The Trinity Sitch - Book 4: Heart of the Fury
Chapter 19: Chili Cheeseburgers
Yori stared at her plate as if somebody had served her a broiled giant mutant cockroach. The…thing on it seemed to be oozing something she could not readily identify. She lifted the top off of it, finding little inside that was familiar to her either. She replaced the top and reached for a napkin to wipe the grease from her fingertips. She looked across the Formica table at Wade, who had insisted on their choice at the busy cafeteria.
Somehow a lot of the mild fantasies she had entertained about him were chased away at the sight of him happily chewing on the dripping mess he had called a chili cheeseburger. "Mmmph, (swallow) you not hungry, Yori?"
"I was expecting and American style hamburger like I have had in Tokyo. This is…"
"Pure perfection on a bun. They're not as good as you can get at Muddrakker's but it's nice to have one once in a while, especially since I don't get to eat anything like this at home any more."
"Why would you not get…this…at home?" She lifted the edge of the bun again, surveying the oily brown gloop mixing with the orange cheese.
"Early last year Ron and Kim got stuck for a few days eating nothing but my personal stash of food. When they got back, Kim sat down with my mother and convinced her my diet was going to do me in, so ever since then I've been eating mostly green things." He made a face that mirrored Yori's. He looked up, seeing his disgust mirrored in her face, realizing what he considered an absolute treat probably looked like toxic sludge to her. He quickly put his own burger down, wiping his mouth.
"Yori, I have a confession to make. I don't know what I'm doing. In fact, I have utter, positively no idea what I'm doing, so if I'm looking like a total idiot to you, I'm not faking."
"Wade-san, I have been told you are one of the most brilliant minds on the planet. I cannot think of you as an idiot."
"That's not exactly what I mean. It's…I…you. Bleaaaah!"
"I am bleah to you?"
"No! I…" he buried his face in his hands. Without looking up he muttered, "I just wanted to ask you out and all. When all this is over, if there really is something bad going on. I just don't trust Drakken any further than I could throw him, his recent bought of sanity notwithstanding. I mean, what he says makes a little sense, but I'm a scientist, not a wizard or something and I know you're like a few years older than me but I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I think Shego thinks she's got him wrapped around her fingers but I don't know, he's played her before and…"
"Wade-san."
"…with Kim and Ron missing I don't know what to think and…"
Yori put her hand on top of his, her small palm not even a third of the size of his wide grip. "Wade-san, I would love to go out with you, granted you have permission to go out with an…older woman."
Yori's timid smile almost melted Wade. "Like you said, you're only a little bit older than me. I think Mom'll be thrilled. She still can't get over me actually getting out of the house for a regular job, even though I've got enough money rolling in from my patents. Did I mention that…"
"Wade-san, do you always ramble like this?"
"Uh, not really. Do you, uh, want me to get you something else?"
Mustering her courage, Yori lifted the dripping mess to her lips. Once, someone had convinced her to try a Naco the next time she was in Tokyo and that had turned out to be a pleasant surprise (at least going down – she was used to a traditional Japanese diet and American Style fast food doesn't always sit well in those circumstances.) Hesitantly, she took a bite. Then another, and another, finally opening her small mouth as far as it would go to take a huge bite, causing oil, mustard and chili to drip back onto her plate.
"You use the fries to get what you lost." Wade said, demonstrating the technique on his own plate.
"I've never tasted anything quite like that, and that includes the 'Burger Prince' hamburger I had in Tokyo."
"Hamburgers are actually a regional thing, they're not all alike. My parents are from Atlanta, and this is how they like their burgers in the South. Chili, slaw, mustard, onions, cheese. Beats that beef patties, thousand island sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun garbage at McBurger any day of the week.
Yori could only nod as she dug deeper into her culinary treat. Feeling a little happier, a little more confident now that she had secured a tentative date, she slipped one foot out of her sandal and started playing with Wade's calf, almost causing him to choke on a French fry.
