For the first time in half a year, Ataru Moroboshi sets foot outside his home. He blinks in the sunlight. He breathes in the fresh air. He hears the sounds of birds singing. He feels the warmth of the sun against his skin. It's... beautiful. No other word for it. After being inside for so long it is simply gorgeous out here.
Though not nearly as pretty as the three chicks walking past his house clad in naught but tiger print bikinis and thigh high gogo boots!
Some skills you forget with disuse. Others come back to you like riding a bike. You think you've forgotten, but you've still got the knack. In the case of one Ataru Moroboshi he had not gone girl hunting in six months time. For him it wasn't a matter of forgetting. You see, he couldn't ever forget something like this. All that happened instead was a built up release of energy and, to cut a long story short, he teleported in a cloud of perverted smoke outside the garden and next to the trio.
"Hi ladies!" he said, taking care to examine and memorise every single inch of exposed flesh before moving onto the not exposed flesh. This way he could fill in the blanks himself. "My, my! Oni fashion does you all kinds of favours! I simply must know your names, your numbers, your addresses and your three - No, no! No need to tell me your three sizes, I already have a pretty solid idea!"
This was where the expected electric shock hit him like a bolt from the blue. Sure enough it's probably a familiar sight for most readers: Ataru being shocked by a pretty girl in a tiger print bikini. But this was a human being. She didn't have the special powers innate to the Oni race. Nope! Not at all. She just had a taser.
"Weirdo!" one of them spat.
"Huh... He seemed familiar didn't he?" another mused. "Wasn't he the boy that lost to Lady Lum in the tag race? We are outside his house."
"Pft, no way! That guy was way more handsome than that loser!"
"Yeah he was not near as pale. Or as skinny. Nor did he have this crazy gleam in his eye."
"As if traitors to the human race have any right to say anything!"
"Yipes!" the girls jumped. "It's that crazy psycho-chick with no fashion sense!"
And off they ran down the street, scared spitless of Shinobu. When he turned around Ataru kind of saw the point. That was not a face you wanted to be within twenty feet of unless you happened to like getting your balls chewed off. Which was a fetish Ataru would permit no woman to indulge in, thank you very much!
"Dummy!" Shinobu flicked him on the forehead. Then she strode across the street and helped pull Ataru out of the hole in the wall that he'd made with his body. "We need to be working out ways to fight back against the Oni, not reinforcing this crummy, slutty, overbearing new fashion sense! I bet they've woven some kind of parasitic life-form into the threads to take over everyone's minds! We've got to find out a way to save them, not hit on them!"
Right, right. Come to think of it she had become a bit of a slightly twitchy conspiracy theorist in the last six months, hadn't she? It was a bit difficult to spot that when he was isolating himself so much from everyone else, but now that he was coming back out into the world at large the least Ataru could do was summon up all of his knowledge about Shinobu to say exactly the right thing to help her calm down.
"You'd look really hot in that bikini," he nodded sagely. The next thing Ataru new he was being embedded slightly into a wall again, except this time he was being held up. Namely by Shinobu. By the neck.
"Don't even joke about that!" Shinobu said. "I will never submit to those evil alien overlords! I will never - " Shinobu stopped to gulp. "Slip on those comfortable looking bikinis and parade around my body for all to see, the tiger print flattering my figure." The look in her eyes dialed up the crazed and far off seeing. "I'll never strut down the street where everyone can see me barely wearing anything at all! With the gogo boots forcing me to adjust my posture to something sexier and more healthy, not to mention more confident in my appeal."
"Uh... Shinobu?"
"Not to mention how much it'll make my recent breast growth much more obvious! I'd be able to walk around with my head held high knowing the girls are getting a good showing!"
"Sh-Shinobu?"
"And… and they'll gawk at me and undress me with their eyes! Then some alien prince will decide I'd make a good girlfriend and take me to his spaceship and the next thing I know there's a bikini wedding dress!" She shrieked.
"Shinobu?!"
"What do you want you lame boring earthling?! I mean... Like I was saying I would never submit to the Oni no matter what! So what's with the interruption?"
