Chapter 2: Discoveries
Leon had by this point arrived and was standing with the other ADP officers watching the vigilantes do their work. Kail stood behind him, watching the colourful Knight Sabers with total fascination. Leon panicked though when he saw Priss crash into a building about fifty feet away and not get back up. Come on Priss, you have to get up! he thought, desperately watching her every move, or lack of it. When she still hadn't moved for several seconds he ran to her.
Thankfully Sylia and Linna were taking care of the still rampaging boomers so it was a clear run to Priss' prone form. He knelt down next to her, yelling her name over and over to get her to wake up. There were huge rents in the right side of her armour where the boomer's arm made contact and she wasn't making a sound. He tried to get her helmet off but the armour had warped so it was folded together with the rest of the suit. When he couldn't get it off he just cradled her in his lap until Sylia stood before him, holding her arms out. Gently Leon scooped up the blue figure and handed her over to Sylia. Right before the silver Knight Saber departed she spoke quietly into the outside com, "I'm taking her to the Pitt. Come over when you've cleaned up here." Leon nodded solemnly and turned to walk back to where the AD Police where frantically trying to look as if they had handled the situation. He kept his gaze pointed strait at the ground, firmly ignoring the questioning stares of his co-workers and looking for a car.
Kail, still shocked and more then a little puzzled by the husky cop's reaction to the fall of the blue Knight Saber, turned to follow him, jogging to keep up. He decided it was probably best not to say anything, seeing the angry scowl on Leon's face. He quickly got into the car Leon was revving up, guessing they probably weren't supposed to use it but that it didn't really matter. He hastily strapped on his seatbelt after the impatient cop had touched the pedal, sending them barrelling down the freeway at over 250mph.
---
Kail really got curious when they pulled up in front of a big, stylish boutique called the Silky Doll. He followed suit when Leon got out of the car (not bothering to turn the engine off) and ran inside. He was completely puzzled when they walked through the empty front of the shop and into the dressing room.
Kail was just about to say something when the dressing room began a slow descent. He held onto the side and his hazel eyes nearly doubled in size when he saw a woman in her late twenties walking across the room, wearing a helmet-less green hardsuit! She startled at the noise and turned to look at them, about to yell something but catching it right on the tip of her tongue as a look of recognition crossed her face and she said questioningly, "...Leon?" The burly cop nodded brusquely and asked quickly in an anxious voice, "Where's Priss?" "By the bar next to the pool." Seeming to notice Kail for the first time she started to panicky, "Oh my gosh Leon Sylia's gonna go insane when she finds out you told someone!" Leon floundered for a bit, seeming to have forgotten that he had brought Kail along, finally answering, "He has a ... special relationship with Priss." He headed swiftly to the doors at the end of the room. An expression of confusion, curiosity and concern was pasted on the green Knight Saber's face and she followed them, heading in that direction anyway.
Leon walked strait into the double doors leading to the room by the huge pool/fish tank, nearly snapping them off of their hinges in his haste. Sylia looked up from where she was sitting next to a bed, startled by the loud noise. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Kail come in behind Leon, she hadn't said anything about bringing sight-seers. "What do you think your doing bringing strangers here!" she cried out angrily. Sylia had mellowed a lot since the end of the boomer revolution, but not that much. She was waiting very, very impatiently for an answer while Leon floundered a little more for an excuse, then, looking at the unconscious form of Priss on the bed, blurted out, "He's Priss' son. I figured he was gonna find out sooner or later." With that angry statement he swept past a wide-eyed Sylia and knelt by Priss, looking to see how badly she was injured. "Is she going to be ok?" he asked in a concerned voice. Sylia was too shocked to reply for a moment, but then regained her composure ad answered, coming over to kneel next to him, "She suffered severe internal injuries, there is a lot of bleeding and bruising but her hardsuit protected her from the worst of the force. If she doesn't get any worse in the next half hour we won't even need to take her to the hospital." Leon sighed with relief at this and leant back slightly, taking the time to glance around the room at the dazed and shocked expressions of the other two Knight Sabers, Linna was standing behind him gaping at Kail and Nene was recuperating from her test run as a hamburger on a divan, completely dumbfounded.
