help_haiti fic: But Still They Come (Weiss Kreuz/The War of the Worlds)
cyphomandra was the very generous winning bidder on my help_haiti auction, and asked for a Weiss Kreuz story, possibly with Martians. And so . . .
Title: But Still They Come
Fandoms: Weiss Kreuz/The War of the Worlds
Notes: Thank you, puddingcat for beta-ing this! This is a sequel to Scientific Endeavour and Fund Raiser, in which Nagi is a 19th century scientist of somewhat dubious morals. The title is taken from the lyrics of the first song in the Jeff Wayne Musical of The War of the Worlds, "The Eve of the War".
For cyphomandra
It was a dark, perfectly calm night. Nagi felt a little disappointed, for there was nothing better, in his young estimation, than the fury of a thunderstorm, especially one whose mighty electrical power he had channelled into the depths of his unholy apparatus, or at least through the body of a close personal friend, just to observe the effects. It was a great shame to have taken time from his work and to have journeyed outside the city to sit upon a hill at night - a hill that would be perfect for an observatory or as the location of a second laboratory - and not to see so much as a single flash of lightning. As he ruminated thus, his clever mind proposing several new adjustments he could make both to his ever-growing machine and to the abilities of his acquaintances, he became cognisant of a touch growing less stealthy and more importunate by the moment.
"Eels," he mused. "I must procure some electric eels at the earliest opportunity - what is it, Mamoru?"
"You look so dreadfully far away," his friend said, emboldened to lay his head on Nagi's shoulder now that the youth would not be startled by such a sudden imposition on his person. People rarely made the mistake more than once of startling Nagi by introducing into his proximity an extremity of which they could not bear the sudden and irrevocable loss. "Why not come back here to me?"
Nagi regarded Mamoru with a mathematically-precise approximation of affection. It was perhaps unfair to stare into the depths of space when he could be looking instead into his friend's eyes, he thought. After all, Mamoru was a sensible young man who could be relied on for insightful scientific discussions, unlike everyone else whom Nagi knew. Mamoru was also of a sensitive turn of mind, and listened with the utmost sympathy to Nagi's impassioned ranting on the eventual fate of those who had thwarted his investigations into the fabric of reality. He was also extremely rich and had the best of political connexions. Musing thus on the many excellent qualities of the young ambassador from Japan, Nagi exercised the unnatural powers with which he had been gifted after unwarily getting caught in the same storm into which he had decoyed his German team mate, Schuldig, after attaching electrodes and a great deal of copper wiring to that same person's head; Mamoru squeaked with pleasure as he was pulled closer by unseen forces that ran across his skin like the skittering legs of tiny mechanical insects.
"Oh, Nagi," he gasped, abandoning himself to the passionate advances of the other youth.
"When will you allow me to subject your person to experiment?" Nagi murmured between kisses.
"I'm quite willing to try anything you can think of - " Mamoru started " - just not if it involves wires and immersion tanks," he added quickly. He cuddled closer against Nagi as the other youth sighed in disappointment. "But I will pay for as much equipment as you like," he said, and Nagi smiled once more. "Oh!" Mamoru cried, looking over Nagi's shoulder. "What's that?"
Nagi followed the direction of his gaze up into the blackness of space. A bright green flash of light shone out, far away yet so intense that it was clearly visible. He pulled out the brass telescope he always carried upon him and, using Mamoru as a makeshift prop upon which to lean, gazed through it at the light. "It appears to have come from Mars," he said. "Ah! Another, with a plume of green following it! Perhaps it is a gas emission of some kind."
Mamoru wriggled free and looked hopefully at the telescope. "May I?" He eagerly gazed through it when it had been passed over. "What can it be?" he breathed. "A volcano erupting and pouring its noxious gasses into the blackness of the void? Perhaps the aura of a star dying far out in space whose last moments we are now seeing eons later?"
"Whatever it is," Nagi said, looking round in displeasure as he heard other people begin to climb the hill for a better vantage point, exclaiming in wonder at the continued flashes of green as they did so, "we are about to have our picnic site invaded. Let's go back to the hotel - you should probably put your trousers back on."
Silently and mostly clothed, they slipped down the hill and away into the darkness.
* * *
"I feel a certain foreboding about this," Crawford said, leaning out of the window and squinting up into the night sky. "Those strange flashes of light do not bring any good, I'm sure of it."
"Thank you," Schuldig said, rolling his eyes. "Is that a vision, or are you just parroting what every newspaper has across its front page?"
Crawford closed the window, and went to pour himself another brandy. "One sometimes feels, Schuldig," he said in a vaguely hurt tone, "that one is not entirely believed when one speaks of foreseeing the future."
"Really?" Schuldig said. "Would that be before or after one had lost five hundred pounds on the horses?" He did not, he decided, need any capability to discern another's thoughts beyond mere long acquaintance to see how downcast Crawford had become. "Cheer up," he said, patting Crawford's arm, "I'm sure you would have placed a winning bet eventually." He placed a consolatory kiss upon his friend's cheek.
"I foresee that Nagi is too wrapped up in his experiments to come home at all tonight, and Farfarello has gone to church and so will be evading the police for many hours yet," Crawford said in hopeful tones.
