Hey, man, he was doing a damn fine job on his own. But R.D. was right. "Okay," Matt said. "I'm Matt. This is R.D., Helena, Alasea, Ileyna, and Hugo."

"I'm a talking robot, so don't be surprised if I ask you anything," Hugo added.

And just like that, the tall, feminine man was right there, kneeling down to look at Hugo. "Oh my, where'd you find this cute fellow?" he asked of the group. "He isn't a Ganmen, is he?"

Hugo took a step back. "...who is this?" he asked with an edge.

"That's Leeron," Yoko said, unperturbed by his behavior as she slung her rifle over her shoulder, even as Leeron seemed to faun over the Mettaur as he examined him.

Suddenly, R.D. wasn't quite so sure Hugo would get along great with Leeron.

"Leeron, leave them alone," the serious-looking boy said, pulling the man aside. "They're probably tired from their battle."

"Even if he doesn't look like it, he's brilliant," Yoko explained to them. "Creating weapons, performing maintenance... he does all of it."

"Him?" R.D. said, looking skeptical.

"Oh, is it weird?"

And found the man leaning on his shoulder, very much in his personal space. He leaned back in surprised, very uncomfortable with the contact, as the man was making a suggestive wiggling with his fingers, apparently oblivious to the growing dismay on the amnesiac teen's face. "In that case, how about testing the skills of my fingers?" Eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "You never know, you might like it."

That was all R.D. could take. Within a moment, he was several paces away from Leeron, reaching for his sword. "I'll cut you," he growled.

Kamina looked sympathetic for R.D., while Yoko seemed amused, like she had seen it all before.

Even as Alasea hurriedly got R.D. to stand down, Leeron simply laughed it off with a gesture of his hands. "Guys with no sense of humor are never popular."

Alasea sighed as R.D. grumbled and stowed his Phase Blade away. This group seemed even more eccentric than their own... now she had seen everything.

"He's right, you know," Matt chimed in. "You really need to lighten up, R.D.. Maybe then you'll laugh at my jokes more often."

"Then stop telling bad jokes," Hugo said.

Matt shrugged dramatically. "Hey, what can I say? I'm a one man show for a one man audience - me."

"This does not surprise me," R.D. muttered, glancing to the side at Matt. He turned to the serious-looking boy. "And you are?"

"I'm Rossiu," he replied, and gestured to the two kids. "These are Gimmy and Darry. We came from the same village."

Off to the side, something shifted about in Simon's jacket, and out peeked a small rodent wearing, curiously, a tiny pair of sunglasses. "Boo-yeh."

The others looked at the creature for a moment, which stared back. Before anyone could say anything, the creature leaped off of its perch from Simon's shoulder... and landed right in Alasea's cleavage.

"Eh?? Boota!" Simon cried, as Alasea stared in shock at the offending creature as it poked back out from between Alasea's breasts.

"What the hell!?" she shouted, yanking the rodent out and holding at arm's length, her other hand covering her chest so nothing else decided to jump into her cleavage.

Edited by RisingDragon on November 20, 2009 at 18:37:26.

"Oh my," Matt said. "Um...well, I have no idea how to react to that."

"Sorry about that," Simon apologized as he collected Boota. "I don't know why he does that."

"He usually only does it to me," Yoko commented, causing Alasea to frown. Just what was she implying?

"So why'd you kids come from your village to the surface?" Kamina asked. "Decided to see the surface world for yourselves?"

And now the question came. R.D. got the feeling that this was one world they needed to bullshit in.

"An important relic was stolen from our village," R.D. said. "We were given the chance to get it back."

Nicely handled, R.D.. Good story to run with. "True that," Matt said. "And our village is...well, a bit different from the norm. That explains my friend Hugo here." Okay, it didn't explain jack, but if no one asked...

"By the way," Hugo said to Leeron, "Yoko told me you're a good mechanic. Can you fix our ride? Without it, we're going to have a hard time travelling."

"Hmm~? It shouldn't be too hard."

R.D. decided they'd get to that later. Best to finish their bullshit story for now. "We didn't think it'd be a big deal, it was just some old religious artifactm, but the elder kept saying it was dangerous," he continued, catching Rossiu's frown as it was said, "So we went up to go get it... and found out that the thief broke it."

"The elder was horrified at that," Alasea picked up, still keeping her hands over her breasts so Boota wouldn't get any more ideas. "We found out a little while later why. The relic wasn't just some old bauble."

"Eh? What do you mean?" Simon asked.

R.D. sighed, looking off to the side. They'd find out sooner or later. "The shards of the relic give special powers to who finds them. We found some of them, and well... show them, Matt."

Lifting his arm, Matt summoned his armor with a flash. He swiveled around, raising his finger until pointing at the ground in the distance with a jerk of his wrist, like a gunshot. A crisp bolt of lightning fired from the sky and struck the spot.

Kamina whistled low looking at the small crater that formed from the lightning bolt. "So that's why you fought the Ganmen without Ganmen!"

"Bingo."

"So now we need to go and find all the shards before anyone else gets them and abuses them. Like beastmen in Ganmen," Alasea said. "Once we catch the thief and get all the shards back, we can go back home."

That got their attention.

"Alright then!" Kamina said loudly. "We'll help you find the thief! I know just who he is!"

