Long Live The Queen
by Rob Morris
Chapter Eleven - The Folly Of Wars
1
While flying through the air, insulated from its shear and from all manner of reasonable restrictions asserted by the laws of physics, Nana had sensed it.
*My home – our home. It's—gone.*
First, she sensed all the younger horned girls, winking out suddenly, and happily, for most, there was no pain. They died in their sleep.
*At least their final moments were in a warm place with full bellies. But that really isn't much, is it?*
Next, she sensed the college kids and the festival vendors. They were stunned, almost insensate. She could hardly blame them.
*It happened fast. But I saw no flash of light, no big toadstool cloud.*
Nana tried to speed up her flight, but she was already moving with the rotating Earth, so any boost would be minimal. Now, she felt something of Nozomi-chan – thoughts of Nozomi-chan – and of the burden on her that never ceased.
*Her Papa. But they only just made up after so much…*
She caught herself. This was the way of things. It had surely been that for Papa and Mariko. But if this war kept on, even those tender last exchanges would give way to horrid ones like Kouta had with his little sister.
*OH NO – PLEASE KAMI PLEASE KAMI PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE…*
One spirit, one essence met her directly. It was warm, wonderful and sweet and loving and touching this spirit nearly ripped Nana's soul apart. Another spirit rose to meet them both, and took the 'hand' of the other, and Nana heard a plea to take care of her sisters.
*Whoever you are – you have killed my Mama – my real Mama. The Mama who came back for me. You are marked down as dead.*
The sudden savage spirit-flow stopped. So far, no one from her new family was in transit, though she could read from their spirits that the house had been destroyed. Perhaps there were others outside of it, but survivors were few. She had to get to them.
*Kouta is firm but doubts their survival. Yuka-San…has another person inside of her? You will be born, little one. Nana swears it so. Mayu-chan-ohhhh – she is like a volcano – I almost don't know her. Nozomi-chan is readying a gun the Agent gave her – she is numb inside. Wanta really does not like the intruders – that scent he smells – they must be an army!*
Nana's focus was oddly pulled away to another part of the world. In Argentina, four tired older men trudged their way towards Buenos Aires, and somehow, she knew, they would play a huge part in the future of her people.
*Are they…musicians?*
Pushing past these mystery tourists and their hard day, Nana gave all her power to a very dangerous maneuver.
*Mother Earth? Nana does not wish to be rude. But if only for a moment - *
Her eyes glowed and the veins in her face, forehead and neck bulged.
*-YOU WILL SPIN FASTER!*
And so the Earth did, placing Nana where she needed to be within moments. Yet Nana did hear a distant echo, as though from the heart of the planet.
**pushy, pushy**
2
She landed with one hand in front of her, tossing her overcoat to Mayu.
"Please hold this, Onee-Chan."
Mayu tried to mouth painful words, but the true Diclonius Queen shushed her.
"I know what she has done. And she will pay."
Nana turned and looked at her would-be rival.
"Normally, Nana might ask who you are, and why you have done this to her home, and her family, but Nana is past caring about that. So I will ask something else instead."
Nana gathered a fraction of her enormous power.
"Excuse me, General – would you care to throw down?"
The attacker merely grinned as she responded.
"Why do you think I came here?"
Nana sensed her opponent was full of bravado. She attempted to meet this.
"Nana really has no idea. You seem both a waste of time and someone who likes to waste it. Or did you come all this way to visit your relatives at the zoo?"
The other girl crossed her arm in the air in front of her.
"I am Antonia Fremont-"
Kouta's voice cut her off.
"No, you're not. Anthony Fremont was the name of the kid who sent everyone to the Cornfield in the Twilight Zone. You probably heard that name on TV and used it to sound scary."
Mayu looked at Kouta.
"Twilight Zone?"
Kouta nodded.
"An American ripoff of Ultra-Q."
The Agent rolled her eyes at this, but kept to the safe spot those who didn't have Lucy's 'anti-vector blessing' were best situated.
Kouta concluded his interruption.
"You come along out of nowhere, murder my guests, destroy the home I've held in trust for – our family – and now you want to make chest-thumping speeches? Nana-chan, kill her!"
Yuka shook to hear her husband say these grim words, and she gained further chills when Nana seconded them.
"That, Kouta-San, is Nana's every intention. I will not forgive what has happened here."
Yuka now nearly jumped out of her skin as a hand touched her from behind.
"Wow, those two suddenly got bloodthirsty. Not that I can blame them. Did anyone else get out?"
Yuka turned and saw a face she had given up on seeing again. Two faces, in fact.
"Mama! How did you escape? And-"
In Emiko's arms, a small bundle shuddered. A little girl now an orphan.
"Hana and I used – well, the woods near that gazebo a ways off – the toilet was too crowded, and too smelly from overuse. Talk about providence…"
Yuka hugged her baby's future Grandma for all she was worth.
