Red Meteor Quest Part 17

You awaken on the soft bed of the guest room in Jane's house. Really, you're not too sure you're comfortable with beds at all, you've been sleeping on the couch at Sadie's house for way too long. You push that thought out of your mind as you get up and to your feet. You're still quite groggy since you got very little sleep, all throughout the night Jane would scream from nightmares, and it got so bad that her mother had decided to take off work to help care for her.

As for her dad, as much as he wanted to do the same, he still had to go to work, even if he didn't like it especially in these most trying times. While Sadie had made up a convincing lie about Jane's trauma, but you couldn't help but think about the real reason as to what caused her fear.

The Purple Armor...it was similiar to yours, yet the power it exherted seemed far more wild and untamed. You'd have to make sure that you and your team were extra careful when you inevitably go up against it. Pushing that thought away from your mind, you decide to head over to Jane's room. A light knock on the door is hopefully enough to get her to wake up. You peek into the room, she hasn't stirred yet.

"Hey Jane." You say walking up to her and lightly shaking her shoulder

"Mmmmpfh" She mumbles slowly waking up, she looks around for a moment before sighing relief.

"Don't worry, we're still at your place. Are you okay?"

She merely nods in response. Looks like she hasn't really gotten the will to speak back yet.

"You want something to eat?"

She shakes her head

"You sure? You gotta eat something."

She stops from a moment and then nods her head again.

"Good, let's head downstairs then."
You and Jane proceed to the kitchen where her mother has already began cooking it seems.

"Ah there you are Jane, I hope you and your friend are hungry, I've made you some food if  that's okay."

Jane nods again in affirmation

"Thanks Mrs. Ackerman, I appreciate it." You say sitting down

You are Red Meteor and today...you think Jane could use a friend.

"So Red, how do you know Jane, she always talks about you." Her mother asks

>We just happened to meet one day
>I'm her boyfriend
>Other/Write-in

>We just happened to meet one day

"We just happened to meet one day, and really hit it off I guess." You say with a chuckle.

"I see, oh yes, I forgot to properly introduce myself. I'm Juliet Ackerman, Jane's mother...well you knew that tidbit already. I'm glad you're here to help her cope, though I was expecting Saya to do that."

"She was a bit busy, but she was concerned too." You reply as Juliet sits some pancakes down in front of you.

"I see. Well,it's always good to see a man care about a girl like you do."

You can't help but chuckle at that, rubbing your head as you do "T-thanks, I appreciate the compliment."

"I mean, if you're going to date my little girl I'd like for her to at least pick a guy who is actually decent."

Jane immedietly slams her hands on the table "M...mom!" she squeaks out quietly while blushing

"How'd you know...?" You ask wearily

"Two reasons." Juliet replies taking a swig of her coffee "One: She kept calling out for you last night while sleeping."

Jane blushes more at this

"And two: That reaction right there sealed the deal."

Jane blushes deeper at this.

"Don't worry, I'm not my husband, the fact you looked so distraught as you brought her here was enough to convince me. I'll deal with Harvey later...but for now  I should probably tidy up the house sense I'm home."

>Actually I can do that(1d100+10)
>Your mom is pretty cool Jane
>Go back to your food
>Other/Write-in

>Actually I can do that(99+109)

"Actually I can do that for you." You say setting your fork down

"Nonsense, I can't have you doing the cleaning when you're a guest here."

"Don't you worry." You say wolfing down your food in one huge bite (Which surprises both Jane and Juliet) "I've got this handled."

Before Juliet can protest any further, you get up and head over to the dishes. They've piled up a bit, but that isn't anything you can't handle. You heat up the water discreetly so that Juliet won't catch on and clean the dishes expertly, the forks and spoons sparkle and shine as you give them a good once over. Whatever grime would be on the pots are completely gone and they sparkle like new.

Once the dishes are done, you head into the living room and begin vacuuming the floor, making sure you get in all those tough to reach places. You wipe down the coffee table, dust the tv off, and even alphabetize the DVDs that are sitting on the entertainment system. With that done, you start to ascend the stairs

"Where are you going...?" Juliet asks

"To clean Jane's room!" you answer "Her room especially could use some touching up."