... and that one caught their attention. Did our story just backfire on us? R.D. wondered.

"Eh? You do??" Simon said, looking surprised.

"Of course! It can only be the work of Jigitalis!"

Yoko's palm struck her face. "Here we go again."

"Who's Jigitalis?" Helena asked.

And why did that name fill him with dread, Matt wondered dryly.

"A couple days ago, two beastmen stole the Gurren from Kamina by scamming him," Rossiu explained. "Jigitalis and his daughter Chitori. Even though he got the Gurren back, Kamina's been hunting for him throughout the desert ever since."

Oh boy. This didn't look like it'd turn out well for them. But what the hell, they didn't have any leads anyway.

"Well, if this... Jigitalis is our thief, then Ileyna will be able to find him," R.D. ventured. "She knows how to track down the pieces."

"Great!" Kamina exclaimed. "We'll teach that bastard to steal from the likes of the Gurren Brigade!"

Yoko sighed. There was just no reasoning with Kamina when he was acting like this.

"Class will be in session!" Matt chimed in. "And their substitute teacher for today will be my FIST!"

Hugo let out a noticably aggravated sigh. "Don't start."

"Yes, please, don't," R.D. agreed. "But anyway... our car was kind of a wreck--" he cut off when he felt Ileyna tug on his shirt. "What?"

"They don't know what a car is, R.D.."

"... really?" He looked back up at them. "You don't know what a car is?"

They all shook their heads. R.D. sighed.

"Well, even still, I'm sure Leeron can fix it!" Yoko said cheerfully.

For some reason, Yoko's bubbly response really bugged Matt. "Oh yeah?" He reached in his pocket and pulled out the flat plane of metal. One turn of the metal page unfolded the entire Firebird in a few seconds, and it landed with a massive, dusty thud in front of them.

"This is a car," Matt said, slapping the battle-damaged trunk. "I'd like to see what you can do with it."

The front bumper promptly fell off with a clatter.

"Oh my!"

Leeron quickly approached the ruined Firebird, running his hands across its crumpled hood. "What a fascinating machine!"

"Is he... always like this?" R.D. asked, watching as Leeron seemed to obsess over the Firebird. Kamina could only nod.

"Yeaaaaah!" Matt walked around to the driver's side, running his hand up and over the roof. "This is some REAL horsepower we're talking about here." He grunted several times, trying to sound like a macho tool-loving comedian he heard on TV before.

"The car was affected by the relic too," Helena quickly added. "That's why it can fold up like paper. We've gotten into a lot of trouble with it, though, and it's been needing a good tune-up."

"It shouldn't take too long for me to fix this," Leeron said, now tinkering around with something inside the cab. "I'm certain I can have this working by tomorrow."

"That confident, huh?" R.D. commented, looking at the Firebird as its back bumper, after a valiant battle, finally joined its counterpart on the ground.

Helena walked up to the Firebird. Maybe she was distracted by Leeron's uncomfortably twitching butt too. "Are you sure? A car's way different than a Ganmen."

"If Leeron says he can do it, he can," Yoko replied. "We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out."

"Well, let's not scramble after this Jigitalis dude until this is fixed," Matt said, rapping on the Firebird's hood. "Might as well make preparations first."

Leeron went to work on the car--he produced a pair of gloves and a set of spider-like drones that were settled on various places of the wrecked Firebird, and went about directing them with the gloves he wore.

"So do the rest of you have powers from these shards?" Yoko asked as she settled herself on a flat rock.

Edited by RisingDragon on November 21, 2009 at 2:06:49.

"Yeah," Helena said. Finding a smaller rock nearby, she carefully sat down on it. "R.D. and Alasea can control the elements, just like Matt can. But R.D. can also summon armor, and Alasea can heal others. Ileyna can detect the shards, but she's also got a psychic power that protects her."

"And what about you?" Yoko continued to question.

Helena glanced at Matt, who was now casually leaning on the roof of the Firebird, pretending he knew exactly what Leeron was doing.

Before someone could fill the pause, she said, "I turn into a dragon."

To Helena's luck, Yoko only looked confused. "What's a dragon?" she asked.

"Its apparently a large reptile that can fly and breathe fire," Alasea said, despite having actual knowledge on what a dragon is. "We weren't sure what to call it but our elder knew."

"He sounds like a rather knowledged man," Rossiu commented, sounding rather conflicted.

"Yeah, he's a pretty smart dude," Matt added. "Perhaps TOO smart." He waved a hand. "Eh, I dunno. I'll call him out on it later. Right now we've got a whole other bucket of fish to fry."

Strangely, Rossiu only seemed to nod at that. R.D. wondered if the boy was in a situation similar to the bullshit he and Matt and Alasea had weaved.

Leeron, meanwhile, pulled out some sort of computer and was looking through the schematics of the car with it, though not in any format they had seen before. "This is such an amazing machine," the man murmured, pressing different buttons as the spider drones went about their work. "I don't know if I can repair it exactly how it was, but I'm sure I can work with the Ganmen parts we've taken from our enemies. Oh, that reminds me..."

He turned to Kamina and Simon. "What about the Ganmen you fought? Did you bring back the remains?"

"Ah... no," Simon said, while both he and Kamina shook their heads.

Leeron only sighed in exasperation. Apparently this was nothing new for him.