Just then Priss stirred, moaning softly as her eyes fluttered open, blinking out the bright lights. She saw Leon and Sylia's concerned faces hovering over her who were soon joined by Linna and ... Kail? The memories gradually came back as she tried to sort out the images before her. She remembered everything leading up to the fight... and then there was rage... and Nene was trapped in front of her. Then the memories of the pain came, there was a loud crash as she felt something solid slam into her body. And then there was Leon's face, just like it is now. She looked past the faces. She was in the Pitt, there was the pool and the bar. She tried to prop herself up on her elbows to get a better view but when she moved waves and waves of pain spread through her head and torso and she fell back to the bed with a cry of anguish. Leon came closer and gently put a hand on her shoulder, pinning her down to the bed. Then she heard Sylia's voice, "Don't try to move Priss. You suffered a lot of internal damage and a nasty blow to the head. Just stay put." Priss closed her eyes again, trying to stop the room from spinning. Then she fell back into a deep, drug induced sleep.
---
Her eyes opened again a while later, and she looked around, trying to get her bearings again but not attempting to move this time. She saw Sylia quietly talking to Henderson in a corner and Nene asleep on a couch across the room. Linna was sitting in a chair near Nene swirling a drink and reading a magazine and Mackey was sitting on the floor by Nene's head, holding her hand and dozing. Leon was stretched out on another couch with a bottle half drunk next to him. Kail was over by the pool, sitting at the water's edge and staring at the fish swimming peacefully through its depths.
Priss tried not to make any sudden movements to alert everyone as she tried to once again sort out her recollections of the past night. Her gaze fell on Leon as she thought, watching his deep, easy breathing as he lay peacefully. Finally she decided she was able to get up, so she slowly and steadily moved first one arm then the other beneath her, grimacing away the pain as she propped herself up. Linna glanced at her, eyes wide for a moment, then said to alert everyone, "Priss!" Everyone awake turned and came over, Sylia kneeling down by her bedside to feel her forehead and check the many bandages on the right side of her body and her head, saying all the while, "I see your feeling better. Try to stay still. Do you remember what happened?" "Kinda," Priss replied in a weak voice, startling herself at just how shaky she sounded.
"So, am I in as bad shape as I feel?" Sylia smiled gently at her comment and said in a professional tone of voice, "The boomer that hit you hit you very hard, you got some superficial gashes from the rents in your hardsuit but there was a lot of internal bleeding caused. When you hit the wall and subsequently the floor the wounds were aggravated and more bruising was caused, as well as a nasty blow to the head. Your hardsuit provided you from most of the damage, we would still be scraping you off of the sidewalk if you hadn't been wearing it. You will have to stay here under constant monitoring for a few days but you should be mobile within the week and good as new and just as grouchy as usual after about three weeks of taking it easy. Which means, temporarily of course, your off the team. I'm not going to let you go out and get yourself killed by some rampaging boomer until after you've healed and we can all say it was your own fault." Through the latter half of this speech Sylia was smiling broadly, using her most winning *you know you want to buy this* expression she usually reserved for her customers.
Priss' frown stayed put as she thought about what Sylia had said. She would have stay here in this bed for a few days! Yeah right. She'd rest for another day to get her strength back and then she would be outta here. Finally she nodded what appeared to be acceptance and asked Linna to get a few pillows to hold her up a little. Settling down, she looked again at Leon. Sylia watched her shifting eyes with something between curiosity and amusement with just a dash of concern, she didn't know much about what had happened between the singer and the cop from the Galatea crisis to when Leon left but she did know it had been ugly. Sylia smiled again and walked over to the sleeping form, pushing his shoulder and saying his name quietly into his ear. She didn't realize that not only was Leon a naturally sound sleeper, he had lay on that couch drinking scotch until he couldn't hold the bottle anymore. She said his name louder then, shaking him powerfully but still not rousing him. The noise had woken Mackey and Nene though who were going over to see Priss, Nene leaning on her boyfriends shoulder a little for support. Sylia could hear the group talking quietly to Priss when she finally grew exasperated and drew a small black object that looked a lot like an electric razor out of a drawer. She held the item next to Leon's neck, brushing the skin, and pressed a little red button on the side. Leon's eyes popped open and all of his veins stood out as he sat strait up in his seat, jolted awake and sober by the powerful electric current.
