LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN BLOODY ROAR OR ANY CHARACTERS THEREOF.
[]- Indicates thought.
Man. I shouldn't write one-shots. They always make me want to write actual stories. So, to quell my Bloody Roar urges, I'll make ANOTHER one-shot. If enough people review and actually like it, I'll make it a full-fledged story. One note, before I go on: I am a Christian, and that comes out in my writing. If you don't like that, I'm not forcing you to read this. If you are a Christian as well, then welcome my brother/sister. Good to see you here, in this great world of fanfiction. BR3 has a lot of Christian and pseudo-religious elements, so I'm basically just elaborating on them.
This story is from the various characters' points of view on the night when the Crests erupt on everybody's body. Obviously, there are a LOT of problems about to result. And I'm going to record it all.
So, bottoms up, zip your flies, and hold on to your asses, because it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Bloody Roar
Night of the Mark
Graveyard outside Tokyo, 9:30 p.m.
The wind blows above this peaceful place, this final stop for the dead. It is dark, here in the heart of Japan. This land where the sun rises is now the land where the sun has just set, and not until seven thirty the next morning will the sun peek it's head above the horizon to the east, bringing light and a new day to the world. For the moment, this part of the world lies in darkness, and in darkness does our tale begin and end.
But that is not to say that our tale is an evil one. Darkness, spiritually speaking, does represent evil, but here we are talking about physical darkness, and it is neutral. It is neither good nor evil, just there. And sometimes, it is in darkness that the best hearts lie.
But, once again, that is neither here nor there. Let us glide, my friends, on wings that make not the slightest sound. Let us glide down the air currents, my fellow memories, and see what we can make of this place. We are here to record, to watch, to view, and not to take part in what will happen. So, light as the breeze and just as unseeable, we fly down from our vantage point (our bird's-eye view, as it were) and alight on any comfortable perches that present themselves. A gravestone, a tree branch, the ground itself. Where we rest our wings matters not. We are here to watch.
And here, now, walking up the path from the glittering city below, a bouqet of roses in one hand, red leather jacket swirling, comes the man we are here to watch. His silver hair blows in the wind, and he tightens the collar of his jacket against the wind, shivering. It is spring, here in Tokyo, and though the days are warm, the nights still belong to winter. Old Jack Frost is still quite active here, wanting a few more days to play in Japan before taking on the other half of the world. The man approaching us just happens to be a handy target.
The man's name is Xion. He is a Zoanthrope, though he doesn't know it yet. And he comes here every week, sometimes twice a week. His sister has been dead for five months now, and he still cries over her. She became strange, his sister, before meeting her end; a year before she died (in a strange fire that consumed her home, her car, and every cell in her body), he had heard that she had joined a Satanic cult (Xion himself, sadly enough, has no religion). That was bullshit, as far as he was concerned. He knew his sister too well to believe she would do such a thing.
Or so he believed.
Xion opens the lonely gate of the cemetery, it's hinges creaking slightly as he opens it. He steps in, passing us as he walks on a path that is now far too familiar to him. He walks with a heavy heart, for his sister was the last member of his family that he knew of. It had hurt him deeply when she died. As he passes us, on our various perches, we follow him, silent as shadows and far more watchful. Xion treads the path, his face looking down, long silver hair hanging in his face. No tears mist his eyes, however; he has moved past the stage where scouring tears cleanse the soul of pain. He is moving towards acceptance, that step all who grieve must take, or be dragged down by their grief into madness. As we are about to see, it might be better for him if he did go insane.
He walks the twisting path, steps slow and measured, the heels of his boots clicking softly against the road. Wind sighs through the trees, bringing up a favorite song of his, one his sister had never liked but which has always held a special place in his heart. It's One Headlight, by the Wallflowers, and it's verses pass through his mind as he walks through the graveyard.
[ So long ago I don't remember when,] he thinks, the tune playing in his mind, Jakob singing the song which became a hit on the radio years ago and now has faded into memory. [ That's when they say I lost my only friend.]
[ They say she died easy of a broken heart disease,] Xion thinks, as he finally walks up to his sister's grave. [ I listen to the cemetery trees.]
[ And I do,] he thinks sadly, staring down at her grave, [ I listen to the cemetery trees crying softly in the night.]
Xion is something of a budding poet, a writer with fine makings. If what is about to happen to him did not occur tonight (or ever, for that matter), then he might have gone on to become a poet of some small renown, or maybe even a legend. We do not know.
We watch.
As Xion crouches down to lay the bouqet of roses on his sister's grave, he hears something, something like the patter of rain. He looks up, wondering if it's starting to rain, though the weather guy said it would be clear tonight. He doesn't want rain to spoil his leather jacket. When he looks up, he sees something that drives his jacket to the back of his mind.
Supported by uncountable tentacles of darkness, a black so utterly stark that it is visible even now, during the night, a face is floating in front of him. His sister's face, to be more exact. As he stares, too stunned for words, it smiles at him. Instead of the usual human teeth, it's mouth is full of fangs more suited to a shark. The mouth opens wide and rushes forward, covering his face with darkness, invading his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, his pores, anywhere there is an opening. He falls to the ground, holding his face and screaming, legs kicking, feet pounding, trying all he can to move the hellish thing away from his face. Soon enough, the darkness and the tendrils of blackness flow into his face, into his body, into his mind. Into his very soul. He stops struggling for a second, lying calmly on the dirt road of the cemetery. Then one hand lifts, flexes. Knuckles pop. The hand moves downward, touches the ground. Almost mechanically, like a robot trained to mimic a rising human, Xion stands up. His eyes glow with something unholy, their normal color now replaced by a complete blackness, a total dark. He grins, his teeth noticeably sharper than they were when he first entered, almost like fangs. He starts chuckling, then breaks out laughing. His voice seems to be two at once, his baritone male voice and a higher pitched, more feminine one, a darker one.
And on the notes of that rising laughter, we lift our wings and fly off. There are many things to see tonight, and what has transpired in this graveyard with Xion is but the first stop on our tour.
We glance back once more, and we see a familiar light flicker around him, a light we've all noticed occurring whenever a Zoanthrope decides it's time to cut the crap and turns into their beast form. But what's in this light is no animal of earth. It is a thing of legend, a hellish demon, an Unborn. No mother, no father, just darkness and evil. It's eyes glow red with the evil inside it's soul. It begins running in a straight line, ignoring the gravestones (except for the ones marked with crosses- these it avoids instinctively, almost like an animal shunning a trap) and trees in it's way, stomping through them, rending them like a force of nature turned loose on the world, a hurricane from Hell sent to wreck ruin and destruction.
