Chapter 10

Red let out an exasperated sigh, frowned, forcefully folded her arms and loudly stated "This Sucks! How come I gotta do this crap?"

"You have to do this because we don't have any records that tell us anything about you or about the level of your current education. Also, we don't know your correct age. Because of this we will need to have more information about your skills and abilities so that the orphanage will know the proper school and grade level to assign for you." Ayame stated with a sigh of frustrated resignation.

"So what; I still hate tests." Red said as a pout crossed her young face.

"Still, it is necessary, and it is best to get unwanted tasks out of the way as soon as possible so we can do the things we want to do." Ayame said with a trace of exasperation.

"Fine, give me a pencil and I'll get started." Red said as she extended her hand out with a frown on her face.

"There is one on top of the tests at that desk." Ayame said as she pointed across the room to a school desk in the corner where a six inch stack of papers were placed with a pencil sitting on top of the pile.

"Oh man, that's gonna take forever. This really sucks." Red complained as she reluctantly shuffled towards the desk with her hands in her pockets, slumped shoulders and her head hanging down in a decidedly dejected manner.

"We don't expect you to be able to answer all the questions. These are standardized tests starting from kindergarten up through High School. If you don't know the answers, skip that question and move onto the next. If you come to a set of tests where you don't know anything in them, stop and let me know."

"All right, all right. Sheesh!" Red replied as she sat down at the desk and picked up the first test and started to read.

For the next four hours, Red laboriously moved her way through test after test. As she finished a paper, she would toss it aside with a negligent flick of her hand. Before starting a new paper, she would waste time with frivolous acts such as fiddling with her pencil by balancing it on her nose, drop it and make it spin complex patterns through her fingers after she picked it up. As she engaged in this type of behavior she bitterly complained about being bored or how much of a waste of time she considered the tests to be.

At one point she shredded her pencil while strongly rolling it back and forth between her fingers and had to ask for another one. Another pencil disappeared into the sharpener in a display of speed sharpening. When Ayame would berate her, she would grudgingly start a new set of tests, finish it and repeat the cycle until she had completed tests up to a college level.

"OK, you can stop now. We didn't think you would be able to complete tests this advanced for your age." Ayame said.

"Bout' time." Red huffed out as she shoved the few remaining tests onto the floor. "Some of these were really boring and complicated."

"Well, we just have these last ones to scan, and then we will have the results of your tests, though it may take us longer than we expected to decide on the results since we didn't expect you to go past an elementary level." Ayame sighed in relief. "Meanwhile, why don't you go out in the hall and get a drink from the water fountain."

"Kay!"

With a rapid dash Red left the room and headed for the hall. After a quick stop to use the facilities, she stepped up to the fountain to sate her thirst. As she was drinking a shadowy figure came around the corner and stalked towards her.

"You think you're real smart, don't you? You disrespectful little brat; your kind really makes me sick, you think you can break all the rules and get away with it. I think someone needs to show you some discipline." Yori said with a snarl, and then reached out with clawed hands in an angry attempt to grab her around the throat.

"Hey, you old fart!" Red said with a dismissive snort as she easily evaded his attack. "Ya gotta move faster than that ta get me." She continued with a smirk as she skipped backwards while pulling her lower eyelid down with her middle finger and sticking her tongue out at him.

"Why you disrespectful little monster!" Yori roared as he lunged after her. "I am going to teach you a lesson over my knee!"

"What is going on out here!? Ayame yelled as she snatched the door open with a loud bang and entered the hall.

"Not much, the old fart is just trying ta teach me a lesson." Red said with a laugh as she dodged another angry, overreaching lunge by Yori that left him off balance and wheeling his arms to keep from falling on his face.

"YORI! Leave her alone!"

"NO!" Yori yelled with a guttural snarl. "She is not a martial arts master, and I will prove it."

"Oh yeah? How ya gonna do that, ya old fart. You can't even catch me." Red taunted as she danced out of reach of his increasingly more skillful attempts to snatch her.

"I'm going to defeat you. If you really are a master, you should have no trouble with a little old tenth dan black belt." Yori announced as he rapidly dropped into a powerful fighting stance. "I have been training my whole life in the arts. There is no way you could be a real master in the short time you have been alive. I am outraged at the insult to myself and martial artists everywhere. If I haven't been able to achieve the rank of master then there is no way a young brat like you could have. I will take you down and expose the lie you represent that makes my heart and soul burn with righteous anger!"