"Oh, Praise Kami and all of Heaven! I couldn't even get my head around losing you!"
Emiko was several kinds of filthy, and her hair, shaved in a failed effort to calm the first wave of Diclonius, would be a while growing back. But to Yuka, she seemed a shining goddess.
"Mama, it's all gone – we are all that made it. Anyone inside – they even profaned the Buddha statue to bombard the house."
As Emiko took this in (aside from the evidence of her own eyes), a small voice finally spoke up.
"Is Onee-Chan gonna kill her?"
Hana nodded in answer to her own question.
"Good. I hope she lifts her stupid head straight off of her."
Vengeance, always debatable as a goal, seemed the order of the day, but it would not be swiftly found, as Nana learned after launching her first attack.
"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU!"
The telekinetic wave was all fury and if it were possible, fire, and did not seem to meet the smirking 'Antonia' at all.
"But that's not poss…"
The wave that came back seemed like her own attack geometrically magnified, knocking everyone back as Nana braced against it, almost automatically clicking her limbs back into place so as not to create an advantage. Nana barely held her footing as she looked around her. Even the rubble of Maple House was further destroyed by what had just happened.
"She…really is powerful."
The long running battle with a nobody from nowhere truly began and would continue to devastate the Maple House family.
3
THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
A NATION, A POWER UNDER TOTAL SIEGE
General Jouji Bando was a man in pain on several levels, and as usual in his life, he brushed most of it off.
"Minister, when we move forward, it will be total war. If they are using your people as meat—as Human shields, our offensive will not be halted by this. Please state your objections now, so the record can be clear. I won't be undercut – assuming I live. Always a big if there."
The Minister, essentially all that was really left of a once-sprawling bureaucracy, himself included, shrugged.
"Chairman Mao once sneered to Krushchev that, when it came to nuclear war, we have reserves of population. Mao is gone, and so, largely, are our reserves. I will ask that you save who you can. I never thought anyone anywhere would say this, but China's population needs to rebuild."
Once, the cyborg in front of the minister would have roared that the leader should take what he's given and be grateful for it – like it or lump it.
"We'll do our level best, sir. But if life can offer few guarantees, I can't offer any. I'm a batch of metal replacement parts with less attitude than I'm used to."
That man was – not dead – but was definitely less than what he once was, all puns intended. It didn't help that his opponents were, for all intents and purposes, a bunch of little girls and infants.
"Every last person saved is a treasure, General. We will need heroes after this, even foreign ones, so I count your life among those."
Bando shut the monitor off, ending the communication. The Minister's pleas to be with his people were happily talked down by the former US President, acting as a liaison to the current one.
*Guess he has a brain outside his zipper-hole, after all. Now all I gotta do is show I have one left inside this junkpile of a body. Heh. Maybe if I fall apart, the kids can build Wanta a new doghouse from the scraps.*
That was the biggest change in him. Accepting this command meant keeping as many of these young people under him alive and as intact as possible.
"Satou, Report!"
Lieutenant Erik Satou was the younger brother of a man the old Bando barely noticed dying, and cared about even less. This no longer sat well with the former SAT operative, so he chose this man as his primary aide.
"Forces are nearing peak readiness, General Bando. Sadly, our initial estimates were not incorrect. China once had the most people – now it has the most Diclonius. Not all of them are the 'new breed' either. We think maybe the 'lost girls' who once lived around the world are sensing these new sisters here and are gathering to join them. Mount Meggido may be in Israel, sir – but I think maybe Armageddon is happening right here."
Bando looked out through binoculars calibrated to his artificial eyes.
"Gre—at. We don't know the enemy's capabilities, we don't know their vector range – hell, they might have even compensated for the wind alert I learned from old Lucy. But at some point, with a force this size, we have to move forward. Because someone on the other side is going to, sure as eggs is eggs."
Bando spied the horizon with his enhanced-vision binoculars, aided by his own artificial eyes.
"I have to try and meet with their leader. See if all this can be averted."
If the Bando of old was supposedly gone, he seemed well-represented in Satou.
"Sir, it cannot possibly be averted. Humanity is rounding the corner on extinction. The dead must be avenged."
Bando set himself up with some basic equipment, including a solar-powered cooling neck brace and a canteen.
"Thing about avenging the dead is, it tends to lead to a lot more dead. Just me or a couple of guys on the line? I got no problems. But now, I'm leading a group of kids to kill a bunch of babies. If I die, get things started. That is all."
He caught Satou's glare.
"As to extinction? We can probably keep going with as few as a million people. Something about genetic viability – enough different folks to keep us from going all rural on the marriage front."
Bando began to move forward across the field of battle to come, only a hidden combat knife kept for really close quarters that probably wouldn't help him.
