Arriving in Traverse Town
Disclaimer: Same as before. I don't own the Lilo and Stitch characters either.
~ ~ ~ ~
Traverse Town was, and still is a melting pot of all worlds. I see all sorts of creatures and people walking, or hopping, or flying around the place. I also know that it's a hotbed of intrigue, smuggling, and all other sorts of cloak and dagger stuff. But what interests me most is the smuggling operation, particularly the human smuggling operation.
The Unit maintains several contacts out here in Traverse Town, and there's one in particular that I consider a friend. I'm in the completely secure First District. Even a novice operative wouldn't trust that bit of data. True, there aren't any Heartless in the First District, but there are things just as bad, or should I say people that reside in this area.
The first thing I do is buy a cheap cell phone. I'll need it because it's almost untraceable, and I'm very likely gonna ditch it very soon. I go into an alcove and make a phone call to my contact.
"Yes." A gravelly voice sounds.
"This Cobra Bubbles?" I ask.
"Hart, I ought to go to wherever you are right now and put two rounds thru your head." Cobra Bubbles replies.
"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" I reply.
"You and your unit may have saved our lives when our world was destroyed, but you're a rogue now, if I'm right." Cobra Bubbles replied.
Damn the man's good. But I should expect nothing else from the guy I've known since I was a new operator. He can read me like a book, but I still ask, "How'd you know?"
"This headline should sound familiar, Navy Lieutenant Missing, together with a face I recognize from being in your apartment a few times." Cobra Bubbles replied.
"Listen, Cobra, cut to the chase, are you with me or not?" I ask.
"Listen, we've talked too long. Meet me in the Second District, the Dalmatian House. Don't be late." Cobra replies.
We hang up and I stuff the phone into the inner pocket of my leather flight jacket, on the other side of my pistol. As I walk out of the tiny phone shop in Traverse Town I notice that someone has been hanging around the front of the shop is starting to meander a few steps behind me. If he's part of an even half competent surveillance team, he'll have a hidden microphone and earpiece, have other guys that at natural chokepoints will switch off with him so I don't start getting paranoid.
I hadn't expected following this early in the game, but I am prepared for it. Either someone in my unit spotted me leave, Chris called security after I left, or someone was expecting this. I pass through an alleyway and notice two people, the brown haired nondescript fellow, with curly hair and a newer fellow wearing a hooded sweater with a shaved head and a blonde beard.
If either of them are armed, I'm ready. As I walk through into the second district I feel a bump from behind intending to push me down. I roll forward with the push, reaching for my Smith and Wesson as I fall forward, with the impact. I remember our hand-to-hand combat and pistol drills well. While still rolling out came my Smith and Wesson and the nondescript wound up taking two rounds to the chest and a third into his throat. Even if they're wearing body armor, they've got a big surprise coming their way. The 9mm bullets I've loaded my weapon with are high velocity Black Talon rounds which can punch thru most covert body armor types.
Dagwood, what I call the first follower, falls down to the ground. His body hasn't even hit the ground when I'm already shooting at Blondie who now has a Mini-Uzi sub-machinegun ready to riddle me with 9mm rounds. Not today buddy.
My first two rounds hit him just below the collar bone and I fire another two higher. The third smashes into his jaw and the fourth takes out his left eye. Blondie falls dead onto the pavement. I check both bodies and make sure they're dead. I load a fresh fourteen round clip into the magazine of my Smith and Wesson in this lull in the fighting.
A stern voice sounds behind me, "Hart. You're a hard man to help."
"Cobra Bubbles, punctuality is something they taught you at the Farm, right?" I ask the ex-CIA spook.
The big, impassive man in the black suit nods his head, "I was detained."
"Right." I reply, "Help me get rid of these two before the surveillance team figures out its two men light."
~ ~ ~ ~
A few minutes after we hid the two dead guys, and removed all the documents on them we could find, we head for the Dalmatian House. I see Cobra Bubbles' 'family' consisting of two Hawaiian sisters named Lilo and Nani, her boyfriend David, Dr. Jumba Joukiba, and Pleaky and some blue skinned alien named Stitch.
