Anomaly; Part 1: Trials

Chapter 8 – What Zack Saw


Zack groaned and tried to think up of some lie he could tell to his brother and his mother so he wouldn't get in trouble. But he knew it would be hard to get out of this one. The odds weren't good. He kept his hands in the air as he looked at the police officers slowly walking towards them. He looked over at Crystal and was amazed to see that she seemed calm despite the situation. And Koto, he looked like he was ready to attack anyone that even looked at him.

Zack let out a breath as he watched the police officer pull handcuffs from his belt and advance towards him. He groaned and tilted his head back and saw blue eyes staring down at him. He blinked and tilted his head slightly as Blazen stuck his head over the top of the shelf. Zack lifted his eyebrows and silently asked what his friend was doing. Blazen stuck a finger to his lips and grinned.

Zack looked back down at the police officer that was grinning widely, his handlebar moustache seemed to widen as he grinned. "How about you three take a little ride down to the station?" He asked with a little laugh.

"Isn't that kind of…redundant?" Koto asked in a bored tone.

The police officer turned his beady black eyes to Koto before slowly walking over to him, the handcuffs in his hands jingled with every step that he took. "You say something, Goldilocks?" The officer asked, eyeing Koto from his shaggy, matted, and unkempt blond hair, to his beat up leather jacket, to the holey jeans down to his beat up shoes.

"You asked us about us going to the police station downtown," Koto replied with the same tone to his words. "We don't really have a choice of going there so the question was redundant." The officer stared hard at Koto. "I'm sorry, am I speaking with too many big words?" Koto cleared his throat. "Question not needed," he said slowly and loudly. The officer's beady eyes seemed to get smaller as he squinted at Koto. "Dude, I know I'm good looking but you're starting to freak me out by your staring," Koto quipped.

Zack bit his lip to keep from laughing as he turned his head. His arms were staring to hurt from holding his hands up and he wished Blazen would do whatever it was he was planning so they could get out of there. Zack looked around at the other officers standing at the end of the aisle, guns held up as if to protect themselves. Zack made a face. What could they protect themselves from? They didn't have a weapon and they didn't look dangerous, they were just kids after all.

Wait a second…Zack's eyebrows knitted together as his eyes rested on the little patch on the arm of a police officer's shirt. He could barely make out the words but the design on the sleeve was very different from a normal police officer's patch…

"Wooohooo!" Zack suddenly heard Blazen hoot. Crystal, Koto, and Zack all lifted their heads to see Blazen jump off of the top the shelves and dive towards the police officers. As he felt he quickly turned into his burn form and burst into flame, becoming a flame silhouette of a bird, successfully tackling them to the ground. The officers let out screams of pain as they fell to the ground, catching on fire.

Zack felt a tug on his belt and a hiss of, "Hold your breath" before he was yanked through the ground. He managed to hold his breath right before he seemed to drop through a puddle and was surrounded by water. All of a sudden the dark wall that was the floor of the store changed into what looked like a tall building. Zack felt like he was being pulled up and took in a large breath of air once his head broke the surface. He heard Koto and Crystal splashing next to him and chuckled when he saw Crystal move as fast as she could to get to the edge of the pool.

"Huh, looks like cats really don't like water," Blazen joked, landing on Zack's shoulder and ruffling his feathers. Zack swam over to the edge of the pool and lifted himself out; turning to see what or who it was that had saved them.

"You really did it this time, Zack," Cody said in a disapproving voice as he pulled himself out of the hotel's outdoor pool, pulling his wet shirt away from his chest. He paused and looked at his brother. "Do you mind?" Zack rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. A light ribbon of steam filled the air as Cody's clothes, skin, and hair quickly dried out. "Thanks. As I was saying, you really did it this time."

"What? Interrupt your date with Bailey?" Zack asked with an eye roll.

"No, get in trouble with the police," Cody replied. "Which means that Mom owes me ten bucks."

"You bet Mom ten dollars of when I'd get in trouble with the law?" Zack asked incredulously.

