So, just in case there is anyone curious, here's the nitty-gritty details...
"Ezekiel!"
My head shot up at that and turned to the source. To my surprise, a mountain of a man stood at the entrance of the
Shrine, and he was dressed in the uniform of a US Naval Officer.
"Dad?" said Zeke in surprise. "I thought you were out with the Fleet."
This is his Father? I thought to myself. The fearsome Matheiu Darkwood that I had heard so much about? Zeke looks
nothing at all like the man. But then, he did say something about taking after his Mother. They were speaking in English, but mine was good enough to follow
along - I was glad that Zeke had been tutoring the others and myself.
"Something has come up, son," said the huge man, his hazel eyes filled with worry. "I need you to
come back to the base with me immediately."
Zeke was confused and it showed in his eyes. "Dad, what's going on?"
"There's no time to explain just yet, son. Now come along."
Zeke looked at me with an expression on his face that clearly said, shikata nai - it cannot be help and I was sudenly
filled with the strangest compulsion; I did the last thing I would have expected myself to do.
"Excuse me, but may I come with you?"
The Elder Darkwood fixed me with a piercing gaze. I could tell that it was the same one that Zeke would use on me
when he was seriously considering something, but somehow the Elder's lacked the same sort of impact. It did, however, make me seriously reconsider my
request.
"You're Hino Rei, yes?" I nodded. Matheiu then sighed and said, "I wish I could, but I have my
instructions. An Officer of my rank can only bend the rules so much. Just keep your eyes on the news channels. All of Japan is going to know by the end of
the day, anyways." It stung, but I saw that he would not bend - it was as though the man exuded the very essence of stone. Small wonder where Zeke got
his steel influence. I bowed briefly to him and Zeke and I went to pack away the materials for the fuuins we'd been working on, but Zeke's father
stopped us. "We have no time, we must go now. The JR Line has a special train waiting for us at the station. We must hurry."
NANI!? What on Earth could be so important that JR would set aside a train for them?
After that, all I could do was simply watch, feeling an odd sense of powerlessness settle over me as they left, Zeke
casting one last look and a wave before he disappeared from view. I at least took comfort in the fact that he seemed to feel as powerless as I did.
Feeling the need for some comfort, I went to make some tea. At first, I reached for the green tea I usually use, but
then noticed that Zeke had left his mint blend behind. Knowing that he wouldn't mind at all, I reached for that instead.
***
I followed my Father as he set a brisk pace going down the steps and I nearly had to scramble to catch up. A black sedan,
the sort used by high-ranking members of the Diet was waiting at the bottom of the hill. There were motorcycle-mounted police as well. Two in front and two
behind.
Not even before the doors had shut did the police escorts in the front take off to clear the way. I was forced into the back of my seat by the acceleration. I
looked to my Father and the expression on his face was taught - nervous even.
He noticed and said, "Wait until we are on the train. Then we'll talk." The rest of the ride passed in tense silence, punctuated by small squeals
from the tires as we took the harder corners.
Once we got to the station, I noticed something was disturbingly different right away.
It was too quiet.
The reason was readily apparent, though. Black-suited men lurked in the shadows and wore strange armbands. Four of them formed a guard around us and guided us
through the eerily silent station. Only a token number of conductors were at the platform and they bowed deeply as we entered the train.
Once we took our seats, the train began moving.
"Okay, Dad, what's going on?" I said, confusion underlying my calm tone.
Father sighed. "Zeke, my son, first of all I need you to understand this - under other circumstances this would be classifed at such a high level that you
would probably wind up getting relocated to some remote island for the rest of your life just to ensure that nothing ever got out. As it is, though, this thing
is going to get blown up into a media circus."
I swallowed hard at that. I'd heard stories about this sort of thing before. Fictional, of course, but that wouldn't keep the US Government from
dealing with such a potential leak in a manner similar to Typhoid Mary's banishment.
"I understand, sir," I said.
"Good. Earlier this morning, NASA tracked several objects entering controlled orbits around the planet."
"Controlled orbits?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I thought so too," said Father, shaking his head. "It seems like once and for all the science fiction fans are getting their wish. The problem
is that while they seem friendly, their motivations are anything but. They contacted us and told us, quite politely, that they were here to conquer our world.
However, they left us with a sporting chance. They want someone to participate in a competition for our sovereign rights."
"Okay, so why all this then unless..." Right then, the neurons in my head fired off in the right sequence and I put two-and-two together. "Oh
HELL no!"
