With that, Raikoume and Miezoen dutifully rushed to his aid. Radon was rushing through the woods sniping at Ghallig and getting chased down by the main rat pack at the same time. Radon scrambled up a tree, jumped clear across the love energy extractor, and landed safely on the other side. Ghallig launched himself at Rip Rat, while Miezoen and Raikoume dive bombed Darkclaw and Slaughersjaws with guns and talons respectively. Radon seized this opportunity and ultimately escaped the chaos between the rat pack and the assassin drones.
"Eeh well. Gess that leaves me and Gial, zen." Naozi mused inside the stand. The stand that Karara, Chiroro, Naozi, and ultimately Gial were at was a shooting gallery, complete with toy Lee Enfield bolt action rifles. Naozi motioned himself to stick a needle like apparatus up Gial's Amplypygid ass. Gial cringed upon its insertion into his ass but relaxed instantaneously afterwards. Karara stepped in through a side door in the arcade stand near Naozi's position.
Chiroro followed her in, when Naozi noticed and offered a "Come in. Don't be shy. Ah haff a proposal for you." "We just wanted to coax some more of that energy out ourselves." Chiroro explained. "Oui oui, madamoiselle. Ah see we ehre on zee same page. Ehnewehs, do what you can to get zee extra energie, ok? zenk you." The twins nodded to that tempting notion and agreed to this temporary partnership. This partnership was founded on the mutual understanding that they'll get to extracting the love energy from the young couple on their way to marriage.
"Hey Fuyuki! Let's shoot somethings over at the shooting gallery!" Momoka rang. "Good idea." Fuyuki aggreed as the both of them trotted over to the shooting gallery. "Welcome you two." Naozi soothingly announced in the stand. "Do not panic, As ah ehm only heer to explain zee rules of zees shooteeng game to you. Zeese papair plates grant you 10 points, Zees monster grants you 50 points." Naozi continued as he presented a mixed alien parasites meat lover's space omelet to the both of them, with Gial shortly following suit.
"Zees ees a creature called peenstrahps, You shoot him howevair, you win zee game. Whoever scores zee most points when zee 45 second countdown timer ceases, also wins. Zat ees eet for ze rules." Momoka offered up two 50 yen coins each to play the game with her beloved Fuyuki. The both of them aimed down their iron sights as the countdown timer initiated. Momoka and Fuyuki both simultaneously got their first shots in at the same target, with neither of them knowing how to operate their guns. The guns never ran out of ammo, and their bullets always hit their mark regardless of the user's aim.
That alone was enough to make them both feel confident in their faux firearms. So they both shot away at the paper plates and space omelets for 30 out of the allotted 45 seconds until Gial made a rather sudden, if not frightening appearance. This scared Fuyuki into shooting him straight in the center of his snake like mouth, which was all that was necessary for him to put Gial out of commission temporarily and to win the game. "Oh my god! You won!" Momoka cheered as she glomped him in ecstasy. "I-I did that?" Fuyuki pondered, unsure but slightly more willing to requite her feelings for him.
Naozi was perfectly satisfied with the results, indicating that enough of the extracted love energy had been diverted into Gial's abdomen. "Thanks mister!" The girls chirped as they continued their giddy pursuit of world domination by the Keroro platoon. "Zee boss must know about zees." Naozi mused with a sense of apparent urgency as he escorted Gial to a viable position some 1400 yards away from the festival.
Both assassin drones slipped away undetected by the local populace. Karara and Chiroro have had some tremendous luck when it came to squeezing more love energy out of the couple, in one instance after another. This rate of collection is such that it more than compensated for the sample that Naozi sucked up via Gial, all in a matter of minutes. All that without the rest of the party goers ever noticing, not even Natsumi. The high water mark for this rate of collection would come at 7:00 pm with the fireworks display as a finale for the summer's end festival.
8:30 pm in a dark room
Tanaka had been ordered to return to the Kissho police headquarters for curiosity as to what the speeder was when she saw it. She laid flat on a board with a brain scan apparatus attached to the base of her skull. "What is it, Boris?" Professor Mikhail "Boris" Krukov had just started scanning her brain for memories of her encounter with Raikoume. Unbeknownst to everyone except for those "In the know," Tanaka is actually a fully fledged member of EX.W.A.T.I. as a police officer. She is also a graduate from the St. Alexander Higher Academy.