Let's get out of here, shall we? I don't think any of us want to see any more of this... thing.
And so, once more, we lift our wings and fly.
************************************************************************
Nomonura house, Tokyo. 9:50 p.m.
From one extreme to the other we fly, my friends. This place is the complete anti-thesis of the graveyard we just saw. It is a place of happiness, of light. It's cheery red brick (rare in this city) and brown tin roof all conspire to create a feeling of cozy country life, quite at odds with this city of metal and glass. The noise of a TV greets us, and in our heightened state we can immediately translate the Japanese weatherman, forecasting the clear night and day Xion was just so lately thinking about. We glide down, to get a closer look at this house and it's inhabitants. The windows are closed (as I have said before, the days may be warm, but the nights are bitter here in Tokyo), but that's all right. Through the keyhole we slip, past the tumblers and locks, sliding through the brass and coming out the other side unharmed. We pause a moment to orient ourselves, gazing about at this fine house, trying to see if the inside lives up to the expectations we have from our look at the outside.
We are not dissapointed. This is a place that radiates security, that radiates comfort. It is a place of love, of the better things in life. On the far wall, family pictures (most of them centering around either a blue haired, red eyed woman or a brown eyed, brown haired girl, both of whom we will be meeting soon enough) hang from their hooks, and beneath them a trophy case sits, showcasing the awards the two girls have won. Our sight, good enough to make an eagle feel blind, zooms in on the words engraved below the trophies. Underneath a woman's figure spiking a ball over a net, in engraved gold lettering (it's really brass covered with gold, but that's beside the point; it's worth is in what it represents, not what it's made out of), one bears this statement: WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT, FIRST PLACE, ALICE NOMONURA. This is the blue haired young lady shown in the pictures on the wall. Her skill at volleyball directly relates to her extreme jumping skill, which is far better than it should be... but there will be time for that later.
Focusing on another trophy, we see a far different picture, that of a karate student striking a combat pose, one foot planted on the ground, the other striking an invisible target. A far more interesting subject than volleyball, no? But let us look at the plate below. WOMEN'S KARATE TOURNAMENT, TEENAGE DIVISION, THIRD PLACE, URIKO NOMONURA. Ah. Looks like little sister has some work to do on her martial arts. God knows she will need every drop of skill she has, soon enough.
As our gaze moves across the warm room (colored beige, we notice, a nice warm shade of beige), we note the three entrances into the room, besides the door we so easily bypassed: a door in front to a wash room, stairs to the right of it, and to our right a way into the kitchen. The sounds of cooking emanate from it, but before we can investigate that particular spot, we see the back of a green sofa. One lanky arm, thrown back over the couch, covered in a silk kimono, catches our attention. A brown-topped head peeks up next to the arm, the head of a young girl laying back on the couch. On the other end of the love seat, dangerously close to a defenseless lamp, her feet rest on a desk. She is wearing socks, white socks that contrast with the endangered lamp's blue color. The desk is of fine varnished wood that possesses a light sheen in the light from the overhead ceiling fan. The three light bulbs of the fan spread their light beneath the still fan blades. This is all we can see from our position at the door, so we glide over to get a better glimpse at this girl, to get a better glimpse of this youngest member of the Nomonura household.
But, before we do, in comes the eldest sister of this house, Alice Nomonura herself, a nurse trained in the arts of healing, a kind soul. She is walking in from the kitchen where a previously unnoticed scent wafts in, the smell of rice and beans cooking. A lighter, crisper scent follows it, the smell of lettuce. Alice loves salads, but she only eats them when her boyfriend isn't around; he cracks too many jokes about her beast form (that of a rabbit) and her taste in food for her to eat them in his presence. Alice is in love with him, but more than once she's wanted to beat him senseless over that wise mouth of his. If she didn't know she'd regret it later, she'd have done it long ago.
Her boyfriend isn't on her mind at the moment, however. For some reason she's begun to have a headache, a most horrible one, right in the back of her skull. It feels like someone's inside and very anxious to be out. She's taken some medicine for it, but the ache remains. It started a few minutes ago, right in the middle of her cooking, and there was no gradual build-up to it; one moment she was fine, the next her head was throbbing. She has lost her appetite, and plans on telling Uriko that supper was ready and then heading up to her bed. She walks up to her sister, her feet slightly wobbly, her body feeling too shaky to stand for long. Holding the back of her head, right between the two ponytails she always keeps her hair in, she says to her sister, " Supper's ready, little sis."
We follow the direction of Alice's red eyes and catch our first glimpse of Uriko Nomonura, and what a glimpse it is. Uriko is a pretty girl by any standard, the kind of brunette beauty who is always getting noticed in high school or the mall. But underneath her normal beauty is something even more entrancing, something that draws you to her. Maybe it's the unself-conscious way she has of moving, of not noticing her own beauty. Maybe it's the aura she has of confidence, of guts. An inner reserve of strength, flashing out in the way she moves, her fluid grace. Or maybe it is all but a carefully maintained illusion. We will watch, and find out. It is what we are here for, and what we will do. Currently, Uriko is wearing an evening dress kimono, a very pretty green one that fits her well.
In response to her sister's statement, Uriko stretches languidly, almost like a cat, before rising. " Ok, sis. Thanks for cooking." Noticing the way her sister is holding the back of her head, the wobble in her sister's knees, she asks her worriedly, " Hey sis, are you all right? You don't look so good."
Alice shakes her head. Above all else, she doesn't want to worry her little sister with a little headache. " I'm okay. Just got a headache. I'm gonna go to bed early, okay? Try to sleep it off."
Uriko gives her sister a little hug of reassurance, hugging her gently, and says, " Okay. Good night, sis."
Smiling despite the pounding in the back of her head, Alice says, " Yeah. Good night to you too. No staying up later than twelve, okay?"
Uriko nods. It isn't a school night, here in Tokyo, but Alice makes her go to bed at twelve anyway. Uriko thinks it's because her mom never let her stay up either. Thinking of her mom, Uriko wonders whether she's okay. Her mother (in reality, it's her adopted mother, but Uriko always thinks of her as her real mother) is off now, on a trip to America, hunting an old enemy named Hans. Uriko has never met Hans, but has heard of his evil ways, and her mother has a personal score to settle with him. Rumors and sightings of Hans floated out of her mom's American contacts (mostly other Zoanthropes) and so she set off to find him. Uriko hopes her mom is all right. She doesn't want her getting hurt, though her mom can take care of herself. A statement true for Zoanthropes in general.
