It's a bit of a change for me but I'm enjoying writing it. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...
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The Last Valkyrie
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Instead of her usual routine of browsing the aisles, finding a book, and getting lost for an afternoon, Hanako ducked and dodged her way through the library. She weaved between the shelves at a brisk pace to hopefully lose her tail while not appearing to be aware of him.
She failed at both.
“Ikezawa,” the stalker snarled, “I need to give you something. It's very important.”
Kenji reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvety jewelry box and opened it. A highly polished but otherwise unobtrusive heart shaped locket made of a white metal on a matching chain glistened from within.
“G-G-Get away!” she yelped when she slapped the gift out of his hands. “L-Lilly says I'm n-not supposed to t-talk to y-you!”
“Then you leave me no choice,” he replied before spraying a warm but otherwise inert and flavorless liquid into Hanako's face from a small aerosol bottle.
By the time Hanako crawled out of the mental hole she buried herself in, Kenji was long gone. Sometime before blacking out, she heard his sinister laugh ring in her ears before pulling away into the distance. Shaken, but otherwise relieved that there was no follow-up, even from good Samaritans, Hanako did her best to carry on with her day.
Things went smoothly until the end of the day. On her solitary detour back to the dorms, she was accosted by two unfamiliar girls who never gave her any trouble before.
“Haaaa-naaaa-koooooo. We've found yoooooouuuuuu...” one sang to the other while they closed in on her.
“How does it feel to be all alone? No amazon to hide behind, no prettyboy to latch onto, just you and perdition.”
Hanako tried to run, but with inhuman speed, the girls had her. One clamped vise-like claws around her wrists and sandwiched Hanako's legs between her legs of iron.
“We've been searching a very long time, Hanako” The other assailant whispered while caressing Hanako's chin between teasing flicks of her tongue. “You're all that's left until... Nah, I ain't tellin you shit!”
Hanako screamed until she felt her vocal chords burst, yet nothing came out. She struggled until she felt her muscles tear off her bones, yet she remained still. Time slowed down just so she could watch in horror as two strangers attempted to violate her.
Just as lips were about to touch, Hanako felt herself get bathed in light. With speed almost too fast for her to process, a column of ...shine for the lack of a better word... plowed her attackers offand sent them careening towards a wall of shoe lockers with a deafening crash.
“It's a damn shame I had to stop that,” Kenji chuckled when he made his grand entrance, “it was getting kinda hot.”
“K-Kenji... wha- BWEEEEK!!” Hanako screamed, with her pent up panic overriding her sensible question.
“Those two were acolytes of the nuGod. They were attracted to the pheromones I sprayed on you earlier.”
“Y-You did this to me?!”
“No, they did,” Kenji said, pointing at the two girls folded in half in a joined pool of blood. “I just wanted to show you the truth.”
“Wha-I don't get it. Acco-what? New God?”
“Acolytes, nuGod. Follow me to my headquarters. I have much to share with you.”
“But I...”
“Do you want to get the rape spray again?!”
“O-Okay...”
...
Against every grain of advice given to her by ...just about everyone, Hanako followed Kenji back to his room. From looking at the various leaflets, books, and propaganda posters littered about, Hanako started to draw conclusions about the nature of Kenji's “truth.”
“You're not gonna believe a thing I say, so I'm just going to start with this,” Kenji said when he handed Hanako a photographic print that was stained with age and coffee. Pictured were a large group of professional looking people. Most were in laughably dated suits with wide ties and huge lapels, others in lab coats, while still others were in military uniforms from various countries. In the foreground was... Hanako's father.
“D-Daddy...?” she whimpered when an internal floodgate of emotions released.
“Hey, hey, don't lose your cool just yet. I haven't even started. See that guy next to your father? That's my old man, right there.”
“Your dad knew my d-dad?”
“Yeah. They worked together. My dad used to babysit you, actually. He still talks about you.”
“Wh-what? What's going on?”
“Ikezawa, there's a war out there. A secret war, waged between mankind and...”
“...Feminism?” Hanako blurted out, half hoping to appease Kenji and be allowed to return to her room.
“No. Not Feminism.”
“But Lilly and Hi-Hisao said...”
“I know what they say, and that's just a small corner of a much bigger picture. What do you know of The Cold War?”
“Um, that's when America and Russia tried taking over the...”
“WRONG! 'The Cold War' or actually, the entire nineteenth and twentieth centuries as you've been taught were all a ruse. All a front to build up the worldwide military-industrial complex and unify the world's peoples under a few powerful banners rather than wait to gather up the scattered peoples when the time came.”
“T-Time for what?”
