2. Straight from hell
"Go Jango!" cheered Ami "Jo is waiting for you. And… conditioned traffic." she said, as she closed entire streets to help Jango moving faster.
In no time Jango got to the warehouse.
"You've just entered another world! Welcome to hell…" said Jo. "Meg, are you alright?"
Jo climbed to Jango and took control of it. In the meanwhile Beth was shooting the cybot but without much success.
"I don't think this will be very helpful." she said "The damn cybot is plated."
"Jo, remember, your priority is to retrieve the disk." said Sei trough a small screen installed on Jango.
"My priority is to retrieve Meg." said Jo. She began unloading Jango's guns over the purple cybot, spreading dust all over and making a huge noise, but the cybot grabbed Jango and threw it away.
In the meanwhile poor Kyo was coming out of the warehouse, a bit confused, and just in time to get under Jango.
"Get out of the way kid!" Jo yelled to Kyo.
Kyo moved out of the way.
"Geez!" he complained.
Jango crashed against a parallel warehouse and lost one of his arms.
"Jo, are you okay?" asked a still stuck Meg.
Jango got back on his fit and fired a missile that hit a quarter of the purple cybot.
"Great! Wait… no… Get me outta here!" yelled Meg as the cybot grabbed her with its arm and lifted her high above the ground opening a door. " No, no way…" Meg knew just what expected her, cybot put her inside it. "Let me out of here you stupid cybot!" she complained kicking the cybot's inside.
The cybot charged over Jango again and he ended up hitting a train that was passing behind the warehouses line. The purple cybot flew away.
"Damn! To where in hell did it go to? Ami, can you track her trough satellite?" asked Beth.
"Uh…" Ami was working on it. "I can't, there's a level 5 magnetic current going on."
"Beth, return." said Sei "Try to bring Jo."
"Fine." she said a bit bored. "You." she said to an amazed and nervous Kyo "Lets go."
He was so scared that he obeyed her immediately.
Inside the cybot Meg kept trying to reach the girls trough her cell phone.
"Sei, are you listening? Sei?" she called.
On the other side of the city Beth took Jo and Kyo home. But Jo was definitely not happy, especially with Kyo. In fact she was pretty pissed off.
"Spit it out, to whom were you spying on, huh? Where did they take Meg? ANSWER TO ME!" she said aiming a gun at Kyo's face.
"I… I… I don't spy to anyone…" he mumbled.
"If you're lying to me!" Jo threatened.
"Jo, no guns inside. You've promised." said Sei entering the room "And besides, I think he's telling the truth. He's as victim as any of us."
"What d'you do after all?" asked Kyo. "Are you some kind of RAPT's secret division?"
Beth smiled.
"The kid's funny." she commented.
Suddenly Ami burst in.
"Guys, Meg contacted us. She sent us some pictures. I think they're organized chronologically according to the places where she's been." she informed. Ami showed them the pictures in her laptop.
"This is Ropponsi Avenue. It goes right to Baika." said Sei looking at the images.
Jo was looking straight at the last of the four pictures that showed a hanged vandalized dummy. Beth recognized it too.
"I know that place." she said.
Jo knew it too but didn't say a word, instead she grabbed a white canvas bag and opened a huge armoire full of some of the most powerful guns.
"Get ready. You're comin with me." she said to Kyo.
"But I'm the victim." said Kyo, quite shocked.
"Meg got caught helping you out. A real man would reattribute the favour." said Jo.
"Okay." Kyo agreed, although quite reluctant.
"I'm going too. I have some unfinished business to take care on that part of the city." said Beth. She went to the armoire and picked two 9mm which she grabbed in her black suspenders, on a Lara Croft style
They got themselves ready and left.
"Why can't we go in the car?" asked Kyo while he and Jo were sat on the subway. Beth was up walking around.
"Because to where we're heading we can't go in the car." answered Jo.
"I'm impressed that you have a gun license. I heard they check all your life before they give it to you." continued Kyohei.
"Shut up or I kill you." whispered Jo, her breath hard. "Can't you see I'm not on a good mood!"
The rest of the trip was completely silent. In no time they got there.
"This is Shibuya, the Anarchy's district." said Kyo while they were standing at its doors.
"We're going in." said Jo holding the canvas bag on her hand.
"But this is area that escaped RAPT after the big earthquake. If we need any help the police won't come!" cried Kyo.
"No kidding…" Beth smirked.
"If you don't stop with those sissy things I'll hang you next to that dummy." said Jo.
Beth looked at the dummy. The head was about to fall off and there were graffities all over it, most of them with obscene messages, and hanged with nails. Beth smirked and stepped forward.
"This is where we split." she said faking a pistol with her fingers "I'm going that way. See ya and good luck. If you guys need help give me a ring." Beth said, putting her hat on, then she went away.
