Disclaimer: Naw, I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew or anything about its universe. I'm just using the planet its all happening on.
To the audience: It has been, to my experience, best to use a world but not its characters. For now, this story will rotate around the events occurring in America involving an 'interesting' group of people who wish to change the world for the better. Perhaps later I will involve Ichigo and the others of Tokyo Mew Mew, though for now I doubt I could do them justice through my writing. Anyway, enough of my babbling, let's begin, ne?
Five Elements; The American Mew Mews
Chapter 1: Genetic Theft
A deep sigh escaped his lips as he stared at the computer screen. "So…let me get this straight…"
The person sitting on a nearby couch had their head down. "…I…I feel asleep while I was supposed to be watching the samples…"
"And therefore…what happened?" The rough male voice slowly burned with more and more anger at each passing word.
"Someone snuck in…and…stole a whole case of the rarest samples of the serum we had…" The person on the couch seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the cushions with every word they spoke.
"Right…" The man sitting in front of the computer screen stood up and turned around to bring his burning glare down onto his assistant. "This is a disaster that we cannot tell our contributors about, or else they may cut our funding."
"Then what do you propose instead? We can't let those vials simply escape…they're too dangerous!" The person on the couch leapt up, acting as if they were about to leave.
"Hold it!" The man slammed his hand down onto the desk. "I know you're responsible for this, and hence I won't stop you from leaving to go and find the culprit. But without the proper tracking gear you'll be walking blind. I'll get you a search kit that should be able to detect the genetic mixtures easier."
"Yes sir! I won't fail!" The person saluted.
"I would hope not. As you know, those mixtures of rare animal genetics are dangerous in the wrong or right hands. The stolen case also had special injection guns for the mixtures…if you aren't quick, we'll wind up with a group of humans turned into animals." The man intertwined his fingers. "That would be difficult to explain to our contributors in and of itself…because that means we involved innocent bystanders."
"That would be a problem…but there's a bigger problem, isn't there?" The person stepped into the cone of light that came from the screen, revealing themselves to be a woman. "What if someone gets injected by accident and they wind up being even partially compatible with the mixture?"
"Then we're in trouble. If it comes to that, contact me immediately and we'll send in a team to capture them."
"Yes sir."
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"Another night, another series of ass-kickings, huh?" One of the street punks stationed in front of the warehouse chuckled and nudged another of the lookouts in the ribs. "So, who do you bet on winning in the big fight for the evening?"
"Hmmm…it's supposed to be Bruce or Roger, right?" Running a hand through his purple spiked hair, the other boy chuckled to try and ward off the approaching winter chill. "It's incredible how dangerous those two are, considering they're about two years younger than everybody else in the fighting circuit."
"I'd say that Bruce would win though, because he's a year older, right?"
"Who knows…now shut up and keep an eye out for the cops. We don't want them spoiling our fun."
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For the last few months, local street gangs had decided to use the warehouse district of town as the perfect place to settle their disputes. And even more recent than that, they'd decided that the best way to determine which gang won these fights without there being countless people being killed and injured was to have one on one matches between the best members of each gang.
And this Friday night was no exception at all. In fact, tonight was one of the biggest nights of the month, because it was the first Friday of the month. During the first Friday of each month, the two top gangs (Currently the Blood Tigers and Lone Wolves) would put their best fighters against each other and bets were taken. It was so big that even some people who weren't even part of the gangs would show up just to watch the fight and bet some of their money.
"So, should we get a stretcher ready for Bruce?" Walter Grant, better known as Walt by the members of his gang, the Lone Wolves, patted his little brother on the back. "From the look in your eye I can tell you're ready to pummel your rival's face inwards fifty times over in payback for last month."
Roger Grant brushed a few locks of his curly black hair back and licked his chops like a predator that could smell its prey. "No…I'll beat him so soundly that he'll actually be better off not moved." Ever since he was nine, people had considered him a thug. Considering his oddly goofy hair and his ice-blue eyes, he definitely looked like he was capable of some mischief. Looking down at the tape wrapped around his hands, he clenched his fists a couple of times. "So, what's the countdown to my fight?"
"You've got about half an hour. Maybe you should go out for a walk or something…" Walt smiled wryly and ran his customary black metal comb through his long, straight, black hair. Unlike his younger brother, who had always been considered the muscle of the two, Walt's skills had always resided in his strange mixture of methods in blackmail, extortion, and diplomacy. He could out-wit some of the greatest lawyers in the world when he cared enough to try. "Maybe some of Bruce's buddies will try to jump you."