"You're drawing a crowd."
Shinobu slowly turned to peer over her shoulder. Sure enough, there was a group of people behind her, all of them in the now standard Oni attire. One of them took a picture, and a moment later the scarily strong girl smiled and slowly lowered Ataru back to the ground.
Weirdly, Ataru was still really turned on by this. After all, Shinobu had never ranted about repressed seuxal desires and covered them up with planetary patriotism before! It was new and interesting! And hey, if he managed to save the Earth maybe she'd still marry him. Also he really wanted to see that bikini wedding dress.
"Hahahaha!" Shinobu laughed while curtseying. "Excuse us! Goodbye!" She grabbed hold of Ataru and began hauling him down the street, with her free hand she then reached into her bag, pulled out a roll of tinfoil and started wrapping it around her head. "I know what you're doing! You're using your alien mind control beams to make me want to wear those super comfortable looking bikinis that everyone I know is wearing and looks super - Cut it out! Stop that! I won't fall for it!"
"This is still super hot," Ataru muttered to himself.
Do you know the biggest problem with being so fabulously wealthy? Boredom. Everything is handed to you. All you have to do is ask, and your wildest fantasies can be realised. That was why Ryoko 'acted out'. Tormented her brother. Tormented everyone she met, for that matter. From the perspective of Ryoko Mendo life had recently become a lot more interesting. And why shouldn't it when she had gained a brand new playmate?
"What is it that Earth boys like?" said the pretty alien girl who had a physique many human women would gladly commit murder for. Not Ryoko of course, her figure was rather splendid as it was. "Would using my tractor beam to suck him into my UFO be a faux pas? That's how I met my last boyfriend."
"Generally that's considered kidnapping."
"But he's not a goat. Nor would he be asleep."
Ryoko gave her a flat look at that remark. "Lum, we both know you speak the language fluently, please do not try to kid a kidder."
"Fooey! I'll get you one of these days!" Lum stuck her tongue out at the girl.
No she wouldn't. The girl was probably considered quite the trickster up in space, but down here on Earth she would have to really up her game. Perhaps it was the absurdly advanced, almost magical technology that made insane pranks so easy in space? Ryoko could accomplish more with a lie then Lum did with cyber-clones. Not to say that Ryoko regularly lied to Lum, not her. She knew who buttered the bread now, and as long as she stayed in the Oni's good graces then everything would go well.
Not to mention that Lum occasionally gave her new technology to torture - ah, play with her brother. That one time she used that temporary double ray gun to make a dozen Tombimaru's had been hilarious. Then there was the time that she trapped him in that pitch black pocket universe. Oh, and the time she had tricked him into getting into a fist fight with his own future self! That had taken quite some planning but it had been quite worth it in the end.
This was about the time that she noticed a quirk of phrasing Lum had used a little while ago. "Last boyfriend?" Ryoko repeated. "That's what you said before, right? Don't tell me you intend to date this Moroboshi boy."
"Maybe I do. Maybe not!" Lum said. Now she was holding up two 'fancy' variants of her tiger print swimsuit. Technically speaking she only had the one bikini, but it seemed as though she wasn't counting her 'special occasion' outfits. "Which looks cuter?"
"The right one," Ryoko said. Lum immediately discarded it, just as Ryoko had wanted. She was still a step behind on the bluff-double bluff game. Then again that left bikini on that body was still going to leave men drooling like the pigs they all secretly were. "What I mean is, are you quite serious? The only interaction you've had with him is humiliating him in front of the entire world half a year ago." Ryoko stopped a moment after saying that. Oh goodness. She really had to up her game, that was rather tremendous trolling.
"He's interesting." Lum said, "I'm sure we can learn a bit more about each other in a more casual context!"
"Might I suggest practising safe casual context?" Ryoko advised, only half joking. "You wouldn't want to accidentally discover how biologically compatible our species are, do you?"
"I don't think that's much of a problem. We Oni have live births." Lum said. "So I don't think there's going to be any freaky hybrids."
