Crossover Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Reason And Accountability ❯ One Punch Tornado ( Chapter 45 )

A portal opened so I went through.

“Help me!” cried Komachi’s small terrified voice. I found the sound coming from a grate in an iron wall, which I realized, with a cast of Candlelight spell, was a jail cell door. I peered in.

“I’m here, imouto. I’ll get you out.”

A roar sounded to my right and I turned my head to peer at some gigantic monster approaching.

“FFUUUSSSROW DAAHHH!” I shouted and blew it backwards. Then I threw a fireball at it and burned it to a crisp. Then I hit it with lightning to be sure. The pile didn’t move. It was dead. Back to the door.

“I’m going to try cold on this. Step back if you can.”

I cast Frost on the lock and then Ice Spike into that, which broke the lock. Metals get brittle when really cold. Most of them, anyway. Stainless steel and aluminum are better at coping with cold. I kicked the door and it popped open. A girl with green hair crouched inside with huge eyes. It didn’t look like Komachi.

“You can come out now. The monster is dead,” I promised, offering my hand. She reached for me and I carefully kept her away from the cold spikes of broken ice and steel shards.

“Are you hungry?” I asked her. She hugged me tightly, crying. She sounded like Komachi. I hugged her back. She showed signs of malnutrition and probably thirst. I looked around, noting a pink box of what had to be donuts outside her cage in some comfortable staff seating. I walked us over and sat her on the couch and flipped the pink box open. There were three donuts. I pushed them towards her. She grabbed one and proceeded to eat with complete attention. I found there was one of those inverted water bottles and little paper cups in a dispenser. I got her a couple of those. She drank. I refilled, she drank again. She ate the second donut then looked at me guiltily.

“Go ahead,” I gestured. She ate the final donut more slowly. I gave her more water. She smelled rank and looked like she’d been starved and beaten by the animals that put her in a cage. It was bad, but it wasn’t worse than many things I’ve seen in Skyrim.

“Who are you?” she croaked. I gave her more water.

“I’m Hachiman. Lucky I found you when I did. That monster thing looked mean. What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Tatsumaki,” answered the small girl with the curly green hair. She smells bad. She looks really unhealthy.

“Lets see if we can find you a hot shower, some clean clothes and get you back to civilization,” I suggested. She nodded. We poked around, opening doors and found the staff locker room and shower stalls. She went into one, dropping filthy clothes. She winced and hissed at the water but washed herself clean. I examined her as she emerged, dripping wet and cast heal on a number of wounds, infected sores, and other health problems. She would need more than donuts to finish healing. I helped dry her off like I did for my sister when she was little and helped her pull on some oversized doctor clothes and tied on the waist with a belt. It wasn’t fashionable, but it would do.

We eventually emerged from the complex to the surface and found this place was in the middle of nowhere, in some abandoned canyon without so much as a road leading to it. As hideouts go, this was a good one. I wonder how they left or got supplies. We climbed up a series of stairs and found there was a flat mesa at the top and what is probably a runway for aircraft, and a low hangar building. We walked to it and opened the doors after some fiddling and discovered there was a cargo plane inside. Not a big one, but enough to carry food and people back and forth. Pity I can’t fly a plane.

“Any chance you can pilot a plane?” I asked her. She shook her head no. There was a boom outside the hangar and we turned to regard a man in a super-suit standing back up from one of those superhero landings that hurts your knee pretty badly. They look cool, but are actually really stupid. He’d left a crater in the runway, too.

“You’re late, but perhaps you could help us,” I called out. He regarded me and my sister with her green hair. “Unless you’re working for the villains.”

“I’m am Blast, a hero of justice,” he declared, like that was something people just announced.

“Great. The underground lab had my sister locked up and were starving her, and some giant monster was going to attack… so he’s dead now. We would like to get back to a city, one with grocery stores and hospitals and other kinds of civilization, but neither one of us can fly this plane. Do you know how?” I asked him.

“I’ll contact my allies for transport and they can send an investigation team to examine this site,” he promised, and then flipped open a communicator on his wrist and started pressing buttons and talking to the air, probably wearing a microphone etc. We waited. Little sister shivered despite the warm day.

“When, niisan?” she asked me.

“Don’t know. Probably not long. You need anything?” I asked her. She nodded.

