Translator
Hotel Worker's A job was neither prestigious nor overly fancy. They simple worked at the entrance office of their five star hotel, taking in any arriving guests be it physical or through call and noting their check in times alongside which room is free for them to occupy. They did this from 10 pm to 6 am as their night shift, so for the most time, they were just stuck doing busy work and sipping some coffee in their office as they were tediously aware of every passing hour, still they are paid well.
Today, however, the wait was much more interesting. As the TV in the corner, had the news show a late night headline about how some foreign ship that was earlier mistaken for a meteorite struck right into the middle of the once Eden fortress. Of course the sound was completely muted to not risk waking anyone (even though the rooms start at a floor above their) but one could still see the subtitles and read the confusion amongst the people present, was this a terrorist attack? Was this ship stolen and ditched mid-air? It had no identification behind it whatsoever and it has burn marks all over it, so unless it actually came from space itself. This mystery will be a hot topic for a while.
*Ring* *Ring*
Ah, there the job calls, or well, most likely a customer calls, expression aside the worker takes in a deep breath, memorizes their professional greeting and takes in the call. "Good Evening – thank you for calling the Garden Plaza Hotel, my name is Generic And Unimportant how may I assist?"
"Ah, hello!" A girl's voice greets, foreign and oddly enough their voice sounded a bit staticky but maybe the caller just has bad connection. "I know it's like, super late, but we'd like to book a room."
The typical late-caller, most likely a tourist who only realized at the last moment that they'd need a room the worker guesses, the odds of having a free room tends to be unlikely during any vacation time, but even so, they take a moment to check it anyway and find….only three rooms that are left.
"It looks like we have a few vacancies left. I'd recommend you make a reservation but is it correct to assume that you'll be heading here for the night?" Better safe asking then sorry.
"Awesome! Did ya hear that boss, oh, wait you're still-oh, nothing!" The caller realizes there still connected at the last second and divert their words immediately. "So, do you have any rooms with double beds? We're a family of two."
Ignoring the fact this girl calls their family 'boss', the worker answers. "Yes, all of our rooms have double beds. The usual rate is about 3.239,90 yuan per night (about 460ish in dollar and euro)."
"Cool, then we'll pay once we're there!" The caller agrees eagerly.
"So you'll be spending the night here? Do you plan to stay any additional days?" The worker has to ask, and clarify that if not, they will have to leave at checkout time. Which is 11 am at the earliest and 3 pm at the latest. Otherwise they will be charged for an additional day and also asked to leave.
"Uh...make it 3 days for now! We're waiting for someone to come pick us up anyway."
"Understood, then until then. Oh, and just to let you know….our outdoor pool will be closed this weekend, but our indoor pool remains available."
"Sure, see ya!" And with that, the caller hangups. The worker wonders for a moment what the two guests will look like, then decides it doesn't matter and goes back to their usual routine of-
"We're here!" A familiar voice says, wow, it hasn't even been 30 seconds yet. As the doors automatically opened, the worker moved their gaze to the two guests, then did a double take.
The taller of the two and leaning with their entire shoulder over the other, a white haired boy, looked like he had been in one hell of a tumble. Several scratches are on his cheek and dark eye-bags are littered under his shut eyes. His face looks dehydrated and exhausted, while his clothes are hidden by a blatant coat. Though part of his red-white boots are clearly visible. The more outlandish part however is how easily some green haired girl carries the man like he weighs nothing, showing absolutely no discomfort as she comes over to the desk, tugs at some of her own basic clothes to pull out a credit card and then turns her purple eyes the worker's way. "Here's the money!"
Suspicious, that's one word that comes to the worker's mind. Not paid enough to poke this bear is another line that comes to mind too, as long as they have the money to pay a room, which they do, then whatever story lies behind that cloak is clearly none of their business whatsoever.
"I'm going to need some proof of identification as well." Still, there are some rules they still must follow. Which is just as easily followed when the girl pulls out another card, that of the boy's id.