*Well, here's where my talking too much might finally come in handy. Here's hoping.*
Bando trudged forward, his new mechanisms more responsive and faster than the original replacements, but still a real effort. He also hoped he didn't look too much like a joke.
Back at the soldiers' encampment, his position was not yet a joke, but it was being undermined.
"Satou here. Well, either he comes back or he doesn't. It won't matter when the time comes. Operation Horns To Halos will move forward unchecked."
A conspiracy was afoot within the ranks. This, in a world that needed no more conspiracies.
4
ARGENTINA
They were four men struggling to get to Buenos Aires for a meeting with its archbishop, a protector of horned girls for some weeks now. Nothing had gone right, but they were used to their tours having numerous hassles.
Three of them were, to be charitable, on in years, having already reached the age celebrated in one of their songs, wherein the singer asked his lady love if she would still need and feed him.
One was nearer to middle age, and he was the eldest son of their deceased companion, often lauded as one-half the genius of this grouping, or at least the one whose collaboration with the second most noted member drove them to greatness. He had been a difficult man, but he was missed. Yet his son had the most fractious relationship of all.
"I don't understand why you came, Sonny. He never treated you right, acting like him having to get married early was all your fault for existing."
'Sonny' was the name he preferred when among his father's friends. His real name, slightly altered, had been immortalized by the man asking the question in one of the most popular songs of all time, and that is no hyperbole.
"He came to me, Jimmy. In a dream, but one that felt realer than anything besides him taking me to the set of 'Happy Days' – actually met the Fonz – ever did. He conceded everything, and said there were kids left alone by their folks worse than he ever did for me, and that when you called, I should answer. So here I am – on the back of a vegetable truck."
Again, 'Jimmy' was not the name most knew this man by, though it was his given name. Usually, he went by his middle name, so much that a piece of joke trivia went that his middle name was his public name – funny for about 3 seconds.
"If he of all people was calling from the afterlife, I guess he imagined wrongly."
There had been a series of sharp public exchanges as the former songwriting partners had gone their separate ways, both physically and musically. Jimmy immediately felt shame for having even brought up the subject. But someone else interjected.
"To be fair, he never said there was no heaven. I think he was more hitting on the clerics and leaders. Deep as I got into it all – I could see that."
This man was sarcastically called 'Guru' – with deep affection – mainly because of all the spiritual musicians spawned by the 1960's, he was the summit, and felt it all in his gut. He was also the one the gathered travelers really thought would never go with them. The man called 'Richie' – who was much better known for the jewelry he wore on his fingers – went forward with this thought, largely because there was nothing else to do.
"Guru, I'm finally gonna ask – why and how did you come? You're a handful of months past the doctors giving you the all clear. I mean, we could've nabbed Eric."
The name of his friend and rival for world's greatest guitarist shook Guru.
"I told Eric to take his slow hand and go off. I'm sorry for his little boy, but ever since, he's been on about immigrants. Said we should use this Diclonius business to 'clean Britain out'. Plus, he's bugs about the vaccine they announced."
Jimmy, who once attempted to be the band's leader after their original manager died, played that role again as he pressed his friend and his luck.
"That explains why he isn't here, and maybe shouldn't be. But Richie called it – you only just walked away from the Big C. You were getting ready to cash in all those cigarette premiums-your own words, Guru."
The man who had once been a boy among four titans of the Earth looked at his uncle, who public talk had indeed placed in the ground from lung cancer before a miraculous turnaround.
"All right. You all want to know it? Well, here – I owe those girls. Those little ones born with odd headwear? I owe them. Everything. The cancer had me. I was done. Then, I got the word of a miracle therapy. Well, what did I have to lose? I'd been scammed enough, right?"
The tears began to well up in his eyes.
"The cure worked – and it was from BLOODY KAKUZAWA INDUSTRIES! Literally bloody – my cure came from research done on small children – on little girls strapped to walls having cannons fired at their heads. So, you see – I believe in the eternal soul. Mine is now darkened by accepting aid from the man who tried to light the trigger on Armageddon – and dipped in the blood and bones of innocents!"
As all took this in, the truck's driver yelled out two words to his passengers.
"Buenos Aires!"
The four men ambled out, and overlooked a city just below them. Richie shook his head.
"A million billion blue meanies – anyone have the Yellow Submarine handy?"
Buenos Aires was like an army encampment, with forces converging on the Archbishop's cathedral. No doubt, they were there to get the girls inside that building.
Sonny felt the urging. The urging of his dead fractious father, and of the uncle who felt such guilt and shame over simply being alive.
"Let's take a sad song – and make it better."
5
KAMAKURA, JAPAN
Nana was fighting for her life, but she had been there plenty of times. That wasn't what was bothering her.