Uriko enters the kitchen to eat the fine vegetarian meal her sister has prepared (although Uriko herself prefers meat, particularly barbecue, which she has an almost unhealthy obsession for) and leaves this part of our tale. Alice has more to say on our story at the moment, so we follow her, throbbing head and all, up the stairs. We glide as shadows up the bannister, as her wobbling footsteps begrudge her each step, keeping herself moving only by reminding herself of the bed at the end of the stairs. We glide past her (some on feathered wings and some on leathern wings, but like light and dark these signify no allegiance in and of themselves) and enter the bedroom. It is the typical young woman's bedroom, with a mirror, a dresser, and a nightstand beside a nice, soft-looking twin sized bed. Photographs sit next to the bed, three the normal family pictures of her mother, her father (now deceased, alas), and her sister, one the confident smirk of her boyfriend, chest bare, boxing gloves and shorts on, striking a pose right before a big match. It usually cheers her up to look at it, but tonight she can barely see straight, and slips into bed without even glancing at it. A cross hangs above the foot of her bed, and as she glances at it, a small prayer enters her mind before sleep takes her past all thought and pain.
[ Heavenly Father, protect Your children tonight.]
Soon after Alice's head hits the pillow, she enters a deep state more like a coma than sleep. She will remain in this state for the next two hours (it is now 10:00), when she will be forcibly woken by the ferocious pounding on her door that unsettles it's hinges, by the frantic young man carrying his bleeding brother into the front door... but that, as I said, is two hours off. We've other things to see tonight before then, and nothing of much interest is going to happen at the Nomonura house in the meantime. So, let us glide off once more, through a convenient crack in the window, and enjoy our wings as we fly over the rooftops of this slumbering city.
************************************************************************
Three blocks away from the Nomonura house. 10:04.
As we fly, we notice the truth of the idea that cities never sleep. The young man walking down the street, the cars coming and going to destinations unknown, and the young woman we are currently flying over all stand as mute testimony to that idea. Likewise, the three thugs hiding in the shadowed alley this young woman is about to pass all support the statistics of crime in this city. This woman is about to get robbed, scared very badly (and more than likely beaten on, especially if she doesn't try to resist), possibly raped, and more than likely killed. It's not one of life's more pleasant truths, but it is a truth nonetheless: Evil is everwhere. We wish we could lend our aid to this woman, but we cannot. As I said before, we are memories, shadows, and cannot affect this world. We alight on nearby perches and prepare to perform our new duty. We watch and wait.
The young woman, oblivious to the dark alley and what it holds, walks by at a rapid pace, fashionable new coat held in one hand at the neck (in eerie imitation of Xion; so much of this night leads back to him), purse hanging at her side, her high-heeled shoes tapping out their own steady rhythm on the concrete. As she passes the alley, a hand shoots out, draped in a non-descript black sweatshirt. The hand grabs her arm, and before the woman has time to do anything at all, she is jerked off the street and into the alley, where she will presumably be left to the ministrations of the three robbers. Two of them, wearing ski masks, grin wickedly beneath them; the last one, bigger than the others, cracks the knuckles of the hand he grabbed her with and smiles too. His smile is visible, however; he wears no mask. Since he usually kills anyone he grabs, it has never mattered much. He steps forward, intending to take the woman's purse from her, along with her clothes and anything else of value on her. Then he will rape her, kill her, and throw her body into a river. She will become just another statistic for the politicians to use at their annual rallies in Japan. We sit uneasily, aware for the first time of how absolutely infuriating it is to be omniscient and yet powerless. We cannot lift a hand to help this woman, nor can we go to the police and identify her killers after the crime is done. We see all, flying above the city, but cannot lift a hand or claw to aid this woman.
Before anything can happen, however, someone else does it for us. A shadowy figure drops from the rooftops above, landing down from the eight story fall as easily as we (in more mortal guise) would land from a fall of two feet. Crouching down to knees as it falls, the figure raises up, it's glowing yellow eyes visible in the dark. It now stands between the frightened young woman and the three muggers, scarf blowing in the bitter wind, obscuring most of his face. In the dim light, all the woman can make out of the figure before her is a sense of strength, of purpose. Whoever he is, he has just made a maneuver previously seen only in comic books and movies, and the woman is not sure she isn't just dreaming, the figure before her a fantasy brought on by her terrified mind, played for comfort a few seconds before reality kicks in and she looks up at the face of her killer. Very fortunately for her, this is not the case.
" What the hell?" the mugger snarls. He himself isn't too sure he just saw this guy drop from the clouds, but figures that he might as well believe it for the moment. " Who are you?"
" Your worst nightmare," the figure says in a strangely sibilant voice, hissing slightly on the end of worst. The mugger figures that the guy's voice is simply being distorted by his scarf, and shrugs it off, trying to ignore the cold chill the man's words inspire, cliched though they are.
" Oh, really?" the mugger says, cracking his knuckles in false bravado. " In case you didn't notice, it's three against one. You don't stand a chance in hell, buddy. You better have one hell of a good plastic surgeon, cause when I'm through with you there won't be much left of your face." Rushing forward, committing an act that would cause every single sensei on the planet, regardless of personal style, to groan aloud, putting all the strength in him into a single really good, really powerful punch. It was also really easy to counter.
The figure in front of him raises one hand, and in the dim light we notice that it actually looks like a claw (which makes one thing clear, if nothing else; this is a Zoanthrope, all right) and grabs the mugger's hand. Pushing it aside easily, not even calling upon his great strength, the Zoanthrope counters with a hard punch in the face, knocking out most of the mugger's front teeth in one go. The big mugger staggers back, spitting blood and bits of broken enamel from his mouth, wondering what in the hell just hit him. Spluttering, his voice slurry with blood, he cries out, " Get him!" to his comrades. Like the fools they are, they do. Both rush forward in imitation of their leader, attempting to bear this rogue vigilante down with sheer numbers.
Of course, against a Zoanthrope, humans had better forgo the entire hand-to-hand combat idea and bring a gun. A big one, preferably. But people like these muggers never think before acting. Fools rush in, indeed. With considerably more ease than we had a few minutes ago, we settle into our perches and watch this noble Zoanthrope take care of business.