Name: Copen Daihatsu (This is a joke, look it up lmao)
Born: A year that proves they're an adult. (Not that odd if you just look at him)
Signature: Unmistakably real (or super perfectly forged, which is unlikely but it is)
Well, that's all they needed. "Have a good night then." They don't ask if they have any baggage they want carried as they clearly came in what they just have. "Would you like some water? And some help carrying your brother?"
"Gladly." The girl responds again, "For the water I mean, I can carry him just fine!" She keeps walking after saying that, moving next to the Bellhop in the elevator and dissapears from sight.
Huh, well, their work done, the worker goes back to their routine.
One awkward elevator ride later.
*Ring* *Ring*
Uuurghh...feeling like a thousand hammers hit his skull. Copen wakes up after hearing the chicanery of an alarm clock put nearby a small lamp shelf. Bright green numbers indicate that it is 10 in the morning, so his first instinct after realizing he's in a hotel room is to stretch his arms, putting his body in an upright position while his lower part still lies still limply on the bed.
Stretch to the left, stretch to the right, ayup, that small exertion on it's own manages to hit just the right spot. His chest still feels like it's filled with mild acid though and his eyes still feel heavy and a bit sensitive against the light even though most of the curtains are completely closed. There is a feeling of blankness in Copen's head that makes him occasionally space off, but in hindsight, that's quite a low consequence for practically risking his life by using a self-made railgun as transport.
Oh, well, nothing a good shower can't solve. Though, he wonders, why does his lap feel so heavy?
…
Oh, he sees. Specifically, he sees the answer to his question at the right side of the bunk of the bed, awfully close to his waist. That answer being Lola, of course. Still in a humanoid form and currently dozing off with her head laying on top of her arm which lies comfortably on his lap. Her half-opened mouth oozes wind out as she snores, her untamed hair constantly moves as she inhales and exhales. This girl, who is using a form that is as chaotic as it is powerful, is now using it to doze peacefully on his bed, like a puppy. Copen can admit that this is definitely something that is cute.
It is still inappropriate though. Yes, she's usually the one to wait for him to go sleep first and has occasionally shaken him or outright hugged him to wake him up in her pod form. But all those little touches specifically had a purpose behind them. This, however, there is no reason for this at all!
"Uhmph…" Lola lets out a grumble, looks like she's on the verge of waking up. Good, that saves him the energy of shaking her awake himself. Instead Copen puts on his frowning face, readying himself so that the first thing she'll see in the morning is his displeased face at her blunder.
"Cop...en…" ….He has nothing to say that. Maybe she has a dream of a past mission or travel.
"Noooo!" She groans out in frustration, and shakes in sadness? Her hand grips tighter onto the side of his chest area, as if letting go means he would dissapear. "Don't you….dare….die…" Ah, she has a nightmare. Somehow that removes any and all displeasure he has with her at the moment, even more when he has the feeling she won't wake up unless another force tells her to. All the more to do so himself then, she is, first and foremost, his trusted ally and she'd do the same for him.
"Hey, Lola. Wake up." he first attempts communication before resorting to physical contact.
No visible reaction.
Guess he has to use physical contact after all. "Lola, wake up." He repeats as he nudges her shoulder with a free palm, trying not to be too forceful. She in response, lets out a slight grumble and opens one of her eyes first to see the world like those anime characters do when they wake up.
It'd be wrong to say it's not cute, because it is. Soon after, her pair of green eyes opened and stared at him with a dazed look...as he stares plainly back. Is she still asleep but her eyes are open?
Is that a thing?
After a short amount of seconds staring at each other, Lola finally straightens herself up, right after a small shriek and a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks. Of course she would be embarrassed. Waking up in such a flagrant neglect of conduct should be embarrassing to anyone, even to Copen.
"B-boss, you're already up! Fhew, you scared me just now." Huh, what an honest reaction. She sounds both embarrassed and also genuinely happy to see him. He can't be sarcastic against that.
"I wanted to make it even." he just shrugs, "You scared me first by showing in my bed. Why didn't you stay in the one over there?" he asks as he raises an eyebrow, honestly she could have just slept on a couch or a desk in her pod form. It's not like she can feel uncomfortable in that form either.
