7th Moon
Chapter 10

The truck was now overloaded with spare parts from the robots so there was no longer room for anyone to ride back there, so Kichiku and Douji had to squeeze into the front seat with Shuurikou. As for Hidariude and Keisei, they were riding the freshly fueled motorcycle. They found it very enjoyable and freeing to be speeding down the highway, the wind in their hair. Hidariude was driving in front with Keisei holding on behind him, and there was something about holding onto her man that felt very comforting to her. She could ride like this forever, though it would have been even better if they weren’t stuck following Shuurikou’s truck, smelling his fumes, and worst of all, not being able to go top speed.

After a long drive, they finally arrived at their next stop, a dam. “Not just any dam, the Sakuma hydroelectric power dam.” Shuurikou said as he got out of the truck at their destination. “This dam produces a significant amount of renewable environmentally friendly electricity. Under New World Enterprises, it all gets sent to Tokyo, even though it could be divided among the power grid to all of Japan.”

“Let me guess, there’s a soldier here making sure that doesn’t happen.” Hidariude said.

“Yes.” Shuurikou replied. “I don’t suppose you know this guy too?”

“When we first arrived on Earth, we were part of a team.” Hidariude answered. “Since then, we’ve met all but one of them, and the last one was an aquatic specialist.”

“Perfect to watch a hydroelectric dam.” Shuurikou surmised. “Previous attempts to liberate this dam have met with a soldier and a group of robots that are designed for aquatic use. Be prepared.”

“We always are.”

All five had to go in together. They would have liked to leave Douji behind for his safety, but Shuurikou needed to go in to reprogram the hydroelectric power grid and the other three needed to go in to protect him. They crept up the path from the main road to the dam, lying low in case security was watching outside. Apparently there wasn’t any security watching outside, because they made it to the entrance without any trouble.

Getting in was a different story. Shuurikou was able to hack the lock to get in, though as soon as they did, the security bots descended on them. The robots looked like soldiers wearing scuba gear. They knew the truth though, those tanks on their backs weren’t for breathing; they contained water that they used for high pressure hydro cannons making them similar to Renzokuken’s blasters only with slightly different weapons. Kichiku punched the ground and managed to bend the ground into a wall that blocked the water. Hidariude and Keisei maneuvered around the wall Kichiku created to flank the robots and attack as they ran past. The first wave went down, clearly not programmed to be prepared for their unique fighting style.

They continued working their way through the corridors, Shuurikou giving them directions from a map of the dam he had kept from a previous attempt on the dam. Shuurikou knew the importance of the dam and was desperate to get the electricity running back to the rest of Japan, but his previous attempts failed. Resistance soldiers drowned either by robots or by the lead soldier who dragged them into the reservoir. This time he had a team that could handle the robots, a sword slash here, a fan swipe there, and a palm strike to cleanup anything that got by, these new allies knew how to fight. They knew that Shuurikou was using them, but they knew that Seventh Moon was taking away people’s free will and they wanted to stop it. They already had their mission, and they were using Shuurikou to help them with it.

At every turn there were more robots, but the espers sensed them coming and prepared with their attacks first, each robot went up in a splash of water from their tanks that they couldn’t empty before being destroyed. Sometimes a robot would appear while the espers were otherwise occupied, but Kichiku managed to put up an unstoppable defense that blocked every single attack. The robots had no chance of stopping the intruders, they could only slow them down.

After a long journey through the dam to the control room, they finally found it and entered. Inside the room the soldier was waiting for them in the chair. It turned around to reveal a familiar face. He clapped slowly. “Congratulations for making it this far but it ends now.”

“Yes, Kappa, it ends here, for you.” Hidariude told his former comrade.

Kappa laughed quietly as a few more robots came up behind them. They didn’t take the espers by surprise because they could sense the robots coming and dispatched them as easily as all the others before. Shuurikou was not so lucky though, lacking the ESP and the time to get a warning from the others as well as being in the back of the group since it seemed safest, he got captured.

“Oops, looks like you missed one.” Kappa taunted. “Unless you want him to die, you’ll surrender and give me the boy.”

“So then you’ll have four hostages instead of one?” Hidariude retorted. “Assuming you actually let him go.”

“Of course I’d let him go, what do I care about him?” Kappa replied as if he really didn’t care at all about Shuurikou other than as leverage. “In fact, I’d like him to go just so that he can tell everyone about how I destroyed his last glimmer of hope and everyone will know that they cannot stop the New Wave Elite!”