"That's what I said, too. Apparently they use some sort of random lottery to pick out the competition, but this time they decided to limit the choices
to people that would give them a more interesting challenge. And so your name came up."
I just sat there in silence for a moment, just letting it sink in.
I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. Not one bit. None of the fame, none of the recognition. Rescuing an old man from sudden death is one thing.
Saving the whole damn world is not the kind of attention I want.
"Are you alright, son?" said my Father.
I looked up to him and saw open concern on his face. "Yeah, I'll be okay, Dad."
"I guess it's a little much."
"Understatement of the millennium, Dad."
Suddenly the lights on the train flickered and the motor under our feet shuddered. Right away the train began to slow to a halt and the guards looked around
nervously, some putting their hands to their concealed shoulder-holsters. The leader was discreetly murmuring something into his radio pickup.
The train shuddered again and sidearms were drawn.
"Earthquake?" I asked.
"I don't think so," my Father murmured slowly. "I've seen this before."
The train shuddered once more and this time there was a deafening squeal of arcing electricity as something intolerably bright, punching straight through the
ceiling of the train, blinded us.
Slowly, vision came back and I had to scrub at my eyes to believe what I was seeing.
Under a charred, smoking hole in the ceiling was a girl about my age with billowing green hair and baby-blue eyes. I could tell that she was a very healthy
girl since she wore so little to obstruct my view - something that looked like a tiger-skin bikini and knee-high boots. Her build was what my Grandma Charlotte
might call 'Birthing Proportions.'
Oh. And she had horns.
Two, smallish horns poking through the top of her hair.
"Hello!" she said cheerfully. "My name Lum. You Ezekiel?"
The guards relaxed and I blinked. She was speaking English. It was accented, and a bit pidgined, but it was English.
"Yes, I'm Ezekiel," I said a bit uncertainly.
"Great!" she said excitedly. "You be my opponent!"
I exchanged looks with my Dad.
Is this chick for real!?
You got me, son.
"Uhm, nice to meet you," I said. "No offense, but why would you come here right now?"
Lum shrugged and sat down in the seat across from my father and me. "I bored. You interesting. Have complete dossier!" And from what could have only
been Hammer-Space, she whipped out a massively thick file folder.
"How the hell did you get that!?" said my Father, his eyes bugging out at the sight.
Lum shrugged once more. "Hacked it."
I blinked. "Damn. They're good."
My Father sighed heavily at that. "The Pentagon is not gonna be happy about that."
"Dad, to hear you talk sometimes, they're hardly happy about anything."
Dad grudged a grunt of a laugh.
Suddenly, the Engineer came out of the control cab and began screaming at Lum in barely understandable Japanese.
"Ah, son," said my Father. "You're a bit better at this than I am."
"He says we lost power because of Lum's light-show. Thinks we blew the fuses on the transformers."
"You need electricity?" said Lum to the engineer in perfect Japanese. She then held up her arms and an crackling arc appeared, dancing between her
palms. "Where do you need it?"
"It's not as simple as that," I said, switching back to the Japanese that I had been getting better with.
"Nani?" asked Lum, giving me a curious look.
"I don't know how dated your knowledge is, but these modern electrical trains won't operate off of raw power like that. We need the refined stuff.
So we either wait for another train, which I'm sure that the guard speaking into his radio is arranging for now, or we start walking."
"Hmph! I take it back, you're no fun at all."
"Hah! Stick around. My life has a tendency to get interesting, in the ancient Chinese sense of the word."
***
Another train did come, pulling right up next to us. Lum, in a fit of pique, decided not to talk to us for the rest of
the trip.
What awaited us at the Base was more empty streets with armed guards at every corner. We were brought to one of the emptier shops in the Ship Repair Facility.
At first, I wondered why they would use such a dumpy place, but when I finally saw Mr. Invader, I figured it out pretty quickly.
Mr. Invader is sprockin' huge.
Not just huge as in 'I'm a little over two-meters' huge, but huge as in 'I just ate a cow and I think I can squeeze some dessert in' huge.
I looked up and up at him as as we approached. Since no one else spoke and Mr. Invader just eyed me from where he sat, I went ahead and broke the ice.
"Howdy there. You folks certainly don't like to do anything by
halves, do you?"
A smile split the Oni's face. "You got that right, kid! I'm Mr. Invader. I guess that my wayward little girl already filled you in on the
rest."
Somewhere in my head, I could hear myself going Heeeeeeeehhhh?
