It's wonderful to be back on the road again, Milly reflected, then smiled as she turned to look back at where D-Boy and D-Two were sitting. Especially since all of us are back together now. Sure, the Space Knights weren't quite all back together, since the Chief and Honda and all of the others were trying to repair the Arizona Headquarters, but it was nice to at least have most of the main team back together after everything that had happened. Levin and Aki looked especially happy, Milly couldn't help but notice.
Levin and D-Two were pretty much attached at the hip nowadays, and even Aki and D-Boy seemed to be getting closer; Noal and D-Two never missed an opportunity to tease them about that, of course.
All in all, without any of those evil Tekkamen chasing them around, things seemed to be going a lot better. Of course, the fact that they were chasing a pair of evil Tekkamen – one of them actually the same age as she was, which was really weird to think about – it made her almost feel like things had flipped on their head, just a bit. Before, it'd always been the evil Tekkamen who'd come to them, and the Space Knights had been the ones holding them off from the Headquarters. Now, Axe and Wraith were moving around the countryside, while she and the rest of the Space Knights who'd been assigned to patrol in the Green Earth tried to track them down.
It was just so bizarre, when she stopped to think about it.
"They've attacked this town, too," Aki said.
"But, at least it seems to be in better shape than most," she said, trying to be as optimistic as she could. "After all, there are still some buildings left to live in."
"Or for Wraith to hide in," D-Boy said, his narrowed eyes scanning all around them.
"Yeah; he and Axe seemed to be working together, but they might have split up," D-Two added, and Milly smiled slightly as she saw Levin curling up next to him and leaning in for a kiss. "Anyway, Axe wouldn't have left so many buildings standing if he was the one here."
It was still kind of weird, but those two just seemed to fit together, somehow.
"Either way, we have to go in," Noal groused, with none of his usual heat.
He'd been more than a bit subdued ever since they'd come into this part of the city. Ever since they'd come onto the outskirts, really; Milly was getting worried for him. But, Noal would probably talk to D-Two before he talked to her, since the two of them were such good friends.
Still, she couldn't help but wonder just what was getting to him in this of all places; it wasn't like they hadn't all seen the destruction that the Radam had left behind them wherever they traveled.
The Green Earth's bulk rumbled on, and Milly braced herself as they rode over what felt like a pretty large piece of debris. It wasn't something she was going to waste breath complaining about, since there really wasn't much anyone could do about the debris in the road, but it was something she couldn't help but notice all the same.
"We're going to need the Jeep again," Noal said, his tone taking on a bit more of its old liveliness, but probably only because he was getting annoyed.
There was a general, resigned sort of agreement on that point, and Milly stepped out of the way as the older Space Knights headed down to where the Jeep was parked so that they could get it ready to travel again.
I
Once he, Aki, and D-Two – because there was no way in hell he was going to risk heading out into even this place if there was still the smallest chance of that pint-sized Radam brat of a Tekkaman being anywhere in the area – had piled into the Jeep and set off on their trip, Noal found himself thinking about how much he'd have really, honestly preferred not to come back to this place under these kinds of circumstances. Still, after he'd been pretty much disowned by his father after choosing to join the Space Knights rather than staying in the ADF like his father had continually demanded – politely, yes, but no less insistently for his diplomatic phrasing – he couldn't honestly say that he'd been looking forward to coming back here, of all places.
He wondered for a moment just how D-Two would have been doing, if it'd been his hometown they were all paying a visit to; not that he was insensitive enough to actually ask, though; not since he knew just what it was those kids of theirs were facing every time they went out into the field.
"Bumpy road," D-Two scoffed, as the Jeep he was driving rolled over a broken piece of debris lying in the street.
He chuckled a little, though even he couldn't help but notice how subdued he was; no chance that any of the others had missed it. "Can you sense anything?"
"No," the kid said, then sighed softly. "Still, Wraith might just be hiding. Brother and I are still bigger than he is."
"Yeah," he muttered; the last thing anyone sane wanted to face was a Radam Tekkaman, even that pint-sized Radam brat. Of course, he had his reasons for wanting to avoid that Tekkaman in particular, but no one could've said they weren't valid.
"Vereuse," D-Two muttered, but the kid seemed to be distracted by something. "i wonder what that is."
"What is it?" he asked, side-eyeing his fellow Space Knight since it wasn't like he could actually take his eyes off the street.
"Something called Vereuse Avenue," the kid muttered, even as he was forced to pull to a sudden stop for a crashed bus in the road.
