DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

(Pre-Note:...no more delays, guys. It's all over. Things have finally calmed down, and I hope I haven't lost any readers because of my absence. I can't hide behind the fact I was running around, mapping evidence and telling myself I'm not falling back into my private eye days. I'm just helping a sibling. I'll sort out the finer details for you guys later, but here's how it started.

My sister's apartment was attacked and nearly vandalized. By some drug-business punks who had the wrong apartment number. The doors were locked, so her room mates and her weren't killed. But what those guys yelled through the door scared them enough that they needed to move out the next day. The problem, her neighbors threatened these girls with violence if they told the police who the guys had been looking for. So they had to move out and get this information to the police under the protection of every able family member anf friend my sister has. Inlcuding, her brother. Who had an unsuccessful run at the private investigation business, and a halfway decent run as a boxer and later as a MMA competitor. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying. Nobody. messes with my sister. Period.

Oh, and this chapter contains a couple curses, and a joke involving a subject most ignorant males tend to avoid like the plague. It's not sexual. Just...taboo.)

Two Days Later

I watched with heavy eyes as the same blimp-sized woman with the football-sized dog shuffled by the fire hydrant I'd been sitting on for what had to be more than an hour. After the woman huffed by, talking to the dog under her breath as she did so I made another glance down both sides of the block. Nothing new. Three parks cars, eleven twig-like trees planted between sidewalk slabs, and a red and yellow flier flapping under some one's windshield. Except for the covered storefront I was loitering in front of, this was all brownstone buildings full of college students and the semi-retired.

And the lady with the dog. She walked by again, I mouthed to myself.

"Thirty three…"

When she reached the edge of the empty block and turned for lap thirty four, a foreign sound snapped me out of the trance this hypnotic dog-walking put me in.

A dull-sounding kickback from a motorcycle as it swerved into the block opposite the hardly phased dog owner. If you really need to be specific, from a modified touring bike that had served the local police department loyally for years until its riding officer retired prematurely and took her trusted mount home with her. Is that legal? Well, her grease-monkey husband stripped all the logos off and repainted it. And I'm starting to suspect she did something to the fuel lines.

I knew all this before I even turned to look at the bike. I took my time turning my head, and by the time my guess was confirmed she was leaning onto the kickstand a few feet away from the deep-red sport bike I'd parked a few yards away from the not nearly as red fire hydrant. I didn't even loosen an eyebrow as a petite-built woman in a black windbreaker slid off the comparably huge bike and slid her silver shades down to the tip of her nose. Her nearly black eyes locked onto me for a second before she snapped her shades back up and stepped over the curb toward the door of the storefront.

"…how long you been out here?"

I just shrugged against the jacket I had slung over one shoulder. As she pulled out a key and opened the door, she explained.

"Long night. Picked my bike up from the shop, figured I may as well blow off some steam."

I just nodded silently, cracking my stiff neck as I closed the door behind me and hit a button on the side of the door frame. There was a low hum as blinds covering the glass wall of the place slowly retracted into a ceiling vent. Gradually the mid-morning sunlight washed down onto the padded floors and bare walls of the dojo as the small woman in the sunglasses shucked off her jacket to reveal the black gi she had taken to wearing all of a sudden.

I quickly wondered why she'd been wearing a rather stuffy training outfit under her street clothes. And why she was doing so when it was easily eighty degrees out, I'd had to take off my jacket to avoid ruining the leather with sweat. I cleared my hardly used throat and commented.

"…where you on the highway or something?"

She was now on the other side of the floor, unlocking the door to the storage room. She yelled over, echoing off the industrial materials this place was made of.

"No. I've just been…a bit cold lately."

I pretended to understand, throwing my jacket onto a hook on the wall as the blinds finished folding out of sight with a loud click. She disappeared into the back room, giving me time to walk over to the newly revealed window and look out at the two bikes parked outside. They were the only vehicles in sight, but they would be eye-catching even if not.

Valerie's gift. The dark red sport bike with obvious customizations and upgrades. I don't care if I only got it so I wouldn't rat Val out to the police for attempted murder, it's got a freakin' turbo strapped on somewhere. And next to it, larger in size but not nearly as streamlined or updated, was my Aunt Maria's old patrol bike. The same bike she'd taught me how to ride as a reward for getting my brown belt years and years ago. And in doing so gave my mother a few gray hairs to dye brown again.