Live births? What, like Humans didn't- "Oh? So how does your species intercourse and birth work?"
Lum's face reddened, "Well, uh, you know… it's like.. The male puts their… thing. Into the female, and there's internal insemination and the baby grows in our… body."
"Oh? Fascinating." Ryoko said, somehow managing to hide the massive shit-eating grin that was within her soul. Her face remained astonishingly neutral throughout all of it. "That sounds a little odd to me."
"Yeah, my dad told me about how Humans reproduce. You girls lay eggs in pools of water and the male inseminates them right?"
"Yes that is exactly how it goes." Ryoko lied through her teeth. "It's why it's called the Birds and the Bees. The birds lay the eggs and the bees drop the pollen on them."
There was a sound like a thunderous hammer. It actually made Lum jump when it happened "What was that?" she asked.
"I'm sorry I didn't have breakfast," Ryoko smoothly lied. Actually, it had been the sound of her restrained laughter knocking desperately so it could get out.
"And then once the eggs hatch and the larvae develop into tiny baby humans storks come pick them up to deliver them to the proper parents right? I don't get how that works, evolution wise." Lum asked.
"That's a long and involved history. The stork-mankind symbiosis has been the subject of centuries of study and discussion." Ryoko said. "I'm sure if you looked into it you would find all manner of references to the involvement of storks in the reproductive process, especially in Western media."
"Why Western media?"
"They're a little less shy on such matters for whatever reason," Ryoko shrugged. "One need only look at the predominance of graphic violence in their work to understand the difference in outlook."
"Hrm... Well, that's a shame. I've heard that our way is a lot more fun. If a human had been interesting enough, I might have tried it out with them... Oh well, I doubt they'd be interested."
Clong! This time Ryoko dropped to her knees from the internal impact of holding in her laughter.
"Are you OK?" Lum asked, leaning over her friend.
"I'm fine. I was overcome with the thought of an Oni/human hybrid." Ryoko said, "It was far too cute. Alas, it will never be, if only my brother understood anything about sex and women."
"I wouldn't want to mate with your brother anyway," Lum sharply decreed. "He's all looks and that's all. I've had enough of that for a lifetime, thank you very much! I want someone interesting in my life!" When you have thousands of species of various sexual and genetic compatibilities relationships could stretch in pretty unique ways on the Galactic Dating Scene. And Lum did not want anything remotely 'vanilla' right now. She had tried that already. And then that 'vanilla' had demanded she make him some curry. Then more curry, and more, and more...
"I completely agree about wanting something interesting." Ryoko said, though she was sure that the two of them had different definitions of interesting.
Then the door to Ryoko's room was kicked open. "So… Dark… so… scary! Princess!" Shutaro walked through the door, his eyes twitching and his voice very high pitched. "I got the hot sauce!" He said, wobbling to the chair she was sitting in. He sat the bottle down on a small side table next to her, "As… always… I do my best… for you."
"Thank you Mr. Mendo, I'll see you later!" Lum said, swanning out of the room without giving him a second look. Or for that matter a first.
Shutaro's eyes didn't move from the bottle of hot sauce he had just gone through hell to get. "You're quite welcome," he said nervously. "Though I do have to wonder what you wanted it for!"
A few seconds later, after it was reasonably certain that Lum had definitely gone, a smile crept up onto Ryoko's face. "Heh," she chuckled. "Hehehe... Hehehehehehehehe! Hahahahahahahahaha!"
"Ryoko? Are you quite alright little sister?"
To which the girl nodded her head quite enthusiastically, continuing to laugh the entire time. Then she grabbed hold of her brother's lapels and flipped him over onto the floor, planting a foot on his chest and then seizing hold of the bottle of hot sauce with a gleam of mischief in her eyes that was even greater than normal.
"Sister?! What has taken hold of you?" she leaned down and grabbed Shutaro's lower jaw, forcing his mouth open. Then, the bottle was upended, emptying its spicy hot contents down the boy's throat. "Mmmph!" he impotently yelled, thrashing around while his sister laughed and laughed and laughed.
