Chapter 29: Raindrops Like Bullets, Bullets Like Raindrops

And if, and it is only if, we decide to come closer to the League and the rest of Reality after we have sorted out our affairs, it will be as equals, not as those indebted to them…

- To Stand Apart, Final Post

Classified Gathering Location, Tokyo-2, 2052 Hours

First Lieutenant Naruhito Moto took a deep breath as he stuck the 'POLICE' velcro sticker to his plate carrier. He was, unfortunately, in his element as he checked his Howa 89 with practiced ease, slinging it over his shoulder as he holstered an H&K USP. Both were loaded with specially issued rounds, the bullets a bright red. What they were, he was unsure, but that was what they'd been given.

They'd finally found the Pilots earlier in the day, gathering their forces under the command of a UN military commander out from Australia. Now, as the sun slipped below the horizon, and day became night, 3 dozen special operators, disguised as a unit of the Tokyo-2 Special Assault Team, moved out.

He looked down and to the side, towards the hand radio that rested on his left collarbone. Glancing around to ensure no one was watching him closely in the dark confines of the van, he fiddled the channel on the radio to 36.8, clicking the button quickly three times, then holding for five seconds before releasing.

"Why are you fiddling with your radio?" the man next to him said quietly.

"Making sure it's real. I've been dealt dummy radios in these sorts of ops before." Moto replied in a tone that said he'd learned the fact the hard way.

The man next to him regarded him for a moment, then shrugged. "Don't know why you'd care, but okay." he said before looking down at a pistol he holstered a moment later.

Moto nodded, but inside he was somewhat relieved. He'd held up his end of the bargain. He'd let them know they were coming. Now, they just had to hold up theirs.

They arrived at the hotel only 20 minutes or so later, the SFG portion of the group filing out and marching into the building first.

The lobby was empty, and a receptionist looked up only as they came to a stop at the front desk, her eyes widening at the sight of the men before her.

"We've been called here by a bomb threat made by someone on one of the higher floors." one of the men said. "We'll need this hotel cleared of all staff quickly and quietly, so as to not alert the terrorists making the threat."

The receptionist nodded, standing and hurrying towards a door, probably to get a manager of some sort.

Their squad leader, Colonel Tanaka, turned to regard them. "Alright. Kuroki, Morikawa, take the Brazilian and Somali squads to the far end of the hall, take the stairs up there. Moto, Shinoda, I'm trusting you two to act as the breachers and lead the Nordic and Filipino squads through the elevators close to here. Go get ready, and wait for my signal. I'll join Kuroki and Morikawa, and Kanzaki will join Moto and Shinoda."

Moto nodded, as the rest of the special forces, dressed in masks and goggles to hide their rather un-Japanese origins, began to file in as well. He took his assigned units, taking the dozen or so men to the elevators.

"Alright." he said in English. "8 to one, 7 to another when the signal comes. Got it?"

The men behind him nodded silently. He nodded in turn.

As they waited for the signal, the elevator dinged from time to time, disgorging fearful employees in small groups that hurried past them, out into the parking lot. This continued for several minutes, the groups becoming individuals, then moments passed as the elevators and halls were silent, save for the rustling of armored men and the clacking of weapons and small-scale ordinance.

Soon, though, Captain Kanzaki stepped into view. "Alright. Let's go." he said, as Moto and Shinoda pressed the buttons on the lifts, the doors opening with a quiet ding.

Moto made his way in first, Kanzaki and the 6 Nordic Atypical Warfare Specialists squeezing in as the doors closed and one of them keyed the 6th floor.

It was silent as the car rose, leaving Moto alone with his thoughts for the moment. His mind whirled with the possible tactical situation he would walk into. Price and his men were special forces, there was no doubt about it. Misato Katsuragi herself was former SFG. The moment the doors opened held, in and of itself, an almost dizzying number of possibilities. And that was without what seemed like Katsuragi's ice… magic… thing. That represented a whole new dimension to combat. A part of him was almost… excited to see what they came up with.

Then, he jumped slightly as the doors clattered open with a soft ding, and the temperature plunged by several degrees, he began to shiver slightly. Oh yeah. This was going to be… different.