…Gee, I wonder which side of the family I got that gene set from.

A few seconds of staring later and my aunt walked back out of the back room with her shoes off and her shoulder-length hair tied into a pretzel-shaming knot behind her neck. The second I noticed her dignified frown, I swung my heels around to face her, pulling out a slight bow before stepping towards the locker room to change and get the already delayed session started. My heel then froze an inch from the mat when she stated.

"Right where you are. We need to talk."

Slowly, I turned back to where she stood with her arms behind her back and her shoulders squared. Like an Amazon statue miniaturized to fit on some one's dashboard. I assumed a similar posture with my arms at my sides and my neck tilted down to meet her blank eyes. I'd been dreading this since I last set seen her three days ago. She began.

"We never finished our conversation. If I recall, you had to run out to the middle of a riot for some reason."

… Oh crap.

"…Alan. Did you honestly think I wouldn't be suspicious? Seven years of boxing and you just walk in here and ask to come back?"

I swallowed sharply. It's not that I wasn't allowed to speak. I just had nothing to say.

"…that, was the first guess. Then I just happened to notice you'd gone from a competent karetaka to some one I'd expect to run me out of business if they opened their own school."

She hadn't moved an inch. Like reading off cue cards. Meanwhile, I was trying not to glance at the door. I wanted out of there. She kept on.

"The fact you're a different fighter isn't that unusual. That's another conversation. But I need to know something."

…please, please, let this be a 'Are you gay?' thing.

"...what are you?"

I stayed in my student's stance. Still staring down at her with equally blank eyes. I managed to half cough a response.

"…Uh…Ya' see, a few months back…"

Her palm shot between us, I nearly bit my tongue in half.

"I get that part. Christ, I was a cop. It's a big city, eventually spandex is going to come into play."

…what?

Her tone became calmer, more casual as she rolled her near-black eyes and sighed.

"…Honestly. Alan, how haven't your parents figured it out? After you asked me how to make smoke bombs, I can't say I was surprised."

…turns out I only used those things that one time with Val. It was the end of my 'utility belt' phase. But back to this tiny woman in the black karate outfit making me her…you get it.

"And the lack of social life. And how you're suddenly have a gift with sarcastic commentary and catchphrases."

So…she thinks I'm gay? Right? She reached up to rub between her eyes as she finished.

"…you're not the first, Alan. Superhero, vigilante, whatever you want to call it, you are one."

I let my jaw unhinge as she relaxed her statuesque posture and started looking up and off to the side as she rattled off everything she had on me. Like a…liberated Cuban woman? Wait, that's not a simile, that's an adjective. When her eyes rolled back up at me, she asked again.

"I don't need the details, I probably won't understand. I just have to know, right now. Which side are you on?"

Almost instantly I shot back.

"…Sensai. If I weren't with the good guys, would this city still be standing?"

She didn't even blink. With the same tone that had taken me the entire conversation to work up to, she just let her lip twitch at my answer before plainly stating.

"Good. In that case, you won't kill me for this."

My eyebrows eventually collapsed into themselves, my confident smirk staying tilted only because my jaw was settled in that way. She slowly turned away from me to look out the window just as I had, sighing through clenched teeth.

"…Don't bother coming back here, Alan. You're just wasting your own time."

The last bit of formality shattered, I took a step back and tried to breath again before lunging forward and gently grabbing her shoulders, turning her to face me only to see her dark eyes now just dull with relief. I'd say regret, but I'm not a mind reader. I can't say I took after Janet. My other aunt, the one I was starting to wonder if I truly knew, managed not to let her voice sob or even just wither.

"…even if it weren't for…whatever's going on, I can't do it."

I begged, my hands slipped off her shoulders and barely sliding against the smooth fabric of her uniform.

"Please! I…what if I…?"

"No. I'm not going to train…"

And, in the first instance since I first met this woman, she couldn't find her words. She reached up with both hands and swatted her shadowing bangs away from her eyes, holding her face. I tried not to show my slight fear. My teacher, of who knows how many years…was human?

"…I can't explain it. Please. We'll figure this out eventually."

Her face suddenly shot up from her hands, staking my feet to the floor with one look. The sadness, the weakness, all gone. The teacher was back in control.

"I've taught you everything. Everything. You were one of my best. And then you dropped the whole thing, ran off with some old cripple of a manager. Then you have the nerve…to come back."

