"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
"NO WAY, LADY! YOU'RE CRAZY!"
When a person is summoned to appear in court and a bail bond agency posts their bail for them, and then that person skips out and doesn't show up for whatever reason, they are labeled as something called an FTA. An FTA is a, "failure to appear," and these so-called, "skips," are reported to the bail bond agency that put up the money to bail them out of prison in the first place. What does all of this mean, you ask?
Well, these skips one way or another expose themselves to the wrath of bond recovery agents. These people are not quite cops, because they're not bound by the rules and regulations that cops are, and more often than not they are very loose cannon and have unconventional methods of capturing FTAs. You may also know these people as something called "bounty hunters."
"SLOW DOWN!"
"HELL NO!"
A bounty hunter's job is to capture FTAs and turn them over to the police. In return, they get paid ten percent of the bond that was posted. So, if a bail bond agency posted a half a million dollar bond for a skip who left town, and the bounty hunter got them back... They were easily looking at a fifty thousand dollar payout just for that one FTA.
And a bounty hunter was exactly who little miss Halle Mitchell was.
"JUST GIVE IT UP ALREADY!"
"UH-UH! THERE AIN'T NO WAY, YOU CRAZY BITCH!"
She was the most insane twenty-six-year-old woman you would ever meet, and she was not necessarily insane in the "good" way. She had some serious anger management issues, a hot temper that usually resulted in violence, and she lacked propriety in every way possible. This woman was not lady-like at all, usually dressing in black leather vests and high heeled biker boots that matched her long, curly black hair. One of her lavender colored eyes were nearly concealed by the curly bangs swept across the side of her face, and her dark hair just made her pale skin stand out that much more.
A black leather, sleeveless, zip-up vest with a popped collar, black jeans she could run in, and punk, platform, four-inch heeled, black leather boots that came up to her knees were the clothes Halle was wearing today. Her hands were covered by fingerless leather gloves, and she wore a pair of black sunglasses over her eyes that made her appear to be even more intimidating. She had one pistol strapped to her right thigh in a holster, a pair of handcuffs looped on her belt, and a switch blade was resting in her pocket just in case. She didn't bother with purses, because it was inconvenient to carry one around when she was chasing down skips.
Which is exactly what she was doing now.
"HEY! WOULD YOU JUST STOP RUNNING ALREADY!?"
"SCREW YOU!"
"Ugh, for the love of..." Halle cursed to herself quietly as she struggled to catch her breath, running after this guy as fast as she could down this back alley.
The FTA she was chasing today was just something she picked up last minute, since she was technically supposed to be off work today. This low-life skipped his court date for a domestic violence charge, and Halle was just waiting for the asshole to give her a reason to punch him square in the face for making his battered and beat up, soon-to-be-ex-wife waste her time just sitting there in a courtroom for an hour where he surely wouldn't show.
The low-life turned a corner, and Halle followed suit. She started to recognize the road she was now chasing this guy down as the one that lead straight to Kunian, her uncle's bar. She was actually supposed to be meeting him there today to introduce her fiancé Makoto Igarashi to her parents, but...
Well, that just wasn't happening.
Meanwhile, down the road inside Kunian...
It was a nice-looking, freshly renovated Japanese-style bar owned by none other than Kunihiko Aikawa, the CEO of , a famous IT company in Japan. He was thirty-five years old, five-foot seven-inches tall, and a former kids baseball coach. He always dressed in casual clothes and a tacky, beige fedora, and he had long, curly black hair that reached his shoulders. Overall, he had a very "surfer dude" sort of look to him; you would never expect him to be a fancy CEO of an IT company like . Being the owner of Kunian the sports bar suited him much more.
Five guys sat at the bar's counter, watching the newest Long Island's baseball game on the TV overhead. Among them were a selfish, but caring physical science college professor, a silly comedian, a sexy, yet dominant screenwriter, a devoted lawyer who was the older-brother type, and a calm and collected researcher.
The selfish, but caring physical science college professor was named Yamato Kougami. He was twenty six, and was the tallest of the guys, standing at a height of five feet and ten inches tall. His spiky, short red hair and cold, brusque personality and mannerisms caught the attention of several women over the years, whose affections were often never returned. It's not like Yamato was a misanthrope and hated people or anything, he just thought that a majority of the people around him were idiots.
