Collaboration with @Atomic Knight
Intermission
"Limit of the World's Allowance"
Apparently, it was called a school bus, but Ludger had always thought it a bit of a crude way to travel through dimensions. It certainly was not very comfortable and it had no protection from danger. According to Miss Frizzle, the bus had a mind of its own, but Ludger had not spent enough time around it to have understood what she meant. It was just really weird when you thought about it for long.
Rides on Miss Frizzle's "magic school bus" usually never took very long as the woman tended to hop into the new dimension at just about exactly where they needed to be. This time, however, she was taking a longer route, traveling through the skies above Elympios, offering Ludger and his companions a wide view of the plains outside Ludger's home city, Trigleph. The problem lied int he fact that the mission had been put together without any real time to prepare and they did not exactly know where they would end up.
Ludger looked over to the seat across from him, catching the occupant giving him a look he couldn't quite identify. He would have said it looked like she was glaring, if not for the fact she always seemed aloof. Meira was not his friend or anything, but she had notably not left the Coalition Medical Center since the civil war, leaving most to assume the woman had been suffering emotionally ever since the loss of her left arm.
She continued to stare at him as if it was a challenge. Eventually, she cocked her head to the side.
"I said I was getting bored, so you bring me on a mission where we sit in a freakin' school bus all day?" she said, her shoulders sagging. "Give me a break, I thought you knew what those Revan guys were doing around here?"
"Uh, not exactly..." Ludger sighed and leaned back into his seat.
"I just said I was here not long ago on a separate mission. It was actually an anonymous source that clued us in, but with other more pressing matters at hand, Kyoko only wanted to send a small division out here."
"Ahuh..." Meira looked away and leaned toward her window to take a look outside. Ludger realized he didn't really feel comfortable with her here, though he could not say why exactly. She wasn't saying much and was not living up to the quirky reputation she had gained. Maybe it was something in her sad, cold demeanor.
"So it could be a trap, so why bother sending the army out, right? Makes sense. But that other mission of yours, it had to be related."
"Well..." Meira was right, but Ludger didn't want to make too many assumptions.
"It involved saving a member of ours who had been kidnapped by the Revanchist. I tracked them here and one of their men ended up killed. I can't be sure, but I think he had been trying to lure someone else into a fight. Someone who probably shares some sort of significance with Reize Maxia or Elympios..."
There were certainly a few Coalition members who fit the criteria, but Ludger wasn't sure if any of them had been the target.
"I think, if Ms. Kirigiri trusts us enough to have us go on this important mission by ourselves, that must mean she thinks highly of us, right?" The third occupant of the Magic School Bus, young Kenji Miyazawa, said cheerfully, inserting himself into the conversation between Ludger and Meira, even if his two cents might have been a bit on the non-sequitir side, at least in regards to what Ludger had been immediately saying at that moment.
The boy was well known for being quite dim in the head and overly naive, but some may have found that kind of naivety to be refreshing, at least ever since the civil war that proved to be emotionally draining for a great many of the members of the Coalition. Still, if for nothing else, the former farmboy's supernatural strength always had a good amount of usage every now and then, so here he was.
Of course, it would be easy to assume that he was also sent off to get out of Doppo's hair, as the boy happened to be a personal acquaintance of the man from his home world, just like Dr. Yosano (who was probably well acquainted with Meira at this point herself, all things considered).
"Though... I think I forgot," he lamented, his expression quickly shifting to a somewhat downcast one,
"What... was the mission supposed to be about again?"
This was probably going to be a long ride.
Meira let out a snort.
"No, kid, we're just the only chumps available," she said, smacking her seat.
Ludger nodded grimly.
"I'm afraid this mission is just one of a few occurring at this time. Kyoko believed our task to be a lower priority, and let's hope it is, considering our numbers." Ludger turned his head to look out the window, seeing now that they were flying over Trigleph. Soon, they would be flying over the bridge that connected Elympios and Reize Maxia.
"I know this was on short notice," Ludger said, suppressing a sigh,
"but you really should pay attention during the briefing!" He turned back to face Kenji, a bemused look on his face.
"Ever since we learned a terrorist group native to this world has been working with the Revanchist, we've been keeping an eye on them. They used to be Elympios nationalists who hated Reize Maxians, but now they don't seem to care about that at all. I guess once everyone learned that this world was just one of countless others, that became a bit smaller of a concern."
"Okay, so... terrorists are no longer terrorizing." Meira shook her head at this.
"Is that the suspicious part of it all?"
"Not exactly, just..." Ludger crossed his arms.
"We've had reports of interdimensional activity in the area and members of the terrorist group have been seen in locations they don't usually visit. Namely, the nation they hate, Reize Maxia. Ms. Frizzle is trying to pinpoint a specific hub of activity as we speak."
"...Eeh?"
Kenji visibly did not understand much of what Ludger was talking about, between terms native to this world and big words like "nationalists." How scary.
"So these people are still up to no good, but now just doing it in secret? That's no good! We should always be honest and work out our differences!" The simple-minded boy exclaimed naively, seeming to at least have a basic gist of the situation now. Barely.
Energetically hopping over to the front seat where Ms. Frizzle was, the former farmer looked over at her.
"Ms. Frizzzzle! Have you managed to find these bad guys yet? If they're working with the Revan-chris, then we need to find them soon, right?!"
Not minding that Kenji still couldn't get the Revanchist's name quite right, Ms. Frizzle smiled and nodded.
"As a matter of fact, I think I have! I've managed to pinpoint some anomalies around this area here," she said, pointing toward an onboard navigational chart.
"I'll drop you three there once we get there, and we'll see how to proceed with that."
"Wow, so amazing! Hopefully we can have a nice talk about why these people are so mad!"
Swing and a miss.
Little did they all know, however, just how this mission would end.