3
Familiar Shadows

It was a typically dull night. With the city primarily focused on rebuilding, there really were not too many troublemakers out and about. So Leon simply cruised along in his annoyingly standard-issue police car—he missed the one he and Daley used to have with the AD Police!—on his annoyingly boring patrol route growing, as always, increasingly annoyed at having been all but forced back into work for the standard police.
"Someone could at least rob a convenience store or something," he mumbled. If only Daley had stayed on, he thought, the man could have kept him from boredom with some interesting conversation. But he was on his own now.
"Leon, this is dispatch," the radio crackled to life.
"What!" the building frustration spontaneously boiled out.
"Touchy tonight, aren't we? Well, I suppose if you don't want to have a chance to get out of the car and do something..."
"No, wait!"
"I was going to anyway. We've gotten a couple of independent reports of some sort of disturbance in an old industrial area that hasn't been restored yet," a small point blinked onto his city map display then, "You're the closest, so you're on the job to check it out. Keep us informed."
"Will do," he said with a smile creeping onto his face. With a flash of memory from the old days, he whipped the car around, and sped off to the indicated area. A short time later, he pulled up in front of an ominous- looking factory that still seemed to show remnants of having been affected by the "phenomenon".
"I just love these places." His mind brought forth images of the fight against Galatea and a city full of mad boomers, of the Knight Sabers, of Priss...He shook his head, clearing the distractions. Pulling his gun, the only thing left over from his ADP years, he stalked across the eerily empty space before the factory. There was a sudden but quite shuffling noise behind him and to his right. He spun, bringing his gun up, body on full alert...and stopped when he saw a group of four civilians had been trying to quietly follow him.
"Whoa hey," one shouted as he jumped back, "we're not the bad guys!" Leon lowered his gun and dropped his head, sighing with frustrated resignation.
"Who are you?"
"We all called in reports about a disturbance, then found each other and decided to stick around."
"Well can you tell me any more about what might be going on, because I don't see anything out of place."
"Sure, it's just that..." the man's words trailed off as a distant rumbling started to become more and more obvious. The ground around the factory started to shake violently then. Leon was about to tell the others to get down when a huge section of the ground in between him and the group simply erupted upwards.
"Watch out!" he called over the noise. Then from the gaping hole crawled a massive light-blue colored creature. It seemed almost like an arthropod of some sort, but it was simply too huge. Then Leon remembered that he'd seen other like it. One had nearly defeated the Knight Sabers, and others like it had roamed Tokyo when the boomers took over. Apparently nobody had thought to look for the leftovers once reconstruction had started.
"Over here!" he shouted at it, simultaneously firing off several rounds, hoping to draw its attention away from the civilians. He knew he had its focus, so he was surprised when he heard pained screams from the other side of the beast. He could not see past it, had no idea what was going on, but that only spurred him to a more fierce attack. Somewhere in his mind, Leon knew it was useless, but he had to try.
His confusion only increased when he heard several small explosions and the monster simply fell over dead. Not wasting time wondering, he ran to the other side of hole to find the four civilians dead, their bodies brutally broken and bleeding. As if that was not enough, he was pushed to sheer disbelief when his car exploded. "What the--!"
And there, silhouetted by the flames' light stood a shockingly familiar form. Details were obscured, but that outline...
It was several hours later when Leon, exhausted, stumbled into the Silky Doll.
"Leon-peon!" Nene called excitedly, then stopped short when she saw what bad shape he was in. Immediately she Sylia Mackey and Linna, who had managed to come into the city to visit for a bit, were around him, asking what was wrong. Needing rest, Leon led the way upstairs and dropped onto a couch, the others settling in with curious expressions. He took his time explaining about his orders and the creatures attack—that certainly drew some gasps and concerned looks from the girls—but then paused uncomfortably.
"Has anyone been down to the Pit lately" he asked, looking directly at Sylia.
"No," she responded firmly, "No one. I've had it closed off since we no longer need our hard suits or any of the equipment down there." Leon paused again, seeming thoughtful.
"This is going to sound crazy, then...When I looked over to me car...I saw something there, and I think it was what killed the creature. And those people."
"What was it?" Linna asked, riveted.
"...I think it was Priss..."

Next: A Mystery Close to Home