I had passed out for a few hours, and was awoken by Toot-toot pulling on his hair. "Za-Lord! Wake up! It is very urgent!"
I snorted a bit, and sat up, groaning and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, before turning my bleary eyes on Toot. "What is it, Toot? Have you found her?" I groaned, smoothing my mussed hair.
Toot nodded emphatically. "Yes! But she's in trouble! The Fomor found her, and now she's surrounded by servitors!"
That grabbed my attention, and my mind snapped instantly back to waking. "Where is she?" I asked, standing up and quickly grabbing my revolver and staff.
"She's not far, only a few blocks away! Run, Za-lord! Forget the pizza, just run!"
I turned and sprinted out my door, Toot-toot leading the way towards the strange woman.
...
The Turtlenecks tried to rush Yang, overwhelming her with their numbers, but it was to no avail. A single kick sent one of them flying into two of his comrades, the force cracking the brick behind them. Another hit her in the shoulder with his baton, but she just turned, grabbed him, and pile-drove him into the concrete, his legs slumping as his entire torso was buried into the concrete. Three of them pulled out assault rifles and began firing at her, but what rounds she didn't merely dodge bounced off of Yang's Aura, ricocheting and hitting a few of their comrades. She leapt forward and punched a man in his torso, the body flying through a nearby building. She turned to the others, and launched explosive shells at them, which penetrated their bodies completely and hit the supports of the abandoned buildings around her. One of them hit a boiler, which exploded in a large fireball, consuming another three Turtlenecks.
The remaining turtlenecks gathered at the end of the alley and tried to focus fire, but shotgun shells fired from Ember Celica took them down quickly.
...
I was running as fast as I could, legs and arms pumping as I followed Toot to where this woman was. We were a few blocks away when a thunderclap split the air, and one of the buildings in the Industrial district exploded.
Damn. I thought, running harder after the mote of light that was Toot. Those Servitors must be packing some serious heat.
...
Yang stopped in front one of the last of her assailants, her arm launching out and grabbing his neck. She lifted him in the air and punched his gut, hard enough to create an indention in his back. The man's eyes rolled back and he went limp, and Yang tossed the body away, into the rubble of the burning building. That was the last of them. she thought, retracting her bracelets.
Unbeknownst to Yang, however, one of the Servitors had survived, and pulled out a knife, slowly creeping towards the unsuspecting Huntress.
A thunderclap split the air, and Yang turned behind her, her gauntlets up. The Servitor behind her froze, and she watched as a pool of liquid formed in the middle of his torso, before he collapsed. Standing behind him, however, was a man Yang hadn't seen before. He was tall, taller even than Uncle Qrow. He wore a long leather trench coat, and in one hand was a smoking revolver. In his left hand, he held a wood staff carved with weird symbols that looked like random lines to Yang. He had deep, dark brown eyes, and a chiseled face with a light stubble.
"Who are you?" Yang asked suspiciously, keeping her guard up.
The man responded, in a light baritone "Harry Dresden, Wizard and private investigator."
Harry holstered his revolver, and held up his hands. "Look, I'm not armed: Why don't you put those...whatever they are, away?"
Yang blinked and realized that she was still tensed. "Oh." she said, relaxing her body and retracting Ember Celica. Her eyes changed from red to their normal violet color. "Sorry."
Harry nodded, and looked around a moment. Yang could hear, in the distance, sirens growing louder and closer with each second.
"Come on," Harry said, turning and walking away. "We'd better get out of here before the cops show up."
Bewildered and not knowing what else to do, Yang decided to follow him.
"Nice Apartment." Yang said jokingly as they entered Harry's apartment.
Yang looked around for a moment, her eyebrows contracting, before asking the question she had been dying to ask for a while; "Do you have any food?"
Harry looked at her, cocking an eyebrow, before answering "Oh, sure. In fact, I have a dozen refrigerators completely stocked, just for you." he said dryly.
Yang's eyes lit up for a moment, and she dashed to the kitchen, fast enough to leave wind behind her. She looked around for the refrigerator's, before her eyes settled on what looked like a weird cooler. She opened the cooler, rummaging around in it for a moment, throwing out several beer cans, cold dinners, and some bottles of milk, before her eyes settled on her prize: a single, perfectly cooked steak. She reached into the ice-box and pulled it out, looking around for a microwave, only to not find one. Disappointed, she just decided to eat it cold.
