Rallying the Agents
"Find the agents? You mean the people who do the same job for the Yautja that you do?" José asked as the three left the cockpit and entered the ship's small and cramped conference area.
"Yes, I was the first of a program that has been successfully expanded over the last couple years and now there are a good number of them now operating on Earth, now our job is to gather them together" Miguel responded as he removed his coat and black Yautja armor before setting it in a corner.
"Sounds like plan, so where do where do start?" Benelli asked as he sat in one of the conference seats.
"I already have the list of names and locations of the program's most skilled agents, now all we got to do is go and get them" Miguel said as he brought up a holographic image of the Earth.
Typing out a sequence on his wrist computer Miguel and his two compatriots watched as around a dozen lights began to appear at various points on the holographic surface of the planet.
"Nice laser light show so which one are we headed to first?" José asked looking over the various points on the planet.
"First person up on our pick up list is in Japan, I figure that starting there should put us far enough away from those assholes chasing us for awhile to let the heat die down slightly" Miguel said as the holographic image changed to a map of the Japanese islands. "We will come back into the atmosphere and land when the sun goes down in Japan just to be extra safe, we'll then stash the ship in the mountains, wait until morning and infiltrate the target city from there".
"So then, who's the first unlucky bastard that we're bringing along on this grand crusade of ours?" Benelli asked with a smirk.
"According to this her family name is Fujimori and her given name is Asumi, her age is 17 and she lives in Nagoya" Miguel said as he pulled up a holographic image for identification.
"They employed a fucking Japanese school girl in this scheme of theirs?" José asked slightly confused.
"Better change that title to action girl" Miguel said as he brought up the unofficial and unmodified records kept on agents only by the high ancient and given to him before he fled to earth by the high ancient Zo'Chi. "She's your classic katana user, it's been only 4 months since she completed her final qualifying trial in the kiande amedha chiva and since then she's killed 5 fairly notorious bad bloods".
"So I guess what you're saying is take precautions and appearances can be deceiving, I can accept that" Benelli said shifting his gaze from the hologram back to Miguel. "So how are we supposed to find this person?"
"I got an address from the records and it seems like she provided it herself so pack light and be careful after all the last thing we need is to stir up trouble here and have to run from even more idiots" Miguel replied as he switched the hologram off, gathered up his armor, and began heading to his personal quarters while the other two headed for the cargo bay to prep their own gear.
As Miguel entered his quarters he placed his armor on his bed. Turning away from the armor Miguel once again donned his long black duster, shorts, tank top and modified sunglasses before he moved to his weapons locker in order to select his weapons for the contact job. He knew that for these particular jobs he would need to move light and maintain a low profile so apart from the always present wrist blades and computer he decided to bring only his two Yautja shurikens and twin Desert Eagles with a few spare magazines.
After a few more hours the ship began to reenter that atmosphere and when he started to feel the vibrations of the reentry process Miguel began to head down to the cargo bay in preparation for landing. As Miguel entered he found both Benelli and his father checking their weapons.
José had chosen to retain his void steel talwar sword underneath his long coat but instead of the massive S&W 500 he usually carried he had opted instead to carry a sawn-off Remington 870 shotgun hanging from strap beneath his coat to provide quick access.
"Look what we got here it's the badass long coat boys" Benelli remarked sarcastically as he loaded magazines into a pair of 45. Caliber AMT Hardballer longslides and stashed them in cross-draw fashion underneath a worn out leather biker jacket.
"Only real way to conceal my equipment to humans and my identity to the bad bloods, if I used a Yautja cloaking device they'd be onto me instantly" Miguel said as he felt the ships auto pilot land and heard the electric crackling of the ship temporarily deactivating its cloak.
"All right then, let's find this agent of yours and be on our way" José said quietly as the ramp opened and the trio headed out towards the city.
"This is the address in the records? No fucking way!" Benelli said as the trio stood at the entrance of what appeared to be a large, well maintained, and high class private all-girls academy.
"Doesn't matter, this is what she gave so this is where we have to start looking" Miguel replied taking in the fairly high walls and front gate.
"Still though I thought shit like this only existed in cheesy manga" Benelli replied.
"Disregarding how a 40 something year old man would know that, how are we going to get in?" José asked his eyes scanning the perimeter.
"Easy we walk right over the wall and open the gate for Benelli" Miguel replied with a grin that José returned if only ever so slightly.
Moving with the agility of their mixed blood José and Miguel easily scaled the twelve foot wall in a single leap and landed quietly on the other side. Crouching down the pair moved swiftly towards the security booth while remaining out of sight.
"Sorry about this" Miguel muttered as he drew back his fist and drove his fist into the guard's face just as he began to turn. The guard slumped to ground knocked out cold by the blow.
"That's one hell of a punch your packing Miguel" José said as he scanned for signs that anyone was watching.