His reaction shocked her back to reality. What was she doing? Despite his size, his bearing, his seeming maturity, Wade was still a minor, at least in his culture and she was an adult, despite her sheltered upbringing. A date was fine, but she had to behave herself. Anything else would be, as she often said, unseemly.
Yet her toes kept moving up and down his bare calf. She had notices his stares earlier and was starting to appreciate Joss Possible-san's taste in clothing, the way it drew his eyes downward…
Stop it! This is not…proper!
She had not even kissed him. It was not the time or the place for such a thing, but she couldn't get it out of her head. This was so new, so alien to her.
She was honestly entertaining the thought of leaning over the narrow table and kissing him right then and there.
Joss was getting bored. Over the last couple days she had gotten used to talking with Yori. Make that jabbering away with her. No, make that jabbering away at her, for the most part. Now she was gone, having lunch with Wade. Joss dearly loved the guy, but, come on! This is Wade we're talking about she thought.
It didn't take her much to catch the way those two were looking at each other. Wade's attention to Yori was only mildly surprising. She just simply never thought of Wade as wanting to chase after girls. He was always just this guy on a Kimmunicator screen, a guy who seemingly only left his room to go to work at the Space Center, fiddling with that space ship over there. It was the fact Yori was looking at him like she had been thunderstruck. Wade wasn't heinous, but he wasn't the most handsome man on the planet either. Granted, when she looked at him the first thing she saw was the eleven year old boy she had first seen on her cousin's screen. She had seen him off and on in those intervening years, so his growth into a tall, muscular young man had been a gradual thing. Then too, Wade was pretty much family.
She really should be happy with this turn of events. That meant Yori could finally stop obsessing about Ron. Oh, she talked a good game during their ride across Arizona, but she was an expert at reading between the lines. The girl still carried a big old torch for her cousin-in-law.
One almost as big as the one she still carried.
That was utter nonsense, she would tell herself. I little girl crush on a guy who, by his own repeated admission, was scared of everything, wasn't much to look at (okay, that had changed over the last couple years) and wasn't exactly the brightest candle on the Menorah.
She kept telling herself that it wasn't Ron she wanted, but the ideal of him. Her long string of boyfriends were just fun, something to occupy her time and, sometimes, just the right thing to piss off her father, especially the ones she slept with. Somebody like Ron was who she would one day settle down with, the man she would rope and make her husband, the man who would father her children. She wanted a man with all of his essential Ron-ness.
It was a good rationalization. Too bad she'd only ever met one man like that.
She watched as the woman she would only ever think of as "Shego" led her daughter back into the room. It was easy enough to look at her now, with her now normal looking flesh, her hair cut above her shoulders, wearing jeans and a blouse instead of the green and black jumpsuit, and think she was just a nice, normal woman with a severe case of bitchiness.
Joss knew better.
"Hey, Montana, didn't Ninja-girl go off to lunch with Nerdlinger a little bit ago?"
"Yup." She muttered, turning her attention back to an online version of a fashion magazine displayed on her Kimmunicator.
"…and wasn't she dressed up like you in those 'hump-me-now' hot pants?"
"So says the woman in the 'hey boys, look at these!' blouse?" She shot her verbal nemesis another withering glare, only to be ignored once again.
"Just saying, she must have realized muscle boy is nothing but an over inflated tub of goo cause she was just headed the other way, and she's already back in that ninja getup of hers."
"Wait a minute. Her gi is still in our bags, in the back of my jeep. They went to the cafeteria, that's nowhere near the hanger."
"So?"
Joss was already on her feet, headed for the passageway leading past the ready room they were occupying. She had been in the Global Justice Headquarters complex enough to know her basic way around. The cafeteria was to the right. To the left, leading away from the dining area, was the passage leading to the central command complex. She ran back into the room, grabbing her grappler gun and a coiled up bullwhip, fixing them to her belt loops.
Grabbing her Kimmunicator, she dialed up unit three (Wade's wrist unit) and hit send.
"Hey, Wade, is Yori still with ya?"
