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 5
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Nate and Sam talked for a while, and in that while she never once asked about the red floating around in his eyes. She had simply attributed it as something that he would instantly say is classified. But there was one thing she wanted to ask, and hoped that it wasn't classified.
"Nate?" she asked a little hesitantly.
"Yes?" he turned another page in the atlas.
"What happened to your mother?"
"She died," he said simply, focusing his eyes on a barren spot in the remoteness of Siberia.
"How?"
"They experimented on her," he said in a hushed voice, he knew that WOOHP had pretty much every building in the LA/BH area bugged. "She was what they called first generation, I'm second generation. The mistakes they made with her were weeded out and here I am."
"She volunteered, right?" Sam asked lowering her voice to the same level as his.
"That's what they told me, but I wouldn't put it past them to seek out the most viable host for this thing," he looked at his arm, the skin peeling back to reveal his metal bones and other circuitry. "That's what it is Sam, a parasite that they'll put inside you. Sure it'll give you strength and powers far beyond what even they're greatest inventions can achieve, but you become a slave."
"That's so sad," she said with a small sniff and a dab at her eye.
Nate almost chuckled at the look in her eye, she truly was sincere, not something he was used to. Even Jerry was starting to speak in half-riddles to him, always encrypting his thoughts. It annoyed the assassin to no end really, how someone who he used to look up to would begin to distrust him. But Jerry didn't know, he didn't know that his son knew what he was up to; he didn't know that Nate knew about WOOHE (you'll find out later, just like everyone else, even you Mephist and Devin).
Sam looked at Nate and noticed that a small smile was on his lips, she was almost mesmerized. It wasn't like she was being drawn to him, well she was, but it was the same thing with every other teenage female. He was right next to her ear when she heard him whisper:
"When she shows up, let her in," he said and then got up, leaving her hanging, literally, on the edge of her seat. He grabbed the atlas and put it back with the rest.
"What do you mean?" she called after him.
"You'll see (and so will you, hahahaha)," he waved over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn around.
*****
"So Sammy, what did you two talk about?" Alex asked with just the slightest hint of jealousy in her voice.
"Just the usual stuff, books, music, his mother, normal stuff," she said the last part rather quickly, but Alex heard.
"He told you, but I thought he would only tell me," she huffed.
"Tell you what?" Clover asked as she just arrived.
"Nothing," the two said in unison.
"Sorry, didn't know you two kept secrets from your best friend," she held up her hands and started to walk away.
"It's about Nate's mom," Alex said in a dejected voice, hoping to guilt Clover into coming back; which she was more than willing to do.
"Really, so what happened to the freak's mom?" she asked getting a little too excited.
"We're not telling you with that attitude," Sam said and placed her hand on Alex's shoulder, leading her away. "He's not a freak, if you two had actually exchanged more than just greetings and witty comebacks to insults, you'd realize that too. You know Clover, sometimes you can be really shallow."
"Yeah," Alex added her two cents.
*****
Nate sat in the park, his legs crossed beneath him and his tank top on the ground beside him. Atop his shirt was a sword, and before him was a watermelon, propped up on a pedestal. In a flash of movement he grabbed the sword, was up on his feet, crossed the distance between himself and his target, and sliced the melon in half. The sword was then sheathed and slipped into his belt.
"This is boring," he said as the sword was drawn again and the pedestal wad sliced into four equal-sized pieces. "I need something to do!"
He drove the sword into the ground, sending a pulse down his arm, through the sword and into the ground. A large fissure formed and streaked to tree, toppling it, cut into two pieces. It wasn't enough, he needed more, more challenges, nothing was entertaining anymore, nothing was important anymore. Except one thing, but that was beyond his reach for the time being.
-----
Elsewhere in WOOHP someone was sitting in a monitoring room, watching all the vital statistics of Nate's body and mind.
"Hm, mental activity is up a little," he said sipping his coffee, then spit it out, "and still rising?"
-----
"Hiya!" Nate swung the sword, the blade breaking apart into three inch section, connected by an indeterminable length of chain.