"Oh well, I-I tried to wake you up just now. But fell asleep again…" She replies somewhat nervously, eyes aimed anywhere but his face. It's a really suspicious reaction, and so…
Copen doesn't bother prying deeper, instead putting one hand against his face to check if she scribbled some stuff on him while he was conked out and finds nothing. "Thank you anyway for waking me u- No wait, I mean, trying to wake me up." he says while massaging his shoulders with his eyes now glancing at her pouting face.
"Now, would you mind. I'm going to take a shower. Can you try to get our call to Japan ready by then?" That shouldn't be too hard a thing to do for her, in a hotel like this, there should be free wifi, which in itself can be a gateway to eventually hack a call towards Japan if you know your stuff.
The barrier in place there only blocks actual threats to Japan after all, like missiles and people trying to intrude, not any wifi itself otherwise Japan could not be the beacon of tech it is today, that, or the barrier would have a hole in the atmosphere, which sounds unlikely, because then one could enter Japan by simply missile riding into the place. Only an insane person would ever do that though.
ZedΩ: ACHOO!
Luxia: What's wrong, prince? Do you have a cold or something?
ZedΩ: I don't think so...the urge to sneeze just came out of nowhere….
Luxia: Then is this the work of allergies?
ZedΩ: It's possible….I do have a pollen allergy…
Luxia: Hah, then don't worry! My song and dance shall cure that weakness at once!
ZedΩ: You can cure allergies with your septima?
Luxia: Um, it's OUR septima (Layla is in the room too) but yeah, definitely.
Luxia: I mean, I do heal all of your wounds and bring you back from the death, right?
ZedΩ: Hm, I see. So are you saying that when you use your song, you could in theory, remove the antibodies in my body that wrongfully identify a particular allergen as harmful even though it isn't?
Luxia: Ayup, and poison too! There is no greater recovery septima than The Djinn!
ZedΩ: Fascinating, let's go test that at once!
"Sure. Take your time. I'll go ahead and order breakfast too though. I assume you want coffee?" Copen just nods yes at the last question and stands up when she moves off him, walking straight to the bathroom. Then he stops, "Did you buy some spare clothes by the way?"
"What do you think I'm wearing?" Lola points to her clothes, ones that were most likely hurriedly bought but still give manage to give her the whole 'city girl' vibes. Which is fair enough.
"Understood." Copen moves from the bathroom door and picks up the shopping bags filled with men clothes, before he moves back to the bathroom and shuts the door. Time to clean himself.
The water has been running for a while in the bathroom.
Copen's wound look and still must feel sore, but he's healthy enough for Lola to leave him alone for the moment. Though, as a precaution, she is standing outside, right in front of the closed door, sitting on one of the comfy chairs nearby as she does her job. So she can hear any sound of falling.
Still, she assumes that as long as she can hear the sound of relaxed humming, everything is fine.
"Here in my car, I feel safest of all, be it driving through a sandstorm or even snowfall...whether I drive for work, or as a hobby. I buy from Sakurazaki~ Ding Ding I buy from Sakurazaki~"
Did Lola hold secret the fact she can hear him? Definitely. Is she smiling? Even more, yes.
More importantly though, she finally managed to hack through the Hotel's network and has already found a way to finally contact Japan without blatantly giving away their location. In other words, she can finally contact home! And since China is only 1 hour behind from Japan, their 10 am is the other's 11 am. On a Saturday, so this is the perfect time to be calling Nori as she's most likely occupied with the late morning cleaning instead of doing something super important right now.
The only question is, though… "Hey boss, I can make the call! Can I start without you?"
"Sure!" She hears him shout back, and with that decided, it's finally phone-time!
*Ring* *Ring*
*Click*
"Kamizono Residence, this is the head maid Nori, with whom am I speaking?" a voice Lola dearly missed comes out at the other side off the call, their tone completely neutral and professional. There's the slightest sound of busy work in the background, so Lola's intuition was right!
