[AMS] [UY] "AA Oni!" (5/5)

Chapter Five: "Checkmate."

By Henry J. Cobb

$Id: aa_oni5.txt,v 1.4 1997/08/10 19:40:10 hcobb Exp $



The AMS characters and situations are the creation of Kosuke Fujishima.

The UY characters and situations are the creation of Rumiko Takahashi.

No infringement of their copyrights is intended.



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My name is Keiichi Morisato.  I go to Nekomi Tech, where I study automotive

engineering.  I'm a perfectly ordinary guy, a little short and frankly

scrawny, but somehow I've wound up living at this strange temple with a

group of aliens.



There's the two beautiful 16-year old girls.  Benten is the goddess of

victory and she usually carries enough firepower to ensure it.



Lum is an Oni.  She claims to have a vast space armada, that was poised to

conquer the Earth until I beat her in a chess match, but then my claim of

"Checkmate" not only won the game and stopped the invasion but also got me

engaged to her.



Jariten is Lum's cousin and he really lives up to his name as "Brat of

Heaven".  He looks like a four-year-old, except for the green hair, blue

eyes, horn and fangs, but he acts like a teenage delinquent.  Like Lum he

can fly and project energy.  It gives me headaches trying to understand the

physics of how they do it.



Midway through my second semester with Lum, winter blew in, in the person of

a Princess.



I was working on my motorcycle.  Motorcycles are my passion, but somehow the

thought that Lum always rode with me made me take extra care with this one.

I was reaching for a wrench when I felt a sudden chill and saw a snowflake

blow across the driveway.



It was far too early in the season for snow.  I looked up and saw her

standing there.  She wore a pale blue kimono with her blue ponytail tied

back with crystals.  She was equally as beautiful as Benten or Lum, but her

beauty was a pale, delicate, ethereal thing.  A butterfly in all the colors

of snow, except for her lovely brown eyes, stark against her pale colors.



She stood there with her two suitcases, serene and timeless and frankly I

just stared.



"Hello."  She spoke in an exact, classic, cultured way, but it came across

as a reproach.



"Uh, hi!"  I reached my left arm behind my head in embarrassment.



"Excuse me, but do you know if a woman by the name of Benten lives here?"



"Uh, yeah."



"Oyuki!"  Ten flew out of the temple.



"Jariten, it is a pleasure to see you again."  Oyuki put down her suitcases

and held out her hand.



Ten hovered in mid air to kiss the offered hand.



"Ten, what is it, t'cha?" Lum stepped out onto the porch. "Oyuki!"  Lum flew

over and hugged the other girl.  After a moment Oyuki returned the embrace.



I wiped my hands on a rag and stood up.  "Uh, I can get your bags for you."



"Why, how gentlemanly of you."  Oyuki disengaged herself from Lum.



"Darling, Oyuki is an old school friend of mine, t'cha!"



"Darling?"  Oyuki seemed to be puzzled.



"Darling and I are engaged to be married, t'cha!"



"I'm Keiichi Morisato, pleased to meet you miss."



"You may call me Oyuki."



I followed Lum, Ten and Oyuki into the temple, carrying her bags.



"Please put my things over there."  Oyuki gestured to a spot in front of the

door marked: "Benten's room.  Trespassers will be vaporised!"



"Lum, what's the confusion?"  Benten slid open her door and saw Oyuki and

noticed the suitcases I carried.  "Oh, why are you here?"



Lum walked over to her own room.



"Neptune is very cold this time of year."  Oyuki replied.



"Neptune is always frigging cold.  That's no excuse for crashing over here!"

Benten crossed her arms.  "I'll charge you rent!"



"I have no desire to infringe on your franchise.  My needs are few.  If I

may, I'll share your room.  How much are you charging your other friends

currently?"



"What makes you think you're one of them?"



"All of us on Neptune were very worried when you disappeared."



"Then why didn't you come looking sooner?"



"We didn't know where you went.  Have you done much?"



"I've been having a lot of fun here with Lum.  A hell of lot more than I

would have making snowmen on Triton.  And who died and made you my mother?"



I put down the suitcases in the hall and stepped back.



"Darling, let's go for a ride please, t'cha?"  Lum had returned and wore

blouse, skirt and boots and had a sweater tied over her shoulders.



"I'm sorry, but I got the bike disassembled at the moment."



"Then we can take a walk, t'cha."  Lum plucked Ten from where he was

hovering while watching Benten's and Oyuki's conversation.



Lum put her other arm around mine and we walked quietly to the park.



"Look Ten, there's your little friend Risa, why don't you go play with her,

t'cha?"



As usual, Ten was reluctant to associate with any prepubescent girl.  "I

don't wanna!"



"Ten!"  Lum gave him a stern look.



"OK, OK!"  He flew off to the little girl.



