Okay, despite the total lack of reaction to the last chapter, here's chapter 5. Once again, if you're reading this (and I know there are hits; I checked the stats) please, please take just a moment to review. That's really the only gratification any of us gets for the work we do on these stories and, as I said once before, feedback is the one most important tool a writer has for improvement. Thanks for reading this and hope you enjoy.
Nene roared through the night on the high-performance crotch-rocket Mackie had loaned her, long-coat fluttering in the breeze behind her. Across her back was slung a wakazashi that appeared ancient but was not. Down the length of it's blade, kanji spelled out the name 'Muramasa', a blade of Japanese legend, and also the name Sylia had whimsically given one of her hardsuit's laser-edged swords. And this blade was indeed that same sword, re-forged by Mackie into traditional form, but retaining all of it's technological deadliness.
Granted, without the hardsuit's power system, running only on the micro-miniaturized power cells concealed in it's pommel, it's operational time was somewhat limited. But Nene thought it would suit her purposes just fine.
In addition, she carried a laser-edged, poly-ceramic combat knife tucked into her boot, and, in a shoulder holster, a replica of the hand canon Dr. Raven had presented to Priss on that fateful day, lovingly recreated by Mackie. All in all, she felt as ready to do what needed to be done as she ever thought she would be.
As she'd predicted, once she entered the Canyons, it hadn't been hard to locate The Asshole. After a couple of 'misunderstandings' that she quickly and painfully cleared up, she was able to get the directions she needed, and proceeded there with all haste.
Once in sight of the place, she parked the bike a safe distance away, setting it's alarm and anti-theft systems to aggressive mode. What that meant for anyone who tried to steal or tamper with it she wasn't sure, but Mackie's grin as he'd mentioned it to her had been positively evil, leading her to believe that it was a bit harsher than the law would normally have allowed. She hoped so in this neighborhood.
As she strode toward the place, it struck her that the name was an apt one. The hand painted sign, proclaiming this "The Asshole of the World" hung crookedly on the side of what was left of an old brownstone building, and yawning below it was indeed what looked like the world's asshole. A gaping, roughly circular hole about three meters in diameter in the pavement was apparently the entrance, with a sturdy metallic spiral stairwell running down into the blackness, out of which raucous, ear-hurtingly loud retro-techno and industrial music blared.
No doorman or bouncer guarded the stairwell. Apparently, anyone who was brave or stupid enough was welcome to enter, with their own prowess being the only guarantee that they'd ever exit. With a sigh, Nene slowly descended the stairwell, leaving the crow behind to perch high up on the crown of a ruined building nearby.
As she climbed down, the blackness slowly lightened, but not by much. Most of the patrons, she guessed, would be able to function just fine in the lowlight environment, and it gave them an advantage over those who couldn't. Fortunately for her, it seemed that her newfound abilities included better night vision as well. Her eyes quickly adjusted and she was soon able to see as well as she would have under the light of a full moon.
Looking around her as she reached the base of the stairs, she saw that The Asshole encompassed a fairly large space. It appeared that the main chamber had been a part of the city's sewers at one time, and had been enlarged by knocking down retaining walls and connecting with the basements of several nearby buildings. The whole thing had to be less than structurally sound, but she was sure that that probably just made it more popular with the kind of patrons that it attracted. And besides, to guess from what Takashi had said, it must have remained standing for years now, so maybe it wasn't as rickety as it seemed. Either way, it didn't really matter to Nene.
Scattered about the floor were improvised tables and chairs, obviously made of whatever had been readily available, and over to the left was what passed for a bar. Straight ahead, adjoining the far wall, was a sunken area, maybe a meter lower than the rest of the floor, which apparently served as a dance floor and mosh pit. As she watched, bodies, both fleshy and otherwise, gyrated and collided with each other to the hammering beat of the music, and occasionally came sailing out to land, some more messily than others, among or on top of the bar's other patrons. The latter almost always instigated swift and bloody violence, she noticed, and it occurred to her that the bar's clientele must have an awfully high turnover rate.
For a moment, she just stood at the bottom of the stairs, shocked by what she saw. True, she'd been expecting the worst, but nothing she'd seen in her former life had in any way prepared her for a place like this. A tiny lance of terror briefly pierced her heart, and she found herself thinking, 'My God, what am I doing here?' But then she remembered why she was there, and a cold surge of rage blew the terror away like a morning fog. She'd already been raped, tortured, and murdered, she thought. What could this place offer that was worse than that?
Resolute once more, she strode forward, ignoring the looks, curious and otherwise, that she drew as she passed. She knew that, even dressed as she was and painted in her harlequin's mask, she didn't look nearly rough enough for a place like this. And since there were only two distinctions for patrons in establishments like this one, predator and prey, she knew that it was probably only a matter of time before someone or something decided to put her to the test. She wasn't wrong.
