Consequences Chapter 11

Chapter 11:


The one Keronian no one recognized, but he was clearly an adult male, dressed in full ancient Keronian battle armor. He wore the Kappa-style helmet, and rusted-looking metal armor over his arms, legs, and stomach. His eyes were wide, almond-shaped, and glowing yellow. His symbol was impossible to see over the plated armor on his chest, and there was none on his helmet.

The other Keronian was instantly recognizable, although no one wanted to believe it really was Kirere. She was full-grown, including ‘cat ears’ sticking up from her purple skullcap, and she now wore a yellow visor over her blue eyes. Her eyes weren’t even the same; they were half-lidded, dull, and a cold-looking blue. They looked at no one in particular, and like the other Keronian, she stared straight ahead, as if in a trance.

Both wore the collars Kezanstav mentioned, the largest center red jewel in each lit brightly.

“K-Kirere-chan?” Keroro took a few cautious steps forward, and she shot her head over in his direction. The sergeant didn’t know whether to scream, run, or both, but only remained there frozen in place. “I… I…”

She held out a hand, and a mass of wires from above shot down, all rushing towards Keroro. Fortunately Natsumi managed to make a run and scoop him up before they hit the ground, destroying the floor where Keroro had stood like they were a mass of sharp knives or needles.

“She’s reached her full potential,” Kezanstav grinned. “Aren’t you two a pair of proud parents? Isn’t this… What everyone wants for their child?”

“You let her go!” Giroro growled, and stood, reloading his gun and glaring at Kezanstav. “You can have me instead!”

“What?! Giroro Gocho!?” Keroro choked.

Kezanstav chuckled at this, and shook his head, “You don’t get it. That’s to be expected, you’re not really that bright when it comes to this sort of thing. Maybe the yellow one can explain it to you.”

“Kukuku! I like your style, but I don’t like your stealing my inventions so blatantly,” Kururu admitted. “Kirere was made to be a supersoldier.”

“And that’s what I made her,” Kezanstav answered.

“What’re you going to do with them!?” Fuyuki demanded.

“Finally know everything,” Kezanstav’s eyes shown as he said this. “And have it all within my grasp, my power, my possession. Have it all.”

“If you seriously think you’re going to exploit my daughter to get that, you’re sadly mistaken,” Giroro snarled.

“Wait, your daughter?” Haruki said beneath his breath. “But I thought—”

“So you want to fight, then? Is that it? Seems to be your answer for a lot of things,” Kezanstav stepped to the side, leaving Kirere and the other Keron fighter in front of Giroro. “Be my guest.”

Giroro would have no reservations about making the teal Keronian eat lead, he knew that. But when he looked at Kirere… She didn’t look at him. She didn’t smile, or laugh, or bump into something and then giggle over it. She didn’t even look at him.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Giroro put his gun at his side, and then tossed it on the ground and looked away from everyone. He didn’t want to see anyone’s reaction, he didn’t want to see Kirere, either.

‘If I hadn’t stormed away like that…’ he thought, looking out of the corner of his eye to her.

“Come on now to Father,” Kezanstav called to the two Keronian drones, who walked back to him and stood at either of his sides. “I take it you won’t be any more trouble to us… If you are, well… I don’t necessarily need two; I’ve done fine with just one all of these years.”

With that, the floor went out from beneath them again, and this time when they landed, they were back out at the front gates of the mansion.

No one even questioned why this was. No one said much of anything as they all sat there on the ground, they only watched as Giroro went mad. He took his gun and just went firing into the forest, until it ran out, and then threw the gun into the woods, and sat down on the ground, panting.

“G-Giroro Gocho,” Keroro addressed his subordinate quietly.

“Keroro,” Giroro’s rough tone made Keroro jump a bit. “I’ll go after them myself.”

“What?! That’s insane!” Natsumi shouted, and stood up. “Not even Koyuki-chan and Dororo could go up against the one!”

“Teicho-dono, I don’t think he’s necessarily bad, either, the other Keronian, that is,” Dororo said to Keroro. “His eyes…”

“They’re both under that monster’s control,” Giroro added. “If we can get a hold of the Pekoponian, there’s a chance we could save them.”

“Kukuku! You know the risks of that, right?” Kururu interjected.

“Like you even care,” Giroro shot back just as quickly to Kururu. “You don’t care about anything.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Jeeze… What a mess…” Haruki placed a hand on his forehead and sighed.
“Well, whatever you guys need…”

“I don’t need anything, and I don’t see how you can be any help,” Giroro snapped, and headed into the woods.

“Wait! Giroro! Where do you think you’re going?” Natsumi called out.

“To figure out what the best tactic is to use,” Giroro answered, looking back to her. He knew he had to keep her safe, he couldn’t lose anyone else.