The academy had only just finished construction on that very same day as today in 2001. "Hmmm, most interesting indeed. It seems as though you've done a good job in dealing with this creature." Boris mused as he rifled through the imagery, before zooming on one that caught his attention. "It's not a he, it's a she. Her name's Raikoume, by the way." Tanaka admonished ruefully. "So, the creature has a name then." Boris mused as that alone piqued his interest enough to back up her memories concerning Raikoume and the other assassin drones onto an off site hard drive. "High command needs to hear of this." Boris closed as the released Tanaka from her scans so she can begin her graveyard shift.
At Kuosinne's landing site, 12:00 am. August 21, 2002
"Glad to see you made it in one piece." Ghallig praised. "Thanks Ghallig, you make me blush." Kuosinne replied as she just made it ahead of schedule. The reason being that she had ran into a wormhole that transported her to the inside of the lunar orbit. The disposal team had already rounded up one of Ghallig's aggressors, like a sheep for the slaughter.
He was that same goon that Fuyuki had rescued earlier, the very last of the ninja squad sent to kill Gial. After having shot the love sample out into space to be picked up by the rapier, Gial had been given the honors of executioner. Gial opened his horrific, metallic jaws wider than ever for this execution. As Gial motioned to kill the goon, one last desperate scream ripped into the darkened midnight atmosphere, never to be heard again.
Somewhere in the martial arts restaurant district, 5:00 pm
Nabiki Tendo was out on the job hunt with Ranma and Akane in toe when they happened across a flyer that said [Part time waitresses and bodyguards for hire! Come down to the Furinkan Playboy restaurant to fill out the aforementioned job applications today!] "Hey, that restaurant is right around the corner from the Tendo residence. It'd be perfect for you, Ranma!" Akane piped up as Nabiki replied with a "You too, Akane because you can cover for Ranma as a waitress." After having agreed on the job opportunity, the three immediately headed home to discuss this with their parents.
The aforementioned Playboy restaurant, 7:00 pm
After a little convincing from Soun and Genma, Nabiki and company were now free to go ahead and walk into in to the manager's office, where Diakage awaited them after a few phone calls. "I need to see this 'Jusenkyo curse' for myself." Daikage exhorted of Ranma, who reluctantly obliged in dumping a bucket of cold water on his head, thereby turning into Ranko right before his eyes.
"My, I'm impressed. I'll now employ Ranma Saotome as both a waitress and a bodyguard in this restaurant. I'm also going to employ both you and Akane as waitresses. Payments are measured in the equivalent to 30 U.S. bucks (3000 yen) for every working hour on a weekly basis. However, since Ranma is working two jobs in one shift, his payment automatically doubles to $60 an hour." Daikage outlined as he elucidated the basic ground rules for his employees to follow. "Sound's good to me." Ranma chuckled satisfied that at least he and Akane, as well as Nabiki, all have part time jobs with working hours ranging from a minimum of 3, to a maximum of 9.
The EX.W.A.T.I. European information nexus in Geneva, Switzerland, 8:00 am. August 22, 2002
Gial and Miezoen, along with Moaghen and Kuosinne had all slunk their way into Switzerland on foot as per explicit instructions from Aoryuzen as he assigned them this latest mission; disable the nexus in order to slow their progress down. Baio and Oka with the Nishizawa elite guard, along with Xieng Tzu Lin and Blood Scorpion were there attending an emergency meeting at an underground bunker nearby.
"This is an outrage!" Baio cried out slamming his fist on the table. "Calm down, Baio. I'm sure that my team of scientists are looking into the carnage resulting from the amblypygid's adventures into your manor." Boris replied reminding Baio to cool his jets a little. Gial and Moaghen were listening in from above. "Teh, someone just woke up on the wrong side of the bed!" Moaghen hissed grinning at the results of Gial's skulduggery at the Nishizawa manor.
