After everyone had finished staring and gawking at Kagome, who was currently eating her lunch with a contented smile on her face, they burst into questions all at once.
"You're a girl? I mean, you're a girl!"
"What the fuck?"
"Fair maiden, please bear my child."
"Shit! Babe! You look pretty fuck'n hot like that, y'know?"
"Yahoo! Now we can go shopping together!"
"So you are the shrine maiden of this shrine."
Covering her ears, Kagome winced and shouted, "SHUDDUP!" Satisfied with the silence that followed, she began her explanation.
"A. Yes, I'm a girl, thankyouverymuch.
B. Surprise surprise!
C. No, I'll not bear your child, lech!
D. Thanks for the compliment, hon, but keep your distance, or else.
E. Sure, Sango! I'd love to go shopping with you!
F. Yes, Kikyou, I'm the shrine maiden of this shrine.
G. I hate most girl clothes, especially the school uniform. It's so.
Short and girly.
Now does that answer all your questions?"
Nodding numbly, they continued to stare. Kouga and Miroku were eyeing her up and down, and her frown turned into a scowl, standing up and reaching over to punch them. However, another set of fists did it for her from behind the two boys, and she looked adoringly up at her brother.
"If you don't stop staring at my sister like that, you ain't gonna have any eyes left after I'm done with you."
"And you also won't ever be able to have children after I'm done with you, got that, you two ignorant lechers?" she added.
"Kagome. Since you already know about our backgrounds, I assume that you've done some research, and know about Naraku as well?"
"Kikyou, you mean the fact that Naraku's been forcing drugs on people, creating an underground yakuza in preperation of taking over Tokyo, and trying to taint the Shikon no Tama that you and your family protect?" Kagome quirked up an eyebrow at Kikyou as she handed a glass of water to her grinning brother. (AN: yakuza= basically like the japanese mafia; Shikon no Tama=Jewel of Four Souls, duh.)
"... That's basically it." Kikyou's expression turned a bit suspicious. "Are you two new agents for the government, like the rest of us?" The others immediately followed suit, turning serious and business-like.
Kagome and Souta shrugged, their air of contentment completely informal compared to the rest. Souta answered for them. "You could say that."
"In other words, you declined the offer, just like we did—" (Sango)
"To work alone." (Miroku)
"The only difference is—"(Kouga)
"That we work together as a group, whereas you work as a team of two and only two." (Kikyou)
"Hm... you could say that, but we weren't told there were others like us, so if you want us to join, we'll gladly do so, since it's pointless to have rivalry between friends who have the same goal, ne?" Smiling, Kagome emphasized "friends" with a broad gesture of her hands, indicating the people around the table.
Inu Yasha's group looked at one another for a minute, then asked for a minute outside. Kagome and Souta agreed, and Kagome left through the back door to get her practice while Souta stayed in the kitchen to eat his lunch.
** ** **
Souta led the group into the basement, going straight to the lowest level, which was three floors into the ground. Sango, Miroku and Shipou, the technicians of the group, were impressed with the security systems and artificial intelligences used in the house. The last two floors of the basement were strictly for the job that Kagome and Souta had taken on, with the large, closed dojo in the south end of the backyard outside to prevent the stealing of styles or stances.
As they reached the last floor, the metal doors slid open horizontally as Souta entered, but immediately shut when he was completely in the room, nearly taking Inu Yasha's fingers, who had been following behind Souta. A second later Souta came back out, scratching his head sheepishly.
"Sorry. I forgot I'd formatted the security on this level to be strictly authorized people only. You see, the level above us is the equipment and storage, as well as spare living quarters in the front of the level. The level is called the Tank, since it holds stuff that is very destructive, and other weaponry. It has a large passage to the second garage, our second 'front door,' the one we exit from for missions, etc. That door is all the way to the other side of the shrine grounds, hidden in the rocks as a cave. The Tank also has the 'hospital' unit, with lots of high tech ...toys."
