Kenji watched with great anticipation as his friend, Seth, attempted an airborne three-sixty on his board. He bit down on his lip, clenching his fists together, praying that the guy could make it without cracking his head open on the ramp. As much as Kenji loved skateboarding, he was constantly worrying about having to watch his friends who were somewhat less skilled at balance (Tony Hawk should know that being a former ninja helps one control a board far more efficiently) and had rough mastery over their boards. Of course you'd never know it as Kenji wouldn't preform any really good stunts with people, particularly his friends, watching. There were only two people that he ever did tricks in front of, one was his brother, and the other was his best friend, Uriko.
He'd tried to bring Uriko here once or twice, to make things a little easier on his nerves, but that didn't exactly work. Particularly when she kept...er...breaking his concentration. He blushed even at the memories of her jumping up and down cheering for him, she was supportive but there were just times he wanted her to shut up. He also wanted something else...but that was something that Kenji would never admit to, even to Yugo. Though, half the time, he was pretty sure that everyone knew...except maybe Uriko.
He wasn't sure why he was so nervous with things, and he wasn't just talking about himself and Uriko, there always seemed an invisible rope around his waist that stopped him from putting himself out to far like showing up any of his buddies at boarding. It wasn't like it really mattered in any case as he didn't get to go skateboarding that often, he was too busy helping Yugo with W.O.C. affairs, school, training, and Uriko of course. Sometimes though, Kenji really wished he could grow out of this stage or funk, whatever the hell was wrong with him, and just get really passionate inside about something. As much as he had going for him the kid just wasn't fixated on anything enough to feel a good obsession.
Seth didn't make it, he got maybe half a spin before he came crashing down onto his backside.
"Ooh," the entire group of guys exclaimed as he thrashed onto the wooden ramp. Seth laid there for a few long moments, looking up at the sky, face still from the combination of pride shattering pain and embarrassment. Kenji felt for the guy.
"And he's down for the count!" Mateo, one of Kenji's closer associates, (he really couldn't consider any of these people friends) announced as he made a face. "Hey, someone wanna peel home-slice off the wood? He's gonna get burnt just layin' down there cuz I ain't waitin' on the ambulance to carry his injured pride off!"
"That is so mean," really the only girl who came to the park to actually skate, Tawny, said to Mateo. She chuckled nonetheless even as she shook her head.
"Fuck of, Mateo!" Seth grumbled, giving him the bird as he, assisted by a friend, hobbled off the ramp and onto the nearby bleachers.
"Well, he sounds just a lil' bit upset, wouldn't you say?" Tawny piped up.
"Ah, let him be upset, I don't fuckin' care so long's the ramp's clear," Mateo told her before spitting of the ledge. "Kenji, go."
Kenji looked over at his friend, taken slightly aback. He'd just had a try at the ramp right before Seth, it was like the law of the skate park that the other skaters, namely Mateo and Tawny go first.
"Huh?" Kenji said, one eyebrow cocked in question.
"Go," Mateo ordered. "Dude, when you last went you almost nailed that double spin, let's see if your mojo's still working."
Kenji's brain went into panic mode, they were starting to think he had something going on, which he did but he didn't want them to know that. In all truth he'd been hoping to avoid the ramp for the rest of the day, Yugo was supposed to be picking him up any moment now to take him to headquarters.
"But the rules say–" he started, trying to avoid this at all costs.
"Rules shmules," Tawny drawled hands on her hips. "You've got a chance to finally nail double spin. We're being nice, so get your skinny little ass over here and hit the wood!"
"Vamos, ese!" Mateo agreed, smacking his board on the ground lightly. "We haven't got all day." And as if that was all there was to it, he and Tawny stepped back, pushing him forward.
Kenji swallowed. The more he rode the ramp the more competitive he'd get, and if he got really competitive he just might not be able to stop himself. The last thing that the seventeen year old zoanthrope wanted was for his skate-boarding buddies to find out he'd been hiding his capabilities for the duration of the six months he'd been going there. How was it that, even when he was trying to play fair for everyone, things like this continued to happen?
"Go!" Mateo barked one final time, forcing Kenji to the ledge. He laid down his board, trying to think of a convincing way to screw his move up when he was saved by the blessed honk of a car horn. Kenji looked up and to his great relief found his big brother's black truck that had just pulled up near the entrance.
