New Orleans
Ikku crouched behind
a mound of broken concrete and stared at the entrance
to the clothing and haberdashery work that had, until
the day before, employed his good friend and teammate
Sato Kiko, otherwise known as Yellow Robo. 'Until the
day before', he thought, because the store had in the
past twenty-four hours been smashed to pieces twice
- first by flying debris from his own battle as
Red Robo against the attacking, chaotic Ranma Robo
and then by looters tearing through the shopping
centre in which it operated while the giant robot
Katrina wreaked havoc throughout the city, destroying
any homes and buildings in its path.
He had no interest
in the store, of course (it sold women's clothing,
and while Ikku was a lot of things, a crossdresser
wasn't one of them). He was waiting for the store's
owner - Kiko's employer - to arrive. He needed to
speak to her.
He waited for hours
as construction and rescue crews passed through the
shopping centre, looking for anyone who may have been
trapped in the rubble as well as any major structural
damage that might need immediate attention to ensure
the safety of business owners wanting to return to
survey the damage to their stores and offices.
Ikku dug himself
deeper and deeper into the wreckage as the rescue
workers came closer and closer to discovering him,
but despite his deliberate efforts to remain hidden
he couldn't help but feel disappointed that he was
not found. He would have looked harder. He
would have stayed until all of the debris was
cleared, to make sure no-one was trapped at the
absolute bottom of the very mound in which he was
concealed... but then, he would try harder
than most, since the damage to the shopping centre
was all his fault.
Ranma Robo had come
looking for him. Ikku defended himself, and the
attack Ranma Robo offered in response had put lives
at risk - including that of Kiko's boss. If anything
had happened to her, he would be to blame.
Even now, if the damaged building collapsed further
and crushed the rescuers... it would be all his
fault.
I can't think
like that, he told himself. If I take the
blame for every bit of damage caused by our fights,
with Curtis right through to Katrina... I'd never be
able to fight again...
He looked down at
his body, clad only in the bright red, formfitting
robosuit that had never been separated from his body
for more than a few hours at a time for the past
seven weeks, but had hugged his body periodically for
more than two years.
Two years at
Project: Roboman and I still don't have any idea what
this thing can do. My father - no, 'Doctor Nagura', he
corrected himself - was right to focus on Sei's
training instead of mine.
"Oh, come on,
you little dork," Ikku looked up as he heard
Amy's voice above him. "You've been hiding down
there for hours. Did you think to maybe look
inside the store before you staked it
out?"
Ikku pulled himself
free of the rubble and stared at the woman directly
in front of him. Her name was Amy Seaward, and she
was Kiko's boss. She was tall, almost the same height
as Ikku, with long, straight brown hair which fell to
just below her shoulders. She wore a brown coat over
a yellow t-shirt and three-quarter length black
trousers, with her feet partly covered by black
sandals.
"You knew I was
here all along?" Ikku asked.
"Yep," Amy
grinned. "I'm not sure why you were
there, though."
Ikku didn't say
anything. He was trying to speak, but he
felt the words bottling up in his throat. They just
wouldn't come out. What he wanted to say would have
been hard enough, even if he was trying to say it to
someone he knew well (not that many people existed
who fit under that category); but he hardly knew Amy
at all - in fact, they had only spent a few minutes
together before Ranma Robo attacked.
"Weeeelllll?"
Amy prompted.
She leaned forward
at the hips and tilted her head back to look up into
Ikku's face.
"You... you saw
what I did, when I was fighting that robot?"
Ikku asked. "You saw me become Red Robo?"
Amy straightened her
back and nodded.
"It was really
cool," she told him. "I never thought I'd
meet one of the Robomen!"
"Well, I'm not
a Roboman anymore. I quit."
"Why?"
"It's a... long
story."
"Great! I love
stories, and I've got plenty of time!" Amy
grinned again. "I don't have anything else to do
today; the store's a wreck and I'm not going to try
cleaning it up until Kiko comes in tomorrow -
and yes, I guessed that Kiko is Yellow Robo,
too."
Ikku looked away
from Amy and sighed.
"No, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have come to you," he said.
"You have enough to worry about and you don't
even know me. Good luck with your store and
please, don't hold anything against Kiko. She's -
"
Ikku stopped
speaking as he felt Amy's hand slip into his palm.