If this had been Kirby, Janet, or my mother wearing high heels she would have leaned in to make things worse. But she stayed where she was, she knew she didn't need size for this.

"…as a realistic, extremely effective fighter that puts my entire teaching style to shame. Even if you weren't…whatever, I'm all out of sparring partners."

…what about that one guy? He didn't exactly say he didn't want to do it again. And he won't be able to until they take his jaw out of traction, why make assumptions?

"…Alonso. Alan. Detective. Superman. I don't care!"

I felt my collar tighten, and suddenly my spine was screaming for some one to call 911 and her face was an inch from mine. I hadn't even seen her hand move. I managed to keep from passing out as she finished, landing some saliva on my chin with an authentic Cuban charm and an urban accent she'd been holding in her entire adult life.

"You're outta' here! You're makin' me look bad!"

Suddenly I could breathe again, and her golden face now just a view of the far wall. I was still bent over in the angle she'd left me in, I heard a voice retreating to my left.

"Enough of that. Meet me outside."

I heard a door close, and I slowly looked around to find myself hunched over in an empty storefront. Eventually I popped my spine back into place and limped out the front door. A few minutes later, my aunt walked out in her street clothes and barely looked over at where I was leaning against my bike. She went straight over to her old cruiser, sliding her shades on and literally vaulting her light frame onto the bike in one smooth motion. As she pulled out her keys she spoke out of the side of her mouth toward me, not turning her head to look.

"Mind locking up? This is a slow season, and all my regulars have keys."

I nearly dropped the keys she threw at me while she turned her other set in the transmission. I started in pure confusion at the shiny objects, hardly noticing how she reached into her windbreaker and moved her hand around a bit.

"Oh yeah. If you want to keep whining about being inferior, this should shut you up."

Her wrist flicked, and I felt something slap against my other arm. I didn't look to see what it was, my head snapped up to stare at her and calmly ask.

"…are you okay?"

She slowly turned, my reflection sliding across her mirrored shades as she gave a little shrug.

"…not exactly. Alcoholic mother, four sisters who can't get over it, my youngest son just got his third earring, my husband is trying to be twenty nine again, my nephew is fighting crime, and my doctor thinks I'm starting 'menopause' even though I'm in the best shape of my life. "

Her bike jumped to life as she turned to look through the curved windshield behind the miniature one she called sunglasses.

"And I'm dealing with it, by spending all my time killing the ozone with this thing until life straightens out. Don't forget the blinds."

And she was gone, swerving out of sight and leaving me in a cloud of exhaust and pure utter insanity. When the smoke cleared enough to see my own hand, I realized she had just taken off and thrown me the belt she'd been using to tie her outfit together.

You know. That black one? Like Kirby has, along with every other real martial artist on this giant freakin' wet rock of a planet? And the one thing I'd given up all hope for after nearly eight years as a brown.

I stared at the threadbare scrap of fabric for a few seconds before speaking my thoughts to the emptiness of the block. Something more important than my life's work in combat. Which had both peaked and ended in one conversation, thanks to the other half of my life. This was much more serious.

"…how long before my Mom flips out like that? That would've been weird enough without that last little feminine hygiene blurb…"

My torso snapped around as I heard some one gasp and practically groan in agony from right behind me.

Standing there, dog at her heels, was that one woman. With the pink shirt, and the obsessive compulsive dog walking thing. She pointed a gigantic finger at me and nearly yelled.

"I did not just hear that!"

…she'd walked up behind me to eavesdrop, and found that offensive. I just narrowed one eye at her, not in the right mood for it.

"…Lady? It's a natural part of life. Like you've never, ever stood in the middle of a parking area holding a top-degree martial arts rank and the keys to a school you've just been kicked out of for fighting crimes with supernatural abilities, and then pondered when that specific part of the female life cycle is going to literally tear your face off?"

She stood there, blond curls twitching. A few seconds of open-mouth staring, followed by her thrusting out a silver canister in one trembling hand and literally screaming.

"I take self defense classes!"

…she was threatening me. With pepper spray. Which she was holding upside-down. I simply said in the same blank tone my aunt had just beaten me into a pulp with.

"…Boo."

With that she screamed again and trampled the sidewalk in a sluggish sprint away from where I stood calmly, dragging that tiny dog behind her as it struggled to get its feet back on the ground. I just shook my head and walked over to the door of my former dojo.

"…What, a weirdo."

