Witch Hunter Robin
Fire and Rain
Chapter VII - The Fire
Disclaimer: I do not own
Witch Hunter Robin® or any characters. They are registered Trade Mark™ of
Sunrise® and now apparently Sci-Fi™. If I owned WHR it wouldn't have just been
26 episodes.
Nor do I own the song Fire and Rain; I just borrowed its title.
Storyline, Plot, Joe Saunders©, Calypso© and the Evil David Rica©
are all my property.
-------------------
The trip to the nearest hospital was, in a matter of words, pure hell.
Karasuma couldn't walk, and Doujima's face had swollen so that she had trouble
seeing out of her right eye. Sakaki's stitches, while the wound was almost
healed, had come undone and he was bleeding. He knew for a fact that if he
passed out the girls would be in even more trouble than ever before, but he had
no choice.
Sakaki was the only one strong enough to carry Karasuma, and Doujima walked
beside them with a limp (she had injured her leg) and so she leaned against the
brown haired boy beside her. Sakaki didn't really mind, he was in good shape
and he could easily carry someone like Karasuma, but after being savagely
beaten by Rica and then the dazed swim to land as the Yacht sunk, he had lost
some of his strength.
The walk was quiet and somber, but quick. They all three knew that if they
didn't find some help soon they could be in a very dangerous situation. Of
course, they didn't walk all the way to the hospital; mostly they looked
for someone who could call an ambulance. But being just before sunrise it was
hard to find many people out.
Finally they were able to find an old man who had been walking his dog and was
more than happy to call the hospital, and while Sakaki felt himself growing
dizzy and his vision was becoming nothing but a blur of color and light, they
all made it to the hospital with relative ease.
Doujima was the unhappiest of all; she had abhorrent her time in the
hospital after Nobunaga had sent her and Karasuma into a horrid car wreck. She
hated hospital food, she truly did. Hospital beds, and those horrible backless
gowns all were horrible, but the food was truly hellish.
Sakaki was now lying in one of those horrible beds, wearing one of those
horrible backless gowns, waiting for his hellish food as he stared up at the
ceiling. The sun was rising now and he wondered if Amon and Robin were okay.
He sighed. Wherever they were they had to be better off than this.
----
Robin and Michael sat in silence.
The two youths were still at a small booth in Harry's Place, while the Master
of Harry's, Yuji Kobari, had vanished with Amon somewhere. Robin was not too
concerned about Amon, however. He could take care of himself better than any of
the STN-J. She was worried about Michael, though. His arm was still badly
beaten, and while Master Yuji had wrapped it in new bandages, Michael still
winced in pain ever few moments as they sat in mute silence at the small oak
table.
Robin's eyes fell onto Michael's tired face. It was still young, truly she
didn't know how old the hacker was, he had never told her, but she guessed that
he was only a few years older than she was. Yet his young face was aged with a
tired worry. The pain of the last few days, of being shot, and of watching his
cousin die, and from falling into the river out of a car. All of the pain was
becoming too much for him. Tiny cuts covered his youthful features and she
wondered if they hurt him.
The biggest problem, really, the biggest fear shining in Robin's emerald eyes
was what had transpired between the two of them. Memories of the night their
"relationship" began were still fresh in both of their minds.
. . . Michael just lay there on the couch and he was happy. He was out of the
STN-J building, he didn't have to work, and he had made Robin smile.
He shook his head. He was getting fed up. If he didn't know better he'd say he
was developing a crush for his fifteen year old co-worker. Something he
couldn't do. Besides the fact she would never go out with him, even if she
would, could he really ask her to do that?
To date someone who was confined to the same damn building for the rest of his
life? He shook his head. And even besides all of that, she was a co-worker, and
office romance was a bad idea.
And still, she was cute, and he did like redheads . . .
"Damn it." Michael sat up and shook his head. He couldn't have a crush on her.
That was just . . . wrong.
Still, somehow he was drawn over to the doorway of her bedroom. He looked over
at her as she lay there asleep and he forgot all those reason why it wouldn't
work, and all he thought about was how peacefully cute she looked while asleep.