The chain wrapped around the nearest tree and uprooted it, slicing it into six pieces, which were then spit down the middle. The sword returned to its normal form and was sheathed as he drew his revolver. The chamber clicked and a single round was fired, hitting the wall and exploding on contact. The holographic city around him disappeared while the destroyed park remained as it was.
"What is it? What does she want me to do? Who is she?!"
His angel arm began to grow, revealing that it was not just his arm that adopted the metallic color, but also much of his left side. He aimed the weapon, not fully transformed, at the ground and fired, blasting a hole through the dirt, into the metal beneath it, and through that as well. As soon as that happened, gas began to fill the room, but he paid it no mind, being as he was meant he didn't have to breathe.
The angel arm began to recede back into the gun, and once it was gone, he fired another round into the hole, receiving an ominous metal on metal sound. This was impossible in his mind, seeing as how he was on the bottom level of the WOOHP underground, there should have been nothing beneath him. He had found was he was looking for, and thus holstered his revolver, sheathed his sword, and slipped his tank back on.
'There she is,' he thought as he left, only to be met by an armed squadron. "Hi."
Their response was one he expected, they fired their cryo-weapons, but found he had erected a shield at the last second. The shield wasn't like the other, this one simply had a green outline and random green flashes that proved it was there. He dropped the shield, rushed forward and took them all out in a relatively short amount of time. Standing over them, it was now he made up his mind, it was just the right time too.
"Time to leave," he said and ran through the corridors, ducking into secret passages to avoid detection.
One such passage led directly to his room, which was where he was heading. He grabbed his weapons and tucked them into a bag, along with his shifter clothing from the closet. Each weapon retracted to its most basic form as he grabbed it. He was just dropping in the last one when a knock came to his door.
"Nate, open up, what are you doing!?" Jerry yelled through the door.
The assassin stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, lifted one leg, and dealt a swift, powerful kick to the door, sending it, and his father, back again the wall across the hall. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light behind him, looking down at the old man with a look of disgust. A wave of memory his him then, from all those mind-wipes he had gone though.
'Felicia?' he thought as her memory came up. "I killed her because you said she was manipulating me, how could I have been so blind?"
"Who?"
"You know who," he kicked Jerry in the ribs and looked down the hall one way then the other.
The sounds of feet coming towards his location had entered his ears; he had to cut this meeting short.
"We'll find you," Jerry said getting up and straightening his tie.
"Doubt it," Nate smirked and ran back into his room, and into the passage in the shower.
*****
In minutes he was in his jet, his motorcycle loaded in the small cargo hold, and was now on the catapult. The doors opened, though it seemed like they wanted to stay closed, and he punched the engines, easily escaping through the partially opened doors. He had come out underwater, somewhere off the coast of LA, and broke the surface about ten miles out. There were few places he could go, but he had already planned this.
"I wonder if Natalie knew about this?" he wondered to himself as he flew out a few more miles, easily reaching a small island between California and Hawaii.
It was there he stopped and opened the door on the side of the cockpit. He lifted the panel in his arm and took out the transponder, then threw it out the door, knowing it would land on the island, or in the water around it. Swift manipulation of the controls and he was heading back towards the mainland, but not to LA, he was heading more north than that.
*****
It wasn't long before he was skimming across the top of the water, just beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. He looked up through the cockpit canopy and a small smile crept over his lips. A small explosion ensued underneath the bridge, and pieces of a security camera fell around him. With that done he headed towards shore, stealth mode enabled. He tipped the wings, one wing tip dipping into the water as he maneuvered towards an abandoned warehouse, a panel in the roof opening briefly to allow him access.
After setting it down he got out, the cargo platform lowering as he did so. Secured to the platform was his motorcycle, which disengaged automatically and rolled onto the concrete floor. He opened the small cargo hatch on the back and tossed the dufflebag inside, took out his helmet, and closed the lid. Walking around the side of the bike, he straddled the seat, ran a quick systems check, then started the engine. Slipping the helmet on, he stuck a finger underneath it and pushed the microphone for his comm. system into position.
Picking up a small remote he pressed the button and the large doors opened before him, revealing the road to San Francisco. With a small smile he revved the engine and took off, the doors closing behind him.
