Disclaimer: I do not own Totally Spies
Claimer: Any and all OCs in this story are mine, please ask before using them
' ' - thought
( ) - author's notes
***** - time/scene change
*** - dream
=+= - flashback
The Assassin: WOOHP Files
Chapter 4
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
'How could I fail?' Nate thought as he lay in his bed the next day. The memory of the holodeck mission was still on his mind (it had happened earlier that day after all), and kept replaying. 'I'm not supposed to fail.'
A knock to his door and he sat bolt upright, it was almost four in the AM, the time when most people are asleep and resting up for the day of school ahead. He slid off the bed and walked to the door, sliding it open a crack to see who was there. It was Sarah.
"What?" he asked quietly, but it still held a twinge of irritation.
"I saw what happened on the holodeck," she said.
"There was no other way, I had to use it," he said hoping that she was referring to his use of his angel arm.
"Not that, I mean I saw the girl," she whispered to him softly, too softly for it to be heard by any security measures.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he began to close the door, only to stop when she slid her foot in it.
"You know exactly who I'm talking about, the one who keeps visiting your dreams," that got his attention. "All I want to know is what she said to you."
"That's none of your business, now take your foot of my door or I will break it in half," he applied pressure to the door, squeezing her foot until she pulled it out.
The door closed without a sound, though he wished it would make any kind of sound. Everything in this place was so clean, so quiet; it was starting to annoy him. This whole organization was beginning to annoy him. The constant monitoring, the loss of what most people had called "the best years of his life", Jerry's overprotectiveness of the secret that was his son, and, most of all, he was now charged with babysitting the three spies on most, if not all their future missions.
He tapped into the security system and saw that the hall outside was clear, so he decided to take a little walk. The door slid opened and he stepped out, closing and sealing it behind him, no one was going in. His bare feet made little to no sound on the cold metal floor and he continued his trek though the bowel of this place called WOOHP. One room he stopped in was designed for the scientists who were never, ever allowed to leave the underground. It was somewhat of a park, with trees and bushes and grass and a small brook that ran from one end to the other and three-dimensional buildings around it, giving it depth. The room was about 8000 square feet, a 100 foot by 80 foot rectangle. The ceiling above mimicked the sky outside, and right now there was a clear, starry night.
It didn't seem right that in LA there would be such stars visible, what with all the light pollution. But then he remembered that this sky wasn't real, it was just a very well done hologram. As he walked into the room, he noticed the door took a little too long to shut, and when he turned around there was nothing there. Shrugging he turned back to look around a little, it had been a while since he was there last. The trees were taller, some of the bushes were bushier, and some of the stones in the creek bed had shifted. He reached a small hill and, letting it all go, he plopped down on the soft grass, stretching his limbs as far as they would go.
"I don't know why I don't come here more often," he said to what he thought would be himself.
"This is one of my favorite places to come and relax," a female voice, different from Sarah's.
He craned his neck a little to see a fairly short woman standing on the crest of the hill. She stood roughly 4'10", and wore a plain, white nightgown, and was holding a teddy bear. Her auburn hair shown slightly in the fake moonlight, giving it a bit of a blue hue. Her eyes were the color of fire opal, and glinted just the same as the precious stone. A small smile sat on her lips as a slight breeze blew her hair about. This was Natalie Rivage, age 34, head of WOOHP R&D, leader of the project that turning him into what he was, and never one to act her age.
"Dr. Rivage, what are you doing here?" Nate ask as he rolled onto his stomach.
"You're not the only one who likes to take walks in wee hours of the morning," she smiled a little wider and sat down next to him, cradling the bear. "We're not in the lab, Nate, you can call me Natalie."
"Okay," he said somewhat hesitantly, it was going to feel very odd calling his physician by her first name. "What's with the bear?"
"You mean Cuddles?" she chuckled lightly, and squeezed the bear. "I've had him since I was five, helped me to scare away the monsters in my closet."
"What monsters?" He just gave her a confused look, he'd had never been afraid of monsters in his closet, and no one had ever told him about them either. Don't get me wrong, I was terrified till I was like ten years old, when I watched a Steven King Movie Marathon, totally desensitized me.
"Oh, well, um, sometimes when children are young they are afraid of the unknown, like the dark. And the darkest spot of every room is usually the closet, or under the bed, so that's where these imaginary monsters come from," she explained. "So having something to hold onto, something familiar helps them to cope with their fears. Understand?"
"Yeah."
*****
Wednesday, Nate laid on the roof of a tall, NYC office building, his SVD Dragunov held tightly to his shoulder, the scope hovering just in front of his eye. He was now in sniper mode, his smart-thread clothes had taken the form of a normal trench coat, like those used in trench warfare. He had also donned a large hat that effectively kept the glare out of his eyes. These clothes had an extra feature about them, they blended perfectly with whatever surface he was near, Chameleon Technology it was called. His target was a very powerful drug lord, who was going to be making his way from a limousine, and into a bank. He only had a three-second window to strike, and he wasn't going to fail.
"Come on you little bitch," he whispered calmly as the limo drove up, with the sunroof open.
He lined up the shot, keeping his aim slightly to the right, as the gun tended to pull to the left when fired. The door opened, he stepped out, and Nate pulled the trigger, in a little less than two seconds the man went from having a fairly good head on his shoulders, to having no head on his shoulders.
"That'll teach 'em to not carry bulletproof umbrellas," he joked as he stood up and made his way back to his jet.
It has come to my attention that I never told you what his jet looks like. Well, if you've ever seen the movie Stargate, which I hope you have, it looks like those glider things the enemy flew. It was a small, personal craft that he had had painted black and green, and carried a few little surprises for anyone who wanted a dogfight. He stepped up to it and got into the cockpit, feeling it link to his cybernetics. With one thought the jet became invisible, and took off, on its way cross-country. While on his way, he thought of the previous day's venture into the holodeck.
=+=
"So, when did they get here?" Nate asked the little girl who was looking around nervously.
"Not long ago, only a few days."