"We're going that way." said Jo to Kyo.
"Right." he said nodding. Even if he thought it was wrong he would never say it for he was not quite sure which was worst: to displease Jo or take a walk by Shibuya by himself.
"This is not good, this is not good." said Kyo as they walked pass the streets "Everybody has a gun and they look like bullies. Geez, he looked at me! I'm busted!"
At the bottom of the street three guys waited on them.
"Fresh meat!" smirked one, all dirty and full of piercings.
The three guys laughed.
"What d'you have inside the bag? Give us the bag and I let you go." said another one.
Jo didn't move and Kyohei hid behind her.
"You're kind of a hottie." said the third "But you have no booms. This way you won't get any clients." This who addressed to Jo was quite fat and was covered in some sort of yellow paint.
Jo heard it all and unzipped her coat taking out two pistols.
"The guy wants fight." the first one said.
Jo fired a few shots that passed right next to the guys' heads.
"Take me to your boss." she demanded.
On the other side of Shibuya Beth was now walking slowly. Very few recommendable people were staring at her, watching all her moves. But yet she passed by them without any problem.
Beth kept walking a little more. Suddenly she saw someone running not very far from her.
"YOU!" she called "I thought it was you." she said grabbing a small man behind a shadow.
"Miss Beth… Long time I didn't see you." said the tiny man dressed in some strange clothes that slightly remembered a legionary's clothes.
"I bet you didn't. Where's your boss?" she asked.
"Octavius?"
"Why? D'you have a new one now?" she glared at him.
"No, of course not." the man giggle nervously trying to hide his fear.
"Take me to him. I have some business to care off with him." she said, her patience running.
"Okay, just don't hurt me."
"I won't if you do everything straight. How can you handle yourself in a place like this if you're such a coward?"
"Boss protects me."
"Of course… Now moving. Lets go."
The man took by absolutely dreadful building and narrow streets and finally to a small building that no one could tell by its look the huge wealth it kept inside.
The building was secured by some huge armed men that resembled two closets. As the tiny man approached them he whispered something and he and Beth were let enter.
"In here, Miss Beth." the man said.
Beth passed to a golden room full of statues and vases of Roman heroes and gods. There were also some cracked helmets and shiny squashed coins. In the center a marble table. No doubts here, this was the office of a Classic History maniac.
"OCTAVIUS!" yelled Beth.
A man dressed like a Roman Caesar appeared.
"Beth! How good to see you! I'm sorry to keep you waiting but I was on a massage session and my guards didn't quite tell me who you were and…" the man said.
"Oh, yeah. I bet." she said. "Where's my money?"
"Your money… Your money… Where can it be?"
"You tell me." she said. "I'm warning you, I won't get out of this place today without my money."
"You'll have your money, I promise." said Octavius. "Now, since you're here, and I have been wanting to talk to you…"
"What d'you want, Caesar?" Beth asked, although she was quite sure of the answer.
"I have a job to offer you. Which you only take if you want, of course."
"I work in a team now."
"Beth, Beth and win, working on a team? You on a team? Hilarious! No more sola?" repeated Octavius, bursting to laugh.
Beth hit the table in front of them.
"Okay, no need to get upset." calmed down Octavius. "I'll give you 50m ¥. You see, there's an up coming exhibition of Classic artefacts and…"
"You want me to steal a coin?"
"Not exactly… More like a vase."
Beth burst laughing.
"You've gotta be kidding me. No way I'm a getting the vase for only 50m."
"Why? The effort to enter is the same!"
"But the problem is never entering, the problem is getting out. And we have to agree that coming out of a highly secured Museum with a 15in vase is not exactly easy. And besides you already know my table…"
"Oh, yes. But lets not enter in those complicated calculations of your fair salaries… 80m will do?"
"I think so. You must really want the damn jar."
"You bet I want."
Beth smirked.
"One more thing. If tomorrow morning I don't wake with my late salaries on my account I'll be back. But I won't be alone. I'll be bringing my knives and you sure know what that means." she said playing with her gun.
"I certainly do."
"Good. By the way, I also want my next salary advanced."
"Well…"
Beth glared at him.
"Certainly." he answered.
"Now I'll be going." she said getting up.
"It was good to see you." he said grinning.
"I bet it was." and she went away. "Now, Jo… where are you?" Beth whispered and she ran to join the others.
On the other side Jo found some old partners too.
"Jo! Didn't see you for a long time!" said a purple haired man playing with a knife and sometimes cutting himself just for the fun of sucking the blood. "I was to call you but I haven't had time. I don't think I have thanked you yet for getting me rid of that psycho." the man continued licking his bloody hand making Kyo ready to throw up.