They tried to think about a way to save Shuurikou, but there simply was no way they could move fast enough or even use their powers to attack the robot without risking Shuurikou’s life. Hidariude decided to make a bum rush and try to grab Shuurikou and take out the robot at the same time. Instead he was surprised to find that the robot simply turned and ran carrying Shuurikou along. Hidariude chased after him, knowing that there was no point in liberating the control room if they didn’t have Shuurikou to reprogram the power grid.

The others stayed in the room with Kappa and tried to fight him, but Kappa knew Kichiku’s fighting style well and had been in enough group fights to know how to evade Keisei as well. He grabbed Douji as he leapt between his foes and rolled out the door. “Now I’ve got two hostages. Try and get me!” Kappa ran off after Hidariude and the robot carrying Shuurikou.

The abductors had an unfair advantage since they actually knew their way around and the espers could do nothing but follow. Though they didn’t know exactly where they were going, they knew exactly what the endgame was. Kappa’s advantage was that he was uniquely adapted to the water. Not only did he have superior mobility, but since he could breathe underwater, he just needs to last longer than his opponent’s ability to hold their breath. They were going to the top of the dam so he could lure them to jump into the reservoir. Normally they wouldn’t fall for this, but they couldn’t just let Shuurikou and Douji go. They had to follow straight into his trap unless they could cut them off before they got into the water.

Unfortunately they were not so lucky, their precognitive abilities did not give them the speed they needed to stop Kappa and his robot. The robot jumped over the edge of the dam into the water carrying Shuurikou with it. Hidariude was about to follow but he picked up a telepathic message from the others and waited by the door as Kappa came to the surface with Douji. Hidariude turned around and drew his sword against Kappa. Kappa almost got killed but saw the sword at the last second and dodged. In that split second he lost focus on holding Douji and Hidariude was able to grab the boy. Kappa realized he still had one hostage and would stand a much better chance if he could lure them where he wanted. “You’ve got one, but there’s still one to go!” Kappa taunted as he jumped into the water.

Realizing they didn’t have any choice they jumped in after Kappa. Here they were at a disadvantage because they couldn’t use their powers; the water would extinguish Keisei’s fire, they were suspended too high above the river bed for Kichiku to use his geokinesis, and if Hidariude tried using his electrokinesis he could electrocute everybody. However, they still had a plan, Kichiku went after the robot and managed to pry it’s arms off of Shuurikou, setting him free so that Keisei could lead him back to the surface while Kichiku crushed the robot. Meanwhile, Hidariude desperately fought with Kappa to distract him and give his friends a chance to get away. Kappa had drawn a pair of ceramic knives to parry Hidariude’s blades, which he did quite easily since the water created enough resistance to Hidariude’s movements to nullify his precognitive speed advantage. Hidariude found he was running out of breath quite quickly and tried his best to surface, but now was Kappa’s time to shine, he would hold Hidariude down and drown him. Just when he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, Hidariude noticed the intake for the dam’s turbine. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew there had to be some way he could use it. Kappa was trying to push Hidariude through the narrow opening, but Hidariude used the last of his strength to kick off the dam and throw Kappa in instead. Hidariude relied on an adrenaline rush to push himself to the surface where he gasped for air.

Hidariude swam out to shore to rejoin his friends. Together they returned to the top of the dam where they located Douji. Then they looked over the edge to the other side and saw that Kappa had come out the other side of the dam in bad shape after being beat up by the turbine and the force of his fall coming out of the dam finished him off. His corpse washed up on shore and they knew the battle was over. They returned to the control room so Shuurikou could do his part while Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku stood guard at the door against any remaining security bots.

“”…and done.” Shuurikou said when he finished switching on the circuits to the outlands. “There, now the power is up for all of Japan. Tokyo is now at half power, so there will be plenty of pissed off people back there. I hope nobody had plans to go back there.”

“No, we’re ready to meet your leader and formally join the resistance.”

“Good, that’s our next stop. Everybody, back to the truck.”