. . .

Kishimiya Warehouse, 2130 Hours

Daniel watched as Eleanor and Ryoji returned to the shadows, slipping under the door as he went over the plan one last time in his head. Ryoji would go and get the kids out of the warehouse (at the very least), Eleanor would go and shut down the cloaking device at the source. They had called Rastaff and explained the situation, and he, and his Warrior Caste retainers, would swoop in the moment they could and force a surrender, with as few mortalities as could be helped.

And to enable this all, he was to be the big, nearly indestructible distraction.

Even with the desire to keep the body count low, his hand still twitched without his magnetic accelerator rifle in it. Going in without a weapon was going to make drawing attention difficult. He needed to be loud and distinct. However…

He pulled up the music player app from his clear-pad, linking it to the speaker system of the armor. He had no dearth of choices, but he had to be quick. They were waiting on his signal, after all.

So, he made his choice, humming along with Michael Bublé as he slowly turned up the volume on the speaker system.

The guards outside the door had to be getting curious, he thought, as he put himself against the wall next to the doorknob. As he did, he sang quietly along to the song.

"It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new life… for me… and I'm feeling… good."

And as the band came in, he kicked open the door, cranking his music as he turned the corner and smacked aside the pistol in one of his guard's hands, a punch sending him stumbling back as he fell to the ground unconscious.

He felt the pattering of bullets on his back like a sheet of hail on his back, pushing him forward a step before he turned to face the frankly terrified young man with an Uzi in his hand. Daniel stepped forward, swiping the gun from the man's hands and throwing it aside as he grabbed the man and put himself between him and the number of bullets that now slammed into his back.

As they splattered harmlessly off him, he walked the young man over to the room, shoving him in and sending him tumbling to the floor. Without a word, he pointed down emphatically at the floor before the man as he struggled to get up. Though he said nothing, the message was clear. Stay here. The man nodded, and Daniel turned to the railing, facing the weight of fire still on him as he hopped onto the railing and dropped down to the floor, walking towards the nearest group of frightened assailants.

This, he surmised, was probably a decent enough distraction.

. . .

Moto's eyes widened as he stepped into the hallway. It was more like a cave system than anything resembling architecture at this point, sharp spikes of rock and ice making their way to a wall with a thin gap in the center, covered in spikes and firing slits. Firing slits that began to bark with gunfire.

"Get to cover! Now!" Moto shouted, turning to a door frosted over and shooting near the doorknob, blowing the mechanism apart as he shouldered the door open and pressed his back to the coat closet near the door, peeking around the corner every so often.

How were they going to beat this? They'd made the corridor even more of a kill zone than it already was under even the most mundane of circumstances. Pushing up, or even trying to, was almost suicidal.

There was no victory for them here, he realized. There could only be survival. Survival for Yuuto.

Moto took a deep breath, then looked across the hallway. One of the AWS members was already on the ground dead. The others had followed his lead, breaking into apartments that were blessedly empty, one AWS tending to another who had been clipped by a projectile in the arm, which was now beginning to slowly encase it in ice. "Hey!" he shouted, gaining the attention of the AWS's. He motioned towards the door ahead of him. "I'll open, you duck in! Got it?"

After a moment, the man nodded, and Moto aimed at the door, squeezing off a few shots until the door opened slightly. "Go!"

The man did one last check on his squadmate, then dashed as best he could from one doorway to another, slipping on a patch of ice and taking a tumble into the doorway. Moto grimaced as the man made his way back to his feet, then nodded up the hallway. "Alright! Now do it for me!"

The man nodded, aiming at the door across from him, when a small object came zooming into view. Almost on instinct, Moto slammed into the closet beside him, squeezing in as he felt a gale of chilling, biting wind blow past him.

As the wind died down, he spared a glance back out of the doorway, his eyes widening at the sight of the AWS soldier, a sheet of ice covering his entire front, acting like a subtle funhouse mirror that warped his features, still capturing the look of utter shock on his face nearly perfectly.

Moto's eyes went wide as someone tumbled into his doorway. He looked down to find First Lieutenant Shinoda scrambling to his feet. "Moto…" he said between deep breaths that misted the air around them, his helmet and mask off. "What the fuck is going on?"

