Hawk and Bluey, Trouble in Japan

Hawk emerges from the portal and hits his head. When he shakes it off, he hears Melidy crying. She's lying right in front of him with her nose still bleeding.

"Don't worry Pinky, maa;" comes a high, squeaky voice; "I'll get her water and gaze as soon as this drug wears off."

He looks up and sees the overgrown fur ball goat. "She needs it now! Where are we and why did you bring us here?"

"We're in the Trascau Mountains in Transylvania, Romania, inside the fortress. Alot of it is underground and it takes up about three mountains. It used to be one the most notorious prisons in all of Europe. Alba lulia and the river Mures is over there. The river Rosia Montana and its village is over there..."

"Why did you bring us here?"

"I rescued you of course."

"Rescued us? From what?"

"The volcano. You weren't wearing any coating. And Cracker of course. Hang on a moment!" The goat starts gradually shrinking and is back to her normal standard goat size in ten seconds. Hawk thinks that the freakiest thing he's ever seen.

"That's better." She rushes to get a bowl of water and some cloth to stop the bleeding. Soon, Melidy forgets her pain and plays in the water.

"HEY Pinky, want something to eat or drink?"

"NO!" replies Hawk agitated; "I want to go back to my friends. And the name's Hawk!"

"Sorry Pinky. My name's Whitney Jane Blue, but everybody calls me Bluey. Want to see our animal sanctuary when I'm done with her? We've got all sorts of rescued animals from all over the world."

"IT'S HAWK! Take us back now! Our friends will be worried and it's Melidy's bedtime."

"I can't take you back right now. Maa."

"What do mean not right now? Use that portal of yours!"

"I can't. Maa. I used up the last of its power. I'll have to get another one from the charging room. And we'll need to wait until we can find a hole in the volcanic energy. The only reason it worked this time is because Cracker created a hole and I crosswise the portal for emergency overdrive."

Hawk rolls his eyes. Bluey finishes with Melidy and puts a cute, pink band aid on her nose. Hawk's impressed. "Hey, you handled that rather well. She didn't even cry."

Bluey starts going into some sort of happy dance. "You can't flatter me. It's nothing special, anyone can stop a bloody nose and put a band-aid on a scratch."

Hawk's head is full of question marks. "Ok?....Now, please take us to this portal room."

Bluey literally leaps in excitement. "Maa-ippee! How I'm so excited to hopefully have another decent animal to talk to. I mean I like Karoo but all he ever talks about is pirates and birdseed. Cringer's nice but all he ever wants to do is sleep, and eat fish and cake when he's awake, which isn't often. Eyelash is so snobby and rude, and such a pervert with a sick sense of humor."

Hawk rolls his eyes. Melidy looks at Bluey, then at her brother with a questionable look her face.

"Oh, if you don't mind Pinky Hawk, we need to stop by my room so I can change clothes and get this coating off. I know, let's share our life's stories to pass the time. I was born in a small farming village in cold northern Britannia in late November. My mom was in a great deal of pain, and I was charging through..."

"What have I gotten us into, Melidy?" Hawk picks up his sister and follows the goat. He should be thrilled to meet another animal or beast who talks like him, but this is ridicules. Bluey rants on and on about her babyhood when Hawk realizes that she's mentioned Britannia a couple of times

"Wait a minute, Bluey, did you say you came from Britannia?"

"Yes, I did, maa. Spent my first three months there, until I was sold across the channel. Then I was sold again to Dr. Pendergrass, who feed me the human human demon fruit and started experimenting on me. That's when I started talking and started aging like a human, so my childhood was much longer than normal goats. I was supposed to be old and ancient by now, but thanks to the demon fruit, I'm only a teenager and have a long, long way to go."

Hawk gives her a funny look. "Hold it, you said some human fruit made you talk? So, you used to be just an ordinary farm goat? How does that even work?"

"Maa oh that's right. Most people on this side of the globe don't even know what demon fruits are. Oh, check this out Pinky."

Bluey suddenly changes into a petite humanoid creature, standing on two legs. She retains her goat features along with a somewhat cute human female body. Underneath her cloak, she's wearing a girly pink shirt. She does a little sexy hip movement and looks down.

"AWW! I forgot I wasn't wearing any bottoms." She immediately changes back into a standard goat form and tries to cover her rear with the cloak. "Oops, sorry. Cracker ripped my skirt off to use as a bandage. Anyway, here we are, my room."

