Part 1, Chapter 3. "The Name of the Game" October 17th, 1995
By JockoMegane.
"The Stand" by Stephen King, and "Dawn of the Dead" written/directed by George A. Romero inspire this story. More and more inspiration from "The Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien is also starting to creep into my mind while writing this. Not too mention many other sources that have slowly colonized my mind over the years.
Send all comments and criticisms to: A long tale of Dark Tsunamism.
DISCLAIMER: Tenchi and his gang of vigilante crime fighters along with various Pretty Sammy bingo league members are the property of Pioneer LDC, AIC, and Hiroki Hayashi, er...did I say Hayashi? I meant Masaki Kajishima, of course! "The Stand" is the property of Stephen King, and "Dawn of the Dead" is (should be) the property of George A. Romero. I am not making any money from this venture, neither should anyone else. All the works that I make reference to herein are done in the greatest of humility and admiration. Please don't sue me.
MISSION STATEMENT: This story is intended as coming from the balls.
NOTE: The continuity in this story is OVA 2 plus Kiyone. For this tale, GXP and Kajishima's OVA 3 do not exist.
Very special thanks to KaiKerrigan, EvilPii, jaug, Negative-Z, Lostowl, and Carnage Black for the reliable sounding boards, suggestions, support and beta reads while this work was being undertaken.
Edited by Carnage Black, Zyraen, and EvilPii.
For K'thardin and Lostowl.
000
October 17th, 1995. Early morning.
Azaka and Kamidake were standing guard in their usual position, their energy shield surrounding the house, sufficient power coming from Ryu-oh, everything nominal. The disruption in Jurai power came so quick and so complete that neither guardian was scarcely even able to register surprise. Their lights simply dimmed, and the shield silently faded from around the Masaki house, leaving it defenseless.
Yosho stood in front of Funaho, ready to attack even a stray falling leaf that came too close to his tree. For him too, he never saw the disruption in Jurai power coming, his knees buckled, and he was soon on his hands and knees vomiting. Yosho struggled to remain conscious, but it felt as if a steel sledgehammer had just clubbed him over the head. Repeatedly.
Ayeka was doubled over in severe pain on the path, retching. She had already thrown up, and seemed perfectly fine with doing it again. Gently, Tenchi was coaxing her to just let it all out. To tell the truth, Tenchi at this point was feeling pretty damn sick too, and it took a supreme effort for him not to toss his cookies. Ayeka did vomit again.
Warren Hudson, for his part, was stopped on the side of state road 23 near Sandusky, Ohio. It took all he had to pull over to the side of the road and open the driver's side door so he could vomit on the shoulder of the road. Fortunately, after he vomited once Warren was well enough to continue on his way.
Sasami was still asleep, though her dreams were fearful. Her rate of respiration quickened, and sweat broke out on her brow. She didn't vomit, thankfully, and by all appearances she seemed to have a heavy fever. She groaned, tossing in her futon, her arm splaying out to the side. Ryo-ohki myaa'd in worry as she tiptoed out of the futon and took up a defensive position in front of the little princess' sleeping form.
"...Tsunami...help us," Sasami whimpered in her sleep.
000
Tenchi took care of Ayeka. Ryoko and Kiyone stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the zombie as lurched its way to his feet, his good arm obviously broken and his neck hanging at an even odder angle than before. "Kiyone," Ryoko said, her laser-sword disappearing into orbs of red energy and forming again in the palms of her hands, "aim for the head."
"Got it," Kiyone nodded, aiming her pistol the best she could in the dark, and clicking it to its highest setting. "Ready?"
"When you are," Ryoko sneered as the zombie started taking another few steps toward them.
"Fire!" Kiyone shouted. The two women fired, but the zombie continued moving, a bit faster than they had been expecting and their shots impacted on the zombie's shoulders, neck and lower jaw; all parts exploding into a confetti of blood, bone fragments, teeth, and muscles. The main part of the zombie's head flew up into the air, tumbling forward onto the path before them.
The decapitated head, relieved of its lower jaw, continued to gum its way forward on the ground, its eyes flickering but still intent on its goals with the same dead intensity.
"DAMN'T!" Washu smacked her holo-top into a million tiny particles. All of her sensor and communication instruments were dead and for all she knew her daughter and her friends were being attacked by a hundred of those things out there. Washu jumped off her red plush cushions and picked up a blaster rifle; one of her special inventions. The red-haired child scientist clicked the weapon on, checking the power cells. Still operating at full power, at least something was working around the house.
Washu ran over to the front door, stopping at the stairs. "Nobuyuki, Mihoshi! Stay here, and if anyone comes in here, unidentified...shoot them!" she left without waiting for them to answer.
Once outside, Washu clicked off the safety, hefted the rifle up in her arms (it was perfectly shaped for her child-form) and she began running towards Ryoko, Tenchi, Kiyone, and Ayeka's last position.
Azaka and Kamidake, on emergency low power standby mode, never registered the slow but steady approach of a single zombie wearing a high school baseball team uniform. In life the young woman, about 17 years old, was one of the star players on the Okayama High School team named Shion Ibuki. Unfortunately, she chose to walk home from practice one day, even more unfortunate, she decided to take a short cut through the woods behind a funeral home.
Now Shion Ibuki was a zombie, her neck still bleeding slightly from the bite wounds inflicted by the zombie that killed her. She was now slowly managing to slide open the sliding glass door into the Masaki family's living room. With Washu gone, there was no one to see the zombie of what was Shin Ibuki slowly walk across the living room past the various holographic monitors that were showing various status screens all saying, in essence, "SIGNAL LOST."
The zombie reached the landing of the stairs, its inner senses telling it that the only sources of red meat and warm brains in the vicinity were directly up the stairs and to the left. It slowly started to slide and step its way up the stairs.
"Who...who's there?" a woman's voice called out; a sweet, airy voice.
000
Nobuyuki and Mihoshi stood in front of Sasami's room, their faces seeming to drain of life as they heard the sounds of someone making their way up the stairs. The someone, by not responding, confirmed their worst fears. For a terrifying moment they both seemed unable to do anything but look at each other.
"Mihoshi...!" Nobuyuki hissed, "Get in the room and lock the door. Don't open it unless I tell you too...protect Sasami and Ryo-ohki!" he put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze, his eyes telling her to obey.
The blonde-haired woman's expressive eyes looked into Nobuyuki's for a fraction of a second, then she nodded. Right away, she opened the door, went in, and slammed it shut. Nobuyuki could hear the lock being clicked into place along with one of the log cargo containers from Ryu-oh being moved in front of the door as a barricade.
The sounds continued, ever closer. Nobuyuki's eyes bored their way straight ahead to the top of the stairs of the house he designed and help, however peripherally, build. At his side his hand held the wooden baseball bat from his short-lived high school baseball career. After playing five games and striking out five times (plus many more times in practice), he decided to focus his attention on drawing.