The next hour is you cleaning up Jane's room. You gather her dirty clothing and toss it in the hamper, you wipe down her tv, dust her computer, and make sure her instruments sparkle. You even go the extra mile and change her bed sheets, which once they're done, you apply some new ones and make sure the bed is properly made.

When all is said and done, Juilet and Jane are in awe at how spotless everything is.

"I don't think I've ever seen your room this clean before Juliet mutters

Jane just nods in agreement, as both their mouths hang open.

"Jane, you better keep this one." Her mom winks

Again, her daughter merely blushes

>See? Easy
>I'll never understand what's so amazing about cleaning
>I hope your husband doesn't mind.
>Other/Write-in

>I hope your husband doesn't mind.

"I hope he does mind, so then he'll finally see fit to try and clean the house himself." Juliet sighs "Still, maybe I should invest in a live in maid myself...? Do you have any friends who'd be willing?"

"Well uh, actually I don't sadly. I'm not affiliated with a company or anything like that."

"Really...? But you sure do dress like a businessman."

"That was thanks to Sadie and a few our friends."

"Interesting choice of clothing, but I won't pry. I'll just leave you two lovebirds alone."

Juliet exits the room, leaving you and Jane by yourselves for the time being. The college girl sitting on her bed and sighing.

"So then, you feelin' a bit better?" You ask


She gives a small nod, before turning on her TV. Some random show is playing, but you can tell that Jane isn't all that interested in it really, probably just having it on for the sake of some noise to fill the room.

She still seems a bit tense all things considered...

>Pat her head
>have her sit in your lap
>Maybe we should go hang out with Saya?
>Kiss...?
>Other/Write-in

>Pat her head
>have her sit in your lap

Poor thing, she really is shaken up still. You silently lift her up which causes her to make a little squeak before sitting her down on your lap. The young woman eventually gets comfortable and continues watching TV as you begin patting her head, which you notice puts a small smile on her face.

She leans back into your chest and nuzzles against your chin. She's really quite the cute little thing when she wants to be. You immediately rescind this statement though as you feel her wiggle her butt to try and get a rise out of you.

"Hey now, no doing that." You say calmly

She shoots you  a little wink while sticking her tongue out.

"Well you're getting better at least." you say playfully poking at her forehead. It's then that your communicator goes off.

"Hey Red, is Jane there with you?" You hear Sally's voice from the other end

"Yes, we're right here. What's wrong?"

"Downtown, central park area, Koffman let more of his little experiments run loose. Think the two of you can get there? Saya and Sadie are en route already.

"I can, but I don't know about Jane..."

"Oh yeah...right."

Jane tugs at your arm, eyes telling you all you need to know. She seems to want to go...but is that really a good thing?

>Tell Jane to stay behind
>Bring her along with you

>Bring her along with you

Well, she really wants to come, you can't find it in your heart to say no, so you and Jane head downstairs and outside, telling her mother you're both heading to the park for a walk. She waves to you as you both leave, the second the two of you are both outside you move a little bit away so that you can transform safely without anyone seeing you.

"Red Meteor, Realize!" You call out, becoming covered in your armor

"O-Orange...Sun. Realize!" Jane manages to say  and with that the two of you are off.

While Jane flies, you continue leaping from building to building until you're at the specified location (Somehow Sally was able to get a map function into your HUD too). You land in front of several of the monsters, people running away as the things snarl and gnash their teeth at any passerby. You're eventually joined by Black,Crimson and Blue as well.

"Well, this seems standard enough." Crimson mutters "Hey...Orange, you holding up okay?"

Jane nods to her friend as the others assume battle positions.

"There aren't too many of them." Blue states "Let's finish this up quickly okay?"

"Right!" Everyone says in unison.

>1d100+15 for each character

>81,76,83,106,86

The battle gets under way, with the you going to intercept one of the blade-armed monsters. There's a couple of those rock like ones, and you can't hurt them as bad as Blue can. So you go for the ones you can.

Coating your saber in flames you slice at your enemy, causing it to fall back from the pain of having its flesh burned.