Lum sat on a park bench quietly for a while, thinking.



"Benten and Oyuki are lovers, right?"  I asked.



"Yes, that's part of it.  Oyuki is the princess of Neptune, t'cha."



"Neptune, isn't that a gas giant in the solar system?"



"Her home is on Triton, but she has estates on the other moons and on

Pluto, t'cha."



"But, the Americans have sent a probe to Neptune, why didn't they see

anything?"



"There's not very many of Oyuki's people and they like to hide.  This is

really all about Pluto, t'cha."



"Huh?"



"A thousand years ago, Pluto and Neptune had a close conjunction and Oyuki's

people established a colony on Pluto, but then the orbits diverged and a

natural disaster wiped out the colony, t'cha.  Oyuki's people have had

spacecraft for a few hundred years but they haven't dared to go back to

Pluto until a few years ago when Oyuki's powers developed, t'cha."



"Oyuki's powers?"



"She didn't take a spacecraft to get here, I think, t'cha.  Oyuki can create

a wormhole across the entire solar system.  She is the most powerful woman

in the history of her people, t'cha."



"So she created a wormhole to Pluto?"



"It's a lot more convenient than taking spaceships back and forth, but it's

more that having Oyuki around has given them the confidence to reestablish

the colony.  That's the problem, t'cha."



"Why is Pluto a problem?"



"Oyuki's people are very anxious that she marry and produce a royal heir,

t'cha."



"Who's the local favorite?"



"There isn't one.  All of Oyuki's people are women.  In past generations

they'd have to wait until the planets were in alignment so they could hop to

Earth and back.  Fortunately they are very long lived, everybody else on

Triton is at least 165 years older than Oyuki, t'cha.  Oyuki didn't have any

real childhood friends and so she and Benten fell for each other when we met

in school.  When they went back to Neptune, Oyuki announced that Benten was

her mistress and that she wouldn't consider any candidates that weren't

acceptable to her also, t'cha."



"Benten was pretty steamed about this?"



"Yes.  Benten isn't ready to settle down.  I think that Benten probably ran

to Earth this time after another disastrous matchmaking attempt by Oyuki's

court.  But it looks like they're going to work it out, t'cha."



"Huh?"



"If Benten really didn't want to see Oyuki, she would have left this solar

system.  By staying here, she's waited for Oyuki to come for her.  Ten!,

let's go back, t'cha!"



When we got back, Benten and Oyuki were snuggled up on the couch, watching

Casablanca on the VCR.



"I'm going to fix dinner, t'cha!"  Lum announced.



"Hey, Ten, do you want to help me fix the motorcycle?"  I asked him.



"I wanna see the movie."  He protested.



"Ten!"  Lum glared at him.



"Alright!"  Ten grumbled and floated after me.



"You made the right choice Ten."  I said from under the motorcycle.



"What?"  He paused in his circling.



"Girls really dig guys who know their way around motorcycles."



"Really?"



"Yeah, think about me, besides motorcycles I'm a nobody and yet I've got

Lum, right?"



"I guess so."



"And what do I know about art films?  Only that that movie is way

overrated."



Over the next few weeks, I didn't see much of Oyuki and Benten, except at

breakfast and dinner.  Lum seemed to have pegged it right, they did seem to

be getting along.



I had a Saturday off, because I couldn't find a part-time job that day and

so I was studying in the living room.



"Darling, it's so nice to have a day together like this, t'cha."  Lum placed

the teapot on the table and spread her books out next to mine.  "Why do you

have to work so hard, t'cha?"



I scrambled to catch my papers as a wormhole opened in the living room.

Oyuki and Benten stepped out and it closed.  Oyuki was in her kimono, but

Benten was in a white dress with her hair loose and makeup on her face.



"Your costar is such a gentleman."  Oyuki observed.



"He's a wimp.  I bet he wouldn't know which end of a pearl-handled pistol to

hold."  Benten countered.  "Now I gotta get outta this outfit before I go

nuts!"



When Benten returned, she was in her usual bikini, with her hair back up in

a chain.  "Comeon Keiichi, I promised I'd teach you how to fly the airbike."



"Uh, sure."



Benten sat behind me as she explained the controls.



"Darling, be careful, t'cha!"  Lum seemed to be unusually apprehensive.



I could understand her concern, given the tricks that Benten had played, but

the airbike had to be the ultimate motorcycle thrill.  How could I resist?



I got the hang of it after a few minutes.  If anything it seemed to be

easier than a motorcycle.  The craft had an advanced auto-stabilization

feature.



"How come it's so stable?"  I asked Benten.



"So I can have both hands free for guns."



"Oh."



I climbed at high speed, leaving Lum behind.  "What happened today?"



"Oyuki's got me staring in this movie where a college student wishes that

I'd stay with him forever.  I just wish she hadn't brought up the harp

playing."