Moto shook his head. "We must have stepped into hell frozen over. It's the only explanation." he said numbly.

"What do we do, then?"

It was silent between the two for a moment, save for the chatter of gunfire and other, stranger projectiles outside the door. Then, Moto shook his head.

"We're outmatched here." he said. "There's no way we'll be able to complete the mission like this."

Shinoda's eyes grew wide as he grabbed Moto's place carrier. "No. No! There has to be. There has to be! I can't let Tomiko and Haruka die. Not because I can't do this."

"Then let's find some way to resolve this without dying first. Then we can worry about the people we love." he paused. "I got captured before this mission started. The people we're fighting are able to get the people watching our families off them, give them time to get out. We just have to give ourselves up to them."

Shinoda stared at him disbelievingly for a long moment. "Okay." he finally said, seeming to deflate. "How… how do we do that?"

"I've got a general idea."

. . .

Ryoji emerged from the shadows in the closed-off improvised room that held the Children's gurneys, tilting his head back a moment to listen to what he presumed was Daniel's distraction. 'Not really my tempo, but if it works, it works, I guess.'

He turned his focus back to the Children, lined up and seeming to all the world to be peacefully sleeping. Making his way over to Asuka's side, he carefully extracted the IV tube from her arm, healing the opening with a brush of his thumb and some applied Interfacing. He connected to her soul as he put a hand on her forehead, gradually dissolving the remaining sedative in her system and waking her up.

As her eyes fluttered open, he put a finger to his mouth, and he took a step back as she shook her head. "What's going on?" she said quietly as she looked around. "Who is playing Michael Bublè? And what is this around my throat?"

"A lot, Daniel, and something to block your Interfacing." Ryoji replied as he moved on to Hikari. "Right now, my focus is on getting you kids out of here while Daniel and Eleanor deal with the Lone World goons."

"The Lone World?" Asuka said incredulously as she hopped down from her gurney, making her way to Shinji's side. "They had more balls than I thought, it looks like."

"That's one way to put it." Ryoji replied offhandedly as he helped Hikari off her gurney. "Ms. Horaki," he said to her, "I'm sad to say that your Mending can't help us out right now, due to what's around your neck, but you and Asuka keep an eye out if someone tries to get in. If they do… pin them down so I can stop them."

The very real implication of what he asked them to do was shared in the glance the two girls shared as they walked to either side of the curtain that made up the entrance to the room. They glanced back at Ryoji as he continued waking up the others, cringing back slightly as they heard the gunshots and the shouts, and knew they could do nothing about it.

In time, all the kids were standing, clustered around each other silently as Ryoji put a hand on Shinji's shoulder. "Alright, kiddos. Welcome to the Shadow Express. Next destination, out of here."

With that, their forms plunged into uniform darkness, and they flattened out into a massive, dark circle on the floor that slid out from under the curtain, towards the door and freedom.

. . .

The next wall over, Eleanor leaned over the stout grey and black table-sized slab that was the Pneumaic cloaking device. It was a simple machine, really, with an interface panel that was easy to read, and easy to use to shut the machine down. But she wanted to ensure that it couldn't be turned back on again. A far more delicate and tricky operation, if they wished to preserve it as evidence as they did.

Her Sight tapping into her Mechanical Aspect, she peered at the faintly glowing diagram of the machine, removing a panel and reaching in to fiddle with the power systems.

"Don't move."

Eleanor stood slowly, raising her hands as she turned to see a young woman standing alone by the entrance, pointing an Uzi at her, the barrel trembling slightly. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but it can't be good. Now, don't move, or I call for help."

"Alright." Eleanor shrugged. "Don't know how much help you can get, what with my husband drawing everyone's attention."

The woman blinked. "Your husband?" she said incredulously.

As she spoke, Eleanor looked down at the gun, nodding as she studied its interior. There was the firing pin, and…

Eleanor sighed after a moment, dropping her hands as she stepped forward and put a hand on the gun. The woman's eyes widened as she pulled the trigger, but there was nothing but a hollow click. She tried to pull it again and again, but there was nothing.