*****
"Dammit, I want him found, I want every city west of the Mississippi River searched and researched. I don't care how long it takes, find him, catch him, and bring him back here," Jerry yelled into the phone before slamming it down. He then leaned back in his chair, his hands on his stomach, fingers twined together. "You always said this would happen, didn't you Erica?"
WOOHP HQ had been thrown in a state of temporary turmoil what with Nate going berserk and all. Not one person knew what had happened, besides the people at the very top of the chain. When they had injected Nate with the technologies that now ran rampant through his body, they had taken a part of him, a small part, but an important part nonetheless. Over time that part had been cultivated and grown into two separate entities, the girl held in the freezer far below WOOHP, and another, darker entity.
This entity had been kept and raised for one specific purpose, this purpose. If Nate had ever lost it and gone crazy (at least by their standards) this one would take his place as an assassin. He had been tought exactly how to act like Nate, from both training sessions on the holodeck, and by receiving memories straight from Nate himself. And just when the techs had believed that they were infallible, when they thought they would never lose control over their prized experiment, it happens, and their back up plan couldn't be put into action. In all their arrogance they had incinerated the entity, codenamed Chaos. He was gone, and they had nothing.
"Idiots, the girl isn't designed to be assassin, she could never take over his job," Jerry thought aloud. "Unless..."
*****
"According to her, I have to find her, then get to her, so she can merge with me," Nate spoke into the microphone, committing everything he was saying to a audio recording on the onboard harddrive in his bike. "What that means is...I have no idea what that means. Also according to her I have found her many times before, but have always had my mind wiped, now all the memories that had been wiped are back, and I remember. Are you getting all this?"
"Affirmative," the computer chimed in his earpiece.
"Good."
He pulled into an alley, crossing two lanes of heavy traffic with ease to pull up behind a tavern; the tavern carrying the name "Leviathan's." The bike skidded to a halt beside some trashcans and he looked around, then got off. A secret platform began to lower his bike underground, then was replaced by a piece of asphalt that was exactly as it was before. He walked around to the front of the building and stepped inside, walking down a short hallway to the main room; in which there was the bar, and a few tables, most of which were empty at this time of day. A rather pretty waitress was at one of the table taking an order, and behind the bar was a tall man, about 6'3", with short-cropped and spiked hair, who was wiping a glass and looking very bored. Nate stepped up to the bar and sat down on one of the stools, rapping his knuckle twice on the countertop.
"Haven't seen you in a while," the bartender said not even looking at him. "The usual I suppose?"
"Yeah," Nate said turning around in the stool to place his elbows on the bar behind him, and leaning his back against the rounded brass lip. "How've things been Devin?"
"So-so, you know, once you leave WOOHP, they don't care much for you, don't even keep proper surveillance," he said with a small laugh and slid a bottle of Guinness towards Nate. "You here on official business, or just for a visit?"
"I got out, so they'll probably be looking for me," the green-clad assassin replied, taking a sip of his beer. "I need a room, preferably one with two beds."
"Ah, expecting some latenight visitors, are we?" Devin asked leaning in close.
"You could say that, three of them actually," Nate smirked. "You remember the three spies that Jerry hired a couple years ago?"
"Yeah, what about 'em?"
"One of them kinda has it in for me, and where one goes the others usually follow. WOOHP knows my hangouts, they'll most likely send those three after me. Here's a picture," Nate slid a picture of three girls, with himself behind them, over the counter. "If you see them, send them up to me room."
"Can do," Devin made a half-assed salute gesture, which might have been half-decent, had he not done it with his elbows on the countertop.
The waitress, Nate noticed, had finished taking the order and was walking back to the counter when she spotted Nate. She was a fairly tall woman, between 5'5" and 5'7", and was very, how shall I say...well endowed. Sparkling blue eyes looked at Nate, with a bit of wonder, as if trying to remember him from somewhere. Her brow was furrowed and her loosely curled blonde hair was pulled forward slightly.
"Nate, is that you?" she asked.
"Yeah, how you been Gracie?" he ruffed her hair.
