Hey guys! I was hoping to have this out a week or two earlier but things were a little hectic and I got the flu a little while ago and yeah. But here it is, ta-da! One again, a big shout out to Aerysa and of fan and fic for their support and advice. Thanks so much!
I awoke to the sound of the airplane's wheels touching the ground. A perfect time lapse for me, as I had fallen asleep before the airplane had even taken off and luckily the plane was blessed with a rare breed of stewardess who didn't try to wake you up when you were clearly sleeping.
I was not prepared at all for the sheer multitude of people in the airport. Being from a relatively small town in North America I couldn't fathom the amount of people I saw after stepping off the plane. Getting my luggage took a long while, though security was oddly light. Doctor Lawrence flashed a badge of some sort to a few select people and we got waved through rather quickly. This had probably happened at the other airport but I had been too tired to notice.
After we arrived outside I noticed a boy standing next to a cherry red Lexus IS. He looked to be about twenty or so. He had curly, ebony locks and eyes so dark they seemed black. His skin was tanned and he was dressed in a navy suit.
He turned and met my gaze with a blank stare. For a moment I thought I could see a dark pit reflected in his eyes, but then I blinked and the pit was gone.
"Giancarlo."
The man looked away from me and instead regarded Doctor Lawrence with blatant apathy.
"This is Mitchell. Take him to the hotel and then at 4:00 drive him to the see the Lady," the Doctor instructed.
A curt nod was the only reply Giancarlo offered. My luggage was put into the trunk of the car and I slid quietly into the back seat.
I spent most of the trip to the hotel gawking out the window. There were so many people, so many buildings, as well as an obscene amount of birds. That was probably the most insignificant detail but it was something I noticed constantly. A lot of birds. Everywhere.
We reached the hotel by 12:00 pm so I had four hours to relax. My things were moved to a room but Giancarlo refused to let me unpack.
"I have been instructed to inform you that no unnecessary amount items may be removed from your bag during the course of your brief hotel stay." Giancarlo's voice was surprisingly deep with no hint of any discernible accent; his English was better than mine.
I frowned. "And just how brief will it be?"
"We will leave at 4:00 pm exactly and we will not return. Miss Ivy has not arrived and will not arrive for a several days. However, Lady Gray will be ready to receive you in a matter of hours. You will remain in her care until Miss Ivy arrives."
I pulled a face. "I'm not a child. I don't have to be taken care of," I growled.
"You have shown me nothing that would prove your statement to be true. You have leave to relax and do what you will, providing it is within the parameters of the hotel." Giancarlo handed me the electronic room key, face impassive as ever.
"Yes warden," I muttered dryly.
For a moment Giancarlo just looked at me.
"What?" I asked, eyes narrow.
"Your attitude and speech patterns are of a certain, rather abrasive variety. Likely they will make an interesting compliment to the temperament of Lady Gray. I will be leaving to complete other errands," he answered monotonously.
My brow furrowed, pondering his remark.
"What does that even mean?" I called out to him as he left. He didn't respond, not that I really expected him too. Still bugged me though.
After taking a shower I then proceeded to mess around for a bit. Nothing was good on TV, all the movies sucked, I had a stunning view of absolutely nothing interesting, and after the fourth trip to the ice bucket for no reason I decided to see if there was a pool.
Turns out there was a pool, so I went swimming. I wasn't the only one there, unfortunately but I managed to relax a bit anyway. Hot tubs have that effect. You can go in and think that you won't relax; you can swear to yourself that you won't, but you do. It's one of the few concrete facts of life.
Alone. Again. This time in a hot tub. I let my thoughts wander aimlessly.
Why was Ivy not here? I travel thousands of miles across an ocean and abandon everything safe and sure in my life and she doesn't even have the decency to be here on time. Damn her. Damn this.
Somewhere along the line I guess I decided to slowly starting to accept things. The Doctor had given me some decent answers on the plane and I would probably get more answers from this Lady Gray person so I might as well just wait and see what happens. I am too far-gone now to consider turning back.
I noticed that clock on the wall read 3:30 pm. I decided to head back to my room and dry myself off, not because I wanted to be on time but really because I hated when my fingers got wrinkly as they were now.
I was dressed and ready when Giancarlo arrived. To my surprise he looked disheveled; his clothes were torn in random places, his hands were wrapped in bandages that were once white but now had crimson seeping up to the surface and I could have sworn that a chunk of his hair looked like it was singed.
"Get your things. Immediately." His voice brooked no argument.
Four minutes later we were speeding out of the parking lot of the hotel. We crossed intersections at breakneck pace, switching lanes while barely managing not to clip other cars or hit a pedestrian full on. I gripped the seat so hard my knuckles turned white.
"What happened?" I managed to ask just after we nearly got hit by an adjacent car we cut off.
