Void Contract
Chapter Two: Taste of Death
obsidianfox
Started: June 29, 2004
Last Updated: July 14, 2004
Since time immemorial, it has been the sworn duty of the martial artist to protect mankind from monsters.
-- Genma Saotome
(ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
After a quick sprint, Pop and I stumble into the site of the screams. Stumble is definitely the right word; even we, with our excellent balance, have a hard time standing when facing death.
A woman in a white dress with dark locks of hair lies broken in her final rest upon a concrete stair. A child that witnessed a death is overcome by anger. She's blind with tears and hidden fears; she doesn't see the danger.
A creature stands over the body of an attractive woman, who lies upon concrete stairs in the park. A pool of blood surrounds the woman's head, a bloody halo to her angelic face. Near the woman, stunned, crying, staring into the eyes of the creature is a young girl, dressed in a blue kimono. She just stands there, looking at the monster in its eyes; her legs shake, barely visible under her kimono. A half dozen meters away, a man stands near some trees, watching the scene with a look of horror and fear on his face.
I catch, with my breath, my first taste of death.
The woman isn't breathing. She's dead. I'm surprised at how easily my mind accepts this fact. And the girl will die too, if I don't do something about it.
I turn to face, for the first time, the creature that caused all this damage. It sits in a crouching position upon its four clawed legs, as though ready to jump. It is tall and gangly, just a little under my own height even in its current crouching position; it looks a little like an overgrown and underfed dog, with a long and scrawny body resting upon even longer and scrawnier legs. But instead of a dog's snout, it sports a large beak capable of shattering a man's leg. Its hairless skin is a mottled yellow, covered with oozing pustules. Two very long and dangerous looking clawed arms with three joints each grow out of its back.
With my moment of observation over, time snaps back to its normal pace.
"Shiina! Get over here! Get away from that... THING!" shouts the man, surprisingly, in Japanese.
Shiina -- an ominous name. But it doesn't mean she should die young. As the creature raises a clawed, three jointed arm to strike the girl, I take a step to run in.
But Genma is the first to recover. His face hardens. "NOOOO!" he shouts. He charges in and scoops up the girl just as a wicked claw swipes towards her belly. Genma shifts to take the blow for the girl, tucking her under his arms and guarding her back and head. The claw sweeps into him, leaving three gashes across his midsection, tearing open his panda tattoo, and sending both him and the child careening, rolling, and bouncing past me.
Pop bounces and rolls to a stop against a tree. A red stain slowly grows upon his torn gi.
"Pop!" I shout. He doesn't respond, but I see his breathing; it is deep, calm. He's unconscious, but he'll be okay. The weight of a mountain leaves my shoulders. I slip out of our oversized pack, and the weight of that leaves my shoulders too.
I look at the girl. She is pounding at my father, trying to escape his vice-like grip.
"Let me go! I'll kill it! I'm going to kill it! Let me kill that bastard! Let me GO!" she screams, wailing, crying against him, striking him as best she can. Fortunately for pop, her movement and the force of her strikes are restricted by his arms.
The creature's clawed arm, opposite me, drips with the blood of my father.
I hear a growl and a snarl, then realize it is my own as I feel my body drop into a low combat stance, ready to sprint at a moment's notice. I'm angry at this thing which harmed my father, whom I've once again begun to respect. I think, briefly, about the woman it killed, but the permanence of that death hasn't yet reached my heart. I'm shaking, scared, unsure whether I can even hurt this creature, should I even manage to get close enough to it; after all, it just casually knocked my bulky father over twenty meters, and tore into him with clawed arms.
And my father beat me to a pulp a full dozen times this very morning.
It turns its baleful eyes towards me. They are a deep, fiery gold and orange, slitted as a cat's. I glare back at it in return, challenging its stare. Time to charge! What the? My legs betray me. They don't move. I feel my knees shaking.
The creature opens its beak and releases a powerful "SCREEEECH!" Then it turns away from me and begins to approach the man cowering between a few trees. It approaches the man casually, slowly. The man stares the creature in the eyes rather than running... but his legs are shake more than my own.
Gotta... protect... the... weak. I shove that through my head and body as hard as I can, and I feel the locks on my legs give just a little. I push, as hard as I can, away from my current position, but as hard as I try to push my feet still don't leave the ground.
The man whimpers, still staring up at the hideous creature. A wet stain grows on the inside of his pants.
I see the creature raise one of its three-jointed arms, about to strike the man. No! I couldn't prevent the death of that woman before I got here, but nobody is going to die now that I'm here! I continue to struggle to move. I need to move NOW!