"Quit it," she batted at his hand. "Where have you been? It's been six months, you never call, you never write, and...who are they?"
She was looking at the picture that her employer was currently drooling over. With a rapid movement of her hand, she was now the one holding it, her eyes transfixed on the redhead. Grace had come to San Francisco for one reason, to escape public ridicule, being the lesbian that she was.
"Who's Red?" she asked never taking her eyes from the picture.
"That Sam, you might like her," Nate sipped his beer again. "I'll be heading back tomorrow, I have to pick up something."
"You mean Project E," Devin corrected him.
"Yeah, that."
Here we go, two backgrounds to sum up. Devin Levia (you never gave more your last name, so I improvised), 21 years old, once worked for WOOHP as a top-level researcher. He had worked on a project called LEVIATHAN, a large, serpent-styled machine for underwater combat. When the project was cancelled (way over budget) he left WOOHP and moved up to San Francisco to open a bar/hotel, hence the name of the pub. The bar caters mainly to straight men and the lesbians that come to ogle the waitress.
Grace Williams a busty 19 year old lesbian who had once been like Sam, Clover and Alex, a WOOHP agent, but left when she was 17 due to what had called "a hostile working environment." Truth be told she was getting too involved with one female agent and left because she found out the girl wasn't gay. She had collected what money she could and bought a bus ticket up to San Fran, to be with her own kind. Having known Devin from WOOHP, he was quick to give her a job.
Well, that was easy enough, back to the story.
"You're going back to get what they took, right?" Devin inquired leaning over the counter.
"Right, the girl."
"What girl?" Grace asked looking a bit confused.
"For the nanomachines to bond with Nate's cells, they had to remove some chromosomes, which grew into a female version of himself. I believe that's how it went, I was kept in the dark about most of what they did."
Nate blinked, "I thought you worked on the LEVIATHAN, not Project E?"
"Natalie tends to let things slip when she's had one too many," he smirked and popped open another bottle, handing it to Nate, seeing the one he had at the moment was empty. "She still comes through here once in a while, when they give her clearance."
"You mean Natalie Rivage?" the girl in the waitress getup asked looking between the two, who nodded. "She was hot."
The two men sighed.
"What?"
"Nothing," Devin said quickly and passed her the order for the table.
"How do you do that?" she asked taking the plate. "You're hands didn't leave the counter once."
"It's magic," he said with a bit of aloofness.
"Do you know what they were using her for?" Nate asked bent on getting his answers.
"They were engineering her to be the pilot for the Daedalus," he whispered back. "They basically split you in half from what I heard, and it was easy to copy the procedure they used on you, on her, only these nanites are modified, more advanced than yours."
"I know that, but there was another."
"Oh, you mean Chaos, he's gone, thrown in the reactor. It matters not anyway, she's much more valuable than he could ever be."
They stayed there in silence for a few minutes, with Grace occasionally coming back to the counter with an order. She may have been blonde, and a little ditzy (kinda like Clover), but she knew when people didn't want to talk (unlike Clover).
*****
"Good of you to come girls, we've been review past entries in Nate's files, and we believe we've found where he is," Jerry said as the three spies stepped through the doors. Not even waiting for a reply he continued, "Here are you're gadgets, laser lipstick, nightvision sunglasses, and PESS."
"Thanks Jerry, but we don't want any candy," Alex said waving her arms in front of her in a "No" gesture.
"Not pez, P-E-S-S, Personal ElectroStatic Shield," he tossed them each a bracelet with a different colored disc in it. "It forms an impenetrable bubble around you, but be advised, they only last for about two minutes before needing to be recharged."
"What else?" Sam asked knowing there had to be more.
"Yes, this electromagnetic net gun, it'll gave you three chances to capture and disable him," the head of WOOHP said tossing Sam what looked to be a modified evapo-blaster (you know, the stupid thing that evaporates water). "Now get going to the hangar, you're ride is waiting for you there. Clover, hang back a second."
"What is it Jer?" she asked standing in front of him.
"Take this, it's an EM taser, one touch and he'll be completely immobilized," he handed her the taser and when she was about to leave he said, "I'm counting on you Clover, don't come back empty handed."