When their world was destroyed by the Heartless, Joukiba, the benevolent four eyed alien soul that he is, managed to transport himself and the others into Traverse Town. They set up shop in the Dalmatian House, where Cobra Bubbles occasionally helps out Gamma operators in the area. It doesn't take him long to figure out I'm a rogue operator.
Spread out on the coffee table are scraps of paper, sales receipts, currency for Traverse town, faked ID cards, two Heartless emblems (each of the two men I shot had one around his neck), and assorted bits of trash.
"Hmm," Nani says, looking at the emblems, "They must be members of a local smuggling syndicate that's been active around here lately."
"We know that already." I replied.
"The fact that their emblems are worn as opposed to tattooed on their arms shows that they're not yet full fledged members. They were being initiated into the gang by killing a random victim." Cobra remarks.
"They chose the wrong guy to mess with." I reply, dourly.
"Hey guys," David asks, "What does CT22400 mean?"
"2400 means midnight on the 24 hour time scale. 2, I'm not sure of." I reply.
"It could be some kind of shorthand, you know, code for something." Nani adds, "CT2 could mean Clock Tower, second district...."
"Nani, you're a genius!" I shout suddenly, "This must be a drop-off point, or rally point where these two stash bodies, victims, or weapons for pickup."
~ ~ ~ ~
Propped up against the wall with five other victims, a middle aged woman, two male teenagers, and two female teenagers, Diane Schonke strained and struggled against the ropes binding her wrists behind her back. She was trying to find slack in the rope so she could wriggle her wrists out of them.
The rag stuffed inside her mouth which was sealed by a few strips of duct tape kept her silent, except for the odd muffled grunt. It was starting to dry the inside of her mouth out after it had been there for hours. Diane imagined she looked pretty bad. Her short brown hair was disheveled and had dust from the inside of the crate, her once white summer uniform had dust and grime all over it, and the top button of her shirt had come off when she was dragged out of the crate by the gang members.
Suddenly she felt a little slack. She twisted her wrists a little more, sliding one hand free. She pretended that she was still securely restrained when the bored gang member they'd left with the hostages as a guard walked back into the room. It felt like five hours, rather than five minutes, as the guard watched the six hostages struggling fruitlessly against their bonds, unaware that one of the hostages had already managed to free herself.
The guard lumbered outside and Diane slipped her right hand free. She untied the rope around her ankles and painfully tore the tape off of her lips, barely resisting the impulse to scream. She pulled the rag out of her mouth and put a finger to her lips, silently telling the other hostages she was going to find help...
~ ~ ~ ~
I can't merely go into the Clock Tower guns blazing, that's the surest way to get myself killed in a hurry. I have to set up an observation post and check out activity around the place. I'm across the street from the place, hidden by a shack on the roof of a nearby building.
After about an hour of observation I see a slim figure in white slip out of the building. Oh God, it's Diane. She's going into the 3rd District of Traverse Town and I've got to get to her before all those Heartless that infest that area find her first. Forget the stairs. I vault from the roof into a dumpster in the alleyway. As soon as I hit the ground, I climb from the dumpster and run for the gate. As I run, my Smith and Wesson is out and in my right hand.
I burst right through the gate, my weapon panning my field of vision. I don't see Diane anywhere in the area. Dear God I hope she wasn't just carried off by the Heartless.
"Conrad?!" I hear a questioning shout behind me. I turn around, and see Diane standing atop a flight of stairs to my left.
"Diane! Stay where you are! I'll be right there!" I shout and run like a man possessed to the place.
Blocking my way are several Shadow Heartless and a few Soldiers. I didn't come this way to be killed so I focus my front sight on the center of mass of the nearest Heartless and fire two rounds into it. Shifting my aim right I shoot down a charging Soldier with two rounds through the head. I shoot down a third and fourth Shadow, clearing myself a path and I take it, running up the stairs with the Heartless in hot pursuit.
I'm not ten steps away from Diane when an Air Soldier swoops out of the air and carries her off. "Damn you Maleficent!" I shout angrily into the heavens.