The five took the long hike back down to their truck and bike, more than ready to get on the road again. Unfortunately, it was not to be. They sensed a threatening and familiar presence. There by their vehicles, Baz, Aka and Seichei were waiting for them, clearly having received cybernetic reconstruction. Baz appeared to be wearing gloves and a corset made from some sort of lavender plastic. In truth, this plastic was replacing her skin that she had lost when Keisei burned her. Aka looked normal, but under his uniform as a fully cybernetic body replacing what was destroyed when they had last met in combat. There was really no way around this, they would never reach the end of their journey without their vehicles and they wouldn’t reach their vehicles without confronting their pursuers. After warning Shuurikou and Douji to stay back, the three faced their enemies.

“Well, now, there you are.” Aka greeted them with a nasty hint of sarcasm. “We’ve been looking all over for you. You’ve been very slippery. I notice you seem to be missing one, where is the boy?”

“You won’t get him.” Kichiku answered sternly.

“Yes we will, and we’ll kill you too.”

“How can you be so confident when we have won every battle so far?”

“Because we’re pretty sure you must be getting weary by now. Besides we are stronger than the last time we met.”

With that they all attacked. Seichei did not go all out as he had before because he couldn’t, and even if he could, he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Extra size and extra blades just made him more bulky and less maneuverable, so he just extended his remaining arm blades and proceeded into a duel with Hidariude. Hidariude parried with his cyber blades in one hand and his sword in the other. He wanted to end it with an electric attack, but since he hadn’t fully dried out yet, he risked short-circuiting his arm and he couldn’t risk it, so he was stuck in the duel until it came to its natural end. It seemed to be a pretty routine fight, but what Hidariude did not realize, was that Seichei was actually learning more about Hidariude’s fighting style with each battle and at some point he would gain the advantage, or so the android thought. In the back of Hidariude’s mind, he thought Seichei would make the perfect sparring partner, if he wasn’t actually bent on killing him.

Keisei and Baz squared off once again. Keisei felt at a disadvantage because she didn’t have any fire talismans and was still wet so she couldn’t use her fire powers at all. Baz however was able to use her new abilities and decided to get revenge on her by using her new flame throwers to blast Keisei. Unfortunately for Baz, even though Keisei couldn’t create fire right now, she could still us her pyrokinesis to deflect Baz’s fire. Realizing that fire wouldn’t work, Baz switched to her icy freeze blast. Keisei tried to block this with her fans and found that her fans were frozen immediately and when she tried to strike back the fans shattered. Another pair of fans shattered, she’d have to replace them again later; in the meantime she needed to make sure this remained close combat so that the ice didn’t come out again. As she grappled with Baz she focused her sixth sense on detecting the source of fire within Baz to try to use it against her. She finally was able to sense the containers of accelerant and coolant and the hoses that connected them and came up with an idea. She pinned Baz to the ground on her belly and scratched a small fire kanji on her back. “Kayakujutsu ignite!” Keisei set off the flame thrower inside of Baz. She’d already used enough fuel that there wouldn’t be enough left to stop her, but there would be enough to burn out the coolant system and neutralize her new abilities. Baz was hurt, but she was much tougher now than their last encounter and she responded to the pain by lashing out at Keisei. The fight was on.

Aka came on quite fiercely, having gotten used to his cybernetic parts enough to have almost regained his speed. However, his speed was matched by Kichiku’s precognitive battle senses and managed to keep up with him blow for blow. Once Aka realized his speed wasn’t going to cut it he decided to bring out the big guns and transform. He back pedaled a bit then initiated his transformation. Kichiku tried to hit Aka mid transformation, but Aka was too quick and managed to become a half metallic doppelganger of his opponent, catching his punch and holding it. Kichiku tried another punch, but Aka blocked that too. Kichiku punched the ground to create a fissure quake to trap Aka, but surprisingly, Aka was able to punch the ground and divert the fissure around him, effectively countering the tremor. This was dangerous, Kichiku realized, Aka did not have precognitive senses, but between his new strength and his old speed, he could still make up the difference. They were evenly matched, and this battle would not end soon.

Shuurikou looked on with amazement. He had seen a lot of fighting in the short time he had been part of the resistance, but he had never seen anything like this. There were powerful soldiers, but they had always easily taken out their opponents. His new allies had shown significant power, but the way they overcame their enemies just as easily. This was the first time he actually saw them with their equals, two teams of fighters that were totally in a league of their own. Shuurikou had no doubt in his mind that if any other person got involved in this they would be swatted away like a fly. This was a battle royal and he could do nothing but hope and pray that his allies would emerge victorious.