"This level is named Catapult, and it's where all the info, plans, maps, and important stuff that we can't afford to lose is kept. There is also a large tunnel, and that connects to the main tunnel of Tank, but you can only tell there's a door in the tunnel if you're shown it and you get used to it. We also have a lab in there, complete with replica-creating machines and the latest testing devices." Kagome finished off for Souta about the Catapult, emerging behind the group on the broad stairway.
"As you can see, the 'basement' extends past the actual house. In fact, we're under the forest right now. We have more than one stairway; one in each major compass direction, and beside each stairway is an elevator with cut-resistent lines and one-sided mirror doors. That way, should we be under attack, we see what's out there, but they can't see what's inside. We use a lot of those one-sided mirrors, especially for our doors and the walls of significant areas, like the hospital area. The glass is transparent inside there, so if somebody's injured they can know if they are about to be attacked. All our doors in the basement are one-sided, the transparent side being the side inside the room."
Kagome and Souta continued on, explaining each other's roles and different situations. Souta and Kagome were all the jobs in a team put together. They both had the technological, strategical, and intellectual knowledge. The entire facility beneath their house was created by them, built by them. Of course, their mother and grandfather helped, whom Inu Yasha and Co. learned were former agents as well, but had retired.
Apparently, the security system in the last level of the house was based solely on weight, size, height, DNA scans, skeletal scans, and fingerprint scans. The entire level was equipped with individually powered, large plates of sensors that scanned you up and down as you walked, on its own constant basis, even if no one was there. If someone were to create even a flawless robot of you, a member inputted into the "let in" list, the invisible lasers picked up the skeletal scans and immediately the alarm would go off, sensing something alien.
Following the alarm, which consisted of one telephone-sounding ring throughout the basement of the house from different hidden speakers, the upper level of the house would be notified of the intrusion with the same telephone ring, only this one was constant. The telephone rings would ring three times, and if no one picked up the telephone, the 'answering machine' would come on.
The thing was, there were four telephone systems in the house. They were all connected to the same phones, so the tones were the same, but the slight changes of the rings' durations were the key. The phones would ring all over the house, which we could call house-wide. However, the accessibility was restricted to areas of the house, be it the actual house or solely the basement, or both. The house was equipped with a black, office-type phone (meaing it had speaker, hold, and different lines for each room, etc.) in every room, with a phone/ answering machine/ fax/ scanner/ photocopier in the far end of the hall at each level of the house, basements included. The only actual answering machine used for the 'public', however, was on ground level. If it was part of the alarm, all the answering machines in the house would activate.
The first system, the public phone. Accessed solely on the ground and upper levels. This was the one you call the school, your friends, or any pother "normal" number with. The ring was "normal". You could listen in and do whatever you wanted with the trace from the lower levels, but in the house it was just a plain telephone line going out and coming in. This was receivable only in the upper levels.
The second system was the one accessed only by the basement levels. This had access to the public world as well, but was mainly used for contacting other agents or clients, etc., as it was completely trace-resistent. A fake address in Hawaii would be found if someone did manage to crack it. It was given the mode of 'public world' solely to contact people at their houses, if they had another number to reach them at, so both ends were trace-resistent. This rang in shorter sounds and was only receivable in the Catapult.
The third system was the alarm. This was not a ring that one would pick up and talk to, it was merely to stop the alarm, picking it up then hang up, while the other people in the house started down to the basement. The alarm rang throughout the house (including the basement) in short, gasping beeps. The alarm was not reacting to Inu Yasha's group now because Mrs. Higurashi had disabled it for the time being, which they hardly ever did, and if so it was automatically timed to re-activate itself in half an hour if no one reactivated it.
The fouth and last system was also house-wide, and the ring was longer than the normal ring. This system was their communication through the house, and was also accessible house-wide.
"Wow. This is one impressive house." Inu Yasha and his group walked around, now inside the Catapult. Miroku, Sango and Shippou studied the mainframe as Souta inputted their info into the access granting list. Kouga smirked and picked up a large, meter-long machine gun that looked a bit odd to the eye, one that none of the Inu Yasha group had seen before. Kagome was in the lab, checking something, and Kikyou was memorizing the structure of the level.
