Original Days 2 Chapter 1: Reintroduction, a better days fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Better Days or Original Life, nor do I own any of the characters from them. I do, however, own this whole plot and all characters not from the previously named webcomics. A big thanks to Brian Whitfield for being my reviser. Although I think I prefer the word editor, so I'll call him that from now on.

"Italics" are used for thoughts, recording, and non-English languages.

Original Days 2

Chapter One: Re-introduction

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Time: 2118 hours

Location: Hong Kong

"Hong Kong, one of the world's leading financial centers; known as one of the Four Asian Tigers for its exceptionally high growth rates and advanced economy. Ranked as having the freest capitalist economy in the world. More than 7 million people call it home, and right now something is happening in it that if not stopped could mean the deaths of millions. But it will be stopped, because that is why we're here. My name is Fisk Black, leader of an elite team designated to find and recover all technology developed by a Cat called Mr. White. For four years we have performed our mission, and now we may have just found the mother-lode."

Pressing stop on the recorder, Fisk placed it back into the glove compartment of the van he was driving. Pulling the van over and shutting off the engine, he quickly climbed out of the driver's seat and moved to one situated in front of a laptop in the cargo area. Typing in some commands, he slipped on a headset and spoke.

"Jason, confirm that you are in position and ready to proceed, over."

A tall Cat in a black duster paused outside the entrance to the Four Seasons Hong Kong and held his hand to the responder positioned in his ear, activating it. "Affirmative, Fisk, I'm in position. What's the status on the others?" Fisk typed in a prompt into the computer, waited a moment, and then spoke. "Angela, Ana, what are your statuses, over?"

Atop the luxury hotel crouched an albino Bat in a non-reflective black outfit, in the process of rigging up a cable. Pausing, she activated her own responder. "Angela here, I'm in position. Just need the room number and I will be ready to proceed, over."

Fisk waited for another reply for a moment, and then asked "Ana? Respond if you are in position, over." Silence, and then "Why am I even in the field? I'm a hacker, not a fighter!" Fisk sighed in frustration, but was saved the trouble of responding by Jason. "You're in the field because your trainer, me, wants you to get some experience in. Now shut it before I go over there and shut it for you!" Grudgingly, Ana Lucia Rodriguez replied that she was in position at the back entrance, and would wait for further orders. A recent addition to the ranks of the company, she was a Dog of medium height, with golden-yellow fur and short blond hair. Sitting down on a nearby trashcan, she muttered to herself as she watched the door "How would I even get experience in an empty alleyway?"

Fisk ignored the mumbling coming over the still on headset, and turned his attention back to Jason. "Positions acknowledged, and mission is a go. Be careful Jason, and be discreet." Grinning in a way that scared all passerby, Jason replied "discreet as I ever am" and then went in.

The Four Seasons Hong Kong was one of the top luxury hotels in all of Hong Kong, and it showed in every inch of the lobby. High-end televisions set to different channels, clean and comfortable furniture, and elegant flowers were arranged through-out it. Jason paid little attention to any of this as he made his way to the check-in counter.

Stopping in front of the Cat receptionist, he loudly cleared his throat to get her attention. "Hello ma'am, would you mind telling me what room a Mr. Ala Al-Din is in?" Ala Al-Din, cover-name of Salih Mansour Mohsin Alfiraidi Alharbi, wanted Saudi terrorist. For eight months they had tracked him, and now that he had led them to a whole gathering of the bastards, it was time to move.

While Jason thought all of this, the receptionist had been looking up the name on the hotel computer. Finally she turned back to him and said "I'm sorry sir, but there is no one here by that name. Would you like a room for yourself?" He looked at her for a moment, and then replied "No thank you, I guess I just got the wrong hotel. Sorry for the trouble." He turned and started to walk away, but after a few steps turned back and said "By the way, the mirrored ceiling is really cool!" Without giving her a chance to respond he started walking again.

A second later Fisk's voice came over the channel. "She was lying, which means she knows something."

"I'm aware of that" Jason said, stopping and ducking behind a nearby pillar. Looking around it, he watched as the receptionist cast one last look at where she had seen him disappear into the crowd, before grabbing the phone and making a call. "Gotcha" Jason smirked as he instantly memorized the number, before copying it into the PDA he had taken out of his pocket. Most people wouldn't have been able to make out what she had dialed from the distance between them, but Jason had a unique advantage. "Damn I love these eyes sometimes."

"Fisk, I'm sending you a number she just called. What room does it belong too?"