As the woman looked back up at her, fear in her eyes, Eleanor shook her head as she gripped the gun. "It's hard to fire a bullet when a shell is blocking the firing pin, really. You're not going to do anything with this now. Can you please let go so no one gets shot?"

The woman released the gun, and Eleanor flipped it around, using her Interfacing to reset the firing pin and clear the shell away before releasing the magazine and clearing the chamber. She looked back up to the woman. "Look, I'm going to turn this thing off, and there are going to be a lot of soldiers coming in expecting a surrender. They don't want to kill you. They just want you to not kidnap people anymore. Got it?"

The woman nodded shakily. "Yeah. I'm in way over my head, anyway, you know? I didn't think we were going this far."

Eleanor smiled as she set the gun on the console and kneeled to examine the power systems again. "Good. There's hope for you yet. Stay here, stay silent. Got it?"

The woman probably nodded silently, which meant little to Eleanor as she began to pick apart the power system again.

. . .

Maya Ibuki huddled back against the barricade, her chest heaving as the others fired over her head. The noise would probably have made her deaf a while ago, but her Interfacing kept her eardrums whole, able to hear every shot, every shout and scream, and dying groan over the briefest pauses between the gunfire.

She'd done it. Not only had she done it, she'd made the first kill. The man falling down in the hallway replayed over and over again in her mind, the blood and brains flying out. It was a miracle she hadn't vomited. Why was that?

After some time, she felt a hand on her shoulder, looked up to see Captain Faez. "Get up." Faez said, pulling her to her feet. "Get inside. No need to be in danger if you can't defend yourself."

"I… I…" Maya couldn't find the words. Why couldn't she find the words?

She looked over her shoulder, back towards the man on the ground. And saw the two hands peeking out from one of the doors. "Someone's surrendering." she muttered.

Faez peeked out from around her, then looked to Misato and said something as Maya watched the man emerge, followed by another. Both were Japanese, moving slowly over the slick ice Misato had coated the floor with, their hands up and their faces filled with horror and confusion. Were they really scared like she was? Why? They were special forces soldiers, weren't they?

Her gaze flicked at movement behind them, and Maya saw the soldier stepping out, leveling his rifle. Leveling it at the soldier's backs. And in an instant, her body made a decision before her mind fully caught up.

Her hand rose, her finger twitched, and a bullet-sized packet of data detailing the equations that made up an armor-piercing depleted uranium round ripped into the skull of the soldier behind the surrendering men, sending him slamming into the door frame and onto the ground.

The men looked behind for the briefest of seconds, then looked back to Maya as she waved a hand towards her. "Come on! Hurry!"

The men began to move faster, staying low as Faez and Misato provided covering fire over their heads. Soon enough, they were behind the barricade, Mr. Marlowe stepping forward and pointing his gun at the men. As he studied them, his eyes widened. "Moto?" he shook his head. "Get in here. Now!"

He grabbed them both, roughly throwing the men into the hotel room as he motioned for the people behind the barricade to stop firing.

After a moment, the fire from the other side slackened and then stopped. At that moment, Marlowe decided to speak. "Alright! Two of your men had the brains to surrender! You can't win this, and you should know that by now! Drop your weapons, and we'll help those who need it!"

It was quiet for a moment, then Maya watched as a few more men began to throw down their weapons, one man emerging from the side the two others had emerged from, and three on the other side of the hall.

As they advanced, Misato threw up a wall of ice behind the furthest away man that walked towards them, cutting him off from any fire from behind as Faez and her covered the man approaching from their side.

The men slowly made their way towards them, their hands up, and their expressions holding the same anxiety, fear, and uncertainty the two men before them had as well. As Mr. Marlowe and the man he'd introduced as 'Soap' began to disarm the incoming Japanese soldiers, Misato lowered the wall of ice, and Marlowe spoke up again. "Alright! Anyone else want to take our offer?"

Their answer came in the form of a grenade, a tubular flashbang, clattering into the gap, a ripple of shock exploding from the sight before any blast wave from the explosive. Then, things happened very quickly.

The men being disarmed by the two Blackadder men shoved their way into the hotel room, while Faez's superhuman reflexes allowed her to kick the grenade back out into the hallway, ducking back into cover as it went off with a blinding light and a deafening bang.