Nate was stunned, a force like that must number in the thousands to take down a city this size. He knew it was large because they had been walking for a while and not reached any sort of end. The streets twisted and turned, never going in a straight line for more than a hundred meters. It looked as if some great power had purposely warped the city, and still was from the looks of it. So far there was no sign of any more of those robots, and that was putting Nate on edge. He had long since holstered his revolver, and was instead opting to use his other weapons.
"Is there anyone else left?"
"No," she sniffed back tears, tears that were too real for Nate's liking.
"Well, if you like, I'll take care of you," he said in a comforting tone.
"Stop where you are," a mechanical voice said behind them.
Nate turned and unholstered his gun, taking quick aim and firing at the robot. But when that one hit the ground, it seemed to be a signal for the seemingly hundreds more that lay in wait. The fronts of buildings exploded outward as they encircled the two humans. Large machine guns and rocket launchers were aimed at them. A small smile formed on his lips when they fired. Green discs appeared on his palms, and began to glow as he held them up. A green dome surrounded himself and the girl, effectively shielding them from the hellfire outside.
=+=
His attention was brought from his thoughts to a communication from WOOHP HQ. Apparently he had to get to Central Africa as fast as he could. Sam, Clover, and Alex had called in that they were in trouble, and, as their guardian, he had to go and help. He sighed irritably, and redirected his jet back the other way, and pushed the throttle. This always, always happened to him when he was deep in thought, someone just had to interrupt him.
*****
It didn't take long to get there at full speed, and he still had the stealth mode engaged, so no one saw him land. He set down in a secluded spot of the Congo, and started through the forest, well, more like through the trees. A grappling hook launched from his wrist, and snagged a branch. He made his way quickly and quietly through the jungle, glad that he had his hair pulled into the braid, otherwise the humidity would have been wreaking havoc on it.
"Well, there it is," he said from a branch as his eyes zoomed in on the secret missile complex.
The Republic of Congo had been secretly backwards engineering nuclear missiles that they had bought from a foreign power, then making their own. This facility had been built out of an old diamond mine, and wasn't in the least bit conspicuous. That is until a radical faction takes it over and starts making demands. WOOHP had been called in, but they were captured, he could see them through one of the windows.
"How many times have I told Jerry not to send them on missions like this?" Nate asked himself as he climbed down the tree to a large branch, and then crossed over to another, closer tree from there. "Let Greg's team handle something like this, they have more experience. But, naturally, he doesn't listen."
*****
"Remind me how we got into this Clover," Sam said as she tried to melt the titanium shackles with her fingertip welding torch (the suits disperse heat, so there's no chance of them getting burned). "Man, why isn't this working."
"I thought you of all people would know that titanium is, like, really hard to weld (this is true, they actually use some kind of highly concentrated electron beam to weld titanium)," Clover said surprising the other two with such knowledge. "What, I was flipping through the channels and finally ended up on Discovery, or something like that."
The others sighed as Sam retracted the torch and settled in for a long wait. Their ankles had been shackled together, their wrists as well, then a length of chain connect the two behind their backs, effectively hog-tying them, and leaving them helpless. It all happened because Clover was still fretting about her broken nail from the previous day. Unfortunately for them, a guard heard her griping and fired a smoke grenade at them, the smoke put them to sleep. When they woke up they were shackled and locked away.
"This bites," Alex said as she lightly hit her head on the floor.
The door opened, then closed, but no one came in, and it didn't seem like the guards outside noticed at all. In fact, they looked asleep from where the girls were looking up from. There was a wavy motion in the air, like when you see gas in the air, and a hat was lifted, revealing Nate. The hat changed to a dark brown, as well as the trench coat he wore. He glared down at them, but not a really harsh glare, just a lightly annoyed one.
"In trouble again I see," he said with a slight smile, but still the glare as he unsheathed his special katana.
In a motion too fast to be seen, he struck, hitting all the key points on the shackles. Then, as if he hadn't done anything at all, he sheathed the sword and stepped towards the door. The sound of metal hitting the floor filled the room as the shackles and chains simply fell apart, clean cut.
"What about the guards?" Sam asked as he was about to open the door.
"What guards?" he replied as the door swung open and there were two bodies lying on the floor outside.
They left through the door and proceeded down the hall towards the command center. Nate produced a small disk from inside his coat and slid it into the crack in the door. After getting behind a corner they heard a small explosion. Sam looked around the corner at the titanium door that had been blown open. She was getting a little suspicious of him now, why would he have demolition materials on hand all the time, the three of them never got that.
"Get ready," he whispered as he produced an M203 grenade launcher from within his coat.
Without looking he aimed it around the corner and launched a smoke grenade. It ricocheted perfected off the wall and into the door, discharging after the preset time. Thick smoke billowed out from the projectile, filling the room and seeping into the hallway. He handed them each pair of goggles and small air filters, which looked to be nothing more than mouthpieces from a SCUBA tank. After fitting the M203 back beneath his coat, he pulled out a small, break barrel shotgun.
"On three," he said as he opened the gun and popped in two shells. "Three."
They rounded the corner and entered the thick smoke. Once in the room they could see that several of terrorists on the floor, asleep. Some were still sitting in their chairs, their heads on the consoles. One of them was still on his feet, technically. He was crouched beneath the smoke and leveled an AK47 at them. The shots he fired, though, were deflected by some unseen force. It seemed that they had hit a wall, and shot out in all different directions. Nate raised the shotgun and fired one shot the man's abdomen, the second to his head. He blew the smoke from the barrels and slid it back into the coat.
"Well, that was simple enough," he smiled as the ventilation fan above began to suck out the smoke. "How did you three get into so much trouble?"
"It was like they knew we were coming," Sam said as she began to disarm the terrorists, just in case they came to.
"Yeah, we never had a chance," Clover took the gun from the goon at her feet and thew it out the door.
"We need to talk to Jerry about getting some better gadgets for stealth," Alex said as she looked at the ripple of color that an down Nate's coat. "Like what you have."
"Given that it is a fashion nightmare," Clover noticed the ripple too, "I could deal with a little invisibility."