Turning to look over at the fallen sign that had once marked the street where his family lived, Noal's gaze locked on it for a long moment. It was that, more than anything else, that let Noal know that – whatever he saw when he reached his home – he wasn't going to like it. Backing up the Jeep, noting and then ignoring Aki's exclamation of surprise, Noal ramped the bus and landed on the other side. He got the distinct feeling that Aki wasn't too happy with him, but the sound of D-Two's amused laughter coming loud and clear from behind him brought a subdued sort of grin to his face.
"Are you a stuntman now, Noal-kun?"
"I might have been in a few movies," he said, smirking a bit for D-Two's sake; he was honestly starting to wonder if this was what it'd been like for D-Two himself, every time he'd had to put on a brave face so that D-Boy and the rest of the Space Knights wouldn't worry about him.
Any way you sliced it, he had to respect D-Two for his efforts.
They continued up the road in silence, following the leisurely bends that took them slowly to the top of the hill where his old house stood. Sighing as the building itself came into view, and briefly wondering just how much sooner D-Two had been able to spot it, Noal stopped the Jeep just outside the gates of his former home. Just before they would have passed under the stone shield that held his family's crest.
"Coming?" he asked, aiming a look over his shoulder at the kid where he sat in the right-side passenger seat.
"If there's something you really want to show me," he kid said, and Noal saw him smirk. "Is that it, Noal-kun?"
"Yeah," he said, leaving the Jeep behind and opening the door for D-Two just as his fellow Space Knight would have opened it for himself. "That's just it, D-Two," he said, catching the just-beginning-to-be-amused look on D-Two's face.
"Right," D-Two said, tilting his head in that way he did when he was amused and wanted everyone else to know it, too.
The two of them made their way up the path toward his old house, and Noal idly wondered just when D-Two was going to ask the question that had to be on his mind. He knew that the kid had to be thinking about it, since anyone would have been wondering under the circumstances. And, while no one could say that D-Two wasn't polite to the people who'd earned it in his eyes, even a polite person would have to be wondering just what in the hell was so important about this particular building.
Out of any place they could have gone into in the remains of this once-peaceful neighborhood.
"Is this Noal-kun's house?" D-Two asked, turning slightly towards him with a gentle, knowing sort of smile.
"Right," he said, smirking slightly, but feeling more reflective than anything.
He could guess why D-Two, of all people, had picked out this place as being his home; D-Boy would've probably been able to spot that kind of thing just as quickly as his brother, but it was a toss-up if he'd say anything or not.
As the two of them made their way into the empty, crumbling building, Noal took a moment to ask D-Two if he could sense any other Tekkamen in the area before he started calling for anyone else who might be taking shelter in there. Because there was no way in hell that he was going to risk the lives of anyone who might be staying here, just because he wanted to know what might have happened to the remaining people that he cared about. Once D-Two had reported that, as far as he could tell, they weren't about to be jumped by that pint-sized Radam brat and his thuggish teacher, Noal began to call for anyone who might have still been hiding inside the building.
His father in particular, since he didn't know if anyone else would have had the sheer, mule-headed stubbornness to stay in this place even in the face of the Radam's all-out invasion; that was just the kind of thing his father would have done, though.
Finding his way into the living room, with D-Two's light, almost catlike footsteps trailing just behind him, Noal bit the inside of his lower-lip as the wind blew up a pair of sheer, lilac curtains. Following the curtains' path lead his gaze to the marble fireplace on the other side of the room, and from there to the mantelpiece. There was a collection of photographs up there, all of them neatly set atop the mantel, but Noal's gaze was drawn to the one that had been placed face-down.
Out of all of them, that one held the most sentimental value to him at this moment.
The feel of D-Two's hand on his right shoulder brought him back to the present, and Noal smiled softly for the reminder.
"This is my mother," he said, answering the unspoken question that hung between the two of them. "She died when I was just a boy."
D-Two's sudden, bittersweet chuckle cut off anything else that Noal could have thought up to say. "Just like us."
"What?" he prompted; this was something he hadn't been prepared to expect when he'd started this conversation, but if D-Two felt comfortable enough around him to reveal something so personal, then he wasn't going to interrupt.
"Mother," D-Two muttered, his bright blue eyes locked on the framed picture that Noal still held in his hands. "She died in a fire, back when brother and I were five."
And before anyone would have ever thought to call you kids D-Two and D-Boy in the first place, he wasn't going to say. It wouldn't help anyone if he tried to bring up just who those kids had been, back when they'd actually had family to call their own; both since that kind of thing would have been incredibly rude, and because it didn't matter much in this particular case. D-Two and D-Boy were what those kids wanted to be called now, so he'd honor that.
"I'm sorry," he said, watching as D-Two's bittersweet smirk slowly melted into a gentle, subdued sort of smile.
"That's kind of you to say, Noal-kun."