Maya made her way into the hotel room as the shooting started again, Soap taking her place as her hearing recovered enough to hear Marlowe mutter. "And things were starting to look up, too."

She entered the room, Ritsuko, having made her way to the first two men, looking up at her as she joined her girlfriend's side. "Maya…" she said quietly. "Are you okay?"

Maya was quiet for a moment, then shook her head. "No. But they'll need to be okay. Making sure of that will probably help things." she began to perform triage, just as Roach had taught her how to do, moving from one man to the next. There were few really worrying wounds, a few stray bullet holes for those who were not quick enough to avoid the initial barrage, cleaned and sealed with a moment's Interfacing.

As she finished her work, the man she had first seen surrendering tapped her shoulder. As she turned, she noted the look of cautious relief that filled his face. "You… you saved me. Thank you."

Maya looked at him for a moment. She'd saved him, yes. But she'd killed someone to do it. How was that right? How was any of this right?

She took a deep breath. "You're welcome." she finally said.

Before she could move on, the man spoke again. "Is… this your first time? In combat?" he asked quietly.

Maya looked back at him, then nodded silently.

"For what it's worth…" the man paused. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you." Maya replied after a moment more.

. . .

Daniel was having a decent go of it, all things considered. His combat armor would probably need a few hours to repair itself afterward, but he had not fallen. Not yet, anyway.

The men and women in front of him seemed content to continue to try and shoot at him, as if they would weigh him down and drown him with their weight of fire alone, backing away whenever he approached as if he were a wild animal. It worked. To an extent. But they would run out of bullets long before his armor grew thin and broke.

And run out it seemed they would, as the rate of fire began to slacken, and they began to back up more and more. Away from the kids and Eleanor. If only he had his link to their souls. He'd know. 'Anytime now…'

As he continued to advance, in the blink of an eye, they were surrounded by men, tall and in black and white and blue armor, their helmets, faceplates really, not entirely covering up their instantly recognizable bone crests.

"Surender now!" One of them shouted, their also familiar voice amplified by a built-in speaker system. "We do not wish to harm you, but we will protect ourselves."

The men and women who had been shooting at him only moments before wheeled back to face this new threat. And the rifles that they carried with them.

It was a tense moment, seeming to threaten to spill back into violence at any moment. Then, the clatter of a weapon hitting the floor gently, followed by more as the 2 dozen or so left still conscious began to put down their guns.

As the Warrior Caste members began to gather them and their weapons, one, with a little more blue on his armor, walked over towards Daniel. "So," Rastaff said, a serious edge to his voice, "you claim this is Vinis' doing?"

"I do." Daniel nodded. "Search my soul if you wish. I talked with him… not much more than an hour ago."

He couldn't feel the touch of Rastaff's soul, but he was sure of what happened after he shook his head. "I needed to be sure. Blast and damnation. I've trusted that man for the better part of a decade on my staff. And…"

He looked at Daniel, and he could feel Rastaff's eyes nearly pinning him where he stood, Interfacing or no. "We remember you as well. We found records of your dealings with the Shadows, long after the war. Far quieter than what it seems Mr. Vinis experienced."

He paused for a moment. "But I also saw what else there was. The pain. The sorrow. The parts that Mr. Vinis ignored, it seems. I… I am sorry, for what it's worth."

"Don't be." Daniel replied wearily. "That was a different man. It has to be, for the sake of my sanity."

Before Rastaff could continue, there was a quiet buzz, and one of the Lone Worlders slumped to the floor, a slightly smoking hole in their back. They were quickly followed by more hollow cracks, more Lone Worlders dying, Minbari warriors knocked to the ground before the Minbari began to return fire.

The Lone Worlders scattered as Daniel turned to face the catwalk of the offices, his accelerator rifle appearing in his hands as his helmet scanned through spectrums. Finally, the blurry outlines of electromagnetic ghosts flashed into his vision as the first one fell to Minbarri fire, the cloaking device revealing a salarian soldier. "They're visible on the EM spectrum!" he shouted as he sighted one of the salarians, a pull of the trigger sending a burst of rounds slamming into the soldier, pushing him to the ground as the rounds chewed through him.