"Crap, Yugo!" he feigned disappointment and anxiety. "Sorry, guys, I gotta go!" And he ran for the ladder, making sure to go down the tedious rungs, fighting the urge to simply drop the fifteen feet to the ground. "Later!" And he was rushing across the cement towards the truck and safety, practically jerking the door off it's hinges when he jumped in.
Yugo looked his brother over as Kenji slammed the door, brows high in surprise.
"Bad morning?" Yugo asked, the look on his face questioning Kenji's sanity.
"Just drive," the seventeen year old ordered dourly. He stripped off his helmet and elbow pads.
"Okay, okay, just wondering why you ran at the damn truck like you had a Gorilla chasing your ass," Yugo said holding up his hands before shifting gears and pulling up the street. "You could have finished that run, you know, we don't have to be at the building for another twenty–" Yugo silenced himself when his little brother locked snapping brown eyes on his face.
"Well if it makes you feel better Long and I didn't have such a great morning either," Yugo finally sighed, passing through the streets towards the W.O.C. building. "Shina was there when I dropped Uriko off."
Kenji looked at his brother through the corner of his eye. Shina was one of the few people in his short lifetime that he had actually liked right from the start, he'd had to get used to everyone else, with the exception of Yugo and Uriko. And there were more than just a couple times that Kenji really wasn't all that sure about Uriko, considering that he had yet to figure her out completely. Shina was different though, she was...like him, complex, and if Kenji could relate to anything it was complexity. Plus Shina was really funny and she didn't treat him like a kid, something Long, Alice, and Mitsuko had a bit of a habit doing.
"So?" Kenji asked with a shrug. "She goes over there to spar with him a lot. What was so different about today?"
"Today she was asking for advice over some weird little dream she had last night and Long made the paramount error of suggesting to her that it was all subconscious backwash over Jenny and Gado."
Kenji winced, ever since Shina's arrival in Manhattan little over three months ago she had made but a single request from her friends after explaining her situation: Do not ask about her father or "Bat-whore". Most of the gang obeyed it. Kenji himself had no problems with the demand because, hey, Gado wasn't his dad. Sure he liked the older zoanthrope, he'd helped Kenji and Yugo out many times, but he also liked Shina, and since neither Gado nor Jenny had exactly called him up asking questions about her, he could very well steer clear of the mess. Yugo, Long, and Alice, however...they were on somewhat of a different level.
Kenji was certain about two things of Gado and his daughter, they were both very effective and highly sought of Mercs, and they both had attachment to the same small group of people. Yugo and Long were probably Shina's best friends, after all every time that she wasn't on assignment she sought them out. On the other hand Yugo was Gado's godson and Long had known the old lion before he'd become close to the young leopardess. Alice was a bit more out of the torturous little web but as she was pretty much the only chick Shina would hang out with, and knew her dad well enough, she had issues over the whole mess just as her boyfriend and Long did.
"What did she do?" Kenji asked, unsure if her really wanted to know.
"Swore at us, told us we didn't know how in the fuck she felt, blah, blah, blah...you know what she did that first night Mitsuko tried to console her," his brother answered, eyes focused on the road as he made a quick turn. "We thought she was gonna rip the door off it's hinges leaving, but she surprised the both of us by apologizing before she went." Yugo shook his head.
"Did Gado call back?" Kenji ventured to ask. "About her not returning his messages?"
"Yeah, but I told him what Shina told me and he said he wasn't going to call about her anymore," he told him. "Personally I can't blame, Shin, she's had a pretty big bomb dropped on her. I don't know what I'd do in her place...I might do more than freak out and put an ocean between myself and my dad." Yugo's brown eyes were sincere on the behalf of his friend, and Kenji knew this would be one of those things his big brother would only let worry him more as the days went by.
They drove in silence the rest of the way to headquarters, Yugo fretting over Shina and Kenji, worrying discreetly about them both.
Interlude
"Hey, workin' hard or hardly workin'?" a unmistakably familiar and feminine voice broke through Shina's concentration. The blonde looked up from the paper she was reading over for a rally Yugo wanted to organize, and met the fuchsia eyes of one very perky rabbit zoanthrope. Alice grinned holding up a bag and two Styrofoam cups. Shina looked over at the wall clock in total surprise, it certainly didn't feel like one-thirty to her, maybe like nine-thirty.
