Let me stop apologizing and just keep on writing, okay?

This chapter, and the next, are long, to make up for…stuff.

Elysium was lost

But now it was found

Land of the living

That we all do mourn

If you could see your loved one again

What price would you pay?

Would you murder someone?

Would you die for someone?

They are synonymous:

Do choose wisely

Chapter 18: Mon Ange, Je T'aime

Iron coated the inside of his mouth. Minoru winced at both the pain of his injury and the bitter taste it had left upon his tongue. He had not expected to feel this much pain, but from the way he had fought, it was not a surprise. The young boy looked up to see a ceiling fan spinning as fast as his head already was. Blinking, he tried to shake away the dizziness to no avail.

'Strange,' thought Minoru, turning to his side and examining his surroundings, 'what an odd color scheme…'

Indeed, he was trapped in a pink and yellow room adorned with lace and other frilly objects. Stuffed animals were strewn about messily. It all looked so bright and colorful that he could have sworn that he was inside a dollhouse. Currently, Minoru was lying on a plush bed that matched the room's décor.

Realizing his plight, Minoru forced himself to sit upright. The boy looked at his hands ruefully. They were covered in multiple lacerations, from when he tried to hold on to the window as his kidnappers tried to drag him away.

He was surprised to find that his wand was sitting on the small nightstand beside the bed. Murmuring under his breath, Minoru pointed his wand at his left hand and did a simple healing spell. The bloodied scabs disappeared from that hand in a wash of pale blue light. He did the same to the other hand.

Leaning forward, Minoru touched his forehead lightly. It throbbed with a fierce, angry ache. Whoever had decided to knock him out had not necessarily been gentle.

Minoru tried to leave the bed, but stopped short when he saw his legs emerge from beneath the comforter.

Socks. Ones he would never even attempt to buy, were on his feet. Pink and blue striped socks.

'Now that's weird…' mused the boy genius, still not quite lucid.

It took him a minute, but Minoru realized, quite quickly, that these weren't socks, but stockings.

Looking at his legs for quite some time, Minoru frowned. As his eyes scrolled down, away from his feet, those dark pools of blue grew wider and wider as he took in just exactly what he was wearing.

A dress. A frilly girl's dress. A frilly, black, girl's dress.

No, he would not panic. There had to be a reason for this. There simply had to.

Running a hand through his hair, he noticed a difference in not only the texture, but length of the strands.

"What."

Before his mind had time to accept this new development, Minoru fainted.

...

Dr. Lestat concentrated on the strings before her, and the piano wires tautened. Her eyes were a dark midnight blue—the color of her mind. It was the color of her soul. Of her very heart.

Our heroes knew better than to move in such a situation.

"Chii?" said Chii, staring at the wires surrounding her. She had a bad feeling that touching them would hurt, so she stayed completely still. However, what was confusing to the little Chobit was that Garrett and Amber weren't doing anything about the situation.

Of course, Garrett was trying to find a way out that didn't involve them getting shopped up by Melinda. However, in all the scenarios playing in his mind, nothing was going right. He kept on getting a DEAD END. Only three people would escape unscathed, and that was one too many to lose.

"So," said Melinda, addressing Garrett, "hand over your master, and I'll spare the boy. I might even throw in your little companions beside you."

"The boy?" asked Amber, wondering what the crazy scientist was even talking about.

"That computer whiz-kid," clarified Melinda. Giggling lightly, she flipped her hair again without using her hands. "He surprised me by being a mage. To be honest, he put up quite a fight."

Inside of Amber, her heart felt heavy and cold—a frozen spot inside of her chest, and it was growing. She knew that her friends had told her about

"Minoru?" Amber had known that they might have targeted him. But why hadn't the mansion's security alerted Garrett, if that was the case? "What have you done with him?"

For a moment, Melinda didn't answer, but smiled sweetly and shook a finger from her free hand, the right one, at the quartet.

"Ah ah ah, not so fast, little butterfly. The only words I want out of your mouth are 'I surrender'."

Staring at the woman in the labcoat, Hideki couldn't quite believe how easily that Kokubunji had been captured. The tyke had helped him so many times, and he was incredibly smart, but in the end he had been helpless against this woman.

There weren't many times in his life that Hideki had felt genuinely upset. There weren't many times that he actually felt that he could express this anger in a positive way.

His hands were in his pockets, and he could feel the edge of the card brush against his fingertips. If he could just find enough room to get his hand out of his pocket…

Neither Garrett or Amber was open to negotiate a surrender, so Melinda prepared to launch an attack. With a positively wicked expression, she glanced to her Persocom Partner. She kept the hand still in her pocket steady, to keep the strings in place while he assaulted them.

"Oh Jared, dear," said Melinda, "would you mind—,"

"ADEAT!"

A rage-filled shout echoed throughout the area. A blast of gold light filled the air.