With those words he quickly advanced forward and snapped a perfect round house kick at the young girl's head. As she leaned back to let it pass a couple of centimeters in front of her nose, the kick was delivered with so much power that it caused the hair on her head to fly back from the wind of its passing. With a surprisingly light spin for a man of his advanced years Yori leaped into the air and spun around with a series of spinning flying kicks that drove the young girl backwards before their ferocity and speed before she managed to create some distance between herself and the angry old man.

"Jeeez, if that's the way ya feel 'bout it, then I formally accept your challenge, ya old fart." Red said with a smirk and a quick bow with the palm of her open left hand set against the fist of her right.

"YORI! Stop this right now!" Ayame yelled as she stepped in-between Red and her opponent with outstretched arms as if to shield the child from attack.

"It's okay lady, I have accepted his challenge. Side's, the way of a martial artist is fraught with peril. If it would make you feel better, we can have the match in a gym or large room rather than this hall." Red reassured the well-dressed bureaucrat as she dodged around Ayame to block a powerful kick that Yori didn't bother to pull that would have hit the well-meaning woman.

"HEY! Watch the innocent bystanders! Keep her out of it!" Red hollered at Yori as she continued forward and swept his supporting leg out from underneath him, a move that dropped him to the floor where he had to quickly roll backwards to regain his feet.

"Stay out of this Ayame, or you might get hurt!" Yori growled. "This brat needs to be taught her place. I am insulted by her allegations; no one her age could have a master's certificate. So I am going to prove it for the lie that it is.

"Hey lady, where's a large room we could fight in?" Red asked as she blocked another attack from Yori.

"Up one flight of stairs and down the hall to the right is a large gym area used for exercise." A disconcerted Ayame automatically replied before she had a chance to realize what she was saying and say no to the idea of a fight. "Wait, I didn't mean - - -"

"Thanks!" Red interupted with a smile, turned and then ran towards the stairs. "Hey, ya old fart, bet ya can't catch me!" She yelled as she ran.

With a sharp pull, she yanked the door open to the stairs. With a light dance she spun to stick her tongue out at Yori, and then dashed up the stairs with him in close pursuit. Without slowing down, she slammed the door open onto the upper floor and sped down the hall with a speed that quickly opened up a large gap between herself and her enraged adversary.

To her dismay, upon reaching the gym door she discovered that it was a locked, steel reinforced fire door. With a quick shuffle she put her back to the door, where she jumped up and down and waved her hands at the sides of her ears while making raspberry noises at the lumbering man bearing down on her. At the last second she sidestepped out of the way of Yori and watched him crash through the door where he bounced off a lat pull down machine, tripped over a set of dumb bells and sprawled face first onto the floor.

With a quick dash she blurred past her fallen opponent, ran through a fence style gate into a ceiling high, chain link enclosed basketball court and took up a casual looking position in the middle of the polished hardwood floor with her hands in her pocket as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

"Hey, ya comin' or what?" she demanded while appearing to be bored and relaxed despite the anxious flutterings of misgiving at the situation she found herself in.

With a muffled curse, Yori stood up, and dusted himself off. Then with a slow turn of his head, he locked his eyes onto the small form of the child that was quickly becoming like a tiny demon to him. With slow, deliberate steps he walked through the gate, and then carefully locked and jammed it closed behind him where he effectively trapped his hated target into a cage match with himself. With a slow deliberate stride he moved across the floor without once taking his eyes off his target.

When he was within range, he quickly accelerated into a series of kicks and sweeps with a fast set of agile steps. As he kicked the girl weaved, dodged and swayed around his attacks without once taking her hands out of her pockets until his attacks ran out of momentum and left him feeling like he had been trying to hit an ethereal spirit, such as a ghost.

"Hey that was pretty good old man. Nice form, good power, nice speed, but you're just too slow for me. So how about I give ya a taste of a real attack combo." Red said as she took her hands out of her pockets and brought them up into a loose, relaxed fighting position.

With a quick adjustment of her pant legs at her thighs, she swiped her nose with her right thumb, gave a sneer and then exploded forward with a flying kick that Yori barely managed to block that immediately transitioned into two quick hooks with her left hand that blew his head to the side. As her feet hit the ground, she used the floor as a spring board to leap upwards with both palms of her open hands and slam their heels into the stunned man's chin with an impact that cracked through the air and threw him backwards about twenty feet where he skidded across the floor on his back.

