Eureka Seven; Fusion.
                                             Chapter 10; Reparations.


  America walked outside into the bright sunlight. She allowed her eyes time to adjust and looked to her peers in the backyard. They were doing what typical seventeen year olds would do; In fact, if one would never have known their history, one would never have thought them to be anything but typical seventeen year olds.
  A light touch on the shoulder to Asia put events in motion that would reveal them to be anything but.
  America felt her ‘sisters’ weren’t as dedicated to the task at hand as she was. Frustrated, she was less than gentle in gaining the attention of Europe.
  “Ow! Do you have to be so rough?!” She exclaimed, wincing. America turned to her;
  “We have no time for this. Right now we have only the task at hand, Dewey left this to us.” She said.
  At the mere mention of Dewey’s name they all softened.
  India remembered what life was like living in the refugee camps before he saved them. Living? More like surviving. Where they had no shelter at all, and did whatever they had to just to gain some small morsel of food. It got to be that no one considered the acts to be anything other that normal life, payment for services rendered. Indeed; some of the very people in this town were the same ones responsible for using them.
  The girls entered the clubhouse in the corner of the yard. America removed a small box from the dirt floor in the corner and opened it.
  “I heard the captain talking to Holland Novack, the one responsible for the murder of our benefactor. It seems there is an uproar over a third blip on the compact drive screen.
   It’s bad enough that Eureka is still alive, but there is no place in this world for another Coralian.” She said. The others nodded agreement.
  “We make our moves tonight, any emotion you may feel towards captain Michael Jurgens, or Maria Schneider, let it be rage, hate, and murderous intent! Let us not forget whom it was who brought us here in the first place. Who brought Holland to kill his own brother! Are we agreed?” She demanded.
  The girls looked at one another, weighing this evening’s plan against the lives they now lived. They cried out in unison; “YES!”

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  They sat down as a family for dinner, with all the girls pitching in serving the dinner Maria prepared as she and Michael sat at the dining table. Once everything was set, they said Grace, and started the meal.
  Asia, America and Europe chatted up the adults, taking their attention. As Afrika and India served everyone, no one noticed them pour liquid from a vial onto the plates given to Michael and Maria.
  They finished the meal as the girls and Maria cleaned up the table. Michael sat on the back porch and enjoyed his after dinner cigarette.
  There was an edge tonight, he noticed. The girls were hyped up about something, though it was subtle. Could it have something to do with the discovery? He didn’t figure the girls would care. Maybe HE was on edge and they were just picking up on it.
  He stood and walked into the house, feeling woozy. Maybe he was just tired. He poured himself and Maria some wine and sat in the living room feeling very tired.
  Shortly, Maria plopped down beside him as he silently handed her the wine glass.
  “I am so very exhausted. Are you tired?” She asked. Michael nodded.
He felt lightheaded and dizzy, not sure of whether it was the wine, or the fatigue. Frankly, he wasn’t really sure of anything at the moment.
  America observed the adults until she was sure the sedative had taken hold. She signaled Afrika with a nod as she headed upstairs.
  Afrika took the other girls outside into the clubhouse. There, buried in a shallow grave were five rifles as well as ammunition and some grenades.
  America went into the Jurgens’ bedroom and rifled in the closet until she found what she was hunting; Michael’s service pistol.
  She ran down the stairs, joining the rest of the squad.
  Walking into the living room, they noticed Maria was out, in a deep sleep bordering on a coma. Europe took the rifles and the family’s car keys from the hook and went out side.
America wasted no time; she raised the revolver at Maria and squeezed the trigger. The room was set ablaze in an explosion of sound and smoke. The gunpowder burned America’s nostrils as Maria’s body jerked. She aimed at her chest and fired again.
  Michael was ripped from his drug intensified sleep by the first gunshot. By the second, he was wide awake.
  “Why?! After all we’ve done for all of you. Why would you kill us? We’ve sacrificed our lives to give you better ones!” He cried.
  “Because you are responsible for killing the father of our land. We killed Maria in her sleep, you must be punished.” Said America, raising the pistol.
  She fired into his trunk, the bullet tearing through his intestines, stomach and severing his spinal cord.
  Michael gasped as he felt the red hot poker of lead and copper burn through him. Tears welled from his eyes as he forced himself to look at his killer.
  “This is your sentence; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” America aimed the pistol at his head and fired.
  As they drove from the house, the car was bloated with jubilant cheering. Europe was driving, Asia was beside her, America, Afrika, and India occupied the rear seat. America was still, and no one noticed India crying silently.
  “We should not cheer for the deaths of those people; they were good, decent people” Said America.
  “Well, why did we kill them if they were so good?” Demanded Asia.
  “They were the enemy, the stood against what we believe to be right. They had to be punished for their crimes.” America said.
  As they drove on, no one spoke for the rest of the night.