"Darling!"  Lum caught up with us, short of breath.



"Sorry about that.  Let's go back now."  I circled around the neighborhood

and then landed in the driveway.



"Lum, have you seen the men in black suits?"



"No Darling."



"They have been reassigned to other duties."  Oyuki announced.



Elsewhere, a giant blue sphere hung in a black sky, with scattered white

clouds on it's surface.



A man in a black parka put down his snow shovel for a moment and turned to

his companion.  "How much of this did she say we had to do before she'd let

us back?"



"Watch it, here comes our jailers."



"Here's your coco, Agent Yu."



"Thanks Shimoko."



"And yours, Agent Fu."



"Thank you Kooriko."



"It is so rare to have the company of such nice gentlemen here on Triton."



Back on Earth, I finished the semester OK, in spite of my weekend jobs.



On the night before Christmas, I couldn't sleep.  I got off of my futon and

pulled on my nightrobe.  I went to my dresser and pulled out the box I'd

saved up to get.  Was I doing the right thing?  I didn't know.



I walked out onto the porch and looked up at the stars.  One of them came

down and hovered over the temple.  It was an enormous spacecraft, with

blinking lights along it's side.  What I could make out of its shape

reminded me of old sailing ships.



A figure stepped out of a hatch and levitated down to the ground.  He was

huge, at least eight feet tall and overweight.  He had green hair, twin

horns, huge fangs and a tiger-striped suit.



"Where is Lum?"  He asked.



"Uh."



"What's that noise, t'cha?"  Lum stepped out onto the porch.



"Come along Lum."  He grabbed her hand.  "Your mother and your fiancee have

been worried about you."



"But Daddy!  My Fiancee is right here, t'cha!"  Lum pointed at me.



"This guy?"



"Sir, I can see how you might find Lum's story a bit hard to believe."



Lum shot me a look that could shatter rock.



"...After all she is a princess and I'm just an ordinary guy."



"Darling, you knew, t'cha?"



"Yeah, Ten told me."  I turned back to her father.  "But I really do love

her and I'd be proud to be her husband, if she'll have me."



I turned back to Lum and pulled the box out of my pocket.  "Lum, will you

marry me?"  I pulled out the ring.  She presented her finger and I slipped it

on her.  "Uh, checkmate."



"Yes, Yes Darling, I will marry you t'cha!"  She turned back to her father

to show the ring.  "See Daddy, t'cha!"



The large Oni stood there for a moment.  "Very well, but your mother will

have to approve him.  She's back on Uru."



"Darling,"  Lum turned back to me.  "Will you come along, t'cha?  It's only

two days there and back, t'cha."



"Sure, just let me get dressed."



If I had known how long it would be before I stood on Earth again I would

have taken some more things, put my affairs in order and told somebody I

would be gone for a while, even if I couldn't explain where.  As it was I

packed for a weekend trip.



"Darling, hurry up, t'cha!"



"Lum, there's something I need to know."



"Yes Darling?"



"If there was no invasion, why did you pick me?"



Lum looked downcast, so I took her into my arms and held her for a few

moments, then she looked up into my eyes.



"I had no choice Darling.  When I was born it was prophesied that my life

would be extremely weird.  So, I either had to live alone or find the second

best man at dealing with weirdness in the universe, t'cha."



"So, I'm just helpful?"



"No Darling, I do love you, t'cha!"



"Second best... What happened to the best?"



"Well, he already had a girlfriend."



With that we walked hand in hand to leave with her father and Ten.



"Lum?"



"Yes Daddy, t'cha?"



"What's this Checkmate business?"



"It's just an Earth custom Daddy, t'cha!"



At that moment, somewhere in Tokyo, Skuld, sixteen year-old goddess of the

future stood in pink bunny pjs with her back in a corner of a room.  Both

hands clinched on the handle of her hammer where not sufficient to hold it

steady.  She glared at the source of her torment.  "T-touch me again and you

die!"



Ataru Moroboshi looked up from his futon.  He considered getting up and

going to comfort her, but he had enough of her games for the moment and it

was too late at night to get rapped on the head by that hammer again.

"Well,  I'm not the one who pretended to sleepwalk over to my futon!"



"It's the Ultimate Force, it's trying to drive me insane!  But, I'm not

going to let it!  I'll find some way out of this wish and the restriction

against doing you bodily harm!"  Skuld began to giggle, high pitched, loudly

and hysterically.



Downstairs, Ataru's mom was woken by the noise as Skuld's giggles faded into

sobs.  "Oh, I wish I'd never had him."



Unfortunately, there were no goddesses present to take her wish.



	Henry J. Cobb	hcobb@slip.net          http://www.io.com/~hcobb

    Anybody for an "Obnoxious Goddess"?