She opens the pink door and the whole room is literally pinker than Hawk. Even all the books have pink book covers. Melidy slides off Hawk's back and looks around the room. She then looks at her pink brother, then the pink carpet, Hawk again, the pink room again, and snorts looking at her pink brother again.

"Yes Melidy, that's ALOT of pink. Too much."

"I love my room, it's so cheerful!" Bluey goes behind a pink folding screen. "Don't come back here, I'm changing."

Hawk shakes his head. The talking goat takes about 15 minutes as Hawk sings the same lullaby to Melidy that Wild used to (and still) sings to him. "Me...Me...Me...Melidy, it's time to sleep. Know that I adore you, my little sis." Bluey finally emerges in a pink dress with a frilly, tutu like skirt and two pink bows on her horns. She also has two pink beaded bracelets/anklets right above her hooves. The bubble-like coating is also gone. She also has a tiny pink and light blue dress hanging from her mouth and puts it down in front of Melidy, who's now asleep.

"This should fit her perfectly. What do you say Pinky Hawk?"

"Absolutely not!" Hawk takes a good look at the dress. It is rather cute. "Well, maybe later after she..."

Blue immediately puts the dress on the tiny piglet, waking her up and causing her to cry.

"HEY, I said later." Soothing his sleepy sister yet again, he does have to admit that she looks very precious. Bluey then can't resist putting a pink headband with a small bow on her.

"Hey, want something to eat and drink? I've got peach tea and tons of snacks."

Hawk is a little hungry and quite thirsty, but before he can answer Bluey has dumped a pile of snacks in front of him, at least her version of snacks. Some of them look like scrapes, including apple cords, corn cobs, banana pills, as well as whole fruits and pumpkin ends and inners. The pile also contains paper wrappers, small cardboard scraps, tree bark, weeds, half dead flowers, and part of an old straw hat.

"What, no tin cans?" Hawk says sarcastically.

Bluey laughs. "Maa I don't eat metal! That would kill me. Why does everybody assume that goats eat literally anything and everything?"

For once, Hawk's really nervous about these food (and not food) scraps. He does except the stuff he recognizes as food, as well as some tea. 

"Thanks...Bluey. Now can we go get that portal?"

The goat looks disappointed. "Ok, maa. I'll take you to the charging room. Are you sure a don't want a tour?"

Hawk tries not to huff. Then again, she probably doesn't come across many fellow talking animals. "Maybe a small tour."

Bluey's eyes light up and she leaps high in the air with excitement. It's only then that Hawk realizes that she has lots and lots of books, all covered in pink.

"Wow. You must really love to read."

"Oh yea;" answers Bluey; "I love to learn. I really want to be a doctor. I'm an apprentice right now and will take my exams next year, then it'll be official!"

Hawk's amazed by that. "Wow! You must be really smart. I'm sure you'll make an excellent doctor."

Bluey blushes, tries to maintain a stoic face, and does a full-fledge happy dance. "Oh stop. You can't flatter me. Flattery will get you now where with me."

Hawk is confused and doesn't know what to think about that. Then, something falls from inside the goat's fur. It looks like a shiny pink pearl.

"Oh, my goodness, maa;" goes Bluey; "I need to put this away."

Hawk can feel very strong power coming from the pink pearl. 

"What is that Bluey? It feels, strange, and powerful."

Bluey takes it behind her folding screen and comes back a minute later. Hawk didn't see where she put it. "I really don't know what that is. I caught Cracker and Eyelash messing with it earlier. I think they got it from Madame Artemis's chambers. They're not supposed to go in there. I had a feeling that it was important, so I nabbed it without them knowing. I'll give it back to Madame Artemis later."

Bluey suggest that the sleeping piglet can rest here, but Hawk really doesn't want to leave his baby sister by herself in a strange place. They strap the little piglet to her brother's back and off they go. As they enter the hallway, Hawk continues to have a nagging feeling about that pearl.

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Willie and Myoga are in a storage room. It took them nearly an hour to find this place since the flea demon's memory wasn't exact. Unfortunately, the things that Myoga thought were anti-magic bombs turn out to be nothing more the party bombs filled with confetti. They keep looking through boxes and piles, but so far nothing seems useful.

"Myoga, everything in here is for parties and recreation." Willie pulls the trigger on a weapon, and flowers come out of it. "These are nothing but parlor tricks."

Myoga is fooling around with some soap bubbles. "How was I supposed to know these were party games disguised as weapons?"

Frustrated, Willie throws a bomb, which contains minor fireworks. They have to dodge the exploding firecrackers.

