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They spent the rest of the night dancing when they felt the mood or heard the right song, but no other they heard that night had the same effect on them. Giroro never tried the cheek rub again. He watched the other young Pekopenians. During slow dances they would sometimes soundlessly mash their faces against their partners and part their lips though there didn't seem to be any bite to the attack. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I must learn how these Pokopenians express their desires, he thought. Perhaps my Natsumi will tell me if I ask?
How could I ever ask her that? he continued with a deep look into her entrancing eyes. For a warrior to admit ignorance is tantamount to admitting defeat! I shall have to obtain such information covertly.
In the back of his mind he was already formulating a mission plan to obtain the needed intelligence, when reality intruded on his musings. Just as the final song was played and the final snack demolished, and the last of the lemonade drunk, Giroro heard and felt the warning signs; the suit was warming by the passing minutes. At first he thought the sensation was the emotional effect of Natsumi's proximity, but then his abdomen began to emit a high pitched whine, which he could hear all too well, but the Pekopenians, thankfully, could not.
Shit. It's an hour early! I've got to get out of this thing.
"Natsumi," he urgently called as she returned from a last snack run. "I must go. I had a most enjoyable night with you...but it is no longer safe to be around me."
"What? Why?"
"I cannot explain. Get away from me! Leave here!" he ordered, turning and sprinting out of the wide double doors, leaving Natsumi standing there in confusion. "Do not follow me!"
"What the hell, Giroro," she muttered, completely ignoring his orders by dropping her food, yanking off her shoes and giving chase.
Koyuki turned and observed the altercation, worried as first Giroro ran out, and then the object of her own affections sped out the doors after him. This could be bad, she mused. She molded her chakra with a swift hand, flared, and wavered - her ninja-garment-change jutsu complete - and chased after them.
---
"Giroro!" Natsumi yelled into the night after the fleeing form, her bare feet slapping on the concrete of the parking lot and dodging around the myriad of yellow cabs waiting to take their passengers home. She ignored the pain if she stepped on a random pebble, stubbed her toe on a rock or even tread on the rare shard of glass. There was a stupid frog to catch and strangle.
What the hell is his problem, thinking he can go and ditch me like that? And what was all that about us being in danger?
She was able to follow him just barely, the lights from the parking lot helping her to spot the fleeing form. He dodged between cars and smaller storage sheds to shake her pursuit, but only succeeded as he fled behind the gymnasium. Natsumi panted to catch up, but when she rounded the corner of the gym she saw nothing.
Don't think I can't know where you are, Natsumi thought as she caught her breath, her purse and shoes hanging on tired fingers. "I'll show him," she growled, as she rifled through her purse and recovered her familiar metal wingpack and tracer disc.
---
Giroro frantically scanned the landscape for an open area away from Natsumi and her training companions. He ducked into a thankfully unlocked door by leaning against it. He panted as if he was really running with his own legs. Thanks to his sudden heavy running, the suit was even hotter and the whine was that much more insistent. I'm running out of time, he panicked, as he followed the long hallway.
And found himself in a large open field surrounded by a running track. He had been here before; memories of himself and Natsumi winning a three legged race came back to him. No time for nostalgia, he berated himself as he jogged into the middle of the field. The explosion may take out this whole facility, he mused, but at least it will be away from Natsumi and the others.
Confidently knocking on the chest of the suit three times, he waited for the chest panel to pop open.
Nothing happened.
Grunting, he tried again harder.
The suit responded by getting that much hotter. He began to sweat from both the heat and worry.
He opened up the boutonniere control panel and began pressing a sequence of numbers that Kururu had told him, but the keypad only responded by shocking his fingers and throwing sparks.
Shit. It's malfunctioning from that sweet drink.
There was only one way left to get out now; that extremely forceful ejection lever that the yellow frog told him to only use in a dire situation. This is as dire a situation as I'll ever get.
He unzipped the fly of his suits' pants, groped inside and flicked the eject lever.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened, that is, until he heard a voice between his ears. The croaking drone muttered from nowhere and everywhere. Kururu's voice, craven and bragging; "Corporal-san. Your suit is about to explode. This ejection lever will blast you 500 meters away; if you launch at a one eight circle. You have 80 Pokopenian seconds to critical suit failure." The unseen and distant Kururu snickered, "You must be away or be destroyed with the suit. I think I forgot to pack you a parachute, kukukuku."
Five hundred meters? Giroro blanched. I will not survive.
"STUPID FROG!"
Giroro gasped, whirled around and looked up to see Natsumi hovering not 10 meters above him, whirring wings lofting her. "Just what do you think you are doing?"
With nothing holding them up, the pants succumbed to the law of gravity and fell to the ground. Natsumi yelped and clapped her hands over her eyes, causing her handbag to smack her in the forehead. At the same time, Giroro realized that her position above him gave him quite a clear view of the panties he had washed that morning. His face flamed a brighter red and he stared resolutely at the ground.
"I told you not to follow me, Natsumi!" He yelled at his feet, not caring that his pants were around his ankles. "If you had just stayed there like I told you, you wouldn't--"
"Like I'm going to let you get away..."
