Dark Lady Amon
by amiwakawaiidesu

(Based on characters and situations from "Witch Hunter Robin", created by Hajime Yatate and Shuko Murase)

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CHAPTER ONE

Amon was dreaming.

Amon had entered a subterranean parking garage, where he was hoping to meet with a contact who could give him information related to his latest mission; but instead of the contact, three figures all in black came out of the shadows to confront him. The one in the middle was short – perhaps a woman – while the flanking figures were taller and presumably men. It was impossible to guess their sex from their voices however, for when they spoke, they spoke telepathically.

"Amon," they thought as one, "so good of you to come. We've been expecting you."

"I wasn't aware I was so obvious," Amon replied, "but if you want to talk, that's fine. I want to know…"

"Amon," they replied, "we're not concerned about your mission. Your cares in this world are behind you now."

The figures moved apart to surround Amon, and he drew his Glock 18 pistol in response.

"You're not going to stop us with that," they replied; "you must use your craft."

"I'm not a witch, though," Amon replied, knowing the ensorcelled slugs in the fully-automatic pistol could drop all three of these witches with a single squeeze of the trigger.

"Of course you're a witch. But why haggle over definitions? 'Craft-user', if you prefer. The craft is alive within you; you merely resist it."

Amon was angry then, though he didn't show it; he knew what became of his mother after her craft awakened, the madness and the killing. He would not become like her.

Then the witches were attacking, and Amon was startled that he could neither respond nor get out of the way in time; his reflexes were very good, but still he was caught by three attacks at once – fire, ice, and a wall of force converging from three directions – and he fell at once with his ribs cracked and his exposed skin both scorched and frozen.

Then the entire world was fire – fire that drove the witches back, but somehow left Amon untouched.

"Robin – !" Amon said, wincing with the effort, "stay back! I can handle this!"

Amon was already losing consciousness, though, so he was in no condition to resist Robin's assistance; emerging from her hiding place, Robin attempted to press her attack, but the witches were too strong and deflected her power. All she could do was drive them back long enough to let her tend to Amon.

"Amon, are you all right? Can you move…?"

Amon moaned.

"No, you're too badly hurt; you shouldn't have tried to do this on your own…"

Robin then tried to drag Amon toward the nearest exit, but he was too heavy, and now the witches were returning.

"Hold on," Robin said, touching Amon's head, "I'm going to try something…"

Then, suddenly, Amon saw the world seem to fill with light, and he felt as if he were being lifted out of his own body; an angel was lifting him toward Heaven now, and accordingly all his cares fell away as he left his physical body far below.

Then darkness fell, and oblivion.

X O X O X

When Amon woke up, he felt very much as if he were hung over; his head was throbbing, and even the slightest effort to move was met with a wave of nausea. It wasn't like Amon to drink to excess, though, so he wondered – as he lay atop his bed, staring at the gray ceiling, and sunlight shining though the angled three-paneled window high overhead – if this had something to do with the mission he'd been sent on by Solomon HQ in Europe.

Wait a minute, Amon thought; I don't have awindow like that in my apartment. What is this place…?

With a considerable effort, Amon turned his head and saw his bed was surrounded by steel bars, and elevated on a platform on one side of a large and mostly empty room. Then it came to him: this was the top floor room of Nagira's law office, where Robin was staying again after the collapse of the Factory.

What the hell? What am I doing here…?

Amon pushed those thoughts aside, though, as he tried to remember what had happened before he got there. The events of the previous evening were a blur – more like a dream than a memory he could trust – but his memories of the last month were otherwise still intact. A month ago, the Factory had collapsed and Amon had been separated from Robin, both of whom were then presumed dead by Japanese authorities.

Amon was very much alive, though, and he checked in with Father Juliano of Solomon HQ to determine if there was any unfinished business they needed to attend to before Amon left Solomon for good; with Robin missing, Amon had no interest in returning to either Raven's Flat or the STN-E, but he did accept one last mission from Father Juliano. Being officially 'dead', Amon was especially well-placed to investigate reports of witches being employed by the powerful Shinjozuna Corporation headquartered in Tokyo. The STN-J was too weak now to take on such a powerful adversary, and the Japanese government wasn't willing to antagonize a corporation with important political ties, and thousands of employees working in industries ranging from publishing to industrial machine manufacturing, but Amon – working unofficially, and officially dead – wouldn't cause complications if his mission were discovered by Shinjozuna's corporate security.

It was a tall order, working a case like that without support, but Amon accepted the mission mainly because it would let him remain in Japan a while longer and also look for Robin. What he never imagined was how easy it would be to find her; concerned that Solomon HQ might still be hunting her, Robin had gone to Nagira for help after escaping the Factory, and it was while visiting Nagira that Amon was reunited with Robin. A tense moment followed – for Amon had been sent to hunt Robin before – but Amon assured her that she was no longer being hunted by Solomon HQ.

"I'm so glad," Robin had said. "Amon, why don't we go back to Raven's Flat now, together?"

"I'm afraid I can't," Amon had replied. "I have one last mission to complete for headquarters, and I can't afford to let the STN-J know I'm alive."

"Why don't you let me help you, then? I'm dead too, officially."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Amon had replied. "It's too dangerous, and I can't let you get involved."

"Well, maybe I'll just tell Chief Kosaka you're alive, then."

"You wouldn't…" Amon had said, "…would you?"