"Well, that one could be used as a weapon;" says the flea.

"We're wasting time! Come on you, we're going to keep looking." The monk grabs the flea and exits the room.

"Maybe we could, ask for help."

Willie doesn't know if they can. Asking someone who lives here might make things worse. However, if they don't free their friends soon....Willie prays for a sign as they check another room.

Hawk and Bluey exit from an automatic sliding door. Hawk feels very nauseous and is unable to prevent himself from throwing up.

"What was that thing?" asks the pig after he recovers. "Melidy are you alright?" The piglet remains fast asleep.

"That was a transporter beam;" answers the goat. "We have several throughout the fortress. Sorry, I should've warned you that it can make you queasy if you're not used to it."

Hawk still feels queasy. "Ugh. Hope I don't ever have to go through that again. By the way I've been meaning to ask? You're from Britannia, right? So am I!"

Bluey smiles. "I figured; you've got the accent. Dr. Pendergrass is from Mainland Britannia, so it's my first language."

"What were you doing in Amalfi anyway?"

Bluey thinks. "Honesty, I'm not positive, maa. Cracker never tells me anything, he only drags me along to use as a punching bag or a secret weapon, or my medical skills. I don't have a clue why he was giving drugs to that vulacish or why he provoked a fight. I really don't know who'd tell him to a thing like that. Dr. Pendergrass and even Madame Artemis can have eccentric requests, but not like that."

"That's insane;" replies Hawk; "not even what Merlin did was that crazy. I just hope everybody is safe. I'm sure Jasmine can handle that volcano. Anyway, where's that portal room."

"Don't be in such a hurry;" says Bluey; "the spa is this way. Want to check it out, the Turkish bath is the best."

"I'll pass." 

Willie and Myoga go down the hall when the flea demon urges the monk to turn and check out another room. When the room turns out to be a blood bank, Willie shots the flea an angry look. Myoga gets scared and runs away, the monk chasing after him. Jumping to avoid Willie's threads, Myoga is going too fast to slow down and runs into the back of Hawk's thigh.

"What the?" Hawk sees a squished bug on the floor, wearing clothes." Then Hawk's leg is suddenly grab by some strings. "What the heck is this? I don't think so buddy."

Hawk flips Willie over, the monk hitting the wall hard. He's obviously dizzy as he tries to get up, bleeding on the forehead.

"No no, sit down." Bluey says in Hungarian and gets on top of Willie. "You're hurt, maa. Please sit down and I'll fix you right up." Willie blinks trying to focus on the bluish-gray goat with a blue nose in pink clothes examining his head. He tries to get up, but she's stronger than she looks.

"Do you understand Hungarian or German? Or Britannian?" Bluey asks.

Willie takes out the language amulet. Bluey recognizes what it is, smiles and nods. At first, the amulet sounds like it's short circuiting. Too much power has been excreted to hear the dozens of people the monk past earlier, so he has to down grade the power before it'll work on Bluey and Hawk. Hawk is amazed as the goat pulls a first aid kit from underneath her fur, wondering how it fit or stayed in there.

The goat talks soothingly to Willie as she addresses his injury, but it's hard for him to stay calm.

"Are you a doctor?" Willie asks.

"Sort of;" answers the goat; "I'm an apprentice."

The monk tries to get up when she's finished. Meanwhile, Myoga has gotten up and climbed onto Hawk, who catches him sampling his blood and tosses him.

"YUCK! I didn't give you permission to drink my blood! What are you a tick?"

Myoga gets up with his whole body aching. "A tick? How absurd. I'm a flea demon?"

"A what?"

"A flea demon. You must be one of the rare magical beasts that talks. You don't quite have the demon aura."

Hawk's surprised. "You're a demon?! I've never seen a demon like you before."

They hear Willie speak, begging Bluey to help rescue his friends. When he says their names, Hawk's in shock.

"MELIODAS?! Not my Meliodas!"

Willie looks at the pig, could it be? "You wouldn't happen to be Hawk, the pig who ran a bar with..."

"THAT'S ME! What's wrong with Meliodas? What's he doing here? How do you know him?"

"No time to explain, let's go." Willie leaps up but struggles to get his balance.

"You need to lay down;" says Bluey; "You may have a concussion."

"I'll lay down later. Inuyasha and especially Meliodas are far worse off. Also do you know where I can get an anti-magic bomb or anything to break that perfect cube?"

"You need an anti-magic bomb?" Bluey gets one from underneath her fur.