The sounds were at the top of the stairs now. Nobuyuki could discern a type of low moaning whine. He gripped the bat, his hands raising it menacingly in front of him, the knuckles of his hands shaking as they worked around the American hickory wood handle. Nobuyuki gritted his teeth, feeling the need to shout.
"Whoever you are, don't come any closer!"
He could see a hand undulating a bit around the corner, then the well-developed chest of a young woman, her pallid skin, her shoulders, and her neck that looked like someone had taken a butcher knife to it. Blood gurgled and coursed out of the wounds on her neck; caking on the front of her uniform. Nobuyuki gulped, his fingers working around the wood again as the zombie fully came into view. His mouth opened and closed, as his eyes made contact with the most horrible thing he had ever witnessed in his life up to that point. The zombie stepped up onto the hallway's landing, its head craning around to face Nobuyuki. It slide-stepped forward, hands starting to rise in front of its body.
'All right, Nobuyuki,' he thought to himself, 'this is the part of the movie where you laugh really hard at her, she disappears, you wake up, or everyone comes out of hiding saying this is all just a big damn joke, and you're the one with the booby prize...' he mentally shook himself to retune his thoughts to reality. This was all too painfully real.
She was closer now, significantly. Her arms still reached out for him in obscene dirty little claws. There was that low, steady whining moan again as her feet stepped and labored down the hall towards him. A look of cold glass, like looking into a deep frozen pond held sway over her eyes. In all the time Nobuyuki was watching her, she had not blinked once. Nevertheless, that whine did grow perceptively louder.
Nobuyuki glared, his fear starting to turn to white-hot rage at this thing that had invaded HIS home. Threatened HIS family! The zombie had closed the distance between them down to about three feet. The zombie's head had slightly cocked to the side, as if somehow sounding out the room he was guarding. That was when Nobuyuki Masaki's rage burst forth from him.
"ARGHHHH!" Nobuyuki swung the bat over his head and brought it down on the zombie's head as hard as he possibly could.
The blow connected with the skull of the zombie with a dull, but very audible, thud. The zombie stumbled back from the shock of it, reflexively blinking as blood appeared on the scalp of the hair and the forehead (the bat was also a bit red) but it's eyes remained trained directly on the man. Nobuyuki howled again in rage, he began beating the zombie's head repeatedly. Over the skull, on the side, once, twice, again and again. He never noticed the amount of blood steadily increasing with each and every blow. The middle-aged architect just kept going, his vision seeming to split in two. At once, he was conscious of what he was doing, and at the same time, things seemed very distant. The gap between the two seemed to only increase as he crashed the wooden bat into the zombie female's skull as long and as hard as his arms would allow him to.
Blood splattered onto his clothing, on to the walls, the floor, some even on the ceiling. Yet, Nobuyuki continued pounding away, his glasses falling off his face as he bent down to better club the hideous thing's head in more as it was forced down by his repeated blows. Nobuyuki briefly registered feeling the zombie's arms touch his arms and chest, but that stopped as soon as he briefly saw both of its eyes dislodged from their sockets. He did not even hear the repeated crunch of the zombie's skull caving in, or really notice the brains starting to seep out onto the hard wood floor Achika had worked so hard to maintain. Eventually, his inner rage cooled, and his knees gave out. Nobuyuki sank to the floor against Sasami's door, breathing heavily, having one hell of a headache, sweating, a hurt shoulder, and he was crying. Oh how he was crying.
"M...Mihoshi! It's safe now," with that, he fainted.
000
Funaho-Tree stood in the night air, its branches absorbing the just-concluded night rain, swaying gently in the breeze. Above the ancient space tree, the stars and sickle moon were beginning to peek out from behind the clouds. Some animals and night birds could be heard going about their nightly business. Below on Funaho's roots there lay Yosho with a puddle of vomit lying in front of him.
Slowly, a single ray of rainbow light blinked into existence by a solitary leaf on one branch. Then another. And another. Soon Funaho was awakened, the tree's entire form bathed in white, shimmering light. Inside the branches of the tree--if one had the talent to do so--they would have sworn for a split second to see the form of a violet haired young woman. She was standing, resplendent in her flowing white robes, with a sword of green flames drawn at her side, gazing up at the sky. If this person had seen this display of radiance, if they had seen the form of the young woman with her sword of flame bared, they might have correctly surmised that she was attacking a foe somehow in the sky above.
Yosho groaned as he regained consciousness, his vision blurred but recovering fast. He got to his feet, picked up his bokken and looked around; reorienting himself. Good thing too, there was a zombie approaching from his rear-left. Yosho smote the zombie on the head, hard enough to kill it on the first blow. He surveyed the immediate vicinity for more enemies, relieved that his powers were back. With a look of gratitude to his tree--and getting a mental signal from its inhabitant,--Yosho ran away from the tree towards where Funaho said Tenchi, Ryoko, Ayeka and Kiyone were.
000
A flash of rainbow light slightly illuminated the darkness of the forest path behind the shrine where Tenchi was helping Ayeka lose her dinner and several snack foods. Almost as immediately as it had started shining in the distance, the light was gone. To Tenchi's relief, Ayeka almost immediately seemed to feel better.
Ryoko and Kiyone stood a good distance away from the severed zombie head is it continued slowly gumming its way on the top half of its jaw towards Ayeka and Tenchi. At the rate it was going, it'd be there in about an hour. Kiyone was using her tricorder, getting as much data as she could. After a minute, she snapped the instrument shut and put it back on her belt. Ryoko watched the zombie head with brooding silence as Kiyone conducted her scans, both of them keeping pace with the pace of the zombie head's gumming.
"You want to do the honors?" Kiyone asked, again confirming with her eyes just how hideous what was left of the zombie actually was.
Ryoko nodded silently. This surprised Kiyone, she had been expecting a reaction. A smartass comment, a cocksure nod, or even the usual glint in her eyes. However, this this was not much of anything. Just Ryoko nodding and raising her fist directly above the head, generating a small red ball of energy, releasing it, and thus totally obliterating the rest of the head. Ryoko stood there for a moment, seeming to go somewhere inside herself. Kiyone was about to speak when Ryoko abruptly turned back to where Tenchi was taking care of Ayeka.
"How is she, Tenchi?" she asked, her voice sounding fatigued.
"I...I am all right," Ayeka rasped, coughing, obviously allowing Tenchi to help her to her feet.
Ryoko's lips curled into a smile. "Take your time, Princess."
Both Tenchi and Ayeka blushed, the latter more than the former. Tenchi's blush also seemed a bit different than Ayeka's...more of a look of innocent embarrassment than simply being caught in the act. Ryoko watched this, the smirk still firmly planted on her lips, but she set it aside for now.
"Well," Kiyone said, checking her tricorder readings again, "things seem to have cleared up now," the detective's brow furrowed, "it seems a large burst of energy just occurred," in that direction, she pointed into the forest.
