Scarlet Lady: The Toshin Quest
By Indigo Siren
Disclaimer: Tekken is © to Namco, and that all characters mentioned from under this label are only used in this fan fiction for entertainment purposes only. No money is being made from this story; it is just for fun. I do however own the basic concept and characters of my own creation.
A/N: A little bit of religious usage in this chapter. (Religious issues will pop in and out of this story like crazy - I hope nobody takes offense)
Chapter 3
"Is the place secured?" Lei asked into his radio.
"We have secured the building and the close area, sir," came the response from one of his unit.
Lei sighed with relief. "Good, we'll move in now. Over and out." He cut the link and placed the radio back on his belt, turning to the group surrounding his car. "Alright, we think we have our suspected murderer within the building. Whatever it is, we're going to bring it out. Okay, Matheson and Fury, take the back entrance. Peterson and Vaughn, the East Side. Gail and Fung, the West Side and finally, Williams and Cooper, you take the main doors. Everyone else, spread out and cover the area. Move out!"
The building in question was an old run down tower of offices, unused for the best part of eight years. All the links and materials they had picked up quickly in their tracking game had lead them across New York to this one particular building. Whatever it was that was in on this murder case was in there and the IPD were going to find out what it was.
Looking at it there ahead of them, few dared to go in with the fear of what had happened to the other victims. It didn't help that the darkness gave the sight no justice. Much more creepy then imaginable.
The group disbanded quickly, and Anna, along with a young woman of her age, Kimberly Cooper were running armed towards the main entrance.
"Cover me," Anna said, seeing a simple nod from her comrade as they took to the doors.
Back hitting the side of the doorframe, she took a second's pause with Kimberly playing armed guard before bursting in, crouching low with her gun drawn, scouting this new territory.
The lobby was dark, dusty and very much a mess. Tables and chairs were stacked very unprofessionally around and the main receptionist's desk was covered in boxes with yellowing paper and old office equipment inside. When the government had said a quick clear out, they'd meant it very forcefully. Deemed an unfit working environment, it seemed now it was a definite reflection, though most of this had come to a quick clear out and the evil thing called time.
The air was stale and warm. The central heating was humming a gentle tick and the water pipes, now exposed by broken boards, groaned now and again, the joints ready to collapse from rust.
"Who killed the party?" Kimberly muttered sarcastically.
"Corporate assholes," Anna replied, hearing Kimberly snort with agreement behind her. "Keep your wits about you. Things aren't what they seem."
The pair took across the lobby; behind them, the faint glow of torches peered in through the glass of the windows, dancing patterns eerily across the walls. Anna ignored it and pushed open a creaky door to a stairwell. Most likely the lift was out of order, and in this case, a very unwise choice.
The stairs took off into two parts; one set was from lower levels - maybe storerooms or a basement, and the stairs leading up would go to each level of the offices. The doors opened from below, and both women looked down, squinting at the torchlight.
"It's okay," came a voice behind a mask.
Anna nodded and turned to Kimberly. "Up we go."
The two bolted up the stairs, carefully stopping at each intersection to peer in throw the main doors to another level, which in most cases had been seen to or were already been occupied by searchers of their cause. Anna was getting disgruntled. Nobody had found anything yet.
They came up to the second from top level and were met by Matheson and Fury, whom had come through a fire escape at the level after following up the side of the building, checking in.
"Nobody has searched the top floor," Bryan Fury said smirking darkly, which was so trademark to him. "Would you ladies like to do the honours?"
Anna grinned and checked the magazin of her gun. "I haven't seen any action this evening. Hell, I don't mind. I'm not afraid of the dark."
Kimberly boldly turned. "Come on then, Anna. The guys can watch the stairs and wait for the news from the others."
"You can play our radio boys." Anna winked at Bryan and took off after her partner, who was already bounding up the steps like no tomorrow.
Each clamour of their heels against the step seemed to echo louder as they reached the top floor. Anna stopped at the large stained oak doors, turned towards her friend and began inwardly praying for them both before pushing open their entrance inside.
The corridor was long and dark, even more so then the lobby. There were few obstacles, but most of the doors were sealed off or had heavy junk pressed a head of them.
