I'm sure everyone knows by now that Caren has horrible sense of direction. Caren KNEW that Kiri, Aryl, and Lexia also knew of this fact, so she had to wonder- WHY THE HELL HAD THEY GIVEN HER A MAP? She was HORRIBLE at reading maps, and ones drawn THIS badly were worse. Aryl had said that she'd be waiting outside the apartment building for Caren, so when Caren was sure she was on the right street, she kept an eye out for the warrior, but no one was there. As she passed by the same apartment building for what seemed like the 17th time (and was actually the 5th) a blond girl emerged from the building, and spoke up, "Are you Caren?" she asked.
Caren turned, and nodded.
"Good." Lexia said, "My drawing skills suck." She explained, obviously referring to the map that Caren was clutching in her hand, "I was afraid you wouldn't make it. Aryl's out of commission right now. Come on up. My name's Lexia."
The two girls headed into Kiri's apartment.
"Oh, good, you're here." Aryl said, from her slightly lounged, slightly flopped position on the couch. "Take a seat. Kiri just went to go check on something."
"Did you tell the other idol princesses about me?" Caren asked Aryl as she took a seat in one of the chairs in Kiri's living room.
Aryl shook her head, "I just mentioned you briefly, but I said I had no idea where you were anymore." She said, as she flipped through channels on the television, paying no attention to her action whatsoever.
Caren smiled, "Thanks, Aryl."
"'Course." Aryl replied. Lexia took a seat in another chair, and soon after, Kiri walked into the room.
"Finally, you're here." Lexia said.
Kiri glared at Lexia, and sat down in the final chair in the room.
"Okay, so let's get started."
XXXX
Two hours later, Aryl's cell phone rang suddenly. She grabbed it and left the room, pressing the talk button.
"'Lo?"
"Aryl?" A voice replied from the other side of the line, which Aryl recognized as a friend of hers from college.
"Yes, hey Nikki." Aryl replied, sitting on the bed in whichever room she'd wandered into.
"You and Lexia left town this weekend, right?" The voice replied.
"Yeah, we're on the other side of Tokyo. Why?" Aryl asked.
"Have you seen the news?" Nikki asked her friend.
"No, not lately. I've been busy. Why, did something happen?" Aryl asked, obviously not sensing the urgency in Nikki's voice. Of course, sensing things like that had never been Aryl's strong point.
"Well, turn it on right now! There is no way you and Lexia can make it back to Union before classes on Monday." Nikki said.
Aryl, now interested purely because the thought of missing classes enthralled her, stood up and again and walked back into the living room, clicking on the television and navigation to a station that was showing the news.
Kiri, Lexia, Caren, and Aryl watched the news with interest (although, three of the four people watching has no idea WHY they were watching the news with interest.)
"All the roads are blocked, Aryl." Nikki said.
"Nikki, I'll call you back." Aryl said, hanging up on Nikki, not noticing how rude she was being. The only thing she was noticing, in fact, was the news (which had to be very interesting to keep Aryl occupied.)
"In the news today, a sudden blizzard has hit half of Tokyo, snowing the entire town in. Travel in and out of the eastern side of the city is incredibly difficult, and all schools and colleges have cancelled classes until further notice…"
"Well, that's that then." Aryl said, "Me and Lexia are stuck here." She told Kiri.
"Apparently." Kiri said.
Lexia was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke up, her words surprised Aryl and Kiri. "That was caused by water demons." She said.
"Huh?" Aryl asked, "Lexia, what do you mean? It looked like a freak blizzard to me."
"Aryl, she's right." Caren said, "It's warm out here. It doesn't make sense for it to be snowing that close. But what does Gaito gain by snowing in half of Tokyo?"
"If anything, he gains a greater challenge, since the two of us are still here." Aryl said, "But still… how would Gaito control the weather like that?"
"There is one reason that he would snow in half of Tokyo." Kiri said.
The three other girls turned to face her.
"Miriella must be there." Kiri said, "He knows you two are more powerful when you're with her, and he must know she's there. I can't say for sure how he did it, but I think he snowed Miriella in."
"Great." Lexia said, "So, how do we get her out?"
"Let's see how far we can get in my car." Aryl suggested, "At least then we can see the damage for ourselves."
Kiri shook her head, "That would be okay, but we'll just be driving out and then driving back. There's nothing we can do right now, except keep our eyes open and see if weird weather pops up anywhere else. If it really is Miriella that's snowed in, then if weird weather shows up in other towns, the other two fighter princesses are probably there."
Suddenly, Moiyu burst into the room, Jay not far behind her.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but Hannah just contacted me." Moiyu said, "I've got some info, and I think it might come in handy."
Kiri nodded, gesturing her over. She hurried over, sitting on the floor, a sheet of paper and a pencil in front of her. She started sketching something. When the sketch was done, there was a basic map of Tokyo, that, although some major roads were out of place and most of the roads were missing, still played its part well.
"Why couldn't she have drawn Caren's map?" Lexia muttered under her breath making Aryl glare at her and Caren giggle.
"Look. The layout of the snow." Moiyu said, picking up her blue colored pencil and sketching the layout of the snow in Tokyo, "No one's noticed this yet from the sattilities, but Hannah told me about ti and I did a small bit of research on it, and figured it out. Gaito's not trying to trap anyone. He's sending a message." She finished the outline, leaning back from her work to let the others look at it.
"I WILL GET YOU"
"What's the point of him sending that?" Aryl asked, "Rather stupid message, if you ask me."
"I know." Moiyu said, "But look at this. I was doing more research, and California's had a lot of forest fires lately. I wasn't able to find any aerial views of them, but anyone want to bet Gaito's sending us more than just one message?"
"So, 'I will get you' is just one part of the message. It could say, 'I will get you a drink.' Or something." Lexia said.
"It's just one part of the message, yes." Moiyu said, "It's not going to say 'I will get you a drink.'"
"Okay, fine." Lexia scowled, leaning back in her chair.
"We can't exactly go to California to figure out the other half of the message." Kiri said.
"Yeah we can." Aryl said, "We'll swim there. We can't go back to school anyway, and I could use a trip."
"Aryl, we were just lost in India yesterday." Caren said. "That was quite a trip."
"Oh, shut up." Aryl said, frowning.
"Aryl has a point. We could swim to California and see if we can figure out what's going on." Lexia said.
"Let's do that then." Kiri said, "We have nothing to do anyway."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I added in the California forest fires because… I needed another place where some kind of bizarre weather could happen, and California's forest fires were the first thing I thought of.
SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THIS CHAPTER OUT! AND TO TOP EVERYTHING OFF, IT'S SHORT! I've been busy with school, and I got stuck in the middle of this chapter. So, I rewrote some of the content and got this idea, and was able to finish the chapter. The next chapter will be longer, it'll be out sooner, I promise. Now I've actually got ideas for this thing, so yeah. Next chapter- California, and the introduction of one more new character. But… she's not all that new. You'll see.
I really don't have any extra info to explain this time around. Anyone have requests on something they'd like explained?
I could always go into how the characters came to be. If anyone actually reads the author's notes, that is.