Author:
Mirrordance
E-mail:
mirror_dance@hotmail.com
Title: Dead Waters
Type: series
Spoilers: basically
references to stuff all throughout the series.
Warnings: angst,
language and violence
Teaser: Ken befriends
a hesitant Farfello in strange circumstances,
Ran gets hasseled by an investigative
reporter looking into
vigilante groups, and
Schwarz want to collaborate with Weiss against
a common enemy...
Keywords: Weiss,
Schwarz, Action
"And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters..."
--an excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran
"Dead Waters"
Part 4
Ken watched with awe and horror as the events unfolded in front of his wide eyes.
He hadn't noticed that Farfello's frantic running—and his following, led them both to the flower shop.
It was very late, and so it was closed, and dark. There was just one lighted room in the building, and Ken wondered why it was his own.
He was unable to decide what to do when Farfello slowed, and turned to face him. It froze Ken's blood, that predator-glare. He honestly believed that Farfello's having saved his life was proof of the eccentric man's glancing touch with humanity. There was no trace of that now.
Suddenly, as if changing his mind, just like an animal sensing bigger prey, he watched Farfello roar as he levered himself up from the sidewalk and threw himself against Ken's bedroom window, glass falling inward and outward like the rain as it shattered.
He muttered a curse, then decided to take the back door going in.
Ran, Omi, Manx and Yoji stared in horror as Farfello broke into the room and fell to a crouch on the floor, eyes bloodshot as he settled on his 'bedridden' prey.
"Aw, Shit" a suddenly very alert and seemingly uninjured 'Ken' said, rising to his feet and looking for an escape.
Farfello dived at him, which he dodged cleanly.
But the Irishman was tenacious.
Omi took aim with his dart, frantic to protect 'Ken,' but Nagi jarred his elbow and instead of his heart, Omi nicked the oblivious Farfello in the shoulder instead.
More running footsteps added to the chaos as Ken raced up the steps to his room and watched, open-mouthed as Farfello worked on trying to kill 'him.'
'Ken' looked up from his dodging at the new arrival.
"Oh, fuck it" he said, and suddenly, the bruises melted away to the clear features of Ken Hidaka. Then Ken's features melted away to reveal Ramon, the shape-shifter.
This made Farfello stop.
"You couldn't win against us anyway, even working together" he sneered, jumping out of the window.
None dared follow.
The voice in his head was gone.
Farfello held his breath, more than a little embarrassed at his outburst, as he faced his tribunal; Schwarz and Weiss, standing thoughtfully in a ransacked room, the wind tossing the rain in a storm outside.
He watched with a wary eye as Ken stepped forward and grabbed his nearby red leather jacket, hastily slipping it on.
"Cold," he explained with a wan smile to no one in particular, though to Farfello it was an obvious lie. Ken was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, just as Farfello found him a day ago, but was making sure no one from his own group would see the bandaged wrists. After all this time there were still scars that they hid from each other.
"Somebody'd better start talking," Omi said with a resigned sigh. "Someone's got to know what's going on"
The basement was more than a little bit crowded, filled as it was with nine people, instead of the usual five.
It was funny; Weiss felt somewhat obliged to be--Ran wouldn't have called it hospitable, but could not find any other word—and decided to leave the couch and chairs free for the reluctant guests. Schwarz, on the other hand, were uneasy to accept the tentative welcome, and decided to stand as well. A bare couch in the center of eight men in a crowded room with a red-headed woman wondering if she ought put them out of their misery and take the seat herself.
"What do you know?" she asked Schwarz.
Brad Crawford was the
one to reply. "S.S. is resurrected"
"That much we know," Manx said,
nodding in confirmation.
"Their new group of henchmen is called Geworfenheit—being cast down," he continued, "they are much affected by their loss. The goal, of course, remains the same; that is, to resurrect the ancestors and to dominate the world.
"There are eight of them now. You have just met the shape-shifter," he went on, "there are others, with more fierce powers. We, as Schwarz, have natural gifts that have been developed. Theirs were genetic alterations, therefore more controlled, more specialized. And their greater number is a threat to us all"
"While that answers some questions," says
Yoji wryly, "it doesn't answer what the hell you're
doing here"
"Right now the only people who
could stop them is in this room," replied Crawford, "Weiss and Schwarz. That's why they wanted us pitted against each
other, so we can get ourselves out of their way, once we've all killed one
another. They don't forgive betrayal, so
we have no place there. Nor would we
want to be pawns again. And I'm sure
before we even arrived here, you were already to be
assigned this mission. We are here now
because…we need each other"
He almost choked on it. And damned if the rest of
them hadn't felt the same way.
They needed each other.
"We need you to survive," said Crawford, "and you need us because it is your job to stop them"
"How do we know we can trust you?" asked Omi.
"You don't," said Schuldich simply, as if he was almost wistful of the unfolding events, "you shouldn't trust anyone, these days"
"That helps," says Yoji wryly.
"I'm going to report this to Kritiker, see about our next step," said Manx, heading for the spiral stairs.
"Not alone," Ken warned. "You just heard what they said"
"I could go," said Farfello, sounding a little bit out of his mind. It was surely out of the blue, and the room was smothered by an odd, stunned silence.
"Out of the question" snapped Ran.
A member of Schwarz, by the side of one of Kritiker's backbones, and into Kritiker territory? What the hell got into that distorted mind?
"I'll go with them," offered Ken quickly. Yes, the less time for them to ask where he'd been, the better.
"You wouldn't be able to stop me if I decided I wanted to kill her, you know," said Farfello.
"We stopped you once," smirked Ken, "wanna lay bets on the next round?"
Manx looked cautious and somewhat
miserable. This was going to be just
like babysitting.
The three left the building, at which time Yoji turned to Omi and asked, "What the hell was that all about?"
He glanced around the room, as if searching for answers. All he found was faces of old enemies.
What the hell was This all about?
Nagi Noe asked if Omi would let him use his computer. It was obvious that Schwarz were not going to leave until Manx came back with information. Omi, reluctant to leave the young boy alone with his confidential files, bluntly told him that he would let Nagi use it if he could watch. Seeing the reason in it, Nagi agreed.
The two youngest members headed off for the laptop.
It was obvious that they would find common ground there. Children always seemed to. Everyone else having left, it was Yoji, Ran, Crawford and Schuldich who remained in the basement. Ran would have, of course, preferred to leave the 'guests' to Yoji, who was usually more accommodating, but he was also loathe to turn his back on his old enemies.
What was it that they say? Keep your
friends close but your enemies closer?
"Anyone want
some coffee?" asked Yoji.
The four men headed for the kitchen.
Outside, the storm had died.
