Oh, dammit. ON WITH THE VIOLENCE!
The door in the wall swung open, allowing two boys of radically different heights into the alley. The half-moon had risen over the island, shining down on the thoroughly salted streets and sidewalks. To anyone they passed they were simply two friends out for a walk before bed. However, these boys were on a business trip.
Jordan Street was relatively quiet. Behind the wall of downtown office buildings they knew the industrial mess of the North Beach was waiting. Their target was the warehouse on the waterfront.
"I'm nervous," Raiden confessed finally. "Us two against everything the LIST's got? It's iffy at best."
"Good. You should be scared."
"What? Why?"
"Because if we charge into this with no fear, we'll get too big-headed and bang"-he crashed his hands together to illustrate and made Raiden jump in the process-"we get shot dead."
"Are you sure we can't bring some cops along?"
"Are the cops going to listen to a Wilybot and an identified LIST member?"
Raiden grinned weakly. "Maybe...?"
"Maybe not. Nope, we're going to have to do this ourselves."
They stopped and waited for the light to change at the corner of Jordan and Hudson. Raiden identified it as the area in which he had first run into Bladewing. The analog clock read 9:02 PM. The small store with 'Masou Parts Shop' in the window was dark and silent.
"Ray!" Thor hissed.
"Yeah?"
"Over there, across the road!"
Raiden squinted through the night at the opposite sidewalk. Three people were heading westward toward them along Jordan. Two of them looked like they were in their early twenties, but the last seemed no taller than three feet.
"One guess at who they are," muttered Thor.
"Spectre and Mizuri and Rast...? Where are they going?"
Thor shrugged in reply. "Five hundred zenny says they're looking for me."
The trio of Strike Teamers halted in front of the Masou Parts Shop, talking quietly amongst themselves. The streetlight had changed and Raiden and Thor could have crossed, but they were far more interested in seeing what the three were up to.
"C'mon, let's jump 'em now. They'll never figure out what happened." The American was almost hopping on the spot.
"Practise what you preach-we have to be careful. I somehow don't think they're hunting you."
Spectre knocked on the door of the parts shop. It took nearly a full minute for it to open, exposing a woman's face. She must have recognized him, since she tried to push the door shut but the black-haired robot stopped it with his foot. The three LIST members grinned at each other and forced their way into the store.
Raiden nodded. "Okay, now we attack."
Thor and Raiden took off across the street. The light inside the shop flickered on, drenching the sidewalk outside in a golden glow.
They skidded to a halt in front of the door. There was very little sound from inside the store. The outlines of the LIST members moved back and forth in front of the window.
Then there was a loud crash and a scream.
The two robots switched to their armor and charged into the shop.
The place was cluttered with electronics ranging from ancient refrigerators to brand-new Pentium 9 nanochips. Mizuri was behind the glass counter, sorting through a small box of equipment and occasionally dropping a minuscule item into his backpack. Rast was scrambling to his feet from under a fallen shelving unit. Spectre was in the middle of the centre aisle at the end of which was the door, a battered-looking .45 handgun pressed against the side of the brown-haired woman's head.
Everything stopped when Raiden and Thor barged into the store. The two parties stared at each other, the woman caught in the middle looking frightened and a bit confused.
"So," Mizuri said finally. "You did run off to be with your little buddy."
"Get the hell away from her before I feel required to beat the shit out of you," Thor growled. There was a very loud click as Spectre pulled back the hammer of his gun.
"He said back off, asshole!" Raiden yelled, pushing past Thor and freeing his Triple Spear from his back. He would have unloaded his full ten thousand volts on Spectre right there but the LIST-bot was in contact with the woman; ten thousand would fry her as well.
"I'm sorry," Spectre purred smoothly, "but you're not in much of a position to be giving out orders."
"Leave her alone!"
A blast of water knocked the gun out of Spectre's hand to skitter across the tiles and stop at Raiden's feet. A twelve-year-old straw-haired girl stood in a small doorway behind the counter and just to the left of Mizuri, her buster pointed at Spectre's head.
"Get out of this shop," she told everyone present levelly, her icy blue eyes hard.
Spectre stared right back at her. "Mizuri, kill her."
"But..." He glanced from Spectre to the girl. "But she's just a-"
"Takegao Mizuri, I told you to kill her!"
"Fine." Mizuri pulled an abnormally long, serrated Swiss army knife out of his pocket and flipped it open.
Spectre nodded approvingly and turned back to the two robots in the doorway. "Now, where were-"
He trailed off in them middle of his sentence. Raiden grinned darkly and pulled the pistol's trigger halfway back.
"I'll see you in hell, you bastard."