"Yeah, that flash of light," Ryoko stated, turning on her heel and going back to Ayeka and Tenchi, "let's get back to the house--"
"Helllloooooo? Anyone out there?" Washu's voice called from up the path to the shrine.
"Washu!" Tenchi shouted, "over here!"
The petite red-haired scientist trudged up, still brandishing the blaster rifle, she obviously was very relieved that everyone was all right.
"Where the hell have you been?" Ryoko remarked in almost languid sarcasm.
Washu clicked the safety back on the rifle, setting it on its butt as she summoned another holo-top into existence. She breathed another sigh of relief. "Thank the Kami," she smirked, "everything's back to normal...hell, it even looks like I've gained back some things I haven't had in over two weeks."
The group slowly assembled around Washu as a few more holographic screens popped up around them. All scanners seemed to be operational.
"No more intruders in the area?" Tenchi asked hopefully.
"Correct, Tenchi," Washu clicked a button, and the holograms disappeared, she shouldered her blaster rifle again. "Let's get back to the house, I want a full and detailed report on...our new enemy."
Ayeka's attention perked up, "wait a minute...Little Washu, what is Azaka and Kamidake's condition?"
Washu's eyes met those of the princess, realizing the same fear. "Azaka! Kamidake!" she shouted.
The voice of Kamidake filled the air around the group as they ran back along the path, to the shrine courtyard. "Princess Ayeka, Dr. Washu, we seem to have recovered from a temporary disruption in the flow of power from Ryu-oh..."
"Condition of Sasami!" Ayeka nearly screamed as she ran.
"Princess Sasami is fine, Princess," Azaka replied, "please come quickly, Lord Nobuyuki has killed an intruder."
As the group ran faster, only Ryoko seemed to think for a moment that Azaka's statement seemed a bit peculiar. 'Nobuyuki? But wasn't Mihoshi the one charged with protecting Sasami...?' she thought apprehensively as they descended the steps (where they met up with Yosho) and towards the house.
000
Nobuyuki Masaki thought at first that he had fallen asleep at his drafting table. This relatively comfortable notion was dispelled first by his position; sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall. The next thing that told him that this wasn't anything nearly as pleasant as simply working too hard was the smell...the iron, metallic scent of blood. The final thing that shattered Nobuyuki's comfortable fancy was the persistent hand shaking his shoulder.
"Dad...Dad!" his son's voice caused him to open his eyes. Almost everything was blurry, as his glasses had somehow fallen off. Nobuyuki didn't know where they were.
"...Tenchi?" Nobuyuki asked his eyes shifted away from Tenchi's worried face to survey the rest of his surroundings. He remembered everything now. Nobuyuki's breathing quickened, as his eyes focused on the carnage he had wrought not long before. Behind Tenchi stood Ryoko, the space pirate sparing a moment to acknowledge Nobuyuki before going on investigating the bloodstained walls...and the now very dead zombie laying somewhat down the hall. Obviously, the body had been moved. Next to Nobuyuki, Sasami's door was open and the two Princesses could be heard inside along with Mihoshi. Tearful reunion, from the sound of it.
Ryoko bent down close to the crushed skull of the zombie, its brain seeming to be coming out of its ears and nose as well as the very prominent gashes on the tops and sides of the head. The neck bones were also totally broken by the way the neck hung on the floor. Not to mention the crushed eye sockets and the eyeballs with it. Ryoko whistled, her eyes darting back to Nobuyuki, who was trying his best to fight off tears again. "You did that with a baseball bat?" she shook her head in amazement, seeing Tenchi's father in a new light.
Nobuyuki said nothing, only breathing heavily again. He felt ill, Tenchi gave Ryoko a look that said the praise was not helping now. Ryoko nodded in response, understanding completely, and going to confer quietly with her mother.
Nobuyuki heard Washu clacking away as usual on her holo-top, several of her drone spheres were busy scanning and taking samples of the bloody mess. She seemed satisfied with what she was finding out.
He groaned as he sat forward, holding his head wondering if the throbbing would ever go away. "How long have I been out, Tenchi?"
"We got back about ten minutes ago, Dad," he gave his father a cup of water and a couple of pills. "Take those, Washu says they'll help." Nobuyuki did so, after he gulped down the water he noticed Tenchi's gaze turned upward to the door. Nobuyuki turned his head, and there stood Ayeka.
"Honorable father," the elder Princess of Jurai stated formally, "you and Detective Mihoshi have saved my sister's life," she smiled, tears framing her features, "and for that you two shall have my gratitude forever," her eyes shifted to Tenchi for a mere moment, "it is plain to be seen that Lord Tenchi gets his courage from more than one source."
Nobuyuki smiled, in spite of the circumstances. Far be it for Nobuyuki Masaki to ever refuse praise from a lovely woman. His eyes shifted down to see two pink eyes belonging to Sasami Jurai peeking around Ayeka's skirts. Above Ayeka's shoulders were the most expressive eyes, next to Achika's, Nobuyuki had ever seen. What came next was obvious. Ayeka quickly got out of the way as Sasami and Mihoshi pretty much glomped Nobuyuki. A crunch of glass and frame was heard, as Nobuyuki's glasses were simultaneously found and destroyed by Mihoshi.
Everyone smiled a bit. It would not be long before it became another piece of Masaki family folklore.
Nobuyuki smiled back, kissing each girl's hair as he hugged them, tears of happiness falling from his eyes. He paid his glasses no mind, he only held the two members of his family he had tried so hard to protect...and succeeded. It still chilled his soul to think that only him and a wooden door protected Sasami and Mihoshi from...that thing that Tenchi was now taking a closer look at. Specifically, Tenchi was looking at the baseball uniform the female zombie corpse was dressed in.
Sasami wept into Nobuyuki's shoulder, "oh...father! I was sooo scared!"
Nobuyuki and Mihoshi comforted her, even if Mihoshi was crying as usual. Sasami continued, "Mihoshi held on to me...she pointed her gun at the door, she was as brave as you!" the little girl wept.
"No...no, we held on to each other! Nobi saved us both!" tears continued to fountain from the blonde's blue eyes.
Tenchi's eyes widened from where he kneeled next to the zombie, he looked at what was left of the face, then the name on the back of the uniform. "Kami...this is Shion Ibuki..." he breathed.
"Who?" Ryoko looked up from over Washu's shoulder.
"A girl on the school baseball team," Tenchi's voice seemed hollow, "she was one of their star players...she was going to Tokyo U when she graduated...oh Kami," he clapped his hands together twice, and bowed his head in prayer for her soul.
Nobuyuki wept again, "I'm...sorry, son," it was Mihoshi's turn to comfort him now.
Ryoko took a step towards Tenchi, his eyes met hers when he finished his prayer for Ibuki's soul. "Tenchi...I know it's little consolation, but that," she pointed to the bloody mess on the floor, "was not her in any way."