"Just down here," Kimberly directed. "A large compartment of offices."
Anna followed, taking to one side of the blue double doors in the central part of the corridor. She and Kimberly pushed and opened the doors wide, peering in, guns poised in front of them.
They were greeted by cold wind through open windows. High-rise lights from the outside lighted this open office area, setting the place in a cool white glow, like a pretend moon positioned on the Earth. Papers swept across onto the floor from their desks, and anything loose and flimsy moved from its position to another. The blinds at the large windows swung half-broken, chiming slightly with the wind.
"I don't like this," Anna admitted, taking to the left side of the office, following down each desk, left abandoned after so long.
"It shouldn't be like this," Kimberly said. "Everything would be sealed. Someone has to have been here."
"It sure as hell wasn't squatters…" Anna leaned down to rummage through piles and piles of papers that had found home near a corner. Nothing seemed to catch her eye particularly, but strangely enough, she came across a woman's button up jacket and a pair of leather trousers.
"Odd…" Anna mumbled to herself. She blinked when she noticed that some of the paper had signs of reddened dots on them. And it definitely hadn't have been red ink.
"Hey… have you noticed the walls?" Kimberly's voice pulled Anna from thought. She looked up towards the white washed plaster and frowned. For the first time, she began to notice what looked like green tinted slime. When she first entered, she would have passed it off as a leak from the pipes in the ceiling - though, she hadn't been interested to see on her first entrance; only looking out for signs of life. But now she really saw it…
Her mind paused. Her breath caught in her throat, as a little crackle of electricity seemed to build in her blood. Like a thousand and one senses coming to life, she felt a demonic presence - an evil with a power that could never be matched. A right then and there, they were in danger. It's attack was suddenly coming at them.
"GET DOWN!" Anna yelled and threw herself down to the ground, covering her head.
The room lit up in green as whips of tinted light lashed like electrical knifes surging across the room. Kimberly had been too late to react as she turned straight into the attack. She couldn't even scream as she was overcome by this power that tore her insides to ribbons, lashing her skin into red ribbons. Her last breath was sucked painfully from her throat and she collapsed, lifeless.
Anna stayed down, gritting her teeth as she felt the attack whip overhead and crashed with a loud clang against the opposite wall, creating smouldering streaks of black on the white. She reacted quickly, knowing still of the presence with her and rolled up from the ground, keeping her a desk within diving distance and pointed her gun at the newly appeared perpetrator.
Her eyes didn't even grace her fallen comrade as she came face to face across the room from this new opponent. All stopped in a loop as her face paled, jaw slackening in shock. She gripped her gun tight, the knuckles beginning to turn white.
"No…" She couldn't believe her eyes.
The enemy was in that guise of a woman. As Wang Jinrei has said, Toshin could possess anyone, and had done so in his quest to gain power. The woman had blonde hair, loosely tied back from her pallid, blank face, that scarily sported two unearthly green eyes. Her body was covered with a thin material, tied tightly around a bitterly naked form with strings. The very thin, nearly see through outfit fluttered with the wind, tickling the nearly dead coloured skin. The woman cracked a smile, feeling every emotion ride of Anna, knowing why she was in shock…
Anna's mouth began to move, seeping a whisper from her lips. "Nina…"
She was suddenly driven into a flashback - memories flooding her vision. Games in her long, lively back garden, crying within the four walls of their home. The bulk of the memories included their sisterly spats, with hateful words that could have burnt the tongue out of a virgin's mouth. Though they had fought, they had been willing to look out for each other, and they had spent most of their lives together. Hate had always been based on who was going to be the top sister; this hate she was getting from within this woman was of powers and mind beyond anything of family.
'I'd never wanted to fight… but I had to stand up for myself…' Anna thought, finally resurfacing herself back to reality, to see the evilly grinning Toshin standing ahead of her. She stood carefully, gun at the ready. "Nina… or should I say, Toshin…"
Toshin chuckled, Nina's voice there but most obviously intertwined with an echoing, deep mix from that of the demonic monster in control. "So, you're not so naïve."
"I-I don't understand…" Anna controlled her shaky hands, gulping down slightly. "Nina, why are you doing this?"