"Maybe, but it would be their funeral if they did." Walt stood up to his much taller brother. "But yeah, the air will do me some good. It smells like a sweathouse in here." Pinching his nose gently, he turned and walked out of the tiny office that was reserved as a 'locker room' for all of the fighters.
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Ellen White pulled her overcoat around her tighter to try and fight off the chill in the air. That and she felt so very vulnerable walking down the back alleys of the warehouse district on her own. ("But I promised the professor that I would recover those samples, and I never go back on my word! Except…I gave him my word that I wouldn't fall asleep, didn't I?") Her hooded head tilted forward and she felt depressed again for the hundredth time today. "My life can never be simple, can it?"
As soon as she had left the lab, the device had activated and she had followed it all the way into and across town, until she finally reached the warehouse district. As soon as she had driven by the seemingly endless lines of buildings, her engine on her pathetically old car had broken down. ("And now I'm traipsing through this dark, damp…") She shivered and changed her train of thought immediately. If there was one thing she hated, it was the dark.
In her gloved hand rested a strange grey box about the size of a television remote control, which had a small screen and some buttons on it. And it kept indicating that the samples were all somewhere in front of her, though the distance on the device was meant for short range, so until she got to within 200 feet of the case there wouldn't be any kind of map to follow.
("Yeah…get a job at the lab, work towards your degree in genetics…") Ellen sniffled, partially out of the fact that her nose was starting to run because of the cold and partially because she wanted to cry at how weird her life had become in just the single month since she had joined up with Professor Excelsior. ("He won't even tell me his full name… 'It's just Excelsior, that's all', my foot….he's just an angry old man who buries himself in his…") A loud beeping brought her attention back to the world outside the overcoat. ("The signal is within locating range…about 198 feet to the northwest.")
As she got closer and closer to it, a feeling of foreboding came over her. It was like she was being watched. ("Oh man…maybe I should just call the Professor and ask for assistance?") Squeezing her eyes shut, Ellen stopped in her tracks and shivered again as the feeling of being watched came over her. ("No! I told him that I could get the case back, and that I'd have it back before anyone else at the lab was any wiser! I gave him my word!")
Turning a corner into a rather spacious alley between two warehouses, Ellen came to a stop as she looked from the screen on the tracker to right in front of her. The case, a large metal suitcase, was just sitting in the open, upright. ("That's…convenient.") From underneath her coat, she grinned and nearly skipped over to the case.
Kneeling, her hands ran over the ice cold steel as she undid the clasps that held it closed. With a hydraulic hiss the container opened to reveal lines upon lines of test tubes, each one properly marked and encased in a thing layer of protective foam. ("It looks like everything is in order. Here's all of…") Her heart stopped as her hand passed by an empty mold of foam. ("One's gone?")
"I see that you've come for it already." A strangely familiar voice echoed from a few feet behind her, about where the entrance to the alley was located.
Ellen gulped and very slowly turned around to face the speaker.
The man wore a white lab coat over his otherwise bare chest, though the damage the material has sustained made it look more like rags than anything else. His khaki pants were torn slightly around the edges, and his glasses were incredibly askew.
Ellen flushed white as she instantly remembered the man in front of her as Professor Excelsior's partner in the labs. "Eric Aizen?"
"That's right, dear Ellen." Eric removed his glasses, folded them shut neatly, and deposited them into his lab coat pocket. "I didn't think that the old fool would just send you alone to retrieve the case, which is a shame because I had so much in store for him if he had come." His fire-red hair mixed with the black of the night sky in a way that made it seem blood-red, and his brown eyes reflected a look that Ellen had only seen in movies before this point. It was a look of someone who believed themselves superior to everyone else…a look of someone drunk with power. "You know why I took them, right?"
Ellen shook her head weakly, feeling very scared now. The Eric Aizen she remembered working with was always one of the sanest men she had ever spoken with. This madman in front of her was nothing of the sort. "Maybe, you were going to sell them…"
He cut her off with an insane burst of laughter. "Sell them? Are you that stupid…that blind?" A dark sneer came across his face. "Don't you understand the power that these mixtures can grant? They can make someone so powerful that nothing human or man-made could stand against them."
