AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although this story takes place in roughly 1989, well over a
decade before the tragic events of 9/11, the author dedicates this chapter
to the heroic men and women who put their own lives at risk to rescue
others from the wreckage of the World Trade Center in 2001.
"For you, my friend, they are the angels of death."
-Man against monster. Monster against self. The story is as old as time. Living above us, below us, and among us, they assimilate themselves into our culture, and us into theirs. To the common man, they are simply known as night terrors, but to the initiated, they are the Darkstalkers-
EPISODE TWELVE: TERROR AT THE TWIN TOWERS
Talbain yawned. He wasn't used to being up this early, but Felicia had insisted they use at least some of the time and money from their vacation to hit a big mall. Talbain had asked why when she could hit the mall back home in California, and she had argued that they were in the Big Apple now so they had to do things on a grander scale. Talbain couldn't argue with that so he ended up tagging along at 6 am: opening hours.
Felicia was dressed in something both comfortable and Californian: 'skater' jean shorts and a tight black T-shirt that said "KITTY FOR HIRE" on the front in white. Talbain had on something a little more sensible: black jeans and a crimson colored collared short-sleeve shirt.
He thought it both nice to look at yet comfortable enough to not be a pain in the tail when he bought it to celebrate his verdict of 'innocent' by the city of Pasadena. The reparation money due him for the ordeal he had endured was more than enough for them to take a trip, and Talbain had always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty so it was off to New York, and they had dragged Aulbath along for the ride while Tasha had to work.
Speaking of Aulbath, he was probably the closest to the Statue out of the three. The merman was dressed in a Hawaiian t-shirt and khaki shorts and he had whiled away a good part of the morning talking to the local fisherman, glad to disprove the rumors about the merfolk being just a myth. He had also been talking to aspiring surfers and the night before he had been to Coney Island and had his first cheese chili Coney.
Talbain and Felicia had been walking around the shops for most of the morning now when their keen ears picked up on something the dull human ears around them did not: the sound of a piercing scream from high up on a high building.
Talbain's eyes darted upwards as he stared down the massive Twin Towers dominating the scene and he tackled Felicia in preparation, covering her, "Get down everyone!" No sooner had he said the words when a huge, high panel of glass shattered into tiny crystalline shards that fell like missiles to the ground below.
The screams rang out as several unwitting passersby were diced horribly by the downward spiraling projectiles. Talbain stood up, looking around, then up at the now visible hole in one of the higher floors of the left tower. His eyes narrowed slowly, "Felicia, please take care of these people: they need you here and now." Without another word, the gallant knight of a man assumed wolf form and sprinted inside on all fours.
The inside of the building was just as he had imagined from pictures in magazines, but now with various employees running to get out. Several of them saw him and one woman screamed, "Oh God! Another one!" and cowered in a corner.
Talbain was taken aback, "Look, I'm not going to hurt you but I need to know who did this. Can you speak?" The woman slowly nodded, her eyes wide with fear as Talbain stood over her.
He realized with a shock how imposing he was in this form as he looked into her gaping eyes and shifted back to human form. "There, see? I'm like you", he said as calmly as he possibly could, "Now please tell me what happened so I can help."
"I'll tell you what happened", a gruff man's voice cut in. Talbain turned around to see a short, stocky bearded yet bald man in work attire, sweat and dirt covering his face, "It was a monster in armor with a sword. He's killing everybody and unless you're on hell of a fighter you better get out of here before he kills you too buddy."
Talbain walked up to him and smiled, "Brooklyn, right?" The man blinked, a bit startled, "Yeah, I'm from there: what of it?" Talbain's grin widened a bit with confidence, "I fought a wererat from the Bronx once. I almost broke a sweat."
He assumed his wolf form and walked on up to the next level. The line had been laid and there was no going back. He would save the day or die trying now.
An elevator dinged beside him as he made it to the top of the stairs, and as the people poured out of it like frightened ants he was glad he had chosen the leg-straining route: at least this way he would get to the monster while the building was standing.
Thirty flights later he wasn't feeling so smart. He was starting to wish he had carried along a portable razor so he could shave off the fur for speed. People were running all around him, and frankly, if they thought they could get out that way more power to them he mused to himself.
