Home Again
Mahlua was trying her best to fend off the invading spam ninjas that swarmed the desert outskirts of MR city. Taking care of a few pesky ninja would normally be an easy task for a raider of her level. An infinite number of spam ninjas however, was an entirely different story.
”Geez, they just keep coming!” She said while trying to catch her breath. Sweat was profusely pouring down her face as she stared with dismay at the collective mass of black looming ahead of her. Part of her wanted to run away and scream for backup. Another part of her wished that the spam ninjas would just give up and go away. Regardless, she knew she had to stand her ground. Especially considering she had to protect the two individuals behind her.
She turned to the left just enough to check up on the frightened individuals behind her while still keeping a careful eye on the advancing spam ninjas in front. They were both teenagers- a girl and boy respectively- and both were shivering with terror at the sight of the ninja horde ahead of them. Mahlua sighed, unable to hide the disappointment on her face. She didn’t mind playing the role of rescuer. But a little help from her fellow raiders would’ve been nice.
“Hey you two,” Mahlua began, still keeping her eye on the advancing horde. “It would be best if you guys get out of here.”
“But what about our friend?” The girl teen spoke out.
“Yeah,” said the other half of the pair. “Our friend might come back looking for us.”
“But you said her transporter accidentally set off, right?” Mahlua said, while bashing away ninjas with her fist as they pounced on her. “It’s no telling where that thing may have teleported her to. It’s possible that she may not be able to return right away, knowing how those things work.
“Yeah but-”
Mahlua batted away a couple of more ninjas before fully turning around to address the two teens.
“Listen you two, I understand that you want to stay and wait for your friend, but at this point staying here would be too dangerous. I suggest leaving now and catching up with your friend later. If she shows up though, I’ll be sure to let her know you guys got away safely.
The two teens looked at each other and nodded affirmatively after a few seconds of contemplation.
“Should we go?” The girl asked the boy.
“Yeah,” The boy responded. “I’m pretty sure we can find Filia later. Besides, this place is way too crazy for me.”
With that, the pair both pulled out a grey, cubed shaped device from their pockets and tapped the center of their respective device. Upon activation, the cubes casted a flash of white light over their owners forms, and in the next instant the pair vanished into streaks of thinning light. Mahlua sighed, relieved that one of her problems was now resolved.
“Kinda wish I had one of those right about now…”
Quickly turning back around she was greeted by a spam ninja aiming its sword at her head with a downwards swing. She sidestepped to the left and countered with a knee to the ninja’s stomach, knocking it away out of commission. More ninja from the frontal row of the horde lunged forward at her, and they were all done away with a flurry of swift kicks, courtesy of Mahlua’s boot. She was doing well at holding the ninjas off, but the ninjas were respawning at an alarming rate. At this point, retreating was her best option, and possibly her own only option.
Suddenly, as if her earlier wishes were being granted, a phalanx of hair tendrils swooped through the horde from the right and began slicing unsuspecting ninjas in half with quick and erratic swings. Within seconds the wild tendrils had wiped out nearly a quarter of the spam ninja army. Mahlua watched on with a puzzling expression on her face, unsure of where the tendrils were coming from. As the tendrils began to retract, she followed their movements with focused eyes, and noticed that the tendrils were retracting into the back of a afro haired figure slowly approaching her.
“Who is that?” Mahlua questioned with blinking eyes. As the figure came into view, she noticed the person approaching her was a man dressed rather stylishly with an afro that was surprisingly as large as Lego’s. Walking alongside him was a small girl with silver hair, who Mahlua discerned as the ‘friend’ the teenagers from earlier were mentioning, going off of their descriptions of her. Mahlua wasted no time in barraging the pair with questions when they finally reached her.
“Who are you?” Mahlua said, crossing her arms.
“Your help obviously.” Fronomenal replied snarkily.
Mahula rolled her eyes. “Wow, rude much?”
“Says the chick who wasn't even thanked me for helping her! And I was just teasing ya, no need to get all hot and bothered about it.”
As they bickered, Filia walked past Mahlua and looked around the desert area for a moment before turning back around to her. “Excuse me, were there any other people here?”
Mahlua kneeled down to meet Filia at eye level. “You must be Filia,” she began, greeting her with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, you friends managed to escape safely.”
“Really?” cheered Filia, her face bursting with happiness. She bowed. “Thank you miss er-”
“It’s Mahluaand, but you can call Mahlua or Lua if you want. And you…” Mahlua stood upright and shot a glare at Fro, still remembering his snarky comment from moments ago. “What’s your name mister afro boy wonder?”
Fro shrugged, a little annoyed by Lua’s comment. “‘Afro boy wonder is a bit of reach dontcha think? And it’s Fro, by the way.”
“Fro?” Mahlua raised a brow. “Are you being ‘Fro’ real?”
“Was that a pun?”
“It’s a habit.”