Sadie meanwhile traps one of the rock monsters in a bubble of water, the things howls becoming and more gurgled and tried to break free.

Jane however is up against a new type...this one seems like a type of beetle,although it's upright on two legs, with two jagged horns. It goes to grab Jane, but she easily phases through it and lets her Ghost bit fire off some lasers at it before kicking it away.

It flies into towards Saya, the monsters she and Sanja were fighting were both knocked away fast enough for the two of them to both slam it into the ground the monster screeching in pain before Saya slammed one of her taiko drums on the ground, making a small piece of earth shoot through its head.

"Huh, that new one wasn't so tough." Sanja said looking at it as it dissolved into a weird goop."

"Don't get distracted!" You yell as the monster you're fighting forces you back.

Well...one down at least.

>1d100+15 again

>100,110,85,79,81

The fight continues on with you and your allies cleaning house pretty easily. You kill the monster you were fighting with ease, and the others were doing just as well. Sadie had trapped another monster in a bubble, and Saya came up smashed it, making it become mush due to it being submerged for so long.

Jane and Sanja were able to take out most of their adversaries too, and before long the small group of enemies are easily taken care off.

"Huh, that was no sweat at all." Sadie said regrouping with you and the others

"Yeah I was expecting a bit more of a challenge, especially from that new one." Saya said with a chuckle

"Well, let's just be happy we didn't run into anything bad then." You say with a sigh "The last thing we want is something like that purple armored guy showing up.

"You Rang?" came a voice.

You all turn around and see someone in silver armor standing before you all

"Who are you...?" Sanja asks taking a defensive stance?

"Me...? Well I suppose I'll answer that question in due time. I'm here mostly for a check up."

"...Checkup?" You repeat

"Yeah, see how you all are doing, make sure you're up to snuff and all that."

"Who are you...?" Sadie asks

"Now I'd tell you, but that's not all that important for now. In due time you'll find out. For now...try not to go down too quickly alright?"

He assumes a stance...and instantly you feel full of dread for some reason. Who is this guy?

>1d100+15 for each character

>93,99,63,95,54

You all are tense, but you can't keep up the stare down for long and so you move in to attack him first! You  go in for a stab with your saber, but he mystery warrior easily dodges your attack and smacks your wrist hard enough to force you to drop your weapon before he kicks you hard in the gut, sending you rocketing to a tree

"Red!" Sadie calls out "Form-"

"Too slow." The man states before grabbing Sadie by the neck and throwing her on to you.

Jane attempts to use her ghost bit to keep him at bay, but he easily dodges the shots if not outright deflecting them with his hand. He gets close to her and decks her right in the face, Jane being lifted up off the ground, where he quickly follows up with a set of extremely fast jabs to her abdomen before she falls the ground knocked out.

"Orange!" Crimson screams as she dashes into the battle, attempting to attack him with her taiko drums. The warrior dodges easily, not breaking a sweat at all.  She slams it on the ground  summoning several rocks to hit at him baseball style...which he breaks without delay, before kicking the last one at Saya and pushing her back.

"Got you!" Sanja said having ducked into the shadows during the whole encounter and attempts to drag him down to the shadows. he actually struggles a bit as he's pulled down into it the darkness engulfing him.

All is quiet for a few minutes before he pops back out and with Sanja on his shoulder, her knocked out.

"That was actually a clever move on her part. Still, not enough though."

He takes a step forward before his foot is encased in ice. You and Sadie charge at  him again, the two of you trying your best to land hits on him, but even with a frozen foot, he still outs speeds you. The two of you go to hit him, but he dodges, making you hit each other instead!

"Again. Not bad, is that all though?"

>Orange Sun is down
>Black Asteroid is down!

>Roll 1d100+15 for the remaining characters

>96,71,111

The three of you are still able to go. You recall your weapon to your side, this time pouring more power into it. You subtly look to Sadie and Saya and the two nod. You move in, pushing yourself to the limit.

"Won't work!" The warrior exclaims going to block, however you slide under his legs, which causes him to  look down. Perfect. He wasn't aware and this left him wide open for Crimson to come in and get a clean hit on his face, which makes him twirl into the air.

