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***
The dust was going to be the death of him, Aya decided, as he
fought back yet another sneezing fit. He stared at the pile of books in
front of him, then barely glanced at the bigger stack behind him. His
search was definitely not going well.
He'd only found one book, out of forty, that even hinted at what
he was looking for, and he was well into the 1800's.
He mentally cursed Bishop for choosing magazines and newspapers,
not realizing, as he'd agreed to the others suggestion, that books had been
around far longer than the more recent media of newspapers and magazines.
A noise at the door made Aya spin, a book in hand, as if the
reading material would make an adequate weapon.
"Sorry to startle you," Reiichi told him. "I skimmed
through everything, and got this."
He held up a fair sized stack of papers. "Did you find
anything?"
Aya nodded shortly, and picked up the one useful book in the
whole room.
"I haven't gotten to the legends and fairy tales yet,
either. I'll probably find more then."
Reiichi nodded.
"Need help, Ran?"
The redhead paused, then nodded slightly.
"Okay."
***
"How did you talk me into this?!"
Ken tipped his head to the side, then asked, "What?"
Shuuichi rolled his eyes and leaned closer to the man driving
the motorcycle.
"Why couldn't we have taken my car?" the blond man asked.
"Too slow!" was the reply, and Shuuichi had to admit that the
bike was going places his car wouldn't have made it through, legally.
Yuuishi knew that they had reason to hurry. Pawn and
Bombay had spotted a woman sobbing over her recently discovered missing
child, setting alarms off through every Kritiker agent on duty.
At the entrance to the mall, Ken screeched to a halt.
"I'll go park," he said. "You find the others."
Shuuichi nodded, barely making it off the bike before it was
off, peeling away from the curb.
***
Ken felt nervous, though he wasn't sure why. He knew the
others could take care of themselves. you didn't get very far in Kritiker
without being able to look after yourself, no matter how many friends you
had. And yet, with the two Crashers to help Omi, Ken couldn't hurry
fast enough.
Which was why he almost missed both Omi and Naru climb into a
strange car, followed by two children and an older looking man.
Ducking behind an SUV, Ken watched the new looking car start,
then begin to back up.
Racing for his bike, Ken jumped on the vehicle and started it
up, just managing to get his helmet on before the car passed him.
Reaching for his headphone, the brunette groaned as he realized that Knight
had both earpieces. Following the strange car slowly, Ken checked the
tracer in his jacket, making sure it was sewn in tightly. If worse came
to worse they could just follow his signal.
As the car entered the freeway, Ken automatically dropped three
cars behind his target, ducking out from behind the truck he was following
every now and then to check on the target.
***
Meanwhile, Weiss and Crashers were having a difficult time
comprehending why three of their teammates were missing. Only Yoji,
however was voicing his opinions. Loudly.
"How did you manage to lose him?" Yoji snarled at Yuuishi for
the umpteenth time.
"I came to meet you," Yuuishi replied calmly; he was getting
used to Yoji's anger.
"He's your partner, and you lost him?"
Masato rolled his eyes; worry was one thing, this was bordering
on obsession.
"One might take your worry as something more," Yuuishi
smiled. "Is it?"
"Knight!" Reiichi scolded, as Yoji launched himself at the other
blond man, only to be held back by two pairs of strong arms.
"You son of a bitch! He's a teammate! And my
friend!"
Aya, one of the two men holding Yoji back, released a hand to
place it on the taller man's shoulder, proving that he, too, was worried.
"We'll find him. We'll find *them.* Now shut up!
You're attracting attention."
The energy seemed to drain from Yoji's body, and he wilted into
the two men holding him back, who now had the daunting task of holding him
up.
"Fine," Yoji said. "That still doesn't tell us where Naru
and Omi went."
"Use your head, *detective,*" Yuuishi sneered. "Your
partner probably followed them."
Masato frowned. "That's a pretty broad guess, Yuu."
"We'll find them, wherever they went," Reiichi said quickly, and
Yoji straightened up, brushing off the arms still prepared to hold him back.
"We'll give them five more minutes, as always," Aya told the
others, eyes on the agitated Yoji, who raised his eyes to meet those of his
field leader's, before nodding shortly.
"Five minutes," he agreed.
***
"Shit!"
Ken brushed away another branch, as he stumbled over a
root. The bushes and branches and brambles of the forest were clingy,
refusing to let go of his jacket, snagging on his jeans and shoes. He
had lost the targets-- and his teammates-- in the maze of trees as soon as
they had gotten out of his direct line of sight, vanishing into the forest.
Following a possible trail, Ken made a mental note to take tracking
lessons. Pushing aside more bushes, Ken stopped dead in his own tracks,
floored by the monstrous house that had been hidden by the large trees that
surrounded it.