"Kouga-kun! Don't touch that! It's not done yet." Kagome rushed out of the lab's bullet-proof and air-proof glass doors, hurriedly but gently prying Kouga's fingers from the gun and placing it back on the shelf. The lab walls were completely glass, and had it's own air system, so if gas or fire occured in either the lab or the Catapult, the other areas of the level would not be affected.
"What is it? I always love sexy guns." Kouga grinned broadly but shrunk in fear as Kagome turned, a fierce and angry expression on her face.
"It's called a Torpmax Grenade Launcher. This is the fifth prototype, so it's the Torpmax Grenade Launcher Spire5. It launches 4 grenades at a time; left, right, far forward, and very far forward."
"Never heard of it."
"That's 'cause we made it. Don't touch anything else on these three shelves, got it? You guys too. These are all protoypes, they're not perfected yet." Kagome turned to face the room fully, lecturing.
"So you two make your stuff too?"
"Yeah. The Basement of the house is a storage for normal things, as well as a workshop, like the design and tech. lab at school."
Souta finished the data, and he walked up to Inu Yasha, who was standing before a large, metallic wall that portruded from the far right wall, stopping in the middle of the room, at the back. Sensing more explanations, the group gathered. Flicking a switch on the wall it portruded from, Souta and Kagome started to explain again as that section of the room dimmed and the metal illuminated from the inside. Kagome inputted some area codes, and the region popped up.
"This is a baby that Souta made for us. This one is two dimensional, but once you flip it," Souta pushed gently on the top half of the frame as Kagome talked, and the "wall" became like a table, the images coming out with laser-like light but not connected to anything (think hollogram); "it becomes 3-D. The rest of the house you'll get to know once you've been here a while."
"Wow. Sango, you should do this to your house too. That way, we won't get hacked into anymore." Shippou turned innocent eyes to a now brow-twitching Sango.
"You guys got hacked into?" Souta raised a concerned eyebrow.
Sango sighed. "Yeah, just last week was the latest one. They keep getting past my walls. They took all the files we received from the government, too. Lucky I had a backup."
Souta and Kagome grinned, looking at one another. Then, leading everyone out the basement, they found their mother in normal clothing, reading the news, in the living room. "Mom!~" they chirped together.
Their mother raised questioning eyebrows at the two, knowing they wanted something. Something big. "What is it, dears?"
"Can Sango, Miroku, Inu Yasha, Kouga, Shippou and Kikyou move in?" they were still talking in unison, inching towards their mother with every name, and by the time they finished, they were clinging innocently to their face-faulting mother. In the background, everyone gawked, their jaws dropping to the floor again for the upteenth time that day.
Sighing, Mrs. Higurashi agreed, as long as it was ok with the others and their families. They left for school once more, with Inu Yasha's group walking their dropped jaws behind them, collecting dirt. Kagome and Souta, now both back into school uniforms, skipped happily in lead, often turning back to remind the group to ask their parents when they got home.
** ** **
"Kanna."
"Yes, Naraku-sama?"
"Update."
"Sango, the weapon maker, fighter, and the technician. Human. Age 16. Weapon: youkai bone boomerang, Hiraikotsu, and katana, no name specified. Trained as a demon exterminator. Code name Nekoshi-sama.
Miroku, the fighter, weapon maker, healer, and the technician. Human. Age 17. Weapon: Gold mercury staff, Kamihou, priest powers. Trained as a Bhuddist priest. Code name Houshi-sama.
Shippou, the communications tracker, communications organizer, and the technician. Fox demon. Age 16. Weapon: self-defense. Code name Kitsuneshi-sama.
Kouga, the fighter. Wolf demon. Age 17. Weapon: self-defense and katana, no name specified. Code name Gashi-sama..
Inu Yasha, the leader and the fighter. Half demon; dog demon. Age 17. Weapon: self-defense and katana, Tetsusaiga. Code name Inushi-sama.