~ ~ ~ ~
I run all the way back into the First District of Traverse Town. I gotta figure out what my next move is from here. Storming the Clock Tower is out of the question. Now that they're alerted to my presence, that's absolutely suicide. I know if they had meant to simply kill Diane, they'd have killed her already. I have to figure out where they're headed next and try to rescue her there.
"Woe unto all." A voice sounds. I whirl around in my chair in the outdoor café. I see a boy, slight of build, about eighteen years old.
"The Heartless come and worlds do fall." The boy says, "Heart and being taken in turn. And from that Darkness none return."
"Who are you?" I ask the kid.
"Alas, stranger, my name is Morrero, of Traverse Town." The kid replies, "Have the Heartless caused thee this great frown?"
"Yes, you could say that." I reply.
"Ah, the woman abducted, your heart be troubled. Should she reach the end of the pipeline, woes shall be doubled." Morrero replies, he is dancing and laughing when he does this and I'm starting to get annoyed.
"Listen kid, do you know where they're taking her?" I ask.
"I know there are hundreds of worlds in space. They could take her almost anyplace." Morerro laughes.
I feel like beating this kid to pieces right now, but I hold my temper in. "But anyplace will not suffice, you see. Taking her to a place quite haunted and ghastly."
As he talks he dances away from the café, and I follow him. "Where, pray tell, is this place so haunted and ghastly?"
"I'm afraid more would be telling. And no mortal form of interrogation is compelling..." The boy says and then he vanishes from sight.
I have a clue where the next stop on the pipeline is. Now all I've gotta do is head over there. As soon as I figure out where 'over there' is. A place quite haunted and ghastly? Well, no place I know of in the known worlds is more haunted and ghastly than the Haunted Mansion. So I know where my next stop is. The next part of the puzzle is finding a gummi ship captain crazy enough to go to that area. From what I know of it, every gummi ship that's flown to the Haunted Mansion has never returned. What better place to hide a hostage?
I lost Diane once, and I'm not going to lose her again, not even to Maleficent. Haunted Mansion, here I come.
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: Please forgive my slow updates. More of the storyline will be explained as the story progresses.
Disclaimer: Same as before. I don't own the Lilo and Stitch characters either.
~ ~ ~ ~
Traverse Town was, and still is a melting pot of all worlds. I see all sorts of creatures and people walking, or hopping, or flying around the place. I also know that it's a hotbed of intrigue, smuggling, and all other sorts of cloak and dagger stuff. But what interests me most is the smuggling operation, particularly the human smuggling operation.
The Unit maintains several contacts out here in Traverse Town, and there's one in particular that I consider a friend. I'm in the completely secure First District. Even a novice operative wouldn't trust that bit of data. True, there aren't any Heartless in the First District, but there are things just as bad, or should I say people that reside in this area.
The first thing I do is buy a cheap cell phone. I'll need it because it's almost untraceable, and I'm very likely gonna ditch it very soon. I go into an alcove and make a phone call to my contact.
"Yes." A gravelly voice sounds.
"This Cobra Bubbles?" I ask.
"Hart, I ought to go to wherever you are right now and put two rounds thru your head." Cobra Bubbles replies.
"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" I reply.
"You and your unit may have saved our lives when our world was destroyed, but you're a rogue now, if I'm right." Cobra Bubbles replied.
Damn the man's good. But I should expect nothing else from the guy I've known since I was a new operator. He can read me like a book, but I still ask, "How'd you know?"
"This headline should sound familiar, Navy Lieutenant Missing, together with a face I recognize from being in your apartment a few times." Cobra Bubbles replied.
"Listen, Cobra, cut to the chase, are you with me or not?" I ask.
"Listen, we've talked too long. Meet me in the Second District, the Dalmatian House. Don't be late." Cobra replies.
We hang up and I stuff the phone into the inner pocket of my leather flight jacket, on the other side of my pistol. As I walk out of the tiny phone shop in Traverse Town I notice that someone has been hanging around the front of the shop is starting to meander a few steps behind me. If he's part of an even half competent surveillance team, he'll have a hidden microphone and earpiece, have other guys that at natural chokepoints will switch off with him so I don't start getting paranoid.