"Well by that expression, I'd say the first," Alice chuckled before sitting down across from Shina at her desk. She sat bag and cups down before pushing Shina's laptop to the side. She chuckled again. "And here I thought you'd last here a week tops."
"Well, it is a hell of a lot different than gutting drug lords and terrorists in the far flung corners of the earth," Shina admitted with an almost morose chuckle. She moved her feet of the desk and shoved the paper in a drawer. "But hey, it beats sitting around the house."
"I still don't see why you just didn't do some freelance," Alice said to her as she sat their lunch out. It was the same thing everyday, a Caesar salad for Alice, and a double bacon mayo-melt burger for Shina, along with two Cokes. They had a good lunch routine. "I could picture you taking out your anger far more easily on some poor defenseless little Columbian guerrillas than organizing a sit-in at some grocery store that supposedly discriminates against zoanthrope employees and clientele."
"It would be more fun but I'm contracted to Gado's team," she reminded her friend. "And the International Mercenary Guild code clearly states that as long as I am under contract with a team I can refuse a mission from my leader but I cannot by any means accept any independent work."
"When does the contract expire then, again?" Alice asked as she sat down and unwrapped her plastic dining utensils.
"Every ten years," Shina reminded her before biting a big chunk out of her sandwich. "Which means you get to keep me for eighty four additional months!" She told Alice this with feigned excitement and a full mouth.
"Eww, Shina, don't talk with your mouthful!" Alice exclaimed wrinkling her nose up at her friend. "It's bad enough you have to eat dead cow in front of me, I don't want to see how it's going to look in your digestive tract!"
Shina rolled her eyes but swallowed nonetheless before speaking again. "And you're boyfriend is who again?" she drawled at Alice. "Last time I checked, Yugo was more of a slob than I am. And also I believe, wolves were just as carnivorous as us leopards."
"He is," Alice said with a very suggestive wink. Shina put down her sandwich making a less than tasteful face.
"I hate you," she informed the other woman, remembering right then, just why, when she had first met Alice so many years back, she'd thought of her as a pigtailed menace. She grabbed her Coke and started to slurp it up, an attempt to wash the greasy feeling from her tongue and her mind. It was one thing to make dirty jokes with her friends, but it was a completely different affair, to Shina, when her friends were the subjects, especially Yugo and Alice...They were like her siblings!
"I know," Alice chuckled. "Sorry. But I think I can make up for it."
"You're going to blind me with the fork so I don't have anymore nightmares?" Shina asked, propping her legs back up on the desk.
"Close, but no," Alice giggled. "How about me, you, and Yugo drag Long out to the Backlash, clubbing tonight?" Alice's face was sly with the suggestion.
Shina cocked a single eyebrow. "Interesting, Long does need to get back out there," the young mercenary contemplated. "Dude can't live his whole live in the middle of this big city hiding out in his house. But please," she caught Alice's eyes with her own once more, "elaborate: how does making Long socialize with the rest of the planet benefit me?"
"Drinks are on me and I won't complain about anything you wear, even once," Alice said in her bright, cheery, voice, crossing her legs for lack of being able to use her hands to gesticulate with.
Blue eyes and a grin lit up the entirety of Shina's face. "You're serious?" she asked, moving her legs so that she could lean forward across the desk. "No matter what I wear, you won't say a single word about any of it? Even my combat boots?" Despite the fact she could obviously afford a new pair, Shina had only one set of big, heavy, lace-tight-to-the-top, black, scuffed to hell, steel toed, combat boots. They were pretty much her only shoes as well, or at least that's what everyone assumed considering they had not seen her don a different style in the last eight years or so
Alice made a face. "Well maybe..."
"Al, you promised!"
"Oh, okay, okay, even the boots!" Alice moaned, looking a bit sullenly down at her half eaten salad. "But you're limited to only three beers now!"
"Deal," the leopardess said giving a shrug, the smirk still clinging to her lips. "To shut you up about my clothes I'd let the beer slide completely." Shina laughed before tearing into her sandwich once again.