Kikyou, the fighter, healer, and communications organizer. Human. Age 17. Weapon: bow and arrows, priestess powers. Trained as the purifying priestess of the Shikon Jewel. Code name Mikoshi-sama.
Kagome and Souta, new additions, both are fighter, weapon maker, healer, technician, strategist, communications tracker and organizer. Code names are Shen for Souta, older brother, and Xian for Kagome, younger sister. They are known plainly as Shen Xian, Chinese for Gods in general, where Shen is God and Xian is essentially Goddess or Holy Maiden. Both are human.
Souta, age 17. Weapon: Chinese sword, black mercury.
Kagome, age 16. Weapon: Chinese sword, black mercury.
The new additions are still maintaining their tradition of doing what they feel is right, though they have agreed to co-operate with Inu Yasha's group, the Shikon Fire."
(AN: communications tracker meaning the one who co-ordinates when everyone else is out on the mission, eg satellite locating etc, from headquarters. Communications organizer means the one to get the clients or to discuss with the employer, etc. When I say self-defense i mean for example inuyasha and his claws. as for the gold mercury, i made that up; it's mercury in solid form, but gold colored, and melt resistent unless you stick it in an erupting volcano^^. Same goes for black mercury, only it's black and shineless. Meaning if it's night you dont know what's happening.)
"Black mercury, hm? No one's been able to make it for centuries. Only them, huh. The new ones, how good are they?"
"Worked in the name of nearly all the crime-fighting organizations of the world, but regardless of government orders, meaning they work apart from the government but for the same reasons and are paid by the government anyhow. Their headquarters are in Tokyo, exact location unknown. Chinese origin, but fluent in many languages, and has property all over the world."
"Why are their headquarters unknown?"
"We were unable to track them, sir. Their systems are completely intrusion resistent and full of traps inside and out."
"I see... so we'll have some fun, then."
"... We will meet challenges in trying to defeat them, if that is what you mean."
"No, fun."
"... As you wish. sir."
"Onigumo."
"Present, My Lord."
"I want their headquarter location and all the information from their mainframe by Sunday."
"... Yes, sir...."
PLEASE READ THIS CHAPTER'S AUTHOR NOTES. VERY IMPORTANT TO STORYLINE.
AN: ok. that was tiring. Now you guys know what's going on and who does what and etc. as for weaponry, i am copletely stupified as to what guns are what and so on and so forth. the only weapons i have clear understanding of is chinese weaponry, so in this fic, all arms and technological 'toys' will be fictional, but perhaps realisticall-based, expect for non-technical chinese weaponry. everything else is FICTIONAL. i'm so very sorry.
aslo, the positions held by each person, the way things work as well, are fictional but based as close to what happens in real life as possible. I'm only 15 so i'm sorry if a CIA agent is reading my fic and cursing me for my stupidity at how these things work. However, these things i create are very logical and, i believe, highly possible, if not existing already. Well, except for the mercury... and yes, i know that mercury is poisonous. Let's just say that "they're used to it" (only those who wield mercury-made weapons though).
the next note is that the time period is the FUTURE. however, things are relativley modern (our time), and also more traditional/medieval.... as in... you know those shows or whatnot where it's in the future, but technology isn't really the main idea anymore, and the things are sorta turning back to older stuff rater than newer. E.g. clothig from the medieval times but vehicles of the future, like hovercrafts. Yea. that's about it. But don't worry. the tech isn't too advanced, not hovers are popular, just personal mini jets for millionaires te size of a motorcycle. if anything is new, i WILL explain it.
ok, those that dont read ANs can leave now if they want. the important part is over. ^^
to those that do readmy author ramblings, here's the thing. this is going to be, like stated in my other fic Kagome of the Phoneix Clan, hte last update for quite a while. I'm terribly sorry to leave off where things are starting to clear up (in both fics), but i really cant help it. gomen!!!
Disclaimer: me no own, you no sue, means me write, you read. (hopefully soon,
anyhow....)