Kenji clasped his hands together and brooded for a moment. The room seemed to somehow grow darker and more sinister until he exploded with enthusiastic revelation.
“The arrival of the nuGod. Aliens, Ikezawa. Well, they don't come from another planet, per se, but from a different plane of existence. They began invading sometime before the beginning of recorded history. The thing is, though, their portals consume their entire culture. Imagine, Hanako, entire races devoted to the production of ONE thing!”
“Uh...huh...”
“They weren't a threat until a couple hundred years ago, though. They'd use huuuge amounts of energy just to send one or two of them through to our side at a time. They don't have physical bodies, so they couldn't send alien weapons either. All they ever managed to do was assemble small groups of possessed humans and harass us. Sure, bad shit happened, they did damage, but they'd always lose. But all of a sudden, Benjamin Franklin started detecting high amounts of transpectral radiation while trying to find a cure for syphilis.”
“Way-Wait... did you say Benjamin Franklin...?”
“Don't interrupt me, woman. He discovered that the nuGod were improving their travel techniques and would soon be able to send in a REAL invading force. Ever since that initial discovery, the leaders of every nation on Earth have been coordinating their efforts in preparation for their arrival.”
Kenji straightened out his glasses and leaned close enough for him to gauge Hanako's reactions.
“Everything in modern history has been leading up to their arrival. When they first started coming here, we were just scattered cave people who fought each other even more than with them. Over time, we slowly coalesced into more organized, better armed, larger tribes. Nationalism, Colonialism, Imperialism, all the different buttloads of experimental governments people have followed from Fascism to Socialism were all motivated by our need to be unified.”
“Same with technology,” he continued. “Internal combustion, electrification, heavier than air flight, automatic weapons, lasers, atomic weapons, my Divine Glasses of Omniscience, and even pop music were all developed as weapons.”
“I d-don't get it. Wh-What does this have to do with me?”
“Some ninety years ago, the Illuminati put in motion a plan to create the ultimate weapon against the nuGod. Generations of scientists dedicated their entire lives to the pursuit of research. Their weapons, Ikezawa, were to be their children. Imagine, teams of young warriors, each equipped with a specialized tool of superscience fighting the alien invasion, with each making up for each other's short comings. Alone, they would be strong. Together, they'd be invincible. Just like Voltron.”
“Y-You mean Go-Lion?”
“No, stupid girl. Voltron. What kind of gay name is Go-Lion anyway?”
Kenji showed Hanako the photo of her father and his colleagues again. With a pound of his fist on the table for each incident, he told her how one-by-one, each man was killed along with his experimental eugenics child. Kenji's father was a passive observer who never volunteered his offspring for the project, so he was spared along with Kenji. Hanako's father was not so lucky. He died while buying time to allow his family to go into hiding.
“You saw what human vessels containing the nuGod were capable of, didn't you? I haven't been augmented genetically like you have, so I could only do so much. Two goons are about all I'll ever be capable of handling, it seems. With you, there's no limit to your power.”
“B-But you said that it was supposed to be a different weapon for each kid. Wh-What will I use?”
“When they started getting slaughtered one-by-one, your dad merged them all together. It's risky, but in theory, you should be able to handle it all on your own. Now, Ikezawa, are you with me?”
“N-No... I can't. This isn't real.”
“BITCH, THERE ARE TWO DEAD KIDS IN THE HALLWAY AND THEIR MASTERS ARE NO DOUBT DEMANDING ANSWERS NOW ARE YOU WITH ME?!”
Hanako swallowed her fears and searched her soul. For her entire life, she was but a wingless fly on the wall awaiting a rolled newspaper. Perhaps it was time for her to finally matter.
“O-Okay. I, I'll do it.”
...
Hanako looked around the “Dojo of Manly Machismo,” which sat in the back yard of Kenji's house. It was dusty, stifling, but with the garden tools and bags of fertilizer gone, it was fairly cozy.
“Are you ready to begin your training, Ikezawa?” Kenji's voice from beyond the door asked.
“Y-Yeah,” she answered.
“Okay.”
“H-Hey wait!” she yelped when she heard a hefty sounding padlock clank shut outside.
Hanako started fidgeting nervously when her protests went unanswered. Her senses flared up in full blown panic mode when she heard some sort of liquid splash around outside. Noxious fumes trickled in through the tool shed's flimsy plywood walls and confirmed her worst fears.
“No,” she begged to herself, “not this. Anything but this...”
A stronger person would've kicked down the walls or the door. A stronger person would have gone outside and beaten the snot out of Kenji for being so cruel. But then again, a stronger person wouldn't have curled up in a ball and started weeping when confronted with their most persistent nightmare.