"Sure is. She just polished off her second chili-cheeseburger and she's eyeing mine."
"'Kay, whatever. Shego just said she passed Yori headed for the command center, all dressed up ninja-like. If she's there with you…"
"…then the fake Yori is here too. We're on our way." He signed off.
Joss took off down the hall at a dead run, leaving a confused Sherry Lipsky in her wake.
Corrin's confidence was high. It had been easy enough to divine where the captured clones would be taken. If it involved those particular youthful heroes of this world, it always ended up involving Global Justice as well. A few calls placed with carefully hidden agents and some other, native contacts she had secured and it was clear they had been flown from Arizona back to the main command complex. Since she was already there, it was a very simple matter to cast a lens and step into an empty room. There may have been over a thousand people inside the sprawling underground facility, but there was always vacant space, waiting for those who did not need use normal doors to enter.
From there she considered her choices. First she would have to figure out exactly where the prisoners would be kept. That was simple enough, as these foolish Terrans had a habit of placing maps in almost every room. Clearly labeled on the diagram was the holding area, two levels below the command center.
Then there was the question of how she would approach. It was mid-day and the whole place was buzzing with activity. She caught bits and pieces of conversations. There were agents tracking known terrorists in the Middle East. Other agents had somebody named 'Brotherson' on their minds. Without physical contact, all she could hear were the loudest of thoughts sifting from unguarded minds. The fools were either too confident in their security or they had no experience with those who could pry into unwary thoughts.
That made a more brazen approach possible. She was, after all, the master of the Gatherers. They all learned their craft from her, she was the font on knowledge they drew upon to carry out their tasks for the masters.
She strode from the room just as she was, dressed entirely in her Terran ninja garb, the hood down. She walked with purpose, as if she knew precisely where she was going, as if she had every right to be where she was and to be going where she was going. The fools were so confident in their security they didn't look at her twice, save for a couple of men whose lecherous thoughts wafted over her like the stink of month old garbage. Some of the men of this world were worth her time and she knew how to take pleasure from them, but only when she was the one making the selection. Most were simply slugs to her.
Not everyone in the complex were wearing the navy-blue jumpsuits. There were civilians everywhere. She even saw a young woman leading her child from a lavatory. This was all too easy and much quicker than trying to infiltrate the facility by stealth. Still, she cast just the tiniest glamour on herself, diminishing the casual viewer's notice of her current shapely, though woefully undernourished form.
There were far fewer people around as she descended the two requisite levels to the holding area, increasing the chance the more awake among them would notice her presence. She waited until she was completely alone, then sprung up into the heavy metal scaffolding, pulling the hood up over her head, leaving only her eyes visible. From a hidden fold of her gi, she pulled a length of black cloth, tying it over her face, concealing her eyes while allowing her full vision.
With practiced, almost fluid ease she sprang from beam to beam, covering the remaining distance like a shadowy black cat. Where her protégés had to use calm, planned moved, she slipped through the gloom like a silent breath of breeze, her speed unmatched by even the best of her charges.
Still, she was gaining some measure of respect for the security in this place. Most of the time everything was directed at doors. Control the door, you could control the space you were defending. That worked, as long as the intruder wished to use the door. She knew from the report the clones had given her when they had been here before that the air system was not going to yield to her presence. Some time in the past these people had learned their lesson. There would be no crawling through the ventilation ducts in here.
That mattered little to a being who could not be barred by a simple physical barrier. Whispering a word of power, her black clothing became even more dark, as if the light around her were being pulled into it, lost as if she had become the very opposite of light. She pressed herself flat against a wall, slowly becoming part of it. Great distances could be bridged by the power of the Arkonian lens, but that would not suffice here. The silvery disk of a transit lens would give off enough light to alert the scattered guards, as would the sound it made as two distinct points in the cosmos became one for a moment as she stepped through. No, this was another technique, one where she would partially step into another dimension, bridging the gap between this world and one of perpetual shadow. From her perspective she stepped into the wall, turned around and stepped out, emerging on the other side.