Willie can't believe their luck. Hawk's wondering what else she's hiding in her fur. They take off back towards the prison. Bluey asked why they were captured, and Willie thinks they're supposed to be hostages.

"But that doesn't make any sense;" Bluey explains; "Hostages are usually given the V.I.P. treatment. Madame Artemis only resorts to extreme actions like confinement if somebody's done something really, really bad and harmful."

"If Meliodas did anything bad, he didn't mean too;" says Hawk. "True, he's a jokester, pervert and a pain in the butt sometimes, but he's not a bad person. He's my friend! By the way, sir, I'm sorry for hurting you."

Willie nods in understanding.

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In Japan, the group has taken shelter at the shrine. The lion-dog guardian statues, called komainu, have woken up and formed an invisible barrier around the place. They have felt multiple minor earthquakes and rumbling coming from the direction of Mt Fuji. One of Uba's sons went to look at the mountain. Its snow is melting, creating liquid mud slides down the sloops, and steam is coming from the cone. There's even lots of volcanic heat lighting despite not much ash in the sky yet.

Miroku, Sango and Kirara take off into the danger, while Shippo and Kagome stay at the shrine at their insistence. Diane starts to go after them. "Suware (Sit)." Daine gets nailed to the ground; Herman can't help but snicker.

Diane looks at Uba. "Why did you do that? It's humiliating."

Elaine translates the telepathic communication. Uba said they can't fight Goka or they'll be incinerated."

"Are people in danger?" ask Diane. "Shouldn't we go out and help them?"

Their hosts explain through Elaine that there's plenty of volcanic shelters all over the place and people know where to flee. What they don't mention is whether or not people will have time to make it to them. They'd much rather not get their guests, especially pregnant Elaine, involved with this if possible.

Soon, the sky is blackened with ash clouds and raining down lava. Heat lightening hits the barrier, cracking it. Uba and Kikyo have to combine their powers to patch it up. Elaine attempts to help as well and to their surprise, her powers help to strength the barrier. The komainu crash the big rocks and lava spurs that come to close to the temple. Unfortunately, they seem to be getting worse. Soon, everybody starts feeling heavier and the barrier cracks again, worse than before. Uba, Kikyo, and Elaine feel their powers draining, and more and more lava, rocks, and lightening break through the barrier, hitting the komainu and Uba's sons. It doesn't take them long to realize what's going on.

HERMAN IS USING HIS GRAVITY POWERS, exactly what he was told NOT to do!

"SUWARE!" shouts Uba. Herman gets nailed to the ground once again, disabling his powers. The problems then lighten a bit. "Baka (idiot).

The priestesses and fairy again try to repair the barrier along with the komainu. Unfortunately, the gravity drained some of their power and they haven't gotten the barrier repair when some bigger lava rocks and more lightening appear. Diane summons Gideon and absorbs some of the lightening. Diane shouts at Uba to return her to full size so she can protect them. The old priestess realizes what she's asking but is reluctant. The big rocks, which are about half the size of the shrine itself, are seconds away from hitting them and Uba relents. Diane starts smashing the rocks before she even reaches full size. More and more hazards are coming the way of the shrine and Diane uses crushed rock to stop them. Kagome also steps up and helps with her arrows. Diane then looks over towards Fuji and sees a giant, magma life form on top of it. The female shaped monster seems to be three time taller than Diane, completely covered in molten lava, and seems to be controlling all the volcanic activity, including several rivers of lava crashing through the countryside like flash floods.

Diane notices that the rivers are heading towards the nearby farmlands and town as well the shine. She steps away from the barrier's semi-protection and uses Gideon to creature three large and river like canyons for the lava to flow in away from the shrine and nearby village and farms. Two giant lava arms suddenly grab Diane and tries to pull her down, severely burning both her arms. Uba quickly shrinks the giant back down to human size, saving her. The sleeves of Diane's kimono are mostly burned off, so Kagome and Shippo cut them off, leaving Diane sleeveless, and then, along with Kikyo's husband, tend to her burns on her lower arms with a special healing ointment.

By now, Elaine, Kikyo, and Uba have regained most of their power and have repaired the barrier. While the volcanic ash clouds increase and continue to rain down ash, much of the debris has lighten. Shippo flies up on his special fox kite and confirms that Guka's focus is now on the opposite direction, and many warriors and demons are now engaging in battle with her. Uba feels that not one of them will survive for long.

"If only King and the Captain were here;" says Diane; "Or Merlin or Elizabeth, they'd know what to do."