"This place is filled with psychopaths." whispered Kyo.
"Well I don't want the reward." said Jo "I want info."
"You already know that nothing goes on around here without me having heard of it."
"I looking for a cybot like RAPT's." said Jo.
"My microphones detect anything. If it's here I'll find it."
Just a mile away Beth heard something.
"Have you seen it?" it was a child, speaking to another.
"The cybot? No, but I heard it's not far." answered the other.
Beth approached the children.
"You, what were you saying?" she asked.
"That's none of your business." answered the first child taking out a gun.
Beth smirked.
"What are you laughing at?" the child asked. The truth was that he didn't act like a child at all although he couldn't have more than ten, he was certainly younger than Ami. He was all covered with shiny chains that he wore as an accessory and his pockets were filled with what Beth seriously suspected to be knives and stolen PC components. "Give me the cash, girl!"
Beth smirked again.
"You really picked the wrong girl. I don't need more than a couple seconds to take you your gun but I'm willing to negotiate. You tell me what you know about the cybot and I'll give 150. What d'you say?"
The child thought for a while and then nodded.
"I haven't seen the cybot but everybody says it showed up near the old subway tunnel." he said.
"And some people say they heard somebody screaming." said the other, a little girl with green and purple colored hair.
"Meg…" whispered Beth. She smiled. "Thanks." and she gave each 200. "Consider it a bonus. Spend it well, preferably on a book, or keep it." and she walked away.
Back to Jo, she was coming out of her old partners joint.
"Sorry, couldn't trace a thing." he said.
"If you're lying to me I'll be back and I'll cut your neck." threatened Jo.
And she and Kyo left, he always bowing in order to be the most agreeable possible towards the psychos. What fear does!
"Who's her, boss?" asked one of his 'employers' "She's fearless."
"An old friend?" asked another.
"She's what we call of an angel of death. She has the devil's wings on her back. And who sees them gets a free ticket to hell. You're about to see hell on Earth." answered the purple haired guy.
Miles away at the end of the old subway tunnel, just like the children had said, Meg was tied in the cybot's wires.
"How dare you arrest me against my will? If I get any bruises I'll kill you." she threatened. Meg looked around her. She didn't quite know where she was. She should be on some sort of old computers lab, with machines all around. In one of them Meg recognized something 'That's the disk!' Meg was quite happy with her discover but not very far Jo was looking for her.
She and Kyo were on an old junk yard full of broken cars and robots.
"You stay here." said Jo.
Kyohei looked around. It was not very nice to stay all by himself in a junk yard in Shibuya surrounded by what once had been cars.
"Alone?" he asked attempting to appeal to Jo's mercy, too bad she had none. Jo just started to walk leaving Kyo and the white canvas bag behind.
Jo put on some funny lilac glasses and immediately she got in touch with Ami.
"Finally some data. It was hard to find you." said Ami.
"What's this place?" asked Jo.
"It's an old subway tunnel." answered Beth. Jo looked back, Beth was smiling. "The project was abandoned after the big Earth-quake. It wasn't safe anymore with all those gangs running around here." continued Beth. "And guess who's at the end of it? That's right: Meg."
"Then what are we waiting for?" asked Jo.
"Wait." said Ami "The tunnel doesn't go always straight, she can be anywhere."
Beth nodded.
"We already know what that cybot is." said Sei through the inter-com. "It was supposed to be a RAPT's cybot. To fight crime at a new level. It was presented some time ago and would be released at the end of the year. The one we know was probably built out of stolen hardware. Bai-Lan want to know who built it." she said.
Not far away Meg kept tied at the cybot made of stolen pieces and she kept making new discovers. A funny jelly thing was placed inside some sort of capsule.
'Don't tell me that green thing's the cybot's brain!' she said to herself. She kept looking at it 'Such pretty colors!' she thought.
Suddenly the wires got a bit more lose. Her mobile was not far, 12 inches maximum. She tried to reach but she couldn't and when she was about to the brain was placed automatically back inside the cybot and it began moving, dragging Meg behind.
"Geez! I gotta reach the cell phone." she yelled. The cybot went down again and Meg got her mobile "Damn mobile! On TV it said it would work anywhere!" she complained.
Half a mile away Ami contacted Jo.
"I found Meg's signal in the GPS. It was only for a fraction of second. It was few but enough. She's in a lateral tunnel 500 yards ahead of you." Ami informed.
Beth smiled.
"I told you." she said starting to run and followed by Jo. In no time they got there. They both took out their guns. Beth let Jo do the triumphal entrance, she knew it was important to Meg.
"Jo!" yelled Meg all excited.
"Meg, protect yourself!" yelled back Jo unloading most of her guns over the cybot.
The cybot "awoke" and turned on its guns firing over the girls.