"Hiiiiiii~ Noriiiiiiii~ Guess who finally managed to call back?" the pod asks in a teasing manner, hoping that her voice alone is enough proof of her identity. And to also to have her relocate to a quieter part of the mansion, wouldn't want anyone to overhear this, now do we. "Guess who?"
"Hello?" Nori repeats, a hint of confusion. "Who is calling? Is your end muted perhaps?"
"Huh? What do you mean? Of course it isn't, don't be silly." No way she'd make that mistake.
"I see, looks like you've become a bit more mature after all. I'm glad to hear that." Lola dramatically fake gaps at the rude retort, all too eager to continue this nostalgic banter filled with barbs and sarcasm that can't hurt either of them. But she's got a job to do too, so let's get to that.
"Sheesh, if you're going to be like that. Then maybe I shouldn't ask for a favor after all…"
"You're right. I'll hang up then."
"Wait no! Don't! Mooou I think you are just making fun of me now."
"Of course I am. When your calls are so far and rare between, why hold back?" Her voice turned a bit colder at that statement, even though she phrased it like a joke, she meant it as a genuine complaint so naturally Lola felt a bit guilty. Because it's true, the last call was over a month ago.
"Lola? You still there, right?" Nori asks, almost sounding like she's hoping the latter won't hang up this soon, not even on false pretenses of being mad. Not that Lola ever would though.
"Aye, Nori. I'm still here."
They had some small talk afterwards, plenty talking about both of their activities, be it jumping through the roofs of Paris because of course, Eden had an additional base in the city of love, to some updates about how Mytyl has been doing, how she's strongly considering joining a music club and that just last week she spent the night at a friend's house, a fact best not told to Copen lest his unspoken paranoia would make him go through a background check on said friend, though Nori states that like it's a joke. One that wouldn't be funny a year ago, as back then, such a thing might have been seen as a genuine option to the stress-filled tech monkey. Lola becomes more and more invested as the talk about mundane stuff continues, though the conversation takes a turn for the sour when Nori finally mentions that just a day or two ago, Mytyl's school got blown up after an attack.
"Then, she got used as a hostage, because of course a young girl can't knock out a trained soldier even if she knocks the back of their head with a fire extinguisher-" Nori continues the story, ignoring the flat 'what'' and 'you have to be kidding me' that Lola gives in reaction. "Finally, there was a rooftop chase, she got saved by Gunvolt of all people. Oh and she's an adept once more now."
"Now she's doing this super hero routine, secret identity and all, and pretends to be a magical girl during the night and normal nobody during day. The only ones that know are me and Gunvolt though she doesn't know about the former and the latter is….kind of looking out for her…"
"...Copen is going to flip his lid once he knows this…" Lola states once Nori stops, her tone filled with anything but excitement towards such an event. "Why haven't you stopped this by now?"
"I've tried." Nori replies, then sighs. Lola can imagine her rubbing her forehead on the other side, her back stiff with frustration even though her voice doesn't change. "I've started by hinting that I know what she's doing, but she either doesn't get it or willingly refuses to let me into her 'secret'. She's been one energetic girl ever since she woke up, but short of locking her up, I can't tell her to stop and were I to try. She might do something drastic, likewise for Copen. So you can't tell him."
"Ok, now that's one heck of a demand. You can't expect me to just lie to him." Lola refuses to consider that, sure, the boy can suffer from one gigantic case of tunnel vision when he feels slighted but he's definitely gotten better after all this traveling. If not calmer, Lola likes to think. "And besides, if he realizes we both know the truth and didn't tell him, he would be devastated."
And even worse, likely withdraw into himself and regress back into someone who can only hate.
"You misunderstand." Nori corrects, "He will be told the truth, just not until you're both somewhere we are sure he can't run off on us and get himself killed. You did say you're coming back, right?"
"Ah yes, I was hoping you could help us with that. Cause of the barrier y'know? But even then, I don't think lying to him is the right answer. I mean, I get why, but it still feels wrong…" because she doesn't want to risk breaking his trust, something she's had all her life and she's not sure if…
"I trusted you, clearly that was a mistake." What she would do if he looked at her with hate and disgust after saying something like that. That even if they remedied, it would never be the same.
