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A bit of Kululu this chapter. Umm...Not much else to say? I don't know why the pace is going so slowly. These chapter summaries took place before I went to a new chapter summary format.
Finally edited. YAY!
Natsumi recalled that the shaking hadn't stopped for an entire week. After a week, the bombs had truly stopped as the rest of the world halted, probably dead.
The shaking differed from major earthquake level, to just the sound of an explosion, but it was pretty constant.
It was on the second day that they all decided to talk about what was happening. Fuyuki and Natsumi hadn't stopped crying very much. Koyuki and Saburo cried less, due to not having as strong a connection with their families.
"H-how did this happen...?" Natsumi sniffled, trying to keep a strong expression on her face. Fuyuki didn't even try.
"Haven't you been keeping up with the news? Tensions between the countries and the entire world is at an all-time high," Giroro explained.
"I thought that was just paranoia. I didn't think anything would come of it!" she admitted.
"I didn't even know," Keroro volunteered. Kululu face-palmed. "What? I watch cartoons. Not boring Pekoponian news." He shrugged.
Dororo brought the four pekoponians calming tea. It was their world that was dying. Although he mourned Pekopon, he knew he had to be supportive of them instead of mourning for himself. He loved the planet, but he also loved the people inhabiting the planet, and four of them required his attention right now.
Koyuki took the tea and tried to get Natsumi to drink. Natsumi drank under Koyuki's supervision and nodded, trying to buck up.
"I'm... I'm good. I'm just so confused. I didn't see this coming. At all," she said again. "How long are we going to have to be in the base? Can it support all of us."
"As long as I'm doing regular upkeep, hypothetically we could stay here forever," Kululu told her. "And we can't go outside. I've mentioned this one hundred times now. The rest of the world is inhospitable." He bragged, "This place is the safest place in the world at the moment, thanks to my technology."
"So... y-you knew this was coming?" Fuyuki tried to get his voice stop shaking.
"Yep. I didn't know when it was coming, when the tension between countries would break, but I knew it was coming. That's the reason I invited Saburo over, actually. He's a smart guy, but without alien technology around him I doubt he'd survive." Kululu glanced at him.
Saburo grinned. "He saved my life."
Fuyuki stood up and let out a loud scream. "You knew this was coming and you didn't prepare us?"
"We prepared the base best we could." Giroro told him, crossing his arms. "I'm sorry about Aki. But she probably would have gone to work, anyway, if we asked her to stay home. I actually did tell her to stay home, but she wanted to work," he admitted. "I expected Keroro to prepare you... But it seems he didn't know."
"Sure is lucky that Dororo and Koyuki came over, huh?" Keroro laughed nervously. They had dodged a bullet there living in the place with the least technology. Dororo frowned at him. If Keroro had kept up with the news, Tamama might have still been there with them.
"Why'd you just invite Saburo? If you knew this was coming, why didn't you invite Momoka too?" Fuyuki yelled. "She... She was out there too... She was probably a target. Her house might have been bombed..." He let out another choked out sobbed. "Why... Why didn't you warn her? Why isn't she with us, Kululu?" he asked angrily. "Why does your friend get to live and not mine?"
Kululu looked a little shocked. "As... As Giroro said, I thought the Captain would deal with inviting everyone. I thought he was in on the plan. He's the leader here, not me. I'm not responsible for your lives."
Keroro looked down glumly. As if he could feel worse.
Natsumi looked over at Fuyuki's angry expression as a sense of realization overcame her. At least half of his constant tears were over Momoka. Momoka, his friend and possibly the girl he even loved, had been out there and was most likely dead if Kululu's information was correct.
She looked over at Saburo and Koyuki. She had been lucky. Both her friend and her crush were here, and alive. She had no right to be crying, compared to Fuyuki.
People she cared about had survived. Fuyuki's hadn't.
Natsumi's crying seized as she saw her light of hope. She had been lucky. She needed to stop moping and realize how lucky she was.
"Thank you for at least trying, Kululu," she told him. "You saved Saburo, at least."
"I just assumed you'd all be here." Kululu glanced at Keroro, angrily. "Before I find out accidentally, what else did you screw up?" he asked it in a joking manner, like he didn't expect an answer.
"Well..." Keroro opened his mouth to speak.
"Never mind. I suspect I don't want to hear it." Kululu covered his headphones.
Keroro closed his mouth and then opened it again in a quizzical manner. "Kululu. Is there anyway to contact Keron to get them to get us a spaceship to bring us out of here?"
Giroro grinned. Keroro did have good ideas sometimes in dire situations. Although the base was fine for now, he doubted that everyone would be fine living in it forever. And he didn't expect that Pekopon would heal itself very quickly from the radiation outside. If Keroro's lectures on sci-fi taught him anything, it took thousands of years for that to happen.
"Did you not hear anything when I told you the communication lines are down? There is no way to contact anyone. I have a cell phone, but it doesn't contact out of the planet or in the planet, since all the satellites are down," Kululu said.
"That's... bad," Keroro frowned.
"It's not all bad. There is a way to contact Keron." Kululu grinned. Keroro's eyes gleamed in optimism.
"What is it?" Giroro asked.
"We have a communications officer, might I remind you. Mois's phone can make universal calls, despite satellites. That, and she works better with communication than I do. She might be able to fix what's broken and - " Kululu was cut off by Keroro's frown.