...
Dresden, meanwhile, needed to make a quick call. Before he could, however, his ancient phone, a holdover, from the 50's, rang, and Dresden picked it up.
"Hello, Dresden he..."
"GOD DAMNIT DRESDEN!" A voice shouted from the other end of the phone.
Dresden actually had to physically lean back from the phone due to the volume of the shout, wincing as he waited for the ringing to stop. "Ummm...who is this?"
"You know damn well who it is, Dresden!" the vexed voice replied.
...
"Hello, please leave a message at the tone?"
"This isn't a fucking joke, Dresden!"
Whelp, there goes that plan. Dresden thought inwardly, shaking his head. "Err...what do you need, Murph?" He asked, hoping to end this as soon as possible. With luck...
"Gee, I don't know, Dresden. But I find it awfully convenient that, not two hours after I hired you onto a case, half a street block burned down."
Oh. Oh shit.
"Stars and bloody stones, Murph, it wasn't me this time!"
"Oh, bull-fucking-shit."
"It's true!" Dresden replied desperately. "Listen, Murph, you gotta believe me, it was that girl you hired me to find!"
"Speaking of which," Murph said from the other end of the phone, "Have you found her yet? The higher-ups think there's a serial arsonist running around, and they're really riding my ass on this one. Or have you just been sitting on your ass this entire time?" she interrupted, still sounding vexed.
Eager to change the subject, Harry nodded to himself, speaking emphatically and with no small amount of smug bastard mixed into his normal voice. "Actually, yes. She's at my apartment right now. It was a piece of cake."
"I'll be there soon." Murph said, hanging up the phone, once again, before Dresden could say anything else.
Dresden sighed, and hung up the phone, to get a beer...
Only to find his dinner getting eaten by the mysterious girl.
"Hey! Get your hands off of that!" he said, snatching the steak back mid-bite. He examined the piece of prime meat, relieved to find only a few pieces chomped steak, relieved to find that most of the steak remained. It was then, that Dresden made the biggest mistake of his life.
He looked back.
She sat there, holding her stomach, looking at Dresden with the most adorable puppy eyes he had ever seen, with those deep, soulful, violet eyes...
Dresden looked away, taking care not to initiate a Soulgaze. The eyes were windows into the soul, and he didn't want this girl to see what was marked on his soul every bit as much as he didn't want to see hers.
"Soo...hungry..." she groaned, continuing her barrage of rapid-fire cute.
Hell's Bells, she's good at this. Come on Dresden, resist...
Dresden sighted, and turned around, thrusting the steak into her hand. "Here." he snarled.
Her eyes lit up, and she continued to happily chomp at the steak. Meanwhile, Dresden pulled up a chair and sat down, pulling out his note-pad. "So, since I fed you and all...why don't you tell me a bit about yourself? Name, birth, and all that?"
She finished the steak and gave a little burp, before thinking, and replying after a short while: "Well, my name is Yang Xiao Long..."
...
Dresden stared, dumbfounded, at Yang. He, literally, could not believe what he was hearing. Absentmindedly, he reached back and pinched his neck. Nope, not dreaming.
"So, you're saying that you're a 17-year old, born on some strange world I have never even heard of, trained to hunt monsters that literally feed on negative emotion, can bench-press several tons, and you possess gauntlets that fire shotgun shells that routinely violate the laws of physics. In addition, you are one of a ton of children training at special schools to hunt these monsters, and, to top it all off, some of you are half-animal."
"Yep." Yang said simply, swinging her legs from the counter. "Pretty cool, huh?"
Dresden was about to reply how utterly batshit insane that was, when his door opened.
"Hey, Harry, I saw you weren't home, and Mouse wanted a walk, so I decided to take him ou..."
Standing in the door was Thomas Raith, Vampire of the White Court...and Harry's half-brother. With pale skin and dark hair, framed by a face straight out of one of Molly's 'male model' magazines, and perfectly matched white leather jacket and dark pants, Thomas was literally a walking sex-machine.