"She has nothing to do with this," Toshin answered. "She is merely a vessel whom easily could be taken with her mind and will."
"But why? Why do you need her?" Anna inquired angrily.
"For my quest," It said.
"Quest… your murder rampage?"
Toshin laughed long and loud, the sound reverberating off the walls with a backwash of carnal intent for death.
"Is it?" Anna asked lowly.
Toshin calmed the laugh, still smiling with Nina's beautiful full lips. "Yes, you could say that. And I've admitted to your little murders. I have placed death upon the bodies of many, and I am now fuelled by their emotional cries and their powerful essence that was of once mind and life. They exist within me now…"
"What is your quest? Why are you killing these people?" Anna questioned; staying rooted on the spot. She couldn't exactly go in for an attack, not with the power she was feeling, and besides, this was partly Nina standing in front of her. Well, her body anyway.
"You know nothing mere mortal…" Toshin brushed the long hairs from Nina's face and began to slowly pace across in front of the front glass as it continued to speak. "The key to all power that derives within this plane is that of the human soul. The more souls I accumulate, the more powerful I become. But, I have come to realise on this quest that my possession of powers that do not seem to exceed much beyond a point has put limitations on my evolution. But there is another way…" Toshin turned. "… And I have struck up a new quest. I search for that of 'The Red Eye'."
Anna blinked with uncertainty. "'The Red Eye'?"
"Yes… 'The Red Eye'…" Toshin turned away again, uncaring of the gun that was pointing at the body it had taken. "It is a jewel that contains a dark power that can call a power thousands of times greater then any soul… though it does itself lie within the soul of one alone… that being of a demon. And I will hunt it out, and nothing will stand in my way."
"You'd kill your own kind for power?" Anna was horrified.
"Human's have done it for so long, it's not like I wouldn't be doing something that your race wouldn't have done…" Toshin antagonised.
Anna aimed the gun more accurately in line with Toshin Nina's head, though she really was too nervous to fire; knowing whose life was on the line. "I can't let you kill anymore."
"Oh, and you're going to stop me?" Toshin asked, breaking out laughing again.
"I can but try," Anna challenged.
Toshin stopped laughing, thought and hissed angrily. "You're ignorance will be your end, Anna Williams… sister."
Anna narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me that…"
Toshin roared uncaring, a green lightning crackling around Nina's body. She was shocked as the contained creature leap at lightning speed at the young woman. She side rolled away from the rampaging power strike that pretty much dug a hole into the floor where she'd been.
She rolled up, clasping her hands in prayer, the cross she kept around her neck in her closed hands.
Anna had always believed in some form of religion. When she'd been a child, her mother had taken her to church, though she'd been very much opposed to it. After her mother's death, she decided to allow God to be her guidance. With this business, you needed to have faith to encase you away from the demonic evil. Without it, your spirit could be easily corrupted.
Toshin turned and let out an almighty hiss, hearing Anna's silent prayers giving herself a protective shield.
"No dark force can break down the walls of God's protection." Anna murmured, breaking prayer for just a moment, giving Toshin cold eyes.
The demonic being backed off. "Your God can't protect you forever. Once I gain the power I need, nothing will save you or your pathetic race."
Anna growled under her breath, standing up again, her gun suddenly back in her grasp. "I will stop you, you can be sure of it. With all my faith and wisdom, you'll never become powerful!"
Toshin backed away, lips curling into a cruel smile. "Don't stand in my way or I will take pleasure in killing you."
Anna barely had time to react, as the lithe body of Nina was suddenly turning and diving out the window. Toshin enveloped that body with a powerful green light, thrusting the power back against the building as it took off into the night. The power shock began to shake the foundations and Anna could feel the room around her begin to absorb in this unstable energy. It was going to collapse.
She turned and ran from the room, taking off down the corridor.
When she burst into the stairwell, it was then she could feel the whole place shaking. She leant over the banister, seeing Bryan and Matheson on the next landing.
"RADIO EVERYONE! TELL THEM TO GET OUT NOW!" Anna screamed, taking to the stairs two at a time.
