Shinjuko, Japan: December 1995.
"Damn."
A blonde haired man swore softly in the corner if the bar. Here he was; state of the art technology they said, you'll always have a signal they said. Well, the stupid satellite phone wasn't working. But then, not even his watch was working. The hands on the small face has started spinning several days ago when what looked like a huge storm system came ashore.
He had discarded his watch when it no longer proved to be of any use.
And it had yet to rain.
The clouds just hung there. He had never seen anything like it. All the power in the city had shut off too. Even the cars wouldn't run. A day or so later minimal power was restored, and anything gasoline powered was working again. Must have been some freak electrical storm. Maybe be sunspots.
He didn't know how wrong he was.
He did know that he stuck out like a sore thumb. The city seemed deserted, and the only ones remaining were Japanese. His height alone made him stand out. Not to mention that blonde hair and blue eyes just weren't the most common thing around these parts. But it looked like he wasn't the only one here, at least. About an hour ago, a brunette had walked in. Out of habit, he had immediately tried to size her up. He couldn't seem place her age. She looked fairly young, no more than sixteen. The way she held herself, though; how she watched the people around her suggested someone much older than that.
He didn't like the feel of this place. The people here hadn't taken their eyes off of the girl in the past hour. They had been waiting here for her. He knew their type: hit men. Professionals. Probably Yakuza.
He had loaded his gun when he realized what was going on, and what was most likely going to happen. She seemed oblivious to it all.
A slight creaking sound from the roof grew into a full fledged screeching noise. It was like . . . like the roof was being torn apart.
"What the hell?"
His question was answered when a massive armored form came crashing through the hole that was torn through the steel. It landed on its feet and stood to look around the room. It wore what looked like some corrupted form of samurai armor, it was encased in it, and armed with a long blade and whatever else it may have known about defending itself.
The sound of dozens of guns cocking echoed in the bar.
The girl still hadn't turned around, but she was well aware of what was going on behind her. From the men that had been hired to take her out, to the demon solider in the middle of the floor, to the fellow American in the corner. Truthfully, the guns were the least of her worries.
It moved and the men opened fire.
Fools.
They had already signed their death warrants when they had come here to make an attempt to kill her or one of the others. At least she would have made it quick. The solider wouldn't. It thrived on suffering.
Might as well get on with it.
She slid off of the stool she had been sitting on and walked into the middle of the shoot out. She'd deal with the men later. She tapped the thing on its shoulder plating to get its attention.
"Hey! Youja!"
It turned to face her. Only to meet her fist.
The blonde American watched in disbelief. Was she out of her mind?! No relatively sane person waltzes into the middle of a fire fight. But the bullets never hit her. They had found their way to the . . . thing she was fighting. One of them had ricocheted and grazed his shoulder. Maybe when, if, he ever got home he should go see a therapist.
"Dude, this is so whacked out." He muttered.
He looked away from the brawl on the other side of the room to the wall behind him. The structure shook again and chunks of concrete fell from the uppermost part of the wall. The building was going to collapse. It gave him no choice but to move closer to the others. He looked back. The, what had she called it, . . . youja was gone. All that remained was the shell of metal on the ground, And that was slowly turning to dust. Now that the thing was gone, the others turned their guns on her and reloaded. She shook her head and sneered at them.
This was like a bad acid trip.
One, he assumed it was the leader of the group, ordered her to turn herself over to them. She rolled her eyes and turned her back to leave the bar. He fired a warning shot over her shoulder.
"Are you that big of an idiot?" She turned her head to them and spoke in a light, drawled accent. Well, he could tell she was from the Southern region of the States. He briefly wondered if that was what they taught the kids down there.
He fired. The bullet bounced off the sword that had come out of nowhere.
"Leave now, and you might live to see the end of this. This is my last warning."
They didn't listen.
They attacked, and she retaliated.
Perhaps shoving this into the back of his mind would be better. Things like this didn't happen. Okay, that was a lie. It was happening, unless it was some kind of funky hallucination. But the pain in in shoulder for where the bullet had pierced his skin told him other was. Passing out would be a good idea right about now. He put his hand on the back of a chair to steady himself. It was freezing. He pulled his hand away to avoid the cold.
What was on the-.
"Ice?"
