A/N: This is the final of my rewritten chapters, any chapter after this is going to be new content. Hopefully I can do this series and the rest of this story some justice!
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Ringo smoothed out her uniform as she looked herself over in the mirror. She'd carefully hidden her mew aqua pendant under her uniform in case outside jewelry wasn't allowed in school. She knew she didn't need it anymore but it was still her mother's necklace and it still had meaning to her. "Well Yuki, how do I look?"
Ringo's penguin chirped from the bed behind her while munching on her breakfast. The Shirayuki's had been quite understanding of the situation and agreed to let her keep her pet there. If the penguin had been smart enough to sneak onto the plane the first time, there was nothing to say she wouldn't be smart enough to sneak off the next time.
"You're right Yuki, it doesn't look right." Ringo sighed, taking off her cap and laying down on the bed next to her beloved pet. "But it's not like I get much of a say in the matter."
"Ringo are you ready to go?" she could hear Berry calling from downstairs.
"I'm coming!" She called back. She quickly grabbed her back pack and kissed Yuki on the forehead. "I'll be home later! I have my first shift at Café Mew Mew after work today!" Yuki chirped in response as Ringo ran off.
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Ringo could barely focus on the lesson at hand she was so nervous. Her introduction to the class had gone about as well as you could imagine with all the stuttering included. At least she had Berry and Pudding in her home room. The three girls were sadly separated from their older friends, but at least they had each other.
When the bell rang Ringo stayed seated until she saw Berry and Pudding stand up, she quickly followed, grabbing her bag and not looking up.
"Ringo, your introduction wasn't that bad!" Pudding assured her. "Besides, there's no one to impress here except us. We already like you though na no da~!"
Ringo smiled, "I guess you're right Pudding, I'm just being silly…" Ringo trailed off when she noticed two girls walking in the opposite direction of them in the hallway. A girl with black hair and pink eyes, accompanied by a girl with white hair and green eyes. "Did you guys see them?" She said turning around quickly. But before she could even point the two girls out to her friends they were gone.
"See who?" Berry asked as she and Pudding looked around.
"N-nothing, it must be my imagination…let's just get to class." Ringo said before turning back around.
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Ringo relaxed a bit as the 7 girls sat out on the lawn having lunch. This felt much more like home than anything else she had been through so far today. Eating outside in the nice weather. All that was missing were Yuki and her brother Mashio. "So how are you liking school so far Ringo?" Lettuce asked.
"It's taking some getting used to, but to be honest it's just nice to be around you all again." Ringo smiled, hugging her knees to her chest. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of black and white.
Ringo whipped around "It's those two girls again!" But just like that they were gone again.
"What two girls?" Mint asked, taking a sip of her tea.
"Ringo thinks she saw two girls earlier today when we were leaving our first class. She must still be unsettled by the island fight." Berry whispered.
Suddenly Masha and Ucha began beeping in unison. "Incoming message from Ryou Shirogane!"
Ichigo pressed a button on Masha making him grow to full size. "Ryou? We're at school-"
"You're not alone!" Ryou yelled. Before the girls had time to fully process what he was saying, the screams of their classmates drowned him out and a loud crash was heard behind them.
Quickly the girls turned to see a Chimera Scorpion already getting to work on destroying the school yard. In one shared look the team knew what needed to be done. Ichigo and Zakuro quickly jumped to get other classmates inside the school building while Berry, Ringo, Lettuce, Minto, and Pudding all transformed to fight.
"Aw how sweet of you all to worry about your silly classmates!" Mew Oribu taunted.
Without a thought, Ringo jumped up to try to attack the cat and mouse pair, but the two of them could stay afloat much longer than the redhead could. Luckily Mint could fly and was able to be of service for the fight. Berry, Lettuce, and Pudding quickly jumped into action to fight the scorpion. They were joined by Ichigo and Zakuro soon after the students were safe.
"What even are you?" Minto screamed in frustration. Only the Cyniclons had been known to be able to teleport or stay in the air for as long as these girls could, but they were clearly mew mews as well.
"What are we? What are we? How dumb could you possibly be?" Oribu practically screamed while laughing maniacally. "We're mew mews, like you. But we're special. See we were made specifically to take down the entire team, but when our masters decided to scrap the project? Well we just couldn't let that happen."
"We'll spare you the boring details," Shoga said as she dove down to strike at Mint. "We're hybrids. Not fully Cyniclon, not fully human, but 100% mew mew all the way." With a swift kick Mint was down and she took Ringo with her.
Luckily, five mew mews against a single Chimera Animal was more than enough and it was downed and returned to normal by this point. The others turned their attention on the hybrid mews.
Cat flew in and immediately went for Ichigo by herself. "I think I was even meant to mirror you. Pathetic!" Quickly she summoned her weapon and aimed it at Ichigo. "Ribbon Oribu Check!" Ichigo quickly dodged the attack, summoning her own weapon to fight back.
Mew Shoga let out an exaggerated sigh as she effortlessly dodged attempted attacks from Mew Pudding. "Come on, you can do better than that, can't you?"
Lettuce turned her sights on Shoga, "Lettuce Sniping Shot!" She called. Ringo watched in awe as the attack went through. She'd noticed the girls had gotten upgraded uniforms, herself included, she just hadn't fully realized they came with new attacks.