Tenchi nodded, wiping a few tears away, nodded. "I know, Ryoko...I know, but it's just..." he trailed off, unable to find the right words.
"It is all right, Lord Tenchi," Ayeka said quietly, her eyes settling once again on the bloody remains of the zombie. "I am sure we would all feel the same if we knew who these people once were..."
Silently, Mihoshi and Sasami pulled Nobuyuki to his feet and into the room he had protected, Ayeka stood outside for a moment, unsure of what to do or where to go.
"Washu!" Yosho shouted up the stairs.
"Yeah?" Washu shouted back.
"Kiyone has that data you requested," Yosho answered.
"Send her on up," Washu returned her full attention to her holo-top, her voice softer: "seems after our little 'escapade' tonight I finally can create a good model of what's happening and, hopefully, how to control it."
Ryoko seemed about ready to offer up a sarcastic remark or two, but only nodded and seemed about ready to fall asleep where she levitated.
Kiyone made her way up the stairs, when she reached the top she looked at the corpse, then to Sasami's door with great longing. It only lasted for a split-second and only Ayeka noticed it because she was looking straight ahead anyway.
Kiyone snapped her attention from the door behind Ayeka to Washu down the hall next to Tenchi's door. She strode over, lugging along with her something that looked like a metallic briefcase with several cables sticking out of the device, one of Yagami's data banks. She gave Washu the piece of equipment as well as several tricorder data sticks, and without saying a word strode back to Sasami's door, bowing respectfully to Ayeka.
Ayeka silently nodded and allowed Kiyone into the room.
Ryoko gave the princess a look and a shrug, "I'm going out on the roof--"
"No, you don't," Tenchi cut her off, "you're getting some rest, Ryoko."
"The hell I am!" she said indignantly, but not as hotly as normal.
"Ryoko!" Washu yelled up at her, "for Kami sakes," she ticked off the points on her fingers, "all my systems are back up, Azaka and Kamidake too along with their shield around the house, all enemy activity in the area is gone," her voice softened, "rest, my Little Ryoko."
Ryoko shook her head angrily, "Washu! Everything was fine before! And look what almost happened!" she stabbed a gesture at the zombie on the floor; now really starting to reek.
Washu clicked a few more buttons on her holo-top, interfacing with the GP equipment, "exactly what I'm getting to the bottom of right now, dear."
"Myself and Lord Tenchi can handle things, Ms. Ryoko," Ayeka started.
"Ah!" Washu wagged a finger at Tenchi and Ayeka. "Both of you get some sleep too. Remember, it's Yosho's shift. Let's keep our time-table."
000
Detective First Class Mitsuki ambled down the main corridor of office block E-6 at Galaxy Police Headquarters with her partner Rus Lamiz following at his usual discreet distance behind her. Mitsuki shook her head, as she digested what she had learned...
Everybody and their uncle who was a sector commander seemed to be rebelling against the GP's command structure, or the planetary and Galactic Union's governments. Massacres (yes, Mitsuki and Lamiz had paled upon hearing that. Massacres!) on fifteen planets and after assisting in moping up operations on Orphalis II (moping up after just what no one was at liberty to discuss) now they arrived back at HQ to find the facility on a war footing.
"Can you believe this?" Mitsuki threw over her shoulder as she sidestepped to avoid an equipment float left in the middle of the corridor unattended.
Lamiz didn't answer.
Mitsuki sighed as they arrived at their office, she palmed the door open, turned on the light, and went inside.
"How long do we have?" Lamiz asked coolly as he went to the weapons locker, changing out the charger shells in his blaster.
Mitsuki was standing at her desk, quickly going through her messages on the console. "General officers meeting at 1500," she glanced at the chronometer. "Ten minutes."
"Any word what's going to happen at this meeting, Detective?" Lamiz was now in the bathroom.
"We'll find out soon enough," Mitsuki grumbled as she adjusted her left boot; she hadn't slept in three days or had a shower in two.
Orphalis II had been a nightmare. A planet that looked like a mass orgy of rioting had broken out in the largest cities and spread like spiders hatching across the countryside. On Orphalis, popularly known as the "teal-haired planet of the four Gods," had a deep-seated revulsion to any form of cremation or disposal of the dead other than burial. Even then, the body had to be embalmed and mummified in an eight-day process. When the zombie problem began appearing on Orphalis, the recently, unembalmed, and semi-embalmed dead began to stir and spread. It only got worse from there, as Mitsuki remembered her and Lamiz's role in trying to contain an area after several local priests announcing that the dead were coming back to absolve and purify Orphalis of all its sins. Anyone trying to desecrate the dead, or living dead, or anyone seen burning a body should be killed immediately. Orphalis went from green, to endangered, to red, to past red in the space of not even two days.
Mitsuki shook her head, "Four billion dead..." she whispered.
Lamiz was still in the bathroom. The toilet flushed and the sink could now be heard running. Mitsuki suspected her partner was more than a bit broken up about Orphalis, but wasn't willing to talk much about it yet. In fact, he seemed to become even more withdrawn than usual since just before they went to Orphalis, right after Honataru Ortega made his escape.
A small, triumphant grin came to Mitsuki's face unbidden that she banished almost immediately. Was it particularly bad of her to be satisfied with her actions so soon after seeing hell on Orphalis? Mitsuki hoped to whatever powers were watching over her fortunes (and the last time she slept it seemed to her that those two presences were still watching her...one wanting her to join her, the other wanting her to confess her sins) would make this whole zombie upset pass soon so she could collect on the bribe Ortega promised to pay her in the person of Garm Ric.
'Bribe?' she wondered. Odd, she never called it that in her thoughts before...
Lamiz opened the bathroom door and strode out. He threw a bland look to Mitsuki, "ready, Detective?" he asked.
Mitsuki nodded, she walked over to the bathroom to quickly freshen up. After straightening herself up a bit (she really needed a shower, still) Mitsuki walked out to find Lamiz standing a few steps back from where he was before. Mitsuki subconsciously took the necessary steps forward to place her at the door, which she palmed open. What she saw next was the last thing she ever expected to see to the point that her jaw gaped open.
Two GP Internal Affairs agents, armed, stood in the doorway. "Detective First Class Mitsuki, you are under arrest for bribery and dereliction of duty in regards to the 'arrest,' as it were, of Honataru Ortega..." the voice of the lead humanoid canine agent seemed to drown itself out as Mitsuki's eyes lowered, her face taking on an obvious note of shock.
Mitsuki hardly remembered her rights being read to her, or her muted confirmation that she would go along quietly. However, her badge and her gun being removed from her and Lamiz's expression of satisfied glee proved too much to bear and a tear trailed down her cheek as she was put into handcuffs and led out of her office towards the detention block.