Somehow, someway, he made it to the correct level. He recognized this fact on sight (albeit blurred sight by now) when he heard maniacal laughter followed by screams and the sounds of bloods spraying from dismembered limbs.
"Your yellow blood is not rich enough for the Hannya's taste", Bishamon sneered at a cowering group of businessmen, "But we are hungry and it will have to suffice."
The door kicked in about then. "I'm red-blooded these days, but I hope you like your meat tough", Talbain taunted, arms crossed over his chest.
Bishamon turned around to face his new opponent, "It's you! I thought I smelt you approaching this way, and now it seems I will not have to hunt you down."
Talbain took a step forward, lowering his hands in an aggressive position, "That's pretty funny, the hunted claiming to be the hunter. This ends now demon samurai."
Bishamon laughed at this, the face in his breastplate laughing with him, "Great fool: know you how long I have searched for thee? My hatred for events gone by knows no bounds and today I have my bloody revenge!"
Felicia sang a soft hymn of healing. As the sound waves began to drift over the victims, their wounds began to fade as if they had never been.
Just then, two figures stopped beside her. Both were female: heavily armed and dressed in the robes of Chinese ambassadors perhaps in the times when a Geisha was a position of honor and not simply a glorified whore. The woman on the left had blue skin and violet hair while the one on the right had pale skin and brown hair. Both had the same brown eyes, but while one's eyes were calm, the others' were wild.
The blue-skinned, wild-eyed one narrowed her eyes, "Sis, you should probably hang back and help Ms. Kitty tend to the sick and wounded. I'm going in."
The calm one simply nodded, "If you need me sister, you need only think of me."
The blue one nodded firmly with a grunt and walked forward into the building.
As Felicia began to pull the glass from some of the deeper wounds, she groaned in frustration at her ill success, "Stupid paws: they're too big for this."
"Please, allow me", the calm woman bent down beside her and began to aid her.
Felicia smiled, "You're an interesting face with interesting powers. I can tell."
The woman returned a quaint smile, "My name is Mei-Ling, but if you wish you may refer to me as Lin-Lin for that is my true name. My sister and I earn our wages vanquishing terrible evils such as the one that now plagues New York."
Felicia looked up at the hole in the tower, "My boyfriend is in there too."
The woman, Mei-Ling, placed a hand upon her shoulder, "I sensed him earlier. He is strong. Together with my sister, they should be a formidable challenge."
Bishamon charged headlong at Talbain, but the werewolf sweep kicked him and propelled him upward into the ceiling with a crash. The dark samurai retaliated with a lightning fast slash to his opponent's skull, narrowly dodged by Talbain.
The force from his own dodge was great enough to knock him off balance. Bishamon smiled, making a bizarre gesture with his left hand over his forehead, which to a samurai would be equal to a ninja removing his mask in a fight: a death mark.
As Talbain stood back up, Bishamon's smile widened, baring his jagged needle-like teeth as his eyes became a deeper red. Twin spirit flames appeared, one over each shoulder, and launched themselves at Talbain.
Talbain successfully flipped to the side of one, but was struck in the jaw with the other and knocked for a loop: right out the shattered window. Now literally clinging to life on the edge of the outer structure of the tower, he attempted to pull himself up.
It would have been relatively easy, but at that moment a dark figure stood over him. Bishamon stared down coldly, "Today you will do the falling." He raised his foot in the air at the knee, preparing to slam it down onto those grasping fingers.
Talbain closed his eyes, waiting for the end, but there was no end. He opened his eyes to stare up at Bishamon, who now stared outward, eyes wide. Stranger yet, an incredibly huge battle-axe was lunged outward through his chest as if from within.
As the evil samurai lowered to his knees, gagging, another figure walked out of the shadows behind him and offered Talbain a hand. Two brown eyes seemed to smile almost tauntingly down at the wolf, "You look like you could use a lift."
As Talbain took her hand, the blue-skinned woman pulled him to safety. He seemed to be looking past her and she crossed her arms angry, "No thanks? Jeez!"
"Behind you", Talbain said bluntly.
The woman barely had enough time to duck the sword chop. Bishamon was back up, the axe in his middle only having halted him momentarily. She jumped into place beside Talbain, who was already stanced.