The chamber was large, carved from solid bedrock on the outskirts of Middleton. The interior was roughly dome shaped, with a single light shining from above. In the center was a single cell made of a clear plastic substance. Inside, sitting placidly were her two targets. Because of their training, they had observed her entrance.
She was sure they knew what would come next. This was part of their training as well, to accept the result of failure. If they had been fully up to the skill required for this job, she would not have had to do this herself. They would have ended their lives before being brought to such a place.
"This would have been easier if the two of you had done your job properly." She said in an icy voice.
The red-haired female stood, her hands bound behind her back with cuffs. She stood there, her legs apart, defiant to the last. "We have done what has been asked of us."
"Silence, you fool. You should have already ended your pathetic life."
"I cannot. The master commands me that I must live at all costs. You would be wise to heed his wishes."
"False child. I can see now why it took the trainers so long to break you. Too much spirit taken from your natural forebear. You know what it means to fail, and fail you have, both at your capture and your continued, pathetic existence." She waved a hand and the mechanical portion of the lock popped open. Alarms began to blare, but she didn't care. By the time anyone arrived she would have finished her mission and have left using a lens. A short, chisel tipped knife appeared in her hand.
She walked into the box-like cell, the knife held ready to spill the life from the defiant clone. Her fist rose, the blade down.
Something snaked out of the darkness, wrapping itself around her wrist, pulling her back as she moved to strike. Her head whipped around, seeing the two figures framed in the doorway for the first time. One was holding a long whip of corded leather, still wrapped around her arm, the sting lessened by the thick, silk-like material of her clothing.
The other was the woman whose form she had taken.
"Looks to me like we've got us a per-tend ninja here, what you say, Yori." The slight female holding the whip said in an accent Corrin could almost not comprehend. She reached for the cord, but it snaked away just past her fingertips. She readied herself for the painful weapon to strike once more.
Instead the new combatant snapped it upwards, wrapping the end around a strut. She was so perplexed by the move she almost didn't see the high-heeled cowboy boot coming at her face in time. Twisting to one side she batted at the flying girl, catching her in her midsection with her free hand, sending her skidding to the floor.
The girl was good. She rolled up into a fighting crouch, but she knew she could not spend all of her attention on this newcomer. The other woman she knew would be the most dangerous.
"It is one thing to lie in wait for your victim." The golden skinned woman said, taking a step into the room almost casually as the smaller woman tried to circle around with her whip. "It is quite another to face your opponent with honor." Her hand, which had been hidden behind her back came up. She held the sword, point up in front of her face, then dropped into a fighting stance, the sword held high in both hands.
Corrin could only stare as she recognized the weapon. This was impossible! How did she have the Master's sword?
She was so distracted she forgot about the other girl. At least until the whip stuck the back of her knife hand, sending the weapon sailing away from her. With a growl, she charged the closer woman "Foolish child! I will teach you about your betters!" she snarled in Arkonian.
"Sorry, lady, don't speak whatever it is your sayin. Now if you'd like, I do speak a lil bit a Spanish." The girl readied her whip to strike once more. This time she was ready. As the slender cord of stinging hide flashed through the air toward her, she caught it, not heeding the barb at its tip. It wrapped around her arm and she hauled the skinny slip of a girl down onto the hard floor.
She didn't give her a chance to get up. Pouncing on her, she grabbed the back of her neck, speaking another word of power. She did not have time to steal her form or her thoughts, but the spell was enough to knock her unconscious for a few minutes.
Instincts honed in close to a century of training kicked in. She leapt backwards, missing the flashing blade by mere inches. Her doppelganger did not let up in her charge, bringing the sword around once more in a flashing motion, the silvery steel just a blur in the muted light of the holding area.