"Fashion nightmare?" Nate asked as he pulled the AK47 from the dead man's hands. "This coat is one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world, and all you care about what it looks like?"
"Well, yeah, who wants to walk around looking like they just stepped out of the trenches of world war two?" Sam chimed in, getting a slightly confused look from Clover and Alex.
Nate sighed as he stowed the gun into one of the many spaces inside the coat. He couldn't understand how three perfectly level headed people...well...one perfectly level headed, the other two had a slight grade to them, could possible be so ignorant of what was given to them. They had the life that many people could only dream of, and being able to juggle that career with their normal lives was even more amazing. It was like they took saving this world, and possibly others in the long run, from total ruin, completely for granted. And here he was, a killer, feeling guilty for letting a hologram die, and acting on that guilt.
'Fools, they're all fools,' he thought as he turned and headed for the door. "The base's staff is tied up in the basement, I suggest you go and get them."
"And where are you going?" Clover inquired with a slight twinge of annoyance that he would act all high and mighty.
"Home," he said passively as he donned the large hat and left.
The three ran to the door to watching him, but all they saw was a ripple in the air and he was gone just as quickly as he had come. The sound of doors opening and closing was the only thing that tipped them off to that fact that he was still around.
*****
Nate slipped back into his reverie of what had happened on the holodeck.
=+=
The hail of bullets and rockets seemed unrelenting as Nate held them off his shield. But this was getting them no where, and it was boring. He had come to this place to work off his frustration, not to sit idly by as these robots ran out their almost tireless amounts of ammunition. Some of them had even taken up pounding on the green energy, but they only succeeded in getting blown apart by friendly fire. Finally he just didn't care anymore.
The shield began to expand, the area it covered grew larger, pushing back the hordes of robots. The energy cracked and sizzled as long bolts of lightening flashed out from it, passing from one bot to the next (like that lightening that came out of the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). In an orgy of explosions, the shocked automatons were reduced to a pile of scrap metal. When the smoke dissipated there was no more shield, just Nate and the girl. The green discs had disappeared from his palms, and not even slightest blemish covered the area where they just were either. His hand slowly reached up and he tugged at the coat he wore, it disappeared into suit beneath it.
"Just stay here, I'll handle them," Nate told the girl, who he ushered into a small crevice between two large chunks of asphalt, it wasn't much but it would keep her safe.
He placed his hand on the katana at his waist, feeling the grip, and then depressing the button that allowed the blade to be drawn from the saya (place of peace/rest). But the sword he slammed into the ground, for that was not the weapon he planned to use. He pulled the scabbard from where it was attached and held it in front of him, all 30 inches of it. Metal pieces from the bots that had fallen began to lift from the ground, changing their shape, and attaching to the opening of the sheath, and filling the expanse with it, like a tang.
When he was done, he now held a sword called an odachi (great sword in Japanese), and just the blade was pushing seven feet in length. A large and ornate guard had formed at the base, in the form of a large, coiled dragon, the blade shooting from its mouth. The robots didn't seem to care as they continued to fire upon him. Their bullets, numerous as they may be, never hit the mark, as he was too fast for them, and, grabbing the katana he had driven into the ground, leapt into the air. He came down in the mass of machines and simply started ripping them apart.
The odachi was too long for stabbing, but he could easily take out at least ten of them with one stroke. The katana he used for those that got too close. He was relieved that they didn't seem interested in the girl, and had left her wholly unharmed. But that didn't mean she was out of danger, as the machines had to climb over her crevice to get to their quarry. It was easy to use the swords in unison, pretending that he was simply using a large daisho (Japanese set of two swords: a katana and wakizashi, wakizashi and tanto, or katana and tanto).
'This isn't right, it's too easy,' he thought as he cut down another legion, while stabbing the katana through another android's head.
It was about that time he noticed that there were fewer machines than before, but it was impossible for him to have destroyed so many so quickly. He turned around saw that the machines were retreating, something else he found out of place. Robots weren't programmed to retreat, even if the situation dictated it was the right move to make. Explosions from above tore his eyes away from his enemy. The buildings around him were beginning to fall. Shards of glass and other debris rained from the sky like a deadly hail. The blade for his odachi fell off and he sheathed the katana, placing back at his waist.
The little girl screamed from her hiding place as the glass and small stones fell on her. This time Nate wasn't fast enough to react as he ran towards the crevice, hoping to get there in time. He thrust his hand forward, trying to get above her to cast the shield, but it was too little too late. The shield was cast, but the girl was not under it. Rocks fell on and into the crevice, and Nate heard the sounds he'd heard before. But he didn't actually see her die, debris fell all around him as the buildings collapsed, blocking his view. He did hear her scream one last time.
"No," he fell to his knees as the green disc in his arm began to cloud over with red; soon there was no green left, only red, and the shield followed suit. His eyes, which had been closed, open to reveal a red iris, instead of the green that had originally been there. Blood fell from his eyes as he stood, "NO!"
The rocks above him exploded outward as the shield expanded again, pushing large pieces of debris as it leveled out the area around him, like a bulldozer. The back of his suit exploded outward as large wings began to expand, making him look somewhat like an angel. The wings were somewhat like the wings of a soaring bird, except that they appeared to be made of conduits and cable, and the feathers were angular pieces of metal. He walked towards the open hole that had only been mere feet outside the shield's original radius. Reaching down, he grasped the rock lodged within it and pulled it out, seeing the crushed form of the little girl. He stooped down and lifted her from the hole and held her; he had failed.
He could feel through the cloth that her ribcage had caved in, the plates of her skull had shifted, and her arms, legs, and spine had all been broken. She had been killed instantly, and he was thankful for that at least. But there was something wrong, something terribly wrong, when holograms died, there was usually no blood, yet his arms were stained with it, it dripped from the girl's body to the ground, forming a puddle. In other words, holograms don't bleed because they're not real; this girl was either not a hologram, or a very, very advanced one.
"Bastards," he whispered as he placed her back on the ground.