The figure spins into a low sweep kick, knocking one mugger off his feet. His partner, having been slower than his buddy and hence dodging the sweep by accident, rushes forward to beat on the crouching figure. The Zoanthrope's hand shoots out, grabbing the mugger's leg, a movement so fast that even our heightened senses can barely see it. Lifting the mugger like a rag doll, the Zoanthrope lifts him over his head, standing as he does so, and slams him into the ground. The mugger hits the pavement with a muffled cry, the back of his skull fractured. The Zoanthrope gets both hands about the mugger's legs and proceeds to smash him against the nearest hard object, in this case a handy stone wall. The would-be robber passes out, suffering multiple concussions that knock him out for three days, when he wakes up in a jail cell in downtown Tokyo.
The second mugger has gotten up by now, and he does not like how things are going. He likes it not one bit. He stands unsteadily, not knowing whether to fight or flee from this strange creature. It has gotten through his slow mind that it might be a Zoanthrope he's fighting, and that scares him badly. His decision is made for him when a foot slams into his stomach. He doubles over, the air knocked out of him, and before he can do more than register the pain in his stomach he is grabbed on the sides (by hands that feel, sickeningly, like claws through his sweatshirt) and bodily lifted up over the Zoanthrope's head. He is turned in the air, a strange sort of powered somersault that reminds him of throws he's seen professional wrestlers do, and suddenly becomes reacquainted with the pavement he has just so recently met. He lands on his back, his head cracks against the street, and he knows no more.
As we have been watching and cheering on this hero, the last mugger has been backing up, and now he extracts a switchblade knife from his back pocket. He presses a small switch on the side, and a six-inch blade pops out. He gazes at the figure before him with brute malice.
" I'm gonna carve you up, freak," he says, specks of his blood flecking the air from the holes where most of his front teeth were.
The Zoanthrope says nothing, just raises his hand, palm out, towards the mugger. As the mugger, dumbfounded, watches, the Zoanthrope's body tenses, and his hand's finger partially close in a claw position, pointing at the mugger from the second knuckles out. Not really understanding what's going on, the mugger rushes forward, blade gleaming in the light from the streetlamps and windows about him. He almost reaches the Zoanthrope's outstretched arm, but before he does something crackles in the air. An invisible something flies out of the Zoanthrope's body and strikes the mugger. The most intense pain he's ever felt surges through him, and the metal in his hand suddenly grows hot, so hot it partially melts the skin of his hand and brands the flesh of his finger and thumb with it's imprint. He cannot even scream out, for all his muscles have suddenly locked and grown paralyzed. He is suffering the classic effects of a powerful electric surge. His eyes roll back into his head, and the Zoanthrope, seeing that the mugger will do no more harm tonight, relaxes his hand, and the invisible force seems to relax as well. The mugger drops to the concrete like a puppet whose strings have been cut, having passed out shortly into his impromptu electroshock treatment. As he falls, the Zoanthrope turns around to look at the woman he has just saved.
She looks up at him, eyes filled with tears she did not have to spill, face softening with gladness as she gazes at her savior. When he steps forward, into the light, her eyes widen and her face tenses again, not with fear but with shock.
The figure before her is Stun, formerly a scientist alongside Busuzima (whose unpleasant acquaintance we will make later on in the night) and now the only Insect Zoanthrope in the world. He is purple, the purple of certain beetles in Africa, part of the races that make up his beast side. His hands are claws, tipped with blades; his body is distorted in various places, in the wrong places, where his bones have shifted and changed and warped over the past few years. Bandages cover one side of his body, where the kind Alice Nomonura we left sleeping half an hour ago has constricted his form so that the bones won't shift suddenly and break through his skin. The lower half of his face, where normal humans have a mouth and where Stun has mandibles (which give him a sibilant hiss on certain words and sounds), is covered by a scarf. His eyes glow yellow, the pupils mutated slits. This is Stun as a human, a mutant bug man. The Zoanthrope scientists found out, during their nightmarish testing, that while human DNA mixed quite readily with the DNA of mammals and (to a lesser degree) reptiles, it responded violently to that of insects. Stun is the sole surviving Zoanthrope experiment with insect DNA, and his life is a tortured non-existence, relying mostly on the kindness of other Zoanthropes to survive, though even some of them find him hideous. It is not an easy life, to say the least.
And yet...
Is his form truly a curse? For you see, my friends, Stun is the one Zoanthrope immune to the nightmarish Tabula that even now is being summoned. The pain he suffers when his body twists and mutates is not in vain, for now, when he needs it most, his strange body has not failed him. He will be the one Zoanthrope tonight who will be operating at full capacity, who will have a clear mind. He alone of all the others will meet Xion tonight, and tonight he is the only Zoanthrope who stands a chance against the Unborn we witnessed in the graveyard.
Is his form a curse?
The young woman's shock finally passing, Stun says, " Are you all right?"
Shakily, the woman stands up. Stun waits for the inevitable screams for help. He doesn't blame her for her fear. It is something he is used to.
" Yes," she says, her voice relatively calm considering the circumstances. " I'm fine. Thank you... sir?"
Stun, shocked at this almost pleasant response, nods and says, " Sir will do just fine."
The young woman nods to him, and says, " Thanks again. Are you a... Zoanthrope?"
Stun nods, though the question obviously needs no answer.
" Thanks again. I won't forget this." The woman quickly steps out of the alley, over the guards, passing Stun with a grateful look on her face. " I'm going to call the cops," she says, as she passes us on our perches, where we watch and record, " so you might want to leave."
He nods, surprised at her courtesy. She is the first person he has ever had a chance to talk to since taking up his new job as roaming hero, and the kindness and thanks surprise him. He had told himself countless times at the start that they would hate him, that no matter what he did, they would always fear and hate him. The very humaneness of her response humbles him. " Thank you," he says to her, and before he can see the little smile that appears on her face he turns and leaps into the sky, his strength carrying him far above the streets and back to the rooftops he has just left.
He begins running along them, feeling better than he has in years, his hope in humanity not alive yet but beginning to stir again, like the twitching of a giant about to awaken. We fly with him, our own faith in humanity supported by what has just transpired, but when he turns east and begins running across the rooftops there, we continue straight. Stun's tale is central to what will unfold tonight, for he alone of all the others will encounter Xion as he is now. But that will occur later. For now, we are heading to the great mansion that sits by itself on an acre lot (a huge space in this cramped city), a great mansion that is home to a man who used to be called "The Great Mercenary" and is now a UN senator. To his enemies, he was known as the Lion's Fang; to his friends, he is Alan Gado, or just Gado, as he prefers. His home is our next stop, so, silent as the wind, we fly onward.
- I'm dying to put this up, so Chapter 2 will come up later, although this will STILL be a one-shot, unless you reviewers say otherwise. See you all later.