"What the hell do you think your doing Sylia!" He shouted, staring wide eyed at the chuckling woman, completely shocked out of his system by the rude awakening. he glared at her a little longer then looked around, trying to find the reason she had electrocuted him like that (other than for her own amusement). He saw Priss awake and talking with Linna, Nene and Mackey. He got up and walked quickly over to her, checking to see she was alright. "Priss!" He was a little startled by the concern in his voice and tried to mask the worry and anxiety he had been feeling while she slept. "So you finally woke up, huh." trying to sound moderately uninterested. She looked at him with an undecipherable expression and then averted her eyes and looked at the floor, "yeah," a scowl found its way onto her face and she looked back at him defiantly, as if daring him to show he didn't care. But why did she care? She had never cared what anyone thought about her, whether they were interested didn't matter. As long as they didn't get in her way. But his indifference really pissed her off, and she growled out in a much more threatening tone than intended, "Why are you here?" She didn't mean it, and everyone was startled by just how rude she was being, she wasn't the most sensitive person in the world but she'd never said something like that in that tone. Leon was also startled, and then looked hurt. It was plain to everyone around them there were serious tensions between the two and none were surprised when Leon wordlessly turned and walked out. Priss rolled over, wincing at the pain it caused, and tried to go back to sleep. If she was going to be out of here tomorrow she would need a lot of rest. As she fell asleep, she wondered for the first time what Leon had done with Kail.
Sylia walked over to Kail's still form. She stood a few feet from him for a while, thinking about what he meant. She still found it hard to believe Priss would have a son, she had always thought Priss would never want a child and would be to careful for Kail to be an 'accident'. And why hadn't she said something before? She realized Priss didn't usually share any more the she had to but as she had known the woman for about seven years she should have said something! She would have to speak with Kail when he woke up. She would speak with Priss as well but she doubted the singer would be very revealing. She sat and watched Kail, studying his features for several minutes. Nene and Linna had by now gone home, as well as Nigel and Mackey and Henderson had gone to bed.
She walked over to where Priss lay, watching her fitful sleep. They had come so close to losing her. Sylia knew she would never had been able to forgive herself if Priss had been killed. But Priss was fine, she reminded herself. She'll be ok.
Sylia went back to the chair next to Kail and continued her study of him. He certainly did look a lot like Priss, with his dark, unkempt hair, pale skin and fine features. It seemed as if all of a sudden her home had become awash with intrigue.
Kail stirred, feeling someone watching him, and his eyes fluttered open to regard the beautiful woman he had seen earlier staring at him. "So your awake now," the blue haired shop keeper said quietly, "how are you feeling?" she asked. "ok," he answered, "kinda confused" and he was very confused. Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before now, he had had a relatively normal life. He slept in a warehouse and spent the day doing anything he could to get money and food, odd jobs, begging and stealing. The imposing woman looked at him curiously and with a hint of concern in her voice asked, "You didn't know your mother was a Knight Saber?" "No" he answered, "I haven't ever spoken to her until yesterday." Now he was in some sort of secret laboratory while his biological mother lay bleeding next to him and beautiful women walked around in hardsuits. Add one psychotic cop and he was in his idea of the ultimate confusion. He leaned back, took a deep breath and asked, "Will she be alright?" it would be terrible for him to lose her so son after finding her, he had spent months searching for her after his foster parents died in the boomer revolution, then spent days following her but not knowing how to approach, calling but hanging up, having nothing to say. She couldn't die now, he had always thought, after his parents were killed, that he didn't need anyone. He could support himself, and he spent all of his time with his best friend. Then his friend had died to. He had been shot in the middle of a gang war the two of them had become peripherally involved in. He knew then that he needed someone in his life, so he had set out to find Priss. And now he had found her, and she could be dying.
Sylia watched Kail as his eyes studied the still form of Priss. It was obvious that there was a lot going on that she did not know about, but she also didn't know how to get it out in the open. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, closing her eyes. It had been a long day and she really needed some sleep. Maybe she could get Nene to find some files on the two of them, or she could do it herself. She sighed again and started to drift off into sleep, opening her eyes one last time long enough to see Kail get up and walk over to stand next to where Priss was sleeping. //Priss with a son...// was her last thought before finally giving in to the welcoming slumber.