The people you meet walking around when everyone else is at work. Man, all it took was one long sentence to set her off like that.

Now onto a more important note. Since I was being fired, more or less, I walked out of there with a huge bag of those expensive but pointless weapons Kirby likes and a few pairs of those black gi pants. They're really comfortable.

You know, when this initial state of calming shock wears off I'm going to be a complete utter invalid.

That Night

Sometimes I wonder how a traveling salesman lived back before telemarketing and later media brainwashing became primary forms of advertising. Did those guys ever walk down a street with their carpet-bag and suit and even recognize a single face? Did they ever find themselves on the doorstep of some one they once knew before they left to seek a higher purpose and ended up selling vacuums in a pyramid scheme? What happened when the person didn't recognize him? How did he feel?

This rambling comes not from the fresh concussion or my having not slept in two weeks. I'm thinking this because for a change of pace, I'm not flying around in a nameless town of city block that I don't know the name of until I catch the news on replay later. I was swooping and zooming around the fields and dirt roads of the farmland I called home. Chasing a ghost. It was like a cop running out on a call and ending up arresting his own neighbor. Like you're using a different pair of eyes than the pair you had that very morning.

And even in the moonless night, my neon green eyes saw everything in near perfect outline. I can't call it perfect vision in any spectrum. It's like seeing in black and white. Sometimes I don't even notice my room was dark as a tomb until some one flips the switch and things brighten up like the Wizard of Oz. I don't take advantage of my abilities. Occasionally I may walk through a closed door or dividing wall when I'm the only one home, and maybe I'll conjure up a tennis ball and play with Frost a bit. But my inability to sleep and these built-in NV goggles just meld beautifully. Then again, what do I know, I've never tried heat-vision.

This wasn't some Sunday stroll of a ghost-bust. I wasn't just pulling a trailer off an Indian Burial ground and getting back in time to watch Cops and toast a bagel before bedtime/pretending to go to sleep and sneak out and watch foreign romance films downtown.

No. I got the Headless Horseman himself. And this town is nowhere near New England, or wherever Sleepy Hollow was. Or is. Who cares, it's a Walled-Mart now.

Imagine you're a young farmer's offspring sitting on a parked tractor in the middle of the night and wondering if your sister figured out who that love letter was from. Right when you start digging around in your overalls for something to chew on, your sanity is derailed by what shoots by on the road you're parked next to. What looks like a eight foot tall, armor draped figure riding a reptilian horse the size of a large car. The thing's hooves never really touch the ground, it just sprints in place and somehow moves close to a couple hundred an hour. It's so fast you're left sitting there with a still picture of it burned into your corneas as it speeds off down the countryside with the screams following it,

You quickly notice the rider swinging a rusting hatchet through the air in one iron-bound hand and in the other holds a gigantic pumpkin featuring a demonic green tint and a pair of faces which were both screaming in agony and laughing in bliss at the same time. Depends on which side of the thing you're looking at, and if you can pry your eyes off the hatchet and the fact his neck is a gaping black hole in the torso piece of the Victorian armor that was being held together by pure magic, its bindings were torn to shreds and the plates slashed with bright green stains that could have been blood. Whose? Who cares, you just sit there on the rig staring into the dark corn field with watering eyes for a few seconds until another object zooms by the same path and road the last apparition had taken. This one, deathly silent and shapeless. All you could catch was dark blur in the clouded moonlight, possibly a brief flash of two green embers as it looked at you before locking back onto the former. It disappears at the same speed the last one had, faster than a stationary eye can follow. A shadow bullet following the dead knight. By now your hand is clutching the reverse lever, trying to build up the nerve to run when your head is once more snapped to and fro as a slightly slower, and refreshingly normal projectile tears by and leaves you in a merciful cloud of dust. As you clutch your stinging eyes, you could have worn it was some one on a motorcycle gunning it down the stretch after the first two. With the high beams glowing on the front, like a lantern chasing away the spirits to the edge of the county.

You wait for the rest of the parade, and a few hours later you may walk home in a daze and don't look out the windows until dawn.

That's how this would look to a pedestrian. I just pray no one saw this, the first person view is even scarier.

The swinging pumpkin of a head screeched through one of its mouths as the beast of a figure swung his reddened blade to his left and the blade sent a flurry of curved green rays spiraling beside the scaled horse's flank. As gravity took hold they were shot straight back like a flier out of a car window on the highway. Straight at me.