"Hello, there."
Ken turned swiftly, bugnuks out, poised and ready to strike.
The speaker was a man, standing solidly and *much* bigger than
Ken himself. A massive hand reached up and caught Ken's flying fist,
squeezing, while the other hand clamped down on Ken's neck, sending the young
man into unconsciousness.
***
"He'll be all right."
"He will. That boy can take care of himself. So
can Pawn, and I'll bet Bombay's fine, too."
"Turn left here. Look, talk, or something."
Yoji glanced away from the road for a brief second, to meet
Masato's eyes. "Or something."
There was more silence, and Reiichi met Masato's eyes in the
rear-view mirror. Their driver was severely distracted.
"I know they'll be fine," Yoji continued.
"We separate all the time. It's just, Siberian doesn't even have
his headset. And Bombay hasn't checked in. He *always* checks
in."
Masato opened his mouth to say what was on his mind, then
snapped it closed. Telling his temporary teammate that maybe they
*couldn't* check in wouldn't do anybody any good.
At the edge of the woods, a national forest under protection of
the country, Yoji stopped, as directed. Behind them, Aya's Porsche
screeched to a halt, spewing dirt in a fine arc. Yuuishi jumped out
immediately, slamming the door behind him.
"Somebody else is riding with him on the way back,"
the man snarled. "I don't care who."
Masato ignored the angry man and turned to Reiichi. "Do
both signals go into the woods?"
Reiichi nodded. "Siberian and Bombay, probably with
Pawn, all in the same spot."
Glancing over his leader's shoulder, to watch the faint beeping
of the tracer, Masato shook his head.
"Actually, they're about a hundred feet apart," he
said blandly, earning a Look from Reiichi.
"Shall we?" Yoji asked, zipping up his coat.
"Yeah, let's go kick some vampire ass!" Masato exclaimed.
"For the twentieth time, Rook," Reiichi
corrected. "They're not really vampumph!"
Smiling gamely, Masato walked over to Yuuishi, now scarfless.
"Let's go," Yoji said. "We're just wasting
time."
"You *are* an impatient one, aren't you?" Yuuishi
grinned, and Yoji pursed his lips, flipping the other man off.
"Stop it," Aya commanded. "We follow the
tracers."
"Of course, Abyssinian," Reiichi said, glaring at Yoji
and Yuuishi, both who barely managed to look sheepish.
The group slowly made their way forward, trying to find traces
of their friends in the surrounding forest, eyeing the tracks Ken had made
earlier. When they found Ken's motorcycle, parked almost next to a
shiny new car, that seemed to almost melt into the background, they moved
faster, heading straight for the low signal of Ken and Omi's tracer bugs,
until--
"Holy shit!"
--they reached the same house Ken had stumbled across, barely an
hour earlier.
"I'll have to agree with Rook," Yuuishi said.
"That is one big house, especially in the middle of a national
forest."
"A protected,
nobody's-supposed-to-walk-in-here-let-alone-live-here-national-forest,"
Yoji said.
"Which means that not only do these guys have our
teammates, they're defaming a national monument, as well," Reiichi
grimaced.
Aya glanced at both the tracking device, and the map of the area
they had procured earlier.
"This isn't right," he said. "These coordinates
say that we're in--" He turned the map over, to glance at the
world. "--Europe. More specifically, France."
"You're saying we're in a different country?" Masato asked Aya,
who glared. The others tone held something like doubt.
Reiichi frowned at Masato, who closed his mouth with a snap,
then turned to Aya. "Is there a possibility it might be a space warp?"
Yoji stared at his teammates. "A space warp?!" he demanded, his
voice going up an octave in disbelief.
"It might be," Aya nodded, ignoring his Weiss teammate.
"Space warp?" Yoji asked again, waving both arms wildly, in a
bid for attention, finally attaining it in an arched crimson brow.
Masato snickered at the younger blond. "Crashers mission,
a few years ago."
Aya finally took pity on Yoji's still-confused expression, and
gave him a bit more of an explanation.
"I was thrown into ancient Russia, on a mission."
Yoji blinked at his teammate. "Oh, is that all," he
sneered. "Well, gee, I'm all for your idea that a part of the French
countryside is residing in a national forest in Japan, all on the basis of
you visiting the Siberian ice-age a few years ago!"
Several brows were raised by the time he was finished, and Yoji
glared, making a slight move with his hand that they all recognized in one
form or another as the 'I-need-a-cigarette-dammit-where-are-they?' motion.
With an unhappy hitch in his breath, Yoji finally sighed and
stared at his teammates.