"But the genetic structures of most people can't handle the mixtures! It will simply change them into an animal!" Ellen started to pick up the case, which she had closed before she had stood up to confront Eric. If he thought about using them, then it was her top priority to either get them away from him or destroy the case. ("The fate of the world might depend on whether or not I can…")
Eric's right eye widened slightly. "Most people, my dear Ellen." He stripped off the remains of his lab coat and threw it to the side, onto a dumpster. "Then again, I'm not most people, am I?" As he asked her this, his arms and chest seemed to swell upwards slowly, filling his normally slim frame with muscle. "It's too late to stop me, because I've already tested the mixture on myself. And just between you and me…" His ears started to warp and his eyes became slotted and a bizarre yellow-green color. "…the Varanus Komodoensis mixture works just fine." His lips curled back to reveal rapidly sharpening teeth.
Ellen gasped in fear and nearly tripped over herself to run.
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Roger sighed and punched another trash can, denting the metal slightly. ("I can't let anything get in my way. When it's time for me to fight with Bruce, I have to beat that punk so hard that he forgets the years we have spent as rivals!") A calm smirk snuck onto his face. There was no reason, in his mind, that would indicate a loss tonight.
Ever since he'd entered the fourth grade, Bruce had always been there to challenge him at everything they did. Even since that time, they would turn everything they could into a competition. The fact that they were both part of rival gangs didn't help either. And yet no matter how much Roger would get angry at Bruce, they'd never actually try to injure each other outside of a real fight. Bruce said it was because of his honorable code as a fighter…Roger just didn't want to get his school shirt dirty, since that was the only other place they met besides in the warehouse district.
Roger was brought out of his reverie by a gasp that had come from around the corner. It had sounded like a woman. Slowing his steps, the boy very carefully inched his head around the corner to have a look at what was going on.
"…come back to the lab, Eric. We can help you…" Some woman wearing way too much winter clothing was slowly approaching Roger, her back to him. And she was apparently trying to get away from a behemoth of a man who was very slowly approaching her. After a few moments of thought, Roger decided that it would be best if he just sat back and waited to see what happened. ("After all, there's no reason for me to go sticking my nose into other people's business…")
Aizen sneered, his now reptilian eyes glittering in the awkward moonlight. "But why would I go back there? I'd just become some little experiment…or ever worse, they'd lock me away for being a possible threat." He lifted up one now-huge hand and flexed the longer than normal nails at the end of it. "No…I have a better idea. Let's play a game of cat and mouse…or should I say superhuman and human?" An oddly long tongue licked across sharpened teeth. "Come on, dear Ellen…start the game. I'll even be sporty enough to give you to the count of ten."
Ellen, while Aizen had been talking, had reached into her jacket and pressed the emergency button on her phone. That would send Dr. Excelsior a message saying that the worst possible situation had happened, and that he would need to get a capture team to her location as soon as possible.
The former doctor's eye met hers, and he saw a slight sparkle of hope there. "You just called for help, didn't you?" Lifting up a single finger, he waved it in the air and 'tsk'ed at her. "That's not nice at all. Now I guess your ten seconds are up…so here we go!" Growling like some kind of alligator that was about to attack, he launched towards her with his claws back to cut her through.
Ellen screamed and turned to run, though she knew that he was far too fast for her to get away from. ("Please…someone…anyone…save me!")
"Die!" Aizen's claws got a few feet from her back…and then were knocked away as a pipe was struck across his hand, sending pain spiking up it. Roaring in pain, the former doctor withdrew the injured limb and glared at the boy holding it.
Roger narrowed his eyes at the creep. "Even street thugs don't play sick games…" Then he realized that this guy's eyes were slotted…and a weird green-yellow color that Roger remembered seeing on some kind of holographic picture once. ("What is this guy?")
Aizen, with inhuman speed, punched Roger as hard as he could with his uninjured hand, sending the boy barreling out of sight around the corner. "Little interfering…" His nostrils flared and he looked over to where Ellen had been. ("And the game is afoot…how fun.")
Roger already forgotten, Aizen began his hunt.
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Walt sighed and glanced at his watch. ("Okay…I said take a little stroll, not jog the perimeter of the district. Get back here already!") Out of habit, he ran his comb through his hair and then opened the door of the 'locker room'. "Hey, has Roger come back yet?"
"Nope, sorry Walt." The guard at the door shrugged helplessly and looked out the window. After a few seconds, he cursed loudly. "It looks he had the right idea, because the police are here!"