Corrin backed off. Her instincts told her she had an edge in skill and experience, but the long sword evened up the odds considerably. A wicked smile curled onto her lips as she watched her opponent circling. The sword glittered in the overhead light, but it did not glow. The woman either did not know about or could not access its power. In the master's hands, the sword would be bathed in a white light. As such, there was no armor, no spell that could withstand the blade. Without it, it was just sharpened steel.
The young female ninja charged her once more, the sword held high, ready to strike. She spun on her heel, sailing away from the blow. What she didn't expect was the fist that crashed into her chin as she did so. The sword strike had been a diversion. She stumbled backwards, wiping the trickle of blood from her lip as her opponent circled once more.
"Your training rivals the Tragda Sur, young warrior, but you are no match for an Arcus." She threw her hands up and spoke another word of power. Darkness enveloped her hands, spreading like a wave into her opponent. The sword maiden flew backwards, landing on her rump before half rolling, half spinning back into her fighting stance. She cast her left hand at her, sending another wave of blackness, this time concentrated into a tight beam, right at her sword hand. The woman grunted in pain as the weapon went sailing across the room.
Blackness swirled around the female sorcerer's feet, launching her into the air at her opponent. She barely twisted out of the way in time, though her flight took her further away from her weapon.
"It is so nice that you have brought that pretty bauble for me to present to the Master. I know not how you came about it, but it will make a fine present to go with the other one he has, the one he captured from the Sword of the Effurien." Blackness grew around her hands again, sending the young woman painfully into the stone wall.
With fierce suddenness, pain washed through her body. The dark powers vanished as she wrenched herself away from its source. She fell to the ground on her back as her feet went out from under her and she saw her attacker in all his fury.
Standing over her, clutching her discarded knife was the blonde haired clone. Blood dripped from the blade where it had plunged into her waist. She could feel her own life blood seeping out. It was a killing blow, one that caused her crippling pain from her ruined kidney. There was no joy, no triumph in that placed, spotted face framed by an unruly mop of gold colored hair. There was no pity there either, only righteous fury. Standing nearby, the same fire visible in her green eyes, was the other clone. The both still had their hands chained, but they were no longer held behind their backs. Damned skinny wretches!
"The Master commands that we must live." She said in English, her naked fury making her stumble on the less-than-familiar words. Those green eyes were the last things she saw as consciousness faded away.
Yori picked herself up carefully. Nothing was broken, but the black light powers the witch had used on her had done more than throw her around like a rag doll. There had been pain in those powers. She could feel the icy chill of death as she was pummeled by it.
The two clones were standing over the body, the eyes wide open. As they stood there the body seemed to grow slightly, the hair changing from nearly black to blonde, the pale locks spilling all around her, some soaking in the small pool of blood she rested in. The spells that gave her the stolen form died along with her.
Dimly she was aware of the Global Justice soldiers pouring in, taking the bloodied knife away from the male clone. She could not bear to look at him. He wore his face but he was not him. There was none of the inner light in that face, none of the goodness she had seen through those brown eyes.
The only thing that was the same was what he had done when his mate was threatened. They may have been clones, completely different beings from her friends, but some how, some way something still held true between them. It was apparent in how they looked at each other as they were led back to the cell.
Joss was just coming around, the spell used to subdue her fading as well. She nodded to Yori, slowly getting to her feet.
Fire surging in her eyes, Yori pushed past the guards, grabbing the Ron-clone by his shirt, slamming him up against the side of the cell.
"She is the one who took Stoppable-san, is she not?"
"If you mean my forebear, yes."
"Where did she take him?"
"I do not know. She merely commanded us to take him to her transport. I would assume he would be taken to the Master."
"The Master? Who is he, where did she take them?"
"He is our Master, our lord, the living god of our world and soon of this one. It will not matter if I tell you where he has been taken, your puny world cannot reach him now. He has been taken to the world where I was created, where Asha was as well," he nodded toward the Kim-clone, "and when the Master has his Soulmate, he will rule all the cosmos!"
"You're saying he's not even on this planet?"
"He has been taken to the Master's world, to the Halls of Arkon.
"He is now on the planet Arkonia!"