I hadn't expected following this early in the game, but I am prepared for it. Either someone in my unit spotted me leave, Chris called security after I left, or someone was expecting this. I pass through an alleyway and notice two people, the brown haired nondescript fellow, with curly hair and a newer fellow wearing a hooded sweater with a shaved head and a blonde beard.
If either of them are armed, I'm ready. As I walk through into the second district I feel a bump from behind intending to push me down. I roll forward with the push, reaching for my Smith and Wesson as I fall forward, with the impact. I remember our hand-to-hand combat and pistol drills well. While still rolling out came my Smith and Wesson and the nondescript wound up taking two rounds to the chest and a third into his throat. Even if they're wearing body armor, they've got a big surprise coming their way. The 9mm bullets I've loaded my weapon with are high velocity Black Talon rounds which can punch thru most covert body armor types.
Dagwood, what I call the first follower, falls down to the ground. His body hasn't even hit the ground when I'm already shooting at Blondie who now has a Mini-Uzi sub-machinegun ready to riddle me with 9mm rounds. Not today buddy.
My first two rounds hit him just below the collar bone and I fire another two higher. The third smashes into his jaw and the fourth takes out his left eye. Blondie falls dead onto the pavement. I check both bodies and make sure they're dead. I load a fresh fourteen round clip into the magazine of my Smith and Wesson in this lull in the fighting.
A stern voice sounds behind me, "Hart. You're a hard man to help."
"Cobra Bubbles, punctuality is something they taught you at the Farm, right?" I ask the ex-CIA spook.
The big, impassive man in the black suit nods his head, "I was detained."
"Right." I reply, "Help me get rid of these two before the surveillance team figures out its two men light."
~ ~ ~ ~
A few minutes after we hid the two dead guys, and removed all the documents on them we could find, we head for the Dalmatian House. I see Cobra Bubbles' 'family' consisting of two Hawaiian sisters named Lilo and Nani, her boyfriend David, Dr. Jumba Joukiba, and Pleaky and some blue skinned alien named Stitch.
When their world was destroyed by the Heartless, Joukiba, the benevolent four eyed alien soul that he is, managed to transport himself and the others into Traverse Town. They set up shop in the Dalmatian House, where Cobra Bubbles occasionally helps out Gamma operators in the area. It doesn't take him long to figure out I'm a rogue operator.
Spread out on the coffee table are scraps of paper, sales receipts, currency for Traverse town, faked ID cards, two Heartless emblems (each of the two men I shot had one around his neck), and assorted bits of trash.
"Hmm," Nani says, looking at the emblems, "They must be members of a local smuggling syndicate that's been active around here lately."
"We know that already." I replied.
"The fact that their emblems are worn as opposed to tattooed on their arms shows that they're not yet full fledged members. They were being initiated into the gang by killing a random victim." Cobra remarks.
"They chose the wrong guy to mess with." I reply, dourly.
"Hey guys," David asks, "What does CT22400 mean?"
"2400 means midnight on the 24 hour time scale. 2, I'm not sure of." I reply.
"It could be some kind of shorthand, you know, code for something." Nani adds, "CT2 could mean Clock Tower, second district...."
"Nani, you're a genius!" I shout suddenly, "This must be a drop-off point, or rally point where these two stash bodies, victims, or weapons for pickup."
~ ~ ~ ~
Propped up against the wall with five other victims, a middle aged woman, two male teenagers, and two female teenagers, Diane Schonke strained and struggled against the ropes binding her wrists behind her back. She was trying to find slack in the rope so she could wriggle her wrists out of them.
The rag stuffed inside her mouth which was sealed by a few strips of duct tape kept her silent, except for the odd muffled grunt. It was starting to dry the inside of her mouth out after it had been there for hours. Diane imagined she looked pretty bad. Her short brown hair was disheveled and had dust from the inside of the crate, her once white summer uniform had dust and grime all over it, and the top button of her shirt had come off when she was dragged out of the crate by the gang members.