Then suddenly, my body lurches into motion: a full sprint towards the creature. I launch a punch into its exposed side, forcing all my weight and strength into the blow. The creature's side caves a little, then it is sent stumbling away from the man and I, coming to a stop as slams into a distant tree.
Good! I can at least knock it around! It doesn't even weigh as much as Oyaji.
"Die! Hideous demon!" I shout my war cry, then sprint after it.
It lifts itself back to its feet then opens its beak to let out another horrid "SCREEEEECH!" Then it leaps to meet me with all six of its claws prepared to strike. The arms growing from its back are in a position where they can strike me if I try to dodge to the side or jump over it.
Yikes!
My heart beats a bit faster. I don't see any openings; those three-jointed arms are longer than I am tall, and cover all angles. Well, perhaps I can bounce off of one of the arms.
No more time! I dodge left and kick my legs out, pushing myself away from its clawed arm.
SLICE! SLAM!
"AAAAAAH!" I yell in agony. Three fiery gashes tear into me, just below my right hip. I fly spinning rapidly through the air like a ballet dancer in an insane, sideways pirouette.
By instinct, I shift my position in the air until I'm spinning head over heal, then land on my feet rolling backwards. After two more somersaults, I come to a stop just in front of a tree large. I look to see the creature sprinting and loping towards me.
A plan forms. I grin. I wait.
As soon as the creature is committed to the charge, I jump into the air to grab the branches above me. Fiery pain lances up my injured leg and I stumble a bit as I jump. Shit! I forgot the injury!
Even as I reach to grab the branches above me, the creature below slams beak-first into the tree behind me. However, one of its arms whip into my left leg, slamming me backwards and downwards, towards the trunk and away from the branches. I feel and hear a sickening crack in the leg that was struck; the femur is broken.
A deep, penetrating pain drowns the fire from my right leg.
My head whips back into the tree and for a few moments I go limp. My body bounces off the tree, and I fall to the ground like a rag doll a few meters away from the creature.
I slowly, forcefully bring myself back to a standing position, favoring my right leg, which has a few painful gashes in it, over my left leg, which is broken.
Actually, the pain in my right leg has already subsided. Well, I heal fast; it must have been a shallower cut than I had thought.
I watch the creature slowly lift itself off the ground, then shake its head as if to clear it. A motion to step forward is halted by lancing pain. The demon turns towards me and looks me in the eyes; for a brief moment, I see something powerful flash, deep in those slitted golden flames. Then my right leg gives out; I land on my butt, quaking in fear.
It begins to approach me casually, slowly, as it had approached the man cowering in the wood. Those fiery, slitted golden orbs hold my gaze. I try look around, but I can't look away. My heart beats rapidly. My arms quiver and fail when I try to push myself away.
I can only watch as those fiery orbs get closer, and one of its arms raise to strike me.
Suddenly I realize: it's the eyes! They have some sort of power. I try to close my eyes, but I don't even have time to blink as the claw lashes down. It strikes me cleanly across the throat with its clawed hand. I feel myself twisting, flying through the air headfirst towards a tree.
The world goes dark.
(ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
What feels to me like moments later, I open my eyes, and raise a hand to my throat. I don't feel any injury; perhaps the creature didn't actually use its claws. My body is tired; I feel worn out, but I stand up carefully and put a little weight on my left leg. My ki seems to have worked its magic again, and fixed my bone.
In the distance, I hear a shout; it's my father's voice. Following that, I hear another horrid screech, muted by the distance. I begin running towards it.
"Pop!" I shout as I run into the clearing. I spend a brief moment taking in the scene.
My father is standing a few meters in front of the creature, looking it right in the eyes, standing still. He is bleeding from gashes in his belly, chest, and right leg; his right arm hangs limp, broken.
The creature approaches my pop slowly. One of the creature's arms is missing, leaving only the first joint as a stump. A half dozen small knives penetrate the thing's side, slowly releasing a sickly yellow ichor. It limps a little as it moves.
Nearby, a girl slumps against a tree, bleeding from her forehead, holding an obviously broken arm, unconscious, and breathing raggedly. The man I saved earlier is broken against another tree; there is a large gash in his chest, and a tree limb penetrating his belly. He is no longer breathing.
I sprint to save my father, and again punch the thing in the side, again sending it flying and bouncing away. It slams into a distant tree. My father still stands, his eyes following the creature, his legs still shaking.
"Pop! Snap out of it! Don't look the thing in the eyes!" I slap my father, hard, knocking him to the ground.