"Come on." He wrapped his left arm around D-Two's shoulders before the kid could think to step away from him, and smiled at his fellow Space Knight when D-Two raised an eyebrow at him. "There's happier places than this, D-Two."
"Yeah."
So the two of them made their way down the empty, debris-strewn halls of his old house, sometimes ending up having to walk over large sections of the ceiling that had collapsed into the house itself. He didn't like looking at them, or passing under the resulting holes that poured sunlight down into the interior, but he was at least glad that it wasn't raining. Pushing open a pair of double-doors in front of him, he led D-Two into his old room.
The spread of photos on the wall, just above the shelf filled with trophies that he'd won, greeted them first, and Noal smiled slightly.
"So, Noal-kun really liked soccer," D-Two said, and he turned an amused smile on the kid, who was watching him with one of his own.
"Yeah," he smiled in bittersweet nostalgia, picking up one of his old trophies. "I was one of the star players back then, you know?"
D-Two grinned at him in that way he had, and Noal pretty much had to laugh at himself: because of course the kid wouldn't know. He'd never talked to D-Two about his old life; even when they'd had a quiet moment, some kind of crisis seemed to be hanging over their heads. That was life in the midst of an alien invasion, Noal mused.
"That was my team, just after the big game," he said, indicating the largest photo on the wall in front of them with the point of his chin. He was just about to say more when D-Two, who'd stepped a bit closer to the trophy shelf than Noal himself was currently standing, suddenly snapped his head around, eyes locking on the doors that they had just come in through.
The kid's bright blue eyes, no longer eerily glowing the way they had been when he and Noal had passed into the darker sections of his old house but bright enough all the same, were narrowed at whatever it was that he was looking at. It didn't seem like D-Two was worried about anything, though, so that put paid to the thought that it might've been Wraith or Axe. He could be relieved about that, at least, if not entirely happy.
Subtly signaling for his fellow Space Knight to follow his lead, Noal turned and nonchalantly headed back toward the door. Making like he just wanted to go back through it, Noal instead yanked the thing open and grabbed the guy on the other side.
"Christophe?" he cut himself off, having recognized his family's old butler just as he'd really started building up a full head of steam.
There were tears in the old man's eyes, just starting to fall as Noal released the grip he'd had on Christophe's suit-jacket and let him stand back up to his full height. It wasn't that impressive, since Christophe had never really been a tall man and had only gotten frailer during the intervening years, but Noal figured that he at least owed it to the old man after the way he'd probably scared him when he'd first shown up.
"Master Noal, I'm so glad to see that you're safe!" the old man said, and Noal couldn't quite hold back a wince at the sheer, sincere longing in his voice.
Sure, he hadn't been too keen on coming back once his dad had decided that being in the Space Knights wasn't remotely good enough for any son of his, but he couldn't help admitting that he hadn't been thinking about just how that kind of thing would have affected the other people back at home who'd cared about him. People like the old man who was even now looking up at him with such hopeful, welcoming eyes. He almost hated to disappoint Christophe, but he and the others were going to have to be moving on soon.
As much as he'd missed the old man – facing him here and now, Noal couldn't avoid admitting that, if only to himself – there was no avoiding the fact that, more than ever, the Space Knights were needed.
"I'm glad you managed to come through so well, Master Noal," Christophe said, bowing slightly to the pair of them. Christophe's attention turned to D-Two, then; the kid having been as patient as anyone could have expected of him under the circumstances. "Your young friend, Master D-Two, were you showing him around?"
"Yeah; it's nice to meet one of Noal-kun's other friends," his fellow Space Knight said; only Noal or one of the others who'd been close to him during the course of his and D-Boy's long war against the Radam would have been equipped to understand the few seconds of hesitation between Christophe's question and the kid's answer.
He wondered, briefly, if the old man had even noticed the slight pause.
There was an expression of subdued curiosity on the old man's face, but Noal didn't honestly know if it was because of D-Two's admittedly weird name – weird for a human, anyway – or because he had noticed the pause and was wondering about the cause of it. In either case, though, Noal knew he wouldn't ask. Christophe was too polite for that kind of thing.
"So, where are all the others? I mean, is Dad in the shelter with the rest of them?" he asked, knowing it was probably a stupid question but needing to ask all the same.
"I'm afraid that your father left the estate some time ago," Christophe said.
Noal sighed inwardly; he had asked. "During the invasion."
"Yes, Master Noal; he wished to see that all of those here were protected from the threat of the aliens," Christophe said, as he continued to lead the three of them into the back section of the house and from there out into the spacious back yard.
"That sounds just like him," he said, as Christophe began to make his way to the pool for a purpose that Noal was starting to suspect that he knew.
"Indeed."