Each shaking step could have knocked anybody of their feet, but right then, everyone needed to get out and every stumbling stride was a step closer. Fuelled by an endless supply of adrenaline, Anna was soon back down in the lobby, ceiling panels falling. Tables and chairs were dropping from their piles and she was forced to leap them as they fell into her path. She was glad to see Matheson and Bryan already outside.
She was the last.
It was then the ceiling above her crumbled as she reached the door.
She gasped reaching out, throwing her body out into the night.
She was also very thankful to feel arms grab around at her, catching her as they pretty much crashed down to the gritty concrete ground. She stared down at her superior, Lei Wulong with surprise, but he was too busy getting up and hauling her to her feet.
"Come on!" He said, pulling her away from the collapsing building.
Neither didn't stop running until they got to the safe distance on the cars, turning to watch bits of bricks, support beams and glass crash around. The rise of dust billowed as the sturdy structure gave up and it collapsed in on itself, inflicting a dusty cloud on the area.
Anna leaned on the bonnet of her own car, panting and wafting any dust from her face as it started to float around her.
"Are you alright?" Forest asked, coming to her side with firm hands on her shoulders.
She nodded, catching her breath. "I will be, give me a minute." She looked back up to the place that was formerly a building. She still couldn't believe whom Toshin had under his control.
"What the hell happened?" Lei asked out loud.
Anna spoke up. "Toshin happened, sir."
"Toshin?" Lei suddenly put his face in his hands, realising what she meant. "Oh God…"
"It's a long story…" Anna said softly.
"Where's Kimberly?" Forest asked.
"She's dead," Anna informed him. "She got fried by Toshin's little warning blast to start with." Ignoring the horror on the face of her colleague, she turned back to her boss. "Sir, I have some important information for you. It' maybe a bit of a startling revelation for you and everyone else…"
And so, she began to tell him everything of Toshin's identity and plan, realising inwardly that this situation was going to be a lot tougher then she first thought.
*********************************************************************************
A/N: Anna has faced the enemy and now knows of Toshin's plans. She's going to have to face hell and high water to try and stop this evil creature. And what is of 'The Red Eye'? All things will come to light soon enough. More to come in Chapter 4.
By Indigo Siren
Disclaimer: Tekken is © to Namco, and that all characters mentioned from under this label are only used in this fan fiction for entertainment purposes only. No money is being made from this story; it is just for fun. I do however own the basic concept and characters of my own creation.
A/N: A little bit of religious usage in this chapter. (Religious issues will pop in and out of this story like crazy - I hope nobody takes offense)
Chapter 3
"Is the place secured?" Lei asked into his radio.
"We have secured the building and the close area, sir," came the response from one of his unit.
Lei sighed with relief. "Good, we'll move in now. Over and out." He cut the link and placed the radio back on his belt, turning to the group surrounding his car. "Alright, we think we have our suspected murderer within the building. Whatever it is, we're going to bring it out. Okay, Matheson and Fury, take the back entrance. Peterson and Vaughn, the East Side. Gail and Fung, the West Side and finally, Williams and Cooper, you take the main doors. Everyone else, spread out and cover the area. Move out!"
The building in question was an old run down tower of offices, unused for the best part of eight years. All the links and materials they had picked up quickly in their tracking game had lead them across New York to this one particular building. Whatever it was that was in on this murder case was in there and the IPD were going to find out what it was.
Looking at it there ahead of them, few dared to go in with the fear of what had happened to the other victims. It didn't help that the darkness gave the sight no justice. Much more creepy then imaginable.
The group disbanded quickly, and Anna, along with a young woman of her age, Kimberly Cooper were running armed towards the main entrance.
"Cover me," Anna said, seeing a simple nod from her comrade as they took to the doors.
Back hitting the side of the doorframe, she took a second's pause with Kimberly playing armed guard before bursting in, crouching low with her gun drawn, scouting this new territory.
The lobby was dark, dusty and very much a mess. Tables and chairs were stacked very unprofessionally around and the main receptionist's desk was covered in boxes with yellowing paper and old office equipment inside. When the government had said a quick clear out, they'd meant it very forcefully. Deemed an unfit working environment, it seemed now it was a definite reflection, though most of this had come to a quick clear out and the evil thing called time.
