A/N: So... How-Not-To-Do-Something gave me permission to do my own take of his series of stories (Lost In Transition, In A Faraway Land, and The Coming Dawn) quite a while ago, but I was so wrapped up in my own trilogy story, the Darkwood series, that I didn't really have much for this to be devoted to writing... But not anymore. Here, I present to you... MY version of his series. Long overdue, yes, but it's here, so as usual:
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters portrayed in this story, it was made by a fan for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement was intended.
Empty.
All around her was empty... Lonely, cold expanses of uneven floating plains, their flat surfaces all adorned by black and white squares in the same checkerboard design.
Her sapphire blue eyes idly scanned the dreary landscape from her relaxed perch atop the landscape's only actual landmark, a dilapidated black metal cannon surrounded by scraps and debris of itself, standing solemnly atop it's own floating plain among the rest.
This destroyed cannon was what could be called her home. She slept under the frame, and like she always did, stood watch atop the barrel. Her name...
Black Rock Shooter.
Now, like any other day spent watching... She was sitting completely immobile. Only her eyes moved. There was no wind, so her hair didn't even flutter. All was still...
Until a wind started to rise, causing her hair to sway, moving very little at first, but growing more and more strongly until she turned her gaze to a growing anomaly at the base of her cannon home.
A black orb, the surface solid and glossy, was slowly expanding by the second, clearly the source of the wind. She slowly rose from her seat atop the cannon and lightly hopped straight down to the ground, landing with barely a sound and a small bit of dust, her hair cascading back to her shoulders as the wind suddenly died down and the black orb expanded suddenly and halted all further growth.
Slowly, almost warily, she extended one hand to touch the surface of the oddly familiar orb, but the moment she so much as caressed the surface, she was forcefully dragged through by a extremely powerful pull.
Koko Heckmatyar was a renowned light sleeper, even the daily traffic on the streets could rouse her from slumber. So, on this particular morning in Brussels, as she awoke of her own accord, she was confused by the presence of Lehm, Valmet and Tojo outside her bathroom door.
"What's the matter with you three?" Koko asked with a slightly narrowed gaze.
"You tell her." Valmet's one eyed was glaring at Lehm who had his perpetual cigarette clamped between his lips.
"Well shit..." Lehm sighed for a moment. "Jonah found something... weird in the bathroom earlier, he was checking it out and he hasn't made a sound for what, fifteen minutes now?"
"Define 'weird', Lehm." Koko wasn't impressed, and her instincts about her youngest companion's health were kicking in. "Move aside, Jonah? Jonah! You in there?" Koko was about to reach for the doorknob when a dull clatter of movement came from within, and the door was opened from the other side...
By Jonah himself. Staring at Koko in his usual solemn way, but he wasn't alone. Behind him was a floating black orb, about four feet off the ground, with a glassy smooth surface, and the orb itself was about twelve inches in diameter.
"Jonah... What is that?"
"No idea." Jonah, the infamous man-of-few-words he was, replied in his usual flat, unconcerned tone. "I touched it, nothing happened."
"Nothing at all?" Koko's blue eyes flicked over to the mysterious sphere, completely stationary in the middle of the bathroom. It was like it was absorbing all the surrounding light, not reflecting any of it back... So that lead her to believe that it wasn't solid...
Suddenly the sphere rippled, moving like water disturbed by a thrown stone. Gently at first, then stronger and stronger until it suddenly tore itself open, forming a perfectly flat circle as something came hurtling out of it and the black sphere itself completely vanished without a trace.
Immediately Lehm, Tojo and Valmet pulled out their respective sidearms, directing them at the sudden arrival of a black haired girl with vivid blue eyes, who happened to have landed flat on her face in the middle of the bathroom floor.
"Wha...?" Koko was baffled by this sudden appearance of the girl, who seemed to be fading into unconsciousness, her eyelids fluttering closed and she went completely still. "Lehm, Valmet, get her up. Tojo, you alert the rest of the guys, we're heading out. I'm making a call for our meeting to be rescheduled with the air force. Jonah, you're with me."
"Where are we taking the girl?" Lehm asked as he holstered his pistol to begin lifting her. She wasn't a big girl, barely five feet tall and at most, 100 pounds.
"Hospital. I know this may sound far-fetched, but I think that black ball... was a portal to some other place on Earth... or maybe not. Might've been another dimension for all we know." Koko replied grimly, already going for her nearby satellite phone to start placing the necessary calls. "For now, put her in my bed until we can sort all this out."
Black Rock Shooter was breathing softly in her hospital bed, completely oblivious to her present surroundings. She was still out cold, and under the watchful eye of Jonah - armed with an MP5k - standing at the side of the bed. Seated beside the bed was Koko, looking bored after hearing the doctor's report concerning the girl's health.