"What?" Walt nearly fell out of the room in his rush to make it to the exit. "Make sure to turn on the alarm. I have to go find Roger before he comes back and gets himself arrested!"
The guard nodded and then both ran off in different directions.
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Ellen shoved another stack of cardboard boxes over to try and put something between her and Aizen as an obstacle. ("This is bad. He's already injected himself with one of the mixtures. If he had actually been completely compatible, then he wouldn't have changed quite that much. Therefore, I can only assume that his genetic structure appeared to fit with the mixture.") That meant he didn't test his DNA with the mixture in the lab.
She knew that gave him a time limit before the mixture changed him fully into an animal. After that, her chances of getting away might be a little better…hopefully. ("Why am I calmly thinking through this? I'm getting chased by the lizard-man!")
When that thought crossed her mind, she gulped loudly and ran as quickly as she could down the alleys, trying to make her path as unpredictable as possible. ("Please Professor Excelsior, hurry!")
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Roger's eyes slowly cracked open, his ribs hurting badly. ("Oh man…that freak hits like a champion boxer.") Standing slowly and cradling his ribs, the boy looked around warily to see if the two people were still here. ("No…they left. He must have left after her. Lucky me…now I'll just…")
He slowed for a second, and his eyes softened as he remembered the last image in his mind. It was a partial image of the woman's face…blond hair…blue eyes… ("Damn it…I can't just leave her to that thing!") Biting back the pain from his ribs, he charged off in the opposite direction of the alley he'd met them both. That lady didn't seem like she knew this area very well, and she probably didn't know that she was running right towards the center of the district. ("That area was a factory compound…if he traps her within the walls of that area then she's dead!")
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Aizen cackled to himself. ("How easy it is…I can actually leap from rooftop to rooftop with no problem at all!") He was easily keeping pace with Ellen, and he knew exactly where she was headed. ("The compound up ahead will be perfect for what I have in mind for this girl. I have to smell her real fear…not this false fright. I want the real thing!") Snarling, he picked up the pace.
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Walt glanced out at the warehouse, where there was now a huge stampede of guys that were running out of it as quickly as they could. ("Come on Roger…don't be a fool. Please…call me on your phone already!") He looked down at his cell phone, which said out of service at the moment. ("Leave me a stinking message! Tell me you're going home…")
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Roger winced as he climbed the chain-link fence as quickly as possible. ("My ribs are damaged from one hit?") He didn't know a lot of things about medicine and the human body, but for someone to hit that hard in one hit meant that guy was definitely not a normal human. ("Considering the eyes…")
A slight shiver ran up his spine as he reached the top of the chain-link and dropped down on the other side of the alley. Those eyes had burned into his soul…they scared him even more than he had realized at that time. "I'm getting involved in something that doesn't concern me…but I can't leave that lady to that freak."
A beeping came from his phone, and he slowed his run to remove the device from his hip pocket. Looking at the phone's window, he rolled his eyes and pressed the answer button. Bringing the receiver to his ear, he winced at the volume of the police sirens in the background. "Walt, what the hell is going on back there? You didn't need to call the police to find me."
"Shut up, this isn't the time for jokes. The police are here." There was a moment of muffled silence as Walt covered the phone and ran down the alley to put some distance between himself and the policemen.
"Walt? Walt?" Roger snorted and was about to hang up when he heard his brother's voice on the other end.
"Head home, and I'll meet you there!" Walt gasped as a spotlight washed over him and stopped its sweep. "Damn, got to go!"
Roger heard the click and rolled his eyes. His brother would be fine. ("That guy can talk his way out of anything.") Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he skidded around the corner and frowned slowly. ("I'm here.")
The old compound had, for the longest time, been used as a meeting place and a hideout for a lot of gangs. It was normally considered a safe zone, as all of the gangs had agreed to keep their vandalism and violence out of the area. ("Now it's being used as that freak's playground to hunt that lady.") A flash of the woman's image went off in his mind and he clenched his fist tightly. ("No! I won't let him.")
"Well…well…" A cold, almost hissing voice spoke from right behind Roger. "It's you again. I suppose that you came to cause more trouble, you little punk. Well then, perhaps it would be smarter for me to hunt you at the moment then. How does that sound?"
To be continued…
Author's Notes: Well, here's the first chapter of my story. Not much more I can say except that if you liked it, or disliked it for that matter, then please tell me so in a review. I won't be offended by any constructive criticism, and I certainly won't be offended by any compliments. Thanks in advance!