"Remember when you told me not to tell you about what I screwed up on?" Keroro asked. Kululu nodded slowly.
"Please tell me she's in her room sleeping." Kululu slowly realized what Keroro was about to say. He had assumed Mois would be in the base... She was usually in the base, so he hadn't told her of the oncoming danger, either, but now he was getting worried.
"I... I kind of sent Tamama and her out shopping. And... they haven't returned yet," Keroro said quietly.
Kululu frowned. "Damn. I knew you could screw up something. You sent two people out of the house?"
Keroro nodded. Kululu thought for a moment. "I don't know about Tamama. We can only hope for the best for him. But Mois's probably okay. Her body is made to stand all sorts of harsh environments. Radiation at this level shouldn't harm her at all. She's probably the only one who can actually survive the atmosphere." Kululu talked quickly, fact and hopefullness meshing together. "As long as she doesn't get hit directly by something like by an entire bomb she'll be fine. And it's very unlikely that she'll be hit. She could see it coming and fly away or something."
Keroro nodded.
Fuyuki still was angry. "So she's probably okay on the outside, but you still forgot to invite Momoka here?"
Keroro pulled Fuyuki gently down to the ground to sit. "Being angry won't solve anything. I'm worried about my companions, too. Don't worry, Fuyuki. I'm here," Keroro calmly told him.
Fuyuki looked at his friend and started crying again. He wanted to hope for the best for Tamama, Mois, and Momoka, but he was so scared for Momoka.
Natsumi still sat in shock. Koyuki chatted with Dororo, still trying to convince him to let her go out and help people as Dororo tried to explain to Koyuki what radiation was. She had never been taught.
"Natsumi? Are you okay?" Giroro asked. "I'm sorry, I should have told you..."
"I would have been just like Mom." She shook her head. "I saw the news I thought it was just paranoia. It wasn't your fault."
"Kululu and I shouldn't have relied on Keroro. It's just... what if Dororo and Koyuki hadn't come over? What if they had been out there?" he asked her.
"I suppose my math test saved their lives," Natsumi tried to joke. Giroro laughed.
"It would be the first time math saved anything," he smiled. Natsumi smiled a little bit, too. Laughter really was the best medicine.
She was glad Giroro was down there with her, and she was secretly glad most of the frogs were safe.
There was a lot of mourning of humanity to do, but at the moment she didn't have to be too strong. Giroro and Kululu seemed to know what they were doing, and even the stupid frog seemed to be stepping up and acting leaderly, calming Fuyuki down.
She was glad that they were all safe and together. She could at least be happy about that and think of the best.
She smiled, and after a full thirty six hours, she finally went to sleep.
"So we'll be fine?" Giroro whispered quietly to Kululu as most of the Pekoponians slept. Dororo had curled up next to Koyuki, trying to keep her inside the base. Only Keroro hadn't fallen asleep, and his eyes were still glued to the base door, waiting for Tamama and Angol Mois to return.
He hoped they knocked, because the door was currently locked.
"Unless a bomb hits this exact house, we'll be safe," Kululu told him. "Not even my technology would be able to stand that."
Giroro cleaned a weapon "And... would we know if a bomb was heading this way?" Giroro asked.
"The louder the explosions get, the closer they are to this house. It's not rocket science. But I seriously doubt that there would be a coincidence and one would head for this location. If it did, our luck would be seriously bad." Kululu narrowed his eyes and looked at Giroro. "Actually... you do attract falling objects quite a bit. Ku. Guess it's not that unlikely."
"Hey!" Giroro growled.
Suddenly, there was a loud explosion. The loudest yet. It jolted Dororo and all four pekoponians awake, the sharp pain of the noise entering their ears.
No shaking accompanied the explosion, though. Kululu quickly started doing calculations on his computer and pressed a button to pick up the frequency of the explosion.
Giroro tried to say something, but nobody could hear him. It took a full hour for the ringing to stop.
Finally when they could hear again, Giroro yelled his question, not used to the volume of his own voice. "What was that? Was that the level of loudness you were talking about?"
"Yeah... Ku." Kululu told him.
"But... we're not dead? Did it hit the house next to us?" Giroro asked. Kululu shook his head and turned his computer screen toward him.
"From my calculations, that bomb hit directly above us. But since there was no shaking, it probably didn't impact this house. Meaning it must have exploded in the air. Ku ku ku. We just narrowly escaped death," Kululu said.
"It... It would have killed us if it hadn't exploded above us?" Natsumi asked.
"It was probably a faulty bomb," Kululu explained. "Or some shrapnel from some other bomb hit it and detonated it. Something like that."
"Will another one hit this same place if one was headed here?" Saburo asked.
"Not likely. You could say, lighting doesn't strike the same place twice? Ku, ku, ku. I'm hilarious." Kululu laughed at himself. When he saw nobody else was laughing, he stopped. "We should be safe, though. Giroro's unluckiness didn't kill us this time. Don't worry."
Giroro frowned. He was not excited about the isolation in the base he'd have to share with Kululu.
But the rest of them waited. The small shaking and small explosions finally seized at the end of the week. And they all felt in their hearts that it was finally over.
Natsumi looked around the base glumly. Her new life had finally started. And unlike Fuyuki, who was still crying, she knew she had to be strong.
It was time to adapt instead of living in the past.
She needed to be there for her friends.
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