As Yori slowly stood back on his feet and shook his head to clear the cobwebs left from her attack, a loud speaker was heard echoing in the spacious room. "Security! Security! Please hurry to the gym! Emergency in progress, we have a young child under attack and in danger of serious injury."

"Rats!" Red said. "This was just getting fun. Guess we will have to end it quick."

"Yes, yes we will." Yori said with an evil grin that he punctuated with a sinister chuckle. "I was going to take my time and savor this, but I guess I will have to step up my game before I wanted to instead."

Taking in a deep breath and loudly expelling it, Yori began a slow deliberate set of motions and guard changes that resembled a mini kata and ended in a horse stance. As he slowly extended his left hand forward into a classic karate position for practicing punches with one arm extended and the other arm cocked by his hip with his legs bent, his hands began to glow with a dull red light.

"STRIKE OF THE FIERY FIST!" Yori announced in a loud voice as he stepped forward and punched in the direction of Red with his right hand.

When his hand snapped out to the end of its intended motion, the red light left his fist with a loud popping hiss and became a quickly moving projectile of energy that bore down on the young girl with a speed too fast for her to dodge in the short distance between herself and her opponent. With a quick jerk she yanked both hands up from their relaxed, lowered guard and crossed her arms in front of her face in a desperate attempt to block the attack.

Upon impact with her arms, the fiery ball of energy exploded with enough force to throw her backwards across the gym and onto her back where she skidded for another thirty feet. With a quick roll she returned to her feet and stood up on legs that felt a little rubbery and shaky, barely in time to dodge a second energy ball from Yori, that were quickly followed by ten more that she scarcely weaved and dodged in, out and around while trying to regain full control of her body and her legs.

"Not so cocky now are you, you rotten brat!" Yori growled with a smug look of his own.

"Hey! I thought we were sparring, not fighting a death match!" Red yelled as she spread her legs wide for the increased stability it brought her while she tried to recover.

"There is no such thing as sparring; it is always a fight with only one winner and one loser. Sometimes, someone dies. Didn't you ever learn that, or are you one of those paper dojo masters who never really learn how to fight and only do pretty forms?" Yori said with an evil grin.

"So, anything goes?" Red asked with a puzzled frown at her turn of phrase as a quiet inner voice asked why that sounded so familiar to her.

"Yep!" Yori said with an evil hiss, and then exploded into a run at the small girl with his hands still glowing.

As Yori ran towards her, Red heard a familiar voice bark at her in her head. ["There's no such thing as a fair fight, boy! If you're smaller than your opponent use anything and everything you have to take him down. There is no such thing as a dirty attack! Now stand up and fight!"]

Time seemed to slow down for the young girl as she weaved and bobbed in and out of a series of fiery red punches that left a red trailing after image from their passage while she attempted to analyze how her adversary was creating the energy that made his hands glow. After trying to block one of those attacks and obtaining a numb arm for her troubles from the power in Yori's blows, she found herself in the dangerous position of being completely on defense.

["Adapt Boy! When you find yourself being beaten, analyze the situation, find their weakness and adapt. Or figure out his attack, improve upon on it and use it to defeat him!"] The gruff, grating but familiar voice rang out and echoed in her head.

With a quick duck of her head, she moved inside Yori's punches as one grazed her cheek and made it feel like it was on fire. With an explosive grunt, she kicked up into the fork of Yori's legs hard enough to lift him off the ground about five feet and drove the breath out of him with an explosive gasp. As her enemy fell back down to earth, his knees buckled beneath his weight and dropped him down to a crouch. With a quick roundhouse kick, she snapped his head sideways and drove him down onto his side where he curled into a ball.

"I'm going to kill you for that!" Yori gasped out of lips turned grey from pain.

Leaping backwards, Red closed her eyes and replayed Yori's kata in her head and found some imperfections and a couple of possible missing steps. With a quick thought, she rewrote the kata in her head, mentally ran through it a couple of times, and then opened her eyes to the sight of Yori standing back on his feet while slowly moving back through his kata that would reignite his fists. Watching carefully, she found she could feel how the kata rearranged his internal life energy so he could execute the powerful strikes and blows that had almost defeated her.

Closing her eyes she made one last adjustment to the kata and then quickly blurred through the new form with her eyes closed. As she finished the kata she opened her eyes and found both her hands and her feet were glowing with a cold blue energy. "Attack of the Fiery Fist, REVISED!"

"HOLY CRAP!" an unknown, loud, deep, male voice yelled. "What the hell's going on in there?"