"Yeah the last dumbass unblooded Yautja unfortunate enough to try and test me said that too" Miguel said chuckling at the past memory as he opened the gate for Benelli to enter. "Anyway help me get this guy somewhere he won't cause us any grief for awhile".
Together the three of them shoved the unconscious guard into a groundskeeper's shed and locked it before heading back onto the main campus.
"Alright I think we should split up and start looking for her, you guys should probably stick together and just look around, I think I'm going to go to the front desk and ask if they have any information on her" Miguel said as he began to head up the main path.
José and Benelli nodded to show that they understood and began to head off in a different direction.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take" Asumi Fujimori thought as she gazed absentmindedly over the heads of other students at her teacher. She was bored almost beyond all rational thought and having to sit another lecture on traditional etiquette wasn't helping her mood much. No bad bloods had surfaced in nearly a month and the lack of any action was starting to grate on her nerves and patience. "At least life amongst the Yautja for a time was exhilarating".
She had tried and for the most part succeeded in blending back into her life on earth even to the point of becoming somewhat of an idol that was looked up to by the rest of her peers. Still, while she was undercover she always had to lie about her deepest nature and secret life. She could still not forget how her heart sang gleefully in exhilaration along with the profound sense of accomplishment she experienced as she had slain the Yautja criminals who hunted innocent people of both her world and others.
"Even if another bad blood doesn't show up for awhile I still wish something exciting would happen soon" she though shifting her gaze over to look out the window. She froze suddenly as movement caught her eye.
Three foreign looking men were quickly carrying away the school's daytime security guard. Warning flags went up in her mind as the instinct formed from the months of Yautja physical and psychological training along with the Kiande Amedha Chiva began to flare up quickly.
Amidst a rain of apologies Asumi rose quickly from her seat, requested to be excused and was granted her request. The moment she was out of the classroom Asumi sprinted down hallway towards the room of the kendo club. Halting as she reached it Asumi quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching and slid the door open.
Glancing around she moved quickly towards a locker tucked away unnoticed in a corner and withdrew her prized Yautja forged Katana.
"Please let no one else be hurt" she thought as she ran down a stairwell and exited outside through a service door.
"Man, talk about a ritzy place" Miguel thought looking around as he walked up to the reception desk. As he stopped in front the desk a stern and stuck up looking woman glanced up at him and began to speak to him in Japanese that was made understandable to Miguel through his ear translator.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Yes" Miguel replied as he locked gazed with the woman from behind his sunglasses. "I'm a little confused about what this place is and I'm also looking for Asumi Fujimori"
"Are you related to her in some way?" the woman asked skeptically as she looked him up and down.
"We're family, well in a matter of speaking I suppose" Miguel replied after all it was true that they were in the same fight together, still he could sense that this conversation was not going to go anywhere helpful.
"This place is an academy where we teach young girls to become dignified ladies" the woman replied her tone one of thinly veiled contempt for him. "On top of that Asumi Fujimori is one of our model students, a truly dignified, morally correct young lady and not one whom I believe would associate with some delinquent like you" She scoffed and went back at what she was doing.
"Model lady huh? Shit, and here I thought I knew people who lived secret double lives" Miguel thought as he turned and headed back outside. "Looks like I'm just going to have to find her the old fashioned way" Miguel though as he activated his cloak in a secluded area and began to look around.
"All right we aren't getting anywhere with this" Benelli said as he and José entered an empty garden.
"I hear that, still, I don't think we can stop looking just yet" José replied in a low ton of voice. Suddenly a flash of movement caught his eye and José turned to see a young girl clad in the school's uniform and wielding a katana appeared out of the manicured bushes. It was immediately evident who she was. "Well I guess that's one way to solve our issue".
"Who are you?" Asumi said forcefully as she stepped into a defensive stance. She didn't draw her sword but she wanted the two of them to know that she meant business.
One of the men answered her in English but her own grasp of the language was so poor that she had no idea what he was saying. As one of the two shifted his stance uneasily Asumi glimpsed the handle of a firearm and her instincts immediately took over. Moving with speed gained from endless training she drew her katana and positioned herself in a defensive stance as one of her opponents also drew a sword with lightning speed.
"If you ladies would stop your pointless bickering we have work that needs to be done" a voice called out.
Looking around to see who had spoken, Asumi gasped in surprised as the third man she had spotted emerged out from cloaking technology that was all too familiar.
"Asumi Fujimori" Miguel said as if starting a grand speech. "The arbitrators and I have need of your assistance in our fight against the bad bloods, are you willing to answer our call?"
Asumi's eyes lit up with excitement and Miguel could already tell without any words that she was already onboard with their mission.
"Good, then let's go quickly, we've got a bunch more stops to make before we head out for real" Miguel said as the four of them began to walk out of the school and towards the mountains.
The rest of the trip went fairly routinely with a stop in target areas from New Zealand to Mexico, introductions would follow along with an almost immediate agreement under the own cultures bond of honor to join in the struggle. With each new agent that signed on to fight with him, Miguel began to look forward to his next task of bringing down Ga'Knash's cell leader.