The temperature in the room had rapidly dropped. Freezing anything that had the slightest bit of moisture on it. He could even see his breath at one point. Another part of the building fell. He spun around to see the top part of the building fall right on to where he had been standing. There were several quick stabs of pain in his lower back as soon as his entire body had turned. It was followed by two that were so unbearable that he collapsed. He was able to glance at his hands. They were covered in liquid crimson.
He laid where he had fallen and stared at the ceiling.
The last of those stupid gunmen fell. Like they ever had a chance. He had gone quickly. She had broken his neck. The others had been finished off while they were trying to figure out where she had pulled her weapon from. The looks on their faces had been priceless. It seemed that only their leader knew what he was getting into. He even knew her name. A rarity in this day and age.
Well, it was time to see if there was anyone left alive. Gee, she made it sound like so much fun. She laughed to herself. She walked around the room. Part of it had fallen during the fight with the youja. There didn't seem to be anyone else. It was time to go. She stopped when a small splishing noise took the place of her footsteps. She looked down. Part of her foot was standing in a steadily growing pool of dark red. It was already starting to freeze on its edges.
This wasn't from her. For one thing, the fight hadn't made it to this portion of the bar. She followed the pool to its center.
Oh no.
The blonde guy.
He didn't have too much longer. She might as well end it. She placed the edge of her blade on his neck, and silently told him she was sorry.
He slowly blinked.
Wow. He was hanging in there. A flash of something shiny caught her attention. Hey, she was human. Shiny thing were always going to be a distraction. A badge? The sword dissolved away into nothingness, and she knelt down next to him.
"Let's see who you are." She pulled his ID off of his belt. Great. Another one. What did this make now? Seven? Eight? "What's the deal with the Department of Justice and loaning out its agents? Well, Jake McCartey on loan to the CIA from the DOJ, you don't look too good."
She stood up to look around for a brief moment. Was he alone? She thought that she had accounted for everyone in the room when she had entered the bar. She and Strata had found what was left of two other agents in Sendai. What were they doing here? She'd have to look a little harder. She took a step and something crunched under her shoe. She looked down. There were small pieces of white scattered around him. Upon closer inspection she discovered that they were small pieces of bone.
"Definitely not too good."
It looked like a piece of his vertebra had been splintered off. Or worse. The cold must have kept him alive.
She checked his pulse.
Barely there.
She looked back down at him.
"I'm sorry, Agent. I can't take you with me. Where I'm going to end up will be much worse than this." She sighed, "I don't even know if you can understand me."
The building rumbled again.
Maybe . . . maybe Seiji could do something. He was still staring at the ceiling. She checked his pule again, and he shifted his eyes to look at her.
She started.
"Oh god, you-you look just like . . ." She trailed off. She used to be able to tell who people were, despite that faces and bodies change each life time. She had given up the the ability for another a long time ago, but there was still a faint echo if it left. Magic in general tended to linger. She held his gaze for a moment and raised an eyebrow. This was weird. It was rare that any physical traits were repeated. Let alone an entire . . . shape, for lack of a better word.
"It is you." She whispered.
She took his arm and draped it over her shoulder, and started to pick him up. She had him half way off the floor when he gasped and went limp on her grasp.
"Shit."
She quickly looked for his pulse and found nothing. He was gone. A small thought and she literally flash froze him. Cryogenics was easy, she didn't know what all the hype was about it being difficult. And there were several levels of being dead. If he wasn't too far gone there shouldn't be a problem.
She owed him one. Two, actually. Even if he didn't remember it.
How much damage was done anyway? She craned her neck to look at his back. Her jaw dropped.
"Holy . . ."
It looked like Seiji had a challenge ahead of him. There was a hole in his lower back that was roughly the size of her hand. The small pieces of bone hadn't been splinters off of his spine. They were his vertebra. Ouch. An explosion in the distance informed her that she needed to leave this place. She hoisted him into a fireman's carry and walked out of the bar.
All she had to do was get to the meeting place outside of the city and wait. Hopefully Seiji could fix him. And Rowen would know if McCartey was beyond any kind of help from him. After all, Ro was life. He would know how dead he was. He was so weird. Behind her the building finally collapsed. She kept on walking. It was a good fifty miles to the rendezvous location. She just had to make sure he didn't thaw.
"OK, that sounded funny."
She kept on ahead and left Shinjuko behind her.