'Best believe someone's payin' the pied piper,' Mitsuki thought miserably as tried to look at the expression on her fellow officer's faces in the corridors as the proud, gung-ho, and "that ambitious young go-getter" Mitsuki was being marched away in manacles. Later, she would recall the two Internal Affairs officers chatting about how she might be stuck in the GP HQ pokey for "a while," considering the current security situation. Little did Mitsuki, the officers escorting her, Lamiz, or anyone else on the station for that matter, know how long "a while" would turn out to be.
000
Dr. Millard Ralse and Howard Staten have seemingly been on the air for hours, both men are agitated and seem ready to tear each other apart. Empty and half-full Dixie cups of water and coffee are strewn all over the anchor desk on Staten's end in Baltimore, and people are milling about the newsroom on Ralse's end in Detroit.
Ralse, agitated : "What's making it happen? What the hell difference does it make, what's making it happen."
Staten, equally agitated: "Yes, but that's..."
Ralse: "That's a whole other study. They're trying..."
Staten: "But if we knew that, we could..."
Ralse: "We don't know that! We don't know that! We've gotta operate on what we do know!"
Staten: "I don't believe that, Doctor, and I don't agree with what you are suggesting..."
Ralse: "Do you believe the dead are returning to life?"
Staten: "I'm not so..."
Ralse: "Do you believe the dead are returning to life and attacking the living?"
Staten: "I'm not sure what to believe, Doctor! All we get is what you people tell us. And it's hard enough to believe..."
Ralse: "It's fact...It's fact!"
Jeers and other shouts can be heard in both studio locations, seems a camera on Ralse's end is simply locked in place with no camera operator behind it. Sometimes a member of the crew can be seen in the background making lewd and obscene gestures. On Staten's end, a camera operator can be heard getting fed up, and shouting several obscenities at Staten, and stalking off. Others throw McDonald's and Taco Bell wrappers at the news desk.
Staten: "It's hard enough to believe this without you sitting pretty in your CDC perch and telling us we have to forget our homes and crowd into 'shelters' the army has set up!"
Ralse: "You're not running a talk show here, Mr. Staten...you can forget pitching an audience the moral, populist bullshit they want to hear!"
Staten: "You're talking about crowding us all into what amounts to concentration camps, with no weapons, making every man, woman, and child sitting ducks for these things! And there's a lot of us who aren't ready for that Dr. Ralse..."
Several cheers are heard on Staten's end, and it seems now that Ralse is speaking in a studio that is being run on a skeleton crew or less.
000
food n.
1. Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.
2. A specified kind of nourishment: breakfast food; plant food.
3. Nourishment eaten in solid form: food and drink.
4. Something that nourishes or sustains in a way suggestive of physical nourishment: food for thought; food for the soul.
Middle English fode, from Old English fda. See p- in Indo-European Roots.
Source: The American Heritage(r) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright (c) 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The above definition states that food is a necessity for sustenance. Sustenance means life, and life means continuing on one's quest. Unfortunately for Warren Hudson the Knight with a tendency to prepare for a hundred different possibilities, except for the one that almost invariably would come around to bite him in the ass later, found himself in a hell of a jam upon crossing the Michigan/Ohio state border. He had just emptied out his last bag of Fritos.
"Damn't!" he smacked the steering wheel in front of him as he swerved to avoid another four-car pile-up in the lane ahead. Warren then had to swerve again to avoid hitting about seven dead bodies (from the injuries sustained on their heads, obviously terminated zombies) and the sky seemed to be clouding up on a relatively flat expanse of land between the Michigan border and Detroit. He was now on US 75, hugging Lake Erie. The temperature was 65 degrees Fahrenheit and the moisture provided a clammy feel that promised rain. It was just past 4:00 in the afternoon and the green of the vegetation on the side of the highway contrasted with a sleepy sort of consistency with the white drabness of the sky above. The type of fall afternoon Michigan was famous for; Warren had to roll up the window of the Challenger as the temperature plummeted ten degrees after he crossed the state line.
After his vomiting episode near Sandusky a few hours before, Warren had found the rightness of his instinct to travel north. The entire western sky seemed filled with smoke. Warren knew that it had been a dry summer and fall nation-wide...and with fire units otherwise dead or occupied, it seemed the entire extreme western part of Ohio and into Indiana was on fire. His abilities, briefly disrupted during and immediately after he was sick seemed to have returned. However, as Warren scanned the road ahead with his eyes and his other senses, he had not come across much of anything to detect for a while anyway. He tried to keep both overconfidence and petrifying foreboding to a minimum.
As Warren tuned the CB into some of the emergency channels, it seemed that the fire was the result of the use of flame-throwers to control the zombie population. Warren smiled at that, just as long as the zombies were gone for him to find a way down into Indiana, and Illinois beyond he should be in pretty good shape. All he had to do was get to the Detroit Metro area, and decide how exactly he'd get out of the state. There was going through Indiana and Illinois, yes, but there was also going north to the upper peninsula of Michigan, or even Canada if that proved easier to get to the Pacific coast. Hell, Warren would go to Alaska if he had to. Another possibility was that the Detroit or Lansing airports might still be in operation somehow, but Warren was not getting his hopes up about flying anywhere anymore. From what he heard on the radio on a news/talk station (right before it went off the air playing Buffalo Springfield's "Stop Children What's That Sound"; Warren had sung along) was that the President had ordered all flights grounded. Maybe he could charter a flight from a pilot desperate enough for Warren's last one hundred dollars...
Warren sighed, a road sign advising him of an Exit coming up. A city called Monroe. Warren got off the highway easy enough (luckily the slope next to the Exit ramp was suitable enough to drive on; five or six car pile up on the pavement itself) and he slowly drove up the road of the first real new ghost town in the great lakes. Warren pulled into the parking lot of an A&P, looking warily around for any zombies...or any living being, for that matter. At this point, Warren would have even settled for a stray dog.
He parked, and approached the electronic sliding glass doors. The doors obediently whirled open, saving him from breaking and entering. Warren cautiously surveyed what looked like the sight of a bomb-explosion. As he instinctively grabbed a shopping cart and pushed his way through the store Warren found entire aisles pushed down, and literal mountains of food boxes and items on the floor. The lights and heat were still running, but the PA system seemed to be down.
"If this was looted, why didn't they take everything?" Warren asked aloud as he lugged two 1.5-gallon jugs of water into the cart.
"Distraction of some sort?" he asked; this time putting several bags of potato chips in the cart.
"Zombies?" he quickly surveyed his surroundings again after he put some thirty Lunchables into the cart; heartened that the refrigeration units were still working.
"Mass riot?" he loaded up packs and packs of instant noodles.
"Panic?" Warren always talks to himself, it is not just loneliness or the stress of the situation getting to him.
"Government rounded them up into shelters?" but it isn't helping much, either.
Warren proceeded to the check out, mentally trying to quickly total up what he'd just bought. It took him about three minutes, but some $43.57 found its way to one of the only remaining check out counters that wasn't buried under shopping baskets, carts, magazines, or other garbage. Warren excused the phantom bagboy from bagging his groceries as he pushed the cart out. He took one look back at the A&P's interior, so normal but yet so trashed at the same time. Warren grimaced sadly, wheeling the cart out the door, singing "Stop Children What's That Sound" for the fifth time that day.