With a shallow grunt I veered sharply to the right and managed to save my neck from mirroring the guy I'd been chasing. I heard a tearing sound, but didn't look down. I kept my eyes straight ahead, watching as my evasive turn gave him another few yards ahead. I slammed my ankles together and shot up on his other side while arcing a single ball of flame over my shoulder straight at the hand he held the pumpkin with. He moved his wrist, letting the ball land head-on with the possessed vegetable. The dual laughter only got louder as my blast bounced right off of it. I knew it wouldn't work, that's why I was aiming for his arm.

I saw the axe twitch in his grip and quickly squeezed the brake and got behind him to watch another wave of ecto-razors slice the air Id been occupying and disappear when they didn't hit home.

I'd been aware of the faint noise behind me, the engine of the bike straining against the chasis as Kirby tried to navigate the inferior road conditions under the glow of the front flare lights and keep up at the same time. I was surprised when the sounds grew louder and I found myself flying next to a the red tomahawk of a vehicle as she crouched over the handles like a cat coiled for a pounce. She yelled out over the roar of the straining engine and the relentless wind streaking by.

"Did it work?"

I kept my eyes on his back, not daring to roll them. I yelled out the side of my mouth.

"Yeah, we're just heading back to his place for a beer. What brand you like?"

My eyes tightened as I saw a light forming beyond the bouncing shoulders of the knight, quickly becoming blinding. I abandoned my focus to just swerve over and grab Kirby's shoulders as she struggled to control the horsepower. Within the pace of a second I phased both the wind-burned rider and the bike itself as a car that had been driving against the direction we were headed swerved right through she'd been riding. As the blared horn disappeared behind us, I let go and shot off ahead of the bike to catch the further retreating form of the horseman as she yelled something between a thank you and a family curse for not telling her the car was coming. Minutes later I managed to get beside him again, launching a few more worthless shots until he bucked against the dragon of a mount and shot off down the dark road as if he'd let go of the brake handle. I cursed at my luck, preparing to shoot ahead again before the bike caught up to me again. I kept looking ahead to where the black-and-white shadow of my foe was keeping his hatchet ready. I heard our pace-girl yell.

"Where are we headed?"

I slowed down a bit, to only about what the bike was going with all the gauges popping. I shrugged, keeping my face forward into the wind as it specked clouds of dirt across my eyes and flapping bangs.

"Nowhere! There's a little ditch coming up, he'll probably jump it!"

Silence. Well, thundering and whistling galore but no one spoke.

"…is there a bridge?"

I glanced over at where she was hugging her torso against the bike frame to protect herself from the chilling wind tearing into her jacket. She kept her eyes straight ahead over the high beams. At this speed, one bump in the road could scrap this entire operation.

I suddenly understood the question and nodded before looking back ahead and spreading my arms. I encased both my hands down to the wrists in energy, muttering a quick but needed prayer under my breath before flaring both hands open and kicking my legs together at the same time. I don't think it mattered that I kept my eyes open. Everything just went from black and white to pure green for a second.

The very next instant I was rolling sideways against the rock-studded dirt. I quickly stuck a leg out and used the momentum to launch myself out of the roll and onto my feet. I snapped my eyes around to see where I'd landed, sighing in relief as I saw a jagged ditch cutting through the ground before me. Ignoring the shooting pains in my back and legs I sprinted/flew to the very edge of it, seeing in my faint vision that it was deep enough to have been a river at one point. And the abandoned road we'd been running goes right through it, no bridge.

When I reached the edge I practically did a home base slide onto my knees, slamming two fists into the dusted soil as I looked up and saw a sight that killed the moment of calm I had given myself. On the other edge of the ditch, coming down the arrow-straight road, was what looked like a and yellow cloud barreling straight for the ditch from a couple miles away.

…moving a couple hundred an hour, I had approximately two seconds to pull this off.

With my fists still imbedded in the turf, I began concentrating everything I had left over from the chase and that last speed burst into a single mental image. Almost instantly a narrow, but solid green platform appeared to join the two halves of the ditch together in an extremely simple and temporary bridge. Right as it solidified, the sounds of pounding hooves/claws was echoing toward me on the wind. I was crouched down like a cat on one side of the ditch, right in the middle of the platform's edge. The middle of the road. What would Mr. Miyagi say.