Leon had by this point arrived and was standing with the other ADP officers watching the vigilantes do their work. Kail stood behind him, watching the colourful Knight Sabers with total fascination. Leon panicked though when he saw Priss crash into a building about fifty feet away and not get back up. Come on Priss, you have to get up! he thought, desperately watching her every move, or lack of it. When she still hadn't moved for several seconds he ran to her.
Thankfully Sylia and Linna were taking care of the still rampaging boomers so it was a clear run to Priss' prone form. He knelt down next to her, yelling her name over and over to get her to wake up. There were huge rents in the right side of her armour where the boomer's arm made contact and she wasn't making a sound. He tried to get her helmet off but the armour had warped so it was folded together with the rest of the suit. When he couldn't get it off he just cradled her in his lap until Sylia stood before him, holding her arms out. Gently Leon scooped up the blue figure and handed her over to Sylia. Right before the silver Knight Saber departed she spoke quietly into the outside com, "I'm taking her to the Pitt. Come over when you've cleaned up here." Leon nodded solemnly and turned to walk back to where the AD Police where frantically trying to look as if they had handled the situation. He kept his gaze pointed strait at the ground, firmly ignoring the questioning stares of his co-workers and looking for a car.
Kail, still shocked and more then a little puzzled by the husky cop's reaction to the fall of the blue Knight Saber, turned to follow him, jogging to keep up. He decided it was probably best not to say anything, seeing the angry scowl on Leon's face. He quickly got into the car Leon was revving up, guessing they probably weren't supposed to use it but that it didn't really matter. He hastily strapped on his seatbelt after the impatient cop had touched the pedal, sending them barrelling down the freeway at over 250mph.
---
Kail really got curious when they pulled up in front of a big, stylish boutique called the Silky Doll. He followed suit when Leon got out of the car (not bothering to turn the engine off) and ran inside. He was completely puzzled when they walked through the empty front of the shop and into the dressing room.
Kail was just about to say something when the dressing room began a slow descent. He held onto the side and his hazel eyes nearly doubled in size when he saw a woman in her late twenties walking across the room, wearing a helmet-less green hardsuit! She startled at the noise and turned to look at them, about to yell something but catching it right on the tip of her tongue as a look of recognition crossed her face and she said questioningly, "...Leon?" The burly cop nodded brusquely and asked quickly in an anxious voice, "Where's Priss?" "By the bar next to the pool." Seeming to notice Kail for the first time she started to panicky, "Oh my gosh Leon Sylia's gonna go insane when she finds out you told someone!" Leon floundered for a bit, seeming to have forgotten that he had brought Kail along, finally answering, "He has a ... special relationship with Priss." He headed swiftly to the doors at the end of the room. An expression of confusion, curiosity and concern was pasted on the green Knight Saber's face and she followed them, heading in that direction anyway.
Leon walked strait into the double doors leading to the room by the huge pool/fish tank, nearly snapping them off of their hinges in his haste. Sylia looked up from where she was sitting next to a bed, startled by the loud noise. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Kail come in behind Leon, she hadn't said anything about bringing sight-seers. "What do you think your doing bringing strangers here!" she cried out angrily. Sylia had mellowed a lot since the end of the boomer revolution, but not that much. She was waiting very, very impatiently for an answer while Leon floundered a little more for an excuse, then, looking at the unconscious form of Priss on the bed, blurted out, "He's Priss' son. I figured he was gonna find out sooner or later." With that angry statement he swept past a wide-eyed Sylia and knelt by Priss, looking to see how badly she was injured. "Is she going to be ok?" he asked in a concerned voice. Sylia was too shocked to reply for a moment, but then regained her composure ad answered, coming over to kneel next to him, "She suffered severe internal injuries, there is a lot of bleeding and bruising but her hardsuit protected her from the worst of the force. If she doesn't get any worse in the next half hour we won't even need to take her to the hospital." Leon sighed with relief at this and leant back slightly, taking the time to glance around the room at the dazed and shocked expressions of the other two Knight Sabers, Linna was standing behind him gaping at Kail and Nene was recuperating from her test run as a hamburger on a divan, completely dumbfounded.