The air was stale and warm. The central heating was humming a gentle tick and the water pipes, now exposed by broken boards, groaned now and again, the joints ready to collapse from rust.
"Who killed the party?" Kimberly muttered sarcastically.
"Corporate assholes," Anna replied, hearing Kimberly snort with agreement behind her. "Keep your wits about you. Things aren't what they seem."
The pair took across the lobby; behind them, the faint glow of torches peered in through the glass of the windows, dancing patterns eerily across the walls. Anna ignored it and pushed open a creaky door to a stairwell. Most likely the lift was out of order, and in this case, a very unwise choice.
The stairs took off into two parts; one set was from lower levels - maybe storerooms or a basement, and the stairs leading up would go to each level of the offices. The doors opened from below, and both women looked down, squinting at the torchlight.
"It's okay," came a voice behind a mask.
Anna nodded and turned to Kimberly. "Up we go."
The two bolted up the stairs, carefully stopping at each intersection to peer in throw the main doors to another level, which in most cases had been seen to or were already been occupied by searchers of their cause. Anna was getting disgruntled. Nobody had found anything yet.
They came up to the second from top level and were met by Matheson and Fury, whom had come through a fire escape at the level after following up the side of the building, checking in.
"Nobody has searched the top floor," Bryan Fury said smirking darkly, which was so trademark to him. "Would you ladies like to do the honours?"
Anna grinned and checked the magazin of her gun. "I haven't seen any action this evening. Hell, I don't mind. I'm not afraid of the dark."
Kimberly boldly turned. "Come on then, Anna. The guys can watch the stairs and wait for the news from the others."
"You can play our radio boys." Anna winked at Bryan and took off after her partner, who was already bounding up the steps like no tomorrow.
Each clamour of their heels against the step seemed to echo louder as they reached the top floor. Anna stopped at the large stained oak doors, turned towards her friend and began inwardly praying for them both before pushing open their entrance inside.
The corridor was long and dark, even more so then the lobby. There were few obstacles, but most of the doors were sealed off or had heavy junk pressed a head of them.
"Just down here," Kimberly directed. "A large compartment of offices."
Anna followed, taking to one side of the blue double doors in the central part of the corridor. She and Kimberly pushed and opened the doors wide, peering in, guns poised in front of them.
They were greeted by cold wind through open windows. High-rise lights from the outside lighted this open office area, setting the place in a cool white glow, like a pretend moon positioned on the Earth. Papers swept across onto the floor from their desks, and anything loose and flimsy moved from its position to another. The blinds at the large windows swung half-broken, chiming slightly with the wind.
"I don't like this," Anna admitted, taking to the left side of the office, following down each desk, left abandoned after so long.
"It shouldn't be like this," Kimberly said. "Everything would be sealed. Someone has to have been here."
"It sure as hell wasn't squatters…" Anna leaned down to rummage through piles and piles of papers that had found home near a corner. Nothing seemed to catch her eye particularly, but strangely enough, she came across a woman's button up jacket and a pair of leather trousers.
"Odd…" Anna mumbled to herself. She blinked when she noticed that some of the paper had signs of reddened dots on them. And it definitely hadn't have been red ink.
"Hey… have you noticed the walls?" Kimberly's voice pulled Anna from thought. She looked up towards the white washed plaster and frowned. For the first time, she began to notice what looked like green tinted slime. When she first entered, she would have passed it off as a leak from the pipes in the ceiling - though, she hadn't been interested to see on her first entrance; only looking out for signs of life. But now she really saw it…
Her mind paused. Her breath caught in her throat, as a little crackle of electricity seemed to build in her blood. Like a thousand and one senses coming to life, she felt a demonic presence - an evil with a power that could never be matched. A right then and there, they were in danger. It's attack was suddenly coming at them.
"GET DOWN!" Anna yelled and threw herself down to the ground, covering her head.
The room lit up in green as whips of tinted light lashed like electrical knifes surging across the room. Kimberly had been too late to react as she turned straight into the attack. She couldn't even scream as she was overcome by this power that tore her insides to ribbons, lashing her skin into red ribbons. Her last breath was sucked painfully from her throat and she collapsed, lifeless.
