Chapter 5- From the Streets to the Docks
AC, Na-chan, and T-ko are walking down yet another street, still with no idea where they're going. Na-chan is distracted listening to some CD, humming along now and then, while AC and T-ko are talking about her.
"Seriously," AC was saying, "Na-chan's practically a female version of Piro, and she's about the same age as all the other girls you read about in MegaTokyo. They'd be a good match for each other."
"True," T-ko replied, "but Seraphim would have a fit."
"Yeah..."
They returned to their separate thoughts, mostly about Na-chan and the "watashi wa ecchi" headband she wanted to get.
"On second thought," AC said, "maybe it wouldn't be such a good thing if those two got together..."
Still lacking anything else to do, and not yet hungry enough to stop to eat, the trio continued their aimless wandering, hoping that maybe they'd find someone who could help them out.
*******
As Tanetris ran along, he spotted a rather cute 6-tailed kitsune on the other side of the street. Momentarily enthralled, he turned his head to get as long a look as possible without breaking stride. Unfortunately, this brought him crashing full-speed into the back of three poor gaijin girls. Cursing loudly, he extracted himself from the tangle of humans, pulling his tail out from under the oldest one, and helped them back to their feet.
"I'm so terribly sorry," he apologized quickly. "Are you all okay?"
Getting dazed nods from all three, Tanetris took note of their scents so he could find them later and check on them. He felt bad just leaving them there, but it couldn't be helped at the moment. Checking that his sword was still firmly at his hip, he ran on toward where the howl had come from. Soon it became clear that his destination was the docks, and not just any docks, but the game corporation docks. Wonderful, not only did he have to deal with the Council, but also whatever security measures Sega, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft had to offer. What had he said earlier about being ready for anything?
Tanetris slowed as he came closer, seeing quite a commotion. Uniformed guards from each of the four companies, at least a dozen corporate spies, and countless heavily armed private citizens watched everything while yet more uniformed guards surrounded a man with a bloody nose and a nearby cat with equally bloody paws. The fellow werewolf he had heard, perhaps, but without being close enough to pick up a scent, it remained a guess.
Something struck him as odd about the cat though. Carefully watching her movements, Tanetris wasn't sure if she was a werecat, some magical girl's familiar, a human trapped in a cat's body by some magical process, a normal cat given super-intelligence by scientific or magical means, or what, but he was quite certain she was sentient. Of course, he would know if he was close enough to get a scent, but at this range it was difficult to pick any particular scent out of the mix.
Moving into the shadows, Tanetris moved slowly closer, idly tossing other people doing the same thing into nearby dumpsters. Honestly, people in MegaTokyo have too much time on their hands. At least the guards and corporate spies were getting paid for their efforts, he often wondered how these people could afford so much artillery and ammunition when they never seemed to have any sort of employment. Hearing a short, muffled scream across the street, Tanetris fell out of his reverie and looked over. Wonderful, someone was doing the exact same thing he was. Whoever it was was fast and adept at stealth, all he could make out was a brown tail-tip and... Another tail-tip? A kitsune, most likely, possibly even the same one who had distracted him earlier. Of course, a kitsune meant mischief, as if there weren't enough complications to this mess already. Tanetris hastened his pace.
*******
It appeared that he hadn't needed Alek's help. The building was nothing but smoldering scrap, what of it had already hit the ground. The rest was raining over the better part of a mile.
And now the agent was strolling down the street, cool as ice, smooth as glass. Only a MihoCultist could be that stylish. At least Alek knew he had the right guy.
His perch on the rooftop allowed him to track his movement for several blocks, so Alek didn't have to worry about tailing him just yet. Alek called up his information on his retinal HUD, no real name, no vitals, no service record, not even a surveillance log. Either somebody way up the food chain didn't want Alek knowing anything about him, or they really didn't have anything on him. Based on the intel reports Alek had read, he was betting on the former.
Alek loosed the display and tapped silently on the wristcomp communications menu. A quick scan of the latest mission update confirmed his suspicion about why he had suddenly found himself pulled from his post in Anaheim and dumped here. Wherever "here" was.
He closed the display and looked back at his mark. Or at least where he should have been. Alek scanned the street again. No, he was gone. He shouldn't have been able to move like that. Retinal implants over to IR vision, still nothing. Motion detection, nothing.