"I see...it's your decision to make then." Nori doesn't argue further, "Now about your return, that's the kind of request I've prepared for ever since the day you two left. This is how it'll work…."
Long story short, the Sub-aquatic Base once used as a death trap by Merak, now abandoned, is a perfect hole into Japan due to it being so deep in the sea level that the barrier doesn't reach it or at the very least, nobody would notice a small hole being there of all places. Of course to even reach such a place one would need an advanced submarine. So obtaining one is up to Copen and Lola.
"That doesn't sound like an easy thing to do…" Lola notes, in thought, not doubt.
"Well, I suppose if building one isn't an option. Just buying one should suffice."
"And how are we supposed to do that? Do we just go, "Hey there mister, do you happen to have a submarine we can buy? Cool, cool, don't worry about a license, we'll just hire a person to drive it for us cause we're rich and totally not suspicious too! Hon, hon, hon' like that, huh?"
"I suppose that's a good attempt."
"Nori!"
"Well, either way that's your problem to deal with for now." She just bluntly says it, "By the way, is Copen available now or is it just you that's calling?" She asks, cause she wants to hear his voice.
"Oh, he's taking a sho-"
"And I'm done." the eponymous person announces as they enter the bedroom, wearing new fresh clothes with slightly still wet skin and using one towel to still dry his hair. He lets out a relaxed sigh as he moves to a nearby couch, sinks into it and then glances at Lola. "How's the call going?"
"Uh, good." Lola replies, then speaks up again as she's now talking to two people at the same time. "And he's here now, Nori! Uhuh….ok...fine, hey boss! Nori wants to talk to you now, here!"
"Gimme." He lazily tends a hand forward, then picks up the call when given. "Hello, this is Copen." And from there he starts a conversation that Lola can't hear, though from the way his posture remains relaxed and a lazy smile appears on his face, it's clear that they're talking about nothing important and obtaining updates on each other lives alongside most likely some fun banter.
"Yes, I missed you too. No, we won't visit." She can still hear his side of the conversation, though. "Again no, just knowing she's living a peaceful life is enough for me. We're coming-oh Lola told you already? Of course she did." which means at least for her, that when this talk is over….
She'll need to burst his bubble by informing him about well, the whole Mytyl stuff.
Boy, is she not eager to do so. But Nori blatantly dumped the job on her and peace'd out.
Unfortunately the end of her time soon comes, as after five minutes, Copen hangs up, gives her back the phone and moves to stand up. "Let's go explore now, it may take some time before we find an actual submarine, but even before that, I can't do any of that on an empty stomach."
Great, an excuse to delay the conversation! "Ok, but boss before we go…" which she sadly does not take, instead she takes in the motion of taking in a deep breath, and then gently pushes him back to his chair before speaking again. "I've got some good news and bad news to tell you from Nori."
"First thing in the morning?" Copen quips back, but stays seated. His face still the pinnacle of good humor, a small smile still on his lips and eyes that lack their usual edge. "Go on then, surprise me."
"It's about Mytyl…she's…" and now she definitely has his attention, immediately he straightens up a bit and tenses himself, warily preparing for devastating news. "What is she? Sick?" He asks her.
"Oh, no, no, she's the pinnacle of health. But…" Again, hesitation comes to her tongue.
"But…?" he prompts her. Still patiently waiting. "Say it whenever you want to."
"She's….spending time with a boy." Lola finally groans out, cowardly admitting that no, she can't just stab him in the chest with terrible news the moment he finally gets comfy. "In a bad way?"
Copen's eyes grow sharper at that, and the atmosphere turns a bit colder. "In what sort of bad way?"
"Well, she sneaks out sometimes to do girl stuff with them?" Ok, where is she going with this? It's one thing to decide not to say the truth, but to try and deliver it in such an awkward way is worse.
"...Is she pregnant?" Copen finally asks with alarm, genuine fear in his carefully said question.