[]- Indicates thought.
Man. I shouldn't write one-shots. They always make me want to write actual stories. So, to quell my Bloody Roar urges, I'll make ANOTHER one-shot. If enough people review and actually like it, I'll make it a full-fledged story. One note, before I go on: I am a Christian, and that comes out in my writing. If you don't like that, I'm not forcing you to read this. If you are a Christian as well, then welcome my brother/sister. Good to see you here, in this great world of fanfiction. BR3 has a lot of Christian and pseudo-religious elements, so I'm basically just elaborating on them.
This story is from the various characters' points of view on the night when the Crests erupt on everybody's body. Obviously, there are a LOT of problems about to result. And I'm going to record it all.
So, bottoms up, zip your flies, and hold on to your asses, because it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Bloody Roar
Night of the Mark
Graveyard outside Tokyo, 9:30 p.m.
The wind blows above this peaceful place, this final stop for the dead. It is dark, here in the heart of Japan. This land where the sun rises is now the land where the sun has just set, and not until seven thirty the next morning will the sun peek it's head above the horizon to the east, bringing light and a new day to the world. For the moment, this part of the world lies in darkness, and in darkness does our tale begin and end.
But that is not to say that our tale is an evil one. Darkness, spiritually speaking, does represent evil, but here we are talking about physical darkness, and it is neutral. It is neither good nor evil, just there. And sometimes, it is in darkness that the best hearts lie.
But, once again, that is neither here nor there. Let us glide, my friends, on wings that make not the slightest sound. Let us glide down the air currents, my fellow memories, and see what we can make of this place. We are here to record, to watch, to view, and not to take part in what will happen. So, light as the breeze and just as unseeable, we fly down from our vantage point (our bird's-eye view, as it were) and alight on any comfortable perches that present themselves. A gravestone, a tree branch, the ground itself. Where we rest our wings matters not. We are here to watch.
And here, now, walking up the path from the glittering city below, a bouqet of roses in one hand, red leather jacket swirling, comes the man we are here to watch. His silver hair blows in the wind, and he tightens the collar of his jacket against the wind, shivering. It is spring, here in Tokyo, and though the days are warm, the nights still belong to winter. Old Jack Frost is still quite active here, wanting a few more days to play in Japan before taking on the other half of the world. The man approaching us just happens to be a handy target.
The man's name is Xion. He is a Zoanthrope, though he doesn't know it yet. And he comes here every week, sometimes twice a week. His sister has been dead for five months now, and he still cries over her. She became strange, his sister, before meeting her end; a year before she died (in a strange fire that consumed her home, her car, and every cell in her body), he had heard that she had joined a Satanic cult (Xion himself, sadly enough, has no religion). That was bullshit, as far as he was concerned. He knew his sister too well to believe she would do such a thing.
Or so he believed.
Xion opens the lonely gate of the cemetery, it's hinges creaking slightly as he opens it. He steps in, passing us as he walks on a path that is now far too familiar to him. He walks with a heavy heart, for his sister was the last member of his family that he knew of. It had hurt him deeply when she died. As he passes us, on our various perches, we follow him, silent as shadows and far more watchful. Xion treads the path, his face looking down, long silver hair hanging in his face. No tears mist his eyes, however; he has moved past the stage where scouring tears cleanse the soul of pain. He is moving towards acceptance, that step all who grieve must take, or be dragged down by their grief into madness. As we are about to see, it might be better for him if he did go insane.
He walks the twisting path, steps slow and measured, the heels of his boots clicking softly against the road. Wind sighs through the trees, bringing up a favorite song of his, one his sister had never liked but which has always held a special place in his heart. It's One Headlight, by the Wallflowers, and it's verses pass through his mind as he walks through the graveyard.
[ So long ago I don't remember when,] he thinks, the tune playing in his mind, Jakob singing the song which became a hit on the radio years ago and now has faded into memory. [ That's when they say I lost my only friend.]
[ They say she died easy of a broken heart disease,] Xion thinks, as he finally walks up to his sister's grave. [ I listen to the cemetery trees.]
[ And I do,] he thinks sadly, staring down at her grave, [ I listen to the cemetery trees crying softly in the night.]
Xion is something of a budding poet, a writer with fine makings. If what is about to happen to him did not occur tonight (or ever, for that matter), then he might have gone on to become a poet of some small renown, or maybe even a legend. We do not know.
We watch.
As Xion crouches down to lay the bouqet of roses on his sister's grave, he hears something, something like the patter of rain. He looks up, wondering if it's starting to rain, though the weather guy said it would be clear tonight. He doesn't want rain to spoil his leather jacket. When he looks up, he sees something that drives his jacket to the back of his mind.
Supported by uncountable tentacles of darkness, a black so utterly stark that it is visible even now, during the night, a face is floating in front of him. His sister's face, to be more exact. As he stares, too stunned for words, it smiles at him. Instead of the usual human teeth, it's mouth is full of fangs more suited to a shark. The mouth opens wide and rushes forward, covering his face with darkness, invading his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, his pores, anywhere there is an opening. He falls to the ground, holding his face and screaming, legs kicking, feet pounding, trying all he can to move the hellish thing away from his face. Soon enough, the darkness and the tendrils of blackness flow into his face, into his body, into his mind. Into his very soul. He stops struggling for a second, lying calmly on the dirt road of the cemetery. Then one hand lifts, flexes. Knuckles pop. The hand moves downward, touches the ground. Almost mechanically, like a robot trained to mimic a rising human, Xion stands up. His eyes glow with something unholy, their normal color now replaced by a complete blackness, a total dark. He grins, his teeth noticeably sharper than they were when he first entered, almost like fangs. He starts chuckling, then breaks out laughing. His voice seems to be two at once, his baritone male voice and a higher pitched, more feminine one, a darker one.
And on the notes of that rising laughter, we lift our wings and fly off. There are many things to see tonight, and what has transpired in this graveyard with Xion is but the first stop on our tour.
We glance back once more, and we see a familiar light flicker around him, a light we've all noticed occurring whenever a Zoanthrope decides it's time to cut the crap and turns into their beast form. But what's in this light is no animal of earth. It is a thing of legend, a hellish demon, an Unborn. No mother, no father, just darkness and evil. It's eyes glow red with the evil inside it's soul. It begins running in a straight line, ignoring the gravestones (except for the ones marked with crosses- these it avoids instinctively, almost like an animal shunning a trap) and trees in it's way, stomping through them, rending them like a force of nature turned loose on the world, a hurricane from Hell sent to wreck ruin and destruction.