"Oh," Schuldig said, moulding himself up against Crawford's frame, kissing him and beginning to divest him of his clothing. "Let's have a very informal dinner, in that case. In bed or in the bath?"
A suddenly vexed look crossed Crawford's face as Nagi said from close quarters, "Your unholy admixture of sodomy and snacks shall have to wait; I have discovered something vital!"
"Try a little harder to be more accurate in your predictions," Schuldig muttered to Crawford, and, "Must you barge in when we are discussing our criminal plans, Nagi?"
"Your evening's entertainment may be illegal, but it hardly qualifies as a 'plan'," Nagi said. "More important is my calculation that the flashes of light emanating from Mars are the gases emitted from the ignition of a propellant of enough force to hurtle a craft across the void between the worlds!"
"Huh?" Crawford and Schuldig chorused.
"We are being invaded," Nagi said impatiently. "By Martians."
When they had quite finished mocking his boyish intellect, and had suggested a variety of remedies, ranging from taking away his sensationalist reading material to no longer allowing him to eat cheese at bedtime, Crawford and Schuldig retired to their bedchamber and had a very pleasant evening indeed.
The first of the spaceships landed on Horsell Common the next morning.
* * *
"I thought you said the chances of anything coming from Mars were exceedingly remote," Mamoru said, as he and Nagi fled from the Martians' heat-ray, along with thousands of other excitable Londoners.
"I ran the calculations again on my machine," Nagi said, pulling Mamoru along both bodily and with his unnatural powers. "My mental calculations were of course correct, at a million to one, but it seems that even the smallest chance can have scientifically fascinating results." He and Mamoru cowered behind an overturned Guildford omnibus as all about them the heat ray laid waste, bringing fiery death. "We must get one of those craft, Mamoru! Think of the power and destruction we could wreak with it!"
"Don't you mean, 'the useful and beneficial scientific advancements we might discover'?" Mamoru said, peeping out and then pulling Nagi under the omnibus.
"Yes, that's what I said." Nagi looked covetously at the great craft, half buried in the earth of the common. If he could but use his powers to win even a small part of the alien metal, he thought, longingly, then reluctantly allowed himself to be drawn away by Mamoru as the Martian heat ray sought other targets. Hand in hand, the youths fled for the train station, and the chance of a real escape.
"Do you think they are landing over the whole of the earth?" Mamoru said on the train, wearily leaning against Nagi and wiping at his filthy face with his sleeve.
Nagi pushed others fleeing back to London away with his powers, allowing himself and Mamoru a modicum of space. "I don't know," he said, which words were for him the hardest to utter in any language. "Perhaps they'll all land in London, and prove Crawford's theory that all seeking power and might must come to this city." He glowered, muttering, "He'll be unbearable if he's proved right."
"So they might have also landed in Japan?" Mamoru said plaintively.
Nagi looked more closely at his unhappy face and decided he would allow him to continue leaning upon him, rather than shoving him upright in irritation. "I don't know," he said again, thinking he would have to kill the Martians for being the cause of him saying it so often in such a short space of time. "I just don't know."
* * *
" - and so," Nagi said, "my financial backer has suggested that we should work together with his colleagues to defeat the Martian menace, seize their awful weapons and interplanetary craft, save the world, earn public gratitude and vast riches and the ability to destroy all our enemies with but the flick of an alien switch."
"I agree with everything Nagi-kun said, right up to 'defeat the Martian menace'," Mamoru said earnestly.
"Your financial backer looks like a girl," Crawford said dubiously. "Aren't you that girl working with the assassins who killed the Japanese ambassador?"
Mamoru sighed. "I'm not a girl. I have no idea why people keep saying that to me. We must all work together! With your skills and powers, and my friends' dogged determinism and fatalistic lack of a sense of self-preservation, surely we can prevail!" He gestured towards his three friends, standing silent and disapproving in the corner of Crawford's drawing room. The red-haired one, whom Mamoru had introduced as Aya, looked upon them all as if he wished for nothing more than to run them through with his sword, while the tall young man next to him, Yohji, played with his pocket watch, pulling out a thin length of wire and letting the spring within whip it back into hiding once more. The third of their group, Ken, seemed mostly concerned with nursing a bad head-cold, sneezing loudly into a handkerchief, and regarding the room with reddened and streaming eyes.
"I suppose they could fling themselves forward in a suicidal attempt at distraction while we all ran for safety," Schuldig mused. He looked at Nagi's expression, the one that often prefigured imminent destructive powers being unleashed, as Crawford elbowed him.
"I foresee you're about to be in trouble," Crawford hissed.
"Thank you," Schuldig said with heavy irony. "Vast riches, you said, Nagi? Count us in."
"That's better," Nagi said. "Farfarello, you'll participate in the suicidal attempt at distraction, won't you?"
Farfarello shrugged. "Why change my tactics now?"
Mamoru's friends drew closer together and whispered distrustfully. Mamoru started - as Nagi thought - some most unbecoming pleading and begging instead of simply threatening them and browbeating them to do his will. Poor thing, Nagi thought, he doesn't know how friendship really works. With that thought in mind he sidled closer to Crawford.
"Your visions have been receding recently," he said. "I always thought they were a most interesting side effect."