"WHAT?! NO!"
"Oh, thank god." Copen lets out a long exhale, melting into his chair from relief. "You really scared me for a second there. So, if I understand correctly, she's having a rebellious phase or something?"
"….Yes." That's technically the truth, Lola says to herself as she nods.
"You're terrible at delivering news, next time just have Nori tell me herself." Copen states dryly, meant to tease but part of Lola agrees with that, as she just didn't have it in her to say it herself.
"Y-yeah, but that doesn't make you upset?" She asks, a strained smile on her face.
"No, if anything I'm relieved she's feeling passionate about something." His voice turns softer as he turns his gaze to the window nearby, looking over the morning landscape. "And has the ability to actually follow it, even if Nori herself doesn't agree with it. It's not like she took me deciding to become an avenger without protesting either. So if anything, I'd be a hypocrite to feel otherwise even more so, since out of us two, I'm the murderer. Compared to that, her dream is harmless."
Lola had to bite her cheek, giving a strained 'Hmmm!?' in reply.
"Was he described in any way?" Copen asks, Lola nods no, "Then I don't have the right to say assume about them either. Unless the man is hurting her, then you and I would need to visit."
The boy is Gunvolt, she can't say that! Even so, it still hurts to hear this from her view.
"Hmm…maybe she's making a band or something?" Copen guesses, clearly enjoying himself with the imagination of Mytyl living a carefree school life. "Oh, well, we'll see once we're there."
"Oh well, let's go find this submarine." Copen concludes as Lola watches him leave the room.
She quietly followed after, knowing that this will definitely, definitely backfire later.
As it turns out, the ocean is boring. Having lived his most recent years in both land and sky, blitzing past weapons and Septima, Copen could genuinely say that sitting in a steel machine and looking out a reinforced window to just see water, water and even more water is really, really boring.
Even so, after paying a hefty cost and some minor social maneuvers, he and Lola finally found themselves inside the Abalone, a large ocean research vessel with white steel armor as it's hull, several fins and thrusts on the sides give it the impression of an albino dolphin, alongside an engine that allows it to reach speeds of upwards to 40 m/s. This bad girl will lead them to the very deepest parts of the ocean. Or rather, to the abandoned submarine base that they will be infiltrating.
Over 1,300 miles south of Japan, the Marianas Trench is the deepest known natural point in the entire world. Around 1,500 miles long and up to almost 43 miles wide, the Trench had been a site of research for over a hundred years. And in the present day, the perfect place to create aquatic weapons without anybody to keep an eye on Sumeragi. Or at least it used to be. After the destruction of the Submarine Base, Sumeragi decided the costs to repair would be far below the benefits if one adept could come over and destroy it again in the future. Hence, they now create bases in higher waters. Leaving behind these ruins for Copen and Lola to use to bypass the barrier.
Though there's two problems with that plan, one, it's going to take a long, long time until the submarine reaches the lab and until then Copen has nothing to pass the time with other than fiddling with his weapons and reading some of the books he took with him. It's not really a big deal, since Lola is there too, but this still remains a painfully tedious process for the boy.
The second problem is the water pressure, the bottom of the Mariana trench has 1086 bars of pressure, the deepest part of the Abyss (the submarine base) likewise goes that deep, so there is absolutely no way that the Abalone can just cruise through the bottom, completely undetected.
No, for the sake of safety. The submarine will head into the third deepest point of the base, where it's 600 bars can barely be withstood by Copen's White Tiger armor (it's designed to survive up to six hours straight into the most extreme terrains.) so that in the scenario the submarine is shot down, he and Lola can just swim the rest of the way….if they're hopefully close to the base that is.
Because here is the main problem, just because a base is abandoned, doesn't mean it's completely unguarded. After all Sumeragi always leaves behind some bots and traps in order to prevent looter, raiders, whatever the name, if someone tries to intrude, they'll be shot down by their 'security'.