TWING! TWANG! SNAP!

The sound of multiple strings being cut reverberated around them. Once a few strings had separated, the others snapped one after the other in some sort of chain reaction.

In the middle of it all was Hideki, brandishing a glowing, golden nodachi in one hand, and holding Chii in the other. The petite blond was sitting on top of his arm, holding what looked like a bundle of flowers. Somewhere in the commotion of Hideki slashing the strings she had decided to summon her artefact.

"Chii and Hideki will punish you for being mean to Minoru-kun!" declared Chii boldly. The angry frown spread across her face was more than out of place. Her artifact, however, was what created a huge contrast between her demeanor and her words. It was a sizeable multicolored bundle of stalked flowers, wrapped into a ramshackle bouquet.

As the strings fell away, Melinda began to look nervous. Although they were magically charged, these strings were surprisingly fragile. Jared's attacks were powerful, but not swift—hence her Wire Cage attack that she had used earlier. Normally they would hold up against the strongest of opponents, even those who used 'anti-magic' techniques. However, what that mere boy had used wasn't anti-magic. Heck, could it have really been called magic? It was more like a miracle that sliced through her strings.

By this time, Garrett had summoned his sword, and Amber had whipped out her trusty red fan.

Determined to keep up her façade, Melinda launched her strings toward the butterfly and her companions again. Jared had already summoned his artefact, a somewhat crude-looking hammer called Mewlmeh. It resembled a cat somewhat, but despite its embarrassing appearance, it was good for both offensive and defensive moves. More often than not, he used it to crush bones, but that was a trivial thing for Melinda to think about now.

"Wire CUTTER!" shouted Melinda, arcing her wires over her head and around in a spiral. They collided with the concrete, ripping up huge chunks of grey stone. Hideki, using the boost of magic Chii was supplying, jumped backwards, away from the shaking ground and whipping strings.

Garrett likewise, held Amber close to him. He dug his sword into the ground, and launched himself upwards to avoid the attack.

Jared tried to swing his hammer towards the ascending duo. The sword that Garrett was using had an Attack Buffer ability that he used to cut the damage dealt to him by at least a fourth. Even though Amber had erected a shield around them, the hammer had burst it like a bubble of gum. Garrett winced at how much his servos rattled at the impact. His auto-correct feature for his balance had been thrown off by the bursts of magic, due to the interference with his optics. He had to rely on his internal gyroscope, and it felt like trying to breath, but not smelling anything—unnatural.

He landed, on his feet however, and Amber followed suit. She slashed at the hammer-wielding boy, whose speed, due to the heavy weapon, was sluggish at best.

Swinging her bundle of flowers over her shoulder, Chii squinted her eyes shut and flung her arm forward like a sword. She was still sitting on Hideki's arm, so it threw him off-balance, but not for long.

"Chiiiiii! Flower Power Attaaaack!" The little Persocom's bouquet threw forward a rain of petals. They passed through Garrett and Amber harmlessly, but they stung when they came in contact with the mad scientist and her assistant.

It was a good distraction, and Melinda noticed right away.

"Jared! Plan Zeta!" she shouted towards the Persocom. His eyes flashed green momentarily, but he sprang backwards, and in one bound, was right beside his partner once again. This, Amber expected, was when the opposing mage and her partner would execute a massively overpowered spell. She braced herself for some sort of retaliation.

Melinda's knowledge of spells, however, was limited to those used for escapes, much like this one.

"Bye, pretties! Catch you later!" With a little leap towards the festival's festivities that were marching down the perpendicular avenue, Melinda blew them a kiss. Jared followed suit. Due to their physical abilities being boosted by magic, the two soared into the sky.

"After them!" said Garrett, following suit. He didn't need all that much magic to go flying, however, and bounded after them. Behind him was Amber, followed by Hideki on foot, who knew nothing of how he had jumped so far earlier.

The devious duo happened to land on one of the giant balloons passing by at the time. For some reason it was like the Thanksgiving Day parade, except in Japan, and the enemy mages bounced off the Red Power Ranger. All the Super Sentai fans marching below them took no note of this.

It appeared the crowd standing on the sidelines had not noticed the pair of flying people, either, because Amber and Garrett repeated the same act, and the same ignorance of the paranormal had been repeated.

Hideki, who was having a much harder time following them on the ground, was irritated, because he had to fight through the crowd, opposite the flow of traffic.

'Motosuwa,' thought Garrett, speaking to the young man through the mental link they shared, 'do you see the balloon that they plan to jump towards?'

Hideki squinted, but when he noticed the strange orange-brown creature that they were swiftly approaching, he shook his head, though Garrett would not even be able to see it.

Realizing this, Hideki replied with the telepathy. 'Uh, yeah. Looks like…a person?'

He was somewhat right. There were eyes peeking through what looked like a doughnut the same color as the rest of the creature's body. It had circles for hands and feet.