"Shut up, Roboboy."
She rolled her eyes. "You're coming back to my
apartment, and then we're going to talk, and then we
will probably make out." She winked.
"Unless you freak out again, of course. Or, you
know, another robot attacks..."
Ikku smiled,
tightened his grip on Amy's hand and allowed her to
lead him through the deserted shopping centre, around
the rubble and past the rescue and construction
workers that still filled the building - a trip he
never could have navigated by himself. His mind was
elsewhere but, he hoped, talking to Amy could change
all that.
Amy's apartment was
filled with brightly-coloured furniture, old
paintings, complex tapestries and other baubles, but
Ikku took no notice of them - what he did notice
was the size of the home. It was not what he would
have referred to as an 'apartment' - in his mind, it
was more of a mansion.
"Wow..."
he muttered as they walked through the front door.
Amy stepped ahead of
him and placed her keys on a small table near the
door before dragging Ikku inside and shoving him
towards a black armchair. Ikku sank into it... and
did not want to get up ever again. It was the most
physically comfortable he had been in a long time -
but after spending seven weeks living in a cramped
room at the back of a pizza restaurant with a tiny
couch and a wooden dining chair as the only
furniture, he would have been more comfortable spread
out on a flat rock.
"Can you get
you anything to drink?" Amy asked. She had
turned her back to Ikku and entered the kitchen,
which was itself what Ikku considered
'apartment-sized'.
"Uh, yes,
please," Ikku replied. Surrounded by the posh
furnishings, which he was only just beginning to
become aware of, he felt compelled to be as polite as
possible. "A soda, if you've got one." He
frowned. "If you have one, I
mean."
Amy smirked but,
staring at her back, Ikku could not see it.
"You're so
nervous. Calm down. I'm not a monster or
anything." She opened the door to a large white
refrigerator and pulled out a red can. "Is Kola
okay?"
"Yes, thank
you."
Amy returned from
the kitchen and handed the cold can to Ikku. He
pulled the ring on the top of the can only lightly,
until he heard the hiss! of the excess gas
escaping the can, then pulled the ring the rest of
the way and fully opened the can. He placed the rim
of the can against his lips and swallowed its entire
contents in one quick series of gulps.
When he was done,
Amy rolled her eyes.
"Sorry,"
he said as he pulled the empty can away from his
mouth.
"For
what?"
"Drinking like
a pig..."
"That's not why
I rolled my eyes," Amy sighed. "You were
meant to say 'Yes, thank you, Miss Seaward. I'm very
grateful, Miss Seaward.'"
Ikku smiled again,
and Amy took the empty can. She went back to the
kitchen and deposited it in a small rubbish bin, then
returned to the living room and sat on another black
armchair directly opposite Ikku.
"So come on,
Mr. Ikku," she said. "Tell me this loooooong
story of yours."
"I..."
Once again, Ikku
found it difficult to speak around Amy. He had never
had trouble around strangers before - even when he
first met Kiko back at Blizzard Base Zero he had no
problem letting his usual dorky, dopey self shine
through. He wondered if his sudden nervousness was a
sign of self-consciousness borne of maturity, or
something a little more primal.
"I'll make it
easy for you," Amy broke the silence, which Ikku
realised had dragged on for more than a minute as he
tried to find the courage to speak. "How and why
did you become a Roboman in the first place?"
That's making it
easy? Ikku thought. Why not start with 'tell
me where the bad man touched you, Jimmy?'
"Well, like I
already told you, my name isn't really Ikku," he
said. "It's Ian. I'm American, not
Japanese, but I was adopted eight years ago - when I
was fourteen - by a Japanese doctor named Doctor
Nagura. I took his surname and started calling myself
Ikku."
"What was your
original surname? What happened to your parents when
you were fourteen?" Amy interrupted loudly and
asked her questions quickly.
She felt that the
best way to overcome Ikku's nervousness, and to
confront whatever was bothering him, was to bring it
out quickly - to hit him so fast that he had no time
to wriggle his way out.
"I don't
remember my surname, and whatever happened to my
parents happened before I was
fourteen," he answered. "I was in an
orphanage for about four years and I don't remember
my parents at all. I remember other things
about my childhood - I remember going to school, I
remember playing with my friends - but nothing about
my parents. Nothing at all."