Sighing, knowing that pretty much anyone who tried to stand up to the Radam without having access to the kind of power that the Gemini Boys had provided for the Space Knights was basically doomed, Noal decided to forgo asking any more questions. Turning slightly as he noticed D-Two trying to catch his eye, he saw that the kid was smiling softly at him.
He smiled back; after all, this was just one more thing that the two of them had in common.
Looking up as he began to hear the sounds of whirring motors and grinding gears, Noal found himself watching the specially-built shelter as it rose from the depths of the long-since emptied pool. Once the shelter had fully risen from the depths, and the people standing inside it had begun to cheerfully file out, Noal found himself feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of it. And, even though he knew it was kind of stupid for him to feel anything like that, Noal found that he still felt a bit ashamed of feeling so good.
There was D-Two right beside him, one of the kids who'd lost pretty much everything he'd had to the Radam, and he had to stand and watch as these people – who'd been almost as close as family to Noal – gathered around him in profound relief. No matter how many times he tried to remind himself that D-Two wouldn't blame him for embracing this moment now that it'd come, Noal couldn't stop feeling like a bit of a jerk.
He knew damn well that neither D-Two nor even D-Boy would have ever said anything about it, but Noal couldn't quite help feeling the way he did, what with everything that was going on.
When he, D-Two, and all of his family's servants went to mourn at the grave where the mortal remains of his father had been laid to rest, Noal found himself reflecting on more than just the words that his father had left him with, the last time the pair of them had truly spoken to one another, but also the circumstances. Circumstances that seemed almost calculated to tie him all the more strongly to two of his fellow Space Knights in particular.
"So, both of our fathers died bravely against the Radam," he said, once he'd finished filling Aki and Milly in on what'd gone on – the pair of them having arrived some time ago, with the Jeep – a soft smile beginning to show on his face; really, it almost seemed like fate had brought them together. "We both lost our mothers when we were young, and then we found each other," he smiled just that much wider, lacing the fingers of his left hand together with D-Two's right. "D-Two, it almost seems like we were meant to be brothers."
D-Two laughed, a gentle sort of good-humor in his tone. "Is Noal-kun offering to adopt us?"
"If you want," he said, turning to smile right back at the kid who'd become all but family to him, after so many months spent fighting at his side. "Really, I don't think Shinya Vereuse would sound that bad," he said, making sure that he whispered it in the kid's ear; no sense giving away secrets that weren't his, especially when he was trying to do something nice.
"I might not go that far," D-Two said, though he still had that gentle smile on his face; if nothing else, he seemed to be considering the offer.
"I truly do think it an act of Providence that the pair of you met, young Master," Christophe said, making his way over to where he and D-Two were standing. "The pair of you do indeed seem to have a great deal in common, and given what I was able to observe while the pair of you were making your way through the estate, I would also be more than willing to say that the both of you have been a great boon to one another."
"It's true," Sophia – of all people – said, coming out from behind her grandfather with a kind smile on her face. "I've seen the way you look at each other, and even if the first thing you shared was sadness, that doesn't have to be the end of it."
He laughed, clapping D-Two's right shoulder firmly, then slinging his left arm around his fellow Space Knight's shoulders when the kid turned to look at him. "Looks like you're a part of the family now, little brother," he grinned, even as D-Two turned a smirk that seemed to combine equal parts amusement and annoyance on him.
"So, I have to be the little brother to two people now, eh Noal-kun?"
"That's simply Master Noal's way, young Master," Christophe said, making his way over to where the pair of them were standing. "As Master Noal is offering you a place in his family, he is also making a promise to be the best brother that he possibly can be."
"He's pretty much right on the money there, D-Two," he said, smiling back at the kid, as he saw the smirk on his fellow Space Knight's face melting into a gentle sort of smile. "I'd be more than happy to call both you and D-Boy my brothers."
"Well, I'd have to ask D-kun about things, but I guess I wouldn't mind it, Noal-kun," D-Two said, grinning at him in that irrepressible way he always seemed to be doing.
Noal was sure of it, then; whatever weird hang-ups that D-Boy might've had with the idea, he and D-Two were going to bring him around. And, while it was a fact that none of them really had much in the way of blood relations anymore, the three of them would never again lack for family. He'd make sure of it.
II
"Pegas, how long has it been?" he asked, eyes narrowing slightly; there was someone following them, but he wasn't getting the sense – either active or passive – that it was either Axe or Wraith.
"Starting three minutes ago, I have been detecting life-form readings from the pile of masonry and small stones to the left."
"Why don't you give him a surprise?" he muttered; Levin was clearly confused about what the two of them were talking about, but he'd find out when Takaya himself did.
"Roger," the mech said, letting loose with a carefully-controlled burst of firepower, calculated to drive their mystery stalker out of hiding while at the same time having very little danger of injuring whoever it happened to be.