Before he knew what he was doing he was at her bedside, and he was leaning
down. His lips brushed against her forehead for the slightest of seconds before
he came to he came to his senses and walked away.
He walked over to the front door and turned around once last time.
"Goodnight, little Robin." . . .
Robin closed her eyes. It wasn't like her to be so hung up on things like this.
This wasn't the same Robin who had lived in Japan over the past few months. This was a new
Robin, a Robin who realized once and for all that she loved Michael and nothing
would change that.
"Robin."
Robin was snapped out of her thoughts at Amon's voice. Both she and the hacker
sitting across the table from her turned their heads to the far side of the bar
where Amon and Master Yuji had appeared from behind a doorway. Amon walked
across the room and as he did he spoke orders.
"Come on, we're going after Rica."
Robin and Michael both moved to their feet.
"Michael you're staying." Amon spoke at once without even looking at him.
"The hell I am." The hacker spat bitterly.
"You're injured and you're not a hunter regardless." Amon spoke coldly,
turning himself around and looking into Michael's warm, hurt eyes with his emotionless
ones.
"I don't care --"
"Michael."
Hearing Robin speak his name seamed to calm the hacker down in a way that
nothing else could anymore. He remembered the first day they had worked
together suddenly. She had been annoying as hell, which was his first
impression anyway. She had messed up his files at the side of his desk and
asked too many questions. It seamed odd that that new annoying, rookie
replacement for Kate had gone from being nothing more than an irritating
co-worker, to someone he would die for in a blink of an eye. Someone he loved.
He could feel Robin's petite hand on his shoulder, his left shoulder
thankfully. He sighed and returned to the seat at the booth. He would stay. For
her.
Michael gave a small, quiet sigh as he watched Robin and Amon walk out the
doors and towards the car that Yuji had allowed Amon to borrow.
"Be careful Robin." He whispered.
----
Zaizen's vision was blurry, and his head hurt like hell, but he could see
better now. For a moment the Manager of the Factory couldn't remember what had
happened or where he was, but memories of Rica and Saunders all came flooding
back in a hurry. He blinked twice before he could make out the form of David
Rica, who was leaning against a desk.
"Well, welcome back to reality Mr. Zaizen." Rica flashed his smug smile. "Just
been having a chat with Joe here about how we should kill you. He reckons we
should just shoot you and then cut your eyes from your corpse, but I think we
should tear them out while you're alive --"
"My eyes?" Zaizen said, and the twin orbs in question suddenly became wider and
filled with the unmistakable look of terror.
"Of course." David said, reached up to his face and pulling the black
sunglasses off the glassy orbs of sight that had once been eyes. Now they were
gray, cold and lifeless. "Mr. Calypso loves eyes."
Zaizen felt a cold shiver at that name. "Calypso? But he is --"
"Dead?" Rica laughed. "Yeah. But before he came to Japan in '98 he made me in '97. Gave me one of his own eyes. This gave me some of his own powers. Yeah, you're little Amon killed Mr. Calypso,
but I revived him in the same way he revived me. Of course, I had to give up
that eye, but he found me a new pair."
Zaizen wanted to scream, he had never been this terrified before. Calypso was
alive once more? Calypso was one of the undead? Playing with the powers of life
and death, playing with the powers of God? These always made for the worst of
the psychos. And Calypso was indeed a psycho.
"Then you're nothing more than a puppet." Zaizen spoke. "A sick puppet of a
sicker puppeteer."
Rica laughed. "You know, David Rica was just a body for me. The memories of
Peter Pummel, a New Orleans native and police officer who was murdered during Mardi Gras. Those memories beat inside my head. And they drive me insane.
My body, of course, heals from any psychical pain almost instantly. Part of the
powers of Mr. Calypso, but my mind won't heal so easy."
Rica reached out a malice filled finger to Zaizen's chin. "And soon you'll know
what I mean."
There was a low laugh as Rica extended his other hand, and vaguely from his bad
eyesight Zaizen could see Joseph Saunders hand Rica a long hunting knife. Rica
smiled as he brought the knife up and prepared to tear the eyes from Zaizen's
still living head.