Amy nodded.
"So what
happened after Doctor Nagura adopted you?"
"He sent me to
a boarding school in New Mexico until I was eighteen,
then brought me to Japan," Ikku explained.
"I never saw him - he was always busy, rushing
off on some scientific project or another. I spent
all of my time with my friends there..."
"What were they
like?" Amy enquired.
"Straight
shooters, all the way," Ikku replied.
"Doctor Nagura always told me never to drink and
never to take drugs, that the worst thing in the
world was to do something that affected the way
you perceive things around you. So I never did, and
neither did my friends. We just went to movies and
that sort of thing, and they taught me
Japanese."
"You're
fluent?"
Ikku nodded.
"I still have
an accent - even Kiko noticed it when she first met
me! But yeah, I'm fluent."
There was another
pause but, as before, Amy was not going to let it
drag out.
"What was the
next big step in the life of Ikku Nagura?" she
asked.
"It's Nagura
Ikku, actually," he corrected her.
"Japanese put the last name first. But anyway,
the next thing was being dragged off to..."
He let the last word
drag out as he stopped himself mid-sentence. Project:
Roboman was top-secret, and that had been
drilled into him right from the start. He was
uncomfortable sharing information about it with
anyone, even if they knew he was Red Robo. Trick Star
had known for weeks who the Robomen were, and he
never once asked about the project. Ikku was sure he
knew things - things the Robomen or Cog had
accidentally let slip, that he had overheard - but he
had never tried to get any information out
of them. If he was a spy, he was a bad one. But
Amy... she was asking Ikku directly.
"Dragged off to
where?" Amy asked. "Some top-secret
laboratory in an untouched wasteland where evil
scientists did crazy experiments on you?"
"Something like
that..." Ikku let his voice trail off again.
Amy sighed.
"You don't want
to tell me," she said. "You don't trust me
enough?"
Ikku shrugged.
"It's nothing
personal, it's just that I don't know you,"
he told her.
"Weeellll...
what if I told you a big secret? Would that
help?"
Ikku grinned.
"Maybe..."
Amy stood, took a
deep breath, and looked straight down at Ikku.
"My name's Amy,
and I'm an Ikku-holic!" Ikku blushed and Amy
took a step toward him. "Oh, come on! That's
funny!"
"No it's
not!" Ikku argued, but it was a fruitless
argument as a broad smile crept across his face.
"Yes it is!
You're trying not to laugh!"
"No, I'm trying
not to giggle because you're making me
self-conscious!" Ikku protested.
"Fine,"
Amy pouted. "I'll be serious. This is what I do
know. Project: Roboman was a top-secret EDD
project based in Antarctica which received funding only
from Japan and America. No other EDD countries
wanted any part of it."
Ikku's eyes widened.
"How do you -
?"
"I know a lot
of things, Nagura Ikku." She winked. "I'm
Amy Seaward. I'm rich. What I can't find out in
twenty-four hours about a boy I like isn't worh
knowing." She walked around his seat and kneeled
at his side, resting her chin on the arm of the
chair. "Look, if you're worried about revealing
EDD secrets, just remember that the EDD doesn't exist
anymore, and from what I've been told Project:
Roboman has been shut down, too. You don't have to
tell me anything if you don't want to, but I don't
think you should worry about betraying other people's
trust. And even if you were... I remember when the
Robomen first came to New Orleans and the EDD's Black
Battalion tried to take them out! If you're loyal to
them, you must be crazy!"
Ikku nodded.
"Okay," he
said. "Two years ago I was taken to Antarctica,
to a big base called Blizzard Base Zero; which,
believe it or not, was a giant robot head. When I got
there, I had dozens of doctors study me - they poked
in, out and around everything, but I never found out
why or what they were looking for. Then Doctor Nagura
gave me my robosuit."
Ikku waved his hand
over the red bodysuit covering his entire body except
for his feet, hands and head.
"That was at
the end of last year," he went on. "I -
"
"Wait,"
Amy interrupted. "They tested you for a year and
a half and never told you why?"
Ikku nodded.
"Whenever I
asked, Doctor Nagura would come and reassure me that
everything was fine," he said. "He did that
a lot - since he adopted me, that was the only time I
saw him, when he was coming to tell me not to worry.