As they talked more spam ninjas were appearing. They rose from underneath the desert sands like zombies rising from their graves. Fro’s earlier assault seemed to not have mattered much, as the ninja army numbers were quickly replenishing by the second, and were now marching towards the group with their collective stomps creating a rumbling across the desert.
“Gosh they’re like roaches!” Mahlua growled. “You step on one and another one comes crawling right behind it.”
“How come you’re the only person from MR here?” Questioned Fro.
“Because I was the only person available to help. Everyone else was busy with whatever they were doing. Hey wait a minute…” Mahlua shot another suspicious glare at Fro. “How did you know I was a raider?”
“Your badge.” Said Fro, pointing at the golden Hero’s emblem that was emblazoned on the shoulder of her shirt.
“My hero badge? Wait that must mean-” As she was coming to her realization Fro pulled on the right of his jacket to the side, revealing his own custom made Hero emblem that was pinned on his shirt. Upon seeing it, she flashed Fro a sly smile. “One of the old guards, eh?”
“I’m not that old.”
The spam ninja were now only inches away from the group. Collectively, in a sort of rhythm, they all waived their swords to their sides, and even though their faces were hidden in the veil of their face masks, you could tell they were grinning with malicious intent. Fro and Mahlua both readied their guards, while Filia cowered in fear behind Fro, tugging on his jacket as tight as she could.
“You got a plan, Fro?”
“Yeah I do actually. You stay back and watch over Filia while I’ll take care of them.”
“What!? There’s no way you can handle all of them by yourself.”
“Of course not. That’s what my hair is for.”
“Huh?”
“Just watch…”
Mahlua had wanted to ask what Fro meant by his statement, but could only manage a look of bewilderment as Fro proceeded with his strange course of action. Walking forward, he dug into his afro and ripped out a large patch of hair from it. Mahlua and Filia both cringed at the sight, wondering how anyone could just carelessly rip out their own hair like that without worrying about potentially going bald. In the next moment Fro curled the patch of hair in his hand into a solid, small hairball, molding it as if it was clay. Then, he chugged the hairball like a fastball pitch into the crowd of ninjas, smacking a couple in the face as it landed in the middle of the horde. All of the ninjas turned to observe the hairball, curious as to what it was supposed to do.
“Hey, just what are you-” Mahlau began, but she was quickly cut off by finger snap, followed by a massive explosion that sounded off with a thunderous boom that rumbled the entire desert. The denotation seemed almost instant, and Mahlua nor Fillia did not have much time to comprehend what Fro had done as they were too busy shielding their eyes from the combined shockwave of sand and wind flaring up and blowing across their faces. When rumbling had subsided and the smoke cleared, a deep crater could be seen where the army of ninjas once stood. The entire army had been wiped out, leaving only charred remains of burnt clothing buried in the sand.
Mahlua and Filia stood idle with their eyes wide and their jaws dropped in comical fashion. Fro on the other hand, was snickering at the sight of his handiwork, turning towards the others with a cheesy smile on his face.
“And that’s what my hair is for.”
---
“Wait a minute let me get this straight,” Fro began, leaning forward to look Mahlua dead in her eyes, but not so much to accidentally push himself off the edge of the MR skyscraper he was sitting atop of. “You’re telling me you guys almost succeeded in the last panty raid!?”
Mahlua, who had been sitting cross-legged next to Fro, nodded proudly. “Yup! And we were so close too. Turns out the panties at the highest level of the tower was just a setup for us to fight the twins at their full strength over at EcchiWorld. Failure pretty much ensued afterwards. Lego almost got ate by a dragon, I got my arse kicked by a nega version of myself, and Coryn unleashed his bankai only to lose to Ecchi-Tan after the fact.”
Mahlua leaned back to stare at the sky for a moment, fondly reflecting on the epic raid. “Even though we lost, it was probably the greatest raid MR has ever seen.
“Damn!” Fro cursed, smacking his lips in disappointment. “I’m never around for the good stuff.”
“Well there’s always this year y’know? We could always use more manpower. Those afro powers of yours could actually come in handy.”
Fro scratched his afro, seeming to contemplate on the thought for a moment. “Yeah well, I would, but I’m gonna have to take a pass. If I’m gonna spend a night with one of the twins I’m gonna do it the traditional way.
“The traditional way?”
“Traditional as in taking them out on a date. I rather have a drink tossed in my face than a bokken to the back.”
“True that.”
Time seemed to have flew by as the two raiders conversed with one another on a variety of subjects. Their interaction in the desert had stirred an air of iffiness between them at first, but upon arriving back at MR they quickly found each other to be quite likable. Mahlua’s chatterbox nature had made keeping up conversation easy for Fro, since all he had to do was listen. And Mahula, well aware of her own tendencies, had a secret appreciation for Fro’s listening skills, feeling more than comfortable to wear his eardrums out with whatever topics that were swirling through her head at the moment.