The silly comedian? He was known as Yuta Kajima, part of a comedy duo called Fukumimi. He was twenty six, five-foot six-inches tall, and he had the curliest, short, light brown hair you would ever lay eyes on. You would never be bored having a conversation with this guy, given that he would always be cracking jokes left and right.
Takamasa Saeki was the unforgettable, sexy and dominant screenwriter. The handsome, twenty-seven-year-old man with short black hair who stood at a height of five feet and eight inches could dazzle and win the heart of any woman he smiled at. He was quite the player, and a bit of a flirt, but most women found that side of him to be charming. Most.
A devoted lawyer named Takao Maruyama who acted as an older brother to almost everyone he knew sat at the bar too. Five-foot nine-inches tall and twenty-seven years old, this big puppy for a guy was one of the sweetest people you would ever have the pleasure of meeting. He was your classic likable, nice guy that everyone got along with easily, although once you really got to know him, you would learn that he was also the type to set his sights on something and never let it go. He was devoted, determined, and never gave up on people.
And lastly, we had the calm, quiet, Ren Shibasaki, who was the researcher tuning out the loud chatter from the rest of the bunch. He was twenty five, five-foot eight-inches tall, and he was obviously not from Japan. He had short blonde hair, and he had this faraway, distant look in his eyes that made him seem unfriendly, when in reality he was just a man of few words who took a while to warm up to you.
The five of them were an odd bunch that you wouldn't assume to be associated with one another, but on the contrary, they were all childhood friends. That had met each other on the little league baseball team they joined coached by Kunihiko, and they had all stayed friends ever since. They also kept in touch with Kunihiko over the years as they grew older, and all six of them still regularly played on an adult baseball team together present day. Kunian, Kunihiko's beloved sports bar, was a cherished hang out spot for the guys, and they often drank beer and watched baseball games on TV as they caught up with each other.
However, that lovely hang out session today would soon be interrupted by a rather...er, catastrophic, grandiose scene caused by none other than Halle Mitchell.
The calm atmosphere inside of Kunian was suddenly disrupted by the bar's doors being slammed open with great force by a rather shifty-looking man, who kept glancing over his shoulder in a paranoid manner as he ran into the bar. The five guys, plus Kunihiko and the bar's manager, all stared at him in alarm as this strange man entered the rather empty bar in such an alarming way.
The shifty guy bolted across the bar with great speed, knocking over a couple of tables and chairs as he did so. It all happened so fast, and the guys could do nothing but watch as he made a b-line for the back door to the bar. But, before he could escape, he was suddenly clothes-lined by someone sticking out their arm and catching him right in the neck, resulting in knocking the guy on his back onto the floor. Hard.
"Oof!" The shifty guy cried out as his back slammed against the hardwood floor, and he squinted his eyes as he looked up at the fluorescent lighting above him.
"Going somewhere?" Halle stepped out from the darkness of the back door's doorframe, retracting her arm back to her side. She casually leaned up against the wall as she continued talking with the police operator on the phone she had called just a moment ago, nonchalantly looking down at the shifty guy on the floor, who was squirming under her gaze. "Dispatch please? It's Mitchell. I've got an FTA here, and I'm requesting a transfer of custody."
"Wh-wha..." The shifty guy stared up at Halle in complete horror, the terrifying-looking biker chick dressed in all black leather. "Y-you crazy bitch!"
Halle stared down at him, completely bored and disinterested as she hung up the phone. "Crazy bitch...? Yeah, I'm pretty sure you called me that already. Geez, you really need some new material..." Her sarcasm naturally rolled off her tongue as she bitterly glared down at him.
Kunihiko slapped his forehead and slowly dragged his hand down his face. "Geez, Halle... I haven't seen you in four months, and this is how you come and say hello?"
Halle's dark and terrifying demeanor completely shattered as she batted her eyelashes to her uncle with a bashful smile stretched across her face. "Sorry! I got a little caught up chasing after this low-life."
The five guys all just darted their eyes back and forth between Halle and Kunihiko, immensely confused as to what the heck was going on. Who the hell was she, and how did she know Kunihiko? They seemed pretty familiar with each other, and they found that to be strange, since Kunihiko never mentioned or introduced her to them.
Kunihiko just sighed sharply as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, just... Try not to wreck the whole bar? Please?"
Halle snorted derisively, throwing her head back a little as she redirected her glower back to the shifty guy who had scrambled up to his feet at this point. "I'll try. This'll all be over in a minute, anyways."