“Poor Gocho,” Tamama muttered as Giroro vanished into the forest.

“We’ve got to get back into there!” Keroro shouted, jumping up and clenching his fists. “This is no time to get depressed, even if they are really strong and have weapons a lot cooler than ours! ….They are really cool, aren’t they? Grr, why’s everybody cooler than we are, it’s not fair, we’re the stars of the show!”

Kururu had his laptop pulled out now, and had taken a seat on the ground, a ways away from the group. He was reading over stats, figuring out exactly how strong Kirere was at her maximum power, and he was not pleased by the results he was getting. Keroro’s shouting wasn’t helping much, either.

“It’s still Kirere in there, right?” Fuyuki asked as Haruki now attempted to show Koyuki how to work his lighter after the young girl had put together wood for a fire. “So wouldn’t she have her same weaknesses?”

“Her weakness was everything,” Tamama answered. “It sure didn’t act like her. That thing was way too quiet to be her.”

“True. All of the bodily harm she’s caused me in the past has been accidental up until that one point,” Keroro nodded.

“We have to think of a way to get that bracelet,” Dororo said as he sat cross-legged in front of the fire. Haruki had given up on showing Koyuki how to work the lighter, and was stunned as the girl made a spark with two pieces of flint, and in no time had a good fire kindling.

“That would involve getting those two guards away from him, kukuku!”

“Hey, I’m gonna look for some water,” Haruki stood from the fire and walked into the forest without another word from anyone.

It wasn’t hard finding Giroro. He was a bright red beacon in a gray and blue forest, after all. The corporal was by a small stream, collecting his thoughts as he polished his rifle at the side of the stream. He was starting to wear down the finish from where he was polishing.

“What do you want?” Giroro didn’t even turn to Haruki as he heard the mechanic walk up behind him.

“So she’s your daughter? I had no clue… I thought she was Four-eyes’ kid.”

“She is. That is, she’s both of ours. This doesn’t even concern you,” Giroro snapped, near-snapping as Haruki took a seat beside him.

“I gotcha. Well, I won’t judge. Love is love, right?”

“It’s not like that! Why would you even think that?! I hate that cretin with every bone in my body!” Giroro snarled. “…You’re of no use to us, we don’t need you here.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that line before. I don’t think I met your kid by accident….. Mr. Megalomaniac offered me a lot of money to turn her in. I need it, God knows I need it, but I didn’t take it. She wouldn’t have done that to me. Listen, I can tell that you don’t like me, but I still want to help. She’s my buddy and she’s the first friend I’ve had in a long, long time. I don’t want to lose that.”

“You’re a fool.”

“You’re ugly,” Haruki shot back. “So… What do we do?”

“I can’t harm her.”

“Nah, I can’t either. But if we get that bracelet from what’s-his-face, we shouldn’t have to.”

“And you would suggest that how?”

“Well… On TV shows, don’t they usually have some kind of diversion?”

Giroro’s head shot up then, and he looked straight at Haruki. Without another word the red Keronian rose and ran back to camp.

“What? What’d I say? Wait, did I actually have a good idea?! Hey, Red, wait up!”

“Keroro!” Giroro called out as he rushed into the camp. “We need to get them out! Then we—Ngh!”

All fell back suddenly as a great gust came up, and the mansion itself parted in half.

“They stole that idea from us! They copied!” Keroro shouted as he gripped onto a well-planted shrub in order to keep from blowing back into the woods.

Giroro had dug in his hunting knife into a nearby tree, and grabbed onto Natsumi as she went flying. She put her arms around him and both held on for dear life, and watched as a large silver and green saucer rose up and hovered there a moment. Its intense rotations were the source of the miniature windstorm, and the storm ended just as soon as the saucer took off.

“Ouch!” all hit the ground suddenly, many landing on top of one another. Tamama was ready to kill Haruki as the hefty mechanic landed on him once again.

“Teicho-dono, they’re headed back to Tokyo if they’re going that direction!” Dororo called out as he rose up.

“Bastard, get off!” Tamama growled to Haruki as the little black Keronian pushed off the mechanic.

“We’ve got to go!” Giroro shouted.

“Come on!” Fuyuki motioned to the Pekoponian transport ship, which they’d taken to Osaka. All climbed in, and they were quickly off again, on the tail of the saucer.

“Damn, what are they driving, anyway?!” Giroro asked as they followed the ship at their maximum power.

“Kukuku! It’s from the Gamma 7 galaxy,” Kururu answered as he continued to type wildly on the keyboard.

“Halt! You’re entering restricted airspace! This airspace is property of the Nishizawa Peach Group!” came on the frequency suddenly as they zoomed back to Tokyo. Tamama immediately lit up.

“Momochi! It’s us! It’s us!”