As she walked, looking around carefully for any of four familiar faces, she was stopped short by a hard, metallic hand on her bicep. Without even turning, she said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the music, "One chance. The hand. Take it off before I do it for you."
She heard a metallic growl in response, and felt the hand begin to tighten on her arm. In one fluid motion, she whipped the laser-edged combat knife from her boot with her left hand, pressed the activating stud on the handle, and twisted sharply to the right, slashing cleanly through the wrist just above offending hand. Flipping the knife over on the follow-through, she brought it back on a reverse trajectory, back-handed, at throat level. She was gratified to feel resistance as the blade connected with something, and was further rewarded by a strangled gurgle as the hand's former owner staggered back from her and dropped to his knees before pitching forward onto his face. A pool of reddish liquid, possibly blood and possibly not, rapidly formed under and around him. Nene was reasonably sure he wouldn't be grabbing anyone else any time soon.
Without missing a step or looking back, she deactivated the blade and slipped it back into her boot, continuing on forward as if nothing had happened. It struck her then that she'd almost certainly killed someone in cold blood, someone whose face she'd never even seen. Somewhere inside of her, some part of her recoiled in horror. But the overwhelming majority of her, the part that burned and seethed for vengeance, saw it as simply his own damn fault. If he hadn't been so eager to victimize her as she'd already been victimized once before, he'd still be alive. And now, who knew how many of his potential future victims had been spared. In the end, this part of her won out, and the other small part was silent, perhaps putting to rest the last remnants of the old Nene Romanova.
After this, she noticed that she got slightly more respect and a bit wider berth from the other patrons. Apparently she'd made the impression she needed to, and there'd be no more need for displays of that sort. At least not until she'd found one of those she sought.
As it turned out, that didn't take very long at all. Looking about her, she soon spied, sitting at a dark corner table, a familiar chrome-plated face. Her optic slit glowed a sickly green as she slowly caressed the half-naked girl sitting at her side, a spiked collar around her neck connected to a leash that dangled carelessly from Delilah's hand.
Nene's eyes narrowed, and her mouth became a hard line as she approached the table, and she felt her heartbeat hammering in her chest in anticipation of what was to come. Delilah cocked her head slightly as she came near, and her optic slit flared briefly in surprise as Nene hopped to the table top and sat cross-legged in front of her.
Dropping the girl's leash, Delilah said, perplexed and annoyed, "What the-!" but was cut off as Nene raised a finger to her face, and said, "Let me know if this sounds familiar, would you? And then tell me- who am I?" And then, adopting an expression of agony, she screamed, "Oh, God, please, no! Please stop! Please! Why are you doing this? Oh God!" Stopping as abruptly as she'd started, Nene leaned in close toward Delilah and, grinning humorlessly, said, "Well, Delilah?"
Nene had the impression then that if Delilah had still possessed eyes, they would have widened in shock if not necessarily recognition. "Holy shit!" Delilah exclaimed, surging to her feet and knocking the table over in the process. But as it fell, Nene pushed off from her cross-legged position, and, executing a perfect back flip, landed on her feet as if nothing had occurred. Her gaze on fire with smoldering hatred, Nene slowly advanced upon Delilah, and said mockingly, "Well? I asked you a question, didn't I Delilah? Got an answer yet? Ten seconds, Delilah, or the prize goes to somebody else."
Angry now, Delilah stood her ground, and said, "Answer? Yeah, I got an answer for you, you crazy little bitch. The answer is- you're friggin' dead!"
As she said this, an all-too-familiar appendage poked it's clawed head up from below, and as she flexed her fists, two curved, humming blades, thirty centimeters in length, snapped from the sides of her forearms like a rooster's spurs. Crouching into a fighting stance, the metallic tentacle drawn up near her shoulder like a scorpion's tail, Delilah looked back at Nene and hissed, "Bring it on, little girl!"
Nene shook her head as she slowly closed the distance between them and said, "Oh, I'm sorry! Judges? Well, there you have it, I'm afraid. You only get partial credit for that answer, Delilah. I am 'friggin' dead', but you missed the most important part. You're one of the people who murdered me." And in a growl of barely controlled rage, Nene added, "Care to guess what the consolation prize is?"
With an ululating roar, Delilah charged, swinging one of her vibro-spurs in an arc that would have slashed deep into Nene's chest if she'd still been standing there. But by the time Delilah's blade had passed through the space Nene had been occupying, she was already gone, leaping up and over her, somersaulting and twisting in mid air to deliver a jarringly powerful kick to the base of Delilah's skull as she passed overhead. While not enough to actually harm her, the kick knocked Delilah off balance, and she staggered forward, crashing into an adjacent table and falling to the floor. For her part, Nene used the impact of her kick to drive herself into another back flip and then landed lightly on her feet, again facing Delilah.