"Should I cut them out now?" He said with a smile. "Or give you a taste of what
hell is like?"
He pressed the knife into Zaizen's cheek, the steel digging deep down into soft
flesh. A trickle of blood fell down from the cut and over his neck, onto his shirt
and suit jacket.
"I say hell." Rica laughed.
----
Sakaki was still lying in his hospital bed, nibbling at the stale Mac &
Cheese and the even worse corn the hospital had provided when Doujima appeared
at the doorway. His stitches had been re-sowed, though the wound was nearly
healed. This, as the doctor reminded him, was a good thing since if it had been
fresher he would have bleed to death.
"How can you eat that garbage?" Doujima asked, making a face.
"I'm not fickle." Sakaki explained.
Doujima put a hand on her hip. "And I am?"
Sakaki laughed.
"That isn't funny."
"I think it is." Sakaki pointed out.
"Flirting was a lot more fun last time, back on the beach." Doujima said with
an air of an elderly person remembering the 'good ole days'.
"I wasn't flirting."
"Sure." Doujima smiled. "And Kosaka doesn't have a stash of hentai mangas under
his desk."
Sakaki sighed. "I mean it."
"Really?" Doujima asked, sounded slightly put out.
"Why?" Sakaki asked suddenly. "You sound like you wanted me to flirt
with you."
"Well . . ." Doujima said solemnly. "You're the only person left from work for
me to date."
Sakaki blinked. "Well, ignoring what's obviously odd about that
statement, why would you want to date someone from work? It's against the rules."
"Exactly." She smiled. "It'll piss Kosaka off. I mean, Amon's better looking
than you, but he's also creepy." Sakaki laughed but she pouted. "He is too
creepy! And Michael's really sexy but he's obviously got a thing for Robin. So
that only leaves your or Hitler-Face himself, and so I've picked you."
Sakaki let out a loud laugh. "You're crazy, do you know that?"
Doujima then did something unexpected. She smiled, leaned in, and kissed Sakaki
quickly on his forehead. Sakaki fell into a massive blushing fit, and Doujima
gave a girly giggle and walked away.
----
Rica was enjoying himself as he slid the knife over Zaizen, watching the thin
red lines of blood appear as it slit into his skin. He had stripped Zaizen of
his jacket, leaving him in just his tie and his old white shirt, which was now
red with blood.
Zaizen wasn't making a sound. He was just sitting their, his face contorted in
pain. Rica was very good at giving people pain. He was almost a specialist. A
sick, psychotic specialist. But Rica was getting bored with his toy. He sighed
and pressed the knife into Zaizen's face, between his eye and his nostril.
"Well then, I think it's time I go and cut out those orbs of vision, eh?" Rica
grinned. "Well, you can thank me when you wake up as one of the living dead."
"I'll see you in hell." Zaizen spat.
"No my dear man, you'll see me in Louisiana. That's where Calypso lives now."
And Jackson David Rica, or Peter Pummel as some may call him, might really have
killed Zaizen then. He might have, but he did not. Because it was at that
moment that the ding of an elevator was heard and the door opened. Joseph
Saunders turned around to look, but the only thing he saw was the Orbo Bullet
as it flew into his left eye.
Amon stepped off the elevator and quickly turned his gun towards Rica, but Rica
was too fast. He jumped and moved down behind the chair in which Zaizen was
tied in. Amon couldn't fire with his boss in the way, and Rica knew it. David
pulled out the Colt Python he'd stolen from the downstairs guard when he
knocked him out earlier and fired it at Amon.
Before Amon could respond, however, Rica was gone. He had taken off at a run,
pushing Zaizen and his chair clear over so that he fell to the ground with a
clang. Rica was running as fast as his malice-filled feet would carry him up
the stairs, towards the roof.
"Robin, take care of him!" Amon called out as he chased after Rica.
Robin watched the Dark Hunter chase after the Witch as she ran to Zaizen's
side, dropping down to her knees. He was knocked out clean and cold, still wet
with blood. Robin was ready to look for a first aid kit when she heard the
sound of the cane.
Spinning her head around and aiming her eyesight through her glasses like one
may aim a gun; she lit the now one-eyed Joseph Saunders ablaze as he tried to
smash her head in with the long oak cane. The evil Solomon Agent screamed and
fell to the ground.
Robin remember Michael's words, she knew that the only way to kill these
creatures made from memories of one man and the bodies of others was to destroy
the eyes. She grabbed the knife where Rica had dropped it. She closed her own
eyes as she plunged the cold steel into Saunders' one, remaining dead eye,
causing the last drops of his living blood to spill out.
----
Amon followed Rica's path by only seconds, ready to sink a bullet into the
American Craft User at the first chance he would get. Of course, bullets, Orbo
or Not, wouldn't do much to him, Amon knew it may slow Rica down enough to get
a clean shot at his eyes.
Finding his way to the last door before the roof Amon hesitated. It was . . .
dangerous to go out on the roof. Rica could be waiting at the left or right, or
maybe dead center, his gun drawn and ready to fire.
And unlike Rica, Amon would die from the bullets.
With a great kick Amon broke down the exit door and his eyes flashed from
center to right to left and then behind him, above him, on the roof over the
door that he had just came through.
Rica wasn't on the roof, meaning . . .
Amon didn't have time to turn as the shots pierced his legs. Rica had climbed
off the roof and hung himself by his hands, so that the only trace he was even
on the roof were five pale fingers keeping himself from falling off the edge of
Raven's Flat. When the time was right the American had lifted himself up and
fired three shots, two into Amon's right leg, and one into his left.
Amon fell on the ground, and he felt himself loose grip on his Orbo gun. It
fell clumsily away from him and he knew he couldn't reach it, not like this. He
could hear footsteps and cruel laughter now.
"Mr. Calypso always spoke about you." Rica was saying. Amon was on his
stomach, he couldn't see the smug smile, but he knew it was there.
Amon heard the cocking of a gun.
The forth shot pierced Amon's neckline, where his neck and shoulder blades met.
The shot was fatal, and it would kill Amon unless he found very fast medical
attention.
Rica was ready to fire a fifth shot into Amon's skull and kill the hunter once
and for all when his entire arm caught on fire. Robin stood at the doorway, she
still wore the old pink and green Kimono that Yuji had lent her and she looked
out of place in it.
The burning tongues of fire that kissed at Rica's arm suddenly vanished as a
splash of water from the American's own craft hit them. He smiled and dropped
his gun.
"Naw, naw, puppy. I've grown tired of you."
From out of no where a jet of water, almost like the end of a fire hydrant had
been broken off, shot from no where at Robin. She impulsively made a shield of
flames but the water broke right through it and hit her squarely on the chest.
Robin was fast, though. She jumped up before the second blast of H2O came
smashing into the concrete roof where she had just been sitting with such a
force that it broke a hole clear in the ground.
Robin launched three large flaming blast at the smug smiling enemy, but Rica's
water craft turned them all into smoke before he got so much as a singed hair.
Rica smirked as he launched another spurt of water at her, but she conjured up
flames with all of her strength and was able to block out the water, though she
was still no closer to harming Rica.
"Naw puppy." He suddenly said with an even fouler smile than he had ever worn
before. "We can screw around all day until one of us gets bored, but you know
he's gonna be dead in a matter of minutes."
Rica's fingers were pointing at Amon, who was unconscious and bleeding with a odd gurgling sound.
"Now you can kill me." Rica smiled. "But he'll die too."
Robin's emerald eyes were full of tears as she thought about this. She wanted
to stop Rica so badly, but not at the cost of Amon's life.
Rica didn't need a second answer. He laughed, ran towards the edge of the roof,
and jumped off. Of course, the fall would only hurt him. The ancient evil magicks that played with him and made him as he was would
heal him instantly. Unless by chance he landed on twin nails that poked out his
eyes.
Robin sighed and dropped down next to Amon. She needed to find a way to get him
to a hospital quickly.
Because if she didn't.
Amon would die.
-------------------