"She did, and wow, she's you're daughter?"
"Oh yes, my pride and joy."
"Indeed, she's very lovely, though I bet she's a handful."
Mr. Invader's grin faltered as he read between the lines there. "Did she cause you trouble?"
"A bit," I admited, "but I imagine the one most offended party would be the Japan Rail company - she fried the train we were on when she beamed
in."
"You snitch!" I heard Lum cry out and I felt my hair stand on end. Without really thinking I ducked and rolled (slipping off my backpack as I did),
and not a moment too soon as a crackling bolt of electricity leaped from Lum's fingers and scorched the pavement where I had been standing. Seeing the
hundred-watt glare on her face as she cast that bolt, I had to wonder if she was somehow related to Emperor Palpatine.
As I came up my hand dove into my backpack and came back out sheathed in my fire gauntlet, already in flames.
"Let's just see you try that again," I said, a savage grin on my face.
"What you do with it? No get close me."
My grin got a bit bigger as I pulled a wind-fuuin that I had meant to experiment with later and slapped it onto my forearm with the fire-gauntlet.
"This," I said as I blew over the fuuin and grabbed ahold of the elements within me, this time both fire and wind. The result was like as if someone
had built a flamethrower into my arm.
Lum yelped in surprise and jumped clear of the stream acrobatically.
The sound of a gunshot pierced our ears, leaving them ringing.
"That's enough, the both of you!" snapped my Father, handing a surprised Marine his smoking M-14. "Mr. Invader, would you kindly do
something with your daughter? Zeke, you and I are going to have words later, son."
Hoo boy, I thought to myself. I am dead meat.
And then a seismic chuckle filled the air. "Kid, I like you," said Mr. Invader. "You got guts pulling a move like that on my
daughter."
"You mean this doesn't happen very often?" I wondered out loud. Lum glared daggers at me.
"Hah!" scoffed Mr. Invader. "I wish! Everyone is too busy worshipping the ground she walks on!"
"Daddy!" cried out Lum, scandalized.
"It's true," he told her mildly. "Between your beauty and your position in our family, everyone with a Y-chromosome practically grovels at
your feet and you, my daughter, have grown too soft and complacent! It's about time someone threw something other than flowers at your feet."
"Ezekiel!"
My head shot up at that and turned to the source. To my surprise, a mountain of a man stood at the entrance of the
Shrine, and he was dressed in the uniform of a US Naval Officer.
"Dad?" said Zeke in surprise. "I thought you were out with the Fleet."
This is his Father? I thought to myself. The fearsome Matheiu Darkwood that I had heard so much about? Zeke looks
nothing at all like the man. But then, he did say something about taking after his Mother. They were speaking in English, but mine was good enough to follow
along - I was glad that Zeke had been tutoring the others and myself.
"Something has come up, son," said the huge man, his hazel eyes filled with worry. "I need you to
come back to the base with me immediately."
Zeke was confused and it showed in his eyes. "Dad, what's going on?"
"There's no time to explain just yet, son. Now come along."
Zeke looked at me with an expression on his face that clearly said, shikata nai - it cannot be help and I was sudenly
filled with the strangest compulsion; I did the last thing I would have expected myself to do.
"Excuse me, but may I come with you?"
The Elder Darkwood fixed me with a piercing gaze. I could tell that it was the same one that Zeke would use on me
when he was seriously considering something, but somehow the Elder's lacked the same sort of impact. It did, however, make me seriously reconsider my
request.
"You're Hino Rei, yes?" I nodded. Matheiu then sighed and said, "I wish I could, but I have my
instructions. An Officer of my rank can only bend the rules so much. Just keep your eyes on the news channels. All of Japan is going to know by the end of
the day, anyways." It stung, but I saw that he would not bend - it was as though the man exuded the very essence of stone. Small wonder where Zeke got
his steel influence. I bowed briefly to him and Zeke and I went to pack away the materials for the fuuins we'd been working on, but Zeke's father
stopped us. "We have no time, we must go now. The JR Line has a special train waiting for us at the station. We must hurry."
NANI!? What on Earth could be so important that JR would set aside a train for them?
After that, all I could do was simply watch, feeling an odd sense of powerlessness settle over me as they left, Zeke
casting one last look and a wave before he disappeared from view. I at least took comfort in the fact that he seemed to feel as powerless as I did.