"Kami Sama!" a familiar female voice exclaimed

"Stop that and let us in!" Another voice demanded as someone rattled the entry gate to the basketball court.

Ignoring the voices that were trying to get their attention, Yori brought the palms of both his hands together in a prayer like position with both feet together as if he were standing at attention. With a quick interlacing of his fingers through several different configurations he rapidly moved his arms in a ritual like set of patterns for each new hand position and finished in a combat stance with his hands curled into claws.

"Speed of the demon cat!" Yori yelled and then charged at the girl from behind a punch of thrown energy.

"C – c – cat! I hate cats!" Red yelled back as she blocked the first attack without apparent injury despite the explosion from where her blue energy met Yori's red.

Yori's hands became a blur as he rained down attacks on the young girl faster than the eyes could see. The glow from his hands became brighter and hotter until it looked as if he fought within a circle of flames that danced at his command while striving to burn up and destroy the young girl skipping and counter dancing at their outer edge.

As she blocked, Red felt the heat from her opponent try to burn her up. As his blows rose and fell, she started to fearfully imagine the fires of hell rising and falling like a hungry tide moving in to consume her. This was so different than any spar she could remember in her short memories. As the heat became stifling she saw an image of a large arrogant man with four giant wings hurling fireball after fireball towards her rise up in her memories, but it was distorted as if viewed through massive heat waves that made the heat from Yori seem like a cold wind from the North Pole.

["Come on boy, you aren't even trying yet. Fear is the only opponent to fear! Get in there and fight like a man; not a little girl!"] The voice in her head exhorted, snapped and snarled.

With a quick shuffle step, she exploded forward and landed a front kick into her opponent's midsection to send him flying backwards and gain a little room. With a quick leap backwards she added another thirty feet between herself and Yori.

Standing straight up with her feet together she placed her hands palm together in front of her chest as if praying. With a slow exhale she extended her arms up above her head with her index fingers pointed towards the heavens while picturing all fear and panic being blown out of her heart and mind with her expelled breath. With a slow inhale she brought her hands back down to return them to a prayer position as she imagining inhaling peace, tranquility and calm as cool as a sheet of polar ice.

Moving back through the newly formed kata she pictured everything within herself to be as cold as ice, calm and peaceful. She locked herself into an icy calm where nothing could shake her demeanor, anger her, or cause her fear. Upon completion of the well-orchestrated movements, she brought her hands down to her side and blew out a breath of air so cold you could see it hover like an exhaled breath of tobacco smoke as her entire body became surrounded by a deep blue glow similar to light glittering off a thick, wide frozen lake.

Looking up through her bangs like a tiger seeking its prey with eyes blue as the ice she had encased her soul in, she saw her fiery enraged opponent barreling down on her while preparing for another assault. With a calm demeanor she stepped forward and punched straight out with her right fist to send a bright blue ball of light on a flying trajectory to smash into Yori's chest and force him backwards with an explosion of ice and cold that helped cool some of the heat radiating off him.

As if from a great distance, she heard voices yelling, but they skidded off the surface of her brain without registering any meaning that would disturb her calm interior. It was as if she lived in a world by herself untouched by anything and everyone else.

"YORI STOP! WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE KAMI ARE YOU DOING?! I know you've been under a great deal of stress but have you LOST YOUR MIND?! - - - YOU! Get this gate open NOW!"

"I can't Ma'am, the lock's been fused."

"Kami Sama, look at her, she's glowing!" Another man in a security uniform gasped out.

"RED!" Ayame fearfully yelled.

With precise movements, Red serenely stepped forward through a series of punches and kicks that launched several energy balls at her opponent and rocked him back with each impact that he didn't block or dodge. Leaping forward into the air she executed a series of aerial kicks that appeared to defy the laws of gravity as she drove kick after kick into his arms, head and upper torso. When her feet hit the ground, she ducked under a counter punch spun on one foot and swept his legs out from under him, rose up to both feet and kicked Yori with a glowing foot that left ice forming on the impact point at the fork of his legs as he slid backwards across the polished hard wood floor clutching his reinjured manhood with both hands.

Looking on with wary, tired eyes the young girl watched with trepidation and unbelief as her opponent once again rose to his feet and then shook himself so that he resembled a dog trying to rid itself of an unwanted bath. With a deep breath he yelled out "ARMOURED FLAMING SKIN OF THE DEMON!" as he stomped down into a deep, sumo like combat stance and appeared to catch on fire from the red glow of his aura.