By the time the fuel was ignited, Hanako was gone within herself. She wasn't in a burning shed anymore, but in a dark, abyssal fortress of her own design. The darkness protected her. It enabled her mind to rapidly shut down so that her body could endure whatever came to it. She was free to die alone, in peace.
“Hanako...”
“No!” her inner child screamed when shaken out of her catatonia. “Go away!”
“Hanako...”
“Stop it! You're dead!”
“Hanako...”
“Leave me alone!”
“Why do you hate me, Hanako?”
Hanako's heart clenched up as if a gorilla's hand had clamped around it. She didn't hate her father. She couldn't. So why was she recoiling away from his voice? No, it wasn't him she hated. It was the damned fire that raged all around her. Fire destroyed her life, it made her what she was instead of what she could have been. Fire took everything. It was disgusting and by association, her father's voice became just as repulsive to her.
Hanako opened her inner eyes and saw a strong, familiar, comforting hand reaching towards her from the black. With no other course of action other than dying, she reached out and was pulled back to Earth.
Suddenly, she found herself standing in the inferno once again, drenched in sweat, tears, and fright. Flames licked the insides of the shed, but they weren't terrors from hell anymore. It was fire, simple as that. It was an obstacle to overcome. After all, Hanako couldn't save the world unless she saved herself first.
Hanako nervously tore free from the shackles of her past and inched towards the door.
“N-N-N...”
She raised her shaking fists and made tentative practice swings against the flimsy door.
“N-N-No...”
She made contact. Barely grazing, yes, but finally, Hanako took her fate into her own hands and made steps towards fighting her fears instead of merely hiding from them.
“NO!”
The floppy doors buckled and splintered when she struck. The rusty hinges popped right out of the rotting lumber they were anchored to. Sunshine flared into her vision as if heaven itself sliced into hell to shine on her. Just beyond the threshold, Kenji was standing there looking as smug as ever.
“Oh, good. Having you die of smoke inhalation would've been a pain in the ass for me to deal with. Not bad, for a chick.”
Hanako swallowed her remaining anxiety and left the “dojo” just as it collapsed to spread its flames to the house of Kenji's much-loathed neighbors. She wasn't sure whether to embrace Kenji in gratitude for helping her overcome her fears or slug him in the gonads for nearly killing her. She settled on not doing anything at all.
Hanako had been smashed and reduced to rubble. A lifetime of emotional baggage was stripped away so she could begin living the life she was destined to lead.
...
On the final day of Hanako's grueling training, Kenji put her through a gauntlet of endurance, strength, speed, mental agility, and improvisation in the backyard of his home. Her body was battered and it showed, but Hanako's eyes burned with a sense of purpose the likes of which she never thought possible.
“Now remember, the nuGod aren't just monsters in the night. They are also cultural insurgents. Everything from the global spread of soccer to second wave Feminism is their doing. Always be vigilant to attacks of all kinds. Any more questions before you permanently take possession of your weapon?”
Kenji handed Hanako the locket she had used during her training. When in use, her enhanced natural energies worked in concert with the nanobots within to produce items and effects out of seemingly nothing. She gently took it out of his hands and draped it around her neck as if she was crowning herself with an ancient royal jewel.
“You don't wear it, you bimbo. You have to swallow it. Chain and everything.”
“B-But can't I just wear it?”
“Haven't you watched any cartoons? You put a superweapon around some dumb teenage chick's neck and what's the first thing that happens? It gets stolen. Or you'd be dumb enough to put yourself in a situation while not wearing it. Now swallow the goddamned necklace so it can dissolve. The nanobots will permeate through your organs and multiply to achieve their maximum potential.”
“I f-forgot to ask. Is there anything in this locket?”
“No. Now eat it.”
Hanako swallowed the jewelry and felt her insides burn as it dissolved within her and constructed permanent implants and structural reinforcements within her. Her conditioning involved overcoming her fears, including fire, but even then, she was not prepared for the sheer terror of having her insides twist apart. With the weapon fully merged with her, she collapsed. Kenji scooped Hanako off the deck of his backyard and carried her upstairs. In a mere three days time, she would regain consciousness and be ready for action.
...
“Thanks for helping me with this,” Yuuko said when Hanako unloaded the last cartload of surplus books into the back of her Toyota Corsa hatchback. “The kids at the orphanage will really enjoy these.”
“N-No prob-” Hanako's response was cut short when her heightened senses picked up on incoming concentrations of negative energies. From the shadows emerged an elderly couple. Hanako tried ignoring them, but her training and instincts kept her from letting them slide. The nuGod certainly weren't above using such delicate vehicles for their incorporeal selves.
“Oh, hello there,” Yuuko asked the hunters, “is there anything I can do for- KYAAA!!!!”