"To attempted murder? Quite," Crawford said stiffly.
"Oh, I'd never attempt to murder anyone," Nagi said. "They were a very useful side effect - if they ever actually existed - and I think it's an experiment that should be repeated, if we are to go up against the Martians."
A look of alarm crossed Crawford's face and he stepped back and to the side, successfully evading Nagi's grasp in a manner that suggested he had indeed seen the future a moment before it happened. "Nagi -" he said.
"Just hold still," Nagi said, and produced a large wrench from behind his back. Crawford fled from the room, Nagi in pursuit, wrench in upraised fist.
Schuldig and Farfarello looked at each other, then back at their guests who had frozen in poses of surprise.
"Perhaps you'd like some tea," Schuldig said, ringing for the maid. "How have you been enjoying your stay in London, now that you've killed the previous ambassador?" he said in some desperation as Mamoru and his friends looked upwards as the sound of feet running up the stairs and into the room above them ended in a crash and some heavy thumps.
"Ah - he was my father," Mamoru said, still looking upward.
"Yes. Embarrassing, that," Schuldig said. "Tea!" he said as the maid entered. "Now, for God's sake!"
"Hmm," Mamoru said. The noises upstairs had turned to the sound of something being dragged across the floor. There was then silence, broken only by the swift return of the maid with a large tray of tea things and a cake stand.
"I'll be mother," Farfarello said, pouring tea for everyone, and handing the cups round.
Nagi came back into the room, his hair wild and a smudge of blood on his cheek. Everyone watched him stroll across the room to pour himself a cup of tea.
"Crawford's having a little nap," Nagi said in a deeply self-satisfied tone. He examined the cakes with interest. "Ooh, cream puffs!"
Mamoru's friends all looked at each other again, then shrugged.
"We'll fight beside you," Aya said. "It seems you are prepared to do what must be done."
Mamoru grabbed Nagi's hand before he could say anything further, and expound on the fact that he simply enjoyed violently experimenting upon those who were his friends. "Excellent!" he said. "Let's all have another cup of tea and not say anything for at least ten minutes."
* * *
"I have a bad feeling about this," Crawford said weakly as their little group fought its way against the vast throng of Londoners fleeing the advancing Martian tripod war-machines. The heat rays picked off people here and there, in the desultory manner of a boy whiling away a hot summer's afternoon by burning ants with the aid of the sun's rays and a magnifying glass, revelling in his god-like powers to decide which would live and which die.
"You always say that," Schuldig said, "but nothing bad has happened so far."
Crawford gave him a reproachful look from beneath the bandages that swathed his head.
"We'll set the gun up here," Nagi said, indicating a spot by the river. Without waiting for argument he began to pull the boxes and bags carried by the others from their grasp and quickly, with Mamoru's aid, erected a gleaming brass cannon of a design that caused everyone else to pause.
"Well, he is still quite young," Schuldig said into the little bubble of silence. "We all were quite obsessed with our equipment at that age -"
"Shut up," Nagi said, quickly donning his working clothing of heavy leather and rubber coat, thick rubber gloves, rubber-soled boots and goggles that made his face seem even more forbidding and inimical than usual, "and help me to excite my weapon."
"The new field of psychotherapy could explain many things to you," Schuldig grumbled, seizing one of the handles and rapidly cranking Nagi's ominous new machine. "Crawford! Give me a hand here!"
"Suicidal distraction ploy, now!" Mamoru trilled, and his friends and Farfarello ran out to hack at the legs of one of the tripodal machines, then flee into the crowd, evading the heat ray as best they might, whilst flinging less agile Londoners to their doom behind them.
With a tremendous crack, a massive bolt of energy escaped from the smoothly rounded mouth of Nagi's weapon to spark and crackle all around the Martian tripod with bolts of lightning running across its shining surface. The tripod wavered and then crashed down, crushing more Londoners beneath it. The top hissed open, vast waves of steam emanating from within, along with a smell reminiscent of freshly boiled lobster.
"I think no one can doubt the efficacy of my weapon's emissions," Nagi said, wiping the perspiration of great effort from his brow in pleased satisfaction and regarding his gun with unalloyed pleasure as the heated metal groaned and pinged in the calm following its violent discharge.
"No, you were wonderful!" Mamoru said, embracing him more closely than any of their friends wished to see. "Do we have time to -"
"You most certainly do not!" Crawford shrieked, pointing behind them. "I told you I had a bad feeling about this!"
Approaching fast, several more tripods marched towards them with grim intent. Crawford seized the crank of Nagi's gun once more. "Quick, fire it up!"
"It can't be fired off again immediately," Nagi said. "It needs a little period of respite!"
"Try!" Crawford and Schuldig yelled, cranking on one side while Nagi and Mamoru worked feverishly on the other. Crawford surprised them all by flinging himself under the gun suddenly. "Everyone down!" he cried.