Just then Priss stirred, moaning softly as her eyes fluttered open, blinking out the bright lights. She saw Leon and Sylia's concerned faces hovering over her who were soon joined by Linna and ... Kail? The memories gradually came back as she tried to sort out the images before her. She remembered everything leading up to the fight... and then there was rage... and Nene was trapped in front of her. Then the memories of the pain came, there was a loud crash as she felt something solid slam into her body. And then there was Leon's face, just like it is now. She looked past the faces. She was in the Pitt, there was the pool and the bar. She tried to prop herself up on her elbows to get a better view but when she moved waves and waves of pain spread through her head and torso and she fell back to the bed with a cry of anguish. Leon came closer and gently put a hand on her shoulder, pinning her down to the bed. Then she heard Sylia's voice, "Don't try to move Priss. You suffered a lot of internal damage and a nasty blow to the head. Just stay put." Priss closed her eyes again, trying to stop the room from spinning. Then she fell back into a deep, drug induced sleep.
---
Her eyes opened again a while later, and she looked around, trying to get her bearings again but not attempting to move this time. She saw Sylia quietly talking to Henderson in a corner and Nene asleep on a couch across the room. Linna was sitting in a chair near Nene swirling a drink and reading a magazine and Mackey was sitting on the floor by Nene's head, holding her hand and dozing. Leon was stretched out on another couch with a bottle half drunk next to him. Kail was over by the pool, sitting at the water's edge and staring at the fish swimming peacefully through its depths.
Priss tried not to make any sudden movements to alert everyone as she tried to once again sort out her recollections of the past night. Her gaze fell on Leon as she thought, watching his deep, easy breathing as he lay peacefully. Finally she decided she was able to get up, so she slowly and steadily moved first one arm then the other beneath her, grimacing away the pain as she propped herself up. Linna glanced at her, eyes wide for a moment, then said to alert everyone, "Priss!" Everyone awake turned and came over, Sylia kneeling down by her bedside to feel her forehead and check the many bandages on the right side of her body and her head, saying all the while, "I see your feeling better. Try to stay still. Do you remember what happened?" "Kinda," Priss replied in a weak voice, startling herself at just how shaky she sounded.
"So, am I in as bad shape as I feel?" Sylia smiled gently at her comment and said in a professional tone of voice, "The boomer that hit you hit you very hard, you got some superficial gashes from the rents in your hardsuit but there was a lot of internal bleeding caused. When you hit the wall and subsequently the floor the wounds were aggravated and more bruising was caused, as well as a nasty blow to the head. Your hardsuit provided you from most of the damage, we would still be scraping you off of the sidewalk if you hadn't been wearing it. You will have to stay here under constant monitoring for a few days but you should be mobile within the week and good as new and just as grouchy as usual after about three weeks of taking it easy. Which means, temporarily of course, your off the team. I'm not going to let you go out and get yourself killed by some rampaging boomer until after you've healed and we can all say it was your own fault." Through the latter half of this speech Sylia was smiling broadly, using her most winning *you know you want to buy this* expression she usually reserved for her customers.
Priss' frown stayed put as she thought about what Sylia had said. She would have stay here in this bed for a few days! Yeah right. She'd rest for another day to get her strength back and then she would be outta here. Finally she nodded what appeared to be acceptance and asked Linna to get a few pillows to hold her up a little. Settling down, she looked again at Leon. Sylia watched her shifting eyes with something between curiosity and amusement with just a dash of concern, she didn't know much about what had happened between the singer and the cop from the Galatea crisis to when Leon left but she did know it had been ugly. Sylia smiled again and walked over to the sleeping form, pushing his shoulder and saying his name quietly into his ear. She didn't realize that not only was Leon a naturally sound sleeper, he had lay on that couch drinking scotch until he couldn't hold the bottle anymore. She said his name louder then, shaking him powerfully but still not rousing him. The noise had woken Mackey and Nene though who were going over to see Priss, Nene leaning on her boyfriends shoulder a little for support. Sylia could hear the group talking quietly to Priss when she finally grew exasperated and drew a small black object that looked a lot like an electric razor out of a drawer. She held the item next to Leon's neck, brushing the skin, and pressed a little red button on the side. Leon's eyes popped open and all of his veins stood out as he sat strait up in his seat, jolted awake and sober by the powerful electric current.