"Well, that didn't work worth a shit, now did it?" She chided. "Care to try again?"
Regaining her feet, Delilah growled, and said, "Sure. Why not?" And, pointing an index finger at Nene, there was a loud crack. Nene felt the stinging impact of something small and very fast, and, as blood blossomed from her abdomen, realized that she'd been shot. A damned cyber-gun. Small caliber. One shot. Purely a sucker-punch kind of weapon. It figured.
As Nene staggered back a step from the impact, Delilah charged up and grabbed her by the throat, slamming her hard against the wall. Nene whuffed as the breath was knocked from her, and Delilah, bringing her featureless face close said, "Well, this has been really entertaining, I must say. But I've had about all the fun I can handle for one night, I think."
Smiling maliciously, Nene said, "Oh, I don't think so Delilah. 'I'm about to totally redefine pleasure and pain for you.' That one ring a bell?"
Shocked, Delilah pulled her face back, and, incredulous, said, "You! But there's no way! It can't be you! We killed you!"
Still smiling, a thin trickle of blood making it's way down the corner of her mouth, Nene said, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, she finally got it! I don't know about you, but I think she deserves the grand prize!"
With that, Nene again reached down to snag the combat knife from her boot and, activating it on the fly, rammed it home to the hilt in Delilah's armored mid-section. Satisfyingly red blood immediately poured down over Nene's hands, and there was a reverberating scream from Delilah as she staggered back, dropping Nene. For her part, Nene ripped the knife from Delilah's gut viciously as she retreated, causing more damage and more bleeding.
Partially regaining her equilibrium, Delilah went back on the offensive, swinging at Nene with her humming blades. But, unlike a boomer, pain, exhaustion and blood loss all affected Delilah, if not to the same extent as it would have an unaugmented human being. Her swings were slower and weaker than they had been, and carried a sense of desperation behind them. Nene sidestepped or parried all of Delilah's strikes with relative ease, and pressed back at Delilah with skillful swings and jabs from her combat knife. Eventually, she forced her around and back, until she was cornered against the same wall that she'd slammed Nene into. And then Nene got serious.
With a growl, she bypassed Delilah's guard and slashed her chest deeply, the laser-edged blade slicing cleanly through the metal and ceramic composite breastplate grafted to Delilah's skin and biting into the soft tissues underneath. Again Delilah screamed, and Nene pressed her advantage, working inside and around her weakening guard to cut her half a dozen times. Finally, Delilah could take no more, and dropped to her knees, no longer able even to keep her arms up in a pretense of defense. But she did have one weapon left.
Snaking up from below, the barbed metallic horror that was her cyber-tentacle suddenly shot up, aiming to impale Nene through her pelvic region and tear on up into the soft tissues of her abdomen. But as it's clawed tip neared her most sensitive areas, Nene's off hand darted down and caught it, stopping it dead. Cocking her head slightly, Nene's eyes narrowed in loathing, and, dropping the combat knife, she grasped the tentacle with both hands. Placing her boot firmly on Delilah's pelvis, she yanked with all her might, feeling herself tap into some previously unused reservoir of strength as she did so. With a wet tearing sound and a fresh gush of blood, the tentacle came loose and writhed briefly in Nene's hands before she threw it to the floor in disgust. Delilah gave only a weak, metallic whimper at the loss of her extraneous member, apparently too far gone for anything stronger.
Bending close, Nene recovered the combat knife, and said, "Well, that was refreshing. But I think I've broken you, Delilah. I guess you just weren't up to servicing a girl of my caliber." With that, Nene rammed the blade into Delilah's Nether regions, eliciting at least one more scream of agony, and then, grasping the hilt with both hands, she pulled upward savagely. Again there was a wet tearing sound and a final moan from Delilah, and her green, glowing optical slit slowly went dark. Nene's shoulders slumped in an exhaustion that was far more emotional than physical, and, recovering the combat knife, she wiped it off on Delilah's skirt and then slipped it back into her boot.
Reaching into an inside pocket of the long coat, she pulled out another little toy she'd borrowed from Mackie, a low-output laser stylus similar to the one built into her old suit. Again following something that passed for instinct, she quickly scorched out the stylized outline of a crow on the floor around Delilah's prostrate form. Then, in a flourish, she added the words 'Knight' and 'Sabers' on the left and right wings respectively. Satisfied now, and weary beyond words, she turned to face the stairs and slowly strode toward them, the other patrons now giving her a wide berth.
She trudged up the stairs slowly, and then made her way to her borrowed bike, barely remembering to deactivate the anti-theft system before mounting. Tired in body and spirit, but uplifted in a way she couldn't quite define, she hopped on the bike and zoomed back toward Raven's Garage. She arrived just as the sun was beginning to creep up over most of Mega Tokyo, but the Canyons remained in perpetual darkness.