\No time for snide remarks, Moaghen. Escort Gial to the entrance, and launch your mind control strike on the guards and the administrator once you get there./ Aoryuzen reprimanded as Moaghen grumbled to himself with Gial taking point. "Here goes nuttin!" Moaghen spat as he launched his silken mind control strike with pinpoint accuracy. Success! The administrator was hypnotized into opening the door for Gial as he skittered in to the mainframe room as he with several larvae in toe to do his dirty work.
Gial launched his vampire connector into one of the Ethernet cables, downloaded any files of interest important to the mission, while having deleted all the rest, and caused a power outage within the nexus. This was the assassin drones' cue to get out of dodge quickly and quietly. Miezoen slashed several nexus guards, along with some Blood Scorpion soldiers to pieces with her blade like back legs. Unfortunately, a few larvae were captured for scientific research. This proved to be a mixed blessing for Aoryuzen as he could afford to lose a few larvae, and gave the rest of the drones a chance to escape.
A beach on Dunkan Losteus' island, 12:00 pm
A Robinson R44 lightweight civilian helicopter as making a flyby over the beach, with Paul Moriyama as the pilot. The helicopter itself took off from an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which was accompanied by a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. "Welcome back." Dunkan called out as Fuyuki stepped out in navy trunks with Momoka in a matching dental floss bikini.
As soon as the both of them took a dive from the R44 helicopter, Dunkan motioned to back off a little and get back to his patrols. The helicopter returned to the anchored Arleigh Burke destroyer, thus leaving our love birds to play in peace. They splashed water in each others' faces, then they built sand castles, and finally, they simply stared out into the ocean.
You remember that promise I made to you on new years day, right?" Fuyuki, having remembered his promise, asked of Momoka. A serenely sensual "Yes." was her only reply as Fuyuki advanced in on her body because if they were going to have sex, they were going to do it standing upright. "let's do this. You with me? Oh and by the way, happy birthday." Fuyuki breezed willing to give his present, to which Momoka only nodded.
He began by kissing her lips and stroking her legs, after which he followed up by fingering her nipples. Finally, with his manhood a precision instrument, he closed in to seal the deal as an orgasmic investment in the future between the two. Unbeknownst to the both of them, a Nishizawa drone, hijacked by Kululu, was watching, and recording it all with complete and utter impunity. Neither Baio nor Oka would be in the know of all that at the moment because of the calamity going on at the European information nexus.
Somewhere within the region of Abkhazia, 4:00 am. August 23, 2002
Harper, Frankie, Rebecca, Slash Cat, Big Bones, Skeletalker, Toothslayer, Wolveraider, along with Blood Scorpion, the Russian Spetsnaz, the Daikage cell, and another EX.W.A.T.I. registered, privately owned paramilitary unit dubbed "The Shadow of Allah," designation: Kilo Iota 39. Several Boeing AH-64 Apache and Mil Mi-28 Havok gunships hovered overhead, with a multitude of A-10 Warthogs providing fire support, as well as another new aircraft; the Northrop Grumman A-122 Pangolin carrier based supersonic ground attack aircraft based on the original YF-23 black widow.
The Pangolin is equipped with yet another variant of the Z400 turbofan, dubbed the Z400VL1 for V.T.O.L. capability, along with an additional two internal weapons bays at each wing for extra firepower without compromising stealth and aerodynamics. All this is part of EX.W.A.T.I. joint special mission, codename: Dunkleosteus. The mission itself, prepared in the wake of the European information nexus disaster was to track and identify Gial so he along with the other assassin drones could be terminated on sight in case of any future aggressions from them.
Why were Gial and company going to Abkhazia, you may ask? It's because Ghallig, Raikoume, Kamikase, and Naozi are standing by at the encryption node site to securely upload the information to the Rapier for review by Aoryuzen. Ghallig had spotted some Spetsnaz soldiers snooping around for any signs of life. Once one of them stepped in some silken trip line, Ghallig moved in and ambushed them both slicing them into pieces with his dual, razor sharp chelicerae. That set off an alarm with the advancing soldiers who moved in to investigate, bringing then within range of Ghallig's chelicerae.