Soon, they feel extra energy disturbance and discover what looks like swirling blue light in the area of the cave portal. All the unnatural disturbance has opened the portal! However, they want to get a good reading on it before letting anybody go through it. Diane and Elaine both want to, but Diane especially feels a bit torn about leaving their new friends in their current situation. They soon realize that Herman, Kagome, and little Hana have disappeared.

Hana's parents, uncle, Shippo, and Diane race towards the portal, Elaine reluctantly staying behind to protect her unborn baby from the strong forces. Kagome had snuck away herself, assuming that the open portal would take her to Inuyasha. Usually more level-headed and rational, she's desperate to find him and is willing to take the risk. Curious Herman shows up behind Kagome and scares her. An idiot as usual, he thinks he can stabilize the portal with his gravity powers and activates them. This causes the suction to increase, and Kagome's immediately sucked into the portal. The adventurous harpy is curious as to where the portal will take him and allows it to pull him in. Diane arrives on the scene and also gets sucked through the portal, along with Hana. As the rest of the group arrives, the portal collapses. It then opens again in reverse, spitting Herman out, along with a yeti.

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Gowther and Iris enter a basement through a dusty and stuffy old passageway. The area definitely seems to not have been touched in a real long time, and they can't feel any living presence except rats and spiders. There are several old jail cells and tortured chambers, definitely an old, abandoned dungeon.

They make their way up a couple more floors before they enter a much cleaner storage area. There's a couple of people down here loading boxes, but they get by unnoticed. Iris can feel several strong presences in here, one imparticuler the makes her feel uncomfortable. Gowther resorts to do a psychic sweep of the place to locate his captain, a very risky move. Not only will it give Gowther a headache, but somebody may also detect his presence.

Iris provides a barrier to help dampen his presence, and the goat sin starts a psychic sweep. He soon discovers that he can't read a lot of the minds here as they have the same kind of barrier around them that the spy Bela had. Some, however, don't have that protection. Most are complaining about being tired and wanting to go to bed as it's nearly midnight. A poker game is going on in the storage unit next to them and they are drinking ice cream soda floats. Another group seems to be watching some sporting even via an image transmitter. He also catches that there are people are looking for somebody that escaped but doesn't know who. Gowther tries even harder, a look of pain appears on his face and he even sweats, which is very rare.

Iris's long, silent voice actually breaks through; "Are you alright?" Her voice is barely above a scratchy whisper. Her throat burns and she coughs afterward.

"I'm fine, I must find the captain."

Elsewhere in the fortress, Caelestis thinks she feels somebody trying to reach her mind. She's about to lash out at that somebody when she's interrupted. One of her loyal goddesses inform her that the pink pearl recovered from Japan is missing. The Supreme Deity goes into a rage, breaks several things in the room, severally wounds the goddesses, and gives orders to her followers to find it immediately.

Ching Liang, who doesn't have the mind barrier spell on her, senses somebody trying to read her mind. She runs to one of the lounge areas and throws one of her weapons on one of her sleeping comrades.

"OUCH!" He puts his palm on his forehead, realizing that he's bleeding. "What the hell was that for?"

"I've told you time and again NEVER invade my mind. Now you're going to suffer the consequences."

"What? I didn't invade you mind I swear. I was asleep."

Ching Liang doesn't want to hear it and attacks him.

Finally, after several dead ends, Gowther comes across a thought about Meliodas. He immediately realizes who this is.

"Captain Scraps Disposal? What's he doing here? Probably here to rescue the captain."

Iris doesn't know who that is and finds the name rather odd. Hawk never mention his self-proclaimed title to them. There are 5 in total rushing to rescue Meliodas and another guy, although one seems to be a sleeping baby dreaming of the color pink.

Gowther tells Iris where they are. They are a couple few floors up and about a half mile away. After ascending a steep flight of stairs, they start looking for a transporter beam. Before finding one, however, Iris scenes an energy, a fading one. It's familiar, could it really be? She runs the other direction and breaks a lock to a door to enter. Gowther's confused but senses the distressed energy as well, although it's not a magic type of energy.

As they enter the room, they see a passed-out Nuri chained up behind a perfect cube. Iris puts both hands on the cube, and it disappears. She kneels next to the vulacish and whispers into her ear; "Nuri." Slowly, Nuri opens her eyes as Iris removes her mask, thinking at first that she must be dreaming.

Gowther finally sees Iris's face and is both shocked and amazed by what he sees.