Azumetal Panic! An Azumanga Daioh fanfic by hkmiller 10 June 2008 - FFML draft The characters of Azumanga Daioh were created by Kiyohiko Azuma and are copyrighted by ADV Manga in the United States. The situations of Full Metal Panic! were created by Shouji Gatou. No disrespect intended by my unlicensed usage. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Lost ~~ "Where do you think we are?" Kaorin asked in a low voice, licking her lips nervously. Most of the students in the plane were by now aware that something was wrong. The plane on which they were supposed to be flying to Okinawa was instead sitting on an airstrip in a inland mountainous region. At least three different schools' class trips seemed to be present on the plane. Chiyo-chan frowned thoughtfully as she gazed out the window. "I think we're in the Khanka Autonomous Region. Those mountains look familiar." "And where is that?" "It's on the China-Russian border, northwest of North Korea. My parents took me there a few years ago." "How do you say 'I'm hungry' in Khankanese?" Osaka wondered. "They just use Russian for most purposes here," Chiyo-chan replied. "So you might say 'ya khochu est', for instance." Osaka pressed her face against the airplane window, looking out at the paved airstrip on which their plane sat, dotted with armed soldiers, tanks, and what looked like large mecha, all aiming weapons at the plane. "What kind of food do they have here? Are their local specialities like in Okinawa?" Chiyo-chan blinked twice. "Not that I ever heard of." "Well, what do they have here?" Osaka asked, puzzled. Chiyo-chan pondered the question. "I don't really remember the food. All I remember are the 'dwarf' snow leopards we came to study. They were so cute!" One row behind Osaka and Chiyo-chan, Sakaki's head lifted. A sudden gleam appeared in her eyes. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Lust ~~ "Oooo! Who's that dreamy-looking guy!?" Yukari exclaimed, nudging Nyamo with her elbow. A dozen rows in front of them and in the other aisle, a man in a suit was holding a gun pointed at a teacher from another school, saying he wanted to use the girl to make a hostage video. "The confident way he holds his gun! The casual way he skipped shaving this morning! That arrogant sneer on his face! I'm getting hot just looking at him!" Yukari moaned, hearts in her eyes. "Your taste in men I do NOT understand," Nyamo complained. "That guy looks like a creep to me. Besides, I think he likes high- school age girls." Nyamo pointed to where the man in question was conducting the high-school girl, a tall, well-proportioned girl, off the plane. "I've got to follow him and give him my phone number!" Yukari moaned as she rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. "Get it under control, girl! You're supposed to be setting a good example for our students!" Nyamo hissed. "Oh, I've never bothered with that," Yukari dismissed the idea. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Follow the Leader. Or Don't. ~~ "Hey, c'mon, Yomi, let's follow that guy!" Tomo remarked as she unfastened her seat belt. Her nod indicated an unusually somber- looking boy, one cheek marked with a scar, headed for the back of the plane at a run. "And why are we following him?" asked Yomi perfunctorily, given that she was out of her seatbelt and right behind Tomo. "He's up to something!" Tomo said confidently. "And we've got to be a part of it!" Shortly both girls, somehow accompanied by Osaka, Chiyo-chan, Sakaki, Kaorin, and Kagura, found themselves squeezing through a crawlspace leading to the plane's cargo hold. Tomo held them back with an arm outstretched for a few minutes, then, once the boy had left the cargo hold, the girls followed. Outside the plane, the girls looked around. Arm Slaves, tanks, and soldiers were scattered over the field, but the whereabouts of boy they were following was no longer obvious. "That's him over by those warehouses!" Tomo shouted, pointing at a vague shadow in one direction. Tomo took off running in that direction. With a curse, Yomi followed her. "I think I smell food coming from over that way," Osaka commented. Looking uncertain, Chiyo-chan followed Osaka. The other three girls looked at each other and shrugged in unison. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Convenient ~~ Moments later, Sakaki, Kagura, and Kaorin took cover behind a stack of crates as a convoy of jeeps drove by. Judging by the sound, one jeep came to a halt just on the other side of the crates. "Let's just get back on the plane. It's scary out here," Kaorin commented, wondering whether she dared lean against Sakaki. Crossing her fingers, she slowly began to lean her head against Sakaki's shoulder. "Yeah, there's nothin' out here I wanna see," Kagura remarked. Just then, a crackly radio voice came clearly to them from the other side of the crates. "Sir, Rhostov just ran over one of those big cats just outside the main gate. He's insisting on a veterinarian. Apparently it's still alive." Another voice came in over the radio. "Dammit! Trouble with the eco-freaks we don't need. Get the vet out there and send Rhostov to the brig!" "Yessir!" "I'm sure glad I'm not Rhostov," came a third, non-staticky voice. Sakaki stood up and strode confidently around the crates. "I'm a veterinarian! Take me there at once!" "Who the $%^&* are you?!" expostulated the enlisted man sitting in the jeep. "The veterinarian. Like I said. Now step on it." Kagura and Kaorin scrambled into the jeep behind Sakaki. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ List ~~ "Now what are we doing in here again?" Yomi asked Tomo. "I know I saw that boy go inside one of these warehouses, and look! This one's full of Arm Slaves!" "At least one of these warehouses is bound to be, given how many we saw outside." "But this is our big chance! We can try driving one!" "WHAT?!" Yomi practically screamed in Tomo's face. "You have NO idea what you're talking about! You've never been trained for one of these things!" "I have natural talent!" Tomo replied positively, clenching a fist. "You crashed your Dad's lawn mover last time you tried to mow the lawn," Yomi rejoined. "That's a completely different user interface!" Tomo insisted, beginning her climb up into one of the cockpits. Yomi, unable to dissuade Tomo, moved over to a door to keep watch for guards. "Oh, lots of buttons, switches, and things," Tomo commented, sounding uncertain. "Something's gotta work," she continued, beginning to push buttons and flip switches at random. Five minutes later the Arm Slave rose to its feet and began a stumbling walk over towards Yomi. "No! Go away!" Yomi said loudly, trying to wave Tomo off. "Hey Yomi! I did it, I did it! Watch me!" Tomo shouted as she continued to drive the Arm Slave right at Yomi. "Watch where you're driving that thing!" Yomi snapped as one foot missed her by a bare meter. With the very next step, however, the Arm Slave leaned too far, and began toppling slowly towards Yomi, who began running desperately. "I'm going to kill her, I'm going to kill her," Yomi muttered to herself as she just missed being crushed by a flailing arm. "Help! Yomi, get me out of here!" Tomo shouted, the Arm Slave now lying flat on its face. With a silent "Why me?", Yomi looked around for a tool to use to pry Tomo out of her predicament. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Rest In Peace ~~ Sakaki, Kagura, and Kaorin solemnly regarded the dying dwarf snow leopard mother. The cat's entire rear body was squashed flat, with a jeep's tire mark clearly visible. Nuzzling the dying mother cat was a dwarf snow leopard kitten. "That's so sad," Kaorin sniffled. "We should bury the mother," Kagura noted. Sakaki said nothing, but knelt down and held out her arms. With her last strength, the dying mother cat nudged her kitten towards Sakaki's arms with her nose. Sakaki cuddled the kitten, who, unusually for a cat in Sakaki's experience, showed no signs of wanting to bite Sakaki's hand. "I thought Chiyo-chan said these cats are very scarce," Kagura noted as she dug a shallow grave using a makeshift tool. "Why are they hanging around so close to a military base?." "Maybe the soldiers feed them?" Kaorin shrugged, one hand extended to pet the kitten in Sakaki's arms. "What are you going to name it?" Kagura asked Sakaki. Sakaki thought a moment. "How does 'Maya' sound?" "Great!" Kaorin beamed at Sakaki. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Whispered ~~ "There has to be some Khankanese food around here somewhere," Osaka whined as she peered around the corner of the unmarked trailer. "It's not really that good, I'm telling you," Chiyo-chan said. "I think we should look for the others." "Maybe there's some food inside this trailer?" Osaka wondered, as she reached for the door handle. Opening the door, Osaka peered inside. Her eyes widened and she gasped aloud. Chiyo-chan, alarmed, peered under her shoulder. The inside of the trailer was equipped as a laboratory. A woman in a white lab coat was just about to inject a solution into the arm of the high school girl who'd been taken off the plane to make the hostage video. The high school girl herself was unconscious. "Uh-oh," Chiyo-chan muttered to herself. Osaka walked inside the trailer and began searching drawers. "Hey," she asked the scientist, "do you have any Khankanese food here?" "You!" the scientist hissed in disbelief, her eyes fixed on Osaka. "What are you doing here?!" she screeched, finger thrust out and pointed rigidly at Osaka. Noting that the scientist was so focused on Osaka that her own presence was being completely ignored, Chiyo-chan crept around the edge of the inside the trailer, headed for the chemical supply. "Looking for food, like I said," Osaka noted, glancing in a cupboard, then turning to look at the frightened scientist. "You can't be still alive," the scientist whispered to herself. "Not after what I injected you with." Chiyo-chan nodded to herself as if a long-held suspicion had just been confirmed. "Do I know you?" Osaka asked the scientist quizzically. "Are you a ghost? Are you here to haunt me for my failure?" the scientist asked Osaka mournfully. The scientist's right hand, which still held a syringe, began to relax in shock. Standing just behind the scientist, Chiyo-chan plucked the syringe away just as it began to fall. The scientist never noticed, her eyes continuing to stare at Osaka. "Am I a ghost?" Osaka wondered, having never thought about the question before. "People do say I'm not all here sometimes," she admitted. Chiyo-chan opened the syringe and gave the contents a quick sniff. With a grimace and a shake of her head, she poked around among the nearby chemical supplies. "It wasn't my fault! I was just beginning to research the 'whispered' then! You were my first test subject!" The scientist began to babble. "I had no idea what the proper dosage or formulation should be!" Locating a pale yellow liquid among the supplies, Chiyo-chan carefully extracted some with an eyedropper, then added precisely three drops to the contents of the syringe. She swirled it around once, sniffed it carefully, nodded, then lay the syringe on a nearby table in plain sight and began to creep back silently towards the door. At that moment another figure burst into the trailer, the boy they'd followed out of the plane. Now armed, he pointed the gun unerringly at the white-coated scientist. "Release her!" he demanded. Might as well try it, Chiyo-chan thought. She might still have enough left. 'Osaka!' Chiyo-chan whispered without sound. 'Let's get out of here! Squeeze past the boy and head out the door!' Osaka blinked twice, then turned her head towards the door. Her eyes found Chiyo-chan's and she nodded. - - - - - - - - - - ~~ Last ~~ "We're just lucky these U.N. evacuation planes showed up when they did," Yomi noted as the girls fell into line to board the nearest. "I wasn't looking forward to climbing back up through the cargo hold." "Aw, that wouldn't have been a problem," Tomo remarked. "It's not like there's a trap or a bomb there or anything." "Actually, there is a bomb," Chiyo-chan replied. "Didn't you hear? That's why we're leaving on these other planes." "Oh. But hey, what about Okinawa? Are these planes going to fly us there to finish our school trip?" "No, that's canceled," Chiyo-chan said, giving Tomo a funny look. "Our parents want us home safe again after we've been held hostage by terrorists. Does that surprise you?" "Well, yeah, kinda," Tomo replied. "I mean, Okinawa!" "I'm happy to go home," Sakaki said quietly from where she was still cuddling her new kitten. "I never got any Khankanese food, though," Osaka complained. "Nobody cares!" the other six girls replied. The End. This and other fics posted at: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/5058