He stopped mid-sentence and stared at Yang, eyes slowly widening, swirls of blue coloring the irises.
"Hubba-hubba." he said, continuing to stare. "Harry, who's the girl?"
Mouse, meanwhile, continued on his merry way, walking over to Yang and standing on his hind legs, sniffing her. Yang smiled, and offered her hand to Mouse who, after warily sniffing it, gave her a lick.
"Aww, who's a good boy? Who? You are! Yooouuu are!" Yang said, using the same tone one would use to a baby. Mouse rolled over, and Yang scratched his stomach and behind the ears. Mouse's tong lolled out of his mouth, and his eyes seemed to convey a message to Dresden: I like this girl. Her tummy-rubs are awesome.
Dresden looked back-and forth, from his obviously turned-on sex-fueled half brother, to the blonde powerhouse from another dimension, to his dog, and finally, to Mister, quite probably the only sane one in the apartment, before pinching the bridge of his nose.
"It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?"
...
Yang was busy scratching Mouse's belly, Harry and...whoever that guy was, talking about things in the kitchen, when the door suddenly flew open. Yang stopped and looked over, startled at the sudden noise. In the door stood a strange woman Yang didn't recognize. Yang was, however, able to take a look at her and realize that she meant business. She stood tall and straight, her blue eyes set in steel. Each step displayed confidence, each movement practical and practiced. She wore simple slacks, combat boots, and a white dress shirt, with a concealed pistol holster holding two guns to her sides, and her blonde hair was in a shirt pony tail.
The woman scanned the room, looking everything over until her eyes settled on Yang. Her eyes gained an almost visible fiery glow, and she started approaching Yang.
Yang stood up and began backing up as the woman closed the distance with her. Her back hit the wall, and the woman continued on.
"You." She growled, stopping close to Yang, her glacier-cold eyes glaring at her. The woman, however, was shorter than Yang by a good few inches, thus forcing her to glare up. Unfortunately, this didn't make her any less (ironically) intimidating.
"Me?" Yang said, confused by who this woman was, or what she was doing here. "What about me?"
The woman sighed angrily. "Young lady, you have absolutely no idea how much trouble you are in." she growled, poking Yang's chest. "I don't know what corner of whatever magical BS you come from, but here in Chicago, we have these things called 'laws'. And they say you can't burn down bars, understand? That's called 'Arson'!"
Yang stood there, flabbergasted. "They started it! They tried to grab me!" she responded defensively. "Not my fault that..."
"And the appropriate response is to burn the bar down?!" the woman said, incredulously.
"Well, aha..." Yang began, before she continued.
"And not three hours after the fact, you burnt an entire city block to the ground! What do you have to say for yourself, kid?!"
...
"They touched my hair." Yang said, looking the woman in the eyes. "Nobody touches my hair."
The woman simply stared, eyes wide for a moment, before throwing her hands in the air. "Oh, for f..."
It was then that Harry decided to come back from the other room, trailed by the man who, curiously, looked like he had recently taken a shower, his hair wet down, and he was shivering slightly. Harry looked over, and saw the woman, cracking a grin. "Hey, Murph." he said. "Long time, no see."
The woman...Murphy, cast one last sidelong glare at Yang, before turning and speaking to Harry. "Dresden. Do you know what she is?" Murphy asked, pointing to her. "Because I'm pretty sure she's not human."
Dresden shook his head. "I've got no clue. She says she comes from this place called 'Remnant' but I haven't heard jack about a place called anything like that."
"Is there any way to find out?"
Dresden thought for a moment, before turning to Yang. "Where are you from?"
"Remnant."
"Are you lying to me?"
"No."
Dresden turned back to Murphy and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, there you go."
Murphy nodded. "Well, I'll have to take her in to the station, Dresden."
The station? Is she gonna try and arrest me? Yang thought, thinking back to their dialogue. Just in case, she tensed herself, ready to fight if need be. She didn't want to get arrested: she still had to find a way back home. But before that could happen, Harry stepped in between them
"Come on, Murph." he said, calmly. "You don't need to take her down, do you?"
Murphy looked at Dresden, before replying, calmly but firmly "Dresden. I am an officer of the Law. And that means upholding the law, no matter how much I don't like it. This young lady..."