I kept my eyes up as the mounted beast and its demonic rider crashed toward the bridge'. As the speeding nightmare rushed straight at my eyes like a bat out of Hades, I just gritted my teeth and waited for the axe to finish its swing. I didn't think it'd work, I had kissed my head goodbye.

Then, it all stopped. The giant knight with his axe shouldered to swing. The double-sided pumpkin hanging from his hand in a frozen laugh. The 'horse' was in mid-gallop when it hit the center of the bridge, and for a millisecond the pair hung there like a statue before a blinding white light slammed my eyelids closed and I gripped the cracked turf like a lifeline. When it faded as quickly as it came, I cracked open one eye and saw not the Pearly Gates but an empty green platform stretched out before where I lay.

…always pay attention to fairy tales.

I let out a sharp sigh.

"Thank you, G…SHIT!"

My cry of victory had been cut short. I hadn't noticed that blinding light was still there. I had looked down in relief and saw a Termisake 750, which had been tailing the demon by a few yards before he disappeared, with its front tire spinning a few inches from my face. Thanks mostly to my built-in reflexes rather than my abilities or composure, I phased out and tightened my frame against the dirt as the bike went right through me before dropped off the bridge and flew off down the road behind me.

Nearly a full minute after it was gone, I opened my eyes to see the bridge had disappeared from existence. And beyond it, nothing but a dark road lined with corn fields. Still holding back the pains coursing from every intact nerve ending, I looked over my shoulder to see a distant white light flick off next to the road. She hadn't crashed. With a weak nod directed at the starless sky, I collapsed onto my stomach without caring to tilt my face away from the turf.

Never, has the sound of bending cartilage on dirt been so welcome.

I just let myself settle for a while, too weak to even straighten out my limbs. Eventually I became aware of brushing footsteps approaching, accompanied with a disembodied but frantic voice.

"…where'd he go?"

With a quick twist I swung my face to the side and let my cheek tap down onto a sharp pebble.

"…he…can't…cross…"

The voice was now right in my upturned ear, I felt two hands pulling at my shoulder to try and roll me over.

"What?"

I spat out what was either a tooth or a small rock.

"A bridge. Just like the story."

My eyes watered as I felt myself being rolled into an infinitely more comfortable position flat on my back.

"Alan? I was asking if there was a bridge, because the bike can't fly! You should've told me, I would have stayed behind!"

I managed to open one eye a crack, seeing only a black sky.

"…wait…you weren't…"

I felt the hands again, she was pulling on my jacket to see if my torso had been crushed. It hadn't. I just felt like a battery split open on a driveway in the middle of July.

"Shhh."

I went quiet as she felt my chest through my sweat-darkened shirt and then felt my limbs to see if the bones had been snapped. By the time she got around to squinting through the dark at my face to see if she could even recognize me, I had regained some feeling in my limbs. Not all of it, just a little. I swallowed, tasting dirt.

"…the bike?"

She closed my jacket, quickly feeling my thigh bone before giving up on finding any wounds and just kneeling next to me in complete darkness. Her voice sounded calmer, her lilt smoothing out and this making her English easier to understand without a degree in Spanish.

"…I was running on fumes back there. When I killed the engine the whole thing went out. Besides that, she's fine."

Great. Out of gas and physical energy.

"How'd you do that one thing?"

I pried open the other eye, letting my outlined vision kick in before looking over at her without turning my head. She was sitting cross-legged beside me, chin in her hands. In the middle of a dead road, on the shore of a dead river, talking to a half-dead guy. No pun intended.

"Do what?"

I always imagined her eyes glowing in the dark. But no, all I saw what a gray line outline of her head poking out the collar of one of my stolen jackets.

"The flash thing. You lapped him like he was a headless chicken."

I would have shrugged if I could feel my shoulders.

"…I used two ecto-blasts for a boost. I can only do that when there's nothing to run into, it's like a human cannonball."

"Then how'd you land here?"

"…Prayer? Don't ask me. Mathematically I should be ten kinds of worm food before the sun comes up everyday."

A twinkling giggle chimed in rhythm with the crickets and whatever else lived in these fields. Amazing, she nearly turns into a traffic statistic and she's laughing at my jokes. If we weren't related and if I could move my arms, I'd shake her hand or something. Whatever a guy does with a girl after a few dates, remind me to read up on that later.

"You can shift back, not like anyone could see."

I managed to gather the strength to flex my toes against the lining of my shoes.