"What do we do now?"
Reiichi raised a hand slightly, to get their attention, then
said, "Shall we camp and wait to siege, or do we rampage?"
There was a brief moment of quiet, before the other four men
said in unison: "Rampage."
***
Time crept slowly. Very slowly. Every time Yoji
glanced at his watch, it held the same time. He ducked under a beam,
cursing his luck of the draw.
The others had, through process of elimination, given him the
job of scouting ahead, while they set up haphazard bombs made from the
materials in the combined vehicles they had driven, including Ken's bike, and
the strange car.
None of the explosives were as good as if Omi or Naru had been
there, but they would suffice for the job they were needed to do.
Yoji exhaled slowly, wishing for a cigarette, or something as
equally soothing, as he bypassed another rafter, in his quest to not hit his
head while he stuck small lights to the rafters. They were actually
jerry-rigged extra car lights, found in Aya's Porsche, but they worked just
as well as any flashlight, of which they only had three of.
He glanced yet again at he machine steadily beeping at his hip,
noting that the tracers of his youngest team members still hadn't moved.
Which could have been good or bad, depending on the situation.
His headset crackled, and Yoji stopped moving. He'd
already learned once that when he talked and crept through strange rafters,
he fell more easily than if he'd been paying strict attention to where he
placed his feet.
"Where are you, Balinese?" came Aya's voice.
"Not where I'm supposed to be," Yoji muttered to himself, then
pressed the 'talk' button. "I'm almost there, Abyssinian. It's
slow going because of the unfamiliarity, and the fact that I can't see the
rooms I'm above, but I'm getting there."
The headset crackled again, but this time, Reiichi's voice came
through. "We're done with the explosives. Will you be there and
ready when we follow your trail?"
Yoji nodded affirmative, wincing when his head hit a beam.
"I'll be ready."
"Good. Bishop out."
With half his mind still on the direction he was supposed to go,
and the other half trying not to get him killed by placing his feet in secure
positions, Yoji didn't actually see the wall until he ran into it.
"Shit!" he whispered harshly. "Just peachy." Looking
at the tracker unit, he cursed again. The room Naru and Omi were in was
on the other side of the wall. Back-tracking slightly, the blond turned
on a flashlight, using it to sweep over the floor, to try and find an access
door. Passing all over the floor space, he finally found a small handle
in the floor, that when pulled, revealed a fair sized hole. Moving so that he
had good view of the room below, Yoji's brow wrinkled when he saw an elegant
looking middle-aged woman sitting on a dais on the far side of the room.
She seemed impatient, and every time she fidgeted with her
dress, Yoji had to blink and re-focus his eyes, not sure of what he was
seeing. Was she *glowing*?
The assassin flinched when the large doors at the end of the
hallway hit the walls, revealing a very large man. The woman on the
dais smiled broadly, then blinked and frowned at whatever was behind the man.
Two creatures-- for Yoji had no other word for them-- were
wheeling in a table. Strapped to the table was Ken, his head lolled to
the side.
"Yoshi!"
The woman's voice was low-pitched, but it carried far, and the
broad man bowed.
"He came here, my love. I thought it might have been one of
ours."
"But he's too old!" the woman exclaimed.
"And did you feel anything for him?"
The man shook his head, then raised a hand. "I did,
however, feel something for one of today's."
Yoji froze as the woman walked towards Ken, a hand held out.
"Do you think it's one of ours?" came Reiichi's voice,
and Yoji gasped.
"I hope not," he finally responded, turning slightly
to stare at his other teammates. "Kids're screwed up as it
is."
Running a hand over his forehead, the woman shook her
head. "He is not right," she announced, heading back to her chair.
Below them, Yoshi waved his right hand forward, and two more of
the servant-creatures entered the hall, herding children....including Omi and
Naru.
Yoji let out a low hiss as his teammates walked placidly,
allowing themselves to be lined up with the much younger group of eight
children.
The creatures, with another wave of Yoshi's hand, began to
convey the children, one at a time, to the woman, who held a hand out and
touched each child's forehead.
By the time Naru and Omi were brought to her, she was sweating
faintly, and tears were running down her face.
Yoji could feel the tension behind him, and he prayed that his
teammates weren't right for the woman, whatever she was looking for.
With a final touch to their faces, the woman waved the two boys
away.
"They're none of them right," the woman told Yoshi, who had a
mixed look of anger and sadness warring on his face. "We'll never find them!"
She fell into Yoshi's arms, sobbing openly.
"Now, Isa, you know we haven't been searching for that
long. We'll find them," the big man soothed.
With another sob, she ran from the room.