"Know anything about ki manipulation?" Talbain said lowly to the woman.
She grinned casually, "You kidding? Being a Chinese ghost makes me a natural."
Talbain nodded, "In that case, what else can you do to stun this guy. I need about five minutes if you can manage it."
The woman cracked her neck side-to-side and grinned, "One hell of a gong coming right up." She pulled a humongous Oriental gong seemingly from nowhere as well as an equally large instrument to strike it with.
Talbain groaned, "You've got to be kidding."
Bishamon charged forward again, but was knocked back through several walls into another room by the sonic force of the gong being played with a deafening sound. The woman turned back and grinned to him, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
Talbain simply nodded, placing his hands together as he stanced, building an attack, "Whatever it takes: I need five to prepare this technique."
The woman turned and nodded, "Right: sure hope it's worth the trouble."
No sooner had she turned than Bishamon leapt through the wall and aimed an intense sword strike downward at her. The woman closed her eyes and focused her ki, forcing 'willpower' spikes upward from the ground to knock the samurai to the next level: the next level of the building that is.
This seemed to deter him for about three minutes while he tried to figure out how to get back down there, but the woman kept a watchful eye, knowing this wasn't over yet.
Her self-assured prediction came true as Bishamon literally swung himself down through a window and into the room again. He lunged at the woman, but she took aim with one of the long, triple-clawed blade weapons she stored in her absurdly long sleeves and knocked him aside with major scratches flat against the wall.
She slapped her forehead as he merely stood up, "Ok Hsien-Ko, that was lame. There has GOT to be something I can do to hold this guy a little longer."
Bishamon began striding towards her, laughing maniacally, but was knocked off-balance by the sudden dive of a new contestant: the mean, green Aulbath.
Aulbath stood ready, eyes narrowed, "I hope you've had your fun because it's time for you to be leaving this party."
Bishamon stood up, laughing again, "I am not so easily rid of. I have been waiting to gather a sufficient number of victims so I can perform a massive technique. I will now turn the energy of your own souls against you and force your bodies to explode from within. The blood should be enough to bathe in, heheheh."
Aulbath and Hsien-Ko took a step back. Aulbath looked to his friends, "Do you think maybe he is playing us for guppies?"
Hsien-Ko shook her head, "No, he means to do it. Look!"
At that moment, Bishamon was gathering a massive amount of soul energy around himself, laughing hysterically as he prepared for his revenge. "You thought I would be destroyed as easily as armor thrown over a cliff, but I am Bishamon, the immortal spirit of Bushido, and can never be destroyed!"
"Bushido is honor, and you have no honor Hannya", a low voice rumbled from seemingly nowhere. Bishamon's eyes widened, "You! Go away fool!"
"I was a fool, for letting you destroy my life", the voice continued, "But I will not go on letting you poison the future of this planet with your evil whims. Cease!"
Bishamon fell to his knees once more, gripping at his helm as his body began to contort into an unstable smoke, "Nooooooo!"
The armor fell empty with a clang. Talbain's hands burned with the energy in them, but he knew now that would not be necessary and lowered his hands.
"Finish it!" the voice from before rumbled. A samurai's ghost in deep blue robes with long, high-tied gray hair and dark eyes stood beside Talbain.
Talbain nodded silently and raised his hands, taking aim at the armor, "Dinner is served: DRAGON CANNON!!!" The blast went off, the flaming spiral line hitting target without a hitch. When the attack faded, so had the armor.
Talbain turned to face the ghost, but he had vanished as well, "Is it over?"
Hsien-Ko looked down at the burn stain on the ground, "Looks done to me."
Talbain crossed his arms, "N-O. I'm tired."
Felicia finished winding his bandages and laughed, "That's ok. You don't have to come shopping with me if you don't want to Jon."
Talbain looked up, "Really?"
Felicia grinned, "Yup. Found a new shopping buddy. She's a really nice oriental lady with a twin sister you might know."
Talbain went pale, "One of them wouldn't happen to be blue would they?"
Felicia nodded, "Yep! Can't miss Hsien-Ko's skin tone!"
Talbain said nothing. He just groaned some more.