Her family was under assault by the other Diclonius the girl calling herself Antonia had brought with her – but they were handling themselves well enough, or at least keeping themselves alive, and they were good at this, so while the danger was real and heart-wrenching, it also wasn't her bother.
No, what was bothering her was that this fight was going on at all. She had to save her best special attack for exactly the right moment, and she had sworn an oath to that in front of Kami and Papa.
*But Nana should be clobbering this pipsqueak! My power is supreme, and I have full control over it, unlike poor Lucy. I just traversed the planet, but this challenger from nowhere is having sport with me?*
She was certain she was missing something, and of course that something would likely seem foolishly obvious once she caught it, but would they all live that long? For the moment, she stood paralyzed by ineffectiveness, Antonia also just standing there, smirking her dare to be attacked once again.
In the near distance, Kouta had seized part of a shattered tree and was attacking some of the bigger girls, who fled before his now-focused fury. Nana wondered where the sweet confused boy who had still reached out to help young girls had gone – till she realized the small guests he had given up his home for were now entombed there, and these other girls were responsible.
"YOU HAVE TO STOP! I WILL STOP YOU!"
His wife Yuka was building a perimeter around the survivors who did not have the 'Queen's Blessing' – essential immunity from the vectors of others – placing her unborn child at risk. Her mother Emiko joined her when it became apparent Lucy had extended her blessing to the woman she had called 'Mama'.
"Do you know the difference between a man and a woman?"
Both ladies kicked their attackers hideously hard in the crotch area.
"Not enough when you kick there with enough force!"
Nana would later learn that it was still nowhere near the same pain for the genders, but it could still hurt very badly regardless.
Mayu was the most ferocious, perhaps memories of other home invaders driving her to wield rocks and pieces of shattered cookware into the skulls of opponents who did not get up again.
"Who's having fun here? Because I surely am. Bando-Saw was right – making the bastards pay is not taking a life – it is life!"
Nana's family was surviving, but she was still losing them.
With the Agent unable to aid them and needing to herd the other unprotected survivors, Nozomi had partly plugged her ears and taken the Desert Eagle that had once belonged to Bando the elder.
"Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye – four and twenty blackbird baked in a pie – and when that pie was opened, those birds began to sing – "
Seeing an opening, Nozomi opened fire on their main opponent, who grew panicked and pulled away when she was grazed.
"- and wasn't that a dish to serve her majesty the false queen!"
Kouta observed this, and suddenly called out to Nana.
"Queen Nana! Use wind and dirt instead of arms!"
Nana nodded, and blew up a huge gust, which sucked in loose ground and debris, aiming that at Antonia, who was definitively knocked back. Kouta shook his head.
"Could it be that simple?"
Before he could do the rest of that math and pass it on to Nana, the invaders retaliated.
"You like throwing things?"
Antonia was furious, wiping a small amount of blood from her face, for it had been a long while since she had to wipe any such that wasn't someone else's.
A group of the older girls (who were also closest to death, thanks to Kakuzawa's breeding of super-fast aging) surrounded Mayu, and if their vectors alone were no problem, the splintered wood they threw at her was.
"Kouta-San! My eyes!"
She was punctured all over, but in many cases it seemed surface level and treatable. But not on her face. Those lovely, expressive eyes would never look upon her family ever again.
Rushing to her side, Kouta picked the very largest of the attackers and smashed her head like a melon with his oaken fragments.
"You will leave my daughter alone!"
Yuka came over as well, to take Mayu to safety, such as there was on that field. Nozomi had run out of bullets, and was resorting to shoving the heated barrel of the gun in the faces of her opponents before using it as a bludgeon.
Refusing to surrender once again to grief and helplessness, Kouta completed the equation he had started. He even found a code-ish way of telling Nana so that their enemy would not know they knew her secret.
"NANA-CHAN! SUPER 17!"
Nana had been about to object that they had agreed not to discuss 'GT' – but then took Kouta's meaning.
"Antonia! You have blinded my sister, on top of your other crimes!"
The cardboard villain spewed right on cue.
"Then avenge her, if you have any worth! Hit me with all you've got!"
Nana did just this, but not in the way her opponent expected.
6
BATTLEFIELD CHINA
Bando did not expect to live much past this moment. He also knew that, of late, his expectations and outcomes rarely met up. His trudge across the No Man's Land seemed to take forever, but really, that was the pain of commanding his shattered, rebuilt body to keep moving. It wasn't long at all before he met his counterpart.
"Geez Louise – do they all have to have eyes the size of picture windows?"
Pink hair, check. Horns that could have been elaborate hair ribbons. A perpetually stunned look that also seemed a frown.
"Why are you here?"
Bando felt corrupted by all the happy-joy BS his daughters, blood and otherwise, had been pushing on him. But then, caring was new to him, even about himself.