As the conversation continued on, they both noticed Filia and Hasith strolling through the streets down below. Filia’s face seemed to have been bursting with joy as she skipped along happily, while Hasith tailed behind her with his hand massaging the back of his neck, sighing heavily as he struggled to keep up with her.
“Mr. Hasith,” said Filia coming to a stop to point at a lone guest spectre that had been standing on the side of the street. “What is this thing?”
“That is a guest spectre, Filia.”
“Guest spectre?”
“Yes,” Hasith adjusted the headband covering his eye. “They are the soulless remnants of non members. Think of them as leftover data ammased into a physical, human shape.
“Soulless… leftover data?”
“Was my explanation hard to understand?”
“No, it's just that…”
Filia stepped closer to the idle spectre, almost carefully, and held out her hand to touch it. She gently pressed her hand against the chest of the matte gray, solid shape. Her face darkened upon contact.
“I think everything has a soul…” she muttered in almost cold voice.
Hasith raised a brow. “I'm sorry?”
Filia’s face lit up in surprise, as if she snapped out of a tranced state.
“Oh no, I'm sorry!” She blurted out as she took an apologetic bow. “I don't know what just came over me just now, hehe.”
Hasith wasn't sure how to respond to a innocent young girl suddenly switching character, so he did what any confused person would do: he stared.
Filia, having recognized the awkwardness of the situation, smiled innocently and changed the subject.
“Mr. Hasith, let's continue with the rest of the tour. I really want to see that pub you mentioned earlier!”
And with that she happily skipped along down the street, leaving Hasith to fester in his confusion. He turned his attention to the guest spectre that Filia touched, still as stoic and soulless as before. A heavy sigh escaped him.
“She's definitely an odd one. I may have to keep an eye on her. If she's who I think she is then-” Hasith stopped himself and shook his head. “Gah! I’m getting ahead of myself. It's best not to make assumptions so early.”
He walked.
Back on the skyscrapers above, Fro and Mahula both looked on with puzzled expressions from what they just observed. Fro, who had been scratching his afro the whole time, especially.
“That's weird. Never seen Hasith act as a tour guide before. Is that like some new thing he's doing?”
Mahlua shook her head. “No, or at least I don't think so. I sure didn’t get one.
“Hmm… Well, no big deal I guess. At least Filia is enjoying herself. It's cool that she decided to become a raider.”
“Yeah… Oh!” Mahlua shouted as if she just remembered something important. “Fro, you said you used to battle the mods all the time in Mortal Combat, right? What was that like?
Fro eyes blinked and he leaned back to stare into the sky for a moment. He smiled.
“It was honestly the most fun I’ve had during my time here. Actually now that I think about, it was kind of the only reason I even stuck around for as long as I did back then.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…” Fro laid on his back with his arms folded behind his head. “You probably guessed this, but I really do have a fondness for fighting. Hell, I’m pretty sure it has become an addiction at this point.”
“And Mortal Combat was the perfect place to get your fix, huh?”
Fro snickered. “Yeah, but it wasn’t just that though. In a way it brought me closer to a lot of the other members that used to hang around this place. It sounds crazy, but punching people in face was how I made friends back in the day.”
Fro closed his eyes, the smile on his face slowly shrinking into a subtle grin. He sat up.
“But… Mortal Combat ended and a lot of the raiders I met there left the city. It sucked, but all great things come to an end I guess. Still though, there were some things I never got to do. Beating Coryn one on one was one of those things. Thirty one to zero never sat well with me.”
Mahlua laughed. “Well, I did hear he was something of a god back in his prime.”
“He was… Or at least in Mortal Combat he was. Regardless he was a nightmare to fight. And then there were guys like Lego. Furball was pretty strong himself, but at least he was more manageable than God mode Coryn. Which reminds me…”
Fro reached in his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. After a few taps on the screen he arrived at the message that Lego had sent him earlier in the week. He decided to reply.
[Sent From Fronomenal: If you really want payback from last time, then meet me over at Bungie. Sent: 2:03 P.M]
After sending the message, he stood up and stretched for a few seconds before turning to Mahlua.
“Welp, it’s been fun, but it’s time for me to dip.” Fro extended his hand out to Mahlua, gesturing for a friendly handshake. “It was nice getting to know you Ms. Milk. We should spar sometime. I’m curious about those lightning powers you were telling me about.”
Mahlua shook his hand with a heartwarming smile on he face. “Likewise. And don’t worry, I’ll let you know all about ‘em. I hope you don’t mind that afro of yours looking fried cotton candy!”
“Heh, we’ll see about that. Oh yeah, before I forget…”
Fro kneeled down and plucked a strand of hair from Mahlua’s head. Mahlua jerked back and shrieked reactively.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“You had something in your hair,” he lied, stuffing the long strand of pink into the depths of his afro. “See ya!”
Before Mahlua could respond, Fro disappeared, leaving behind a strand of hair floating in his place. Mahlua massaged her temple, still feeling a little bit of pain.
“So weird…”