That may not be enough to defend the node as there were hundreds of Muslim Allah's Shadow soldiers hell bent on waging jihad on the assassin drones. That's where Shiclerin comes into the fray fused to Trokyushe for extra firepower with surgical precision and needle sharp eyesight for the job. Trokyushe charged up the offset mounted sniper bolt cannon, Shiclerin fired it, a dangerous combination that would make it harder on the EX.W.A.T.I. operatives than it already was. Of course, the Pangolins and Warthogs would come in for harassment, which Trokyushe responded to in deploying his electro-plasma shields.
Several larva operated anti air gun and rocket turrets to try and shoot the aircraft down, successfully killing a couple of Warthogs midair. The larvae themselves were born perfectly suited for combat as they have four, fully dextrous pairs of six claws up front, and four at the back, and fully capable of operating machines such as the anti air turrets. Moaghen launched his trademark mind control strike on the soldiers to further reduce their numbers.
Raikoume and Kamikase emerged from the cave at the base of the mountain fighting mad as the killdozer tore and plowed its way through hordes of assassin drone larvae. The raptor twins unleashed their combination light speed dash technique on the soldiers who fired a few RPGs when Skeletaker and the killdozer opened fire on them with their tank guns.
Harper, Frankie, and Rebecca swerved through the chaos as they found that Gial had already uploaded all the data to the Rapier. However, They're not here for the data, but rather to put a homing device on Gial's body. Frankie baited Gial into charging, while Rebecca cast a steel mesh net to immobilize the creature, and Harper jumped onto him to aim the nail gun at the cephalothorax, and pull the trigger.
The homing device pierced Gial's skull, but that wouldn't kill an assassin drone, for that he would need to destroy the personality core inside it. However, Harper would not need to kill him, just make him visible to EX.W.A.T.I. high command's ever prying eyes. In short, in the midst of all the chaos at Abkhazia, Operation: Dunkleosteus was a rousing success, despite all the casualties suffered.
However, EX.W.A.T.I. and the assassin drones weren't the only groups there, with Kamui seeking payback for all the nukes that were stolen during Operation: Hyaenodon, and the Don Viper gang looking to cash in on some mechadrone stem cells and spare parts strewn about the battlefield. That's when Big Bones motioned to gobble up some of the parts so as to help destroy any evidence of EX.W.A.T.I.'s war in the shadowlands.
The assassin drones seized this chance to escape from Abkhazia upon having armed a bomb within the node as part of their own contribution to the cover up following Operation: Dunkleosteus. EX.W.A.T.I. would also get out of Abkhazia leaving Kamui and the Don Viper gang scrapping over what's left. The aftermath would give the Russians an excuse to move in and occupy Abkhazia so as to quell the resulting violence.
Once on the borderlands, Gial motioned towards Naozi and Fuhinga, who were rather curious about the object sticking out of his forehead. "Ah, ja! An EX.W.A.T.I. homing device." "Eh, yes! ah zink ah cehn repreugrehm it so that it can no longair trehk Gial, but help Gial track zee signals associated wit zis EX.W.A.T.I. of vich zey speek." Naozi and Fuhinga declared as the two helped Gial to remove the homing device, reprogram it, and repair the amblypygid's cephalothorax at the puncture wound itself with a specially concocted silken bioadhesive on Fuhinga's part. All leaving EX.W.A.T.I. itself none the wiser, seeing as how the assassin drones of Alpha 134 are the undisputed masters of deception within the milky way galaxy.
\Thank you as usual, Naozi. Not only won't we have to worry about the humans tracking our movements and signals, but we can be able to track their movements and signals with the proper equipment./ Aoryuzen declared as Gial and company were evacuated to the Rapier for further instructions. "Heh, nice work getting at Kamui the way you did." An older female keronian leader of her assassin paramilitary unit, one by the name of Gunnery Sergeant Kiriri, remarked. "Thanks. It wasn't at all easy, but with the right motivation, it can be done. Besides, it was merely a diversion for us to collect some information on EX.W.A.T.I. and the assassin drones." The dark turquoise Zyururu replied in thanks as their two respective units continued their reconnaissance mission.
What were Zyururu and Kiriri up to in regards to EX.W.A.T.I.?
Why was Moriri so obsessed with Gial?
Who is in possession of Alpha 134's hive mind?
Will Ranma ever have anything to do with Fuyuki?
Read the next arc to find out.