That's why..."
Ikku's voice trailed
off again, but it wasn't because he was trying to
keep a secret. He just didn't know how to
continue. What he had to say was very difficult.
"That's
why," he continued, "I cared about him so
much. All he ever did was make me feel
better about whatever situation I was in. At least
until he gave me the robosuit."
"What happened
then?"
"A new doctor
arrived," Ikku told her. "Doctor 'John
Smith'. It was a fake name, of course, but no-one
realised it at the time. A few weeks after his
arrival, someone else turned up in a blue robosuit -
it was Sei. The doctors and scientists starting
testing us both in the robosuits, to see how they
affected our bodies. You see, there's this stuff
called eternity en - "
"Eternity
energy," Amy interrupted again. "I
know a little bit about that, too."
"Right. The
robosuits are designed to let people use eternity
energy for different purposes. Some people can
use it naturally, but most people can't. The
robosuits, and the Roboman armour, are meant to let
normal people use eternity energy for all
sorts of reasons.
"For weeks,
they tested us to see how the robosuits affected our
ability to filter and use eternity energy, but
nothing seemed to work for me so everyone's attention
went to Sei, and Doctor Nagura started treating me
like dirt. He made me stay in my rooms, wouldn't let
me talk to anyone but the guards...
"Then Kiko
arrived. She was hired to work on the project with my
father. She spent her whole life looking up to him
and studying his research and he thought she would be
useful, but on the day she arrived a woman named
Sorceress Miko attacked Blizzard Base Zero through
the Black Battalion."
Amy tensed as she
asked "What do you mean?"
"Dozens of
Black Battalion troops attacked the base, but these
weird little creatures called Pixies came out of
their bodies. The process killed them and the Pixies
took over the base and kidnapped my father. Sei
showed me and Kiko how to henshin - that's
what we call it when we transform into our Roboman
armour - and teleported us to New Orleans.
"Since then...
well, you've seen the news. You know what we did. We
also went to London at one point to see what the
American government was doing to an EDD base there
but most of our 'adventures' have been right
here."
Amy pulled herself
up at sat on the arm of the armchair.
"Do you think
of meeting me as an adventure?" she
asked.
Ikku smiled again.
"When Ranma
Robo attacked yesterday, I asked you to go to a store
called 'Hey, Pizza!'. Did you go?"
Amy nodded.
"I met three
guys - Trick, Kageki and Senshi. And a little
robot."
"That's
Cog," Ikku told her. "Trick owns 'Hey,
Pizza!'. He's been letting us live in his back room,
but it's really cramped. Kageki works there, but
Senshi... I have no idea who he is. I only met him
yesterday, but he's a Roboman now, apparently."
There was more
silence but again, Amy was not prepared to let it
linger.
"I ran out of
there pretty fast!" she said. "A talking
robot? Guys standing around in tights? I thought it
was a gay bar."
"Hah!"
Ikku laughed.
Amy reached out and
ran her fingers through his thick hair. Ikku closed
her eyes and let her hand run down the back of his
neck, then behind his ear and back into his hair. He
had to resist the urge to purr as she stroked the
side of his head.
"That giant
robot yesterday?" he reminded Amy. His eyes were
still closed as he spoke. "It was called
Katrina. It was sent by my father. So was Ranma
Robo." He let in a deep breath, held it for a
moment, then let it out. "Doctor Nagura went cra
- ACHOO!"
Ikku's hand barely
reached his nose in time to block the sneeze. He
pulled it away and saw, again, small red smudges on
his palm. It was not the first time that had
happened. His cold had endured for weeks and while he
was sneezing less and less frequently, each sneeze
seemed more powerful - his whole body seemed to shake
and, when he could move quickly enough to catch
whatever came from his nose, he saw the small
spatterings of what he was sure was blood.
"That
cold..." Amy shook her head. "You poor
thing."
"I'll be
fine," he said. He wiped his hand on the leg of
his robosuit. "As I said, Doctor Nagura went
insane and he was trying to kill us yesterday. We
tried to save him while we destroyed his robot, but
Kageki and that Senshi guy stepped in and screwed
everything up! And the jets, they - ACHOO! ACHOO!
They kept getting in our way and when Katrina
exploded one ACHOOO!"