Genma looks dazed for a moment, then looks at me. Suddenly he rushes to me, sweeping me into a huge hug with his uninjured arm; tears fill his eyes. "Boy! You're alive! Kami, thank you!"
"SCREEEECH!" The creature wails again as it lifts itself back to its feet.
"No time for that, pop! We've gotta kill that thing before it kills again! Don't look into its eyes!"
Genma's eyes widen momentarily. "So that's it," he says. He turns towards the creature, and takes a low stance. "Then look at its legs, boy!"
The creature takes a look at Genma and Ranma, then takes a few steps towards them, limping. It shakes itself briefly, as a wet dog entering a warm, dry home. "SCREEEECH!" The creature turns its body, takes one last glance back at the two martial artists, then starts loping away.
"Argh." I snarl and start chasing the beast. It is going to DIE! With a powerful screech, the creature begins to move faster. And faster. I push myself to keep up.
"Boy! Wait!" I hear pop shout from behind me. "Not again!" I hear, distant. Then I'm gone.
(ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
Huff. Huff. Exhausted, I pause briefly to catch my breath, and look around to see if I can find the beast. From my vantage point, high in a tree, I see only the surrounding forest. Beams of sunlight penetrate the canopy above; the shadows below wave and wander as a slight gust shakes the trees.
A streak of yellow blasts from the shadows, through the sunlight, and back to the shadows.
There! I leap to another tree, following at top speed. As soon my feet touch the branch, I shove off again and fly to yet another tree. Tree to tree to tree... even so, I can track it. Barely. As I land, I catch another glimpse; mottled yellow tail and legs disappear into yet another shadow. I leap to follow.
I had tried to chase it on the ground, but that was a lost cause; the thing kept disappearing into shadow and moving deeper into the forested park. It had even ambushed me earlier; I had escaped by leaping into the trees. Without my father, I can't defeat this thing if it ambushes me... even if it is missing one arm. I'm not stupid; one look into its eyes, and I'd be toast.
My father hadn't followed... maybe due to his leg injury, or because he needed to help that girl. Whatever. It doesn't matter; this thing is MINE. It killed someone I was supposed to protect.
And I CAN defeat it if I engage it on my own terms. It is injured and missing an arm; that leaves a full side open. The creature won't stand a chance. But first I need to catch it. Thus I follow... tree to tree.
Leap. Leap. Leap. I dodge under, over, through foliage and branches in my way; my body flies horizontally as I fly between two narrowly spaced branches. I twist and leap off yet another branch...
And into sunlight. Searing white light surrounds me as I leave the wooded park behind. A moment later, my eyes, used to the shadows, adjust to the glare of noon-day Hong Kong. And I'm falling. Below me is a busy highway, moving slowly in the lunchtime traffic jam; cars and trucks honk madly.
Sitting on one of the larger trucks in the distance is the demon. It stares at me, its head quirked to one side. I faintly hear it release a screech.
Below it, I see the driver's white, muscled fist reach out of the truck window, shake madly, and twist to flip off the creature on the his roof.
I focus my attention below me. Just a little adjustment and... THUNK! I land on the roof of a passing car, putting a deep dent in its roof. I immediately fall to my butt as the car continues to move forward below me, and I reach out and grab a hand over the front windshield of the car to prevent myself from rolling off.
Briefly, I look up to see that the forest ended in a plateau in order to allow the highway to be cut through it. That is why I was able to fall so far.
I bend down and look into the driver's window. The woman at the wheel looks shocked white, scared. "Gomen!" I shout at her, looking into the back and passenger seats. Thank kami! Nobody else was in the car, and nobody was hurt by that dent. As I turn to leap away, I hear her shout something angrily in Chinese.
I take off to a nearby car roof, chasing after the creature. For a moment, it sits and watches me, then takes off to the roof of another car. The chase is on.
Briefly I land on the truck the creature had been resting on, and glance inside to see the man that dared flip his birdie at a demon.
He was a white man, well toned, with a shock of dirty blonde hair and a stubble shadow. He glances at me, grabs his broadcast radio and begins to speak into it. In English. " Did you ever wonder where the excitement went on your lunch break. Well, for Jack Burton the excitement never ends. Jack Burton has yet another story for you... a story of an American truck driver stuck for some godforsaken reason in Hong Kong. Let me tell you; life ain't easy. Like that ancient Chinese curse, they say... ".
I shake my head, having caught only a little of it, then leap after the creature.