"Yes, Sir," she saluted and left.
"There will be hell to pay if you do," Jerry said when she was long gone. He then pressed a button on the intercom, "How is the Daedalus coming?"
"So far so good, we've had to make do with the data that we have, seeing as how most of it was destroyed when Levia left," a tech's voice answered.
"Why would you destroy such valuable data?"
"It was per your orders, Sir," the tech's voice trembled slightly.
=+=
"It's called Murphy's Law, Jerry," Nate said as he laid down his favorite monster card. "Everything can and will go wrong. Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning will attack, destroying your monster, and then attack again for game."
"Shoot, I can never draw the right cards," Jerry said from the other side of the table.
"Drawing the right cards and using the cards you draw properly are two different things, Jerry. A good duelist would know how to use the cards in his hand to his advantage, and not wait on one monster to win for him."
Nate grabbed his deck and the deck he'd lent his father, getting ready to go.
"One more time," Jerry said sternly, and Nate set the deck down in front of him, proceeding to shuffle his own.
=+=
"Sir, are you there?" the voice in the intercom aroused Jerry from his reverie.
"Yes, I'm here, I was just remembering something," the aging man said.
"We've found Levia's tertiary files, we should have the Daedalus Project up and running within the week, once we finish decrypting these files."
"Good work, you should all take a break and get back to work tomorrow, set the computers to auto and have them decrypt through the night."
"Yes, Sir," the tech said with a tinge of glee in his voice. "Good night, Sir."
The intercom went dead and Jerry was left in the silence of his cavernous office. Looking over at the clock her saw that it was almost two AM, he couldn't remember the last time he'd sent his agents out this late, but he wasn't about to call them back; this mission was too important.
"Murphy's Law, you used to talk about it all the time Erica," he swiveled his chair absentmindedly. "I guess he's more like you than I thought."
A rectangular hole opened in his desk, about five inches by half an inch. A small holo-projector floated up from the hole, with its base soon following. An image appeared in between the two, and image of a woman, in her mid thirties with sparkling green eyes and deep green hair. She was sort of half turned from the camera, not facing it full on, so only one of her eyes had that twinkle, the other looking dark and foreboding. The half of her mouth that was in the light was a smile, while the other half held no expression at all. These were the two faces of WOOHP's best assassin, Erica Sindel.
TBC
There, I'm finally done, sorry for it taking so long. I had school, and work, and free dueling on Wednesdays. Don't get me wrong, I do miss the writing, it's just that I can somehow only get inspiration at midnight, and listening to some good rock music. Devin, if there is something about your character that you want changed, too bad, I wanted to make him at least half descent and respectable. Okay, what I'm looking for now are names for the mystery girl. I'm having a very hard time deciding on one, so I figured I'd leave it to the fans. That's all from me, I could keep rambling, but I know barely any of you read this anyway.
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 5
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Nate and Sam talked for a while, and in that while she never once asked about the red floating around in his eyes. She had simply attributed it as something that he would instantly say is classified. But there was one thing she wanted to ask, and hoped that it wasn't classified.
"Nate?" she asked a little hesitantly.
"Yes?" he turned another page in the atlas.
"What happened to your mother?"
"She died," he said simply, focusing his eyes on a barren spot in the remoteness of Siberia.
"How?"
"They experimented on her," he said in a hushed voice, he knew that WOOHP had pretty much every building in the LA/BH area bugged. "She was what they called first generation, I'm second generation. The mistakes they made with her were weeded out and here I am."
"She volunteered, right?" Sam asked lowering her voice to the same level as his.
"That's what they told me, but I wouldn't put it past them to seek out the most viable host for this thing," he looked at his arm, the skin peeling back to reveal his metal bones and other circuitry. "That's what it is Sam, a parasite that they'll put inside you. Sure it'll give you strength and powers far beyond what even they're greatest inventions can achieve, but you become a slave."
"That's so sad," she said with a small sniff and a dab at her eye.