Let's get out of here, shall we? I don't think any of us want to see any more of this... thing.
And so, once more, we lift our wings and fly.
************************************************************************
Nomonura house, Tokyo. 9:50 p.m.
From one extreme to the other we fly, my friends. This place is the complete anti-thesis of the graveyard we just saw. It is a place of happiness, of light. It's cheery red brick (rare in this city) and brown tin roof all conspire to create a feeling of cozy country life, quite at odds with this city of metal and glass. The noise of a TV greets us, and in our heightened state we can immediately translate the Japanese weatherman, forecasting the clear night and day Xion was just so lately thinking about. We glide down, to get a closer look at this house and it's inhabitants. The windows are closed (as I have said before, the days may be warm, but the nights are bitter here in Tokyo), but that's all right. Through the keyhole we slip, past the tumblers and locks, sliding through the brass and coming out the other side unharmed. We pause a moment to orient ourselves, gazing about at this fine house, trying to see if the inside lives up to the expectations we have from our look at the outside.
We are not dissapointed. This is a place that radiates security, that radiates comfort. It is a place of love, of the better things in life. On the far wall, family pictures (most of them centering around either a blue haired, red eyed woman or a brown eyed, brown haired girl, both of whom we will be meeting soon enough) hang from their hooks, and beneath them a trophy case sits, showcasing the awards the two girls have won. Our sight, good enough to make an eagle feel blind, zooms in on the words engraved below the trophies. Underneath a woman's figure spiking a ball over a net, in engraved gold lettering (it's really brass covered with gold, but that's beside the point; it's worth is in what it represents, not what it's made out of), one bears this statement: WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT, FIRST PLACE, ALICE NOMONURA. This is the blue haired young lady shown in the pictures on the wall. Her skill at volleyball directly relates to her extreme jumping skill, which is far better than it should be... but there will be time for that later.
Focusing on another trophy, we see a far different picture, that of a karate student striking a combat pose, one foot planted on the ground, the other striking an invisible target. A far more interesting subject than volleyball, no? But let us look at the plate below. WOMEN'S KARATE TOURNAMENT, TEENAGE DIVISION, THIRD PLACE, URIKO NOMONURA. Ah. Looks like little sister has some work to do on her martial arts. God knows she will need every drop of skill she has, soon enough.
As our gaze moves across the warm room (colored beige, we notice, a nice warm shade of beige), we note the three entrances into the room, besides the door we so easily bypassed: a door in front to a wash room, stairs to the right of it, and to our right a way into the kitchen. The sounds of cooking emanate from it, but before we can investigate that particular spot, we see the back of a green sofa. One lanky arm, thrown back over the couch, covered in a silk kimono, catches our attention. A brown-topped head peeks up next to the arm, the head of a young girl laying back on the couch. On the other end of the love seat, dangerously close to a defenseless lamp, her feet rest on a desk. She is wearing socks, white socks that contrast with the endangered lamp's blue color. The desk is of fine varnished wood that possesses a light sheen in the light from the overhead ceiling fan. The three light bulbs of the fan spread their light beneath the still fan blades. This is all we can see from our position at the door, so we glide over to get a better glimpse at this girl, to get a better glimpse of this youngest member of the Nomonura household.
But, before we do, in comes the eldest sister of this house, Alice Nomonura herself, a nurse trained in the arts of healing, a kind soul. She is walking in from the kitchen where a previously unnoticed scent wafts in, the smell of rice and beans cooking. A lighter, crisper scent follows it, the smell of lettuce. Alice loves salads, but she only eats them when her boyfriend isn't around; he cracks too many jokes about her beast form (that of a rabbit) and her taste in food for her to eat them in his presence. Alice is in love with him, but more than once she's wanted to beat him senseless over that wise mouth of his. If she didn't know she'd regret it later, she'd have done it long ago.
Her boyfriend isn't on her mind at the moment, however. For some reason she's begun to have a headache, a most horrible one, right in the back of her skull. It feels like someone's inside and very anxious to be out. She's taken some medicine for it, but the ache remains. It started a few minutes ago, right in the middle of her cooking, and there was no gradual build-up to it; one moment she was fine, the next her head was throbbing. She has lost her appetite, and plans on telling Uriko that supper was ready and then heading up to her bed. She walks up to her sister, her feet slightly wobbly, her body feeling too shaky to stand for long. Holding the back of her head, right between the two ponytails she always keeps her hair in, she says to her sister, " Supper's ready, little sis."
We follow the direction of Alice's red eyes and catch our first glimpse of Uriko Nomonura, and what a glimpse it is. Uriko is a pretty girl by any standard, the kind of brunette beauty who is always getting noticed in high school or the mall. But underneath her normal beauty is something even more entrancing, something that draws you to her. Maybe it's the unself-conscious way she has of moving, of not noticing her own beauty. Maybe it's the aura she has of confidence, of guts. An inner reserve of strength, flashing out in the way she moves, her fluid grace. Or maybe it is all but a carefully maintained illusion. We will watch, and find out. It is what we are here for, and what we will do. Currently, Uriko is wearing an evening dress kimono, a very pretty green one that fits her well.
In response to her sister's statement, Uriko stretches languidly, almost like a cat, before rising. " Ok, sis. Thanks for cooking." Noticing the way her sister is holding the back of her head, the wobble in her sister's knees, she asks her worriedly, " Hey sis, are you all right? You don't look so good."
Alice shakes her head. Above all else, she doesn't want to worry her little sister with a little headache. " I'm okay. Just got a headache. I'm gonna go to bed early, okay? Try to sleep it off."
Uriko gives her sister a little hug of reassurance, hugging her gently, and says, " Okay. Good night, sis."
Smiling despite the pounding in the back of her head, Alice says, " Yeah. Good night to you too. No staying up later than twelve, okay?"
Uriko nods. It isn't a school night, here in Tokyo, but Alice makes her go to bed at twelve anyway. Uriko thinks it's because her mom never let her stay up either. Thinking of her mom, Uriko wonders whether she's okay. Her mother (in reality, it's her adopted mother, but Uriko always thinks of her as her real mother) is off now, on a trip to America, hunting an old enemy named Hans. Uriko has never met Hans, but has heard of his evil ways, and her mother has a personal score to settle with him. Rumors and sightings of Hans floated out of her mom's American contacts (mostly other Zoanthropes) and so she set off to find him. Uriko hopes her mom is all right. She doesn't want her getting hurt, though her mom can take care of herself. A statement true for Zoanthropes in general.