"Alright, so we've got almost a dozen other people crammed into this ship now, so where do we go from here?" José asked as he and Miguel lounged in the cockpit.
"We've got one more pickup to make outside Durban in South Africa then we can go after the pricks" Miguel responded as he began to bring the ship back into orbit once again.
"Well the sooner that this is over the better" José said as he stroked his beard and thought about the future. "So how are we going to approach this one?"
"I think I'm going to go this one alone to this contact, apparently this guy is somewhat suspicious of groups just showing up on his doorstep. Just head out and enjoy the town for a few hours I should be back by then" Miguel replied as he landed the ship on the deserted outskirts of the city.
"Well, I guess this would be the place, feels kind of like my old stomping ground" Miguel thought moving quietly through the rundown neighborhood. Looking around he spotted the aging house that he was looking for and deactivated his cloak. Glancing around Miguel stepped up and knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" a man's voice asked from behind the door.
"Is this Ntshingwayo?" Miguel asked quietly. "I need to speak to you about something".
The door opened and fairly large and battle scarred man stood framed in the door looking over Miguel in a way that seemed as though he was considering him as a possible threat.
"What do you want? I didn't do anything" Ntshingwayo said assessing Miguel before looking around to make sure that no one else was with him.
"I never said you did, my name is Young Fury and I need your assistance with something very monumental" Miguel said pulling down his tank top at the neckline to reveal the mark that showed he was with the arbitrators.
Upon seeing the mark Ntshingwayo's eyes widened in recognition and he gestured for Miguel to come inside. Accepting the invitation Miguel moved up the steps and entered the house.
"So, you are the great Young Fury, it appears that the "young" part of your name was not exaggerated" Ntshingwayo said as he beckoned Miguel into a well furnished living area.
"You've heard of me? None of the others seemed to think that I was special" Miguel asked somewhat disconcerted.
"Since this program of theirs was only expanded fairly recently I guess they haven't spent much time listening to the stories of their Yautja mentors" Ntshingwayo said with shrug. "I on the other hand was recruited only a couple of months after you were so apart from yourself I am the most senior of the surviving agents, on top of that I was recruited by the same Yautja arbitrator who recruited you".
"You were recruited by Gro'Kesh?" Miguel asked somewhat surprised.
"Indeed he told me to expect a visit from you eventually. He also regaled me with tales of your exploits during my training and chiva, he was quite proud of you and what you have accomplished in your fight against the bad bloods" Ntshingwayo responded.
Miguel felt a wave of appreciation for his mentor and friend wash over him as his mind shifted back to the situation at hand.
"Well, I don't know how else to say this, but we're about to be in for the fight of our lives and I need all the help I can get dealing with a massive bad blood organization. Do you want in?" Miguel said waiting for a response.
"You didn't even need to ask, after all as fellow agents we should look after each other when the need comes, just let me collect my things" Ntshingwayo replied without a moment's hesitation.
Moving to the far corner in his living area Ntshingwayo kneeled down and opened a trap door hidden under an unremarkable looking rug. Miguel stood and watched as Ntshingwayo bent down and retrieved an exquisitely crafted Iklwa spear and Ishlangu shield which, to Miguel's surprise, was faced with the hide of a Kiande Amedha.
"Nice weapons you got there" Miguel complemented.
"I quite like them" Ntshingwayo said passing his spear over so that Miguel could examine it closely. "The spear was forged from Yautja steel by their best metal smiths, the spine and face of the shield were also constructed from the strong and light Yautja metal but I found that it had difficulty standing up to the acid of the Kiande Amedha on my chiva so I took an extra step and put the Kiande Amedha hide over the steel, now it will repel any Yautja weapon short of a plasma-caster".
"So you dragged an entire Kiande Amedha corpse back with you?" Miguel asked amused. "You must have some huge balls man".
"My observers said something similar" Ntshingwayo replied grinning.
Ntshingwayo's weapons fit the pattern for the other agents. Instead of training the agents on Yautja weapons it appeared as though the arbitrators had just upgraded the melee weapons used normally by each agent and then trained them on how to spot and track bad bloods using their own senses and Yautja technology. Asumi's katana, the taiaha of Rangi, the Maori warrior he'd picked up in Rotorua, and the weapons of the other agents all fit into this dynamic. He seemed to be the only exception to this rule. It had made sense when Miguel had thought about it more. After all it both saved training time and didn't automatically reveal an agent to their bad blood quarry.
"Alright, if your onboard let's get moving, we've got bad bloods to hunt" Miguel said as the two of them left the house and moved with a purpose towards Miguel's ship. As they moved out into the night Miguel could feel the elation in chest, finally he could put his plans into motion and crush this bad blood organization once and for all. He only hoped that Gro'Kesh, Zo'Chi, and his mate Si'Mara were having as much success.