He grabbed his revolver and felt an intense amount of power flow into his arm. The sleeve tore open from the cuff to the shoulder as his arm began to grow larger and larger. It began to look more like a cross between a machine and some unidentifiable gray matter. His wings opened wide and his body began to rise from the ground, higher and higher into the sky, above the city. The arm continued to grow, lengthening as it did so; the revolver was completely gone now, absorbed into the bio-mechanical mass that was the Angel Arm (if you don't know what an Angel Arm looks like, watch the anime Trigun, or look it up on the internet).
The gun fired, and, even though he knew full well that the beam was also a hologram, traveled the distance between himself and the ground in little more than a second. It slammed into the road, and stopped there, spreading out along the ground, destroying everything in its path until there was nothing left, just a huge, smoking circle, no crater. The red disappeared from his eyes, the red disc on his arm vanished, and the Angel Arm began to shrink. When he touched down, the wings were gone, and the massive gun had shrunk to half of full size. The trench coat reappeared as he approached the door, minus a sleeve of course. As the door opened, the annihilated cityscape behind him shimmered and vanished, a large crack in the floor panels was the only indication of what had gone down.
=+=
His eyes opened as he approached Beverly Hills, and the building that housed the front operation for WOOHP. It was a company that supplied high tech surveillance and security equipment to major businesses. He spotted the helipad on the roof, and maneuvered to touch down on it. Once he had landed and stepped out of the jet, he felt the helipad lurch and begin to descend down through the building. Another slid into place above him, covering the hole in the top of the building, and also putting him in complete darkness for a second before lights flickered on.
As the elevator descended, the walls were replaced by windows that displayed the different levels of the building. These were actually see- through mirrors; he could see through from his side, but the other side was a mirror, hiding the circular shaft. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the world around him, wanting to just fade away and leave everything behind him. Even though he knew they couldn't see him, he knew they knew he was there, they always did.
"This used to be fun," he said to himself, "but since I met those girls, it's all gotten to be just...boring."
'Is that right?' a voice inside him asked, but it wasn't his voice, it sounded more like a female voice. 'This is boring to you?'
"Yes."
'But it's your job, is it not?'
"I know it's my job, that doesn't mean I have to like it."
'What about the girls, what about Alex?'
"What about her?"
'You care for her, don't you?'
He was silent when it asked him that, how do you answer something like that.
*****
"What's up his ass anyway?" Clover asked as they freed the trapped staff.
"Why is that always your assumption, Clover, maybe he just has a lot on his mind," Sam said coming to Nate's defense.
"And what makes you think that?" the blond retorted.
"I saw him at the library the other day."
"Really, why didn't you tell me?" Alex asked looking hopeful. "What did you talk about?"
"I can't say, I promised it would be just between him and me," the redhead said with a slight blush as she untied a female officer.
"Oh."
"Come on Sammy, you can tell us," Clover said as she gently pushed Sam's shoulder, causing her hand to slip and brush the officer's breast.
She quickly pulled it back and glared at Clover, "I can't, I promised."
"Alright, alright, what's a matter Sam, got sand in your vagina (I'm sorry, I had to do it)?"
"Girls, if you need to get going, we can finish up here," one of the officers who they'd already untied said.
"Yeah, we should be getting back, it's getting late," Sam said looking at her watch.
*****
Days passed without incident since the Congo, nothing happened between the spies and their guardian, they hardly even saw each other. They had since memorized the path to the holodeck that they trained in, so he was no longer needed as a guide. But that didn't matter much, seeing as how he was usually in his room, or in the park that was mentioned earlier. He could often be seen talking to himself, even arguing in a language that didn't even sound like it was from Earth. It didn't make any sense to the spies that he would be so reclusive after being so open.
Well, time passes and Saturday rolled around, and Sam was on her way into the library. She opened the door and walked to the seating area. There, on of the couches with a large atlas in front of him, was Nate, pouring over page after page of information. She snuck up behind him and looked over his shoulder, about to say something and try to surprise him when:
"Yes?"
"Oh, um, nothing, just didn't expect to see you here," she said quickly, as if nothing was going on.
"Right, I told you I come here every Saturday," he looked over his shoulder at her. "What do you want?"
"Just wonderin' what's up," she stepped around the couch and sat down next to him. "Anymore dreams?"
"No, it stopped," he sighed, grateful for the full nights of sleep. "How are you guys doing, how's training."
"It's hard, but hey, no pain no gain," she smiled.
"I guess, how are the other two?"
"Well, Alex misses you, and Clover could care less."
"Hm," he turned the page and looked at the map of South America. 'Patagonia, a good place to hide.'
"I was wondering..."
"Yes?"
"...what happened to you on that holodeck last week?"
"I failed a mission, and lost control," he said and turned the page again, these had close ups of various parts of South America. "A little girl is dead because I was too slow."
"But...it was a hologram, right?"
"Hologram's don't cry, Samantha," he hissed. "Holograms don't scream, holograms don't have bones to break, and organ to crush, holograms don't bleed."
He told her about the whole mission on the holodeck, from beginning to end, leaving out certain bits of information, and she sat and listened. The story she heard was too horrifying to believe, but she didn't have any choice but to believe it.
"Not a word to the others, especially him," he said.
"Right."
"Good, thanks Sam, there aren't many people I can trust, I'm glad you're one of them," he sighed and looked up from the book, a cloudy red was mixing with the green of his eyes again. "So, what are you looking for today?"
TBC
There, sorry for it taking so damn long. Well, now you know what happened, and that ate up about 3 of these 10 pages. Well, it's late, and I have school tomorrow, and work, and so much else to do. I'm going to start working on other stories now, such as "The Mutant" and "The Assassin: Nemesis". Oh, I might start a Teen Titans fic, there are still some ideas floating around in this head of mine. Has anyone noticed that most of my stories start with 'the', I guess that's my thing, short and simplistic, instead of a title that confuses the reader. I leave you with this, my favorite quote, "Blackmail is such an ugly word, I prefer extortion, the ex makes it sound cool." Whoever can name the person who said that, and the situation in which it was said, you can have a spot in one of my fics, your choice. Late.
Claimer: Any and all OCs in this story are mine, please ask before using them
' ' - thought
( ) - author's notes
***** - time/scene change
*** - dream
=+= - flashback
The Assassin: WOOHP Files
Chapter 4
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
'How could I fail?' Nate thought as he lay in his bed the next day. The memory of the holodeck mission was still on his mind (it had happened earlier that day after all), and kept replaying. 'I'm not supposed to fail.'
A knock to his door and he sat bolt upright, it was almost four in the AM, the time when most people are asleep and resting up for the day of school ahead. He slid off the bed and walked to the door, sliding it open a crack to see who was there. It was Sarah.
"What?" he asked quietly, but it still held a twinge of irritation.
"I saw what happened on the holodeck," she said.
"There was no other way, I had to use it," he said hoping that she was referring to his use of his angel arm.
"Not that, I mean I saw the girl," she whispered to him softly, too softly for it to be heard by any security measures.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he began to close the door, only to stop when she slid her foot in it.
"You know exactly who I'm talking about, the one who keeps visiting your dreams," that got his attention. "All I want to know is what she said to you."
"That's none of your business, now take your foot of my door or I will break it in half," he applied pressure to the door, squeezing her foot until she pulled it out.
The door closed without a sound, though he wished it would make any kind of sound. Everything in this place was so clean, so quiet; it was starting to annoy him. This whole organization was beginning to annoy him. The constant monitoring, the loss of what most people had called "the best years of his life", Jerry's overprotectiveness of the secret that was his son, and, most of all, he was now charged with babysitting the three spies on most, if not all their future missions.
He tapped into the security system and saw that the hall outside was clear, so he decided to take a little walk. The door slid opened and he stepped out, closing and sealing it behind him, no one was going in. His bare feet made little to no sound on the cold metal floor and he continued his trek though the bowel of this place called WOOHP. One room he stopped in was designed for the scientists who were never, ever allowed to leave the underground. It was somewhat of a park, with trees and bushes and grass and a small brook that ran from one end to the other and three-dimensional buildings around it, giving it depth. The room was about 8000 square feet, a 100 foot by 80 foot rectangle. The ceiling above mimicked the sky outside, and right now there was a clear, starry night.
It didn't seem right that in LA there would be such stars visible, what with all the light pollution. But then he remembered that this sky wasn't real, it was just a very well done hologram. As he walked into the room, he noticed the door took a little too long to shut, and when he turned around there was nothing there. Shrugging he turned back to look around a little, it had been a while since he was there last. The trees were taller, some of the bushes were bushier, and some of the stones in the creek bed had shifted. He reached a small hill and, letting it all go, he plopped down on the soft grass, stretching his limbs as far as they would go.
"I don't know why I don't come here more often," he said to what he thought would be himself.
"This is one of my favorite places to come and relax," a female voice, different from Sarah's.
He craned his neck a little to see a fairly short woman standing on the crest of the hill. She stood roughly 4'10", and wore a plain, white nightgown, and was holding a teddy bear. Her auburn hair shown slightly in the fake moonlight, giving it a bit of a blue hue. Her eyes were the color of fire opal, and glinted just the same as the precious stone. A small smile sat on her lips as a slight breeze blew her hair about. This was Natalie Rivage, age 34, head of WOOHP R&D, leader of the project that turning him into what he was, and never one to act her age.
"Dr. Rivage, what are you doing here?" Nate ask as he rolled onto his stomach.
"You're not the only one who likes to take walks in wee hours of the morning," she smiled a little wider and sat down next to him, cradling the bear. "We're not in the lab, Nate, you can call me Natalie."
"Okay," he said somewhat hesitantly, it was going to feel very odd calling his physician by her first name. "What's with the bear?"
"You mean Cuddles?" she chuckled lightly, and squeezed the bear. "I've had him since I was five, helped me to scare away the monsters in my closet."
"What monsters?" He just gave her a confused look, he'd had never been afraid of monsters in his closet, and no one had ever told him about them either. Don't get me wrong, I was terrified till I was like ten years old, when I watched a Steven King Movie Marathon, totally desensitized me.
"Oh, well, um, sometimes when children are young they are afraid of the unknown, like the dark. And the darkest spot of every room is usually the closet, or under the bed, so that's where these imaginary monsters come from," she explained. "So having something to hold onto, something familiar helps them to cope with their fears. Understand?"
"Yeah."
*****
Wednesday, Nate laid on the roof of a tall, NYC office building, his SVD Dragunov held tightly to his shoulder, the scope hovering just in front of his eye. He was now in sniper mode, his smart-thread clothes had taken the form of a normal trench coat, like those used in trench warfare. He had also donned a large hat that effectively kept the glare out of his eyes. These clothes had an extra feature about them, they blended perfectly with whatever surface he was near, Chameleon Technology it was called. His target was a very powerful drug lord, who was going to be making his way from a limousine, and into a bank. He only had a three-second window to strike, and he wasn't going to fail.
"Come on you little bitch," he whispered calmly as the limo drove up, with the sunroof open.
He lined up the shot, keeping his aim slightly to the right, as the gun tended to pull to the left when fired. The door opened, he stepped out, and Nate pulled the trigger, in a little less than two seconds the man went from having a fairly good head on his shoulders, to having no head on his shoulders.
"That'll teach 'em to not carry bulletproof umbrellas," he joked as he stood up and made his way back to his jet.
It has come to my attention that I never told you what his jet looks like. Well, if you've ever seen the movie Stargate, which I hope you have, it looks like those glider things the enemy flew. It was a small, personal craft that he had had painted black and green, and carried a few little surprises for anyone who wanted a dogfight. He stepped up to it and got into the cockpit, feeling it link to his cybernetics. With one thought the jet became invisible, and took off, on its way cross-country. While on his way, he thought of the previous day's venture into the holodeck.
=+=
"So, when did they get here?" Nate asked the little girl who was looking around nervously.
"Not long ago, only a few days."
Nate was stunned, a force like that must number in the thousands to take down a city this size. He knew it was large because they had been walking for a while and not reached any sort of end. The streets twisted and turned, never going in a straight line for more than a hundred meters. It looked as if some great power had purposely warped the city, and still was from the looks of it. So far there was no sign of any more of those robots, and that was putting Nate on edge. He had long since holstered his revolver, and was instead opting to use his other weapons.
"Is there anyone else left?"
"No," she sniffed back tears, tears that were too real for Nate's liking.
"Well, if you like, I'll take care of you," he said in a comforting tone.
"Stop where you are," a mechanical voice said behind them.
Nate turned and unholstered his gun, taking quick aim and firing at the robot. But when that one hit the ground, it seemed to be a signal for the seemingly hundreds more that lay in wait. The fronts of buildings exploded outward as they encircled the two humans. Large machine guns and rocket launchers were aimed at them. A small smile formed on his lips when they fired. Green discs appeared on his palms, and began to glow as he held them up. A green dome surrounded himself and the girl, effectively shielding them from the hellfire outside.
=+=
His attention was brought from his thoughts to a communication from WOOHP HQ. Apparently he had to get to Central Africa as fast as he could. Sam, Clover, and Alex had called in that they were in trouble, and, as their guardian, he had to go and help. He sighed irritably, and redirected his jet back the other way, and pushed the throttle. This always, always happened to him when he was deep in thought, someone just had to interrupt him.
*****
It didn't take long to get there at full speed, and he still had the stealth mode engaged, so no one saw him land. He set down in a secluded spot of the Congo, and started through the forest, well, more like through the trees. A grappling hook launched from his wrist, and snagged a branch. He made his way quickly and quietly through the jungle, glad that he had his hair pulled into the braid, otherwise the humidity would have been wreaking havoc on it.
"Well, there it is," he said from a branch as his eyes zoomed in on the secret missile complex.
The Republic of Congo had been secretly backwards engineering nuclear missiles that they had bought from a foreign power, then making their own. This facility had been built out of an old diamond mine, and wasn't in the least bit conspicuous. That is until a radical faction takes it over and starts making demands. WOOHP had been called in, but they were captured, he could see them through one of the windows.
"How many times have I told Jerry not to send them on missions like this?" Nate asked himself as he climbed down the tree to a large branch, and then crossed over to another, closer tree from there. "Let Greg's team handle something like this, they have more experience. But, naturally, he doesn't listen."
*****
"Remind me how we got into this Clover," Sam said as she tried to melt the titanium shackles with her fingertip welding torch (the suits disperse heat, so there's no chance of them getting burned). "Man, why isn't this working."
"I thought you of all people would know that titanium is, like, really hard to weld (this is true, they actually use some kind of highly concentrated electron beam to weld titanium)," Clover said surprising the other two with such knowledge. "What, I was flipping through the channels and finally ended up on Discovery, or something like that."
The others sighed as Sam retracted the torch and settled in for a long wait. Their ankles had been shackled together, their wrists as well, then a length of chain connect the two behind their backs, effectively hog-tying them, and leaving them helpless. It all happened because Clover was still fretting about her broken nail from the previous day. Unfortunately for them, a guard heard her griping and fired a smoke grenade at them, the smoke put them to sleep. When they woke up they were shackled and locked away.
"This bites," Alex said as she lightly hit her head on the floor.
The door opened, then closed, but no one came in, and it didn't seem like the guards outside noticed at all. In fact, they looked asleep from where the girls were looking up from. There was a wavy motion in the air, like when you see gas in the air, and a hat was lifted, revealing Nate. The hat changed to a dark brown, as well as the trench coat he wore. He glared down at them, but not a really harsh glare, just a lightly annoyed one.
"In trouble again I see," he said with a slight smile, but still the glare as he unsheathed his special katana.
In a motion too fast to be seen, he struck, hitting all the key points on the shackles. Then, as if he hadn't done anything at all, he sheathed the sword and stepped towards the door. The sound of metal hitting the floor filled the room as the shackles and chains simply fell apart, clean cut.
"What about the guards?" Sam asked as he was about to open the door.
"What guards?" he replied as the door swung open and there were two bodies lying on the floor outside.
They left through the door and proceeded down the hall towards the command center. Nate produced a small disk from inside his coat and slid it into the crack in the door. After getting behind a corner they heard a small explosion. Sam looked around the corner at the titanium door that had been blown open. She was getting a little suspicious of him now, why would he have demolition materials on hand all the time, the three of them never got that.
"Get ready," he whispered as he produced an M203 grenade launcher from within his coat.
Without looking he aimed it around the corner and launched a smoke grenade. It ricocheted perfected off the wall and into the door, discharging after the preset time. Thick smoke billowed out from the projectile, filling the room and seeping into the hallway. He handed them each pair of goggles and small air filters, which looked to be nothing more than mouthpieces from a SCUBA tank. After fitting the M203 back beneath his coat, he pulled out a small, break barrel shotgun.
"On three," he said as he opened the gun and popped in two shells. "Three."
They rounded the corner and entered the thick smoke. Once in the room they could see that several of terrorists on the floor, asleep. Some were still sitting in their chairs, their heads on the consoles. One of them was still on his feet, technically. He was crouched beneath the smoke and leveled an AK47 at them. The shots he fired, though, were deflected by some unseen force. It seemed that they had hit a wall, and shot out in all different directions. Nate raised the shotgun and fired one shot the man's abdomen, the second to his head. He blew the smoke from the barrels and slid it back into the coat.
"Well, that was simple enough," he smiled as the ventilation fan above began to suck out the smoke. "How did you three get into so much trouble?"
"It was like they knew we were coming," Sam said as she began to disarm the terrorists, just in case they came to.
"Yeah, we never had a chance," Clover took the gun from the goon at her feet and thew it out the door.
"We need to talk to Jerry about getting some better gadgets for stealth," Alex said as she looked at the ripple of color that an down Nate's coat. "Like what you have."
"Given that it is a fashion nightmare," Clover noticed the ripple too, "I could deal with a little invisibility."
"Fashion nightmare?" Nate asked as he pulled the AK47 from the dead man's hands. "This coat is one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world, and all you care about what it looks like?"
"Well, yeah, who wants to walk around looking like they just stepped out of the trenches of world war two?" Sam chimed in, getting a slightly confused look from Clover and Alex.
Nate sighed as he stowed the gun into one of the many spaces inside the coat. He couldn't understand how three perfectly level headed people...well...one perfectly level headed, the other two had a slight grade to them, could possible be so ignorant of what was given to them. They had the life that many people could only dream of, and being able to juggle that career with their normal lives was even more amazing. It was like they took saving this world, and possibly others in the long run, from total ruin, completely for granted. And here he was, a killer, feeling guilty for letting a hologram die, and acting on that guilt.
'Fools, they're all fools,' he thought as he turned and headed for the door. "The base's staff is tied up in the basement, I suggest you go and get them."
"And where are you going?" Clover inquired with a slight twinge of annoyance that he would act all high and mighty.
"Home," he said passively as he donned the large hat and left.
The three ran to the door to watching him, but all they saw was a ripple in the air and he was gone just as quickly as he had come. The sound of doors opening and closing was the only thing that tipped them off to that fact that he was still around.
*****
Nate slipped back into his reverie of what had happened on the holodeck.
=+=
The hail of bullets and rockets seemed unrelenting as Nate held them off his shield. But this was getting them no where, and it was boring. He had come to this place to work off his frustration, not to sit idly by as these robots ran out their almost tireless amounts of ammunition. Some of them had even taken up pounding on the green energy, but they only succeeded in getting blown apart by friendly fire. Finally he just didn't care anymore.
The shield began to expand, the area it covered grew larger, pushing back the hordes of robots. The energy cracked and sizzled as long bolts of lightening flashed out from it, passing from one bot to the next (like that lightening that came out of the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). In an orgy of explosions, the shocked automatons were reduced to a pile of scrap metal. When the smoke dissipated there was no more shield, just Nate and the girl. The green discs had disappeared from his palms, and not even slightest blemish covered the area where they just were either. His hand slowly reached up and he tugged at the coat he wore, it disappeared into suit beneath it.
"Just stay here, I'll handle them," Nate told the girl, who he ushered into a small crevice between two large chunks of asphalt, it wasn't much but it would keep her safe.
He placed his hand on the katana at his waist, feeling the grip, and then depressing the button that allowed the blade to be drawn from the saya (place of peace/rest). But the sword he slammed into the ground, for that was not the weapon he planned to use. He pulled the scabbard from where it was attached and held it in front of him, all 30 inches of it. Metal pieces from the bots that had fallen began to lift from the ground, changing their shape, and attaching to the opening of the sheath, and filling the expanse with it, like a tang.
When he was done, he now held a sword called an odachi (great sword in Japanese), and just the blade was pushing seven feet in length. A large and ornate guard had formed at the base, in the form of a large, coiled dragon, the blade shooting from its mouth. The robots didn't seem to care as they continued to fire upon him. Their bullets, numerous as they may be, never hit the mark, as he was too fast for them, and, grabbing the katana he had driven into the ground, leapt into the air. He came down in the mass of machines and simply started ripping them apart.
The odachi was too long for stabbing, but he could easily take out at least ten of them with one stroke. The katana he used for those that got too close. He was relieved that they didn't seem interested in the girl, and had left her wholly unharmed. But that didn't mean she was out of danger, as the machines had to climb over her crevice to get to their quarry. It was easy to use the swords in unison, pretending that he was simply using a large daisho (Japanese set of two swords: a katana and wakizashi, wakizashi and tanto, or katana and tanto).
'This isn't right, it's too easy,' he thought as he cut down another legion, while stabbing the katana through another android's head.
It was about that time he noticed that there were fewer machines than before, but it was impossible for him to have destroyed so many so quickly. He turned around saw that the machines were retreating, something else he found out of place. Robots weren't programmed to retreat, even if the situation dictated it was the right move to make. Explosions from above tore his eyes away from his enemy. The buildings around him were beginning to fall. Shards of glass and other debris rained from the sky like a deadly hail. The blade for his odachi fell off and he sheathed the katana, placing back at his waist.
The little girl screamed from her hiding place as the glass and small stones fell on her. This time Nate wasn't fast enough to react as he ran towards the crevice, hoping to get there in time. He thrust his hand forward, trying to get above her to cast the shield, but it was too little too late. The shield was cast, but the girl was not under it. Rocks fell on and into the crevice, and Nate heard the sounds he'd heard before. But he didn't actually see her die, debris fell all around him as the buildings collapsed, blocking his view. He did hear her scream one last time.
"No," he fell to his knees as the green disc in his arm began to cloud over with red; soon there was no green left, only red, and the shield followed suit. His eyes, which had been closed, open to reveal a red iris, instead of the green that had originally been there. Blood fell from his eyes as he stood, "NO!"
The rocks above him exploded outward as the shield expanded again, pushing large pieces of debris as it leveled out the area around him, like a bulldozer. The back of his suit exploded outward as large wings began to expand, making him look somewhat like an angel. The wings were somewhat like the wings of a soaring bird, except that they appeared to be made of conduits and cable, and the feathers were angular pieces of metal. He walked towards the open hole that had only been mere feet outside the shield's original radius. Reaching down, he grasped the rock lodged within it and pulled it out, seeing the crushed form of the little girl. He stooped down and lifted her from the hole and held her; he had failed.
He could feel through the cloth that her ribcage had caved in, the plates of her skull had shifted, and her arms, legs, and spine had all been broken. She had been killed instantly, and he was thankful for that at least. But there was something wrong, something terribly wrong, when holograms died, there was usually no blood, yet his arms were stained with it, it dripped from the girl's body to the ground, forming a puddle. In other words, holograms don't bleed because they're not real; this girl was either not a hologram, or a very, very advanced one.
"Bastards," he whispered as he placed her back on the ground.
He grabbed his revolver and felt an intense amount of power flow into his arm. The sleeve tore open from the cuff to the shoulder as his arm began to grow larger and larger. It began to look more like a cross between a machine and some unidentifiable gray matter. His wings opened wide and his body began to rise from the ground, higher and higher into the sky, above the city. The arm continued to grow, lengthening as it did so; the revolver was completely gone now, absorbed into the bio-mechanical mass that was the Angel Arm (if you don't know what an Angel Arm looks like, watch the anime Trigun, or look it up on the internet).
The gun fired, and, even though he knew full well that the beam was also a hologram, traveled the distance between himself and the ground in little more than a second. It slammed into the road, and stopped there, spreading out along the ground, destroying everything in its path until there was nothing left, just a huge, smoking circle, no crater. The red disappeared from his eyes, the red disc on his arm vanished, and the Angel Arm began to shrink. When he touched down, the wings were gone, and the massive gun had shrunk to half of full size. The trench coat reappeared as he approached the door, minus a sleeve of course. As the door opened, the annihilated cityscape behind him shimmered and vanished, a large crack in the floor panels was the only indication of what had gone down.
=+=
His eyes opened as he approached Beverly Hills, and the building that housed the front operation for WOOHP. It was a company that supplied high tech surveillance and security equipment to major businesses. He spotted the helipad on the roof, and maneuvered to touch down on it. Once he had landed and stepped out of the jet, he felt the helipad lurch and begin to descend down through the building. Another slid into place above him, covering the hole in the top of the building, and also putting him in complete darkness for a second before lights flickered on.
As the elevator descended, the walls were replaced by windows that displayed the different levels of the building. These were actually see- through mirrors; he could see through from his side, but the other side was a mirror, hiding the circular shaft. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the world around him, wanting to just fade away and leave everything behind him. Even though he knew they couldn't see him, he knew they knew he was there, they always did.
"This used to be fun," he said to himself, "but since I met those girls, it's all gotten to be just...boring."
'Is that right?' a voice inside him asked, but it wasn't his voice, it sounded more like a female voice. 'This is boring to you?'
"Yes."
'But it's your job, is it not?'
"I know it's my job, that doesn't mean I have to like it."
'What about the girls, what about Alex?'
"What about her?"
'You care for her, don't you?'
He was silent when it asked him that, how do you answer something like that.
*****
"What's up his ass anyway?" Clover asked as they freed the trapped staff.
"Why is that always your assumption, Clover, maybe he just has a lot on his mind," Sam said coming to Nate's defense.
"And what makes you think that?" the blond retorted.
"I saw him at the library the other day."
"Really, why didn't you tell me?" Alex asked looking hopeful. "What did you talk about?"
"I can't say, I promised it would be just between him and me," the redhead said with a slight blush as she untied a female officer.
"Oh."
"Come on Sammy, you can tell us," Clover said as she gently pushed Sam's shoulder, causing her hand to slip and brush the officer's breast.
She quickly pulled it back and glared at Clover, "I can't, I promised."
"Alright, alright, what's a matter Sam, got sand in your vagina (I'm sorry, I had to do it)?"
"Girls, if you need to get going, we can finish up here," one of the officers who they'd already untied said.
"Yeah, we should be getting back, it's getting late," Sam said looking at her watch.
*****
Days passed without incident since the Congo, nothing happened between the spies and their guardian, they hardly even saw each other. They had since memorized the path to the holodeck that they trained in, so he was no longer needed as a guide. But that didn't matter much, seeing as how he was usually in his room, or in the park that was mentioned earlier. He could often be seen talking to himself, even arguing in a language that didn't even sound like it was from Earth. It didn't make any sense to the spies that he would be so reclusive after being so open.
Well, time passes and Saturday rolled around, and Sam was on her way into the library. She opened the door and walked to the seating area. There, on of the couches with a large atlas in front of him, was Nate, pouring over page after page of information. She snuck up behind him and looked over his shoulder, about to say something and try to surprise him when:
"Yes?"
"Oh, um, nothing, just didn't expect to see you here," she said quickly, as if nothing was going on.
"Right, I told you I come here every Saturday," he looked over his shoulder at her. "What do you want?"
"Just wonderin' what's up," she stepped around the couch and sat down next to him. "Anymore dreams?"
"No, it stopped," he sighed, grateful for the full nights of sleep. "How are you guys doing, how's training."
"It's hard, but hey, no pain no gain," she smiled.
"I guess, how are the other two?"
"Well, Alex misses you, and Clover could care less."
"Hm," he turned the page and looked at the map of South America. 'Patagonia, a good place to hide.'
"I was wondering..."
"Yes?"
"...what happened to you on that holodeck last week?"
"I failed a mission, and lost control," he said and turned the page again, these had close ups of various parts of South America. "A little girl is dead because I was too slow."
"But...it was a hologram, right?"
"Hologram's don't cry, Samantha," he hissed. "Holograms don't scream, holograms don't have bones to break, and organ to crush, holograms don't bleed."
He told her about the whole mission on the holodeck, from beginning to end, leaving out certain bits of information, and she sat and listened. The story she heard was too horrifying to believe, but she didn't have any choice but to believe it.
"Not a word to the others, especially him," he said.
"Right."
"Good, thanks Sam, there aren't many people I can trust, I'm glad you're one of them," he sighed and looked up from the book, a cloudy red was mixing with the green of his eyes again. "So, what are you looking for today?"
TBC
There, sorry for it taking so damn long. Well, now you know what happened, and that ate up about 3 of these 10 pages. Well, it's late, and I have school tomorrow, and work, and so much else to do. I'm going to start working on other stories now, such as "The Mutant" and "The Assassin: Nemesis". Oh, I might start a Teen Titans fic, there are still some ideas floating around in this head of mine. Has anyone noticed that most of my stories start with 'the', I guess that's my thing, short and simplistic, instead of a title that confuses the reader. I leave you with this, my favorite quote, "Blackmail is such an ugly word, I prefer extortion, the ex makes it sound cool." Whoever can name the person who said that, and the situation in which it was said, you can have a spot in one of my fics, your choice. Late.