Crouching, Takaya leaped easily into the air, landing just behind their not-quite-so-mysterious stalker – he was getting the impression that this was a man, from what he could see of the figure's build through the cloud of debris that had been thrown up by the miniature explosions – Takaya grabbed whoever it was in a quick half-nelson. He didn't know if they, whoever they turned out to be, would have been able to fight off Aiba Takaya. But then, he wasn't really Aiba Takaya anymore.
"What are you hiding back there for?" he pressed, controlling the man's movements the way he'd been taught to do when he restrained someone.
"Please forgive me! I made a mistake. It was mistaken identity!" the man said; his voice higher-pitched than Takaya had yet heard from a man; maybe it was just because he was frightened.
Takaya let the man fall to the ground, standing over the man as he rubbed his neck. "Who did you mistake us for?"
"I thought you'd come again to destroy the town!"
""They"? There was more than one of them?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Were there two? A young boy, and an older man?"
"No, it was the Hyenas," the man said, looking confused by the descriptions. "They come in groups, and do whatever they feel like!"
"You mean, they're human beings?" he demanded, not knowing what to think anymore.
Yes, Shinya would probably remind him that some people could be complete and utter assholes, but Takaya would have at least thought that the threat of complete annihilation – or subjugation, which would really amount to the same thing in the end – by the Radam would have at least curtailed the worst excesses of those kinds of people. Apparently, he would have thought wrong.
"Yes, they're human beings," the man said; Takaya swallowed a chuckle of bittersweet amusement. "Just like us."
There wasn't really anything he could say in response to that, but there was at least something he could do…
III
When the four of them, plus Sophia of course, came to the old church that she used to teach the kids who'd lived in the town – both those who'd been born to the people who worked around here, and those who'd come in with various groups of refugees – Noal had to smile. It was just like her; she'd always said that she wanted to be a teacher.
"Half of these children are orphans who lost their parents," Sophia said sadly.
"Like us," D-Two muttered softly, in that way he did when he was deep enough inside his own head that he didn't quite realize he was thinking out loud.
"Yes, a lot like that," Sophia said, drawing D-Two's attention by putting her left hand on the kid's right arm.
"So, you've been helping these children with their studies in the place of their mothers and teachers?" Aki asked, and both she and Milly were smiling all the more widely.
"Wow, I really admire you," Milly said; Noal sighed softly.
"Hey, hey, hey," he said, as a lumpy, lop-sided bag that the kids were playing with in lieu of using the ball they clearly didn't have, rolled to a stop at his feet. Kicking it up, he dribbled it while he spoke; he was showing off a bit, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Bouncing it back into the hands of the kid who'd lost it in the first place, Noal grinned widely.
"Noal? I'd like the children to be able to play soccer," Sophia said reflectively.
"Soccer? Don't you know the world's in a state of emergency right now?" he asked, turning to look back at her.
"i know very well that it isn't the time for such things," Sophia said, and there was such a passionate look on her face that Noal wasn't quite sure what to do.
"Why do you want to do it, then?" D-Two asked, though there was a gentle smile on his face that suggested he knew the reason just as well as Noal did.
"Because of the way the world is now, I'd like them to learn to play by the rules and sympathize with others," she said, a wistful sort of passion in her tone. "To do that, we'd need a large playground, so the children can run around to their hearts' content."
"All of the land around here is covered in rubble and swamps of Radam trees," Aki pointed out, though Noal would have done the same if she hadn't; he knew that D-Two would have, as well.
"There's something else, too," Sophia said sadly.
"Oh, what's that?" he said, turning slightly to see if D-Two would be interested in contributing to this little discussion of theirs.
Their kid looked a bit more interested in watching what all of the other kids were doing, though; Noal smiled slightly. Really, D-Two was one of the oldest kids Noal'd ever had the pleasure of meeting.
"Lately, we've been under attack by those Hyenas, who plunder and ravage the town," Sophia said, the expression on her face becoming both sad and afraid.
"D-Boy did say that this place hadn't been hit by the Radam, but by humans," Milly said, still sounding a bit surprised.
Hell, it was fairly surprising to him, and he was really no stranger to how horrible people in general could be.
"Well, when some people don't have hope for too long, they start thinking that no one else should have any, either," D-Two muttered, showing that he'd been paying just as much attention to the conversation as any of them.
It was nice to know, and it wasn't like he disagreed with the sentiment.
"That's why this is a crucial time, D-Two! Even if the world is overrun by Radam trees, I won't let them take root in the children's hearts! I want to offer them friends, and even a family; the same way Noal offered you one, D-Two," she said, making her way over to stand in front of the kid, then reaching out to clasp both of his hands in her own.