"I'm here to talk about not doing this. I don't want a bunch of young men rushing forward, killing and being killed by a bunch of little girls. I can fix it so we all sit tight right where we are. We can wave at each other, shake our fists or make dumb funny faces. But no use of arms, automatic, semi-automatic, invisible or whatever. Just don't go anywhere, and I can throw in some of our supplies, though the chipped beef is frankly not what it used to be."
The little diplomat seemed lost.
"I guess that would be great, if we could trust all of you – and if I had any way of making the others do that."
The first part, Bando was unconcerned by. He wasn't certain he trusted himself entirely.
"I can't make you trust me, and while I have some battle cunning, I doubt I can make any trick last longer than a few seconds. But isn't the chance of not dying at all better than the good chance of it happening? Arms or no, all it takes is one lucky shot, one stray piece of debris."
The girl shook her head.
"That sounds great, but there's no way I can take it back to them. They're all crazy, always going on about 'infrastructure'. They're hot for your comm-systems, it's all they go on about. I think they sent me here to die while they try and scout out your equipment. Why do you have so much metal on you?"
Bando pulled up a pant leg and then one sleeve.
"Sorry, Babe – that metal IS me. I met a couple of you girls before – your queens and probably the most powerful one that ever lived. Kind of got ground up."
The sound of small arms fire emerged in the distance. Bando knew, then.
"Sounds like your scouts met some of mine – and we weren't supposed to have any scouts. Girlie, jump on my back and let's see what all our idiots have started."
She did so, her jump aided by the obvious. She grabbed hold as they moved.
"Huh – I can read intent, and sometimes even people's minds. You once said you would never let 'the new race' take over. So why are you and me getting along?"
Bando felt a little weirded out, but in his life, that was no longer enough to really mean anything, except it was a day ending in 'Y'.
"Truth be known, kid – I said that, and at the time I meant it, but I've also never been crazy fond of the old race – till I met another little girl like you, who cared about me no matter what. I'm still not persuaded any of us should have this world, but right now, we're the options."
As they sighted the camp, and some of the fighting, the girl continued her narrative.
"Those new breed girls – they get old fast. Is that you guys, and if it is, why not all of us?"
Even if badly phrased, Bando surely knew what she was asking.
"Nah. That was the guy who set all this up. He wanted to rule the whole wide world, kind of be its new God, and all you girls would bow down and say nice things to him. If you live to read or watch anything, you'll see his type a lot."
But the girl could not shut this instinct down.
"Ok, but if he's wanting to rule, where are all the horned boys? I may be a kid, but a world needs boys and girls, or else eventually there's nobody."
Bando chuckled and cracked a joke his audience of one had no prayer of getting.
"Welcome to the world of Commander McBragg, girlie."
Bando sprinted a bit faster than his cyber-parts warranty recommended, enough to sight and call out to Lieutenant Satou.
"Lieuie, report! Why such an extensive use of force to counter a couple of scouts? They should have been turned back and orders kept to. This screws up all my plans!"
The girl whispered, but Bando had already picked up Satou's body language.
"Put that pea-shooter away, Lieutenant. There's not enough of me to bleed out, anyway."
Satou grinned as he cocked his pistol.
"Never read you for a weak sister, Bando. But then, they didn't contact you, did they?"
The girl dropped off of Bando's back.
"They're being led by a former US President. They have some really bad orders."
Satou lost his grin.
"How – how could you possibly know that?"
Bando seized the distraction and Satou's gun, cold-cocking the traitor – or was Bando himself now the traitor?
"Kiddo, he can't be the only one in on this. I want to, but I can't guarantee your life, so keep your guard the hell up."
The little one snapped to attention.
"Yes, General – am I your Lieutenant, now?"
"Sure, whatever – oh, and what's your name, girlie?"
With a sweet smile that belied trauma and the inherent danger they were in, the girl answered his question.
"Anya."
7
KAMAKURA, JAPAN
Antonia braced for Nana's all-out attack with a grin. Yet while an attack came, it was far from all-out. In fact, it was barely even there. Just as Nana and Kouta had planned. The light push was reflected back, a bit stronger, but only enough that Nana could feel the breeze it made. Nana sighed.
"Super 17 – or maybe Yakon. It doesn't matter – we now know the secret of your power. You only have what Nana gives you. And while that means my own twisted power blinded Mayu-chan, you shall get nothing more. Not out of mercy, but for our own wounded and to mourn our dead, Nana once again asks you to just leave here."
The problem was, while Kouta and Nana had watched their favorite show, when Kouta watched it, he was still a traumatized boy in recovery and a mental fog, while Nana was decidedly unworldly. So it was they had forgotten that all those villains the bumpkin hero had faced down always had at least one last trick.
"Has our stupid-ass queen and her boyfriend forgotten that I still have an army?"
Kouta, now confident she was bluffing, called out.