Oh, but this Moroboshi boy might prove to be extremely entertaining! She hadn't even met him yet and he was already making her laugh this much! "Come on dear brother, we've got to escort our cute Princess!"
"Wait, this is the school?" Ataru looked up at the building where once Tomobiki High had stood. It was a large dome, with dozens of windows and lights around it. People came in through a set of doors at the front, or walked into some standing glass tubes connecting the outside to the dome.
"One of the first things they did was start their brainwashing education program, every school is now this massive computer run facility." Shinobu said. "The teacher is fighting back, best he can, I just know it." Shinobu clenched her fists, "I bet they put subliminals into the videos. Why else would they upgrade all of our equipment like this? You gotta be careful Ataru, now that you'll actually be heading back to class."
"So the aliens are actually getting into education huh…" Ataru mused, "I suppose that's why we've been learning quantum tunneling and 4D manipulation instead of Algebra. The concepts are pretty easy once explained." He shrugged, "So how do we get in?"
"The tubes take you straight to class, but you can walk yourself through the doors if you need something from the school store." Shinobu explained, "Come on, I'm giving you the tour." Still holding on to his arm, she dragged him past the tubes into the school itself.
Inside everything was very shiny and nice looking. Chrome floors and clean shoe lockers. So clean you could probably eat off them. Half the students putting shoes in their lockers were also staring at small glass looking squares in their hands, tapping them occasionally. And they were all in tiger striped clothing of various levels of modesty. Lower levels than your typical school, even during swim class. Much though Ataru would like to dwell on that fact, there was one other thing that was kind of bothering him and he felt it best to get it out of the way now so he could focus his entire attention on the new fashion sense.
"What're those things they're looking at?" Ataru asked.
"Brainwashing tablets," Shinobu explained. "They call them 'mobile phones', but they're clearly brainwashing tablets. Why else would everyone wander around tapping them rather than talking to each other? Besides which, wouldn't phones be used to talk rather than send typed messages?"
"You going on about phones again Shinobu?"
Across the hall was the school store, and leaning out the window was…
"Well hello there." Ataru was up at the utter babe in a tight bikini manning the school store, "Name's, err, uh…" Wait. He didn't know if this girl would realize that he was the one who had failed humanity.
"Wait, are you Ataru? Did Shinobu manage to drag ya to school!" The girl said, smirking at Shinobu.
"Ryuunosuke!" Shinobu said, stomping her foot, "They're evil!"
"Ya also told me the internet's sucking out people's souls." The what?
"You've seen how people act on that 3chan site! They have to be evil!" Shinobu walked up to the girl, "Anyways, this is Ryuunosuke Fujinami, she's a friend of mine who transferred here a while back. Her dad runs the school store and…"
"Ah! Shinobu! Here to see your boyfriend!?" A frankly, disturbing face jumped out from the school store. He then promptly got hit by a heavy box filled with hundreds of pencils.
"I ain't any boyfriend you idiot!" Ryuunosuke snapped.
"He thinks we're dating, for some reason." Shinobu sighed. "Also, he treats Ryuunosuke like a boy."
"...how?" Ataru said, his eyes unable to leave the view of Ryuunosuke's figure.
Ryuunosuke leaned in, smirking, "Ya see, this outfit's special. It projects some weird hologram thing into my old man's eyes, he sees me wearing an old boy's uniform." The girl put her hands behind her head and thrust out her chest. Ataru's tongue rolled out of his mouth and he began to pant like a dog. "Hehehe! You tell me? Am I a boy or a girl?"
"Girl, definitely a girl," Ataru said. "Really, super, totally a girl, so how about your phone number and maybe we can meet up-"
Shinobu grabbed Ataru by the ear, "Will you stop the flirting for five minutes!" She snapped.
Ryuunosuke laughed, "Anyways, if you want a number you gotta get a phone I think. How about after class we get you one?"
Ataru considered this, on one hand Shinobu was claiming they were alien mind control devices, on the other hand an utter babe wanted to go shopping with him. "Sure thing, after school?"