"Okay," the kid said, smiling gently at her. "You've convinced me, Sophia-chan."
He almost had to smile at her passionate declaration, even as he caught the makeshift ball, and tossed it into the air so he could balance it on his head as he spoke. "Okay, let's get started. I can make a good-sized playing field by tearing down the outbuilding behind my house."
"Noal…"
"Don't worry about it," he said, smiling. "It would make my late father happy, too. He always said that we had to do everything we could, to help our fellow man."
IV
When they had all moved out to the grassy field just inside the boundaries of Noal's father's estate and Noal had lashed a rope around the remains of an old shed and used it to pull the building down, Sophia smiled as the old building collapsed on itself.
"Okay, good job!" Noal called happily, as the children around him cheered.
Smiling as she turned to the group of Noal's friends, in particular the strangely-named young man that had stood beside him on the opposite side of his female friends Aki and Milly, she wondered for a moment why he had been so silent throughout the day. He had seemed happy, though, so she didn't worry so much that he was troubled by something, but there was something that she wanted to speak with him about.
Finding him wasn't so difficult, since he was off by himself and merely observing the activity occurring around him. There was a wistful expression on his face as he continued to watch, and for the few moments that it took her to make her way over to him, Sophia wondered just what he could have been thinking about. Making up her mind to ask him about that after she had satisfied her curiosity about the life that Noal had lead since he had chosen to leave them, Sophia found herself standing next to the near-silent young man who had watched them all with such sad blue eyes.
"D-Two?" she asked, knowing that anyone who had gotten so close to Noal as this young man had would have known the value of discretion.
"Hi, Sophia-chan," D-Two said easily, turning to follow her as she made her way back to the church; there was something special that she had kept there, for a long time.
"I was wondering," she said, as the young man turned to look at her as the two of them continued on their way.
"Oh? About what?"
"If you would tell me your name," she continued, seeing the considering expression that the oddly-named young man turned on her after she said that. "I mean, since you and Noal are going to be brothers, from now on."
"I can trust you with that, Sophia-chan?"
It seemed like a rather odd question to ask, and for someone who hadn't clearly been such close friends with Noal it would have seemed rather defensive on his part, but since the pair of them were going to be brothers, she knew that he didn't mean it in any kind of hurtful way. If anything, it sounded like he'd been hurt, himself.
Something deeper than just losing his parents, since he shared that sadness with Noal, and Noal hadn't wanted to give up his name.
"I didn't mean to bring up anything painful for you," she said, observing the way D-Two's expression became less wary and more curious as she spoke to him. "But, I think it might be good for you."
"Aki would probably say that, too," D-Two said, his tone and the expression on his face making it clear that he wasn't thinking of anything happening at the present moment.
Sophia wondered what he could have been thinking, but the two of them reached the church before she could think of a diplomatic way to broach such a likely-delicate subject, and Sophia proceeded D-Two back into the building as he opened the door for her. Thanking the oddly-named young man for the favor, she lead him over to the desk where she had kept the ball that Noal had used to win the last soccer championship that he had been able to play.
"Is that Noal-kun's ball?" D-Two asked, a curious expression on his face as he watched her take the ball from her desk.
"Yes; he and his team won the championship with it," she said, not even trying to hold back the wistful smile that emerged on her face as she spoke, even as she turned to look at the one who was going to be Noal's brother. "D-Two…"
"Shinya," the young man said, smiling gently as he leaned against her desk for a lingering moment. "My name is Shinya."
For a moment, as the two of them left her office and made for the main room of the church once again, Sophia was almost certain that D-Two- that Shinya would question her further along that line, but the young man's attention turned rather abruptly to the windows in front of them. His left hand was a blur, as he caught the throwing knife that would have otherwise imbedded itself into the pew on that same side.
Shocked, by the action almost as much as the fact that a small group of Hyenas were standing right in front of her, Sophia forced herself to keep her attention on them. Yes, what Shinya had done was rather odd in and of itself, but the threat posed by the Hyenas wasn't something that anyone could safely ignore.
"Hey, idiots."
When Sophia looked his way she saw that he had merely said that to provoke the Hyenas and draw their attention to him; another thing that Noal would have done in this same situation.
The Hyenas closed in around them, and when Shinya stepped in front of her, Sophia couldn't help but be reminded all the more of Noal; it was just what he would have done in this situation, too.
V
As he, Aki, and Milly made their way back to the church where Sophia and D-Two had gone to get the ball that Milly had told him Sophia had said she would take care of, Noal wondered why the two of them hadn't made it back yet. When he saw the broken window, with the edges of the glass shards stained with blood, Noal knew just what had happened. He didn't know where either of the two of them had gotten off to, but he wasn't going to stop searching until he found the both of them.