"I am not her boyfriend! And you can have your army – we have a Nana-chan!"
Nana seconded that emotion.
"I have a lot of power I have not yet tapped. Let your army attack me, if they want. If you think that Nana is weak or dumb, then test that assumption whenever you want. But you won't get an S Rank."
Antonia gestured towards her ranks. Despite the best and most furious efforts of the remaining Maple House residents, they were still seemingly hundreds strong, all of them the 'new breed' and not yet aging out as their hyper-acclerated metabolisms demanded.
"Yeah, ditching the little ones here made me even more powerful – thanks a lot, Kouta-San!"
Kouta turned away and helped attend Mayu as best they could. But as he did, he couldn't resist a dig.
"Nana?"
She turned to look at him.
"Smash."
The queen gained a small grin, and turned back to her foe.
"Nana can do this."
But Antonia never stopped her incessant grinning.
"Can you now? Girls – attackkkkkkkk-me."
The Maple House residents, gathered in a protective circle to aid the non-powered and injured, looked on in horror and Nana at the frontline barely had time to ready herself.
"Nana was not expecting this…aaaaaggghhhhhhh!"
The army of new breed horned girls directed their energies at their most destructive at their own leader, some perhaps wishing to destroy her but long past knowing better, as this demonstration surely showed.
"HA! I CAN FEEL IT LIKE THE WHOLE WORLD IS SURGING INTO ME! MAYBE EVEN IF I CAN'T HAVE YOUR POWER – I CAN DESTROY IT. MAYBE THE QUEEN IS JUST WHOEVER SITS ON TOP – THAT WOULD BE ME!"
The wind roared, and lightning filled the sky. Kamakura and Enoshima had seen this sort of thing before, and it had ended with a gunshot from a weeping Kouta. Many many dead came between that start and end. In this case, it seemed set to finish off those that remained.
Nana was being thrown back and tossed about, unable to focus, less from the pain (she was used to that) than from complete disorientation.
Kouta would not leave the side of his pregnant wife and surrogate daughter, likewise for Emiko. Nozomi shared the profound grief of parental loss with little Hana, who needed to be tended to. Ani Yaraoke, the baker, had some limited first responder training and was aiding the girl she kept alive through bread crumbs in what now seemed like a previous life. Anna Kakuzawa had been knocked cold by a fragment of concrete, though she was breathing and regaining consciousness, tended by Doctor Arakawa. But two more stepped forward.
One arm latched onto one of Nana's legs. Then two more arms latched onto her other. Nana responded by locking her artificial legs in place at the expense of her artificial arms, which went flying.
"Nana thanks you – blurrrgh – sorry! But what now? She is like a machine that can't even be gotten near!"
Her aides were the Agent, who despite training, felt helpless and hated it, and Tohru, one-time fellow orphan during Lucy's hate-filled childhood, and the one who gave her the fateful advice to shut down her visible emotions.
Tohru held on, feeling that his flesh was tearing, but also (wrongly) feeling responsible for the war that now threatened these people directly. For it had been his advice, heeded by young Lucy, that had driven the little monster Tomoo to get her to react no matter what. Noticing the wind howling less in one ear, he realized with terror that ear was gone, or at least mangled. Still he held.
The Agent held on, since Anna and Arakawa were being kept safe, and she was aiding the other great asset Japan had told her to protect. With her free arm, she pointed at the Diclonius army.
"Can't take the machine? Get rid of the batteries! AAAAAAGGGHHH!"
Her pointing arm came off at the elbow, and while she still held firm, she lapsed into a pained sarcastic thought:
*Oh, Goody – I'm just like my Daddy now. F***K!*
Nana knew what she had to do – perhaps she had known all along, but until that moment, clarity had not met up with rage. Even as Antonia kept up her assault and in fact intensified it, even testing Nana's deflection powers, Nana turned away from her direct attacker and went, instead for the 'machine's' power source. The entire army of girls lifted off the ground. This was an effort, and her wounded helpers had to now grasp her waist as she released her legs as well. Nana knew what she had to do, and wavered between regretting not acting earlier and wishing to never again do what she did to that terrorist in DC. There were too many of these girls to fling off like that, and in any event, they weren't going to explode and could regroup. She couldn't lift so many very far, but it didn't have to be very far. She only had to break part of the hold the planet had on them.
"Idiot! They can still feed me energy if they're floating!"
Nana summoned back her arms and held one finger to her forehead.
"Antonia, tell me. Do you know what happens to a Diclonius when the Earth and all its physical forces, like inertia, are removed from them and then suddenly brought back all at once? Well, Nana does!"
Nana only 'knew' this from Kurama, but she was learning like a house afire – or one that had already burned to the ground. The occasional glimpse of the ruins of Maple House, and the thought of her dead mother and step-father within sharpened her focus for this dread task.