DARKSTALKERS: THE SERIES WRITTEN BY REGIS A WELCH DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM
"For you, my friend, they are the angels of death."
-Man against monster. Monster against self. The story is as old as time. Living above us, below us, and among us, they assimilate themselves into our culture, and us into theirs. To the common man, they are simply known as night terrors, but to the initiated, they are the Darkstalkers-
EPISODE TWELVE: TERROR AT THE TWIN TOWERS
Talbain yawned. He wasn't used to being up this early, but Felicia had insisted they use at least some of the time and money from their vacation to hit a big mall. Talbain had asked why when she could hit the mall back home in California, and she had argued that they were in the Big Apple now so they had to do things on a grander scale. Talbain couldn't argue with that so he ended up tagging along at 6 am: opening hours.
Felicia was dressed in something both comfortable and Californian: 'skater' jean shorts and a tight black T-shirt that said "KITTY FOR HIRE" on the front in white. Talbain had on something a little more sensible: black jeans and a crimson colored collared short-sleeve shirt.
He thought it both nice to look at yet comfortable enough to not be a pain in the tail when he bought it to celebrate his verdict of 'innocent' by the city of Pasadena. The reparation money due him for the ordeal he had endured was more than enough for them to take a trip, and Talbain had always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty so it was off to New York, and they had dragged Aulbath along for the ride while Tasha had to work.
Speaking of Aulbath, he was probably the closest to the Statue out of the three. The merman was dressed in a Hawaiian t-shirt and khaki shorts and he had whiled away a good part of the morning talking to the local fisherman, glad to disprove the rumors about the merfolk being just a myth. He had also been talking to aspiring surfers and the night before he had been to Coney Island and had his first cheese chili Coney.
Talbain and Felicia had been walking around the shops for most of the morning now when their keen ears picked up on something the dull human ears around them did not: the sound of a piercing scream from high up on a high building.
Talbain's eyes darted upwards as he stared down the massive Twin Towers dominating the scene and he tackled Felicia in preparation, covering her, "Get down everyone!" No sooner had he said the words when a huge, high panel of glass shattered into tiny crystalline shards that fell like missiles to the ground below.
The screams rang out as several unwitting passersby were diced horribly by the downward spiraling projectiles. Talbain stood up, looking around, then up at the now visible hole in one of the higher floors of the left tower. His eyes narrowed slowly, "Felicia, please take care of these people: they need you here and now." Without another word, the gallant knight of a man assumed wolf form and sprinted inside on all fours.
The inside of the building was just as he had imagined from pictures in magazines, but now with various employees running to get out. Several of them saw him and one woman screamed, "Oh God! Another one!" and cowered in a corner.
Talbain was taken aback, "Look, I'm not going to hurt you but I need to know who did this. Can you speak?" The woman slowly nodded, her eyes wide with fear as Talbain stood over her.
He realized with a shock how imposing he was in this form as he looked into her gaping eyes and shifted back to human form. "There, see? I'm like you", he said as calmly as he possibly could, "Now please tell me what happened so I can help."
"I'll tell you what happened", a gruff man's voice cut in. Talbain turned around to see a short, stocky bearded yet bald man in work attire, sweat and dirt covering his face, "It was a monster in armor with a sword. He's killing everybody and unless you're on hell of a fighter you better get out of here before he kills you too buddy."
Talbain walked up to him and smiled, "Brooklyn, right?" The man blinked, a bit startled, "Yeah, I'm from there: what of it?" Talbain's grin widened a bit with confidence, "I fought a wererat from the Bronx once. I almost broke a sweat."
He assumed his wolf form and walked on up to the next level. The line had been laid and there was no going back. He would save the day or die trying now.
An elevator dinged beside him as he made it to the top of the stairs, and as the people poured out of it like frightened ants he was glad he had chosen the leg-straining route: at least this way he would get to the monster while the building was standing.
Thirty flights later he wasn't feeling so smart. He was starting to wish he had carried along a portable razor so he could shave off the fur for speed. People were running all around him, and frankly, if they thought they could get out that way more power to them he mused to himself.