Warren took the time to unload the three trash bags full of refuse he had stowed in the backseat, putting the groceries carefully in two Coleman ice coolers. Warren got back into the Challenger, started it up, and proceeded around the shopping center to throw the three garbage bags into one of the many dumpster. After that was done, Warren looked at the sky, and down to his watch. 5:50PM, the world around him was starting to dim. "Better get back on the road before Tsunami gives you a shove...though the Goddess is probably occupied," he thought back to the passing sickness from Sandusky. It felt like it came out of nowhere...like an angry god had briefly struck him with vomiting and extreme weakness, and then just as suddenly took it back. Warren knew enough about his own body and health that he honestly should not have been ill. The incident bothered him...perhaps more so than almost anything else that had happened to him in the past few days. Add to all this that he still felt vaguely wasted, several hours later. Warren sighed, and turned back to his car.
It hit him then, the slight glimmer of presence in the back of his mind. He thought it had been back to normal since after he vomited, but it seemed that it had only been dulled, and not back at full strength. Now it seemed his full awareness was coming back to him. Warren felt his lower back chill and tingle as he turned to the vacant, steep slope of yellowed grass that lay between the rear of the A&P and a retention pond; beyond lay a subdivision of duplexes.
"Yeah, Warren, it would be you who mistook a beacon for a full radar," he took about twenty steps over to the guardrail, and realized that he had just walked into the most serious blunder of his life.
Down there, walking up the small hill towards him quite well, were fifty zombies looking right up at him.
A sound escaped Warren's lips not unlike a hiss as he backed up on his feet half the distance to his car before turning on his heel and soon reaching the driver's side door. He got behind the wheel just in time to see about twenty zombies coming around the corner of the building, he looked to the rear of the Challenger to see about thirty members of the undead fast approaching his bumper.
"All right, you've really fuckin' stepped in it this time," he told himself as he reached back behind the driver's side seat, his hand coming back with the Ithaca shotgun in it. Instinctively, Warren reached inside his jacket to find the handgun and magazines he had (having since upgraded from the Saturday Night Special a few towns ago), his other hand felt for the extra shotgun shells in his trousers. Warren sprang out from the car, raising the shotgun's shortened barrel above the driver's side door and discharged two shots, hitting his targets right in the middle of their foreheads; blood and brains splattering out against the white cinder blocks of the A&P.
Warren reloaded the shotgun, and shot another two zombies that were crawling over the guardrail. He reloaded again, aiming the handgun as he used the top of the car door to steady the barrel of the shotgun as he shot. More blood, entrails, and brains hit the wall and asphalt as seventeen more zombies went down (two for the shotgun, fifteen for the handgun) with even more seeming to pour around the corners of the building, in front and behind.
"Almost like they're coming out of the walls...or the ground," Warren grunted as he reloaded yet again. Only fourteen this time, three shots ricocheted off the building. The scent of stale flesh and blood filled the air and coated the asphalt, dumpsters, and cinder blocks. Much to Warren's annoyance, small splashes of blood were beginning to form on the fresh blue paint job he had shelled out $125 for the previous spring.
He sat back down in the car in a flash, grabbing the last of the shotgun shells and the handgun magazines, standing up, and spreading them on the seat where his hindquarters had been. Sixty-five, he thought, make it count.
When Warren was down to thirty, he made sure the gladius was at arm's length. At twenty, he noticed that a bead of sweat was forming on his chin. Once he felt that, he immediately became aware of his entire body seeming to be soaked in perspiration. Warren took a quick survey when he was down to seventeen; his last two shotgun shells and the last magazine in the handgun.
Warren aimed both firearms at the nearest batch of zombies; the logical portions of his consciousness telling him that he'll be out of ammo with over a hundred zombies to spare. Maybe more.
"Tsunami, please guide my bullets to their targets!" he prayed, then discharged the handgun's entire magazine in one fluid sweep of an entire platoon of zombies. Black asphalt became red now. Even if he hopped back into the car and plowed forward, there was only so far he could go. The hopelessness of escaping this situation without a drastic feat became clear to Warren as he tossed the handgun back into the car. He had one shotgun shell left, and he sensed a zombie at the rear bumper of the Challenger. Warren spun around, brought the Ithaca's barrel to bare on the head of the zombie; which was once a teenage girl around fifteen years old (with pigtails too, odd for a girl her age); advanced two solid steps to insure he would not miss and fired.
Oddly enough, the zombie's head didn't explode, and the shot didn't go completely through the skull. The zombie merely crumpled against the trunk of the car, forehead spouting blood, and falling to the pavement. Warren spun back around, finding another zombie with a hand on the driver's side door. Now totally out of ammo, Warren dropped the shotgun and drop-kicked the undead female as hard as he could; tearing the head clean off the neck and further coating himself in putrid blood.
Warren lunged for the gladius in the driver's side seat, unsheathed it and started to hack and slash away at the heads of the zombies.
"Why," he cleaved a head in two like a mottled gray watermelon.
"...does..." he decapitated another cleanly, his entire arm now was red.
"this," he chopped off a grasping forearm first, then stabbed it through the ears as it turned its head in profile for a half-second.
"...always," he brought the blade through a head like a pickaxe before retracting it back through the neck.
"happen," straight into the chin, totally destroying the jaw along with teeth chattering to the ground satisfyingly.
"to," he slashed through two zombies' heads of equal enough height. The alley behind the A&P seemed to be overflowing with blood and decaying body parts now. Like it oozes out of the pores in the concrete and asphalt.
"me?" a zombie was between him and his car now; from the press of the other zombies around him (their near silent moans were about to make Warren scream), he knew that he was running out of options. He casted the gladius expertly into the cranium of the zombie closest to his car. Warren now stood about three yards away from the door to the Challenger, his body caked three times over in sweat, blood, and other assorted parts of human anatomy as in the space of three-quarters of a second various emotions and decisions warred within him like insolent generals on a vanity campaign.
First and foremost, Warren knew there was no way he was going to get out of this one without using the powers Tsunami gave to him as a Knight of hers' and Jurai. Second, he knew using said powers would send up a flashing big Jurai Power sign, preferably neon, saying Hey There! Warren Hudson is right here behind the A&P in Monroe, Michigan off US 75! One Night Only! Third, it had been decades since Warren had utilized Jurai power in any thing resembling a combat situation. Fourth, he was still carrying with him reproach at himself for allowing himself to be so lax as to be caught dumping his garbage in the first place. "Prince Yosho would have me under a waterfall for an entire day for that one!" he groaned.