At that moment there was a loud boom and, much to their relief, a purely conventional artillery shell detonated in the body of the foremost tripod, knocking it over backwards to lie upon the ground, feebly waving its legs. Nagi looked behind them to the river where, a quarter of a mile away and gaining quickly, a gunboat steamed towards them. One of the tripods strode into the river to combat it, and the brave ironclad boat reached its maximum speed, its guns' shells thudding into the body of the tripod mere moments before it itself rammed one of the legs and carried on, leaving the tripod to fall into the Thames, flailing about itself in a horrid manner, its heat ray causing the water to bubble and boil all about it. The thousands of people on the bridges and in boats on the river cheered and waved as the gunboat came about again, its gun crews calibrating its weapons for another attack. All the tripods in the area immediately rushed down to concentrate their rays upon it, and, with a terrible eruption of force that knocked another tripod into the water, the gunship exploded. A cry of anguish rose up from the crowds on the bridges as they fought and heaved in their renewed panic of flight.
"Not to detract from the terrible pathos of this moment, but -" Mamoru said meaningfully, nodding to where the tripod near them was beginning to raise itself awkwardly back to its feet.
"Fire!" Nagi yelled, his normally calm face transfigured by the joy of shooting off his gun to such public, destructive effect. The bolt of electricity hit its target, causing the tripod to dance and jitter in a most diverting way for several moments before collapsing down to the ground once more.
"Let's hope the others blame the ship for that," Crawford grumbled, clambering out from beneath the gun, the hair visible beneath the bandages all standing on end from the great blast of electricity. "Good God, Schuldig," he said, "do something about your appearance."
"Don't you think I'm trying?" Schuldig snarled, vainly trying to calm his long red hair from the immense halo it formed about his head.
Mamoru's friends ran to the second tripod, levering it open and exclaiming in disgust at what lay within. Aya thrust his katana in, skewering the half-cooked thing that attempted to escape, then stared at the blade in shuddering horror, before pragmatically wiping it upon the clothing of a corpse lying near-by.
"We must go!" Crawford said. "They'll be back to reclaim their machines! We won't be safe till we've fled the country!"
"Is that a vision or cowardice?" Nagi said, stroking his gun lovingly.
"It's a vision! We have to go!"
"Huh," Nagi muttered, "so much for your view that it was imperative to stay in London as it is the centre of all activities, criminal or otherwise."
"To be fair," Farfarello observed, "the Martians did come here. Crawford is perhaps not wrong in his views - suffering from brain fever, but not entirely incorrect."
"Aya! Ken! Yohji!" Mamoru called out, forestalling further exploration of this point. "We're leaving!"
They nodded, Ken sneezing explosively over the Martian's body as the others dragged him away from his fascinated and horrified examination of its horrid corpse. As everyone fled Nagi surreptitiously brought a piece of the alien machinery floating silently to him, then he took Mamoru's hand and ran with the rest of them.
* * *
"How can anyone get any work done in such a provincial and backwards environment as this?" Crawford complained some weeks later.
Nagi cast his eyes to the heaven he so frequently offended by his unholy research. "Crawford, this is Paris," he said. "The capital of France. It's hardly provincial." Ignoring Crawford's continual muttering, he picked up the morning English-language paper and began to read, Mamoru's breath warm on his cheek as he leaned over Nagi's shoulder to peruse the headlines.
"Oh, my," Mamoru said.
"Hmm," Nagi agreed.
"What?" Schuldig said. "Will you keep us in suspense?"
"Read my mind," Nagi said, in tones that indicated he cared not if Schuldig did or not.
"The weather has been fair for days," Schuldig complained. "How is anyone supposed to read minds in such a condition?"
Nagi regarded him with some interest. "Perhaps we can discuss this again during a storm," he said. "I feel sure your abilities could be improved."
Schuldig put his hands protectively on his head. "Just tell me what it says in the paper," he said petulantly, reaching out to grab the paper as it suddenly seemingly gained a mind of its own and flew in his direction. "And do not hold such public intercourse with your financial backer! It's vulgar."
Mamoru ignored him, having crept round to slide into Nagi's lap; Nagi also ignored him, seeming at that moment to find it necessary to indulge Mamoru's whims. "When we get back to London, I'll probably need to rebuild or extend my machine," he said. "You'll have to give me more money."
"Will it be worth my while?" Mamoru asked and then giggled as Nagi's ministrations seemed to convince him it would be.
"Make them stop," Schuldig said to Crawford. "Or distract me, or -" His voice ran down as he read the newspaper. "The Martians are all dead!" he yelled. "Of head-colds!"
"We should thank Ken," Mamoru said cheerfully.
"Nonsense, my electrical cannon carried the ailment in its bolt," Nagi said in complete assurance and sincerity. "With additional funding, I can repeat my success."
"Why not?" Mamoru said. "It's not like Ken can read English anyway, and there's no scientific proof he is the cause of our salvation."
"Let's continue this conversation somewhere Schuldig will not give us helpful tips and comment on our performance," Nagi said, gently pushing Mamoru off his lap and leaping up to leave with him, hand-in-hand.
"I foresee we can return to our London house," Crawford said, happily reading the paper he had snatched from Schuldig.
"Good work," Schuldig said with some sarcasm. "Do you foresee anything else?"
"I foresee that you're about to lock the door," Crawford said.
" . . . why?"
"We are currently alone, and the chaise longue is free."
Schuldig walked sedately and delicately to the door, locking it against all comers. "Perhaps there is something to your visions after all," he said, turning back to Crawford. "Did you foresee this too?"
Crawford smiled in appreciation as Schuldig tore off his cravat and began to unbutton his shirt. Under his clothes he was already wearing the corset.
Title: But Still They Come
Fandoms: Weiss Kreuz/The War of the Worlds
Notes: Thank you, puddingcat for beta-ing this! This is a sequel to Scientific Endeavour and Fund Raiser, in which Nagi is a 19th century scientist of somewhat dubious morals. The title is taken from the lyrics of the first song in the Jeff Wayne Musical of The War of the Worlds, "The Eve of the War".
For cyphomandra
It was a dark, perfectly calm night. Nagi felt a little disappointed, for there was nothing better, in his young estimation, than the fury of a thunderstorm, especially one whose mighty electrical power he had channelled into the depths of his unholy apparatus, or at least through the body of a close personal friend, just to observe the effects. It was a great shame to have taken time from his work and to have journeyed outside the city to sit upon a hill at night - a hill that would be perfect for an observatory or as the location of a second laboratory - and not to see so much as a single flash of lightning. As he ruminated thus, his clever mind proposing several new adjustments he could make both to his ever-growing machine and to the abilities of his acquaintances, he became cognisant of a touch growing less stealthy and more importunate by the moment.
"Eels," he mused. "I must procure some electric eels at the earliest opportunity - what is it, Mamoru?"
"You look so dreadfully far away," his friend said, emboldened to lay his head on Nagi's shoulder now that the youth would not be startled by such a sudden imposition on his person. People rarely made the mistake more than once of startling Nagi by introducing into his proximity an extremity of which they could not bear the sudden and irrevocable loss. "Why not come back here to me?"
Nagi regarded Mamoru with a mathematically-precise approximation of affection. It was perhaps unfair to stare into the depths of space when he could be looking instead into his friend's eyes, he thought. After all, Mamoru was a sensible young man who could be relied on for insightful scientific discussions, unlike everyone else whom Nagi knew. Mamoru was also of a sensitive turn of mind, and listened with the utmost sympathy to Nagi's impassioned ranting on the eventual fate of those who had thwarted his investigations into the fabric of reality. He was also extremely rich and had the best of political connexions. Musing thus on the many excellent qualities of the young ambassador from Japan, Nagi exercised the unnatural powers with which he had been gifted after unwarily getting caught in the same storm into which he had decoyed his German team mate, Schuldig, after attaching electrodes and a great deal of copper wiring to that same person's head; Mamoru squeaked with pleasure as he was pulled closer by unseen forces that ran across his skin like the skittering legs of tiny mechanical insects.
"Oh, Nagi," he gasped, abandoning himself to the passionate advances of the other youth.
"When will you allow me to subject your person to experiment?" Nagi murmured between kisses.
"I'm quite willing to try anything you can think of - " Mamoru started " - just not if it involves wires and immersion tanks," he added quickly. He cuddled closer against Nagi as the other youth sighed in disappointment. "But I will pay for as much equipment as you like," he said, and Nagi smiled once more. "Oh!" Mamoru cried, looking over Nagi's shoulder. "What's that?"
Nagi followed the direction of his gaze up into the blackness of space. A bright green flash of light shone out, far away yet so intense that it was clearly visible. He pulled out the brass telescope he always carried upon him and, using Mamoru as a makeshift prop upon which to lean, gazed through it at the light. "It appears to have come from Mars," he said. "Ah! Another, with a plume of green following it! Perhaps it is a gas emission of some kind."
Mamoru wriggled free and looked hopefully at the telescope. "May I?" He eagerly gazed through it when it had been passed over. "What can it be?" he breathed. "A volcano erupting and pouring its noxious gasses into the blackness of the void? Perhaps the aura of a star dying far out in space whose last moments we are now seeing eons later?"
"Whatever it is," Nagi said, looking round in displeasure as he heard other people begin to climb the hill for a better vantage point, exclaiming in wonder at the continued flashes of green as they did so, "we are about to have our picnic site invaded. Let's go back to the hotel - you should probably put your trousers back on."
Silently and mostly clothed, they slipped down the hill and away into the darkness.
* * *
"I feel a certain foreboding about this," Crawford said, leaning out of the window and squinting up into the night sky. "Those strange flashes of light do not bring any good, I'm sure of it."
"Thank you," Schuldig said, rolling his eyes. "Is that a vision, or are you just parroting what every newspaper has across its front page?"
Crawford closed the window, and went to pour himself another brandy. "One sometimes feels, Schuldig," he said in a vaguely hurt tone, "that one is not entirely believed when one speaks of foreseeing the future."
"Really?" Schuldig said. "Would that be before or after one had lost five hundred pounds on the horses?" He did not, he decided, need any capability to discern another's thoughts beyond mere long acquaintance to see how downcast Crawford had become. "Cheer up," he said, patting Crawford's arm, "I'm sure you would have placed a winning bet eventually." He placed a consolatory kiss upon his friend's cheek.
"I foresee that Nagi is too wrapped up in his experiments to come home at all tonight, and Farfarello has gone to church and so will be evading the police for many hours yet," Crawford said in hopeful tones.
"Oh," Schuldig said, moulding himself up against Crawford's frame, kissing him and beginning to divest him of his clothing. "Let's have a very informal dinner, in that case. In bed or in the bath?"
A suddenly vexed look crossed Crawford's face as Nagi said from close quarters, "Your unholy admixture of sodomy and snacks shall have to wait; I have discovered something vital!"
"Try a little harder to be more accurate in your predictions," Schuldig muttered to Crawford, and, "Must you barge in when we are discussing our criminal plans, Nagi?"
"Your evening's entertainment may be illegal, but it hardly qualifies as a 'plan'," Nagi said. "More important is my calculation that the flashes of light emanating from Mars are the gases emitted from the ignition of a propellant of enough force to hurtle a craft across the void between the worlds!"
"Huh?" Crawford and Schuldig chorused.
"We are being invaded," Nagi said impatiently. "By Martians."
When they had quite finished mocking his boyish intellect, and had suggested a variety of remedies, ranging from taking away his sensationalist reading material to no longer allowing him to eat cheese at bedtime, Crawford and Schuldig retired to their bedchamber and had a very pleasant evening indeed.
The first of the spaceships landed on Horsell Common the next morning.
* * *
"I thought you said the chances of anything coming from Mars were exceedingly remote," Mamoru said, as he and Nagi fled from the Martians' heat-ray, along with thousands of other excitable Londoners.
"I ran the calculations again on my machine," Nagi said, pulling Mamoru along both bodily and with his unnatural powers. "My mental calculations were of course correct, at a million to one, but it seems that even the smallest chance can have scientifically fascinating results." He and Mamoru cowered behind an overturned Guildford omnibus as all about them the heat ray laid waste, bringing fiery death. "We must get one of those craft, Mamoru! Think of the power and destruction we could wreak with it!"
"Don't you mean, 'the useful and beneficial scientific advancements we might discover'?" Mamoru said, peeping out and then pulling Nagi under the omnibus.
"Yes, that's what I said." Nagi looked covetously at the great craft, half buried in the earth of the common. If he could but use his powers to win even a small part of the alien metal, he thought, longingly, then reluctantly allowed himself to be drawn away by Mamoru as the Martian heat ray sought other targets. Hand in hand, the youths fled for the train station, and the chance of a real escape.
"Do you think they are landing over the whole of the earth?" Mamoru said on the train, wearily leaning against Nagi and wiping at his filthy face with his sleeve.
Nagi pushed others fleeing back to London away with his powers, allowing himself and Mamoru a modicum of space. "I don't know," he said, which words were for him the hardest to utter in any language. "Perhaps they'll all land in London, and prove Crawford's theory that all seeking power and might must come to this city." He glowered, muttering, "He'll be unbearable if he's proved right."
"So they might have also landed in Japan?" Mamoru said plaintively.
Nagi looked more closely at his unhappy face and decided he would allow him to continue leaning upon him, rather than shoving him upright in irritation. "I don't know," he said again, thinking he would have to kill the Martians for being the cause of him saying it so often in such a short space of time. "I just don't know."
* * *
" - and so," Nagi said, "my financial backer has suggested that we should work together with his colleagues to defeat the Martian menace, seize their awful weapons and interplanetary craft, save the world, earn public gratitude and vast riches and the ability to destroy all our enemies with but the flick of an alien switch."
"I agree with everything Nagi-kun said, right up to 'defeat the Martian menace'," Mamoru said earnestly.
"Your financial backer looks like a girl," Crawford said dubiously. "Aren't you that girl working with the assassins who killed the Japanese ambassador?"
Mamoru sighed. "I'm not a girl. I have no idea why people keep saying that to me. We must all work together! With your skills and powers, and my friends' dogged determinism and fatalistic lack of a sense of self-preservation, surely we can prevail!" He gestured towards his three friends, standing silent and disapproving in the corner of Crawford's drawing room. The red-haired one, whom Mamoru had introduced as Aya, looked upon them all as if he wished for nothing more than to run them through with his sword, while the tall young man next to him, Yohji, played with his pocket watch, pulling out a thin length of wire and letting the spring within whip it back into hiding once more. The third of their group, Ken, seemed mostly concerned with nursing a bad head-cold, sneezing loudly into a handkerchief, and regarding the room with reddened and streaming eyes.
"I suppose they could fling themselves forward in a suicidal attempt at distraction while we all ran for safety," Schuldig mused. He looked at Nagi's expression, the one that often prefigured imminent destructive powers being unleashed, as Crawford elbowed him.
"I foresee you're about to be in trouble," Crawford hissed.
"Thank you," Schuldig said with heavy irony. "Vast riches, you said, Nagi? Count us in."
"That's better," Nagi said. "Farfarello, you'll participate in the suicidal attempt at distraction, won't you?"
Farfarello shrugged. "Why change my tactics now?"
Mamoru's friends drew closer together and whispered distrustfully. Mamoru started - as Nagi thought - some most unbecoming pleading and begging instead of simply threatening them and browbeating them to do his will. Poor thing, Nagi thought, he doesn't know how friendship really works. With that thought in mind he sidled closer to Crawford.
"Your visions have been receding recently," he said. "I always thought they were a most interesting side effect."
"To attempted murder? Quite," Crawford said stiffly.
"Oh, I'd never attempt to murder anyone," Nagi said. "They were a very useful side effect - if they ever actually existed - and I think it's an experiment that should be repeated, if we are to go up against the Martians."
A look of alarm crossed Crawford's face and he stepped back and to the side, successfully evading Nagi's grasp in a manner that suggested he had indeed seen the future a moment before it happened. "Nagi -" he said.
"Just hold still," Nagi said, and produced a large wrench from behind his back. Crawford fled from the room, Nagi in pursuit, wrench in upraised fist.
Schuldig and Farfarello looked at each other, then back at their guests who had frozen in poses of surprise.
"Perhaps you'd like some tea," Schuldig said, ringing for the maid. "How have you been enjoying your stay in London, now that you've killed the previous ambassador?" he said in some desperation as Mamoru and his friends looked upwards as the sound of feet running up the stairs and into the room above them ended in a crash and some heavy thumps.
"Ah - he was my father," Mamoru said, still looking upward.
"Yes. Embarrassing, that," Schuldig said. "Tea!" he said as the maid entered. "Now, for God's sake!"
"Hmm," Mamoru said. The noises upstairs had turned to the sound of something being dragged across the floor. There was then silence, broken only by the swift return of the maid with a large tray of tea things and a cake stand.
"I'll be mother," Farfarello said, pouring tea for everyone, and handing the cups round.
Nagi came back into the room, his hair wild and a smudge of blood on his cheek. Everyone watched him stroll across the room to pour himself a cup of tea.
"Crawford's having a little nap," Nagi said in a deeply self-satisfied tone. He examined the cakes with interest. "Ooh, cream puffs!"
Mamoru's friends all looked at each other again, then shrugged.
"We'll fight beside you," Aya said. "It seems you are prepared to do what must be done."
Mamoru grabbed Nagi's hand before he could say anything further, and expound on the fact that he simply enjoyed violently experimenting upon those who were his friends. "Excellent!" he said. "Let's all have another cup of tea and not say anything for at least ten minutes."
* * *
"I have a bad feeling about this," Crawford said weakly as their little group fought its way against the vast throng of Londoners fleeing the advancing Martian tripod war-machines. The heat rays picked off people here and there, in the desultory manner of a boy whiling away a hot summer's afternoon by burning ants with the aid of the sun's rays and a magnifying glass, revelling in his god-like powers to decide which would live and which die.
"You always say that," Schuldig said, "but nothing bad has happened so far."
Crawford gave him a reproachful look from beneath the bandages that swathed his head.
"We'll set the gun up here," Nagi said, indicating a spot by the river. Without waiting for argument he began to pull the boxes and bags carried by the others from their grasp and quickly, with Mamoru's aid, erected a gleaming brass cannon of a design that caused everyone else to pause.
"Well, he is still quite young," Schuldig said into the little bubble of silence. "We all were quite obsessed with our equipment at that age -"
"Shut up," Nagi said, quickly donning his working clothing of heavy leather and rubber coat, thick rubber gloves, rubber-soled boots and goggles that made his face seem even more forbidding and inimical than usual, "and help me to excite my weapon."
"The new field of psychotherapy could explain many things to you," Schuldig grumbled, seizing one of the handles and rapidly cranking Nagi's ominous new machine. "Crawford! Give me a hand here!"
"Suicidal distraction ploy, now!" Mamoru trilled, and his friends and Farfarello ran out to hack at the legs of one of the tripodal machines, then flee into the crowd, evading the heat ray as best they might, whilst flinging less agile Londoners to their doom behind them.
With a tremendous crack, a massive bolt of energy escaped from the smoothly rounded mouth of Nagi's weapon to spark and crackle all around the Martian tripod with bolts of lightning running across its shining surface. The tripod wavered and then crashed down, crushing more Londoners beneath it. The top hissed open, vast waves of steam emanating from within, along with a smell reminiscent of freshly boiled lobster.
"I think no one can doubt the efficacy of my weapon's emissions," Nagi said, wiping the perspiration of great effort from his brow in pleased satisfaction and regarding his gun with unalloyed pleasure as the heated metal groaned and pinged in the calm following its violent discharge.
"No, you were wonderful!" Mamoru said, embracing him more closely than any of their friends wished to see. "Do we have time to -"
"You most certainly do not!" Crawford shrieked, pointing behind them. "I told you I had a bad feeling about this!"
Approaching fast, several more tripods marched towards them with grim intent. Crawford seized the crank of Nagi's gun once more. "Quick, fire it up!"
"It can't be fired off again immediately," Nagi said. "It needs a little period of respite!"
"Try!" Crawford and Schuldig yelled, cranking on one side while Nagi and Mamoru worked feverishly on the other. Crawford surprised them all by flinging himself under the gun suddenly. "Everyone down!" he cried.
At that moment there was a loud boom and, much to their relief, a purely conventional artillery shell detonated in the body of the foremost tripod, knocking it over backwards to lie upon the ground, feebly waving its legs. Nagi looked behind them to the river where, a quarter of a mile away and gaining quickly, a gunboat steamed towards them. One of the tripods strode into the river to combat it, and the brave ironclad boat reached its maximum speed, its guns' shells thudding into the body of the tripod mere moments before it itself rammed one of the legs and carried on, leaving the tripod to fall into the Thames, flailing about itself in a horrid manner, its heat ray causing the water to bubble and boil all about it. The thousands of people on the bridges and in boats on the river cheered and waved as the gunboat came about again, its gun crews calibrating its weapons for another attack. All the tripods in the area immediately rushed down to concentrate their rays upon it, and, with a terrible eruption of force that knocked another tripod into the water, the gunship exploded. A cry of anguish rose up from the crowds on the bridges as they fought and heaved in their renewed panic of flight.