"Chikuso!" I shout. The creature has gained distance while I looked at the truck driver. I sprint after it, jumping from the roofs and hoods of trucks and cars. On occasion, I see spots of yellow ichor staining the cars below me; the thing is bleeding. Even so, the creature has a huge lead...
Remembering what pop told me this morning, I try to focus my mind on pushing ki into my legs in order to gain speed, but I don't feel a thing and I don't get a bit faster.
So I continue to sprint after the creature as best I can, putting small dents in cars and leaving dozens of drivers shaking their fists at me.
Throwing knives, like those stuck in the creature's side would be SO nice at a time like this. Or, better, energy blasts! I briefly entertain the thought of shooting a huge yellow bolts of ki energy from my fists, blasting the creature around like a character from that Mortal Kombat game I played once in middle school. Some little kid beat the crap out of my character by shooting little yellow bolts while I madly mashed buttons. It was quite embarrassing; I blush just remembering it. Kapow! A huge bolt flies towards the creature, if only in my mind.
My brief fantasy somehow ends darkly as the creature bounces away to the safety of yet another car. I imagine the car it was just standing upon getting blown to smithereens, along with everyone inside.
Darn! I can't even catch this thing in my fantasies?
What am I thinking? I shake my head to clear it from the lightheadedness due to running too hard, too far, too fast, too long. I need to focus! I clear thought from my mind, and focus on my breathing, forcing it from ragged and strained to a more even pace.
The demon ahead of me takes this opportunity to gain a little distance.
New thoughts grow to fill the void that briefly was my mind. I WILL catch it. I will KILL it.
Ever so slowly, I begin to reclaim lost distance on the beaked demon.
(ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
"Damn you!" I gasp out. "Why couldn't you just stand still and die!?"
The creature doesn't answer... it doesn't even release one of its horrid screeches. Not that there is a good answer for such a ridiculous question.
My legs and chest burn from exertion. I had chased the creature through parks on the outskirts of Hong Kong, then along the highway from car to car, then through the alleys and across the rooftops of Hong Kong inner city.
Where was that thing going? Did it have a goal, or was it just running away from me? I banish these thoughts; for now, my job is to destroy the demon.
We stand on the same roof now. I've caught up with it.
The beast sits there, on the other side of the roof, watching me carefully. Its chest heaves up and down, and it carries itself with a limp upon its rear right paw. I carefully avoid looking it in the eyes, but from what I can see, It doesn't look to be doing any better than I am. Another thick splash of yellow ichor hits the ground. In fact, it's probably doing worse than I; whatever that fluid is, this creature has lost a lot of it, while I'm not bleeding at all.
A gust of wind whips through. A discarded burger wrapper bounces and skitters across the roof between us. Showdown.
I grin and charge the beast. A war cry dies on the tip of my tongue; that breath is better used in the charge. Out of the corner of my eyes, which are busy watching its feet, I vaguely see the thing's remaining clawed arm raise to strike me. My only response is a smirk.
With a brief step, I dodge to the creature's vulnerable side, and lash out with a fist.
SLAM!
The creature goes flying off the rooftop, uncontrolled in its fall. Heh. I give myself a little smirk. The cement below should kill it, or leave it stunned long enough for me to finish the job. I step forward to look over the edge, and feel a little resistance against moving my shoe. I look down. Ewww! I had stepped in a puddle of that yellow ichor. I peel my foot away from the sticky puddle, then look over the edge.
The creature falls, initially flailing through the air until it slams through the window of a building a few dozen stories down. I frown; the building won't hurt it the way cement would have. I briefly remember being smashed through a few buildings by my own oyaji; it never hurts much unless I hit the plumbing or a major support beam.
I jump after it.
I grin stupidly as the rush of air surrounds me and my stomach moves towards my throat; I've always loved free-fall. After a few seconds I prepare myself for the landing, zoom through the already shattered window, then roll to a quick stop.
Even so, the landing hurt. I stand up on sore legs, and hear my back pop a half dozen times. I grimace a little, and roll my head once, hearing a few more popping noises, and then take stock of my surroundings.
The creature lies near me, currently not moving at all in a shallow crater of its own making.
Several Chinese men in expensive looking suits stare at me with stupid looks on their faces, although an older man just has a scowl. Glass and paper is scattered about the room; the glass from the broken window, the paper due to the wind.
A fat white man with a mop of brown hair lies in a growing pool of blood at a desk with a pen in his hand. A paper flutters from the desk due to a sudden gust of wind, landing between the demon and me.