Nate almost chuckled at the look in her eye, she truly was sincere, not something he was used to. Even Jerry was starting to speak in half-riddles to him, always encrypting his thoughts. It annoyed the assassin to no end really, how someone who he used to look up to would begin to distrust him. But Jerry didn't know, he didn't know that his son knew what he was up to; he didn't know that Nate knew about WOOHE (you'll find out later, just like everyone else, even you Mephist and Devin).
Sam looked at Nate and noticed that a small smile was on his lips, she was almost mesmerized. It wasn't like she was being drawn to him, well she was, but it was the same thing with every other teenage female. He was right next to her ear when she heard him whisper:
"When she shows up, let her in," he said and then got up, leaving her hanging, literally, on the edge of her seat. He grabbed the atlas and put it back with the rest.
"What do you mean?" she called after him.
"You'll see (and so will you, hahahaha)," he waved over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn around.
*****
"So Sammy, what did you two talk about?" Alex asked with just the slightest hint of jealousy in her voice.
"Just the usual stuff, books, music, his mother, normal stuff," she said the last part rather quickly, but Alex heard.
"He told you, but I thought he would only tell me," she huffed.
"Tell you what?" Clover asked as she just arrived.
"Nothing," the two said in unison.
"Sorry, didn't know you two kept secrets from your best friend," she held up her hands and started to walk away.
"It's about Nate's mom," Alex said in a dejected voice, hoping to guilt Clover into coming back; which she was more than willing to do.
"Really, so what happened to the freak's mom?" she asked getting a little too excited.
"We're not telling you with that attitude," Sam said and placed her hand on Alex's shoulder, leading her away. "He's not a freak, if you two had actually exchanged more than just greetings and witty comebacks to insults, you'd realize that too. You know Clover, sometimes you can be really shallow."
"Yeah," Alex added her two cents.
*****
Nate sat in the park, his legs crossed beneath him and his tank top on the ground beside him. Atop his shirt was a sword, and before him was a watermelon, propped up on a pedestal. In a flash of movement he grabbed the sword, was up on his feet, crossed the distance between himself and his target, and sliced the melon in half. The sword was then sheathed and slipped into his belt.
"This is boring," he said as the sword was drawn again and the pedestal wad sliced into four equal-sized pieces. "I need something to do!"
He drove the sword into the ground, sending a pulse down his arm, through the sword and into the ground. A large fissure formed and streaked to tree, toppling it, cut into two pieces. It wasn't enough, he needed more, more challenges, nothing was entertaining anymore, nothing was important anymore. Except one thing, but that was beyond his reach for the time being.
-----
Elsewhere in WOOHP someone was sitting in a monitoring room, watching all the vital statistics of Nate's body and mind.
"Hm, mental activity is up a little," he said sipping his coffee, then spit it out, "and still rising?"
-----
"Hiya!" Nate swung the sword, the blade breaking apart into three inch section, connected by an indeterminable length of chain.
The chain wrapped around the nearest tree and uprooted it, slicing it into six pieces, which were then spit down the middle. The sword returned to its normal form and was sheathed as he drew his revolver. The chamber clicked and a single round was fired, hitting the wall and exploding on contact. The holographic city around him disappeared while the destroyed park remained as it was.
"What is it? What does she want me to do? Who is she?!"
His angel arm began to grow, revealing that it was not just his arm that adopted the metallic color, but also much of his left side. He aimed the weapon, not fully transformed, at the ground and fired, blasting a hole through the dirt, into the metal beneath it, and through that as well. As soon as that happened, gas began to fill the room, but he paid it no mind, being as he was meant he didn't have to breathe.
The angel arm began to recede back into the gun, and once it was gone, he fired another round into the hole, receiving an ominous metal on metal sound. This was impossible in his mind, seeing as how he was on the bottom level of the WOOHP underground, there should have been nothing beneath him. He had found was he was looking for, and thus holstered his revolver, sheathed his sword, and slipped his tank back on.
'There she is,' he thought as he left, only to be met by an armed squadron. "Hi."