"Natsumi, I am going to EXPLODE!" A cold wind passed through the field. Natsumi hovered, stunned and silent. Giroro examined his dusty black loafers, silent and ashamed. "The blast will destroy this whole training center. I ordered you to away for your own safety. But now I must eject, and you must get away, quickly." His voice shook with the strain of so failing her. I'm so sorry.
"No way!" Natsumi hovered over him; she thought quickly. "Eject." She motioned straight up. "I'll catch you." I have a plan...
... that may even work, Giroro completed her thought.
"Fly high," he instructed. She fled upwards, higher and higher, dwindling above him. He readied himself. He closed his eyes. He hyperventilated. He evacuated all the air from his lungs at the expected acceleration. He flicked the eject lever emphatically.
Nothing happened, except for that drawling voice that he had come to loathe ringing in his ears. "This suit will explode in 60 seconds. Pull the ejection lever if you don't want to die," the recording spat sarcastically, as if it knew what was happening.
Giroro grimaced, shutting his eyes as he angled himself straight up. He gripped the lever and pulled with all the strength fear granted him.
The suit split in several places and opened like a flower on a spring morning, a single cannon-shaped device all that was left holding the frog. The suit whined and then with an enormous roar he was shot upward. His limbs were drawn to his sides by the G forces, his eyes pressed into his head. His earspots roared with the wind and popped abruptly from the pressure differential as he barreled past Natsumi.
55 seconds.
She sped after the frog, shocked at the speed at which he was traveling. The airborne warrior began to slow marginally as gravity once again reclaimed its grip; Natsumi struggled to catch up.
40 seconds.
Just as the red body reached the apex of his flight, where he hung weightless for just one moment, Natsumi braked and scooped him out of the cold air, holding him tightly to her chest. She turned 180 degrees, angling herself straight down.
36 seconds.
Her eyes watered and squinted against the wind as she accelerated towards the ground. The body in her arms was all but a ragdoll. Hang on, Giroro.
32 seconds.
She didn't brake until she was but 6 feet from the opened suit, the sudden deceleration snapping her limbs and head forward, but she held firm to her precious cargo until she alighted to the ground. She placed Giroro gently to the ground and ripped the ungainly metal backpack from herself and smacked it onto the cannon-like device. She shoved the disc atop it.
A certain ninja girl witnessed the entire scene as she emerged from the bushes onto the field.
"FLY!" Natsumi screamed at the pack, panic choking her voice. "Straight up, as fast as you're able!"
The single green eye in the disc whirled around, as if it understood. The next moment, a hidden rocket pack emerged from between the diaphanous wings, labeled 'For Emergency Use Only.' The engines started with a roar. Natsumi and the unconscious Giroro were thrown aside as it took off, leaving the ground scorched black.
10 seconds.
Natsumi crawled to Giroro. He was covered in soot from his ejection and the subsequent rocket launch. She held her hand over his nostrils. He was still breathing, but his flesh was dry and dehydrated.
9... 8... 7... 6...
She cuddled him to her chest and scrambled to her feet, as she watched the suit dwindle into the sky. The flame of the emergency boost had dwindled to a scintillating pinpoint, nearly a kilometer up. Natsumi was unaware of the Kuyuki at her elbow, whose eyes also craned upward.
5... 4... 3...
The suit pierced the low-hanging cumulus cloud cover and the flame vanished from sight.
2...
The full moon was completely hidden. The sky was starless. The clouds were dark. Calm. Motionless. Giroro stirred in Natsumi's arms. He looked to her face, then followed her gaze.
1.
Beat. Beat. Beat.
The clouds lit internally and parted silently. A perfect circle of pressure pushed them aside and they piled one atop another. The full moon at first peeked through and then shone unobstructed as the clouds scudded away in all directions.
Two seconds passed.
A stalwart boom rolled across the athletic field. It could be heard over their own heartbeats, over the far away cackling of students, over the voices of parents, over the yellow cabs' and scooters' engines. All terrestrial noise suddenly silenced as every head jerked upwards and every face was bathed in the moonshine. Blasted pieces of the suit began to fall, but none returned to earth. Each piece's microfusion initiator exploded, one after another, into multicoloured sparks and particles. Crackles, pops and lesser booms suffused the air and lit the faces of the onlookers.
Giroro looked into Natsumi's luminous eyes. He curled into her warmth, savoring the comfort of her touch, the smell of her skin through the acrid odor of burnt mucus, the sight of her victorious smile. She looked down at him and pressed her lips to the skull on his cap, then twisted the emblem hard over so that the NMP field encompassed them both.
Natsumi whispered to her armful of frog, "I'm taking you home."
She turned on heel, straight into Koyuki. She looked into the eyes of her aghast classmate. Koyuki struggled to say something, but all she could squeak out was, "No, Natsumi. No. As if it can ever be..."
Natsumi cut her off with a sharp, patently-Natsumi glare and growl, sidestepped the responding gaze and the girl too, and hiked determinedly up the rise behind the bleachers. She was dimly aware of Koyuki following dumbly. She was more aware of the applause she could hear from beyond the gymnasium and from ahead of her as she walked through the school's open gates. Spectators cheering not her and her hard work, but the aerial wonder Giroro's man-equin had wrought upon the night sky.
In her arms, Giroro had fallen asleep.
Copyright ©2006 by Origamigryphon and the Chumducky
Exclusively distributed by litforge.com. Please do not distribute without prior written permission of the authors and litforge.com.