Alice wrinkled her nose up at her friend once again as she practically inhaled the processed meat and cheese. Sometimes she really questioned why the two of them were as tight as they were. Particularly when Shina would show up in public places wearing those damn boots. The rabbit let out a sigh and finished her lunch, reveling in the small pleasure of lettuce and Parmesan cheese.
Interlude
Violet eyes watched with avid interest as Shina and Alice finished up their lunch. Finely crafted lips curled upward into a smile any woman would have considered warm, almost beautiful. He had read the lips of his "kitten" and her friend, he knew where she would be that evening. He would not even have to trail her home that evening to make sure of her precious whereabouts.
"Not saying that I won't," he chuckled to himself, as he made a plan of action right then and there. The young man stood, pushing back strands of black and blue out of his eyes, drinking in the scene of his beloved in her own habitat one last time before turning about to take a running leap onto the next building. He should probably get home and get ready, tonight was the night that "kitten" would find out who he was, and that first impression warranted quite a bit of work on his part.
Interlude
Of all the places in the world that deal with dirty mercenary groups, Russia is among the very worst, in particular, a little town in the far north, so far north that it'd bordering on Siberia, that's name has been left off the country's map. It's name in English, translates very roughly to "The Devil's Hole" or "Satan's crevice". No roads lead there and finding a guide brave enough to lead you in is virtually impossible. The only sure way to get in is to know a man by the name of Greco Portinich, the town's only outside contact. And just as luck would have it, Shenlong was a very good acquaintance of Mr. Portinich. After meeting with his dear acquaintance, treating him to an elegant dinner, sharing a few bottles of Bordeaux with him, and around ten thousand dollars dropped in a Swiss bank account, Shenlong convinced Mr. Portinich, that he, and his friends, had urgent business at The Devil's Hole.
Once they had arrived at The Devil's Hole they had sought out one Yuri Bremen, who's office the currently sat in.
"So let me get dis straight," Bremen said in his thick Russian accent. He took a deep drag off of his cigar. "You vant my team to lead an assault on dis building in New York City, flush dez people out, but you do not vant us to kill dem? And den da run aftervard? What kind of mission is dis?" His craggy, weatherbeaten face was hard, eyes like two little black marbles as he scrutinized the three person assembly before him.
"A complicated one, of course," Xion said, uncrossing then re-crossing his legs. "Hence us turning to you."
"What my esteemed colleague means to say is that we knew that this sort of complex work was just perfect for a group such as yours," Shenlong reinterpreted Xion's words with more shrewd politeness.
"Yeah," Busuzima agreed from his place standing near the back, ogling Bremen's right hand man, a shapely red head named Natalia. "Crooked workers usually make a crooked job go along much faster."
Shenlong threw the chameleon zoanthrope a dark glare, warning him to shut his mouth, before turning back to Bremen, trying to smooth things over.
"Please excuse, my colleague, Mr. Bremen he–"
Bremen chuckled. "Cut da bullshit," Bremen cut off Shenlong's apology. "He put it vell enough. You vant us to carry out dis job because you can't exactly go to Alan Gado and ask for his assistance." Both he, Natalia, and their guests cracked a smile at that.
"Fair enough," Xion said. "Now how much do you need to carry out this little job?"
"Twenty mil," Bremen said, shortly, he wasn't the type to beat about the bush. "Twenty mil, and someting more personal."
"And what would that be?" Shenlong asked.
Bremen held up his left hand, a somewhat disfigured lump attached to his meaty wrist. He let them view it in open for a few seconds, making a point to his three visitors. "Gado and a little friend of his by da name of Yuji did dis to me several years back, during a mission to Brazil. All I request, ven he and the Ohgami boy are captured is dat I claim da old lion's head and da boy's hand." He met each pair of eyes across from his desk. "Do ve haf a deal?"
Xion and Shenlong glanced at one another, finally the silver haired man gave a nod and Shenlong shifted back toward Bremen. "We do–as long as you don't kill the boy. We have use for him alive, the lion you can do as you will."
Bremen smiled, a very eerie sight that would make most people shiver. "Good. Natalia?" He barked the last word.
"Commandant?" she asked standing at attention.
"Go and tell da men to get der asses ready," he ordered. "Tell Borkoff to ready his armaments. We take off in two days."