"It is the same thing that happens to everyone and everything else – Nana is sorry, but you were born corrupted by Anna's Papa and using all that power was killing you even faster. Farewell to you all, and Kami keep you after this."
Inside Nana's vector bubble, the deformed Diclonius shuddered and screamed horribly, the entire army torn apart by negated and then reasserted forces the spinning Earth held jealously and sacredly. Within seconds, a large red mist filled the bubble, which Nana cast off over the ocean. Antonia, utilizing their incoming power on a huge curve, fell hard to the ground. She stood up.
"YOU MORONS! WHAT DID YOU DO? YOU KILLED THEM ALL! THIS CHANGES NOTHING! DO YOU HEAR ME? NOOOOOTTTHING!"
As Antonia ranted, a rock struck at one of her horns, cutting it off entirely. A girl with bandaged eyes (shredded pieces of Emiko's outer shirt) had used a makeshift slingshot.
"Antonia? You talk so much, even a blind girl could hit you!"
The 'slingshot' had been her own bra. Kouta recovered her sweater and modesty.
"You exposed yourself like that?"
Mayu's voice sounded neutral.
"You're the only boy who's ever going to see me like that, Kouta. Or want to, now."
Kouta shushed her.
"BAKA! You'll have idiotic perverts lined up around the block to hear your shower water running!"
Emiko, Nozomi and Little Hana tended the Agent and Tohru, while Nana recovered all her limbs. Vengefully, Nana stood before the fallen antagonist, almost daring another trick to be unveiled. None would be. She was joined by Kouta. Neither smiled.
"Kouta-San, what do we do with her? She's helpless, but she could regrow one horn."
Kouta wanted to literally rip the vicious tyke in two. But he wanted to instruct Nana the way Kurama would approve of, whatever the man's own flaws.
"I am tired of blood – now exhausted. I want us to be heroes, if that's even possible anymore."
Despite being in a condition that would put most Diclonius in a coma, Antonia looked up from her small crater and sneered.
"Look at the happy joy little family – a lot less of them now, huh, heroes? This is why I got rid of my family – all 'acceptance' and 'love' – why bother when the world was all mine, just for the taking…aaaggghhhhhhh! YOU BITCH!"
Nana had looked down, and with a precision bolt, taken Antonia's other horn.
"Tell me, army-leader? How powerful do you feel now?"
Nana was utterly repulsed by the stinging bug before her, but felt Kouta's path was the wiser one. Having killed all those wretched girls, Nana had no stomach for doing anything more than neutralizing her enemy. Kouta twisted the knife.
"Go out into the world. You have the remnants of horns, so Humans won't accept you, and you have no unseen arms, so Diclonius won't want you."
Antonia seemed to realize her peril and broke into tears.
"You-you - I'LL STARVE!"
Kouta had tried to forgive his family's murderer, finding her the most misguided soul in history. He could not make the effort here. The ghosts beneath the rubble of his home would not allow it.
"Well, if you recall, we did offer you a warm meal earlier. You could go home to your family, but you destroyed them, DIDN'T YOU?! We accept all sorts here – but there is no place for you. Get Out!"
Yuka suddenly grabbed up the little monster.
"I'll set her well away from here. If she comes back yet again – then we can choose her fate."
At a good clip, the mother of the fallen Maple House took her thrashing charge away, around the ruin and loss of so many lives. Kouta tried to use the Agent's phone to summon First Responders for their wounded, while Nozomi directly attended the Agent.
"Hey – don't get grabby, girl. Don't cop a feel on the old agent – I said before, I'm not your excursion off the straight plantation, I…."
Nozomi silenced her with a kiss on the lips.
"I'm a musician, right –we're known to sleep around…errr maybe after you stop bleeding."
The Agent looked at her.
"Be sure."
Nozomi glanced over at the piles of shifting rubble.
"It's not like my father will object. I guess we can all stay at his house – My House, for awhile."
The Agent looked around.
"You still got my gun?"
With pain on-site too fresh to even begin to process, Yuka, now well away from the end of their old life, placed her charge on the ground. They were near the Forest Rest Shelter she and Kouta had first kissed inside while searching for Nyu.
"Owww—help me up, if you want me to leave."
Yuka pulled out the Agent's gun.
"Don't bother getting up. Your little reign is at a final end, and it was already way too long. You are not coming back six hours, days, months, years – whatever – at the head of a new Diclonius army. This is over. You are over."
Bargaining with death never has a positive outcome.
"I'm just a kid!"
"Yet there were other little ones – supposedly under your care – and you put them down like dogs."
"Horned girls do what they must to survive – that's all I did!"
"You wanted to be Queen by killing our Nana. You are no better than Anna's father and I hope you burn next to him in Hell!"