*click* Crap.
Alek froze, hanging over the edge of the building like a gargoyle, the ice cold muzzle of a very large handgun pressed into the back of his neck.
The voice on the other end of it was as cold as the gun.
"Who are you and why are you following me?"
How did he get up here? Alek should have seen or heard him coming long way off. He's a human, there's no way he should have been able to sneak up on him. And where did he get that gun? Alek's last scans showed only a small knife and the 'wombicon...
The sound of the gun's hammer locking back reminded him that now was not a good time for a self-evaluation.
"Don't shoot me BGMaster, I'm on your side"
"Haven't answered my questions."
Alek slowly, very slowly, reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet and handed it to him, speaking slowly and deliberately as he did so.
"My name is Alek, I'm a Mihoist operative assigned by the rave council to find you and keep you alive. My certification is in the wallet. I'd tell you more, but that's all I know."
A few seconds of tense silence and the gun lifted from my neck. Alek stood without making any sudden motions, forgive him if he was still a little nervous, having a .45 put to one's head has that effect. He'd been on the opposite end of it often enough to know that.
Alek's wallet landed at his feet with a thump that seemed to echo for an eternity on the rooftop.
Alek knew what he was seeing. Some guy in a black trench with purple hair and glowing yellow eyes. That's right, the retinal implants were still active. Alek blinked and switched them off. Not that it helped things much. Ice blue eyes covered in silver circuitry.
Alek's left arm suddenly felt cold. The same way it always did whenever someone was looking him over and realized it was cybernetic. Between that, the eyes, the wristcomp he was wearing and all the equipment he had -and the look on his face, Alek knew what he was thinking.
"No, I'm not an EDS."
He looked skeptical, but not totally so. Alek took that as a good thing. He said nothing, so he kept going, testing my limits.
"Now BG, since I don't, would you happen to know why I've been assigned to you by the top brass?"
*******
She couldn't handle this anymore, the guy sat next to her was been way too nice, guys aren't meant to be that nice, it's against all laws of reason.
Glancing around the train she noticed that it was nearing the next stop. She sighed with relief.
"Oh, it looks like this is my stop."
"Really? I mean.. er... okay."
Hah Hah! she thought to herself, I caught him off guard.
She stood up, grabbing her book bag as the train came to a stop.
"I'll see you soon Yasha-chan..."
She was nearly out of the station when she realized she hadn't told him her name...
She looked around, She was at the docks and a crowd was gathering.
She caught a glimpse of what looked like a fox's tail out of the corner of her eye as she headed for the crowd, curiosity and the mob mentality over taking her.
Some guy had gotten mauled by a cat, blood everywhere, the poor kitty stressed out by the crowd was hissing and spiting.
She laughed to herself.
"He probably had it coming, he is a bloke after all." she smiled inwardly and praised the cat for this blow to the stupidity of the whole of the male kind in general.
Wait until Miho and Ping-chan heard about this, they wouldn't beleave what an odd, -not to mention creepy- day she'd had...
*******
After lying on the spot for about 5 minutes, there was already a large commotion. The spot of course being the crossroads in front of the cargo ship that had arrived and was in serious need of unloading, were it not for Spacy blocking the whole.
Heh, I knew this spot would be perfect to cause some trouble ^_^. Plus, it gives me some time for a little bit of shuteye.
Suddenly, all was not feeling right. The atmosphere changed, as if someone was ready to explode. Plus, a familiar scent too.
Hmm, better to open my eyes again, this ain't right. Huh, just a cat... Hold it, this ain't just a cat, the scent is off. Let's see jet-black, glowing eyes...
This of course took a while to sink in, Spacy not being the fastest person to get stuff while relaxing.
Holy hell, it's the pretty cat-girl from before... and I think her temper just exploded... and I'm in her way... and she's readying her claws... This is going to hurt. X_X
Several very painful seconds later, Spacy was upright, gripping his nose that had been slashed at 5 times with blood pouring out. Of course this was accompanied by a scream of totally his own kind and drawing lots of crowd by that.
Spacy's gaining back some sense through the pain and after the screaming... screaming helps.