"Wh-what!?" The shifty guy stared at Halle in terror, shaking a little as he backed away from her. "G-get the hell away from me!"
"Sorry, can't do that." Halle pulled the cuffs from her belt and balanced them on one finger, teasingly swinging them back and forth. "You're coming with me. You skipped out on your court date."
"Hell no! As if I'd be taken down by a chick like you!" The shifty guy suddenly pulled a switch blade from his pocket, and he began swinging it around crazily.
The five guys all became alert now that this man was swinging a knife around, and aiming it at this woman named Halle that Kunihiko apparently knew. Takao and Yamato instantly jumped up and got ready to intervene, but Halle stopped them by extending her hand out towards them.
"Don't try to be a hero." She warned them with a little smirk on her face, not even looking at them as she held out her hand to stop them.
"Guys, get back here." Kunihiko grabbed both of their arms, pulling them back into sitting positions in their bar stools. "Don't worry. She's a pro; she knows what she's doing."
"Drop the knife, you scumbag." Halle chuckled darkly, slowly and menacingly taking a daring step closer to him. "Trust me, you really don't want to piss me off today, of all days." She rested her hand on her right leg where her pistol was, raising as eyebrow at the shifty guy as she waited for him to do something. "Don't make me use this."
"D-don't come any closer!" He jabbed the knife in her direction, making his threat that more serious as he nervously looked back and forth between her gun and her lavender eyes. "I will use this, lady!"
"Oh, I have no doubt that you will." Halle suddenly stopped in her tracks, confidently showering him with her malevolent glare. "It's just a matter of whether or not I can get it out of your hands first."
"Wha..." The shifty guy tried to say something in response to that, but Halle was too quick, and he froze mid-sentence.
Halle lunged forward and grabbed onto the hand that held the knife, suddenly falling forwards with the man in her grasp. She smirked evilly the whole time that she twisted the knife from his hands, and as she stopped their fall by planting her feet on the wooden flooring, the man pushed his knife towards her, gently grazing her arm with the blade. Halle winced as she finally pulled the knife from his grip, and she immediately slapped her other hand over the cut on her left shoulder. Halle delivered one swift kick to the shifty guy's abdomen, sending him flying backwards into one of the bar's tables.
As he crashed to the floor, Halle pulled her hand back from her bleeding wound and clicked her tongue derisively at the sight of it. "Aw, man... So much for getting out of this unscathed." She bitterly sighed to herself, and she power walked over to where the man lied collapsed in a pile of broken pieces of wood that was once a table. "You know, I really hate wife beaters like you." She suddenly grabbed at his shirt collar and lifted him up from the rubble, and she thrust him back into the counter just a foot away from where the crowd of guys stood. She crossed over to him and slapped the cuffs on his wrists that she held tightly behind his back, and she slammed his face down hard onto the bar's countertop. "You think you have all of this power, and that just suddenly gives you the right to smack your wife around as you please. So, I have to ask, how does it feel to have that 'power' taken away by a woman?" She lowered her face to smirk evilly at him, scaring the guy even more.
"Augh!" The shifty man spit up a little blood as he winced from having his face suddenly slammed onto a wooden counter. "You bitch! This is police brutality!"
"Police brutality? Hah!" Halle just laughed sardonically, adjusting the cuffs around his wrists to be painfully tight. "You see, that doesn't apply to me, seeing as though I'm not a cop."
"...whoa." Yuta, the comedian, stared at the young woman who was arresting the shifty guy just a foot away from him in shock.
Saeki seemed quite impressed by her ass-kicking skills, feeling rather inspired by them, actually. "I should make this into a screenplay..."
Yamato and Takao just exchanged glances with each other, not knowing how to properly respond to what they just witnessed, and Ren just stared at Halle in bewilderment, silent as usual.
Suddenly, a slow clap filled the quiet bar, and Halle looked up to see Kunihiko smiling at her. "Nice job, kiddo! You alright?" He worriedly glanced at the bleeding cut on her arm, biting his lip nervously.
Halle just sighed sharply as her expression faltered. "It just hurts as much as I am annoyed..." She looked over at the manager, the calm, forever quiet and serious guy who actually ran the bar and made sure Kunihiko, in all his recklessness, didn't run it into the ground. "Hey, Mr. Manager. Toss me an apple?" The manager simply nodded his head and tossed one of the apples from the basket resting on the counter to Halle, who caught it easily in one of her hands. She instantly shoved it into the shifty guy's mouth with great force, smirking all the way. "There. Now hopefully you will shut up. I was really starting to get sick of listening to you talk."