"We were compromised." His voice was just emotionless as before, showing no hint of the panic that one might associate with his reckless driving.
"What does that mean?" The last word of my sentence came out oddly as we drifted around a corner and I did my best not to smack my head into anything.
"It means that the contact I was supposed to meet is either dead or a traitor, neither of which is good for our situation. The organization that has been pursuing us is most likely behind it."
"What organisation?" I demanded. I felt like I was back at square one, having no idea about anything.
"That is not a question I can answer. Keep it in mind for Lady Gray." It was then that he ran a red light, swerved around a bicycle and made a right turn in the span of six seconds.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I grit my teeth almost painfully throughout the rest of the hellish ride before we pulled up to a metal and concrete warehouse with a large number 13 painted in yellow on the side.
"Exit the vehicle," Giancarlo commanded coldly.
"But wh-"
"Exit. The. Vehicle." Each word was punctuated with such forceful flatness that it ended up sounding more menacing that anything I had ever heard.
"Fine." I had meant for it to sound annoyed but it really just came out worried and unsure, the two dominant emotions I was feeling.
I got out of the car and collected my things. The moment I shut the door the tires screeched on the pavement and he pulled a reverse one-eighty and then drove out back into traffic.
I stood there in stupefaction for a solid long while until it occurred to be that moving is something I should consider doing. After surveying the immediate area, I figured that the warehouse was likely where I supposed to go.
There was a heavily rusted, white iron door facing me. I could see no other entrance so I tried turning the doorknob that was in worse shape than the door. It groaned but was stuck fast. I tried a second time with the same result. Finally, I threw all my weight into another attempt only to have the decrepit thing snap under the pressure. Great.
I looked at the now useless piece of metal and determined that there was no way I could reattach it and frankly I didn't have the desire to try. A small amount of satisfaction was achieved when I threw the doorknob across the pavement and hear it smack down and have a chunk break off.
I turned back to face the door. After a few swift, strong and completely ineffective kicks to the door I sat down on the ground heavily. Obviously, it was too solid for me to move.
Solid. I could fix that.
Having given the door a once-over, I calculated that the best option would be to melt down the lock and remains of the doorknob which would allow me to kick the door in. Well, most likely anyway.
I rummaged through my luggage and then triumphantly pulled out the palm-sized, blue perfume bottle. The Doctor insisted I keep a bottle of perfume with me at all times, just in case. He didn't tell me what happens when a Contractor doesn't fulfil their Contract, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it is nothing remotely good.
A cloud passed in front of the sun, covering everything in a shadow. My eyes were narrowed in a squint as I regarded the area around me. As far as I could tell, the coast was clear.
I gingerly placed my hand over the hole left by the doorknob and concentrated. I felt virtually all the muscles in my body tense up. A familiar pressure gripped my stomach and then it rushed up to my shoulder, down my arm and out of my palm.
All it took was a few seconds before I jerked my hands away so that it didn't get burned by molten iron. It oozed out of the hole and trickled down the door, slow and steady.
Then I was assaulted by another familiar pressure, this one far more demanding. The liquid perfume burned my throat and tasted just as heinous as it did the first time I drank it. It was at that moment that I gave up hope of it ever tasting any better. My hair stuck up in odd places as well and I did my best to wipe most of it off my face before it dried.
There was a small puddle of saliva on the pavement by the time I had finished spitting and coughing. Mental note: get drinkable liquids for next time to cleanse my palate.
The door gave way fairly easily after a well-placed body check though it did shriek horribly from its ancient hinges.
In the gloom of the warehouse I could just make out the shape of someone sitting one of those cheap fold-up chairs about twenty feet away. As my eyes adjusted, more details became clear. Like the fact that it was a woman and she did not look very impressed.
"You are Mitchell?" I was greeted by the cool tone of a Londoner as I stepped inside.
I did my best to shut the door, managing to get it 90% closed. "Uh, yes. So you're Lady Gray?"
Her appropriately colored gray suit looked almost white where the light hit it through the holes in the roof. It matched her slate gray eyes which were rimmed by round glasses that were not obscured by her ash blond as it was pulled up in a tight, high ponytail. She wore no makeup save for matte, red lipstick.
She stood up and brushed dust from her shoulder. "That is correct. And now having addressed your skill level, we shall move on to further testing."
"Further test-what?"I sputtered.
"I chose a secure location to test you and your capabilities so I know what to improve upon and what you already know. The first test was not altogether very promising, but there will be more test with which you can, perhaps, redeem yourself." she answered.
"Hold on, I'm talking about Giancarlo and the nearly-killed-me drive here and the compromised situation. What is going on?!" I demanded.
She raised a well groomed eyebrow, "My, don't we have a sense of self-entitlement?"
That threw me off. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Information is costly", she told me slowly, as if speaking to a small child. "If something is not told expressly to you it is assumed that you don't need to know. That is something to keep in mind for the future."
"I still don't-"
"Then let me elaborate. An enemy organization based here in Japan has kidnapped or killed our contact who works for the Syndicate as we do, and Giancarlo walked into a trap.. What followed is none of your concern. The manner in which Giancarlo brought you here is also none of your concern and you should just be grateful that you did not encounter any difficulty aside from mild traffic. Lastly, I ridged the door so that it could not be opened unless you used Contractor powers for the purpose of seeing your powers in action. That was your first test. We will now move on to the next."
I frowned and didn't reply. Oh yes, I can see that she and I will get along just great. Bring out the friendship contract; I'll sign here and now.
"I will take your silence as assent. Follow me." With that, she strode off, each step purposeful.
I trudged behind, taking my sweet time as a pathetic form of revenge. We crossed over to the far side of the warehouse, through a door that lead to a hallway, and then into the first door on our right.
The room inside was fairly small. In the centre was a square wooden table with quite a few transparent spherical bottles. They were arranged neatly in rows, and after a quick count I deduced that there were 35 bottles in total. The liquid inside the bottles was colorless, making all the bottles look exactly the same.
Lady Gray turned to me. "This is your next test. Three of these bottles contain perfume, the rest are water, cologne, or rubbing alcohol. This test will demonstrate how soon after using your powers you must pay your price and whether or not it must be strictly ladies' perfume that is used. You may begin by solidifying the tea in this cup."
She pulled a thermos and a plastic cup out of a navy blue duffle bag that was lying in the corner of the room. After pouring the content into the cup, she handed the cup to me.
I used the same process as before. I focused on the tea and felt the pressure build. As the power rushed out of my fingertips I saw the brown liquid solidify in the cup, preserving small ripples in its surface.
I waited for a few moments. It was not long before I felt more, unpleasant pressure begin to accumulate. I reached forward and grasped a bottle, pulled of its cap and took a large gulp of its contents. I swallowed, unhindered by any burning or vile taste. It was water.
The pressure continued to grow, so water was clearly not right. I grabbed another bottle and nearly vomited when I tasted rubbing alcohol. I managed to swallow a bit of it as tears built in the corners of my eyes.
The pressure didn't even pause. I snatched up bottle after bottle, my mouth screaming at me as nearly all my choices were either cologne or more rubbing alcohol. None of it was helping and I only felt worse.
Panic was rising as steadily as the pressure. I didn't even bother pulling of the cap anymore, I just smashed them against the table and lapped up the liquid while avoid the shattered glass. One thought dominated my mind: WHERE WAS THE PERFUME?
Eventually, as my vision was starting to blur, my hand grabbed empty air. I had drunk all the bottles and none of them were perfume. Suddenly, my legs could no longer support my weight and I collapsed so I was crawling on the pavement.
I cried out wordlessly, begin for help from someone, anyone. I needed it and it wasn't here.
A fuzzy blur of red wandered into my vision. My hand flew out in front of me and took hold of it. I felt it give way under my death grip, covering my hand and the floor with whatever was inside. I licked my hand a few times and then rubbed the rest of the liquid over my face and hair, barely registering the pain of having small shards of glass cut into my skin.
Finally, I felt the pressure relent. My vision came back into focus, but my muscles felt like I had just run a marathon.
The sound of me panting filled the otherwise silent room. When I got my breath back, I shakily stood up.
Lady Gray hadn't said a word; she merely regarded me with the air of a scientist looking at a specimen.
Even with my addled brain, I managed to figure something out, "You conniving little bitch." It came out as a low hiss.
She tilted her head, "I beg your pardon?"
"None of those bottles contained perfume. You just threw me the only bottle that did after I drank all the rest. What kind of twisted thing are you?"My voice was hoarse and I gingerly touched the cuts on my face, which were burning almost as badly as my throat, as I accused her.
Her eyes looked a little cloudy, but then they hardened. "Often during a test it is better that the subject be privy only to certain details, otherwise it would jeopardize the test results."
"You jeopardized my life!" I snapped, "This isn't some game. I'm not a little mouse you get to poke and prod."
Lady Gray's eyes narrowed. "You are correct. This is not a game and we are not friends. I am your teacher, and you will learn things my way or not at all. Am I clear?"
I pulled my lips back into a snarl, but didn't answer.
She stepped forward until we stood nose to nose. "I said, am I clear?"
I searched her eyes for any weakness. I didn't find any.
"Clear as crystal." I responded darkly, not breaking eye contact.
She took a step back and picked up the duffle bag, then started towards the door. She called out as she exited, "Step lively Mitchell, we have work to do."
And there it is! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment, criticism or praise, it really makes my day to hear what you guys think!