Suddenly she felt a little slack. She twisted her wrists a little more, sliding one hand free. She pretended that she was still securely restrained when the bored gang member they'd left with the hostages as a guard walked back into the room. It felt like five hours, rather than five minutes, as the guard watched the six hostages struggling fruitlessly against their bonds, unaware that one of the hostages had already managed to free herself.
The guard lumbered outside and Diane slipped her right hand free. She untied the rope around her ankles and painfully tore the tape off of her lips, barely resisting the impulse to scream. She pulled the rag out of her mouth and put a finger to her lips, silently telling the other hostages she was going to find help...
~ ~ ~ ~
I can't merely go into the Clock Tower guns blazing, that's the surest way to get myself killed in a hurry. I have to set up an observation post and check out activity around the place. I'm across the street from the place, hidden by a shack on the roof of a nearby building.
After about an hour of observation I see a slim figure in white slip out of the building. Oh God, it's Diane. She's going into the 3rd District of Traverse Town and I've got to get to her before all those Heartless that infest that area find her first. Forget the stairs. I vault from the roof into a dumpster in the alleyway. As soon as I hit the ground, I climb from the dumpster and run for the gate. As I run, my Smith and Wesson is out and in my right hand.
I burst right through the gate, my weapon panning my field of vision. I don't see Diane anywhere in the area. Dear God I hope she wasn't just carried off by the Heartless.
"Conrad?!" I hear a questioning shout behind me. I turn around, and see Diane standing atop a flight of stairs to my left.
"Diane! Stay where you are! I'll be right there!" I shout and run like a man possessed to the place.
Blocking my way are several Shadow Heartless and a few Soldiers. I didn't come this way to be killed so I focus my front sight on the center of mass of the nearest Heartless and fire two rounds into it. Shifting my aim right I shoot down a charging Soldier with two rounds through the head. I shoot down a third and fourth Shadow, clearing myself a path and I take it, running up the stairs with the Heartless in hot pursuit.
I'm not ten steps away from Diane when an Air Soldier swoops out of the air and carries her off. "Damn you Maleficent!" I shout angrily into the heavens.
~ ~ ~ ~
I run all the way back into the First District of Traverse Town. I gotta figure out what my next move is from here. Storming the Clock Tower is out of the question. Now that they're alerted to my presence, that's absolutely suicide. I know if they had meant to simply kill Diane, they'd have killed her already. I have to figure out where they're headed next and try to rescue her there.
"Woe unto all." A voice sounds. I whirl around in my chair in the outdoor café. I see a boy, slight of build, about eighteen years old.
"The Heartless come and worlds do fall." The boy says, "Heart and being taken in turn. And from that Darkness none return."
"Who are you?" I ask the kid.
"Alas, stranger, my name is Morrero, of Traverse Town." The kid replies, "Have the Heartless caused thee this great frown?"
"Yes, you could say that." I reply.
"Ah, the woman abducted, your heart be troubled. Should she reach the end of the pipeline, woes shall be doubled." Morrero replies, he is dancing and laughing when he does this and I'm starting to get annoyed.
"Listen kid, do you know where they're taking her?" I ask.
"I know there are hundreds of worlds in space. They could take her almost anyplace." Morerro laughes.
I feel like beating this kid to pieces right now, but I hold my temper in. "But anyplace will not suffice, you see. Taking her to a place quite haunted and ghastly."
As he talks he dances away from the café, and I follow him. "Where, pray tell, is this place so haunted and ghastly?"
"I'm afraid more would be telling. And no mortal form of interrogation is compelling..." The boy says and then he vanishes from sight.
I have a clue where the next stop on the pipeline is. Now all I've gotta do is head over there. As soon as I figure out where 'over there' is. A place quite haunted and ghastly? Well, no place I know of in the known worlds is more haunted and ghastly than the Haunted Mansion. So I know where my next stop is. The next part of the puzzle is finding a gummi ship captain crazy enough to go to that area. From what I know of it, every gummi ship that's flown to the Haunted Mansion has never returned. What better place to hide a hostage?
I lost Diane once, and I'm not going to lose her again, not even to Maleficent. Haunted Mansion, here I come.
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: Please forgive my slow updates. More of the storyline will be explained as the story progresses.