Trust is just a Five-Letter Word

Disclaimer: I don’t own Candidate for Goddess/Megami Kouhosei. (Is one show allowed to have that many names?) Any original characters belong to me.

A/N: How long has it been since I updated? Oh well. I’m now forbidden by parental forces to watch any Adult Swim shows (that’s right folks, I’m not eighteen.) meaning I can’t watch any more episodes. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, though. So cut me some slack if some OOC occurs, will you? Reviews are appreciated.

Chapter Five: Pull Out All the Stops

As Tak and Ikhny grabbed their trays, they heard a loud voice screech across the cafeteria.

"Wonder Girl and Machine Boy! Come sit here!"

"Machine boy?" Tak frowned at his newly acquired nickname, and he looked around the cafeteria to spot the name caller. He groaned as he saw Reina. "Ugh. It’s just her. Jeez, I leave her for eleven years and she turns into a Rhinestone cowgirl…"

Ikhny raised an interested eyebrow. "You knew her from eleven years ago? Does that mean you lived on Zion as well?"

Tak, realizing his mistake, coughed quickly. "Err… Did I say years? No! I meant to say hours. Yeah! Eleven hours ago, before she came to GOA, she was quite the lady. And now after spending some time on GOA, she turned into…that."

"But she came almost twenty-four hours ago, and she was like this when she came."

"Oh…well, my memory isn’t exactly sharp, and I’m not very good at math…"

"You’re lying!"

"No! It’s just…well…Let’s go over there and say hi! Can’t keep Miss Reina waiting! Ha…ha…" Tak made a pathetic attempt to laugh, but it quickly died away under Ikhny’s suspicious stare. After staring at him like that for exactly seventeen seconds, Ikhny leaned towards Tak and whispered into his ear.

"You’re a bad liar Tak," Ikhny whispered in a dangerous tone, "and you’re hiding something. I’m going to find out exactly what it is, do you understand? By the way-" Ikhny pulled away from a completely frozen Tak, "-I don’t want to sit there. Just look who Reina has with her."

Tak pulled out of his nervous condition and looked over Reina’s shoulder. There he saw Hiead, who was, at the moment, trying to restrain a screaming Reina. Then he understood. "Oh…I get it. The dream thing, right?"

Ikhny frowned, as if she was trying to explain something she couldn’t understand. "It’s more than that…"

"Well…I understand…but we can’t just leave Reina hanging…"

"Yes we can," Ikhny said quietly. "We just turn around and walk in the other direction, pretending we never heard her."

Tak gave Ikhny a weird look, and then smirked. "That’s going to be difficult to go by," he said playfully. "Judging from the way she yelled, probably half of GOA heard her."

"And judging from the way she yelled and taking into account who she was sitting with, the half that heard her would have done the exact same thing."

"You’re getting quite a mouth, you know that? But I like it."

Laughing heartily, Ikhny and Tak towards another table, one that was far away from Reina and Hiead’s.

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"Hey! Wait, they’re goin’ the wrong way! Dammit Hiead, lemme go!"

Reina finally pulled away from Hiead’s restraints and groaned when she saw Ikhny and Tak sit down at a different table.

"Damn! I guess they didn’t hear me," Reina grumbled as she sat down. Then she glared at Hiead. "Why’d ya have ta go and hold me down like that? I was just trying to get their attention!"

Hiead snorted. "Jumping up and down the table while waving your arms and screaming your head off like a maniac wouldn’t get someone’s attention, it would scare them off! Not only that, we would probably get some demerits, and that’s the last thing I need today!"

"Ha! Puh-lease! You just did that so your little girlfriend wouldn’t come over."

"What girl…oh, not that again! How many times do I have to tell you that I have no romantic interest in Allecto? In fact, I have no interest in her whatsoever! The only reason I know she exists is because she was my partner, and nothing more!"

"You were glaring at Tak too."

"The only reason I hate that… repairer is because Allecto paired up with him and left me with you."

"Why you-"

"Would you just shut up and let me eat? Look, I don’t want to hear another word out of your abnormally huge mouth for the rest of the day, do you hear me?"

Reina was speechless for a few seconds, but she managed to force her face into a painful smile and she nodded. In her mind, though, she was concocting several plots of possible revenge…

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"Ikhny, you alright in there?"

Ikhny tried to control her breathing as the tank filled with a strange fluid. This test was familiar; she had taken this simulation before when she and Hiead first paired up. The scene was the same, but the situation couldn’t have been more different. She had been the one behind the controls before. She had been the one safely behind the scenes, shouting out orders and directions while giving Hiead did all the actual fighting. Before, the test depended on Hiead. But now it would depend on her will and ambition. That was a very sickening thought.

"I think I’m okay," Ikhny answered a half-panicked Tak. "But I can’t do this…"

"Don’t worry," said Tak. "You’ll do fine."

One of the other candidates snickered. Markus Stone, candidate ninety-one, was a boy with flaming red hair and cold green eyes. He had taken the test already, and had the best score so far. "She’ll be fine, alright," he said in a very loud voice, "for about two seconds!" Then all of the other candidates in the room began to laugh cruelly. Tak glared at him and was about to say something rash, but thought better of it as the simulation began.

"Ikhny, the distance between you and the VICTIMS is a hundred mile radius to your right."

"Which right?" Ikhny yelled in a panicked tone. "My right or your right?"

"Yours!"

"You mean your right?"

The other candidates snickered again. "She can’t even tell what’s left and right!" Markus hooted loudly. "Oh, this is too much!"

Tak scowled. This wasn’t working at all. The only way to help Ikhny now was to pull out all the stops. Typing furiously, he quickly directed all of Ikhny’s energy on her attack, and muttered three deadly words. "Destroy them all."

What happened next was something that even Clay couldn’t explain, not even if he hacked into every computer in the universe. The moment Tak said those words, Ikhny’s eyes glazed over, and her body emitted, not a shiny green glow like last time, but a strange and eerie red one. Still in a trance-like state, she slowly raised her gun and fired at what seemed like nothing but the darkness of space. Three seconds later however, one of the VICTIMS had been destroyed, and what made it more strange still was the fact that it was over a hundred miles away, clearly out of view point. The other candidates and even Azuma himself, was in shock.

"H-how…c-c-could she have h-hit that…"said Markus in a trembling voice. No one was able to answer, they were too stunned themselves.

Without warning, Ikhny abandoned her gun and pulled out her sword. She then started to fly directly towards the last VICTIM, holding her sword like a lance. She expertly dove right through the middle of the monster, killing it instantly. The glowing then faded away, and Ikhny, who was completely worn out, fainted.

End of a rewritten chapter five. Any reviews are appreciated.