Warren relaxed his battle-stance, arms at his side as he closed his eyes and bowed his head. His breathing slowed, and the zombies continued to approach him. They closed to within about a hands-breadth from him before a blue-green column of light seem to start in Warren's chest. The blue-green column immediately spread outward like a corona searing the zombies in the immediately vicinity around him to dust, leaving Warren standing in the middle of the over one hundred zombie column wearing the brown battle gear of a Knight of Jurai. Black wedged war paint on his face as his hand extended out from him, a few sparks of blue-green light appearing in his open right hand palm. The battle gear felt natural, like it had not been forty years since he stood in his proper armor.
He made a cone with the palm of his right hand as the sparks of blue-green resolved into first a sword hilt, and then a sword of matching blue-green light. Warren plowed through twelve zombies in the first second, and took out another ten with a focused power blast from one of his fists. Every zombie tried to grab for him, but he simply out maneuvered their rotting hands and chomping teeth and then dealt them a swift end courtesy of the Space Tree Funaho and the almighty herself, Tsunami.
Within nineteen seconds, it was all over, with the entire back of the building looking like a Jackson Pollock painting that might have been entitled "Discovering Red." Warren also, despite his Jurain battle armor being immaculately clean upon his calling upon his powers, was now again caked with blood. He stood for a minute, surveying the damage wrought by his hands and collecting himself. Sweat stood out on his brow, and his heart rate was slightly above normal, but above all that was a satisfied and exultant grin. Mentally he thanked Tsunami, and the bands of power were briefly around him again. Almost immediately, he stood in his ordinary white shirt, green trousers and work boots again.
All in all, he felt pretty damn good. In control for the first time in years, he smiled.
Warren made a beeline for his vehicle after retrieving the gladius and quickly shoving aside the two still-hot firearms along with the gladius' sheath from the driver's side seat. He started up the car, revved the engine, and almost drove off with the driver's side door open. He closed it and drove as fast as he dared in the alley. He rounded a corner and slammed the breaks to a halt, the tires skidding on the pavement for a few inches. Ahead of him wasn't another column of zombies, and this for a moment made Warren grin and his heart sing.
...but then, he realized that the one hundred or so US Army soldiers standing in his way, weapons drawn, were potentially more troublesome than a thousand zombies.
"Get out of the car!" a captain on a bullhorn sitting in a Jeep called out.
Warren exhaled a ragged breath, if he was almost screwed before, he was screwed ten times ten now. For a moment he hesitated.
"If you don't comply," the caption continued, "we'll open fire!"
Warren Hudson sighed, closing his eyes. "Please Tsunami...forgive me..."
"You've got to the count of three," the captain began, "three...two..."
The driver's side of the Challenger opened; it's driver slowly extending both hands above his head as he rose to his feet.
Warren frowned, indecision pulling his lips down. What am I going to do? he had enough sense to only think this, I can't just get out of this one.
"Step away from the vehicle," the captain demanded; about ten soldiers were slowly advancing towards him.
Warren kept his hands above his head, and stepped away about three yards. He stood, waiting for the inevitable order to kiss the ground in front of him. It never came. The soldier's stopped, and seemed to be waiting some twenty feet in front of him. Warren sighed, willing the knot in his stomach to relax. He drew a couple deep breaths, and gathered a good amount of courage.
"Look, can't we talk about this?" he began hopefully. He had to try to get out of this. He had to! The only reason Warren could think of them being assembled here was that they had been watching from a distance...if that's true, then they probably saw him...oh no, they saw him as he truly is. Warren swallowed in a suddenly dry voice, knowing if he was right, then no bullshit explanation for his presence would do. Then what? Run? He'd be cut down in an instant, not even he could outrun all the weapons trained on him. Fight? Sure he'd win, but he'd be committing murder a hundred or so times over.
"Kiss the ground, cowboy!" the captain blared, but Warren really wasn't listening.
Murder...the word hung suspended in the bottom of his throat. Hadn't he done that in the war? No, Tsunami had said that wasn't murder. But if he tried to get out of this with his powers...there would be no choice but to mow at least ten to thirty of these soldiers down. The Jurain powers granted to a Knight might not seem like much compared to other beings in the universe...but each and every soldier arrayed in front of Warren might as well have been reeds in the water. People would die...mostly moon-faced boys hardly older than nineteen from what Warren could see. In the same uniform Warren had once worn, basically. No way around it, these young men and some young women would die by his hands and all they were doing is following orders and doing their jobs just as he was. That would be breaking Tsunami's law, wouldn't it?
Something feeling not unlike a thumbtack seemed to hit the front of his shirt. Warren looked down, and gaped when he saw a white dart, about three-inched long, one inch in circumference with a little wavy fuzzy red felt tail on it. Warren raised his eyes back to the soldiers; wide, glassy, and betrayed. Betrayed as if one of them had somehow managed to stealthily sneak up behind him and stab him with a Bowie knife. His hand went to the dart, feeling it for a second before yanking it out of his chest. Warren inspected the needle, seeing blood on it.
He glared at the soldiers, who showed absolutely no reaction. "NO! I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS!" he shouted, throwing the needle away, his hands balled into viciously shaking fists. In response, he felt another dart, then a third. By this point, Warren was beginning to feel the tranquilizer drugs in his system amidst the accelerated adrenaline and hormones. The world around him suddenly acquired a soft fuzzy hue. Warren stood his ground, rapidly considering his options again. Same result, only it came faster and with more anger...and tears.
"No..." his throat croaked, remember all the other times drugs had been used on him. Seems things never change, only the venues and the players.
A fourth dart sunk into his chest, and everything went glassy for a moment before he furiously blinked the world back into focus. Warren cried freely now, past shames and degradations welling through him like the tranquilizers in his bloodstream. As the fifth one delivered its gleaming clear treasure into his veins everything seemed to briefly fade to another place. This place of nightmares, this musty concrete dungeon...the steel door swinging open and the Japanese soldiers coming to drag him back to that unmaintained, but innovative laboratory that doubled as a torture chamber.
Warren screamed, he took a step in his near-blind rage forward and was rewarded with darts number six and seven.
"DAMN YOU DAMN YOU ALL!" he condemned them all, but a last strand prevented him from exacting ultimate judgment on them. It was not his place. "Please...Tsunami," he rasped quieter, "grant me strength..."
Warren struggled forward even as the excessive amount of drugs made his legs turn to jelly. His arms grasped out to attack his enemies; real, imagined, unfortunate, willing, and unwilling alike. Warren tripped, sprawling a bit on the ground. The impact caused his drug-assisted recollections to fade back to reality as his eyes tried to focus on a soldier about ten feet from where he lay.
"Sergeant Wilson," the green-clad wavering blob in front of him with size twelve and a half boots called to his side, "he's still conscious."
Silence for a moment. "Jesus Christ...what the hell is he? Get the medics over here and let's get this over with, Private!"