Uriko enters the kitchen to eat the fine vegetarian meal her sister has prepared (although Uriko herself prefers meat, particularly barbecue, which she has an almost unhealthy obsession for) and leaves this part of our tale. Alice has more to say on our story at the moment, so we follow her, throbbing head and all, up the stairs. We glide as shadows up the bannister, as her wobbling footsteps begrudge her each step, keeping herself moving only by reminding herself of the bed at the end of the stairs. We glide past her (some on feathered wings and some on leathern wings, but like light and dark these signify no allegiance in and of themselves) and enter the bedroom. It is the typical young woman's bedroom, with a mirror, a dresser, and a nightstand beside a nice, soft-looking twin sized bed. Photographs sit next to the bed, three the normal family pictures of her mother, her father (now deceased, alas), and her sister, one the confident smirk of her boyfriend, chest bare, boxing gloves and shorts on, striking a pose right before a big match. It usually cheers her up to look at it, but tonight she can barely see straight, and slips into bed without even glancing at it. A cross hangs above the foot of her bed, and as she glances at it, a small prayer enters her mind before sleep takes her past all thought and pain.
[ Heavenly Father, protect Your children tonight.]
Soon after Alice's head hits the pillow, she enters a deep state more like a coma than sleep. She will remain in this state for the next two hours (it is now 10:00), when she will be forcibly woken by the ferocious pounding on her door that unsettles it's hinges, by the frantic young man carrying his bleeding brother into the front door... but that, as I said, is two hours off. We've other things to see tonight before then, and nothing of much interest is going to happen at the Nomonura house in the meantime. So, let us glide off once more, through a convenient crack in the window, and enjoy our wings as we fly over the rooftops of this slumbering city.
************************************************************************
Three blocks away from the Nomonura house. 10:04.
As we fly, we notice the truth of the idea that cities never sleep. The young man walking down the street, the cars coming and going to destinations unknown, and the young woman we are currently flying over all stand as mute testimony to that idea. Likewise, the three thugs hiding in the shadowed alley this young woman is about to pass all support the statistics of crime in this city. This woman is about to get robbed, scared very badly (and more than likely beaten on, especially if she doesn't try to resist), possibly raped, and more than likely killed. It's not one of life's more pleasant truths, but it is a truth nonetheless: Evil is everwhere. We wish we could lend our aid to this woman, but we cannot. As I said before, we are memories, shadows, and cannot affect this world. We alight on nearby perches and prepare to perform our new duty. We watch and wait.
The young woman, oblivious to the dark alley and what it holds, walks by at a rapid pace, fashionable new coat held in one hand at the neck (in eerie imitation of Xion; so much of this night leads back to him), purse hanging at her side, her high-heeled shoes tapping out their own steady rhythm on the concrete. As she passes the alley, a hand shoots out, draped in a non-descript black sweatshirt. The hand grabs her arm, and before the woman has time to do anything at all, she is jerked off the street and into the alley, where she will presumably be left to the ministrations of the three robbers. Two of them, wearing ski masks, grin wickedly beneath them; the last one, bigger than the others, cracks the knuckles of the hand he grabbed her with and smiles too. His smile is visible, however; he wears no mask. Since he usually kills anyone he grabs, it has never mattered much. He steps forward, intending to take the woman's purse from her, along with her clothes and anything else of value on her. Then he will rape her, kill her, and throw her body into a river. She will become just another statistic for the politicians to use at their annual rallies in Japan. We sit uneasily, aware for the first time of how absolutely infuriating it is to be omniscient and yet powerless. We cannot lift a hand to help this woman, nor can we go to the police and identify her killers after the crime is done. We see all, flying above the city, but cannot lift a hand or claw to aid this woman.
Before anything can happen, however, someone else does it for us. A shadowy figure drops from the rooftops above, landing down from the eight story fall as easily as we (in more mortal guise) would land from a fall of two feet. Crouching down to knees as it falls, the figure raises up, it's glowing yellow eyes visible in the dark. It now stands between the frightened young woman and the three muggers, scarf blowing in the bitter wind, obscuring most of his face. In the dim light, all the woman can make out of the figure before her is a sense of strength, of purpose. Whoever he is, he has just made a maneuver previously seen only in comic books and movies, and the woman is not sure she isn't just dreaming, the figure before her a fantasy brought on by her terrified mind, played for comfort a few seconds before reality kicks in and she looks up at the face of her killer. Very fortunately for her, this is not the case.
" What the hell?" the mugger snarls. He himself isn't too sure he just saw this guy drop from the clouds, but figures that he might as well believe it for the moment. " Who are you?"
" Your worst nightmare," the figure says in a strangely sibilant voice, hissing slightly on the end of worst. The mugger figures that the guy's voice is simply being distorted by his scarf, and shrugs it off, trying to ignore the cold chill the man's words inspire, cliched though they are.
" Oh, really?" the mugger says, cracking his knuckles in false bravado. " In case you didn't notice, it's three against one. You don't stand a chance in hell, buddy. You better have one hell of a good plastic surgeon, cause when I'm through with you there won't be much left of your face." Rushing forward, committing an act that would cause every single sensei on the planet, regardless of personal style, to groan aloud, putting all the strength in him into a single really good, really powerful punch. It was also really easy to counter.
The figure in front of him raises one hand, and in the dim light we notice that it actually looks like a claw (which makes one thing clear, if nothing else; this is a Zoanthrope, all right) and grabs the mugger's hand. Pushing it aside easily, not even calling upon his great strength, the Zoanthrope counters with a hard punch in the face, knocking out most of the mugger's front teeth in one go. The big mugger staggers back, spitting blood and bits of broken enamel from his mouth, wondering what in the hell just hit him. Spluttering, his voice slurry with blood, he cries out, " Get him!" to his comrades. Like the fools they are, they do. Both rush forward in imitation of their leader, attempting to bear this rogue vigilante down with sheer numbers.
Of course, against a Zoanthrope, humans had better forgo the entire hand-to-hand combat idea and bring a gun. A big one, preferably. But people like these muggers never think before acting. Fools rush in, indeed. With considerably more ease than we had a few minutes ago, we settle into our perches and watch this noble Zoanthrope take care of business.
