What You See...

Chapter Nine
Old Man Fu

So, whilst Gray and Ryan were shopping, Jane was using the phonebooth, and Aki was toddling around the parking lot (closely supervised by Sid), Neil resigned to keep a watch over that oh-so-interesting grease splotch on the pavement.

He twitched, irritably, at a sudden itch along his side. He soon found that scratching hurt, and there was a sizable tear in his shirt rapidly soaking up blood.

How extraordinary.

Although it was only after the car window shattered did he consider moving to be a good idea.

And only after he scrambled across the parking lot did he realize just how painful being shot at could be. The fact that someone – his best guess being Aki… or maybe it was Sid – was screaming at a piercing pitch wasn't much comfort, either.

When he finally landed in a safe place… or at least, not where he had been (as he wasn't quite sure what he was doing), he took a moment to examine the three wounds he could feel. Not to mention the dozen or so he imagined at the epiphany that he hadn't exactly been aware of the first.

He was too startled to jump when Jane appeared around his corner, creeping around like the creeping kid… from that film, The Creeping Kid. He might have laughed at the half-assed attempt at action-heroinism, but only had not bleeding to death, not been his primary priority.

Of course, he was in little danger of actually bleeding to death at the time, but he had no way of knowing that.

Out of breath, regardless, he watched Jane pace back and forth – in plain sight, no less, and quite obviously aware of it… though, judging the way her weapon-of-choice merely dangled from her fingers, she wasn't taking this being shot at thing quite seriously.

So, considering she was a fellow federal employee (and, regrettably, the only thing per moment protecting him) Neil took a moment to question her sanity,

"Jane, you do understand that you are not Superman, right?"

"Of course I'm not," Jane scoffed, "For one thing, he makes far too many mi-"

The stalwart agent paused long enough to snap about and retaliate to the slight glimmer beyond the radiance of the parking lot. Countless moments passed, interrupted by ceaseless gunfire. Plenty of time for the unfortunate target to let loose a Willhelm scream before unceremoniously dropping into the nearest aura of light cast by streetlamp.

"Mistakes," she reprised, moving to check on her kill. She spared a moment to study business card that had materialized by the dead woman's hand (Transvestite Assassins Unlimited), before tucking it away for further study.

Satisfied, she looked left, looked right, then proceeded to change to a full magazine.

Neil gawked at the corpse, shocked at the sheer abuse of force. He cringed as she returned, fearful of this newfound facet of her personality, "Overkill, much?"

"Nope."

This, in turn, set Neil wondering if all FBI were this conceited, or if Jane was the exception. He tried to worm away at her approach, wary of any bloodthirsty torment she might have inflicted upon him. He lost it when she knelt by him and placed the pistol on the ground.

"Get the heck away from me," he snapped, "I know for a fact that you are not a certified doctor."

But to no avail – Jane peeled his hands away from his wounds, poked and prodded at the bullet-holes (despite any and all protests), and, ultimately, appeared to be at a loss for what to do next.

So Neil couldn't help but laugh at her expression, "What's wrong; finally found a problem your precious little academy didn't prepare you for?"

"Shut up; I'm trying to think."

"Living proof that there's a first time for everything."

"I said shut up!"

This sent Neil into another fit of giggles… which hurt. In the far back of his mind, he wondered how much blood he lost. It seemed to be everywhere, which wasn't a good sign; but on the other hand, Jane was caught in a moment of imperfection, which was worth it for all the torment she was as an associate.

Something over her shoulder caught his attention – something ragged and bloody… he just had trouble focusing on it. It didn't much help that he felt so giddy.

"Uh… Jane?"

"Not now."

"You sure? It's important."

Actually, it was imperative, but he wasn't quite thinking straight.

"I already told you: be quiet," Jane growled, "Don't make me say it again."

Neil considered this. Was it more important to be polite or to point out a glaringly obvious, yet avoidable, probability? It took him a couple more moments than it might normally have taken him to come to a satisfactory resolution over the situation, but he saved time by considering it as good a time as any to play hero and take stupidly suicidal risks.

Thus did he take a stupidly suicidal risk; he cuffed his errant guardian.

On a worse day, he imagined that she might have hit him back, abandoned him, simply killed him, or felt it necessary to humiliate him in some elaborate, sadistic, and overall worse than death fashion.

Fortunately, she merely took the hint, and dove for her discarded weapon.

---

This is what Gray overheard at the pinnacle of resounding. When they got outside, to a virtually empty, yet shadowy parking lot, Ryan gave him the simple instructions to Find Aki.

Actually, it was a bit more complicated than that, but he'd think about that later. First he actually needed to Find Aki.

Then again, he realized as he ran down the decrepit back road that he was free to flee and start a new life somewhere over the rainbow and far away….

Oblivious to his surroundings, he ran right into a polearm-wielding maniac.

The woman… well, it was a little dark to tell, but he certainly thought it was a woman, despite the beard, grinned fiendishly.

Startled, Gray ran in the opposite direction – only to trip over the frail old man that he was supposed to be looking for.

Apparently, the frail old man knew styles and methods of martial arts that are far to impressive for anyone to even begin to describe them in written text, let alone a hack-writer of the lowest stature.

But rest assured: it was totally sweet.

"…but where's Aki?" Gray asked while Sid was catching his breath. The old man cleared his throat, coughed, and applied logic to the situation.

"Well, this road leads into the city… so unless she ran off into the woods, we should be able to catch up with her."

Gray liked that reasoning, mostly because of a narrow-minded view that only a lunatic would want to go into those woods at night.

His will over the matter dwindled after half an hour's brisk pace turned up no Aki. He decided to turn back if she didn't show in ten minutes, but… since he didn't have a method of telling time (aside the unreliable and boring procedure of counting, himself) he overshot the mark by about fifteen.

Or maybe more, but he lost his inaccurate count when headlights appeared down the road ahead. At which he simply stopped and stared.

At first, he was secretly pleased: this was his chance to 'go for help' without anyone suspecting.

Then he was terrified: as the vehicle approached, it became painfully obvious that it was Elliott's car.

Finally, he didn't know what to think when it turned out that Aki was driving the car.

Not one to look to the gift horse's teeth, Sid ushered Gray into the back seat before climbing in after. The old man hadn't even time to close the door before they tore off into the night. A distance later, Aki put a temporary stop to the reckless route, managed the car about, and they tore off towards the city lights.