“Toilet,” she answered. I looked around and spotted the universal sign in the hangar wall. I led her there, opened and checked. No monsters inside. Flipped on the light, which worked, and she entered to do her business, then washed up, then drank from the faucet like she was very thirsty. Probably was. I waited while the hero talked more, then looked to us.

“There are two civilians here. We need them evacuated and checked out by medical. Yes, send an EMT with the team. Right,” he said and then approached us slowly. He was all muscles and colored spandex suit and hood protecting his identity.

“I’ve healed most of her external injuries, but she’s got malnutrition and thirst. She’ll need longer term care,” I explained to Blast. He nodded.

“So what’s your story?” he asked me.

“My boss sent me here. I do rescues. And she’s my little sister, or will be someday.”

“You said you defeated a monster?” he clarified, looking doubtful.

“Oh. That,” I realized what he was getting at. I pointed into the distance and cast fireball. Then lightning. His eyebrows rose. Or at least I think they did. His posture shifted at least.

There was a huge explosion at the edge of the mesa.

“That your people?” I asked him. He shook his head no. He walked that way but I hung out with Tatsumaki-imouto and handed her some venison chops from my personal storage space. She sniffed it, then took a bite, then brightened, chewing steadily. I gave her a roast rabbit leg after she finished it. And a small loaf of bread. She finally looked happy. Helicopters arrived from the distance, coming in to circle the landing field. Blast returned, a couple interesting characters following. One a bald guy who looked serious, and a cyborg who looked even more serious. I waved hello. Tatsumaki just stared at them, gnawing on the bread. I gave her some cheese, which she alternated bites with the bread. This gained some greater satisfaction. I patted her head. She chewed thoughtfully before swallowing.

“You do that like you’ve done that before,” she warned.

“You sound just like my sister,” I reminded her. “She always likes the head-pats.”

“These people escaped the facility,” finished Blast to the two new arrivals. The helicopters finally settled to the landing field and began to power down.

“You took down that giant beetle?” asked the bald guy. “I was fighting him earlier. He ran away.”

“He ended up running into me. I don’t like being interrupted when I’m talking to family,” I explained.

“I could see that. This your sister?” he asked me.

“Yeah. She’s been starved, so forgive her for eating,” I explained. I cast some healing magic on her guts so she wouldn’t get sick and die from eating, which can happen in starvation cases.

“What did you just do?” the bald guy asked.

“Magic. I’m a mage,” I answered. The cyborg perked up at that.

“Like fire and lightning?” he asked.

“Sure, but I mostly do healing. Healing is the most powerful skill. Killing is easy, but healing is revolutionary,” I answered.

The technicians waved us onto a larger helicopter. They helped us belt in and got connected to big earphones. It spun up for around five minutes and then lifted off smoothly. We headed West towards a city in the distance, all towers surrounded by a wild land of not much more than radial roads from all directions. It was very post apocalyptic, like one of those really gay anime like Fist of the North Star or Jojo. I am not proud of my Dark Flame years, but at least I never got into Jojo. The city got bigger and I noticed farms between the roads, and greenhouses, but not much suburbs. Most of the population seemed to be in the city, behind large walls. Odd. Like they were defensive. We eventually landed at a tall building and got checked in. I stuck with my sister despite increasingly un-subtle attempts to separate us and eventually a woman with familial resemblance to my sister’s current form arrived.

“Nee-san!” she cried, literally meaning Big Sis, and hugged the smaller teenager I’d rescued from that cage. Tatsumaki blinked awkwardly, then returned the hug of the larger woman.

“Little sis? You’ve grown so big?” Tatsumaki complained in confusion. “How long was I gone?”

“What do you mean? Its been fourteen years, big sis,” she answered. “How come you’re so small? You look the same as the day they took you away.”

“Our parents sold me to the laboratory for experiments. They said it was to develop my psychic powers, but it really was just torture and starvation after a while. They said if I felt enough fear I’d gain real power,” Tatsumaki explained. The heroes were listening too, looking resigned and horrified. They’d seen something like this before.

“What’s your name, hero?” asked the larger sister. “I’m Fubuki.”

“I’m Hachiman. I’m her big brother. In another life,” I clarified, patting Tatsumaki’s head gently. Fubuki looked confused about this.

“Eh?” she finally asked.

“Reincarnation is real,” I answered, shrugging. A portal opened.

“That’s my boss. I’m off to the next job. Tatsumaki: always remember your family loves you,” I said and hugged her for a minute. Then I put her back down and waved goodbye, before stepping through the portal. The heroes watched me go.