“You can give me your soul,” the old woman said with an unearthly ring that did not come from her mouth, which was busy gnawing on Yuuko's neck.
“St-Stop it!” Hanako yelled out to no reply. The aliens were clearly after Yuuko. They did not seem to recognize Hanako as a threat. Part of her training involved making her soul taste unattractive to them. The two creatures conversed in unintelligible clicks before resuming their meal. Hanako filled with rage at the sight of her friend being devoured. She shot her arms forward. With her fingers extended, she formed the outline of a heart with her hands.
“IN THE NAME OF LOVE, I COMMAND YOU TO HALT!”
With her Earth-shattering words, the ground at Hanako's feet fractured and spilled beams of light all around her. Her clothes burned away when her skin ignited white-hot. Hanako's form stretched slightly and expanded in various places. Her holy armor of science and magic materialized around her.
The light solidified into a protective casing that only dissipated when she emerged, fully armed for the fight. Hanako's scars had faded away and her hair turned bright electric purple. Thigh-high white boots with byzantine purple trim added a good deal of height to her. The matching pleated miniskirt left little doubt that she had somehow grown a new set of curves, which were also accentuated by a shimmering breastplate. A winged helmet completed her war dress and she wielded a broad-headed spear that sliced through the air audibly when she danced it around her.
“What the fuck are you?” the aliens demanded.
“SHINING VALKYRIE OF JUSTICE HANA-CHAMA, AT YOUR SERVICE.”
“Shining what in the what what?”
“Who cares, I'll bet she's delectable under that bitter tasting shell of hers.”
The creatures dropped Yuuko and sprinted on all-fours with a simian gait towards Hana-chama. With a calm, well-drilled action, she pointed her spear at one of the aliens and initiated her first attack.
“ULTIMATE SHINING SPEED!”
In an instant, Hana-chama materialized with her spear impaling the alien that took the form of an old man. With the Valkyrie's attention momentarily gone, the “old woman” jumped at her to sink fangs into her flesh.
“ULTIMATE SHINING ARMOR!”
Sparkles swirled around the forearm Hana-chama shielded her face with. The old woman's gnashing teeth shattered against the shell of synthetic pseudo-neutronium that formed a barely stable shell within a conformal stasis field around her arm. With the monster in momentary retreat, Hana-chama's emergency armor dissolved back into thin air. The old woman circled around with speed even augmented senses struggled to match. A straight-line attack wasn't going to work. With the old man still dangling from her spear, Hana-chama cried out her next malediction.
“ULTIMATE SHINING ATTACK!”
A jet of blindingly intense plasma shot from Hana-chama's spear. Her weapon burned so hot that the dead alien she swung around vaporized around it. With the precision of a garden hose, she burned a swath through the surrounding buildings, walls, fences, streetlights, utility poles, Yuuko's car, and finally, the remaining alien.
The aliens were dead, but Hana-chama's friend was in terrible shape as well. Yuuko's life was gushing out of her jugular vein and was well beyond saving by contemporary medicine. Hana-chama cradled Yuuko's dying self and touched foreheads with her.
“Ultimate shining love,” she whispered before landing her lips upon Yuuko's gaping mouth. With her tongue, Hana-chama deposited nanites inside Yuuko. Slowly, the subminiature machines gathered up spilled blood, soil, leaves, and even ate at her clothes to harvest raw materials for their work. The frayed open flesh on Yuuko's neck closed up and healed as if someone had hit the rewind-button on her injuries. Her slow and unpredictable heartbeat stabilized and Yuuko began breathing again.
“Wha-what happened?”
“It's okay, you're going to be okay.”
“What... there was a student here, a young girl.”
“She's okay. She ran away a long time ago.”
“I'm glad... thank you stranger, for everything. What do I call you?”
“I am just a foot soldier in the war against darkness. I am The Shining Valkyrie of Justice Hana-Chama. I'm glad you are okay. I must go now. There are others who need me.”
Hana-chama laid Yuuko back down and stood up to survey the horizon. With her incantation of “ULTIMATE SHINING VISION,” she detected several more instances of alien attacks on human beings. Before Yuuko could glean more information from her savior, Hana-chama disappeared with a blink of an eye.
-To Be Continued-
200th topic in the fanfic forum, y'all(9:15:12 PM) eatkosherbacon: so i just wrote a scene where Kenji locks Hanako up in a burning tool shed
(9:15:22 PM) mag: .................
(9:15:28 PM) mag: i may have to kill you now
.
I'm glad you guys like it so far. When I posted the first chapter, I felt as if I should include an apology in advance. But then again, I'd probably need to include one with everything I write and well... I wouldn't mean it. 