Robin had frowned, then surprised Amon by embracing him.

"Amon," she had said, "you can't be my watchdog if you're dead. Let me help you."

"All right," Amon said, reluctantly. "But you have to stay in the background on this one. I need to pursue my leads on my own, and I can't have you seen with me. Otherwise, someone might remember that we used to be partners and leap to the conclusion that this is an official STN-J operation – and that would ruin everything."

"Right. You can count on me."

In fact, Amon was soon grateful for Robin's help; a few weeks later, Amon had been at the Yokohama docks looking into connections between Shinjozuna and yakuza who were helping the company sneak Chinese witches into Japan, and a gang of yakuza thugs had cornered him in an alley when he seemed to be getting a little too nosy. But then Robin appeared and scattered the lot of them without actually hurting anyone.

Then more recently, Amon finally found a contact inside the Shinjozuna Corporation who was willing to talk about witches, and it was that person Amon had been trying to meet in the parking garage the previous evening. Then he was surprised by the witches, but he couldn't remember exactly what had happened after that; if he had been hammered by three witches at once, though – like in the dream – it wouldn't be surprising if his short-term memory was scrambled up good…

But where is Robin now? And how did I get out of the garage…?

With an effort, Amon pushed himself into a sitting position on the bed, indulged an urge to vomit…

(Nagira will love that, Amon thought)

…and then felt much better. There was something odd about his hands, though, as he lifted one to wipe his mouth and then looked at both of them curiously; the fingers seemed very long and slender, not at all like the hands he remembered. Nor were his bare feet, which were likewise narrow and slender, nor the unfamiliar-looking shoes by his bed, nor his coat, which was more reddish than the black he remembered. In his woozy state, though, Amon deferred thinking about these peculiarities as he staggered to the ladder leading down to the main floor (a ladder that seemed extremely large all of a sudden), hoping to find a medicine cabinet with some aspirin near the toilet, sink and bathtub.

After reaching the cold concrete of the main floor, Amon then noticed something swishing around his legs and wondered vaguely why he was wearing a dress. He didn't fully regain his faculties, however, until he reached the mirror and saw Robin's face staring back at him.

Not one to panic, Amon nevertheless reacted with shock at a face both familiar and unfamiliar. Those were definitely Robin's green eyes, and her light brown hair gathered up in ribbons resembling handlebars at the sides of her head. Upon closer inspection, though, her green eyes looked haggard and worn, and the ribbons holding the handlebars looked as if they were close to unraveling.

"Robin," Amon said, "is that you?"

The voice he heard was neither his own nor Robin's, but Robin's mouth moved in the mirror as he spoke, and the voice was definitely female; idly – even as he stared entranced at Robin's features – he guessed that he must be hearing Robin's voice as it sounded inside her own head, since a person's voice always sounds different to herself than it would to others.

"All right, don't panic," Amon said aloud, turning on the faucet and splashing his face with water. "There must be a logical explanation for this…"

Then, suddenly, Amon was aware of something urgent calling for his attention: a need to urinate.

Without thinking, Amon moved toward the toilet and reached for the fly of his trousers only to realize it wasn't there. For a desperate moment, Amon felt around for some way to get into the dress without actually damaging it, then finally gave up and lifted the whole bottom of the dress up around his waist in order to sit on the toilet and do his business.

Afterward, while continuing to sit on the toilet, staring at Robin's long slender hands and feet, he began to realize just how much of a disaster this was. Somehow, he had lost his body – that was a given; but if he was inside Robin's body, where was Robin's mind? Was her mind inside someone else's body now, or could it be that her spirit was simply dead…?

And how was this even possible? Amon knew that Robin was powerful, but she'd never shown any signs of being able to work her craft in any form other than fire. So was this the work of the Shinjozuna witches, for reasons Amon could only guess? Now that he thought about it, the witches in his dreamlike memory seemed to know who he was, so perhaps the contact he was supposed to meet was actually a trap laid to lure Robin and himself into the garage. Or was it possible that Robin was much more powerful than even Amon had imagined? As the Eve of Witches and embodiment of the Arcanum of the Craft, was it possible that Robin had learned how to work forms of the craft other than fire?

Amon's gaze then fixed upon an unlit candle on a table on the far side of the room.

Perhaps, Amon thought, Robin's mind is still inside this body, but hidden somehow, or sleeping...

Amon then attempted to project Robin's fire craft at the candle, supposing that might prove that Robin's spirit was still within this body. Instead of lighting the candle, however, Amon caused a breeze that knocked the unlit candle off the table and onto the floor.

"Goddamn it!" Amon muttered; there was a craft at his disposal all right, but it was his own craft, not Robin's. For years, Amon had suppressed his own wind craft – willing himself to remain a seed rather than letting his craft awaken. But now – if he was going to get to the bottom of this mystery – he might have no choice but to use the craft he'd inherited from his mother.

Please let this be a dream! Amon thought, rising from the toilet at last and fighting a second wave of nausea as he stumbled to the sink, less graceful in the long convent dress than someone used to wearing it all her life. There he turned on the faucet, scooped up a double-handful of water and splashed his face with it, but still it was Robin who looked back at him afterward, dripping water from her face and hair.

Exasperated, Amon blew at the one long strand of hair that always seemed to hang in front of Robin's eyes, then decided what to do next.

No matter how much his brother might laugh at him, he was going to have to talk to Nagira.