“Give me that!” was heard over the microphone in a gruff voice that could have only been Momoka. “T-Tama-chan!? What’re you doing all the way out here?!”

“It’s a long story, but you can’t shoot down that ship! Ki-chi’s on it!” Tamama answered. “We’ve just got to stop them, because some bad guy’s got her!”

“We can try to disable them,” Momoka suggested in her sweet voice, and just as soon switched over to her gruff evil Momoka. “Well!? You heard me, didn’t you!?”

The panic yelps of her guards could be heard in the background, followed by the sound of rushing about.

“Thank you, Nishizawa-san!” Fuyuki called out.

“F-Fuyuki-kun’s there, too?! We’ll make sure no one’s injured!” Momoka reassured them, and within moments the sky about them was littered with fighter jets, all sporting Peach Group emblems on their sides.

“That’s the diversion we needed,” Giroro said aloud to himself, and sat up from his chair. “Hey, Idiot! How do you change the frequencies on this?!”

“Eh? Kukuku, Senpai’s looking to make a phone call?” Kururu sat back from his keyboard and looked up at Giroro.

“Just do it!”

“Fine, here, kuuukukuku!” Kururu stood from his seat and allowed Giroro to sit.

“I hope he’s in range,” Giroro muttered as he adjusted the frequency. Sure enough, moments later there was a puzzled Garuru on the other side of the screen.

“We’re in the middle of training exercises,” Garuru said bluntly.

“Nii-chan,” Giroro bent his head down. “I…. We need your help. It’s Kirere. She’s in trouble, and… It’s bigger than we can handle. I need your help.”

“…Taruru. Prepare to enter Pekopon’s atmosphere. Stat.”



“S-so this is seriously the plan, Gocho?” Keroro looked at the Garuru platoon’s emergency escape pod and studied it.

“It doesn’t have any weaponry on ship, but it will get you where you need to go,” Garuru explained as Taruru and Pururu took care of last-minute details behind him. “We provided you some weapons for when you get on the ship, but they’re pretty-low power, too. Things we use to train with, usually.”

“Taruru, what’d you do with those weapons for them?” Pururu asked quietly, and the private-first class looked over to his superior.

“Oh, I took care of it!” Taruru reassured her with a grin that unnerved her a bit as he looked up briefly from the computer screen he had been studying. Something about his confidence was worrisome.

“And what about you? What will you be doing?” Giroro asked aloud, drowning out all those around them.

“We can help hold them off,” Garuru’s pupil came into view, and looked back at the large window, where the saucer continued to be slowed by ever-pounding Nishizawa Peach Group fighter jets. “They won’t last that much longer, at this rate. Those Pekopon fighter jets… They might as well be throwing rocks at it.”

“Nii-chan, I—”

“We can talk later. For now get in and get going,” Garuru snapped before Giroro could get out another word. “This is Garuru Chui to the main ship, do you copy?”

“Yes,” was Zoruru’s only reply. “We copy.”

“Stay prepared to launch in case we need extra firepower. We’re going to see what we can do with this D-grade junk as of now.”

“Kuku!” Kururu only gave a laugh as he walked into the escape pod, following Dororo and Tamama.

“Wow, they said Kirere got lost a lot, but I never knew so many people would go out of their way to protect someone so accident-prone!” Taruru said in amazement. “You think they’d get tired of it after a while!”

“…Go earn your paycheck and convince me I shouldn’t make it so you’re working a desk job the rest of your career, Taruru,” was Garuru’s answer. Taruru saluted nervously and ran to the front of the Pekopon suit transport ship.

“You’re more on edge than usual,” Pururu added with a small smile, and she, too went to the front of the ship.

“Oji-sama!” Mois’s voice rang out as she glided into the open cargo hull door on her staff, dressed in his schoolgirl disguise. “Could you say, a speedy ride over?”

“Mois-dono!” Keroro called out. From inside the Garuru Platoon escape pod there came a kick and a scream, a scream that sounded vaguely like Tamama’s.

“Wow, sure are a lot of Pekoponians on here…” Taruru said aloud as he began to go over the ship’s operations. “And an Angol, too!”

Mois said nothing as she took a seat next to him, but her expression was serious as she put on her headset.

“Giroro! After the manual override, make sure to switch on the invisibility shield. That ought to give you a little more time,” Garuru called out to his younger brother.

Giroro nodded, and then shut the door behind him. A few moments later, the ship was off and out of the cargo hold.

“I hope they know what they’re doing, Fuyuki,” Natsumi sighed as she watched from the back of the pilot’s hull. “…Fuyuki?” She looked to her left, and saw only a smiling Koyuki. To her right, an astounded Haruki, eagerly watching all of the aliens at work. After a few moments, it was apparent he was nowhere on the ship. “Fuyuki!”