Oookay, this ain't good. First of all, I got slashed at by a pretty cat-girl, which is a downer on my day all the same. Second, the slashes were deep. Oh they'll regenerate, but somehow the slashes ain't of the normal type. So the girl ain't a werecat and I must learn to pay more attention when sniffing. Third, one of the uptight cubs must have alerted the tactical unit, because those ain't standardized guns... GUNS?!?!
Tactical hand cannons more like it, as Spacy is looking more closely.
This ain't normal, even for a fight. The shipment must be very precious. Damn, no way to fight my way out of here without getting innocents hurt... I just hope I can get my tail out of here.
Suddenly Spacy heard a whimper and a hiss...
Great, the cat-girl. Pretty sure this ain't going to be pretty too for her. Better take her along too.
Grabbing the girl by her neck-fur, Spacy starts for a dash... Seeing no way out cause of being surrounded, only way out would be up. Making a quick jump for it, he landed on one of the containers, dodging bullets now. Suddenly a flash of kitsune tail tries to escape the corner of his eye. Too late.
Damn, a kitsune. That explains alot. My partner is not going to take this well, she hates them.
"Crap, I'm going to get it," were his first words aloud in this episode...
"Ain't you the perceptive one... NOW LET GO OF ME YOU FREAK!"
"Ouch! Hey, cool it, I still need that arm. Plus I'm trying to help. Whatever is happening, someone is not minding you getting hurt in the progress."
"I DON'T CARE! Last thing I need is some stinking werewolf trying to rescue me."
Jeez, this girl really is pissed at me... there go my chances later.
"That doesn't matter, I'm getting us out of here. You can do what you want later. And try not to smell too bad, I don't need other wolves tracking us too easily."
"I'M SMELLING BAD!? YOU'RE LUCKY I'M TOO OUT OF BREATH TO TRANSFORM OR YOU'D BE GETTING IT!"
Thinking small talk would be over now, Spacy leaped once again and once more, progressing quite nicely n... Holy hell, look out for the silver! Just barely dodging something very silver with fangs and claws (which wasn't attacking Spacy, mind you), Spacy manages to escape the crowd and the mess. Seems like another wolf was doing some leaping of his own, though this one is a bit more rare.
Finally getting home, beating his usual running time, Spacy entered his own little sanctuary again. Looking at the cat in his hand, he saw she was very busy being unconscious while having all four claws in his arm. That would be hurting a lot when he minded it attention.
Jeez, this ain't good. Thankfully I'm sure no one was following me. Having a spell reducing my smell to near nothing and the detection spells around his home were handy indeed. Having the ballistic one for his partner did have its perks. Okay, now I'm tired.
Getting the girl of him and putting her in the bed, Spacy went off and lay on the couch. Ten seconds later, he was snoring rather loudly in a peaceful sleep.
AC, Na-chan, and T-ko are walking down yet another street, still with no idea where they're going. Na-chan is distracted listening to some CD, humming along now and then, while AC and T-ko are talking about her.
"Seriously," AC was saying, "Na-chan's practically a female version of Piro, and she's about the same age as all the other girls you read about in MegaTokyo. They'd be a good match for each other."
"True," T-ko replied, "but Seraphim would have a fit."
"Yeah..."
They returned to their separate thoughts, mostly about Na-chan and the "watashi wa ecchi" headband she wanted to get.
"On second thought," AC said, "maybe it wouldn't be such a good thing if those two got together..."
Still lacking anything else to do, and not yet hungry enough to stop to eat, the trio continued their aimless wandering, hoping that maybe they'd find someone who could help them out.
"I'm so terribly sorry," he apologized quickly. "Are you all okay?"
Getting dazed nods from all three, Tanetris took note of their scents so he could find them later and check on them. He felt bad just leaving them there, but it couldn't be helped at the moment. Checking that his sword was still firmly at his hip, he ran on toward where the howl had come from. Soon it became clear that his destination was the docks, and not just any docks, but the game corporation docks. Wonderful, not only did he have to deal with the Council, but also whatever security measures Sega, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft had to offer. What had he said earlier about being ready for anything?
Tanetris slowed as he came closer, seeing quite a commotion. Uniformed guards from each of the four companies, at least a dozen corporate spies, and countless heavily armed private citizens watched everything while yet more uniformed guards surrounded a man with a bloody nose and a nearby cat with equally bloody paws. The fellow werewolf he had heard, perhaps, but without being close enough to pick up a scent, it remained a guess.