Shinobu facepalmed, "Ataru!" She groaned.
"You can come too." Ryuunosuke offered.
"I think I will, somebody's got to save him." Shinobu said, sighing as she saw the look on Ataru's face as he clearly took it as a date with both of them. "Come on, we need to get to class."
The classroom itself was, in structure, not that different. There were rows of desks, a blackboard, and a desk for the teacher. The teacher was dressed like most men. Wearing a orange and black outfit. Except that for some reason instead of black stripes it was patterned with black onsen symbols.
"Hmm? Who's this?" Onsen Mark said, "Transfer student?"
"Err, no. It's-" Shinobu began.
"Oy!" One guy said, "Is that Moroboshi?"
"No way he'd be stupid enough to show his face again!" Another added.
"Wait it is him!" In a flash Ataru found himself surrounded by a bunch of angry students. Several of them pulled out clubs, maces, and at least one broadsword. "Get him!" All the male students in the classroom jumped at him!
WHAM! Then all the boys in the class flew up into the air, thanks to the desk Shinobu was wielding. "What is wrong with you! Ataru's the only one of you boys who is fighting the Oni! He's the only one being a man, while us helpless girls have to suffer under their rule!"
"Helpless…?" One of the boys muttered from his hole in the ceiling.
"Ataru, did those mean boys hurt you?" Shinobu dropped the desk back onto the ground, grabbing her boyfriend's hands. "They're such hypocrites! Whining and complaining about alien rule but never doing anything about it."
"Huh?" This was new, she wasn't this grabby usually.
"Don't worry about it man." Ryuunosuke patted Ataru on the shoulder, "The guys are annoyed 'cause they can't get as many dates now."
"So you're Ataru Moroboshi then, well I suppose it's nice to have you in class at least!" Onsen Mark laughed, "Now class, settle down. It's time for English class to start!"
The male students, regrettably, settled into their seats. As Shinobu sat down in her desk next to his she dropped a pair of sunglasses on his head before donning her own. "Here, this will block the hypnosis rays their computers use."
"Uhh…"
"Just put them on. It'll make her happy." Ryuunosuke whispered to Ataru, wearing a pair of her own. Ataru shrugged and put them on.
"Gosh, doesn't he look weirdly cool like that?" he heard one girl whisper. Well that settled it, he would wear these sunglasses whenever they were needed!
"I still think Ryuunosuke looks cooler with them." Another girl said with a sigh.
"Oh if only she was wearing boys clothes still…" Another said.
"I don't know, the bikini kind of works for her..." another said.
Note to self: Kick self upside head for not coming to school. Oh the things he had to catch up on!
Meanwhile, out in the shopping district of Tomobiki, a limo came to a stop. The front door opened, and Mendo dashed out to open the backdoor. "Tomobiki, my lady." he said.
"Oh thank you so much dear brother." Ryoko said, stepping out of the limo.
Mendo's eye twitched, "W-where is she?"
"Lum? Oh she ditched the limo while we were driving through WcDonalds." Ryoko shrugged, "She said she wanted to stretch her legs and fly around."
"T-then why did she have us drive it here!?" Mendo gripped his katana.
"To sell it to the scrap shop. We're getting a zero point hover limo dear brother, don't need this old gas powered one now." Ryoko said. And then her Kuroko swarmed out of the trunk, picked up the limo, and carried it down the sidewalk to labeled scrap shop.
"And you didn't think to tell me this! Princess Lum is out in the world! Where as we speak there may be assassins plotting her doom, or did you forget the exploding dolls she got sent last week!"
"Those were from Ran." Ryoko said, recalling how the cute little dolls had gotten lost. She had helpfully guided them to their destination.
"That doesn't change my argument in the slightest!" Mendo shouted, "The Princess is out and about in a big bad dangerous world -"
"That her people conquered as easily as we make a sandwich," Ryoko said. This had a different meaning to her as it did other people. She had a sandwich bell that she rang when she wanted one. So Ryoko was describing even less effort than one might expect from the metaphor.