"So the plan is to try and sneak into the place, avoid or destroy anything that detects us and voila, japan. After that, we'll meet up into one of our own hidden bases and deal with the rest." Copen concludes, still in boredom. Hands occupied with solving a word puzzle while the submarine automatically heads to the coordinates that were input. Likewise Lola is amusing herself by-
"It's finally done! The Ex-weapons are done!" Analyzing the septisomes obtained of prior foes and finally creating ex-weapons out of it, as she just celebrated. "Took at look at this baby, boss!"
"What have you got for me?" Copen turns her way, intrigued on what she managed to make. Usually creating one would have involved the both of them, but Lola has gained enough experience to smooth-line the process far faster on her own, hence why he doesn't know what the result is.
"Behold my newest creation!" Lola announces, her pod form taking a blue shade alongside some mystic symbols appearing on her back and those of the other pods. With a crackle of energy, the pods create a blue image in the shape of Lola's idol form that launches forward when shot and then dissipates into a mist that hits a large area. Finally she creates another image again and this time, instead of shooting it. The clone perfectly mimicks her movements and even remains for a full minute when she changes Ex-weapons. "Phantom Warriors! Having analyzed the Phantom Mist septima, this weapon can create clones that perfectly the movement of the original and can't be harmed by most weaponry. Additionally, they can be launched forward to create large veils of mist to use as either a distraction or a retreat. However they vanish after a minute or if one of us takes too big a blow." She concludes, "That's a pretty cool weapon, ain't it? And I'm not done yet!"
"Well, this isn't much a weapon as much as it's a permanent upgrade." Lola takes out Copen's trusty gun (to no protest of his) and aims it at three newly made Phantom Warriors. Activating a new type of bullet, the gun shoots several rays of golden light instead of pure white, upon each hit, a tagged mark like the one Copen obtains from dashing into foes appears on them, then with a cry of 'Attack!' Lola suddenly appears by the side of each foe, swiftly destroying them before turning back to normal once the last one has been destroyed. "Say hello to our upgraded Photon lasers, or should I say...Golden lasers? Hehe, since you had a handful of hair on you from that Zed-guy, I figured why not make an Ex-weapon based on Golden Trillion too? With that in mind, I focused on making our basic shots more stronger and obtaining the ability to do short dashes like he did before. Sadly that means we can't make swords or bows of pure sunlight, but we already have other options so even then, they would have been redundant. Oh, and you can charge the border for a big oomph now too! Like they do in video games and stuff for a stronger shot, a charged shot! Ain't that cool?"
"It's amazing is what it is." Copen admits, giving a thumbups and a firm nod of approval. "With those kind of Ex-weapons, anyone who stands in our way will have a much harder time now."
"Boss…." Lola groans in displeasure. "That's way too humble, can't you boast a bit more?"
"How so?"
"Well, in moments like these. You're supposed to say 'with these weapons, we're finally unbeatable!' or like, 'Now nobody will be able to stand in our way!' and stuff, y'know?"
"That sounds like we'd be begging someone to prove us wrong. At least to me."
"Huh, I guess that's true…"
The conversation dies then and there, not helped with the realization it's still going to take a full 8 hours before their grand return finally starts. In the meantime, they just have to make busy.
"Hey Lola…" Copen speaks up again, after a moment.
"Yes, boss?"
"I figured something like this would happen." He starts, then pulls out a laptop sized device from one of their travel bags. "So I went ahead and bought one of the movie players back at the ma-"
"Oh, oh! What kind of movies do you have?" Lola interrupts, immediately closing the distance to look at the device and make herself comfy next to him. "Did you get Mighty-verse 3?"
Copen doesn't say a word, instead pulling out the DVD. "Got the complete edition." in simpler terms, he has all three movies all in one. "And, some others you might like too. So, shall we?"
"Hell yes!"
And thus, a good time is had. A fleeting moment in the eye of an incoming storm.
TBC.
AN: I was going to have the Ship yards be secured extra tight due to the meteor stuff appearing on the news, but then I realized anything that doesn't develop the chars or the plot is just filler. Anyway next time, the iconic duo is finally back in Japan. Now to see what kind of welcome back gift they'll receive.