Something struck him as odd about the cat though. Carefully watching her movements, Tanetris wasn't sure if she was a werecat, some magical girl's familiar, a human trapped in a cat's body by some magical process, a normal cat given super-intelligence by scientific or magical means, or what, but he was quite certain she was sentient. Of course, he would know if he was close enough to get a scent, but at this range it was difficult to pick any particular scent out of the mix.
Moving into the shadows, Tanetris moved slowly closer, idly tossing other people doing the same thing into nearby dumpsters. Honestly, people in MegaTokyo have too much time on their hands. At least the guards and corporate spies were getting paid for their efforts, he often wondered how these people could afford so much artillery and ammunition when they never seemed to have any sort of employment. Hearing a short, muffled scream across the street, Tanetris fell out of his reverie and looked over. Wonderful, someone was doing the exact same thing he was. Whoever it was was fast and adept at stealth, all he could make out was a brown tail-tip and... Another tail-tip? A kitsune, most likely, possibly even the same one who had distracted him earlier. Of course, a kitsune meant mischief, as if there weren't enough complications to this mess already. Tanetris hastened his pace.
And now the agent was strolling down the street, cool as ice, smooth as glass. Only a MihoCultist could be that stylish. At least Alek knew he had the right guy.
His perch on the rooftop allowed him to track his movement for several blocks, so Alek didn't have to worry about tailing him just yet. Alek called up his information on his retinal HUD, no real name, no vitals, no service record, not even a surveillance log. Either somebody way up the food chain didn't want Alek knowing anything about him, or they really didn't have anything on him. Based on the intel reports Alek had read, he was betting on the former.
Alek loosed the display and tapped silently on the wristcomp communications menu. A quick scan of the latest mission update confirmed his suspicion about why he had suddenly found himself pulled from his post in Anaheim and dumped here. Wherever "here" was.
He closed the display and looked back at his mark. Or at least where he should have been. Alek scanned the street again. No, he was gone. He shouldn't have been able to move like that. Retinal implants over to IR vision, still nothing. Motion detection, nothing.
*click* Crap.
Alek froze, hanging over the edge of the building like a gargoyle, the ice cold muzzle of a very large handgun pressed into the back of his neck.
The voice on the other end of it was as cold as the gun.
"Who are you and why are you following me?"
How did he get up here? Alek should have seen or heard him coming long way off. He's a human, there's no way he should have been able to sneak up on him. And where did he get that gun? Alek's last scans showed only a small knife and the 'wombicon...
The sound of the gun's hammer locking back reminded him that now was not a good time for a self-evaluation.
"Don't shoot me BGMaster, I'm on your side"
"Haven't answered my questions."
Alek slowly, very slowly, reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet and handed it to him, speaking slowly and deliberately as he did so.
"My name is Alek, I'm a Mihoist operative assigned by the rave council to find you and keep you alive. My certification is in the wallet. I'd tell you more, but that's all I know."
A few seconds of tense silence and the gun lifted from my neck. Alek stood without making any sudden motions, forgive him if he was still a little nervous, having a .45 put to one's head has that effect. He'd been on the opposite end of it often enough to know that.
Alek's wallet landed at his feet with a thump that seemed to echo for an eternity on the rooftop.
Alek knew what he was seeing. Some guy in a black trench with purple hair and glowing yellow eyes. That's right, the retinal implants were still active. Alek blinked and switched them off. Not that it helped things much. Ice blue eyes covered in silver circuitry.
Alek's left arm suddenly felt cold. The same way it always did whenever someone was looking him over and realized it was cybernetic. Between that, the eyes, the wristcomp he was wearing and all the equipment he had -and the look on his face, Alek knew what he was thinking.
"No, I'm not an EDS."
He looked skeptical, but not totally so. Alek took that as a good thing. He said nothing, so he kept going, testing my limits.
"Now BG, since I don't, would you happen to know why I've been assigned to you by the top brass?"
Glancing around the train she noticed that it was nearing the next stop. She sighed with relief.
"Oh, it looks like this is my stop."
"Really? I mean.. er... okay."
Hah Hah! she thought to herself, I caught him off guard.
She stood up, grabbing her book bag as the train came to a stop.
"I'll see you soon Yasha-chan..."
She was nearly out of the station when she realized she hadn't told him her name...