Somehow, someway, he made it to the correct level. He recognized this fact on sight (albeit blurred sight by now) when he heard maniacal laughter followed by screams and the sounds of bloods spraying from dismembered limbs.
"Your yellow blood is not rich enough for the Hannya's taste", Bishamon sneered at a cowering group of businessmen, "But we are hungry and it will have to suffice."
The door kicked in about then. "I'm red-blooded these days, but I hope you like your meat tough", Talbain taunted, arms crossed over his chest.
Bishamon turned around to face his new opponent, "It's you! I thought I smelt you approaching this way, and now it seems I will not have to hunt you down."
Talbain took a step forward, lowering his hands in an aggressive position, "That's pretty funny, the hunted claiming to be the hunter. This ends now demon samurai."
Bishamon laughed at this, the face in his breastplate laughing with him, "Great fool: know you how long I have searched for thee? My hatred for events gone by knows no bounds and today I have my bloody revenge!"
Felicia sang a soft hymn of healing. As the sound waves began to drift over the victims, their wounds began to fade as if they had never been.
Just then, two figures stopped beside her. Both were female: heavily armed and dressed in the robes of Chinese ambassadors perhaps in the times when a Geisha was a position of honor and not simply a glorified whore. The woman on the left had blue skin and violet hair while the one on the right had pale skin and brown hair. Both had the same brown eyes, but while one's eyes were calm, the others' were wild.
The blue-skinned, wild-eyed one narrowed her eyes, "Sis, you should probably hang back and help Ms. Kitty tend to the sick and wounded. I'm going in."
The calm one simply nodded, "If you need me sister, you need only think of me."
The blue one nodded firmly with a grunt and walked forward into the building.
As Felicia began to pull the glass from some of the deeper wounds, she groaned in frustration at her ill success, "Stupid paws: they're too big for this."
"Please, allow me", the calm woman bent down beside her and began to aid her.
Felicia smiled, "You're an interesting face with interesting powers. I can tell."
The woman returned a quaint smile, "My name is Mei-Ling, but if you wish you may refer to me as Lin-Lin for that is my true name. My sister and I earn our wages vanquishing terrible evils such as the one that now plagues New York."
Felicia looked up at the hole in the tower, "My boyfriend is in there too."
The woman, Mei-Ling, placed a hand upon her shoulder, "I sensed him earlier. He is strong. Together with my sister, they should be a formidable challenge."
Bishamon charged headlong at Talbain, but the werewolf sweep kicked him and propelled him upward into the ceiling with a crash. The dark samurai retaliated with a lightning fast slash to his opponent's skull, narrowly dodged by Talbain.
The force from his own dodge was great enough to knock him off balance. Bishamon smiled, making a bizarre gesture with his left hand over his forehead, which to a samurai would be equal to a ninja removing his mask in a fight: a death mark.
As Talbain stood back up, Bishamon's smile widened, baring his jagged needle-like teeth as his eyes became a deeper red. Twin spirit flames appeared, one over each shoulder, and launched themselves at Talbain.
Talbain successfully flipped to the side of one, but was struck in the jaw with the other and knocked for a loop: right out the shattered window. Now literally clinging to life on the edge of the outer structure of the tower, he attempted to pull himself up.
It would have been relatively easy, but at that moment a dark figure stood over him. Bishamon stared down coldly, "Today you will do the falling." He raised his foot in the air at the knee, preparing to slam it down onto those grasping fingers.
Talbain closed his eyes, waiting for the end, but there was no end. He opened his eyes to stare up at Bishamon, who now stared outward, eyes wide. Stranger yet, an incredibly huge battle-axe was lunged outward through his chest as if from within.
As the evil samurai lowered to his knees, gagging, another figure walked out of the shadows behind him and offered Talbain a hand. Two brown eyes seemed to smile almost tauntingly down at the wolf, "You look like you could use a lift."
As Talbain took her hand, the blue-skinned woman pulled him to safety. He seemed to be looking past her and she crossed her arms angry, "No thanks? Jeez!"
"Behind you", Talbain said bluntly.
The woman barely had enough time to duck the sword chop. Bishamon was back up, the axe in his middle only having halted him momentarily. She jumped into place beside Talbain, who was already stanced.