"Yup. Mom had faith in you, go figure." Cody shrugged and gave his brother a little smirk before turning to look at Koto who was squeezing out his leather jacket. "What happened? Blazen suddenly contacted Phantom who dragged me away from Bailey to tell me that you guys were being held by the police? That I understand from Zack and Koto, but you?" He turned to Crystal.

She scoffed and squeezed out her hair and then turned to Zack and lifted her eyebrows. He nodded and held out his hands, slowly clenching his fingers. Steam filled the air and their wet clothes turned dry. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to jump to conclusions?" She growled. "Besides, we were being shot at. With this." She lifted the gun from her back pocket and tossed it to him.

Cody carefully caught it and looked it over. "Huh, an injector. Pretty impressive," he muttered to himself as he turned it over. "We've been attacked by wolves, lions, and random shadow monsters and never has anyone ever been smart enough to try and shoot us with injectors." He tilted his head and looked at the symbol that was on the handle of the gun. "I haven't seen this before, have you?" He held it out and Zack and Crystal got closer to look at it. It was what looked like a plus sign with a spiral on it.

"Never," Crystal replied with a shake of her head. "And I've seen a lot of stuff. This however…" she shook her head and her voice trailed off. "Do you still have that computer?"

"The one that you gave me?" Cody asked, not taking his eyes off of the gun.

Her lip twitched slightly. "Yes, that one. It has that database that I was telling you about. We could—"

"Use it to try and get information on this symbol," he interrupted her, catching on. "You're a genius."

"Really?" Koto grunted, causing them all to look at him. "If she's so smart why'd she date you? You…Hero types did a lot of things that was weird to me but that by far was the weirdest. Honestly, you could do better." He dug in his pockets and growled under his breath when his pockets turned up empty. "And anyway, if you guys haven't seen that before what makes you think that a database would? So what if your dad was some sort of super Element scientist guy. It doesn't mean he knows everything."

"Have you seen this symbol before?" Crystal asked."And better yet why'd you have a gun on you?" She started walking towards him. "Unless the people that shot at us were part of your group," she said slowly.

"Chill, Kitten, the BlackWolves don't use injectors," Koto replied and then he added somewhat proudly, "We didn't have a need to. We're much stronger than a stupid dart gun."

"Yet somehow…we could always beat you guys," Crystal said with a smirk as Koto glared.

"You guys just got lucky one too many times," Koto growled.

"Make all the excuses you want, Mutt. You know something about what's going on, it's the only reason you're here otherwise you wouldn't bother talking to us. Unless you had a thing for Riley—"

Koto let out a bark-like laugh. "That was Reihu's territory, not mine and I told you that I can't tell you about anything that I know unless you all are here."

"What's the difference? We'd relay the information and you wouldn't have to be around us which is obviously something you'd rather not do," Crystal shot back. "Why not make this simple on both of us?"

"I think she's been watching too much Law and Order," Zack commented dryly. He then looked back down at the handle of the gun that was in Cody's hands. "Wait, that was on the officer's shoulder," he commented.

"What?" Cody asked, looking hard as his twin. "What do you mean?"

"The police officers that were holding us at the store. This symbol was on their jacket," Zack replied, pointing at the spiral.

"Are you sure?" Crystal asked.

"Positive, I saw it right before Blazen dive-bombed them," Zack replied and then turned to his companion. "Which was a great one by the way." Blazen puffed up his feather covered chest with pride as Zack ran a finger over his head.

"So they weren't real officers," Crystal summed up.

"The question is how did they know that you were there and why were they trying to attack you?" Cody asked, carefully handling the weapon.

"But that's just it, they weren't trying to attack us," Crystal told him. Zack and Cody exchanged a look before looking back at her. "They were trying to attack him," she said, turning to look at Koto. "Remember? He told us that our own government is after us. We don't know how and we don't know how he knows but someone knows he knows and they know he told us and they're trying to get him out of the way so he can't say anything else so we won't have the upper hand."

"So someone knows that he knows and they know that he told us and now they know that we know that he knows what they know?" Cody asked.

"You really are the smart one," Koto quipped.

"Then…if they know about you…that means…they all ready know about us," Cody summed up, his eyes widening in fear. "They all ready know our secret."