"Yang." Dresden supplied.
"Yang." Murphy continued. "Burned down several buildings, and I have a duty to take her in. Now, get out of my way."
She tried to step around Dresden, but Dresden again stepped out in front of her. "She did it in self-defense, Murph. And besides...it was the Fomor."
Murphy's eyes widened a bit. "The Fomor?"
Dresden nodded, before leaning in close and whispering something into Murphy's ear, something that Yang couldn't hear. Murphy simply nodded, before looking at Yang.
"Alright, Yang." She said, sighing. "You can go free. But if I see any more burned down buildings, you're coming with me."
Murphy turned and walked out the door, closing it softly behind her.
There was silence for a few beats, then Dresden let out a sigh and slumped onto his couch. "That was close." he said, rubbing his head.
Yang looked from the door to Dresden, raising an eyebrow in the same way she would with Ruby after she did something...questionable. "Was that your girlfriend or something?" She asked.
Yang was met by a very heavy sigh. "It's...complicated." Dresden said.
...
Dresden nodded, checking his equipment one last time. One never knew what you could encounter in the Never.
It had been several hours since Murphy's departure, and he had gotten some preparations done.
First, he had packed a satchel with extra salt and iron shavings, for use in case they met any of the nastier things in the Nevernever. Then, he had Bob pop out again to gather some more information. His asking price was a picture of Yang without clothing, but Harry had managed to persuade him to take dirty Japanese comics instead. Lastly, he had made a few potions and alchemical mixtures, all designed to combat Fae should he come into contact with the nasties.
Ready as they were ever going to be, Dresden and Yang left the building, Dresden leading Yang to the "Blue" Beetle. Yang stopped for a moment, gazing at the run-down bug.
"Are we going to ride in...that?" She asked, looking skeptically at the car.
Dresden turned to the girl and nodded his head. "Yeah. Do you have a problem with my car?"
"Well...does it even run?" Yang asked, glancing at the beat up hood.
"Like a five-star Olympic athlete." Dresden responded, before sliding into the car. He twisted the ignition, and the car, slowly, sputtered to life. Dresden leaned over and turned the hand-crank for the window. "Get in."
Yang stood a moment and sighed. "I wish I had Bumblebee." she said, before sliding into the car. Once she was inside, Dresden turned to her. "Alright. What can you tell me about your home?" he asked her.
Yang thought for a moment, before replying. "Well...we lived in this awesome house, on the island Patch. We were pretty close to the woods. I lived there with my half-sister, Ruby, our dad."
Dresden frowned a moment, before snapping his fingers. "I know just the place."
He drew the car out of it's spot, and the two began driving.
"Where are we going?" Yang asked curiously.
Dresden smiled and winked at her. "Patience, young padawan. You'll see."
Yang was silent a moment, before asking "What's a padawan?"
Dresden could not believe his ears. "You've never watched Star Wars?!"
"What's Star Wars?"
...
After a long drive and a lecture about Star Wars, the duo arrived at their destination. It was a homely cabin in the country, a good distance from Chicago. It was nestled at the forest's edge, and the leaves all around them practically glowed green in the summer sun. The cabin itself was well-maintained, and there was a small garden in the front, filled with everything from yellow tulips to tomato plants. Dresden got out of the car, and approached the cabin, Yang close behind.
"Why are we here?" Yang asked, looking around her.
"Because." Dresden said, gesturing around him. "I'm going to try and open a Way to your place. With any luck, I'll be able to pull it off."
"Why couldn't we do it at your apartment?" Yang asked.
"Because, in order for a Way to work, you need a strong link between the place we come from and where we're going. It's like using a land-line. My apartment has a different feel than your house, a different soul. If we tried to go from my Apartment, it wouldn't work."
Without another words, Harry closed his eyes and concentrated. Yang saw, at first, nothing...and then, suddenly, a 'hole' opened up in front of her. This hole was white, and had a strange, multi-colored halo surrounding it.
Dresden let out a breath, and examined the portal, before nodding his approval. "Ready?" he asked, turning to Yang.
This is soooo weird. Yang thought. But she had to get back to her team. Who knows how they were reacting to her disappearance right now?!
"Ready." Yang said, and they both stepped through the portal.