"Mmf MMPH!" The shifty guy verbally protested, trying to twist himself from Halle's vice grip.
Kunihiko just cracked up laughing, not at all surprised by Halle's bitter bedside manner. "Geez, don't you think you were a little rough with this one?"
Halle darted her gaze back and forth between the shifty guy and Kunihiko before she suddenly just shook her head no. "Nah. This one really pissed me off; he's lucky I didn't do worse."
The shifty guy's eyes widened in terror as he tried to imagine what this crazy woman could possibly consider to be "worse."
Moments later, a very exhausted detective all too familiar to Halle came rushing into the bar, very out of breath. He took one look at Halle and the shifty guy she had in custody and just sighed. "Mitchell..."
"Hey, Patrick!" Halle greeted Detective Patrick Burke with a giant smile on her face, and she waved to him casually.
He just narrowed his eyes at the energetic young woman and shook his head, obviously holding no sense of respect for those in her occupation. "I didn't realize you were the one who called in the FTA..."
"Pfft." Halle scoffed a little at the grumpy look on the tall and lanky brunette's face. "What, aren't you glad to see me?"
Patrick just glared at the woman with curly black hair as he deadpanned, "no," and promptly jerked the shifty guy from her grasp. "...And I'll take him off your hands."
"Thanks, Pat!" Halle winked at him and gave him a little salute, purposely trying to piss him off, and succeeding.
A vein bulged from his forehead as he instantly turned to leave. "You'll get your cut of the bond by the end of the week."
Halle just laughed heartily as she watched the grumpy detective leave the bar. "Always nice seeing you again!"
The manager just shook his head at Halle's silly behavior, and he silently called her attention by patting a spot on the counter with his hand, ushering her to sit down. As Halle instantly complied and sat up on the counter in the middle of the group of guys, the manager brought out a first aid kit and began to tend to her wound.
Halle found herself sitting in the middle of the group of bewildered-looking men she had yet to meet, and she glanced at them all sheepishly. "Uh...hi!"
Kunihiko laughed a little and shook his head, and he came up behind Halle at the bar and clapped her roughly on the shoulder. "Guys, I'd like you to meet Halle Mitchell."
Yuta was at a loss for a response as his expression slowly cracked into a broad grin. He would be lying if he said he didn't find this all amusing. "What... What just happened?"
Halle chucked a little as she began to explain. "Oh, sorry about that. That was me apprehending the most recent skip that I was chasing." She suddenly paused, holding out her hand for him to shake. "It's nice to meet all of you! I'm Halle Mitchell, and I'm a bond recovery agent."
"...a what?" Yamato drew his head back in shock, staring at the weird girl strangely.
Kunihiko just rolled his eyes. "She's a bounty hunter, guys."
"Ohhhhh..." All of the guys seemed to exhale the same thought aloud as they looked at her.
Halle smirked wryly at Kunihiko. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
Hello, and welcome to my newest Voltage Inc fanfiction: My Forged Wedding! I've also had this in my drafts for awhile, and until recently I've had writer's block for how I wanted to start this XD unlike my other Voltage Inc stories, this one will be mainly based off of Takao's route in the free version, which will make this a little harder for me to do XD no worries, it'll just take me longer to update and figure out how the heck I'm going to change the original story to fit my bat-shit crazy MC. Yeah, I definitely have to break up the prologue/intro into probably four or five chapters XD it's too long! This isn't even HALF of it, but I had to stop right here, since we're nearing like...4000 words XD
So, in this story, my MC Halle Mitchell is an insane bounty hunter XD... Come on, don't tell me you don't love her already. She's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself! In the original free version, your fiancé DOES dump you last-minute and you're left at Kunian waiting to meet your parents and have to somehow explain to them that you just got dumped, and the MC is this sad little girl who quit her job and was currently moving out of her apartment, so she had nowhere to live. Yeah, I changed that a little bit. I don't like when Voltage's MCs are these boring Mary Sues who get walked all over by everyone XD my story will be a little...er, different.
I promise you guys, you will never be bored with this story, and you're going to love it XD XD XD a crazy bounty hunter paired up with the nice-guy lawyer Takao? Trust me. You guys will love this XD...
Disclaimer: I do not own My Forged Wedding, or its characters.
Claimer: I own my MC Halle and any changes in the plot.
Read, review, and enjoy!