The final gambit of all was also to prove a non-starter as Yuka braced herself against a solid piece of the Rest Shelter gazebo wall.
"You can't kill me – didn't you hear your cousin-hubby? You guys are all heroes! You're-"
The bullet, recovered from a fumbled pile the Agent left while reloading, tore through Antonia's head, leaving a mess that Lucy herself might have recoiled from. Yuka proceeded to rub sticks together to make a fire.
"No cloning, either. You see – Nana and Kouta are heroes. But I'm Yuka. Haven't you heard? Yuka is a bitch!"
Her Frontier Week at school proving adequate, Yuka kicked the burning remains into a depression of stones and water – not enough to douse the flames, but enough to keep them from spreading. Yuka patted her stomach.
"Sorry, little one. But I want to see you born, and I want only her ghost to still be able to haunt us. Her actions will linger long enough. Just ask Mayu Onee-Chan."
Yuka turned around to go back, only to see her mother staring at her, a hammer once used to set up a festival booth in hand. Emiko nodded.
"Just in case you couldn't…ya know."
A new respect between mother and grown adult child emerged, but it was a sad respect forged by a horrible wartime secret. The bug from nowhere that had stung them all so viciously had been crushed and burned, never to return. But the war raged on.
Upon the two making it back to their remaining friends and family, Kouta saw a message on the phone, locked from transmission by the battle's side effects.
"Agent Bando? What in the hell does MOAB and J-DAM mean? Are they medical teams? Because they're headed this way fast."
Despite a fair amount of pain and some fog over Nozomi, the Agent sat upright and got to her feet. Her eyes were very wide.
"NANA – GET US THE FLYING F**K OUT OF HERE – TAKE US TO THE ISLAND FRAGMENTS WHERE THE INSTITUTE USED TO BE – NOW – BEFORE NOW!"
While exhausted, Nana was more than capable of getting them away – and as with so much in their lives, just in time. They landed on one of the larger chunks of the fallen Breakfront Island. Anna looked about, not really happy about this.
"Anna did not want to get back to this particular home. She…"
What they saw next was not a mushroom cloud, and the area would be easily habitable again. But in the distance, where the ruins of Maple House once stood and fell – there was a large, empty burned crater, with a shockwave so profound, the Rest Shelter and the smoked remains of a little demon were also utterly pulverized. The Agent shook her head.
"They must have thought all the resources at the house were evac'd, and only that Diclonius army was still there. They wanted to take it out."
Now, even burial of the recovered dead was out, with a funeral pyre taking the place of gravesites. Nana fell back, exhausted and caught by Emiko. Mayu and Tohru seemed well enough, though Mayu's wounds would have to be treated very soon. Wanta was kept away from her face, but would not leave her stomach.
Seized by inspiration or by madness, Nozomi began to sing to the open ocean around them:
"Every night I say a prayer
In the hope that there's a heaven
But every day I'm more confused
As the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends I knew as a child
Have fallen to idols of clay
And I feel this empty place inside
So afraid that I've lost my faith
Show me the way
Show me the way
Take me tonight to the river and wash my illusions away
Please, show me the way
And as I slowly drift to sleep
For a moment dreams are sacred
I close my eyes and know there's peace
In a world so filled with hatred
Then I wake up each morning and turn on the news
To find we've so far to go
And I keep on hoping for a sign
So afraid I just won't know
Show me the way
Show me the way
Bring me tonight to the mountain and take my confusion away
And show me the way
And if I see your light, should I believe
Tell me how will I know
Show me the way
Show me the way
Take me tonight to the river and wash my illusions away
Show me the way
Show me the way
Give me the strength and the courage to believe that I'll get there someday
And please show me the way
Every night I say a prayer
In the hopes that there's a heaven…"
Before she realized, all had joined her in this song, a hope against what was certainly the end of their world as they had known it.
Catching the sound on sensors, rescue helicopters were dispatched and the 'vital resources' rescued. Meeting Nana on the hospital ship was her 'Papa' Kurama and the 'Onii-Chan' President, married to the nice loud lady and Papa of her friend CC.
"Oh – I am so sorry to have been away for so long – we needed to oversee the Chinese recovery effort. My child – are you all right?"
Nana looked at the former US President, read the look on his face, and simply knew.
"How long will it be sir?"
The former President and state governor relayed the wishes of the current President – and also former Governor.
"Dub wants it to start in about three hours, kid. You up for this?"
Nana wondered about Mayu's wounds, and everyone else's, physical or no, but let that concern go as she fell asleep for what time she had.
"Nana will be ready. To act as their Queen, in good times – and in very bad."
NEXT: THE FOLLY OF FINAL BATTLES
(Writer's note: I am soooooo sorry this took two years since the last segment. I keep trying harder, but I so want to get this right. Please keep with me, whether I've earned it or not – Rob Morris)