Anna stayed down, gritting her teeth as she felt the attack whip overhead and crashed with a loud clang against the opposite wall, creating smouldering streaks of black on the white. She reacted quickly, knowing still of the presence with her and rolled up from the ground, keeping her a desk within diving distance and pointed her gun at the newly appeared perpetrator.
Her eyes didn't even grace her fallen comrade as she came face to face across the room from this new opponent. All stopped in a loop as her face paled, jaw slackening in shock. She gripped her gun tight, the knuckles beginning to turn white.
"No…" She couldn't believe her eyes.
The enemy was in that guise of a woman. As Wang Jinrei has said, Toshin could possess anyone, and had done so in his quest to gain power. The woman had blonde hair, loosely tied back from her pallid, blank face, that scarily sported two unearthly green eyes. Her body was covered with a thin material, tied tightly around a bitterly naked form with strings. The very thin, nearly see through outfit fluttered with the wind, tickling the nearly dead coloured skin. The woman cracked a smile, feeling every emotion ride of Anna, knowing why she was in shock…
Anna's mouth began to move, seeping a whisper from her lips. "Nina…"
She was suddenly driven into a flashback - memories flooding her vision. Games in her long, lively back garden, crying within the four walls of their home. The bulk of the memories included their sisterly spats, with hateful words that could have burnt the tongue out of a virgin's mouth. Though they had fought, they had been willing to look out for each other, and they had spent most of their lives together. Hate had always been based on who was going to be the top sister; this hate she was getting from within this woman was of powers and mind beyond anything of family.
'I'd never wanted to fight… but I had to stand up for myself…' Anna thought, finally resurfacing herself back to reality, to see the evilly grinning Toshin standing ahead of her. She stood carefully, gun at the ready. "Nina… or should I say, Toshin…"
Toshin chuckled, Nina's voice there but most obviously intertwined with an echoing, deep mix from that of the demonic monster in control. "So, you're not so naïve."
"I-I don't understand…" Anna controlled her shaky hands, gulping down slightly. "Nina, why are you doing this?"
"She has nothing to do with this," Toshin answered. "She is merely a vessel whom easily could be taken with her mind and will."
"But why? Why do you need her?" Anna inquired angrily.
"For my quest," It said.
"Quest… your murder rampage?"
Toshin laughed long and loud, the sound reverberating off the walls with a backwash of carnal intent for death.
"Is it?" Anna asked lowly.
Toshin calmed the laugh, still smiling with Nina's beautiful full lips. "Yes, you could say that. And I've admitted to your little murders. I have placed death upon the bodies of many, and I am now fuelled by their emotional cries and their powerful essence that was of once mind and life. They exist within me now…"
"What is your quest? Why are you killing these people?" Anna questioned; staying rooted on the spot. She couldn't exactly go in for an attack, not with the power she was feeling, and besides, this was partly Nina standing in front of her. Well, her body anyway.
"You know nothing mere mortal…" Toshin brushed the long hairs from Nina's face and began to slowly pace across in front of the front glass as it continued to speak. "The key to all power that derives within this plane is that of the human soul. The more souls I accumulate, the more powerful I become. But, I have come to realise on this quest that my possession of powers that do not seem to exceed much beyond a point has put limitations on my evolution. But there is another way…" Toshin turned. "… And I have struck up a new quest. I search for that of 'The Red Eye'."
Anna blinked with uncertainty. "'The Red Eye'?"
"Yes… 'The Red Eye'…" Toshin turned away again, uncaring of the gun that was pointing at the body it had taken. "It is a jewel that contains a dark power that can call a power thousands of times greater then any soul… though it does itself lie within the soul of one alone… that being of a demon. And I will hunt it out, and nothing will stand in my way."
"You'd kill your own kind for power?" Anna was horrified.
"Human's have done it for so long, it's not like I wouldn't be doing something that your race wouldn't have done…" Toshin antagonised.
Anna aimed the gun more accurately in line with Toshin Nina's head, though she really was too nervous to fire; knowing whose life was on the line. "I can't let you kill anymore."
"Oh, and you're going to stop me?" Toshin asked, breaking out laughing again.