However, before he could make good on his intention to find and rescue both one of his oldest and one of his newest friends from whoever it was that had been stupid enough to threaten them, Noal abruptly found himself facing a large group of idiots on various vehicles – some of them even looking like salvaged hardware from the ADF – wielding weapons that would have been a hell of a lot better suited to fighting off Radam monster incursions than whatever this bunch of yahoos happened to be using them for. Sure, Noal liked to think that he wasn't the kind of person who judged other people based on their appearances, but there were ways to make a good first impression and this was most certainly not one of them.
Aki and Milly were right beside him as he faced down the idiots who'd just decided to make themselves a nuisance when he wasn't in the best of moods already.
"Who are these idiots?" he asked no one in particular; he knew that neither of his fellow Space Knights would know, so there really wasn't any point in asking loud enough for them to have heard.
The only thing he could tell right off the bat about the motley crew of assholes was that they seemed to be armed like some crazy militia, and they could have easily been argued to be worse than the Radam. After all, the Radam brainwashed their Tekkamen to be loyal to them; D-Boy and D-Two were good examples of that: the kind of people who only fought when they were called on to do so, rather than fighting because it was all that they were good for. He didn't know just what these bastards were planning, but hell if he was just going to let them run roughshod over his old hometown the way they seemed to have been doing for who knew how long before he came back.
VI
Ducking another knife as it was thrown at his head, Shinya resisted the urge to transform and deal with these idiots. It would be a waste of the energy that he was probably going to need later, when the Radam inevitably showed up in response to what these morons were doing, and he wasn't going to start using the Radam's methods of dealing with humans they ended up in conflict with. He wasn't a monster.
A trio of broken knives, their hilts and blades cleanly snapped apart, lay at his feet, and as Shinya glared out at the idiots surrounding him, he couldn't help but notice the way they were staring at him. Not a one of them seemed to properly understand just how much he outclassed them, and since he wasn't going to waste any of his time explaining things to them, Shinya knew that he was just going to have to demonstrate.
Leaping onto the hood of the truck – or Humvee, at this point he could've cared less about the distinction – Shinya kicked the driver under the chin hard enough to drive his head backwards into the headrest of his seat. While he was stunned, Varis pulled the passenger – who seemed utterly stunned by his previous action, so that was pleasant – out of his seat and threw him headfirst to the ground.
Hopping lightly back to the ground, Shinya caught sight of two more of those idiots attempting to harass Sophia. Running over there at nearly his top speed, since it was long past the point where he cared about keeping his secrets, Shinya knocked the closest one to the ground with a palm-heel strike to the face, and then round-house kicked the other one hard enough to send him skidding back several feet from where his fellow idiot had landed.
"Sophia-chan, don't worry so much. These idiots are a hundred years to early to beat me," he said lightly, smiling to put Sophia at ease; there wasn't much to smile about otherwise.
"Shinya," she said, giving him a look of recognition that Shinya almost wished he had more time to stop and interpret; there'd probably be time for that later, though.
"We should go."
"Go?"
"Yeah. I can outrun this trash with my eyes closed," he he said, already hearing the sounds of the gang members gathering themselves for another attack.
She looked back only once, seeing just the same thing as he'd seen if the expression on her face was anything to go by, then sighed and closed her eyes.
"All right."
"Hold on, Sophia-chan," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly, before snatching her up by the waist and laying her on his back.
Sophia grabbed on as quickly as anyone could have asked of her, and Shinya ran off as fast as he could manage with her still back there. Eyes narrowed against the wind from his speed, Shinya continued along the path he'd been taking. Sooner or later, though Shinya would have honestly preferred sooner, he and Sophia would be able to meet up with Takaya and their fellow Space Knights.
What would happen after that, Shinya really couldn't have said.
VII
Of all the times for there to be a Radam attack. Aki didn't know just who she was honestly angrier at; yes, the Radam were horrible for continuing to attack them the way they always did, but the Radam were aliens – they brainwashed all of the people forced into serving them – but these people, just as human as her or Noal, or Milly for that matter, had chosen to make themselves into the terrors that what few parents there were in a place like this probably told their children about to get them to stay home at night. The Radam might have been the monsters in the darkness – and in the daylight – that came without warning, but these people were worse than even that. The Radam forced the people serving them to become monsters; these people here had a choice.
And, anyone who would willingly choose to become a monster was beyond any reasonable forgiveness.
"Have you heard from D-Two?" she called, turning to look up at Tekkaman Blade as he swooped down to impale one of the descending Radam monsters with his lance.
"Brother's coming; he should be here soon," Blade reported, not glancing away from the swarm of Radam monsters falling all around them now.