Looking up he spotted his prey, raised his head while holding his arms down low with clenched fists as he sounded an inarticulate scream of rage. While the gym was still echoing with his shout, he exploded forward with more speed than he had yet shown during this fight to leap at Red with a flying side kick that she barely ducked while flinching from the heat of his passing foot that attempted to singe her hair.

When he landed he spun on one foot and lashed out with a back kick so unexpectedly fast that she couldn't block or dodge. Without resistance, it forcefully caught her in the ribs so hard that she thought she both felt and heard at least one crack from the blow that drove the remaining breath from her lungs. With a quick gasp she just managed to suck in a brief breath of air as she twisted away from a new assault by her opponent.

As Yori struck out at her with a new series of punches, kicks and strikes, she was forced to retreat before the speed and power of his blows. Anything that she landed, her opponent shrugged off like a bite from an annoying insect despite the power behind her attacks. Hitting the man was now like hitting a steel beam; six feet of concrete would have been softer than landing a solid blow to his torso.

["Boy, if a man has hardened his body through conditioning exercises or through his ki, he can still be hurt at specific vulnerable points, such as pressure points. Find them and then repeatedly pummel em!"] The gruff voice lectured in her head.

With a carefully measured step Red ducked under a kick to her head, shifted around a couple of punches, took a horse stance inside Yori's attack zone, a dangerous position sometimes known as standing in the blender, and then proceeded to punch at several different vulnerable spots on his torso as quick and hard as she could. When she straight punched him in the bread basket; it felt a little softer than the other spots on his body landing with an impact that caused him to loudly exhale and hunch his body slightly around the point of contact.

With a powerful back hand to her face, Yori let out a growl and knocked her backwards across the floor so hard that her head swum while her vision darkened and then closed in. As she covered her injured eye and fought to remain consciousness, she saw an after image in her head of her hands snatching piranhas out of a fish tank so fast that they couldn't bite her while her hands remained dry. As the memory faded she heard a loud voice echo through her brain that sounded like hers, only a little bit deeper and somehow older, yell out ["Chestnuts roasting on an open fire REVISED!"]

With a shake of her head she rolled to her feet and blocked a front snap kick with crossed arms as Yori pursued his advantage. Her legs felt like rubber and his blows came hard and fast. Fear pumped through her veins and her breathing became ragged from the pain in her side as she retreated before his barrage.

["Fear is a weapon against one's self; don't ever let it rule you!"] The sage but gruff voice raged in her brain.

With a deep breath that felt as if her ribs were on fire she tried to calm her emotions and regain control of herself so that she could survive and retake the initiative of the dangerous situation she found herself in. ["Son-in-law, you must submerge all of your emotions in a soul of ice. Become cold and let everything slide off."] An aged female voice lectured in her nonexistent memories like an echo of a long dead recording from another age.

As she dodged a new series of attacks, she pictured a mountain glacier in her mind and fed all of her emotions into it. Inhaling deeply she pictured her frozen emotions gather in her lungs, held it for a moment and then exhaled them away in a breath of air that fogged out like mist on a cold winter's morning while the temperature dropped around her as if she was surrounded by northern arctic air.

Where the heat from Yori's fiery aura met the cold blue aura surrounding her, the air shimmered and fought with small spiraling winds that howled as if alive. As she dodged she didn't notice the unconscious spiral pattern she was leading her opponent into. With deft movements, evasions, slips and bobs she weaved herself backwards towards the center of a perfect spiral. The tighter the spiral got the faster and harder the winds howled until her hair was lifting with their gale force and her clothes were threatening to come apart under their tearing speed.

With each backward step her spiral tightened and small twisters could be seen forming between Red and Yori. Just before she reached the center of the spiral, she saw an opening on her opponents diaphragm, abandoned the spiral and exploded forward with a yell of "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire!" while she unleashed as many punches as she could into that one spot with a speed that made her hands and arms blur until they appeared to disappear.

With an explosive grunt, Yori folded around the hundreds of punches that landed as one at the center of his being where his ki resided within his belly as his forward momentum gave extra strength to the girl's strikes. With horror and shock on his face, he fell to his knees, grasped his stomach with both of his arms and desperately tried to draw air into his now empty lungs. With a look like a landed fish, his mouth worked but no air could get past his locked abdominal muscles that controlled the bellows actions of his oxygen starved lungs. After a couple of minutes he fell over onto his side into a terrified unconsciousness as he lost the struggle for air.