Shoot! I didn't kill anyone, did I? My face turns white at the thought. Then I notice something very important; all these men in business suits are armed with pistols. I glance back at the man on the desk, and see that no shards of glass are near him.
Ah! Something inside me clicks.
Uh-oh! Something inside me panics.
I glance back to the other men, and hear the older man shout something in Chinese. Those pistols are pointed at me.
Then I hear the creature shift, and see several of those pistols swing to target it.
An idea forms. Heh... maybe they can help me kill it! I take a few sudden steps towards the creature; shots ring out, but I don't feel anything hit me. Then I dive behind the slowly standing demon so it is between me and those pistols.
THUD! THUD! THUD THUD THUD! Bullet after bullet hits and penetrates the creature's side, causing it to drop back towards the ground. I push it back up as a shield. THUD THUD THUD! The sudden movement spurs another firing frenzy, and bullets continue to strike the creature.
Fortunately, none of the bullets can penetrate all the way through the creature.
My shoulder gets covered with that icky yellow ichor from the creature's knife wounds. Ah! Throwing knives! I pull five knives from the thing's side, and look at them. They might be useful if I can wash them, I decide, but at the moment they are covered in sticky yellow ichor.
My mind wanders a bit. Is my aim still decent? I haven't thrown a knife in over five years, and I never did get very good with them. I recall Pop yelling at me as yet another knife bounces off a target after striking with the hilt, "You gotta do better than that, boy!"
Then the I hear the hail of bullets stop, and hear someone shouting in Chinese. I take a peek over the edge of the creature... and see right up the business end of a really BIG pistol. The older man is carrying it. Eep! I blink. The old man again shouts something to me in Chinese, but I don't catch a word... yet whatever he commanded, I'll be shot if I don't do it.
Well, time for the Saotome final maneuver. I duck back under the demon, then shove it upwards and towards the old man and his companions. The demon flies limply through the air, knocking the men backwards; several gunshots ring out, but the bullets hit the ground and ceiling. Another plane of glass crashes down behind me.
I jump backwards out the window.
Ah! Back to free fall. It isn't nearly as scary as those guns... at least not for me.
I reach up to free some piece of paper that got stuck to my foot. It peels away from my sticky shoe; a few spots of yellow ichor dot it. I toss the stray paper to the wind. I look about and see I have plenty of time before landing. Ah, good! A parked car. That will soften the landing. Now I prepare.
Then I strike a parked car and roll off of it as I land. The car blares a loud siren at me, seemingly upset with having its roof caved in.
My body groans in protest once again as I straighten myself.
I glance up briefly, and see the old man scowling down at me, his gun held casually at his side... although it is hard to tell any real features from this distance. The man doesn't try to shoot me.
That man is probably a murderer.
I think about those guns. Well... it is the law's place to handle him. My job is done.
I smirk and flip my middle finger at the man as I saw that American truck driver, Jack Burton, do to the demon. Then I turn to stagger and run away as fast as my protesting body can carry me.
(ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)
A stray sheet of paper whips through the air, carried by wind and bad karma. A car rushes underneath it, and it whips back into the air briefly, then finally settles into its final resting place.
The boy blinks a few times to clear his vision, then realizes what is blocking it. He growls and tears the sheet of paper out of his hair, wincing briefly as several of his hairs go with it, stuck via some sort of yellow glue. The boy reaches up and adjusts his randomly checkered yellow bandanna, then takes a moment to read the document.
He frowns.
The boy can't read Chinese, and those couple lines of roman characters and numbers don't seem to have any meaning.
HONK! HONK!
The boy doesn't hear the honking behind him.
SLAM!
The boy is face first in the road, still holding the paper at arm's length in front of him. The eighteen-wheeler screeches to a halt a little further down the road, and a white truck driver with good muscle tone, a shock of dirty blonde hair, and a stubble shadow steps out of the truck, running towards the flattened boy. " Oh my god! Are you hurt? What the hell am I asking? Of course he's hurt! He's probably dead. Who could surv... " He pauses as the boy slowly lifts himself off the ground. " Oh yeah. Last time this happened the man tried to kill me and marry my girl. Interesting days. Perhaps I should go help him up? Or should I run like hell? "
The boy stands up, and dusts off his yellow shirt. Then he looks at the man who is wavering between concerned and scared. He waves the man off and growls, " Get out of here! And watch where you're driving, next time! "
The man almost scampers back to the truck, mumbling something about insane Chinese martial artists.
The boy takes one last look at the paper. He raises his arms and face to the skies, and he shouts, "RAAANMAAA! This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"
HONK! HONK!
SLAM!