"Take that ya silvery shitbag!" Saya yells  at him

"My turn!" Sadie exclaims opening fire with her gun as she opens fire on the warrior, he takes the shot letting off grunts as he does, Sadie follows up then by making a shard of ice out of the air and hurling it at him. But this is where things go wrong.

He grabs it right before he gets hit and using the force of him being juggled in the air he throws at Sadie, the shard crashing against her and causing sparks to fly out.

"D-dammit,she mutters getting back to her feet."

"You know...that's enough for now." The silver warrior mutters wiping some dirt off his shoulder.

"You guys are...passable. Not amazing...but passable. You all haven't tapped into the true strength yet. Well I suppose things wouldn't be too fun if  you did that so soon. I'll be taking my leave."

"Wait!" you call out, running after him, but in a flash of light he's...gone.

"Who the hell was that Red?!" Saya asks gripping your shoulders in anger

>I don't know
>Calm down Saya!
>Let's get the others somewhere safe first
>Other/Write-in

>I don't know
>Let's get the others somewhere safe first

"I...I don't know Saya, look we need to get the others somewhere safe first."

"Grrrr, fine." she growls in frustration

And so you and your friends all head to Sally's place, your tail between your legs as you lick your wounds from that utterly crushing defeat. Once there you set Sanja and Jane down on some beds before reconvening with Sally in her room.

"Man, what the hell...who was that guy?!" Saya growls

"Yeah, he was way stronger than any of us, even combined we couldn't take him down." Sadie sighed

"Well...this doesn't do too well for morale." Sally adds in as she sighs as well.

"It really doesn't, now we've got two people to worry about. That purple guy and now this silver one as well. Maybe he's related to Koffman?"

"No..." Sally states "He was far too calm, human almost. The thing  Koffman has is more like a raging beast. I doubt Koffman would create another one of those things and then get it under control like that."

As you all wallowed in your defeat, you couldn't help but think on that warrior. The more you thought about him, the more it felt like you knew him from somewhere.

"Something wrong Red?" Sadie asks

"No...it's just I *think* I know that guy

"You do?!" The three ladies shout in unison

"I...I'm not sure, I feel like it's on the tip of my tongue..."

"Try to remember!" Saya pleads

You try, but nothing comes to mind, and you just sigh.

"Dammit." Saya mutters

>Sorry...
>I'm gonna go check up on the girls
>We should all head home, try and calm our nerves.
>Other/Write-in

>Sorry...
>I'm gonna go check up on the girls

"Sorry..." You say as sincerely as possible

"It's fine...I'm just pissed is all." Saya sighs

"I'll go check up on Jane and Sanja, they took the worst hits out of all of us."

"Alright, but don't take too long." Sadie said seeing you off

You exit the room letting off another deep sigh. Were you really strong enough to protect your friends? You don't think you've ever seen them take a beating this hard before.

You?

Yeah you've been beat before, but this was big blow to the morale of everyone involved. You  go inside the spare bedroom that Jane and Sanja are in and look at the two of them. They're alive and well, Sally made sure of that.

You felt terrible about what happened, especially since Jane was already going through some rough stuff already. The only real upside here is that the poor girl isn't screaming mid-sleep again.

As for Sanja she seems rather peaceful, and there's even a slight snore as she does. It's kinda cute actually.

>Sit next to Jane
>Sit next to Sanja

>Sit next to Sanja

You decide to sit next to Sanja and pat her head a little. You really enjoy doing this for some reason. Maybe you should try it on Saya or Sadie next? Still, you can't help but sigh

"I'm sorry Sanja." You mutter "I didn't want you or Jane getting hurt.

The woman makes a cute little noise while sleeping

"I'll get stronger, I won't make the same mistake like before. I promise." You whisper.

You're caught off guard as you suddenly begin to fall into darkness, a soft hand holding you closely as you try to make sense of your surroundings, you can't really see anything at all

"If you're so sorry...then I know just the way for you to make it up to me~" Sanja coos

"U-um...Sanja, I don't think-"

"Shhhh" she whispers as she begins assaulting your mouth

You don't know why, but you suddenly don't feel too bad about Sanja anymore

To Be Continued on Red Meteor Quest Part 18