Douji was being held back so he couldn’t see what was happening, but it didn’t do any good. He was an esper, he was continually in sync with his family and he could feel what was happening. Even though he couldn’t see what was happening, he could still feel their pain and frustration. He could feel how tired they were from their battle with Kappa and his robots. He knew Keisei was disarmed and at a disadvantage. He could feel the energy from their enemies and that their cybernetics were keeping them active and they would outlast his friends. It was only a matter of time before they gave into exhaustion. They were holding up but for how long? Douji’s heart was pounding, he clenched his fists, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “No, not again! They can’t get hurt, I need them!”

Shuurikou could hear the fear I Douji’s voice and tried to calm him down. “It’s okay, they’ll win.”

All three espers could feel it at the same, their seal was breaking. They each looked over toward Douji and saw an all too familiar glow. Once again the golden dragon Shinryuu emerged and towered over the battle field. Shuurikou was paralyzed with fear as the fearsome apparition flew over him and began to battle with the soldiers.

Baz, Aka and Seichei remembered what happened before with Hime. This time they didn’t have her to fight the golden dragon, but they did have a sedative they believed they could use on Douji. Unfortunately, they needed to be able to inject into the boy and had realized the dragon form was a projection that wouldn’t respond to their chemicals. Aka took point with the sedative, reverting to his speedier form. Seichei and Baz tried to distract the dragon. Baz put her hands up to use her blasters, forgetting that they were damaged and wouldn’t work. It did buy some time for Seichei to try to get in an attack, not that it did any good. Shinryuu simply swept both of them away, flinging them with his hand into the air, launching them towards the horizon. Aka managed to get on the dragon’s back and tried to stick in the needle to inject him with the sedative, but what he did not anticipate was that unlike Hime, Douji had ESP and could sense his presence. Before he made contact, the dragon’s tail swept him off toward the others in the distance.

The dragon roared and the entire area around the dam began to glow blue with a faint golden rim. Aka looked up. “Abort mission, it’s not happening this time.” His comrades agreed and retreated at top speed. The blue and gold aura actually seemed to give them a tailwind, urging them to go.

The glow around the area was something new, but the espers knew what had to be done all the same. Kichiku and Keisei each clapped their hands together while Hidariude held his sword pommel up and they all began to chant “Om mani padme om.” The dragon roared again and the glow began to fade, and the dragon shrank back down until it was just Douji again, the last glimmer of spiritual light twinkling out on the shimenawa around his neck. Just like the last time, Douji was unconscious and completely unaware of what had happened.

Hidariude and Keisei got on the motorcycle while Kichiku carried Douji to the truck. Shuurikou still had not moved at all since Douji transformed. He stood there catatonic.

Hidariude called to Shuurikou. “Hey Shuurikou, come on. Kichiku doesn’t know how to drive a truck and none of us have a clue where we are going. It’s time for you to take the lead.”

Shuurikou very slowly began to come back to his senses and uttered three barely audible words. “What was that?” The others had no immediate response and silence hung in the air. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Shuurikou got up the nerve to ask again. “You want me to just climb into that truck with you after what I just saw? No way! We don’t go anywhere until you answer me! What the hell was that?!”

Kichiku slowly got back out of the truck and approached Shuurikou. “We came from the Shrine of the Golden Dragon, dedicated to the Golden Dragon Shinryuu. Within that shrine is a golden dragon statue, the Yoshiro of Shinryuu. When we gather in worship that is where the spirit of Shinryuu dwells. However, it seems that after we have spent much time there, the spirit has transmigrated to Douji, he is the Yoshiromi. When he senses we are in trouble, the spirit awakens and they attain shintai. Unfortunately, he was never prepared for this and he is too young, so the spirit overcomes him. We are his guardians and it is our sacred duty to protect him and subdue the dragon’s wrath and power.”

“And NWE has one of these?”

“Sort of. The girl we told you about seems to be able to mirror his power, but it may not be a true dragon, or even a spirit of any kind. It may just be the psychic echo of Shinryuu.”

“This is why they’re after you?”

“Yes. This and because we deserted. We deserted to protect him. We are the enemies of the Seventh Moon, and they will not rest until they have him and the rest of us are eliminated.”

“Well, I guess we just can’t let that happen.”

With that, they returned to the truck and began their journey to their destination, the resistance headquarters.

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