For someone so freakishly pale and quite small-framed, she was seemingly in perfect health. In fact, the doctor was curious as to why they'd brought in someone in such good shape until Koko glared at him and said that it was just a precaution after an incident. When the doctor asked about this so called incident, Jonah stepped in at the time with his PDW, thus ending the conversation.
Now, present time, the girl was still unresponsive. It had been about an hour since her sudden arrival, and Koko hadn't left her alone for even a split second. Mostly Jonah and herself, all things considered, but for some reason Koko wanted to help her as much as possible.
Jonah suddenly turned his head towards the girl, his ever-stoic expression sharpened just before the girl started to come to. She slowly opened her eyes, first setting her gaze upon Jonah beside her.
"You're awake." Koko sat up in her chair, causing the girl to turn her sapphire blue gaze over to the other pair of blue eyes in the room. "Can you understand me?"
She nodded, very slowly, staring at Koko with an emotionless expression, blank and unreadable.
"Alright, so what's your name?" Koko went on, taking note of the strange gear-like shapes in her iris, standing out against the blue.
"Black Rock Shooter." The girl spoke in a voice very befitting of her expression, low, monotone and devoid of any real emotions.
"So.. Do you know where you are?" Koko asked, and Black Rock Shooter shook her head. "So, um... Are you... Human?"
"No." She answered in the same flat voice.
"So what are you?" Koko asked warily, preparing for the worst response.
"Me." Black Rock Shooter shrugged slightly, as if to say she had no answer to the question.
"Well that isn't helpful... Now then, how do you feel?" Koko continued their conversation, despite the limited responses from Black Rock Shooter.
"Fine."
"What did you do, wherever you're from?"
"Fight."
"Fight?" Koko raised an eyebrow, and Jonah's grip on the MP5k tightened subtly.
"Kill."
"Oh, I see... Well, in that case, are you interested in using your skills here while we figure out what happened, alright?" Koko queried, resting her chin on her raised fist while her elbow was on her knee.
"Kill?" Black Rock Shooter narrowed her eyes, a brief shadow of suspicion crossing her features.
"Not exactly. Protect. Make sure nobody kills me. How's that sound? I can handle all of the arrangements." Koko explained. "So, what do you say... Rock?"
"Yes."
Within an hour, Koko had already placed the necessary calls for what Rock needed at the bare minimum to begin working as a member of her crew. The rest, for now, could be covered by the rest of the crew.
So, after her short errand to her contacts, she returned and handed Rock a few choice items; a passport, a wallet and a change of clothes. The last part in particular was because Rock was wearing some admittedly limited attire: A black bikini bra and hotpants, knee height black boots and a long black duster with a big white star on her back and white stripes on the sleeves.
"What these?" Rock recognized the clothing for what it was, but the passport and wallet were completely new to her.
"This is a passport, it allows you to travel to certain places. This is a wallet, it's a storage thing for certain items, it'll make sense at some point." Koko indicated each object as she handed over the modest outfit, a tank top and a light zippered hoodie - both black, of course - and gestured for her to put them on under her longcoat.
She did, and didn't notice Jonah's gaze travel to her sides, where he noticed she had two very large scars, one on her hip, the other along the side of her lower ribs, that seemed to still have some sort of stitching in them.
As his gaze continued upwards, he noted that she was wearing some sort of choker-like necklace with a small padlock in place of an ornament. He minutely pursed his lips before returning his gaze to Koko, who was looking quite pleased with herself as the girl quickly finished dressing herself and zipped up the hoodie.
"Now then... You're going to be part of a group of others that do the same job as you, Jonah here will help you with things until you're all settled in, Rock. For now, Jonah, give her your Browning, she'll need a weapon."
"No." Surprisingly, it was Rock that objected, even with Jonah already pulling the sidearm out of his leg pocket. "My weapon."
"You've got a weapon? Where? In your coat?" Koko couldn't help but sound skeptical, the girl had such limited attire that carrying even a self-defense pistol, like a Beretta Jetfire, would be very unlikely.
Rock shook her head, holding up her empty hand ahead of herself, her arm at full length. She then curled her fingers into a fist, which was accompanied with an oddly mechanical flurry of sounds as blue lights flashed from her fingers, quickly replaced by glossy black metal that moved and locked into position to form a massive monolith-looking object, with her still raised hand grasping something on her end.
With a sudden clunk of finality, the weapon's barrel snapped three raised flanges into position, only to begin humming slightly as the end of this weapon's barrel began to glow blue.