Before she could start to wonder too much about where D-Two had gotten himself off to, she saw the burst of turquoise light that heralded Tekkaman Varis' transformation into his own armored form. Aki was glad to see him, but she couldn't help wondering just where he'd been while he was gone.
"Shinya's a Tekkaman?"
Aki turned to look over at Sophia, as the other woman came up to stand beside her and the two of them continued to watch the Radam monsters attempting to descend to the ground all around them.
"Yeah; he's Tekkaman Varis," she said, feeling a bit sad for the devastation that was being wrought on Noal's old neighborhood, but not at all sure just how any of them were supposed to go about stopping it.
Every one of their battlegrounds – those places where the twins would make a stand against the Radam and their monsters – had been left in ruins by the time the battle was over; to say nothing of what happened to those mercifully few places where one of Omega's Tekkamen would attack them, forcing both twins to defend themselves with everything they had. It was a sad thing, to see that kind of devastation visited on a place that had managed for the most part to remain free from the destruction that the Radam had inflicted on the rest of the planet at large. Still, what was happening here was a stark reminder that not everything about humanity was so far removed from the Radam.
As much as she didn't like the thought, that didn't make it any less true.
When the last of the Radam monsters had been brought down, by the combined Voltekkas from both twins, Aki turned to see the devastated landscape that had been left behind. She… well, she didn't particularly want to see this, but it felt like this was what she needed: to be reminded of what they were all fighting for; what their long struggle against the Radam was ultimately about, in the end. It wasn't about glory, or fame, or anything so fleeting as that; it was about serving the cause of humanity.
It was about protecting the people who couldn't protect themselves, whether from the Radam, or from scavengers like that gang who had unfortunately become more and more prevalent as the war seemed to grind on without much hope of ending. Or at least not ending happily for anyone who'd been born a human and was still fighting for their chance to live free.
"It's good to see that the kids have such a huge field to run around in, now," D-Two said, and Aki smiled as she saw him and Noal standing so close together, an arm over the other's shoulders; both lending support in his own way, just like brothers should.
"Yeah," Noal said, smiling as he wrapped his right arm more firmly around D-Two's shoulders. "It's strange, but the target of my father's vengeance, the Radam, helped me take down the house. Pretty ironic, huh?"
"It's a wonderful legacy from your father, to the future," she said, smiling gently as she made her way over to where the three of them were standing, D-Boy just slightly apart from Noal and D-Two where they stood.
She knew that he wasn't as open with his affection as his younger twin, but there were still times she couldn't help wishing… Well, nothing for it now, she reflected.
"Right, let's go," was all Noal said, as he turned away from Sophia and all of the children who had been taken into the care of that kind, gentle woman.
"What? But-" Milly asked.
"This place doesn't belong to me anymore," Noal said as he and D-Two continued to lean on one another for what was clearly mutual assurance as they walked. Considering how similar the two of them had turned out to be, Aki wasn't at all surprised that the first person that Noal had looked to under these trying circumstances was D-Two.
"Oi, I've been waiting for you," Levin said, before any of them could say anything else in response. "Come on," he said, wrapping his arms around D-Two's waist as Noal stepped back, an amused grin growing on his face. "Oh, it's been way too long since I could see my sexy D-Two up close like this."
"Ah, has my Lev-chan been hard at work?" D-Two asked, a distinctly teasing note in his voice, sly grin growing on his face as he and Levin continued on their way back to the Green Earth.
"Yeah, and I managed to dig up some information," the redhead said, grinning with the pride of a job well-done. "Apparently, a Tekkamen who isn't either of our D-Boys has been spotted. The reports also say that he was smaller than any of the others that have been reported."
She couldn't help tensing at that; she'd long since come to understand the fact, much as she didn't like it, that where Tekkaman Wraith went, Tekkaman Axe was never far behind. It couldn't have been because the Radam were worried that such a young boy wouldn't be able to fight on his own, both since those horrible aliens didn't seem the type to worry about even one of their own, and because she'd seen for herself the kind of damage that Tekkaman Wraith could do when he set his mind to it.
"So, it's Tekkaman Wraith, this time," D-Two said, his smile fading away to the kind of grim smirk that he wore far too often for Aki's comfort.
And probably his own, much as he didn't seem to like worrying people with what he clearly considered his problems.
There wasn't a lot of talking, as the six of them moved to get settled inside the Green Earth once again, but Aki couldn't rightfully begrudge anyone their silence, least of all D-Boy and D-Two. She already knew how difficult they found it, going on day after day when they both knew that they would always end up having to fight against the remnants of the Argos' crew that had been unfortunate enough to survive the rigors of the Radam's transformation process. Each of them coming out of it a monster.