"Jo, cover my back." asked Beth.
Beth ran and helped Meg with the wires.
"Thanks." said Meg.
"No, prob. Now better run." said Beth.
Meg began running out of there and then Beth shot over a wall that fell over the cybot.
"That should hold it for a moment." she said and both she and Jo joined Meg getting out of there.
"Didn't make much more sense one cybot against the other?" asked Meg while they ran.
"You heard the lady!" said Jo to Ami.
"Jango is on his way." said Ami.
Outside Kyo was sneaking the white bag. He was pretty interested on some round cans.
'Why did they bring convenience food? I could have cooked something.' he said to himself.
Suddenly Meg showed up from behind some containers.
"Run idiot!" she said to Kyo.
"And the food?" he asked.
Beth jumped and landed just in front of him.
"Advice: run for your life." she said.
The purple cybot showed up flying some feet above them.
"Fuck!" said Kyo, the cybot was about to land over him.
"Oh, the boy swears!" said Beth smiling and pulling his arm to help him. The bag remained behind.
Jo came just behind and they all hid behind some other containers.
"That's no regular cybot." said Jo.
"That thing has a brain, I've seen it with my own eyes." said Meg.
"Well, it has the mentality of a T-Rex." said Beth firing over the spread cans. It turned they hadn't food inside but powder and as Beth and Jo fired over them they blew.
The cybot began firing some missiles all around.
"It's outta control!" screamed a panicked Kyo.
"Escape! Don't stop: RUN!" yelled Jo while she remained behind firing over the cybot.
The junk yard was a real battle field. Explosions all around, guns shots everywhere, lots of smoke and one hell of a noise.
"Jango!" yelled Meg. The white cybot flew over their heads landing next to Jo.
"Now lets party!" said Jo entering Jango.
"I equipped Jango with explosive missiles. Use them as they please you. Have fun!" said Ami.
"I already know what's inside the CD." said Sei "It's the new protocol used in East Africa. Jo, retrieve most of the cybots pieces. That's another request from Bai-Lan."
"That's gonna be the hard part." said Jo. "I'm gonna burry you right here, on the junk yard!" said Jo as she fired one of the missiles.
Half the cybot exploded and the rest fell next to Jango. It was over. The cybot's brain got spread near them. Jo stared at it, somehow impressed.
"Hurray! You're the best Jo!" cheered Meg.
They were all celebrating when they started hearing RAPT's alarms.
"Just what we needed, the cops are here." whispered Beth.
"Good, the police, they'll help us." said Kyo stepping forward in RAPT's direction.
"RAPT! Get down on the floor. Hands up where we can see them. Don't try to fight back." they said aiming them their guns. Kyo immediately fulfilled the police requests.
Jo, still inside Jango, held the remaining part of the cybot and threw it against the police's vehicles.
Miles away those dreadful guys to whom Jo had worked for where watching the huge explosions.
"It sure looks like hell." commented one.
"I told you." answered the boss.
Kyo and the girls got out of there leaving behind new RAPT's units.
"Explosion on a 70 yards raid. A man and a woman identified. Armed gang not implicated on past incidents." that what was running on the radios. But something else was going on RAPT's headquarters:
"Call Mr. Rosenfeld. I have something to tell him. It's urgent. We've found her."
"Just that?" asked Sei looking at the small pile of retrieved pieces of the 'deceased' purple cybot. They were on the back of the trailer
"It was the best we could get." said Meg.
"We spent time, money and munitions and we haven't found the guy behind all this." continued Sei "The old man is gonna freak out."
"Not everything's lost." said Ami looking at the pieces "I can scan and trace them."
"I hope so." said Sei.
The girls went inside to the kitchen.
"What do we have here…" said Ami looking at the kitchen's table "It's dinner!"
Meg, Ami, Beth and Sei sat at the table. Meg and Ami began eating while Sei picked a paper over the table.
"Sorry for having caused you so much trouble. I made dinner to make it up to you. I hope you'll like it. Goodbye."
"This is great!" said Ami tasting some sushi.
"He done it all alone!" cried out Meg.
"I wanna eat like this every day!" said Ami.
"Kid's got talent." said Beth tasting a rice ball. "I bet will convince him to come back."
"I hope so." said Sei.
Outside, on the top of the trailer Jo was watching a movie on a portable TV. The film was quite violent, just like she liked. But she had something else on her mind, a shiny green brain coming out of a broken purple cybot.
A/N: so, here's chp. 2. I hope you've liked it. Chp. 3 will come out in about… two weeks? Ten days maybe, it depends on the quantity of homework I'll get. If I'm on a really good mood maybe five days. Well, R&R please, even if you don't like it. What d'you think of my OC, Beth? I really wanna know. : )