The figure spins into a low sweep kick, knocking one mugger off his feet. His partner, having been slower than his buddy and hence dodging the sweep by accident, rushes forward to beat on the crouching figure. The Zoanthrope's hand shoots out, grabbing the mugger's leg, a movement so fast that even our heightened senses can barely see it. Lifting the mugger like a rag doll, the Zoanthrope lifts him over his head, standing as he does so, and slams him into the ground. The mugger hits the pavement with a muffled cry, the back of his skull fractured. The Zoanthrope gets both hands about the mugger's legs and proceeds to smash him against the nearest hard object, in this case a handy stone wall. The would-be robber passes out, suffering multiple concussions that knock him out for three days, when he wakes up in a jail cell in downtown Tokyo.
The second mugger has gotten up by now, and he does not like how things are going. He likes it not one bit. He stands unsteadily, not knowing whether to fight or flee from this strange creature. It has gotten through his slow mind that it might be a Zoanthrope he's fighting, and that scares him badly. His decision is made for him when a foot slams into his stomach. He doubles over, the air knocked out of him, and before he can do more than register the pain in his stomach he is grabbed on the sides (by hands that feel, sickeningly, like claws through his sweatshirt) and bodily lifted up over the Zoanthrope's head. He is turned in the air, a strange sort of powered somersault that reminds him of throws he's seen professional wrestlers do, and suddenly becomes reacquainted with the pavement he has just so recently met. He lands on his back, his head cracks against the street, and he knows no more.
As we have been watching and cheering on this hero, the last mugger has been backing up, and now he extracts a switchblade knife from his back pocket. He presses a small switch on the side, and a six-inch blade pops out. He gazes at the figure before him with brute malice.
" I'm gonna carve you up, freak," he says, specks of his blood flecking the air from the holes where most of his front teeth were.
The Zoanthrope says nothing, just raises his hand, palm out, towards the mugger. As the mugger, dumbfounded, watches, the Zoanthrope's body tenses, and his hand's finger partially close in a claw position, pointing at the mugger from the second knuckles out. Not really understanding what's going on, the mugger rushes forward, blade gleaming in the light from the streetlamps and windows about him. He almost reaches the Zoanthrope's outstretched arm, but before he does something crackles in the air. An invisible something flies out of the Zoanthrope's body and strikes the mugger. The most intense pain he's ever felt surges through him, and the metal in his hand suddenly grows hot, so hot it partially melts the skin of his hand and brands the flesh of his finger and thumb with it's imprint. He cannot even scream out, for all his muscles have suddenly locked and grown paralyzed. He is suffering the classic effects of a powerful electric surge. His eyes roll back into his head, and the Zoanthrope, seeing that the mugger will do no more harm tonight, relaxes his hand, and the invisible force seems to relax as well. The mugger drops to the concrete like a puppet whose strings have been cut, having passed out shortly into his impromptu electroshock treatment. As he falls, the Zoanthrope turns around to look at the woman he has just saved.
She looks up at him, eyes filled with tears she did not have to spill, face softening with gladness as she gazes at her savior. When he steps forward, into the light, her eyes widen and her face tenses again, not with fear but with shock.
The figure before her is Stun, formerly a scientist alongside Busuzima (whose unpleasant acquaintance we will make later on in the night) and now the only Insect Zoanthrope in the world. He is purple, the purple of certain beetles in Africa, part of the races that make up his beast side. His hands are claws, tipped with blades; his body is distorted in various places, in the wrong places, where his bones have shifted and changed and warped over the past few years. Bandages cover one side of his body, where the kind Alice Nomonura we left sleeping half an hour ago has constricted his form so that the bones won't shift suddenly and break through his skin. The lower half of his face, where normal humans have a mouth and where Stun has mandibles (which give him a sibilant hiss on certain words and sounds), is covered by a scarf. His eyes glow yellow, the pupils mutated slits. This is Stun as a human, a mutant bug man. The Zoanthrope scientists found out, during their nightmarish testing, that while human DNA mixed quite readily with the DNA of mammals and (to a lesser degree) reptiles, it responded violently to that of insects. Stun is the sole surviving Zoanthrope experiment with insect DNA, and his life is a tortured non-existence, relying mostly on the kindness of other Zoanthropes to survive, though even some of them find him hideous. It is not an easy life, to say the least.
And yet...
Is his form truly a curse? For you see, my friends, Stun is the one Zoanthrope immune to the nightmarish Tabula that even now is being summoned. The pain he suffers when his body twists and mutates is not in vain, for now, when he needs it most, his strange body has not failed him. He will be the one Zoanthrope tonight who will be operating at full capacity, who will have a clear mind. He alone of all the others will meet Xion tonight, and tonight he is the only Zoanthrope who stands a chance against the Unborn we witnessed in the graveyard.
Is his form a curse?
The young woman's shock finally passing, Stun says, " Are you all right?"
Shakily, the woman stands up. Stun waits for the inevitable screams for help. He doesn't blame her for her fear. It is something he is used to.
" Yes," she says, her voice relatively calm considering the circumstances. " I'm fine. Thank you... sir?"
Stun, shocked at this almost pleasant response, nods and says, " Sir will do just fine."
The young woman nods to him, and says, " Thanks again. Are you a... Zoanthrope?"
Stun nods, though the question obviously needs no answer.
" Thanks again. I won't forget this." The woman quickly steps out of the alley, over the guards, passing Stun with a grateful look on her face. " I'm going to call the cops," she says, as she passes us on our perches, where we watch and record, " so you might want to leave."
He nods, surprised at her courtesy. She is the first person he has ever had a chance to talk to since taking up his new job as roaming hero, and the kindness and thanks surprise him. He had told himself countless times at the start that they would hate him, that no matter what he did, they would always fear and hate him. The very humaneness of her response humbles him. " Thank you," he says to her, and before he can see the little smile that appears on her face he turns and leaps into the sky, his strength carrying him far above the streets and back to the rooftops he has just left.
He begins running along them, feeling better than he has in years, his hope in humanity not alive yet but beginning to stir again, like the twitching of a giant about to awaken. We fly with him, our own faith in humanity supported by what has just transpired, but when he turns east and begins running across the rooftops there, we continue straight. Stun's tale is central to what will unfold tonight, for he alone of all the others will encounter Xion as he is now. But that will occur later. For now, we are heading to the great mansion that sits by itself on an acre lot (a huge space in this cramped city), a great mansion that is home to a man who used to be called "The Great Mercenary" and is now a UN senator. To his enemies, he was known as the Lion's Fang; to his friends, he is Alan Gado, or just Gado, as he prefers. His home is our next stop, so, silent as the wind, we fly onward.
- I'm dying to put this up, so Chapter 2 will come up later, although this will STILL be a one-shot, unless you reviewers say otherwise. See you all later.