"What the hell do you think your doing Sylia!" He shouted, staring wide eyed at the chuckling woman, completely shocked out of his system by the rude awakening. he glared at her a little longer then looked around, trying to find the reason she had electrocuted him like that (other than for her own amusement). He saw Priss awake and talking with Linna, Nene and Mackey. He got up and walked quickly over to her, checking to see she was alright. "Priss!" He was a little startled by the concern in his voice and tried to mask the worry and anxiety he had been feeling while she slept. "So you finally woke up, huh." trying to sound moderately uninterested. She looked at him with an undecipherable expression and then averted her eyes and looked at the floor, "yeah," a scowl found its way onto her face and she looked back at him defiantly, as if daring him to show he didn't care. But why did she care? She had never cared what anyone thought about her, whether they were interested didn't matter. As long as they didn't get in her way. But his indifference really pissed her off, and she growled out in a much more threatening tone than intended, "Why are you here?" She didn't mean it, and everyone was startled by just how rude she was being, she wasn't the most sensitive person in the world but she'd never said something like that in that tone. Leon was also startled, and then looked hurt. It was plain to everyone around them there were serious tensions between the two and none were surprised when Leon wordlessly turned and walked out. Priss rolled over, wincing at the pain it caused, and tried to go back to sleep. If she was going to be out of here tomorrow she would need a lot of rest. As she fell asleep, she wondered for the first time what Leon had done with Kail.
Sylia walked over to Kail's still form. She stood a few feet from him for a while, thinking about what he meant. She still found it hard to believe Priss would have a son, she had always thought Priss would never want a child and would be to careful for Kail to be an 'accident'. And why hadn't she said something before? She realized Priss didn't usually share any more the she had to but as she had known the woman for about seven years she should have said something! She would have to speak with Kail when he woke up. She would speak with Priss as well but she doubted the singer would be very revealing. She sat and watched Kail, studying his features for several minutes. Nene and Linna had by now gone home, as well as Nigel and Mackey and Henderson had gone to bed.
She walked over to where Priss lay, watching her fitful sleep. They had come so close to losing her. Sylia knew she would never had been able to forgive herself if Priss had been killed. But Priss was fine, she reminded herself. She'll be ok.
Sylia went back to the chair next to Kail and continued her study of him. He certainly did look a lot like Priss, with his dark, unkempt hair, pale skin and fine features. It seemed as if all of a sudden her home had become awash with intrigue.
Kail stirred, feeling someone watching him, and his eyes fluttered open to regard the beautiful woman he had seen earlier staring at him. "So your awake now," the blue haired shop keeper said quietly, "how are you feeling?" she asked. "ok," he answered, "kinda confused" and he was very confused. Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before now, he had had a relatively normal life. He slept in a warehouse and spent the day doing anything he could to get money and food, odd jobs, begging and stealing. The imposing woman looked at him curiously and with a hint of concern in her voice asked, "You didn't know your mother was a Knight Saber?" "No" he answered, "I haven't ever spoken to her until yesterday." Now he was in some sort of secret laboratory while his biological mother lay bleeding next to him and beautiful women walked around in hardsuits. Add one psychotic cop and he was in his idea of the ultimate confusion. He leaned back, took a deep breath and asked, "Will she be alright?" it would be terrible for him to lose her so son after finding her, he had spent months searching for her after his foster parents died in the boomer revolution, then spent days following her but not knowing how to approach, calling but hanging up, having nothing to say. She couldn't die now, he had always thought, after his parents were killed, that he didn't need anyone. He could support himself, and he spent all of his time with his best friend. Then his friend had died to. He had been shot in the middle of a gang war the two of them had become peripherally involved in. He knew then that he needed someone in his life, so he had set out to find Priss. And now he had found her, and she could be dying.
Sylia watched Kail as his eyes studied the still form of Priss. It was obvious that there was a lot going on that she did not know about, but she also didn't know how to get it out in the open. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, closing her eyes. It had been a long day and she really needed some sleep. Maybe she could get Nene to find some files on the two of them, or she could do it herself. She sighed again and started to drift off into sleep, opening her eyes one last time long enough to see Kail get up and walk over to stand next to where Priss was sleeping. //Priss with a son...// was her last thought before finally giving in to the welcoming slumber.