"But what if she meets that degenerate failure Ataru Moroboshi, and I'm not there to protect her from his crazed vengeance! That man was the most hated human being in the world for weeks Ryoko! Who knows what he'll do!"
Meanwhile, Ataru Moroboshi was staring at a poster of Ran that was hanging in the cafeteria. His eyes narrowed, he took a deep breath.
"You know, taking the time to actually look at her, she's really cute."
"She's an alien!" Shinobu hissed, "She's one of her little friends! She just thinks because music labels like her songs about some Zero thing then she's some kind of celebrity!"
"Ain't idol singers kind of celebrities?" Ryuunosuke asked, holding up three cans of juice.
"Not the point Ryuunosuke!" Shinobu said, grabbing her own OJ. "Earth made, good." She said after checking the label.
"So she's a friend of… Lum?" Ataru said, frowning at the memory of that oni girl.
"According to the tabloids they're in a 'salacious relationship'." Ryuunosuke said.
"Hot," Ataru said without thinking, immediately imagining the idol on the poster with her limbs intertwined with that sexy devious flying horned...
"And they're in league with Bigfoot." Shinobu said, nodding seriously. Producing a tabloid with what appeared to be Lum, Ran, and some kind of… tiger… cow… thing.
"That's Bigfoot?"
"Well, it's not a handsome hunk from beyond the stars!" Shinobu snorted. "I've got a theory, all those cryptids people see were scouting parties!"
Ryuunosuke coughed. "Right then. Anyways, Moroboshi, what kind of budget you have for phones?"
"Err… I don't know." Ataru admitted. "How much do they cost?"
"Not too much, you can set up a payment plan and everything and they give discounts to students." Ryuunosuke said.
"And they put a tracking chip in them." Shinobu said.
"They don't."
"Then how does its in built map always know where you are?" Shinobu smugly asked.
Ryuunosuke opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. "I dunno, actually." She said before pointing at Shinobu, "That don't mean there's some kind of trackin' chip! I bet there's a different reason!"
"GPS..." Ataru muttered to himself, but thought better of telling Shinobu there was a satellite in orbit that could work out where she was. That sounded like it would open a can of worms even he didn't want to see open.
Fifth period was "Galactic History." The biggest indication that humanity had been changed by the coming of the Oni. A portion of the school day was now devoted to learning about the greater universe.
Apparently the galaxy was mostly split between three loose groups. There was the Federation of the Lucky Gods, the Oni Empire, and the unaffiliated groups. Earth had been in the third, until recently. Why Earth had ended up on the take over list wasn't said, because they were still a couple thousand years before that point.
Sixth period was what used to be math, but was instead about Quantum Effects and 4D tunneling. Apparently once you learned it all that tech was really easy. Still, that was nothing Ataru was particularly concerned with right now. Right now he was not so much focused on the lecture, so much as the girls.
Man, they were all so much more interesting like this. School uniforms were, apparently, no longer required. So each girl came with their own outfit, and with the new fashion trends they were all variations of skimpy! To think such a world could be created, a paradise! Such a wonderful-
But wait! Was such a paradise worth it, the cost being mankind's freedom? They were all even now being forced into the Oni's way of thinking, and was it really worth being able to see a babe's breasts bounce in a bikini top as she entered notes into her class computer!?
"Moroboshi! I thought from your grades you were a better student than that!" Oh crap Onsen Mark was in his face. "Instead I find you gawking at other classmates!" The girl he had been staring at blushed a little, Shinobu scowled, and the guys in the class cracked their knuckles.
"Right right, this is just stuff I already know." Ataru said. "Sorry Teach!"
"Oh really?" Onsen Mark scowled, flipping open his textbook. "Well then explain how a 4D gap is made!"
"You gotta use a 2D Point Module, which I could make for a demonstration if you want, and use it to draw a circle in a point where there are no less than three clocks in a five meter radius." Ataru answered without thinking. Honestly those six months had been dull enough for him to actually make him do his school work, and it seemed the habit wasn't going to fade.
"...err that's right." Onsen Mark said, "Carry on then, uh, Moroboshi."