Warren groaned, his hands clutching the pavement in front of him. He could still end it all right now, it was so simple...but he just could not do it. Crying, Warren barely took notice of the two other pairs of boots and legs arriving next to him, and their quick concoction of a horse tranquilizer in a syringe. With one last effort, Warren forced himself to turn over. He gazed up at the clear and watery sky and the wavering soldiers above him as his arms went to grab-weakly, ineffectively-at their legs. Warren never got the satisfaction of a handhold before the soldiers easily sidestepped his grasping fingers. The world began spiraling away again and he was back in that dusty concrete room in Japan in 1942 getting his first taste of biological experimentation.
"Don't put me in the dark..." his eyes went wide and his pupils dilated. The medic rolled up his sleeve as four other soldiers held down his struggling limbs. Warren practically hyperventilated struggling with the past and present and his honor as the syringe found a good vein on his arm. After the horse tranquilizers pulsed into his veins, it still took over two minutes before Warren was unconscious. Even then, he was not far from consciousness as the soldiers took him to a waiting ambulance. Another good injection of horse tranquilizer remedied that situation.
000
September 17th, 1945.
It was after Warren Hudson's recovery that Tsunami gently made her way through the landscape she had created for him during his stay inside the First Ship. A field with yellow flowers and two suns hanging lazily in the sky, just like the one Warren had grown accustomed to during his recovery. Tsunami smirked a bit, her stride slightly disturbing a higher growth of grass as she headed for a stream bisecting the field with a tree casting enticing shade all around it. The Goddess knew exactly where her current charge was. Sitting up against a rock next to the bank of the creek.
When Tsunami arrived, as she expected, Warren was sitting there crying his eyes out. When he realized he was not alone in this area of the space tree, he hurriedly tried to wipe away the tears but that seemed only to produce more. Tsunami stood there at the clearing, still in the glass looking at Warren as he turned his red face to look at her.
He said nothing, only exhaled in relief that it was she. His cheeks were red and his eyes puffy from the force of his sobs. It grieved the Goddess that even after all this time that tears still found Warren in this place she had intended for his relaxation and further healing. Tsunami smiled comfortingly, "Don't try to hide your sorrow."
Warren's eyes looked at her face, shame evident on his visage.
She drew closer, her elegantly stocking feet seeming to barely disturb the stones and short grass that made up the bank. Almost involuntarily, Warren could not keep his eyes trained on her face, and his eyes took a quick up and down look at Tsunami's body as she sat down before him.
Tsunami gracefully sat in a relaxed position with her hands folded neatly in her lap, she regarded Warren for a full minute. "I know what is making you cry, I believe it would be best if we talked about it," she said, her eyes once again compelling him to sink into those orbs of pink.
Warren breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. For a while tears threatened to crack the young man into two again. "I'm...sorry for always bawling," he shyly blushed, "I know it's not polite."
Tsunami accepted this with a smile. "You have every right to shed tears, Warren."
Warren looked down at his own hands clutching his knees. "I...it's just I still see them, and all I want to do is tear them apart," he said in a low voice, fighting to control his anger. "I can still feel what they did to me!"
She watched the rage barely quelled in him, her voice still as soft as ever. "Warren, what if I told you they were either dead or in jail?"
He looked away, focusing on the water. Slowly and coldly, "It'd still want to kill them again."
Tsunami accepted this with silence. "I understand your rage at them...all of them, Warren...but you must know that if all you wanted was vengeance, then quite easily your life would become nothing else but," she smiled, "and I do not want to see your life wasted so."
He continued looking at the water, babbling pleasantly. A gentle breeze cooled this brook, and the smell of flowers was particularly strong here. Bird song could be heard somewhere high up in the tree providing the shading. Just like Tsunami had imagined for Warren. "I," he choked, "I couldn't do anything to stop them...for three years."
Warren showed signs of crying again, so Tsunami reached out to put a comforting hand on his. The Goddess almost smiled when she detected a blush along with Warren's questing look of gratitude as his blue green eyes met her pink ones. "That is in the past now...they're gone, you're here with us now...myself and Aria."
His eyes still flared with long-suppressed hate, Warren wasn't quite ready to let go of the one driving wish, that one ambition that someday he would be the one to mete out proper justice to his captors. But as Tsunami studied this desire in him, she decided to broach a tangently related subject.
"Warren..." she began gently, "do you remember when I said to you, that despite the wrongs that have been done to you, you did not let darkness consume you?"
The man nodded in the affirmative, still upset and forgetting his fists were still clenched in shames all too fresh in his mind.
"I have watched this conflict for far too long, and it seems one of the root causes is racial prejudice," Tsunami said with obvious distaste, she regarded Warren again with a smile, "yet...you never hated your enemies because of race, did you?"
Warren thought about this for a long moment. Yes, he had wanted to kill his enemies, but strangely he only really wanted to kill the ones who were directly shooting at him, beating him, or injecting him with bizarre drugs. "I...never understood why I should hate all of them," Warren began, "when I was a boy I used to take crops to the market in the next county," it took some effort to refrain from speaking of his uncle, "...lots of different people there. They were always nice to me, and if I know one thing in my life is that the notion of white supremacy isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"Because you could tell that people of the supposed," Tsunami's voice dropped down in a level of distaste, "'master race,' according to a certain Adolf Hitler, were hardly any better than any other race, and vice versa?"
His brow furrowed in thought, "'vice versa?'"
Tsunami eyes widened almost imperceptively, a faint stammer could also be heard when she spoke again. "The reverse, essentially."
"Oh..." Warren nodded slowly, digesting this. After a moment, a thought seems to enter his mind. "How is the war going?"
"It's been over for a while," Tsunami said distractedly. "Your country and its allies won."
Warren smiled, genuinely happy at this for a moment. Tsunami allowed him to enjoy this for a few minutes, before continuing. "I'm sorry to say that your uncle is also still amongst the living," Tsunami stated simply, "but when he does die, he will face my judgment."
He gazed at her for a long moment, "what--what will you do to him?"
"Why not leave that for me, when the time comes?" she said levelly. "Trust me...your Goddess, Warren."
Warren considered this, his hands clenching almost imperceptively. Tsunami released his hand, allowing him to tap his fingers impatiently on his knees. "I wanted to fight back...but I couldn't, even when I was sixteen...I snuck away like a coward."
"Warren," Tsunami said seriously, "you know that if you had confronted him, he might have seriously injured you, or maybe even murdered you," her voice trailed off, disquieted by the possibility.
"I wanted to pay him back for every bruise and welt...everything," his voice barely seemed above a whisper, his eyes pressed closed.
"If you had, Warren...you would have never left, and likely would still be in jail," she stated, putting her hand on his shoulder. The tears came again, and Tsunami took Warren into her arms, allowing him to weep, cooing gently as she held him. For a long while Warren released his sorrow. Warren kept crying until he truly had no tears left, and Tsunami soothingly rubbed his back and shoulders, occasionally laying a gentle kiss on his forehead; showing him what true affection was. Even though Warren was still naked, she held him for all the times he needed it and no one was there for him.
000