"Know anything about ki manipulation?" Talbain said lowly to the woman.
She grinned casually, "You kidding? Being a Chinese ghost makes me a natural."
Talbain nodded, "In that case, what else can you do to stun this guy. I need about five minutes if you can manage it."
The woman cracked her neck side-to-side and grinned, "One hell of a gong coming right up." She pulled a humongous Oriental gong seemingly from nowhere as well as an equally large instrument to strike it with.
Talbain groaned, "You've got to be kidding."
Bishamon charged forward again, but was knocked back through several walls into another room by the sonic force of the gong being played with a deafening sound. The woman turned back and grinned to him, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
Talbain simply nodded, placing his hands together as he stanced, building an attack, "Whatever it takes: I need five to prepare this technique."
The woman turned and nodded, "Right: sure hope it's worth the trouble."
No sooner had she turned than Bishamon leapt through the wall and aimed an intense sword strike downward at her. The woman closed her eyes and focused her ki, forcing 'willpower' spikes upward from the ground to knock the samurai to the next level: the next level of the building that is.
This seemed to deter him for about three minutes while he tried to figure out how to get back down there, but the woman kept a watchful eye, knowing this wasn't over yet.
Her self-assured prediction came true as Bishamon literally swung himself down through a window and into the room again. He lunged at the woman, but she took aim with one of the long, triple-clawed blade weapons she stored in her absurdly long sleeves and knocked him aside with major scratches flat against the wall.
She slapped her forehead as he merely stood up, "Ok Hsien-Ko, that was lame. There has GOT to be something I can do to hold this guy a little longer."
Bishamon began striding towards her, laughing maniacally, but was knocked off-balance by the sudden dive of a new contestant: the mean, green Aulbath.
Aulbath stood ready, eyes narrowed, "I hope you've had your fun because it's time for you to be leaving this party."
Bishamon stood up, laughing again, "I am not so easily rid of. I have been waiting to gather a sufficient number of victims so I can perform a massive technique. I will now turn the energy of your own souls against you and force your bodies to explode from within. The blood should be enough to bathe in, heheheh."
Aulbath and Hsien-Ko took a step back. Aulbath looked to his friends, "Do you think maybe he is playing us for guppies?"
Hsien-Ko shook her head, "No, he means to do it. Look!"
At that moment, Bishamon was gathering a massive amount of soul energy around himself, laughing hysterically as he prepared for his revenge. "You thought I would be destroyed as easily as armor thrown over a cliff, but I am Bishamon, the immortal spirit of Bushido, and can never be destroyed!"
"Bushido is honor, and you have no honor Hannya", a low voice rumbled from seemingly nowhere. Bishamon's eyes widened, "You! Go away fool!"
"I was a fool, for letting you destroy my life", the voice continued, "But I will not go on letting you poison the future of this planet with your evil whims. Cease!"
Bishamon fell to his knees once more, gripping at his helm as his body began to contort into an unstable smoke, "Nooooooo!"
The armor fell empty with a clang. Talbain's hands burned with the energy in them, but he knew now that would not be necessary and lowered his hands.
"Finish it!" the voice from before rumbled. A samurai's ghost in deep blue robes with long, high-tied gray hair and dark eyes stood beside Talbain.
Talbain nodded silently and raised his hands, taking aim at the armor, "Dinner is served: DRAGON CANNON!!!" The blast went off, the flaming spiral line hitting target without a hitch. When the attack faded, so had the armor.
Talbain turned to face the ghost, but he had vanished as well, "Is it over?"
Hsien-Ko looked down at the burn stain on the ground, "Looks done to me."
Talbain crossed his arms, "N-O. I'm tired."
Felicia finished winding his bandages and laughed, "That's ok. You don't have to come shopping with me if you don't want to Jon."
Talbain looked up, "Really?"
Felicia grinned, "Yup. Found a new shopping buddy. She's a really nice oriental lady with a twin sister you might know."
Talbain went pale, "One of them wouldn't happen to be blue would they?"
Felicia nodded, "Yep! Can't miss Hsien-Ko's skin tone!"
Talbain said nothing. He just groaned some more.
DARKSTALKERS: THE SERIES WRITTEN BY REGIS A WELCH DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM