The Dragon and the Fallen Angel

Prologue:

Author's Note: Black Lagoon is the intellectual property of Sunday GX. All characters (aside from OCs) were created by the great Rei Hiroe.

Special thanks to unkeptsecret, one of the most talented female writers I've had the pleasure reading and whose amazing fanfics inspired me to write this as a little homage. Be sure to check her works! She gives Hiroe himself a run for his money!

The first thing he realized was that he was not dreaming.

Still, the scene that had unfolded in front of him seconds ago was the most surreal thing he had ever experienced in his entire life. Not even during his years in the Royal Hong Kong Police had he seen anything like it. And he had seen some really crazy shit. So he was not wrong to question whether this was a really happening or just some wicked dream. But no, the throbbing pain in his left wrist proved it. He had never felt anything like it, even during the worst of his nightmares.

But then again, how could he explain what just happened?

First were the blazing fireflies, thundering and flashing right before him. Thankfully, his eyes had been protected from the light by his favorite pair of Alain Delone sunglasses. But then his left gun suddenly became alive and betrayed him, jumping from his hand grip before disappearing into the sea. Such things would make sense in the fairy tales he used to read to his younger sister during their poverty-stricken childhood in Kowloon City.

But even those strange events didn't prepare him for what would come next, a sight that had left him speechless and would surely remain with him until the end of his days: the image of a tall, beautiful, blue-eyed blonde angel that briefly flew in the full moon night before falling into the dark waters of the Roanapur Harbor.

That last thing had been almost biblical.

After all, hadn't Satan fallen from Heaven likewise after his rebellion failed?

He didn't remember the rest of the story. Or to be honest, he'd rather not. Even after embracing atheism long time ago, his past with the Christian Brothers still haunted him. Among all those bitter experiences, the infamous "Catholic guilt" remained the worst of all.

He sighed. Nothing good would come from dwelling in the distant memories of his youth. Uneasy, he went to inspect the now broken wood planks where she had fallen.

The world was a crazy place. And Roanapur was no exception. As a matter of fact, it was the perfect place for such things to happen. Maybe she had been right. He had become too used to the status quo ante bellum, ruling the city as its king from the luxury of his presidential suite or from the pool of his summer house. Maybe he had forgotten how wild and crazy the state of things was for the rest of the world outside.

Placing his still aching hand on one of the unbroken handrails to support himself, he looked down through the iron sights of his trusted Beretta M76. Nothing. Below, the calm waves looked all the same:

She had been swallowed the same way any coin does when its tossed into a wishing well: a simple "plop" and that was the end of it. If there was a trace of blood, the silver moonlight wasn't strong enough to make it stand out in the dark waters of the Roanapur Harbor.

Mr. Chang mentally cursed himself. Without her dead body there was no way prove to the rest of criminal underworld that she was out of the picture. He couldn't claim victory over the Russian mob nor secure the Sun Yee On reputation as Roanapur undisputed masters as long as her decayed corpse wasn't hanged on the city's entrance bridge, serving as a future warning to anyone stupid enough to even think about challenging the supremacy of the Earth and Heaven Society.

But then another more disturbing thought crossed his mind.

Was she actually dead? He was certain at least one of his .22 LR bullets had actually made contact with her beautiful, sculptural body as the impact had violently sent her flying into to the sea, but even so he wasn't a hundred percent sure she was now sleeping with the fishes for good.

He bit his lower lip. Shooting the dark waters of the Roanapur bay for a target nowhere to be seen would be an act of utter foolishness, and he couldn't afford himself to waste any more ammunition. After all, he was left only with his one pistol, and he wasn't sure she had kept her word about coming alone all the way to this part of the city's bay. If any of her spetsnaz commandos were still patrolling the area, he would have need of every bullet left in the magazine.

He took a deep breath and pushed himself back.

And then he felt it.

Suddenly, his chest was afire. A burning sensation had started spreading from his left lung to the rest of his torso. Struggling to keep his breath, he rested his still throbbing hand on his Brioni jacket. The touch felt warm and wet. A bad sign. No longer caring about the now ruined Italian made tuxedo, he ripped it open and looked underneath. He knew immediately he was in serious trouble.

A dark spot that could only be blood had formed right above his abs. It was already expanding itself to the rest of the white cotton shirt. He abruptly unfastened it to closely inspect the wound. Three, no, four holes that could only be made by the impact of 9mm bullets were the cause of it. The grouping of the shots was nearly perfect. She had only missed his heart by mere inches. A cold comfort in name only. If he didn't stop the severe bleeding quickly, that wouldn't matter after all.

He freed himself from the bloody top of his tuxedo. The five-thousand-euro custom tailored clothing was done for. What a fucking waste. He folded it into an improvised gauze and pressed it against the fresh wounds. A loud groan escaped from him. With his veins full of adrenaline during the shootout, he had barely felt anything during those crucial moments. But now its effects were gone. Only the pain remained.

Gun still in hand, he started his way back to the entrance of the Roanapur Harbor's Yatch Club.

Each breath he took felt like aspirating a piece of hot coal into his already burning chest, but luckily enough, his legs were not failing him. Yet. Nevertheless, he needed immediate medical attention. The symptoms of the blood loss would only get worse with each second wasted.

He was now regretting his decision to end the things with the Russians right here. If he had known beforehand the result of challenging her in such remote place, he would have chosen another place closer to any of the multiple Triads fronts. No. That wouldn't have worked. She had agreed to came all this way because the Thai restaurant close by was the most neutral site in the whole dammed city. Any other suggestion for a meetup would have been taken with suspicion and declined. And he only had one chance to make it happen.

This wasn't the first time he had been shot. Some rookie mistakes had almost cost his life during his early years as an agent of the Law and Order, but this was totally different. It was one thing to be shot by some untrained street thugs and another one by former soviet rifle trainee who did not compete at the Olympics due shady circumstances.

What a lucky bastard he was indeed! He had never been more grateful in his entire life for being ambidextrous. If only she hadn't fired first upon his left gun, he wouldn't be here, struggling to keep himself in one piece but still alive at the end of the day.

He was still thinking about the odds of surviving an encounter against such dangerous enemy when his face made contact with the wooden planks of the floor. The fall happened so fast that, for a moment, he thought he had been shot again. With his head still dizzy from the impact, he tried to regain his composure only to find the cause of the problem: his left leg had gone limp, probably as a side effect due the blood loss.

This was worse than he originally thought.

In his current state, he knew his chances of survival depended on how quickly he putted himself into the hands of one of the many doctors employed by the Triads. As long as he kept the bleeding in check, he had a small chance of making it. But doing it with a bad leg was another story. Damn it. He would need to find a transport. Soon.

Unfortunately, the area was deserted by his own orders. No boat nor car had been allowed to be remain in the proximities for as long as the meeting lasted.

He was alone.