Yoshi grimaced, but stayed where he was. His face lost any
caring emotion he'd shown at all as he turned towards his servants.
He motioned at the children. "Corner them."
The four creatures sprang into action, pulling the dazed
children towards the far wall, setting up a loose half-circle around them.
Up in the rafters, Yoji blanched. The knife Yoshi had
pulled from his belt looked as dangerous as it was ornamental....and was it
ever ornamental.
"We shall start the blood rights here, now," Yoshi
intoned. "Starting with this trespasser." The giant man started
for Ken.
"I say we go now," Yuuishi said.
Yoji seconded that by pressing the button on the side of his
watch, aiming for a beam above his head. He felt the end of the wire
wrap around something, and he jumped
"Hey!" he cried, as he sailed towards the ground, happy that
while the house was several stories high, each level was no more than fifteen
feet tall.
Yoji landed in a roll, still letting wire loose, feeling the tug
of his other teammates following on the light string.
As he bounded to his feet, Yoji ignored the scattering children,
instead heading straight for Ken. As he avoided the creatures, who were
actually flocking towards Yoshi, Yoji saw Reiichi and Masato follow after the
children, with Reiichi using a tranquilizer on the children they caught.
Unstrapping Ken, Yoji ducked a creature that flew over his head,
courtesy of Yuuishi. He heard Aya yell something, and then the unmistakable
sound of metal on metal rang out.
"C'mon, Ken," Yoji muttered, nudging his
teammate. "You gotta wake up enough for me to help you out."
Ken, his eyes dilated widely, just blinked slowly at his
teammate, and Yoji snarled quietly. Ducking his head under the
brunette's arm, Yoji hefted Ken's body half off the table. With a
grunt, the other assassin's legs began to head for the ground.
"Balinese, to your right!" came Masato's voice, and
Yoji half-turned, kicking out with his foot at the creature that was headed
for him.
There was a loud twang! and the creature shrieked, turning away
from Yoji and Ken, to Omi, who was drawing back his bow for another shot.
Yoji yelped a thank you as he ducked fully under Ken, lifting
the younger man onto his shoulders, stumbling under the dead weight.
The blond assassin eyed the doorways at both ends of the hallway and frowned;
they were both too far away to reach in any record time.
Frowning back and forth at the end doors, Yoji shifted Ken
slightly. He may have been a thin soccer player, but he was a *muscled*
soccer player, and dead weight, to boot.
"Balinese!" he heard Reiichi yell. "To me!"
Yoji glanced around, his eyes finally lighting on the older man,
who had three children in his arms. With a quick glance at his other
four teammates, Yoji sprinted towards the door.
He passed Reiichi with a brief nod, hearing the other man's
footsteps echoing behind him as he ran.
Ahead of him was the door out, and he kicked it open, happy the
others had thought to rig it on their way in.
***
"You think you can defeat me?" Yoshi demanded of Aya, who was
glaring as frostily as he could, sword out in a defiant gesture. "I am older
and wiser than you. When your *grandparents* weren't even in this
world, I was defeating things with more stature than you! You are
*nothing* to me."
"So why haven't you killed him, yet?" came Yuuishi's
voice. His own blade drawn, the blond smiled. "Tell you
what. You can try to kill us both."
***
Yoji put Ken down by the first tree he came to, and turned in
one smooth movement, taking one of Reiichi's children. Omi and Naru
came out, each dragging a child, and Masato practically dropped his three
children in his hurry to grab the paper bag he'd hidden at the base of the tree
before they'd infiltrated the mansion.
"I'm going back in," he announced, and three of them
nodded; Yoji wasn't paying attention.
As Masato left, Reiichi extracted his cell phone from a pocket,
and swiftly dialed a number. He watched Omi and Naru check the pulses
of the children they had rescued, and Yoji fuss over Ken, as the phone rang
once... twice... thr--
"Well?" came a feminine voice that announced that that
if you pissed her off, you'd be sorry.
"Almost done," he responded. "Hatchlings safe,
vultures being eradicated."
"Good. We have your position."
A dial-tone, and Reiichi hung up. "They're coming," he
announced.
"Great," Yoji sighed.
***
Masato knew it should have been difficult to find the opponents
he had left earlier, from the assumption that it had taken him nearly an hour
to find the center room in the first place, but he realized as soon as he
entered the mansion that all he had to do was follow the sounds of battle
echoing down the hallway.
***
Omi heard it first; a low, melodic, almost remorseful sounding
tune.
***
After a wrong turn that took him into a kitchen, long disused,
Masato found the three combatants, surrounded by more creatures than the
original four servants, and a large pool of blood that was making their boots
stick to the floor.