"Settle
down," Amy told him. She placed the back of her
hand against his forehead. "You don't have a
fever."
Ikku sighed.
"The whole time
we've been together, all the Robomen have done is
lie," he said. "Except me. I've never lied.
I've kept secrets, some pretty big ones,
but I've never told a lie. Yesterday... Sei knew my
father was controlling Katrina! He knew it,
and he lied so I would destroy it anyway!"
"Sei sounds
like a jerk," Amy said.
"He can't help
it," Ikku muttered. "It's just the way he
is. But Trick let Kageki use a robosuit.
Kageki's sixteen. You saw him - you know
he's just a kid, right? A kid can't fight giant
robots!"
Amy frowned.
"Didn't you
just say he destroyed - what was it? Katrina?"
"He's too
young. He helped us once before but we were desperate,
and Trick blasted me for it. He told me never to
put Kageki in danger, but then he let him become
Green Robo!"
"He's a
hypocrite," Amy said. "Is that why you quit
the Robomen?"
Ikku nodded.
"I'm sick of
their lies. If they didn't lie I would have known
about Doctor Nagura weeks ago. Maybe I could have
saved him. Now I don't even know what happened to
him. By the time I could get to the battle site all
of the wreckage of Katrina was gone. If his body was
there it was gone with it."
"I can try to
find out where they took it," Amy told him.
Ikku shook his head.
"No. I'm not
one of the Robomen anymore, but I still have my
robosuit. That's what I'm going to do now. Find out
what happened to my father, find Miko, and - "
Amy put her hand
over his mouth and shook her head.
"No. You're not
doing any of that now," she said.
"You're sick. You're going to take off that
robosuit and get some rest."
Ikku frowned and
tried to stand, but Amy pressed her palms against his
chest and held him in his seat. She flipped her legs
over the arm of the chair and straddled his lap,
playfully slapping at his chest.
"You're not
going anywhere, Ikku."
She leaned forward
and pressed her lips against his. As he had the day
before, Ikku tensed the muscles in his face, but Amy
did not pull away. She lifted his left arm and placed
his hand on her back, then wrapped both arms around
his neck and squeezed her body against his.
"Ammmfff,"
Ikku tried to speak, but Amy pressed harder.
I don't want to
do this! Ikku thought. But... why not? It's
not as if -
Amy pulled her mouth
away from his and leaned close to his ear.
"You'd better
kiss me back right now, Nagura Ikku," she
whispered. "I'm rich. I'm used to getting what I
want."
Ikku smiled again,
and when Amy's lips pressed against his for the third
time he did not resist. He parted his lips slightly
and let her tongue slide inside his mouth and scrape
against his teeth. He gently bit down on the pink
intruder and brushed its tip with his own tongue.
He wrapped his arms
around her waist and squeezed her body against his as
she tightened her own hold around his neck. They sat
in their tight embrace for several minutes before Amy
did finally pull away. She placed her hand beneath
Ikku's chin and tilted his head up and to the side,
then leaned forward again and let her tongue slide up
and down the side on his neck.
Then, her mouth
opened wide and she pressed her teeth against his
soft flesh. Slowly, she pressed her teeth together -
she was biting him, harder and harder, and she felt
his body tense beneath her. She again wrapped her
arms around him and did not let go, even as he
groaned and tried to push her away.
When she finally
lifted her head she waited to Ikku to face her and
stared into his bright blue eyes. She smiled warmly
at him, but his whole body - even his face, which
looked back into her own irises - remained tense. He
did not smile back; in fact, he had gone pale and,
she realised, was slightly trembling.
"Ikku,"
she said softly. "What's wrong?"
"I have nothing
without the Robomen," he said. Amy pulled
herself away and stood in front of him again. "I
have nowhere to go."
Amy tucked her hair
behind her ears and straightened her clothes before
she responded.
"Go upstairs,
take off your robosuit and get some rest," she
told him again. "You can stay here as long as
you like. And trust me, we'll figure something
out."
"Are you
sure?" Ikku asked. "About me staying here,
I mean?"
Amy nodded.
"Yes,"
she replied. "Now go upstairs, before I change
my mind."