Feeling the need for some comfort, I went to make some tea. At first, I reached for the green tea I usually use, but
then noticed that Zeke had left his mint blend behind. Knowing that he wouldn't mind at all, I reached for that instead.
***
I followed my Father as he set a brisk pace going down the steps and I nearly had to scramble to catch up. A black sedan,
the sort used by high-ranking members of the Diet was waiting at the bottom of the hill. There were motorcycle-mounted police as well. Two in front and two
behind.
Not even before the doors had shut did the police escorts in the front take off to clear the way. I was forced into the back of my seat by the acceleration. I
looked to my Father and the expression on his face was taught - nervous even.
He noticed and said, "Wait until we are on the train. Then we'll talk." The rest of the ride passed in tense silence, punctuated by small squeals
from the tires as we took the harder corners.
Once we got to the station, I noticed something was disturbingly different right away.
It was too quiet.
The reason was readily apparent, though. Black-suited men lurked in the shadows and wore strange armbands. Four of them formed a guard around us and guided us
through the eerily silent station. Only a token number of conductors were at the platform and they bowed deeply as we entered the train.
Once we took our seats, the train began moving.
"Okay, Dad, what's going on?" I said, confusion underlying my calm tone.
Father sighed. "Zeke, my son, first of all I need you to understand this - under other circumstances this would be classifed at such a high level that you
would probably wind up getting relocated to some remote island for the rest of your life just to ensure that nothing ever got out. As it is, though, this thing
is going to get blown up into a media circus."
I swallowed hard at that. I'd heard stories about this sort of thing before. Fictional, of course, but that wouldn't keep the US Government from
dealing with such a potential leak in a manner similar to Typhoid Mary's banishment.
"I understand, sir," I said.
"Good. Earlier this morning, NASA tracked several objects entering controlled orbits around the planet."
"Controlled orbits?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I thought so too," said Father, shaking his head. "It seems like once and for all the science fiction fans are getting their wish. The problem
is that while they seem friendly, their motivations are anything but. They contacted us and told us, quite politely, that they were here to conquer our world.
However, they left us with a sporting chance. They want someone to participate in a competition for our sovereign rights."
"Okay, so why all this then unless..." Right then, the neurons in my head fired off in the right sequence and I put two-and-two together. "Oh
HELL no!"
"That's what I said, too. Apparently they use some sort of random lottery to pick out the competition, but this time they decided to limit the choices
to people that would give them a more interesting challenge. And so your name came up."
I just sat there in silence for a moment, just letting it sink in.
I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. Not one bit. None of the fame, none of the recognition. Rescuing an old man from sudden death is one thing.
Saving the whole damn world is not the kind of attention I want.
"Are you alright, son?" said my Father.
I looked up to him and saw open concern on his face. "Yeah, I'll be okay, Dad."
"I guess it's a little much."
"Understatement of the millennium, Dad."
Suddenly the lights on the train flickered and the motor under our feet shuddered. Right away the train began to slow to a halt and the guards looked around
nervously, some putting their hands to their concealed shoulder-holsters. The leader was discreetly murmuring something into his radio pickup.
The train shuddered again and sidearms were drawn.
"Earthquake?" I asked.
"I don't think so," my Father murmured slowly. "I've seen this before."
The train shuddered once more and this time there was a deafening squeal of arcing electricity as something intolerably bright, punching straight through the
ceiling of the train, blinded us.
Slowly, vision came back and I had to scrub at my eyes to believe what I was seeing.
Under a charred, smoking hole in the ceiling was a girl about my age with billowing green hair and baby-blue eyes. I could tell that she was a very healthy
girl since she wore so little to obstruct my view - something that looked like a tiger-skin bikini and knee-high boots. Her build was what my Grandma Charlotte
might call 'Birthing Proportions.'
Oh. And she had horns.
Two, smallish horns poking through the top of her hair.
"Hello!" she said cheerfully. "My name Lum. You Ezekiel?"
The guards relaxed and I blinked. She was speaking English. It was accented, and a bit pidgined, but it was English.
"Yes, I'm Ezekiel," I said a bit uncertainly.
"Great!" she said excitedly. "You be my opponent!"
I exchanged looks with my Dad.
Is this chick for real!?
You got me, son.
"Uhm, nice to meet you," I said. "No offense, but why would you come here right now?"
Lum shrugged and sat down in the seat across from my father and me. "I bored. You interesting. Have complete dossier!" And from what could have only
been Hammer-Space, she whipped out a massively thick file folder.