"Not to detract from the terrible pathos of this moment, but -" Mamoru said meaningfully, nodding to where the tripod near them was beginning to raise itself awkwardly back to its feet.
"Fire!" Nagi yelled, his normally calm face transfigured by the joy of shooting off his gun to such public, destructive effect. The bolt of electricity hit its target, causing the tripod to dance and jitter in a most diverting way for several moments before collapsing down to the ground once more.
"Let's hope the others blame the ship for that," Crawford grumbled, clambering out from beneath the gun, the hair visible beneath the bandages all standing on end from the great blast of electricity. "Good God, Schuldig," he said, "do something about your appearance."
"Don't you think I'm trying?" Schuldig snarled, vainly trying to calm his long red hair from the immense halo it formed about his head.
Mamoru's friends ran to the second tripod, levering it open and exclaiming in disgust at what lay within. Aya thrust his katana in, skewering the half-cooked thing that attempted to escape, then stared at the blade in shuddering horror, before pragmatically wiping it upon the clothing of a corpse lying near-by.
"We must go!" Crawford said. "They'll be back to reclaim their machines! We won't be safe till we've fled the country!"
"Is that a vision or cowardice?" Nagi said, stroking his gun lovingly.
"It's a vision! We have to go!"
"Huh," Nagi muttered, "so much for your view that it was imperative to stay in London as it is the centre of all activities, criminal or otherwise."
"To be fair," Farfarello observed, "the Martians did come here. Crawford is perhaps not wrong in his views - suffering from brain fever, but not entirely incorrect."
"Aya! Ken! Yohji!" Mamoru called out, forestalling further exploration of this point. "We're leaving!"
They nodded, Ken sneezing explosively over the Martian's body as the others dragged him away from his fascinated and horrified examination of its horrid corpse. As everyone fled Nagi surreptitiously brought a piece of the alien machinery floating silently to him, then he took Mamoru's hand and ran with the rest of them.
* * *
"How can anyone get any work done in such a provincial and backwards environment as this?" Crawford complained some weeks later.
Nagi cast his eyes to the heaven he so frequently offended by his unholy research. "Crawford, this is Paris," he said. "The capital of France. It's hardly provincial." Ignoring Crawford's continual muttering, he picked up the morning English-language paper and began to read, Mamoru's breath warm on his cheek as he leaned over Nagi's shoulder to peruse the headlines.
"Oh, my," Mamoru said.
"Hmm," Nagi agreed.
"What?" Schuldig said. "Will you keep us in suspense?"
"Read my mind," Nagi said, in tones that indicated he cared not if Schuldig did or not.
"The weather has been fair for days," Schuldig complained. "How is anyone supposed to read minds in such a condition?"
Nagi regarded him with some interest. "Perhaps we can discuss this again during a storm," he said. "I feel sure your abilities could be improved."
Schuldig put his hands protectively on his head. "Just tell me what it says in the paper," he said petulantly, reaching out to grab the paper as it suddenly seemingly gained a mind of its own and flew in his direction. "And do not hold such public intercourse with your financial backer! It's vulgar."
Mamoru ignored him, having crept round to slide into Nagi's lap; Nagi also ignored him, seeming at that moment to find it necessary to indulge Mamoru's whims. "When we get back to London, I'll probably need to rebuild or extend my machine," he said. "You'll have to give me more money."
"Will it be worth my while?" Mamoru asked and then giggled as Nagi's ministrations seemed to convince him it would be.
"Make them stop," Schuldig said to Crawford. "Or distract me, or -" His voice ran down as he read the newspaper. "The Martians are all dead!" he yelled. "Of head-colds!"
"We should thank Ken," Mamoru said cheerfully.
"Nonsense, my electrical cannon carried the ailment in its bolt," Nagi said in complete assurance and sincerity. "With additional funding, I can repeat my success."
"Why not?" Mamoru said. "It's not like Ken can read English anyway, and there's no scientific proof he is the cause of our salvation."
"Let's continue this conversation somewhere Schuldig will not give us helpful tips and comment on our performance," Nagi said, gently pushing Mamoru off his lap and leaping up to leave with him, hand-in-hand.
"I foresee we can return to our London house," Crawford said, happily reading the paper he had snatched from Schuldig.
"Good work," Schuldig said with some sarcasm. "Do you foresee anything else?"
"I foresee that you're about to lock the door," Crawford said.
" . . . why?"
"We are currently alone, and the chaise longue is free."
Schuldig walked sedately and delicately to the door, locking it against all comers. "Perhaps there is something to your visions after all," he said, turning back to Crawford. "Did you foresee this too?"
Crawford smiled in appreciation as Schuldig tore off his cravat and began to unbutton his shirt. Under his clothes he was already wearing the corset.