"Oi!" the blond man screamed, causing both humans and
the ancient spirit to start out of their battle-haze.
Masato drew both objects from his paper bag, throwing one
directly at the spirit-turned-flesh.
The clear liquid from the water balloon splashed the older man's
chest, running down his clothing in rivulets.
The man stared down at his dripping clothing, then back up at
Masato, who had the second object from the bag behind his back.
"Is this supposed to stop me?" the ancient man
asked. "Holy water?" A great booming laughter filled the
hall, while the humans glanced at each other.
***
All who were conscious looked up to the roof, where the source
of the sound was coming from. A shadow detached itself from the
darkness, revealing itself to be the woman, from earlier. She continued
to play her fiddle, ignoring the gaping spectators below.
***
Masato sneered, lighting the flare he'd kept hidden.
"Don't you know what gasoline smells like?" he asked, throwing the
flame at the still-laughing ancient.
The small flame leapt for the gas, igniting the burning liquid,
eating at the clothing and flesh underneath.
Aya and Yuuishi pulled out their own distinct weapons, two
specially carved stakes, and with the redhead from behind and the blond in
front, they attacked, neatly avoiding the flailing hands and burning body of
the child-killer, as they speared his heart from two different directions.
As he thrashed about, Yoshi managed to catch Yuuishi's arm,
holding on tightly.
***
"He did it for me," the woman on the roof said, and Omi sighed
in unhappiness when Reiichi signaled for him to use his arrows. "He
never really loved the children." A tear slid down her cheek as Omi set
up his crossbow. "He did it for me!"
***
Yuuishi fell jerked back with a soft cry, holding his left arm
close to his side. Aya, with a loud yell, leapt forward, sword out,
slashing at the burning man's neck, severing many tendons in the effort to
behead his enemy. With another chop and a swift jerk, the head fell
completely away from the body, landing at the feet of a staring Yuuishi.
"Let's go!" Masato commanded.
"Knight! Abyssinian! Move!" He hit the
demolition's switch Naru had rigged, and he had planted, up. The house
started to rumble as the trio ran from the battleground, avoiding chunks of
wall that fell at them, as if the very house was trying to take them with it.
***
As Omi sighted down his weapon, the woman turned to fully face
him.
"I truly did love them," she whispered, as Omi pulled the
trigger.
***
Ken opened his eyes to Yoji's chin. Blinking in confusion,
he wiggled a little, realizing his head was in the lap of the other.
Yoji looked down swiftly, and smiled faintly at Ken, who winced.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"You, boy, are in front of a burning mansion," Yoji
responded. "And not just any burning mansion, but one that manages to
be both in the middle of the National Japanese Forest, *and* France."
Ken frowned. "What?"
Yoji's smile became a little tenser. "Never mind.
I'll tell you after you're concussion is healed."
Hearing more voices beyond those of his teammate, Ken turned his
head slightly, to watch a group of strangers carrying children into a big
black van.
Off to the side stood Crashers and Weiss, intermingled, with
only Omi and Naru actually touching. Omi and Naru?
Ken tried to sit up, pointing vaguely at the two young boys.
"Yeah, yeah, they're fine. And when you get better, we're
gonna talk about you and you're habit of not taking the headphones," was the
reply.
Ken glared, then sighed and closed his eyes.
"Well done," came a familiar voice. Manx stepped
from the gloom, her black clothing a strange look for the usually vibrant
redhead. "Maybe I should have Persia team you up more often."
"No!" came eight immediate voices, and Manx chuckled
as even Ken managed to yell.
"We'll see," she said.
Yoji looked down at Ken, smiling, making the other smile back.
"Can we go home?" Ken asked, and Yoji nodded.
***
"I screwed up."
Yoji frowned at Ken, who was lying on his side, his blanket
pulled up to his chin. "No, you didn't."
"I did, too. I shouldn't have followed them. I knew about
the tracers."
"They're our friends," Yoji replied. "You're allowed
moments of stupidity."
Ken laughed, then clutched his head.
Yoji rolled his eyes, shifting the blankets around his
friend. "I'm gonna go. You have aspirin, a bucket in case you
don't make it to the bathroom in time, water, orange juice and the remote
control to your tv has been revoked. Go to sleep."
"Even though you're going to wake me up in an hour?"Ken
retorted, and Yoji smiled.
"Yup."
"Damn concussion."
"Sleep."
With another brief smile, Yoji closed Ken's door behind him.
***
In a far away land, that still manages to be Right There, a high
lord of the realm sits.
"There will be others," he says softly, watching his
scrying mirror. "Many more."
**END**
[1] This is on the assumption that Crashers is just given
assignments, with no room to back out.
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