"Give me a moment, this is delicate work."

"It wouldn't be delicate if I was there working on it!"

"Quiet, Anna. Okay Jason, I have it. She called a room located on the 29th floor; I'll send you and Angela the room number when you're up there." Jason responded in the affirmative, and then began making his way discreetly to the elevators.

Back up on the roof, Angela finished setting up her rigging. Many aspects of her life had changed over the years, ever since that fateful night at the karaoke bar. After the birth of her son, Constantine, she had taken several months off to recover, before requesting a safer position. Happy to oblige, Ryan reassigned her to being their full-time medic, taking Derek Church as his new bodyguard. She was still available for skill-specific missions however, such as the one she was on at the moment. She had also moved out of her ex-boyfriend's apartment and into a penthouse in Bethesda, Maryland, payed for by Jason Black. Jason; there was something else that had changed in her life-

"Angela, come in Angela, are you there?" Fisk's voice over the radio startled her out of her wandering thoughts. "Sorry sir, just double-checking everything." To illustrate her point she unclasped then clasped one of her supports. "Acknowledged; proceed with operation."

"Copy that." Strapping on her harness, she grabbed her Daewoo K7 submachine gun and turned to face the edge of the roof. And then she began running at it. "And this is why I'm on this mission." Reaching the edge, she leaned forward with all her weight, and suddenly she was running down the building, SWAT-quality rope the only thing connecting her to the building.

"Damn I love this part; too bad the faster the shorter." Counting down the floors, she quickly neared the target room. Slowing down, she pushed herself away from the wall. Once in mid-air she spread her arms out and twisted her body; maneuvering with her arm-wings, she turned to where she was facing the building and came to rest on the window-ledge directly above the target room. Activating her radio, she contacted the other half of this assault. "Jason dear, please tell me you're in position."

"Almost there." As if to prove this the elevator transporting Jason chimed, showing it had reached its destination. Before the doors had a chance to open his hand shot forward and hit the stop button, leaving him unrevealed to anyone in the hall beyond for the moment. "In position Angela, do your thing.

"Roger." Coughing once to clear her throat, Angela opened her mouth as wide as it could go, letting loose a volley of high-pitched sounds at the hotel room below her. A second went by, and then suddenly she flinched and grunted at the feedback. "19 targets, concentrated in the main meeting area. I'm right on top of them." So focused was she on Jason, she didn't notice the strange pinging noise in her ears.

Jason's eyes widened. "Crap, we haven't seen a gathering this big since Peru!" His frown morphed into a grin. "So let's get down to business." With that he stopped pressing the button and reaching down pulled from his hip holsters a pair of Mateba AutoRevolvers. The doors opened, and Jason took off down the hallway.

Kicking off once more, Angela dropped down to where she was level with the window of the hotel room. With a sweep of her arm bullets tore through the width of the target room. the affect was immediate; five dropped like flies as the rest dove for cover, pulling out whatever weapons they had. Continuing to fire, she hit three more through their flimsy cover.

Click

"Uh oh." Letting the gun hang from her side, she quickly kicked off and began running along the side of the building, narrowly avoiding the rain of bullets that responded to her empty clip. Once she was out of the way, she quickly ejected the spent clip, slammed in a new one, and let momentum swing her back into position. In the quick moment she was by the window she took down two more, before momentum carried her past it.

Maneuvering in mid-air, she once more received the pinging sound, only this time she recognized it. "Echolocation, crap!" Looking at the window, what she saw made her blood run cold; another Bat, in a formfitting armored suit and helmet. The only skin that could be seen was on his bare arms. "Copperhead." She activated her radio.

"Jason, I'm going to be busy for a bit, finish the rest off." Without waiting for a reply she turned it off, unbuckled her harness, and with just her momentum carrying her landed on the window ledge. After taking a couple last shots at the backs of the fleeing terrorists, Angela drew her combat knife and charged at her new opponent. Faster than the eye could see he drew from his back sheath a Katana, slashing horizontally at her head in a wide swing. Ducking under it, she brought her knife in an upwards swing to slash his head, only to be blocked at the last moment. "This isn't going to be fun."

While all of this had been going on, Jason had ambushed the fleeing targets in the hallway. Opening fire, he quickly cut their number in half by the time they realized what was happening. After that they began firing back as they ran, making Jason take cover around a corner. "Heh, so they can fight back." Dropping the smoking guns, Jason flicked his wrists, and new 12-inch blades sprang into place. Grinning like a madman, Jason launched himself out of cover and at the shooters. Ignoring the bullets grazing him, he swung down and sliced clean through one person's leg while with the other blade stabbing into another's chest. Spinning around, he headbutted a third, before hacking both arms off.