After he had fully collapsed, Red dropped her combat stance, wearily let go of the energy that illuminated her form, walked over to her opponent's unmoving body and subconsciously hit several points on his back with the extended index finger of her right hand. Upon completion of her complex pattern, Yori's body started to slowly breathe again.

With a weary pace she turned and trudged back towards the locked gate while cradeling her injured ribs with her left arm where she saw Ayame and two security guards gaping at her with wide eyes. When she arrived at the gate, she reached out with her right hand and gave it a strong yank. With a loud metallic pop, the latch snapped as it received more force than its engineer could have foreseen being exerted upon it.

"He's gonna need an ambulance. He expended an awful lot of energy and I hit him pretty hard there at the end. I don't want ta see him seriously hurt or crippled from this fight. He's a good fighter." Red said to Ayame with a weary lopsided half smile.

"Are you all right?" Ayame quietly asked with a bit of fear in her eyes.

"Yep, just pretty tired and hungry. Maybe a bit bruised as well. I don't remember ever havin' a fight like that in my life." Red slowly replied. "Is there somewhere I can rest?"

"How about the couch you seemed to like? Not to mention you earned it. I have never seen anything like that." Ayame said as she kneeled down in front of the young girl and placed her right hand on her left shoulder as she looked her in the eyes. "You're going to have a serious black eye and bruised cheek; I hope it was worth it."

"Miss, what should we do with Yori. We have handcuffed him and the police are on their way. Do you want to press charges?" A security guard carefully asked as he looked at the young girl with haunted eyes and an abnormally pale cast to his features as if what he had just seen had scared him beyond all reason.

"Red, do you want to press assault charges against him?" Ayame quietly asked.

"No, he and I just didn't hit it off. It was partially my fault cause I'm upset at the whole orphanage thing. I don't want him gettin in ta trouble cause of me. I should be grateful to him for showing me the extent of my limits and drivin' me past em." Red said with a slow shake of her head.

"Well, that is very generous of you, but I am going to have to have charges pressed against him. We can't have a worker with the CGC attacking children, no matter the provocation. I'm sorry, but he is going to have to pay for his bad choices."

"So am I. I don't need enemies, and that's what he's gonna be after this." Red wisely said with a sad sigh.

"Come on, let's take you back to the couch so you can rest. You won't have to speak to the police; the surveillance cameras will have caught everything on tape. I will also be sure to tell Yori that you chose to not press charges, which may help." Ayame said as she put her hand on the young girls back and slowly started to guide her towards the exit from the gym.

"Thanks, I hope that helps." Red sadly said as she shuffled forwards.

Instead of taking the stairs, they took the elevator back down and went back to the conference room where Red saw that the broken table and the previously surrounding chairs had already been removed and the rug was freshly vacuumed. With a sigh she walked over to the couch, kicked off her shoes and laid down.

"Stay here, we still need to finish grading your tests. After that I want to talk to you about some options for your schooling and where you will be staying. Also, I want Doctor Shin to have a look at you and make sure you aren't severely injured and in need of a hospital." Ayame said in a kindly voice, turned and then exited the room with a quiet click of the door latch.

Squirming until she got comfortable, she propped her feet up on the armrest and pillowed her head with her hands interlaced together behind her head. With confused thoughts, she pondered her disagreement with Yori, the fight that resulted from it and about the half remembered images and voices that came to her rescue during it. The memories were dim and hard to recall, as if blocked from her ability to access them, like a locked filing cabinet that occasionally spit out a miscellaneous page at random.

"Maybe I need ta be more careful about makin' people mad like that. It seems ta be too easy for me ta make others mad like that, almost as if it is a natural part of my fighting skills." Red thought aloud to herself. "I think I'm gonna have ta watch that if I want ta make any friends. It's gonna be hard enough with the boy-girl thing without being a jerk all the time as well."

The more she thought about things, the more confused she became. Was she a she, or a he? The few barely remembered voices that had drifted up from the dark recesses of her mind referred to her with a masculine gender preference, but she had woken up in the hospital as a girl. Since she felt normal in either form, as if she had spent many hours and days in both forms, the act of being either a boy or a girl didn't help her figure things out. And to make matters worse, everything seemed much bigger than she thought it should be.

Maybe she was nothing more than a freak and she should be very careful about revealing her gender changing ways to anyone else. After all, she didn't want people to dislike her just because they saw her as an unnatural abnormality. As her thoughts continued to chase each other through her head, she found her eyes getting heavier and heavier until she fell into a light but troubled sleep.