It was a quick firefight, done in seconds, no more than minutes. The salarians might have had the element of surprise, but half a dozen couldn't stand against 30 Minbari warriors for very long.

As the rounds stopped flying and the warehouse became silent again, Daniel approached one of the salarian soldiers, slightly smoking on the ground, his helmet disappearing as he looked at it with his own eyes. 'What a waste.'

He flinched slightly as he felt a hand on his shoulder, looking over as he saw Eleanor, in her own armor. Had she joined the fight? She must have.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly, as the Minbari began to gather the dead and the city's law enforcement finally arrived.

"Yeah." he said, taking a deep breath. "I should have seen this coming."

"Yet, here we are." Eleanor replied. "Having done the best we can. You've done the best you can. Now we have to move on. Make sure the Children are okay, and get these damned collars off of all of you."

Daniel nodded. "Alright. Let's go."

They brushed past the rather heavily armed police officers, out to the line of police cars, lights flashing. About 5 or so meters from the entrance, the Children stood huddled together near Ryoji as he talked to a police officer. As they walked toward the group, Asuka noticed them, turning and running the rest of the way as Daniel's armor disappeared and they embraced.

"You idiot. You complete and utter idiot." Asuka said, her voice muffled as her face was pressed into Daniel's shoulders. She looked at him after a moment. "Ryoji told us what you did. How you got captured walking in to ransom us."

She punched him in the shoulder. "Now look at you. Shot up and with this stupid Expression Inhibitor thing around your neck, same as us." she shook her head. "You must be nuts. Especially if your plan was really 'I'm going to play Michael Bublè so that I draw all the fire'." she made a somewhat mocking impersonation of Daniel as she spoke the last sentence.

"Yeah. Kind of." Daniel replied with a slight smile. "But it's the reason we're all safe."

Asuka smiled after a moment. "Yeah. I guess."

Daniel stepped back from the embrace, walking over to the other children. "And how are you all doing?"

The chorus of "Okay" and "Alright" was broken by Kaworu, who had an odd look in his eyes. As he continued to stay silent, all eyes turned to him as Daniel gently parted the group to stand before Kaworu. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

Kaworu looked up at Daniel with a small, somewhat uncertain smile. "It seems… I have dreamed a dream. Or in other words, I have seen another vision. Of the other world I've been seeing. Or at least… something like it."

. . .

United Nation Armed Response Forces Major Terrence Howard walked up the steps slowly. There was no sound of gunfire. Not anymore. It had stopped almost an hour ago, now.

He stopped at the entrance to the sixth floor, looking down at the man who lay dead in the doorway, his head a block of bloody ice. It was a hell of a taster for what was probably to come. He gripped the pistol in his hand a little tighter. The bullets in it were Lance rounds, meant to penetrate AT Fields. Or, as it seemed, Interfacing. But the only bullet in the gun that had any chance of being used was already in the chamber, waiting for if he found…

No. He had to wait until then. To be sure when he pulled the trigger.

He stepped into the hallway. His immediate surroundings were more like what one might find in an arctic cave, rocky spikes and patches of ice surrounding him and the dead bodies he stood against. Further down the hall, things looked more… normal. The hallway looked like an actual hallway, and two women, NERV Commander Misato Katsuragi and Science Director Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, if his intel and his memory were right, were somehow clearing away the rocks and the ice.

As he walked forward, they noticed him, and… things, that were probably meant to be guns, appeared in their hands as they pointed them at him.

"Stop." Katsuragi said, and he obeyed. "Who are you?"

"Terrence Howard." he answered, a hollow tone in his voice.

Katsuragi blinked. "Major Terrence Howard?"

He nodded silently.

"Mana and Mayumi talked about you some." Doctor Akagi said.

His eyes widened. "Are… are they…" his voice failed as he looked around him, at the men strewn about the floor.

Misato shook her head slowly. "No. They're here with us. Alive. Safe."

Howard let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding as the gun slipped from his fingers and clattered onto a patch of ice, and he sank to his knees. "Thank god." he whispered, a tear streaming down his face. "Thank god."