Having been hit, Shoga went flying back into Oribu, which interrupted her own fight with Ichigo.
"Ugh, so rude. Didn't any of you ever learn any manners?" Oribu screamed, pushing her sister off of her.
"I suppose we'll just have to teach them ourselves." Shoga mused.
However the thought quickly evaporated when Kish and Tart teleported onto the scene. "Ryou thought you guys might need some help." Tart said as he summoned his bombs.
"Taru-Taru! I'm so glad to see you!" Pudding called, throwing herself at him.
"H-hey, cut it out, we're in the middle of something here! You'll just see me after school anyways!" Tart protested as his face grew red.
Oribu groaned. "I am not in the mood to deal with these two right now." Her eyes landed on Kish fawning over Ichigo. "Seems they wouldn't know a superior cat if one scratched them across the face." She glared.
"Let's regroup. We'll be seeing them again soon enough." Shoga offered.
"Yes, let's…" Oribu agreed, summoning a portal. "Let's play together again sometime soon!" She called back, eyes focused on Kish.
And like that they were gone. "Well that was…unexpected." Ringo said while powering down.
"At least we know what they are now, and you think they were masquerading as students here?" Lettuce asked, fixing her glasses.
"I saw two girls that looked like them after class this morning. It's possible, but I'm not sure…" Ringo mumbled.
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After school that day the team had a meeting in the Café basement. Keiichiro and Ryou filled the girls as well as Masaya and Tasuku in. Pie, Tart, and Kish manned the cafe by themselves.
"The Saint Rose Crusaders made hybrid mews to try to kill us?" Berry was stunned, she was still dealing with nightmares based on everyone, even normal civilians, trying to murder her. Tasuku wrapped an arm around her and began to rub her shoulders.
"The next time they attack, I'll be there Ichigo. I don't like using Deep Blue's power, but I can if I need to." Masaya said, grabbing Ichigo's hand.
"We don't want to put you or Tasuku in danger needlessly. We're still not even sure what fully triggers your access to Deep Blue's powers. For the moment it might be best to rely on the Cyniclons." Keiichiro said.
"Whether or not I have full control over the powers, I'm not a helpless civilian. I'd like to do my best to keep Ichigo and the others safe."
"I'm with Masaya on this, I might not have alien god powers buried deep inside like he does, but if there's anything I can do to help Berry, I'm going to do it." Tasuku chipped in.
"For now, no one is doing anything unless we all agree to it. Duke gave me this tracker app to keep an eye on them. With this we should be able to at least know when and where their next attack will be." said Ryou.
"If we can track them, shouldn't we go scout out wherever their hideout is? Previously we had to wait for attacks from the Cyniclons and the Saint Rose Crusaders. But if Ryou has the ability to track these two, we can look into them right now." Zakuro offered.
"An excellent idea my queen!" Mint said, clasping her hands together.
"We're going to have Kish and the others investigate. They can portal in and out without risking a fight." Keiichiro replied. "The rest of you are going to stay here for the rest of your shift, and then everyone is going to be escorted home safely."
"Pudding doesn't need an escort! Pudding is a big girl na no da!" Pudding called out.
"It's just for your safety, we can call in Kish, Pie, or Tart if you end up in a battle, but we don't want to risk anyone being left alone. Masaya, I assume you'll be walking Ichigo home, please take Lettuce home as well." Ryou requested.
"I'll stay at Mint's house with her until this is all sorted. I'm sure she's got the space and you two wouldn't be thrilled with me staying alone in my apartment." Zakuro sighed.
"I'll get Pudding home safely, if Berry has Ringo to walk with, I can just check up on here after the two of them get home." Tasuku offered.
"Then it's settled. Everyone will have a buddy at all times, and I'll be keeping an eye on the tracker to keep you all updated on their location." Ryou said. "Let's just hope they don't realize we're tracking them to begin with." He grumbled.
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Shoga leaned back against some empty gasoline barrels. The dark, dank warehouse she and Oribu had chosen to hide in was not exactly the coziest place of all, but it sure beat being kept in some thin tanks in cryo sleep for half a year. "How long until they figure out we know about the tracking devices?"
"Soon enough, hopefully. They won't be able to resist coming straight to us with our location beeping over and over again, for them to see plain as day." Oribu mused. "What does that alien see in Ichigo? She's cheap, weak, she doesn't even like him."
"Why would that matter? He has nothing to do with our plans." Shoga's brow furrowed.
"I mean, I am the superior cat, am I not?" Oribu shrieked.
"Of course you are sister. You don't need to compare yourself to trash like Ichigo. She's weak and washed up." Shoga soothed.
Both girls fell silent as they heard the sounds of a portal opening. A wicked smile formed on Oribu's lips. "Seems we have guests."
"We should greet them." Shoga said, smiling back.
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Welp, from here on out it's all new content. Thank you for reading up to this point or re-reading. I'm hoping to have a consistent schedule with updating.
Also when I started writing this, I wasn't planning for Oribu to have any sort of interest in Kish at all, but after making a few Dark Ichigo comparisons, the idea of having her pine for him while he pines for Ichigo is…interesting. We'll see where that goes!