"Can't. Takes more power to shift forms than it does to stay in one. This isn't a super-form deal, it's a disguise."

…you follow that? Kirby didn't.

Even if you did keep up, you'd be confused. You see, when I 'leather up' I'm not like powering up. I'm just shifting colors around. All my powers are active when I'm human. I just shift for the minimal identity protection it provides. After a few months, I just shifted on reflex whenever I used my powers. I haven't been evolving or developing or anything since the portal got me, I've been adapting. A few months ago it was hard to fire two blasts without a ten minute rest period in between. I could move them around a bit, just drift around a little. And now I'm making bridges and props for my impromptu comedy routines.

I'm like a Green Lantern. With ADD.

How'd we get home? I wasn't exactly my usual self for a day or so. And the bike would be down until I could cart it to a station and get the tank filled. We were completely stranded out there.

…until an event occurred involving a passing hay-truck full of overworked farmers and Kirby tying her shoe in a suggestive pose that I later forgave simply because it got us a ride. Actually, she wasn't flagging them down or being a sleaze to begin with. She just…ties her shoes like that. You're talking to a guy who can become invisible at will, trust me on this.

Later, Early Morning

I should have just stashed the thing under my mattress until I could walk upstairs without passing out. But being the paranoid I am, and having heard Kirby's sleep mumbling through the divider wall, I wanted it over with as soon as possible.

Twenty minutes later, I was halfway up the steps.

Another ten minutes and a moment of breathing flew by and I found myself in the lamp-lit library that rested over our heads on the fourth floor. I noticed how the bare wood of the unfilled shelves made the place look slightly normal in the orange lighting of the dying lamp. I soon found myself kneeling over an overstuffed footrest that was collecting dust in front of an equally stuffy and unused chair. The piece of furniture looked plain as day. Dark oak base, cracked green leather pulled over the top. If you looked closely you could make out a crack running through each side of the base. But since there was no sign of a lock or hinge on the outside, it looked like a construction seam.

With a ragged breath, I watched my hand slowly fade out of the physical realm before reaching through the base and feeling around inside the hollow base for a latch. When a click sounded, I lifted the cushioned lid off the base and let my now solid hand stay inside the carefully hidden storage area inside the forgotten ataman.

I slowly let my eyes drift over the carefully crammed contents of the oak-lined cabinet. The centerpiece of the drawer was what was piled up on the far side. A very thick stack of what looked like oversize belts with gigantic coins for buckles. I knew without counting how many were there. Probably a few over a dozen. And hidden underneath the silk bindings was a wooden box containing several gold chains, each complete with a tiny boxing glove medallion. Just like the one I had hanging over my bed on a plain nail.

Only the first matters. The rest just prove it.

I shook off the philosophy with a jerk of my neck and looked at what had only recently taken over my hiding place. Pile atop the lining of magazines that bore my face of my name on the cover, were several things I just didn't want around. I noticed a thick leather wallet slumped into the corner of the box, the badge inside it glinting out of its side. Pushed against it, a large golden coin on a thick chain. I couldn't remember what those Chinese symbols said, not like it matters.

On another cluttered side lay what looked like a pile of yarn scraps. Actually, it was a small collection of colored cloth belts. With my other hand I reached up and without ceremony opened my fingers. With a light thump the two belts I'd carried up with me joined their brothers. The newcomers, a threadbare brown scrap and a carefully maintained but seasoned black ribbon.

…wait…brown, black…maybe after she straightens out I'll tell her she skipped red.

And now, for the hard part.

I reached into my pocket and slowly withdrew the coiled contents. I stretched out my hand to drop it and slam the lid, but eventually I broke and looked down at what I held. The tiny silver cross and its chain. Dangling from my palm, swinging noiselessly and freezing my hand in place. A few seconds of this and I just grabbed my eyes, letting the cool chain touch my forehead as I just tried to keep the tears back. I choked back a sob, even though I was alone.

…or was I. Like you didn't see it coming.

I didn't bother looking up or demanding answers as a hand touched down on my shoulder from behind me. I didn't wonder how she woke up and followed me up here. I didn't care. She'd seen too much for me to back out by then.

"Well, I knew you had a stash somewhere."

I kept my eyes closed and the necklace pressed into my bangs.

"What do you want, Kirby?"

I heard her shift her weight back as she kneeled next to me, looking down at the chest while keeping her hand on my shoulder.