He turned to the last two, who seemed to be frozen in terror. Recognizing one as Alharbi, Jason slowly cracked the joints in his neck, before looking back at them. "Boo." And at that they ran, Jason picking his guns back up before taking off after them.

Side-stepping a vertical slash, Angela jumped and brought her knife down in a hammerfist strike. Copperhead rolled out of the way, before sweeping Angela's legs out from under her. Falling hard onto the floor, she barely raised her blade up in time to block his overhead strike. Bringing her legs up, she kicked out and caught Copperhead in the gut, launching him away from her. Taking advantage of the breathing room, she jumped back to her feet and re-assumed her fighting stance.

"I didn't expect O.F.T.A.N.A.M.P. to make an appearance, or else I would have brought more guns." The two combatants began circling each other, probing for weaknesses or openings. "Of course, since they only sent a mere hired merc, this can't be too important to them." He came to a stop, prompting her to stop as well. A click came from his helmet.

"Trying to unbalance me with distracting words is an exercise in futility. And now, you die." He charged with an overhead swing, missing her by an inch when she dodged. Backing up into a table, Angela grabbed the lamp off it and hurled it at him. He responded by shattering it with a swing of his sword, before grabbing the Beretta U22 Neos at his hip and firing three shots. Two missed, but the third caught her in the right thigh.

"Gah!" She stumbled from the hit, and before she could recover Copperhead was right on top of her, bringing his blade down in one final strike. She brought both arms up in an attempt to block…only for a beeping sound to fill the air and the weapon to stop an inch from hitting her. Instantly Copperhead drew the blade away and put it back in its sheath, before stepping away and touching two fingers to the rim of his helmet.

"Copperhead responding; meeting was disrupted, heading back." Holstering his gun, Copperhead turned away and began moving to the ruined window. "Hey, don't turn your back on me." He looked over his shoulder to see Angela struggling to her feet. "Stop me." With that he turned back ahead and jumped; Angela hurried over to see him gliding away, arms stretched out for lift.

She stood there for just a bit longer, before crashing down to both knees in exhaustion. Looking around the destroyed room, she sighed softly at the turn things had taken. After a moment longer she struggled back to her feet and began searching for anything important; if O.F.T.A.N.A.M.P. was involved, it couldn't be good.

"Mr. Black, sir, I'm worried. Should it be taking this long?" Fisk stopped monitoring the computer for a moment to think about Ana's question. It was much harder than it sounded. "Jason and Angela are some of our best agents; you don't need to worry about them, just keep watch."

Groaning in frustration, Ana stood up from her seat on a trashcan and began pacing in front of the door. Halfway through her third pass however the door slammed open in her face, knocking her onto her back. Out came Alharbi and the other survivor, both looking like hunted animals. Neither seemed to notice the stunned Dog a foot from them

Blinking away the stars in her eyes, Ana quickly grabbed her gun and fired, catching the no-name in the chest. Before she could fire again Alharbi kicked the gun out of her hand, before bringing his foot down hard on the elbow joint of her right arm.

"Augh!" Her cry of pain echoed into the night, to be answered by a roar of rage. Alharbi only had a moment to look up in fear before being bodyslammed into the wall of the alleyway. Gasping in pain from the impact, he looked up and found himself gazing into the blood-red eyes of Jason, who had pinned him to the wall with his blades.

"Any last words?" Jason asked, raising his gun to the man's head. Alharbi's eyes flicked between the gun and the face of his killer, before responding in his native language "This is not your world to control like common cops. The Adversary will come again." Fisk spoke up over the radio.

"That doesn't sound good. Jason, bring him in for-" BAM! Alharbi's body fell to the ground in a heap, blood leaking from the bullet-hole in his head. "Jason! What the hell did I just say!? I wanted him brought in for questioning!" Jason tore his gaze away from the body, walking over to gently pick up Ana's whimpering form. "Hold on, I'll get that fixed up when we're somewhere safe." To Fisk all he said was "Sorry, my finger slipped." Taking out his earpiece, Jason began the long walk to the rendezvous point. "It's going to be a rough week."

A/N: And so it begins. To tell all of you the truth, I had no idea that the chapter would be as long as it turned out to be. I can only hope that I was able to keep your attention with the action scenes. Please review, or else I'll call in a favor with Copperhead!