She looked around, She was at the docks and a crowd was gathering.
She caught a glimpse of what looked like a fox's tail out of the corner of her eye as she headed for the crowd, curiosity and the mob mentality over taking her.
Some guy had gotten mauled by a cat, blood everywhere, the poor kitty stressed out by the crowd was hissing and spiting.
She laughed to herself.
"He probably had it coming, he is a bloke after all." she smiled inwardly and praised the cat for this blow to the stupidity of the whole of the male kind in general.
Wait until Miho and Ping-chan heard about this, they wouldn't beleave what an odd, -not to mention creepy- day she'd had...
Heh, I knew this spot would be perfect to cause some trouble ^_^. Plus, it gives me some time for a little bit of shuteye.
Suddenly, all was not feeling right. The atmosphere changed, as if someone was ready to explode. Plus, a familiar scent too.
Hmm, better to open my eyes again, this ain't right. Huh, just a cat... Hold it, this ain't just a cat, the scent is off. Let's see jet-black, glowing eyes...
This of course took a while to sink in, Spacy not being the fastest person to get stuff while relaxing.
Holy hell, it's the pretty cat-girl from before... and I think her temper just exploded... and I'm in her way... and she's readying her claws... This is going to hurt. X_X
Several very painful seconds later, Spacy was upright, gripping his nose that had been slashed at 5 times with blood pouring out. Of course this was accompanied by a scream of totally his own kind and drawing lots of crowd by that.
Spacy's gaining back some sense through the pain and after the screaming... screaming helps.
Oookay, this ain't good. First of all, I got slashed at by a pretty cat-girl, which is a downer on my day all the same. Second, the slashes were deep. Oh they'll regenerate, but somehow the slashes ain't of the normal type. So the girl ain't a werecat and I must learn to pay more attention when sniffing. Third, one of the uptight cubs must have alerted the tactical unit, because those ain't standardized guns... GUNS?!?!
Tactical hand cannons more like it, as Spacy is looking more closely.
This ain't normal, even for a fight. The shipment must be very precious. Damn, no way to fight my way out of here without getting innocents hurt... I just hope I can get my tail out of here.
Suddenly Spacy heard a whimper and a hiss...
Great, the cat-girl. Pretty sure this ain't going to be pretty too for her. Better take her along too.
Grabbing the girl by her neck-fur, Spacy starts for a dash... Seeing no way out cause of being surrounded, only way out would be up. Making a quick jump for it, he landed on one of the containers, dodging bullets now. Suddenly a flash of kitsune tail tries to escape the corner of his eye. Too late.
Damn, a kitsune. That explains alot. My partner is not going to take this well, she hates them.
"Crap, I'm going to get it," were his first words aloud in this episode...
"Ain't you the perceptive one... NOW LET GO OF ME YOU FREAK!"
"Ouch! Hey, cool it, I still need that arm. Plus I'm trying to help. Whatever is happening, someone is not minding you getting hurt in the progress."
"I DON'T CARE! Last thing I need is some stinking werewolf trying to rescue me."
Jeez, this girl really is pissed at me... there go my chances later.
"That doesn't matter, I'm getting us out of here. You can do what you want later. And try not to smell too bad, I don't need other wolves tracking us too easily."
"I'M SMELLING BAD!? YOU'RE LUCKY I'M TOO OUT OF BREATH TO TRANSFORM OR YOU'D BE GETTING IT!"
Thinking small talk would be over now, Spacy leaped once again and once more, progressing quite nicely n... Holy hell, look out for the silver! Just barely dodging something very silver with fangs and claws (which wasn't attacking Spacy, mind you), Spacy manages to escape the crowd and the mess. Seems like another wolf was doing some leaping of his own, though this one is a bit more rare.
Finally getting home, beating his usual running time, Spacy entered his own little sanctuary again. Looking at the cat in his hand, he saw she was very busy being unconscious while having all four claws in his arm. That would be hurting a lot when he minded it attention.
Jeez, this ain't good. Thankfully I'm sure no one was following me. Having a spell reducing my smell to near nothing and the detection spells around his home were handy indeed. Having the ballistic one for his partner did have its perks. Okay, now I'm tired.
Getting the girl of him and putting her in the bed, Spacy went off and lay on the couch. Ten seconds later, he was snoring rather loudly in a peaceful sleep.