"…Hey, whatever happened to getting a red belt?"

Her joke didn't exactly play out that well. Slowly I pulled both fists from my eyes and looked at her through a thin curtain of tears. Her glowing smirk quickly straightened and eventually faded into a concerned glance. Her eyes dropped down as she saw the chain dangling from a white-knuckled fist. By the time she looked back up at m I knew the question. With a shaky wrist I tossed the necklace at her, she caught the chain and examined it between two spread palms.

"…it…"

I swallowed.

"…belonged to Walt."

Quickly, she clapped her hands together with the cross between her palms as she suddenly understood. I continued.

"…I told Grace at the funeral…I didn't want it."

The hand she'd clapped down on my shoulder casually feathered out, holding my arm.

"Uh…who is she?"

My eyelids fell down like two lead curtains.

"…his daughter."

Silence. She probably wasn't surprised.

"He made a will. Left everything to his family, a few charities, and a few personal affairs. Grace tried giving me that. Right after we buried him."

I heard her open her mouth. I cut her off.

"…he wore that thing all the time. He wasn't religious, but some priest gave it to him when he was younger. The first time I saw him not wearing it was at the wake."

The hand on my shoulder moved down and rubbed my arm, telling me to go on.

"…Kirby. I was just one of his fighters. He worked with guys way better than ill ever be. Any one of those guys should get that thing."

"And…she found you, and dumped it on you. My kind of girl."

I winced, quickly she patted my tensed upper arm to calm me down.

"That bitch…"

She didn't say a word. A few seconds later I opened my eyes but didn't focus them. I had to finish.

"…I…I'm just not worthy. This guy was a living God, Kirb'. I don't mean a good fighter. This guy could walk on water."

Through my tear-stained eyes I could see her head tilt. She didn't ask what I meant, even though it was the sane thing to ask.

"…I tried to make a deal with myself."

I reached up with my free arm and felt my collar, pulling out the black cord and the silver ankh that Sam had given me eons ago. I hardly ever looked at the engraving on it. Just a drawing.

"…I started wearing this. Kind of a weird tribute. It's not a cross. That was Walt. Old fashioned, but nothing can replace it. And here I am with some cheap Goth piercing."

This somehow gave her an urge to speak.

"Alan, don't talk like that!"

I just looked away, dropping the necklace against my shirt and pulling away from her grasp.

"…it's the truth."

Out of nowhere, she asked something that made me wonder how seriously she was taking this.

"…what about that tattoo? The one on your back?"

I shrugged, knowing the looped cross between my shoulder blades wasn't exactly the same as a necklace.

"Walt was in the Marine Corps. Only tattoo he ever got was a cross. Just like his necklace."

More silence. I kind of liked it, really.

"…now that, is a tribute."

Coming from a girl with tribal tattoos that can be hidden with a bikini set, that doesn't mean much.

Suddenly I felt something flip my earlobes. My eyes shot open and I watched Kirby's hand shoot away from my face, holding Sam's necklace. I lunged to grab it back, she simply batted my aching arm away as she quickly undid the fastening on the cheap neck-cord. I watched in utter confusion as she removed the little silver ankh from its string. And after a little fingernail twisting, I watched with widening eyes as my pendent slid down a silver chain and made a pure-ringing tone as it collided gently with another silver cross nearly its same size.

…she just put…my little mark of shame, on Walt's necklace…

Before I could yell for her to take it off, she had draped it over my neck and with a pat on my shoulder and an awkward kiss on my forehead she was already down the steps to the third floor. Leaving me bent over my chest of forbidden glories, staring down at the two symbols bouncing against my heartbeat.

Every time I moved to take off the ankh, my hand wouldn't budge. Even worse. I couldn't bring myself to take it off. And later, when I lay down on my always-made bed to stare at my ceiling the foot-rest had been closed for another era. And I was still wearing the necklace. My necklace. I'm not happy with it, but I can't go against Walt's instruction. Even beyond the grave.

Author's Notes

...yeah, he's got a secret stash. Just like every male teenager in this country. I'll do a typo-homocide tomorrow, as I'm uploading this I have to put away some of PI toys before my better half starts using them for household chores again. Seriously, who uses a 21-inch airweight ASP nightstick to clean under her dresser? But yeah, my little Holmes novel of an experience is over and I'm back to writing like a sane person. Then again...you get the point.