No doubt, Garrett's processing capabilities were pushing his CPU to 99 percent, considering the amount of numbers for physics and probability rattling around in his brain. He was a supercomputer, yes, but keeping your thoughts separate from calculations, in addition to keeping your balance was somewhat draining.

'I need you to jam your sword as hard as you can into it, and then change it back into a card.' Garrett's instructions echoed around in Hideki's brain, above the tumultuous din of the parade. 'Can you do that for us?'

As Hideki noticed the crowd was getting lighter the further he got to the end of the parade, he nodded and said, 'yeah, I think I can.'

Meanwhile, Melinda was preparing a paper talisman, and she merely had to activate it with her blood. She and Jared were about to land on the strange orange brown 'person' balloon that was coming up. All she needed was to transport them back 'home' and devise another way of capturing Amber and her friends.

Biting into her finger, Melinda drew blood and smeared it on the strip of paper in her hands. With a flick of her wrist, she threw it onto the balloon ahead of them.

However, a determined young man was not going to let her have her pudding and eat it too. Hideki had to jump to do it, but he sprung upwards and jabbed the balloon with his sword. Just as Garrett instructed, he morphed it back into a card, and hid it in his pocket. He swam away from the deflating structure.

The talisman caught flame, and she and Jared were tumbling towards it—just as she planned. What she hadn't planned was that her gateway back home had started to sink towards the ground. Coupling that with the time it took Garrett and Amber to catch up to them, the heroic duo slammed into the villains just as a burst of flame engulfed the party of four and disappeared.

When the once-happy festival-goers had realized what had happened to their precious balloon, they stood around it to mourn. The only things left were a deflated balloon and scraps of burnt paper.

"Oh my god," murmured a nearby teenaged boy, staring at the remains of the balloon, "they killed Kenny."

...

Minoru hated this. He should have thrown away the wig and the dress the moment he noticed them on his body. However, this was impossible. His old clothes were nowhere to be found. The closet was packed full of girl's clothing as well. And he didn't want to run around naked, obviously. To top it all off, the bedroom's door was locked, and no spell he used could even make a scratch on it. The water spell had only harmlessly pearled off of the doorway and soaked into the carpet, where it dried nearly instantly.

With mounting fear, he wondered just how he was going to use the bathroom.

Sure, he didn't have to go now, but—wait. Why was he wondering about the bathroom when he had been kidnapped? He didn't know what kind of a person would do such a thing to him, but he wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

The only benefit, he saw, was that they had the decency to feed him. Whoever had captured him had left a few cookies on the small table in the middle. It looked like someone had been having a tea party earlier, what with the stuffed animals seated at chairs and the obvious tea set stationed before him. The kettle in the middle, he soon noticed, was filled with steaming-hot milk.

It still brought up the question of how he was to use the bathroom, but, he reasoned, that would be a hurdle to tackle when he approached it. He wasn't going to have a pity-party this entire time.

So, Minoru decided, even though he was captive in an impenetrable room while dressed as a girl, he would have a personal little tea-party that was manly-as-HELL.

Because, frankly, what else was he to do?

Several years ago…

Kamijo remembered the first time he laid eyes upon the beautiful mistress that he called 'Angel'. It was the first time he had ever fallen in love with a creature so graceful and perfect. She was a Persocom, yes. But she was much different than those eerie, soulless machines. So much different. She was much different than those defective, bland, human women.

So different and so beautiful. So pure and yet so clever.

She was an entity above this world. An entity that made him want to change this world for the better. Even though it appeared that this world was beyond change, even so, for her sake he would try to do the impossible.

It had been raining that fateful afternoon.

She was standing there in the rain, getting drenched by the downpour. Her head was pointed towards heaven, and her blue hair hanging from her head like a sheet of silk.

The mixture of ambient light and rain had given her a misty halo that enveloped her whole body.

Kamijo remembered how he offered his umbrella to her. He remembered the faint blush upon her cheeks as she accepted it. He remembered how cold her hands were.

Her eyes had looked through him, not at him, and when she finished staring at him, she deemed him worthy of life. The only human, she admitted, that stuck her as worthy of such a thing.

Yes, he remembered.

A single umbrella had changed this world.

You, you looked though me

With cold blue eyes

As lifeless as concrete

Come here and give me a kiss,

Hold me in your arms,

Even though, you are empty

As many of you have probably guessed, Victoria is the name of the Chobit that I had left out earlier. I want the next chapter to be even longer, so please be patient. If I haven't read your story, yet, it's because I was in editing HELL with my editor(s). The first poem, yes, it's mine. As for the ending poem, I'm currently trying to make another English Cover for an anime theme song. This except was something that I translated from "Fallen," the ending of Psycho-Pass II. If you wouldn't mind, check out the revised version I did of "abnormalize." Stay tuned, and keep on reading!