"Eye don't theenk so, greengo!"
Rast materialized out of pretty much nowhere and slammed the .45 to the ground with one wide digging paw. Thor cursed acidly, grabbed the small Mexican robot and hurled him all the way across the room. Mizuri was blasted off his feet by a shot from the girl's water gun, getting clotheslined by the counter.
"Goddamn annoying setbacks!" Spectre snapped. The air around him shimmered rippled and suddenly he was gone. Raiden cast around wildly.
"W-where the hell did he go?!"
Thor bulldozed his way in front of Raiden, his hammer starting to sneak forward on its mechanical arm. "Why do you think his name's Spectre? It's a cloaking ability. I'll take care of him-you got get that girl and that lady out of here."
Before the American could even finish talking the straw-haired girl appeared at the end of the aisle holding Mizuri's knife. "Get out of my shop." She lifted her buster until she had a clear shot a Thor's chest. "Leave me and my mom alone."
Raiden dropped to one knee to retrieve the .45. His fingers skimmed cold tile. He looked up again. The pistol was floating next to the woman's head.
"Too slow," Spectre laughed, reappearing. The handgun roared.
Then several things happened at once.
Mizuri slunk up behind the straw-haired girl and wrenched the serrated knife out of her had. Raiden leaped forward, sending a measure of electricity to his hand. The woman fell backwards onto the floor in a bloody pool. Spectre turned the .45 on Thor.
Raiden then fired up a technique he had developed awhile back. Power filled the air around his hand and shot outward, settling as a triangular yellow sword of electricity about three feet long. Taking quick aim he smacked Spectre neatly alongside the head with it, sending a seventy-volt shock through his body.
Thor sped past and nailed Mizuri in the stomach with a half-strength uppercut. The human stumbled away and fell over the counter, disappearing behind it. The girl caught Mizuri's knife by the handle as it fell.
"You all right?" The American asked swiftly.
"You're...not with them?"
Thor glanced around to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. "No. I'm in the Island Terrorist Control Squad now."
"The what?"
"But my mom..." The girl quickly brushed a tear off her cheek. "That man...Spectre. He...mom..."
Thor blinked and awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder. "I...uh...I'm sorry. Let's just get going, all right? We can't hang around or they'll kill you too."
Meanwhile, Raiden was having a hell of a time against Spectre. Just before the Wilybot could land a second hit with his electrical sword the robot turned on his cloaker again, completely vanishing from sight. A second later the blade whistled through empty air. Damn it, Raiden thought angrily, looking around the aisle as if doing so would help him find his enemy.
Then he heard the sound. It as a tremendously subtle noise from directly behind him, the quiet rustling of a trenchcoat.
"Bingo," Raiden muttered as he turned significantly faster than he ever had before. The .45 was suspended in midair, half an inch behind his head.
Spectre has absolutely no time to get out of the way. Raiden swung the yellow sword up. Spectre screamed as both the gun and his left hand dropped to the floor.
"You little shit!" he roared, reappearing and smashing Raiden in the face with his remaining fist. The Robot Master landed on his end a couple of feet away, dark blood beginning to ooze out of his nose. Spectre stooped to retrieve the pistol.
The moaning tri-tone of a police sirens drifted into the shop. Spectre looked at Mizuri, who had just poked his head over the top of the counter. Mizuri looked at Rast, who had been in the process of taking a swipe at Thor. Mizuri and Rast looked at Spectre.
He scooped up his hand and the .45. "Let's vacate," he muttered furiously.
The three LIST members took off toward the door. Raiden made as if to jump in their way and stop them, but Thor walked up behind him and held him back with one arm. "Don't. They're not worth it. We have to get this girl out of here."
Raiden nodded slowly. "Mizuri has the parts, doesn't he?"
"Yeah. It wasn't everything they needed, thought. Just let those bastards go for now."
The Wilybot turned to the straw-haired girl, smiling faintly. "Um, hi. I'm Raiden."
She grinned back; despite the mood of the moment, her ice-blue eyes glittered warmly. "My name's Sonata Masou. I was built by Katrina, who runs..." Her gaze drifted over to the corpse on the floor. "She...ran the store."
"I'm sorry," Raiden whispered, gone suddenly hoarse. "I...I tried..." His voice broke and he stepped away from Sonata, his eyes on his yellow boots.
"Do you have anywhere to go now?" Thor asked her, probably a bit louder than was necessary. She shook her head miserably.
Raiden looked up again. "I guess you could stay with us," he offered meekly.
"Okay. Thank you."
"One condition, though."
She tilted her head to one side. "What's that?"
"You have to bring along a car battery."