"I can but try," Anna challenged.
Toshin stopped laughing, thought and hissed angrily. "You're ignorance will be your end, Anna Williams… sister."
Anna narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me that…"
Toshin roared uncaring, a green lightning crackling around Nina's body. She was shocked as the contained creature leap at lightning speed at the young woman. She side rolled away from the rampaging power strike that pretty much dug a hole into the floor where she'd been.
She rolled up, clasping her hands in prayer, the cross she kept around her neck in her closed hands.
Anna had always believed in some form of religion. When she'd been a child, her mother had taken her to church, though she'd been very much opposed to it. After her mother's death, she decided to allow God to be her guidance. With this business, you needed to have faith to encase you away from the demonic evil. Without it, your spirit could be easily corrupted.
Toshin turned and let out an almighty hiss, hearing Anna's silent prayers giving herself a protective shield.
"No dark force can break down the walls of God's protection." Anna murmured, breaking prayer for just a moment, giving Toshin cold eyes.
The demonic being backed off. "Your God can't protect you forever. Once I gain the power I need, nothing will save you or your pathetic race."
Anna growled under her breath, standing up again, her gun suddenly back in her grasp. "I will stop you, you can be sure of it. With all my faith and wisdom, you'll never become powerful!"
Toshin backed away, lips curling into a cruel smile. "Don't stand in my way or I will take pleasure in killing you."
Anna barely had time to react, as the lithe body of Nina was suddenly turning and diving out the window. Toshin enveloped that body with a powerful green light, thrusting the power back against the building as it took off into the night. The power shock began to shake the foundations and Anna could feel the room around her begin to absorb in this unstable energy. It was going to collapse.
She turned and ran from the room, taking off down the corridor.
When she burst into the stairwell, it was then she could feel the whole place shaking. She leant over the banister, seeing Bryan and Matheson on the next landing.
"RADIO EVERYONE! TELL THEM TO GET OUT NOW!" Anna screamed, taking to the stairs two at a time.
Each shaking step could have knocked anybody of their feet, but right then, everyone needed to get out and every stumbling stride was a step closer. Fuelled by an endless supply of adrenaline, Anna was soon back down in the lobby, ceiling panels falling. Tables and chairs were dropping from their piles and she was forced to leap them as they fell into her path. She was glad to see Matheson and Bryan already outside.
She was the last.
It was then the ceiling above her crumbled as she reached the door.
She gasped reaching out, throwing her body out into the night.
She was also very thankful to feel arms grab around at her, catching her as they pretty much crashed down to the gritty concrete ground. She stared down at her superior, Lei Wulong with surprise, but he was too busy getting up and hauling her to her feet.
"Come on!" He said, pulling her away from the collapsing building.
Neither didn't stop running until they got to the safe distance on the cars, turning to watch bits of bricks, support beams and glass crash around. The rise of dust billowed as the sturdy structure gave up and it collapsed in on itself, inflicting a dusty cloud on the area.
Anna leaned on the bonnet of her own car, panting and wafting any dust from her face as it started to float around her.
"Are you alright?" Forest asked, coming to her side with firm hands on her shoulders.
She nodded, catching her breath. "I will be, give me a minute." She looked back up to the place that was formerly a building. She still couldn't believe whom Toshin had under his control.
"What the hell happened?" Lei asked out loud.
Anna spoke up. "Toshin happened, sir."
"Toshin?" Lei suddenly put his face in his hands, realising what she meant. "Oh God…"
"It's a long story…" Anna said softly.
"Where's Kimberly?" Forest asked.
"She's dead," Anna informed him. "She got fried by Toshin's little warning blast to start with." Ignoring the horror on the face of her colleague, she turned back to her boss. "Sir, I have some important information for you. It' maybe a bit of a startling revelation for you and everyone else…"
And so, she began to tell him everything of Toshin's identity and plan, realising inwardly that this situation was going to be a lot tougher then she first thought.
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A/N: Anna has faced the enemy and now knows of Toshin's plans. She's going to have to face hell and high water to try and stop this evil creature. And what is of 'The Red Eye'? All things will come to light soon enough. More to come in Chapter 4.