When Ikku woke up he
found himself naked, curled up tightly on Amy's
sprawling double bed, her thick blankets wrapped
tightly around his body. He had no idea how long he
had been asleep - there was a wide window set into
one wall of the bedroom, and he could tell by the
lack of light piercing the edges of the closed blinds
that it was dark outside, but he could not remember
if it had been dark when he first entered the room.
What he did know was
that he had just had the best, most restful sleep he
had had in weeks.
He reached out for a
lamp he could vaguely make out on a small bedside
table and fumbled for a button he found on its base.
He pressed it, and the room lit up - but the light
was dim, bright enough to let him see clearly but not
so bright that it strained his still-sleepy eyes.
He closed his eyes
again as he pulled the blankets down to his waist,
then opened them, yawned, and glanced down at his
body.
Oh my god - ! he
thought.
He gasped loudly as
he stared at his bare chest and arms. Thick, smooth,
shiny red marks were visible across his body. He ran
his hand over them and felt that they were flush
against his skin. For a moment, he thought they might
have been tattoos - but he had never had a tattoo and
he knew, if for some bizarre reason Amy had tried to
mark him while he slept, that the pain would have
awoken him.
The marks, however, did
look like tattoos, like bizarre tribal markings.
He stared at them for several long moments before he
realised something else.
The colour, the
redness... it's the same shade as my blood, when I
sneeze... He frowned. It's the same red
colour as kenez shards.
He heard the
doorknob turn and quickly concealed his body beneath
the blankets again. The door opened and Amy entered,
carrying what he immediately recognised as his
robosuit - and he saw his Alert Bracer and Robo Rifle
resting on top of a chest of drawers beside the door.
But there was
something folded and resting on top of the robosuit.
Whatever it was looked familiar, but he couldn't
quite place it.
"Good, you're
awake," Amy said. She sat beside him on the bed,
and laid the robosuit on his blanket-covered stomach.
She smiled. "You look snug."
"Mmmmmm,"
Ikku murmured happily. "'s warm and
comfortable..."
Amy nodded.
"I thought
about what you said, about not wanting to be a
Roboman anymore, but still using your powers..."
Slowly, she unfolded the robosuit, and the fabric
that had been laying on top of it folded out with it.
Suddenly, he recognised it as the clothes he had been
wearing when Ranma Robo attacked.
"I went back to
the mall and found your clothes in the food
court," she explained. "I thought that if
you wanted to use your powers, you could do it like a
superhero. You know, the comic-book type, not the
real-life giant robot-fighting type."
Ikku looked at his
robosuit, which was now adorned with straps,
buckles... and a pattern like the red marks on his
chest and arms.
"I didn't want
to break anything, so I just pinned them on,"
Amy explained. "Even the stitching for the
tribal pattern will come out without tearing the
fabric." She winked. "Nice tattoos, by the
way. So much for being a 'straight shooter'!"
Ikku smiled back.
"Try it
on!" Amy urged.
Ikku nodded, then
tilted his head toward the door.
"Okay, Mr.
Modesty," Amy said.
She stood and made
her way out of the bedroom. Ikku dragged himself from
the bed and slid the fabric over his skin again. The
robosuit, whatever it was made of, was bizarre - it
seemed to fit itself around the wearer's body. When
Kiko had first put on the yellow robosuit two months
earlier, it had been designed for an adult man, but
it closed itself around her smaller frame like it was
made for her.
Now, the red
robosuit did the same for Ikku, but the buckles and
straps did not move. He felt them squeeze tightly
across his chest, back and arms as he finished
inserting himself into the suit. When he was done, he
crossed the room and stood in front of a tall mirror.
He realised that Amy had even sewn his charcoal pants
into the robosuit - but there was something that
wasn't quite right about it.
Even with the metal
buckles and thick, heavy shoulder-pads and earguards
made of something Ikku didn't even recognise, he
thought the suit looked too bare, too smooth - and
unlike Amy, he knew the suit could repair itself from
damage. He tore a strip of the robosuit free - a long
strip, stretching from armpit to armpit, exposing the
markings beneath. It seemed to break free easily for
him, which he found surprising - the suit was meant
to protect him, to be strong, not to rip at
the slightest touch.
He poked his finger
through the fabric twice, to create two small holes,
then stretched it across his eyes and the top of his
nose. He wrapped it back around his head and tied it
to hold it in place as a mask.
"Heh," he
laughed. "That's actually kind of cool..."