"Rock Cannon." Rock stated simply, reaching to the underside with her other hand, and with a quick tug, produced a reasonably sized sword made of the same black metal. "Black Blade." She indicated her sword with a little shake of the weapon.
"I..." Koko was speechless, not only was the Cannon longer than Rock was tall, it was pocketed with scuffs, dents and even slash marks, denoting heavy usage in combat. So wherever this girl was from... it clearly wasn't all that pleasant of a place. "Is that heavy?"
"No." Rock effortlessly lifted it over her shoulder, holding it at a slight angle so it wasn't touching the floor, her Black Blade still gripped in her otherwise relaxed other hand.
"I still want you to have one of... OUR weapons, alright? Just in case you can't use yours." Koko gestured for Jonah to hand over his pistol anyway.
She accepted the weapon, staring at it for a moment before shoving it into her longcoat's pocket.
"Now then... We'll teach you how to use it when we head back to Sussex tomorrow. Until then, stick with Jonah and me."
"Okay." Rock slid her sword back into the Cannon, then with the same blue light, made it vanish entirely as she followed Koko out of the hospital room, with Jonah behind them.
Parked out in front was one of the crew's rented SUV's, which Koko was currently the one in possession of the keys. So, after climbing into the driver's seat, she glanced out the side window to see Jonah gesturing for Rock to get in ahead of him.
So she really is from another world, huh? Koko thought to herself as she watched Rock climb into the back seat and immediately turn her head to watch Jonah for assistance, her eyes razor sharp as he calmly closed the door and put his seatbelt on. She immediately imitated his actions, hearing the satisfying click as she succeeded.
With that, Koko started the engine - earning the first real expression on Rock's face, a startled, wide-eyed stare - and she drove back to the hotel where the rest of the crew was waiting for them.
"Everyone, this is Black Rock Shooter, or Rock for short. She'll be joining our ranks as a new recruit." Koko clapped her hands for attention from her assembled men, woman, and boy.
The entire crew, aside from Jonah, had yet to meet her conscious, so they all chorused their hello's as Lehm pinched his lit smoke between his fingers, standing near the open window.
"Rock, is it? Huh, I'm the squad leader, so unless Koko says otherwise, you follow my orders. Is that understood?" He exhaled his lungful of smoke as he asked the final question.
"Yes." Rock didn't really spare him much of a glance, she was too busy examining everyone else's faces to care.
"Alright, now then..." Koko put her hands onto her hips as she spoke. "Our meeting with the air force was pushed back by three hours, so we need to leave now to make it in time."
"You heard the lady, let's go." Lehm extinguished his smoke as they all stood up and filed out of the room, with Jonah and Rock taking up the rear, enveloped in their respective silences.
While Koko was meeting with the military officials, Rock and Jonah were told to stay by her side, so both were impassively waiting near the door, neither all that interested in the meeting. Jonah was staring in Koko's general direction, while Rock was idly scanning each of the officer's faces for signs of hostility towards Koko. Her face was her usual blank mask, but her eyes were razor sharp.
As the meeting came to a close, Koko shook hands with the officers, then gestured for her two young companions to follow her out of the building, not speaking until they'd reached the awaiting SUV where Ugo and Lehm were waiting, the older of which was smoking outside the vehicle. The rest of the crew was in the second SUV, with Tojo behind the wheel.
"So..." Koko began, her perpetual smile firmly in place. "We got the deal, we deliver the kits next Tuesday. For now, we head back to Sussex to sort everything out with HQ and help out a certain someone..." She indicated Rock by her side, standing at about arm's length, staring at a blue butterfly that was fluttering towards her...
And perched itself right on her nose. She immediately went cross-eyed, getting adorably angry at the cheeky insect, her hands curling into fists by her sides as the insect slowly moved it's wings, unconcerned with her emotions.
"Jonah... Don't move fast... I want you to..." Koko didn't take her eyes off the unbearably cute display, whispering to Jonah on her other side.
Click.
"Got it." Jonah already saw it in Koko's eyes that she wanted him to take a picture of this one-in-a-million opportunity before Rock reacted or the butterfly flew away.
Rock scowled, one hand slowly moving up from her side, open palmed, clearly planning to swat at the butterfly, but the insect suddenly flapped it's wings and took off, only for - to everyone's astonishment - Rock's hand to shoot forward and snatch the fleeing butterfly out of mid-air, not killing it, but rather capturing it.
"Damn, that was impressive." Koko commented as Rock opened her hand, glaring at the butterfly with a frown on her face.
"That's called a butterfly, Rock. It won't hurt you." Lehm smirked at her hateful glare. "Let it go so we can get going."
"Butterfly stupid." Rock commented quietly to the insect before it flew off.