"How the hell did you get that!?" said my Father, his eyes bugging out at the sight.
Lum shrugged once more. "Hacked it."
I blinked. "Damn. They're good."
My Father sighed heavily at that. "The Pentagon is not gonna be happy about that."
"Dad, to hear you talk sometimes, they're hardly happy about anything."
Dad grudged a grunt of a laugh.
Suddenly, the Engineer came out of the control cab and began screaming at Lum in barely understandable Japanese.
"Ah, son," said my Father. "You're a bit better at this than I am."
"He says we lost power because of Lum's light-show. Thinks we blew the fuses on the transformers."
"You need electricity?" said Lum to the engineer in perfect Japanese. She then held up her arms and an crackling arc appeared, dancing between her
palms. "Where do you need it?"
"It's not as simple as that," I said, switching back to the Japanese that I had been getting better with.
"Nani?" asked Lum, giving me a curious look.
"I don't know how dated your knowledge is, but these modern electrical trains won't operate off of raw power like that. We need the refined stuff.
So we either wait for another train, which I'm sure that the guard speaking into his radio is arranging for now, or we start walking."
"Hmph! I take it back, you're no fun at all."
"Hah! Stick around. My life has a tendency to get interesting, in the ancient Chinese sense of the word."
***
Another train did come, pulling right up next to us. Lum, in a fit of pique, decided not to talk to us for the rest of
the trip.
What awaited us at the Base was more empty streets with armed guards at every corner. We were brought to one of the emptier shops in the Ship Repair Facility.
At first, I wondered why they would use such a dumpy place, but when I finally saw Mr. Invader, I figured it out pretty quickly.
Mr. Invader is sprockin' huge.
Not just huge as in 'I'm a little over two-meters' huge, but huge as in 'I just ate a cow and I think I can squeeze some dessert in' huge.
I looked up and up at him as as we approached. Since no one else spoke and Mr. Invader just eyed me from where he sat, I went ahead and broke the ice.
"Howdy there. You folks certainly don't like to do anything by
halves, do you?"
A smile split the Oni's face. "You got that right, kid! I'm Mr. Invader. I guess that my wayward little girl already filled you in on the
rest."
Somewhere in my head, I could hear myself going Heeeeeeeehhhh?
"She did, and wow, she's you're daughter?"
"Oh yes, my pride and joy."
"Indeed, she's very lovely, though I bet she's a handful."
Mr. Invader's grin faltered as he read between the lines there. "Did she cause you trouble?"
"A bit," I admited, "but I imagine the one most offended party would be the Japan Rail company - she fried the train we were on when she beamed
in."
"You snitch!" I heard Lum cry out and I felt my hair stand on end. Without really thinking I ducked and rolled (slipping off my backpack as I did),
and not a moment too soon as a crackling bolt of electricity leaped from Lum's fingers and scorched the pavement where I had been standing. Seeing the
hundred-watt glare on her face as she cast that bolt, I had to wonder if she was somehow related to Emperor Palpatine.
As I came up my hand dove into my backpack and came back out sheathed in my fire gauntlet, already in flames.
"Let's just see you try that again," I said, a savage grin on my face.
"What you do with it? No get close me."
My grin got a bit bigger as I pulled a wind-fuuin that I had meant to experiment with later and slapped it onto my forearm with the fire-gauntlet.
"This," I said as I blew over the fuuin and grabbed ahold of the elements within me, this time both fire and wind. The result was like as if someone
had built a flamethrower into my arm.
Lum yelped in surprise and jumped clear of the stream acrobatically.
The sound of a gunshot pierced our ears, leaving them ringing.
"That's enough, the both of you!" snapped my Father, handing a surprised Marine his smoking M-14. "Mr. Invader, would you kindly do
something with your daughter? Zeke, you and I are going to have words later, son."
Hoo boy, I thought to myself. I am dead meat.
And then a seismic chuckle filled the air. "Kid, I like you," said Mr. Invader. "You got guts pulling a move like that on my
daughter."
"You mean this doesn't happen very often?" I wondered out loud. Lum glared daggers at me.
"Hah!" scoffed Mr. Invader. "I wish! Everyone is too busy worshipping the ground she walks on!"
"Daddy!" cried out Lum, scandalized.
"It's true," he told her mildly. "Between your beauty and your position in our family, everyone with a Y-chromosome practically grovels at
your feet and you, my daughter, have grown too soft and complacent! It's about time someone threw something other than flowers at your feet."