Their response was one he expected, they fired their cryo-weapons, but found he had erected a shield at the last second. The shield wasn't like the other, this one simply had a green outline and random green flashes that proved it was there. He dropped the shield, rushed forward and took them all out in a relatively short amount of time. Standing over them, it was now he made up his mind, it was just the right time too.
"Time to leave," he said and ran through the corridors, ducking into secret passages to avoid detection.
One such passage led directly to his room, which was where he was heading. He grabbed his weapons and tucked them into a bag, along with his shifter clothing from the closet. Each weapon retracted to its most basic form as he grabbed it. He was just dropping in the last one when a knock came to his door.
"Nate, open up, what are you doing!?" Jerry yelled through the door.
The assassin stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, lifted one leg, and dealt a swift, powerful kick to the door, sending it, and his father, back again the wall across the hall. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light behind him, looking down at the old man with a look of disgust. A wave of memory his him then, from all those mind-wipes he had gone though.
'Felicia?' he thought as her memory came up. "I killed her because you said she was manipulating me, how could I have been so blind?"
"Who?"
"You know who," he kicked Jerry in the ribs and looked down the hall one way then the other.
The sounds of feet coming towards his location had entered his ears; he had to cut this meeting short.
"We'll find you," Jerry said getting up and straightening his tie.
"Doubt it," Nate smirked and ran back into his room, and into the passage in the shower.
*****
In minutes he was in his jet, his motorcycle loaded in the small cargo hold, and was now on the catapult. The doors opened, though it seemed like they wanted to stay closed, and he punched the engines, easily escaping through the partially opened doors. He had come out underwater, somewhere off the coast of LA, and broke the surface about ten miles out. There were few places he could go, but he had already planned this.
"I wonder if Natalie knew about this?" he wondered to himself as he flew out a few more miles, easily reaching a small island between California and Hawaii.
It was there he stopped and opened the door on the side of the cockpit. He lifted the panel in his arm and took out the transponder, then threw it out the door, knowing it would land on the island, or in the water around it. Swift manipulation of the controls and he was heading back towards the mainland, but not to LA, he was heading more north than that.
*****
It wasn't long before he was skimming across the top of the water, just beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. He looked up through the cockpit canopy and a small smile crept over his lips. A small explosion ensued underneath the bridge, and pieces of a security camera fell around him. With that done he headed towards shore, stealth mode enabled. He tipped the wings, one wing tip dipping into the water as he maneuvered towards an abandoned warehouse, a panel in the roof opening briefly to allow him access.
After setting it down he got out, the cargo platform lowering as he did so. Secured to the platform was his motorcycle, which disengaged automatically and rolled onto the concrete floor. He opened the small cargo hatch on the back and tossed the dufflebag inside, took out his helmet, and closed the lid. Walking around the side of the bike, he straddled the seat, ran a quick systems check, then started the engine. Slipping the helmet on, he stuck a finger underneath it and pushed the microphone for his comm. system into position.
Picking up a small remote he pressed the button and the large doors opened before him, revealing the road to San Francisco. With a small smile he revved the engine and took off, the doors closing behind him.
*****
"Dammit, I want him found, I want every city west of the Mississippi River searched and researched. I don't care how long it takes, find him, catch him, and bring him back here," Jerry yelled into the phone before slamming it down. He then leaned back in his chair, his hands on his stomach, fingers twined together. "You always said this would happen, didn't you Erica?"
WOOHP HQ had been thrown in a state of temporary turmoil what with Nate going berserk and all. Not one person knew what had happened, besides the people at the very top of the chain. When they had injected Nate with the technologies that now ran rampant through his body, they had taken a part of him, a small part, but an important part nonetheless. Over time that part had been cultivated and grown into two separate entities, the girl held in the freezer far below WOOHP, and another, darker entity.
This entity had been kept and raised for one specific purpose, this purpose. If Nate had ever lost it and gone crazy (at least by their standards) this one would take his place as an assassin. He had been tought exactly how to act like Nate, from both training sessions on the holodeck, and by receiving memories straight from Nate himself. And just when the techs had believed that they were infallible, when they thought they would never lose control over their prized experiment, it happens, and their back up plan couldn't be put into action. In all their arrogance they had incinerated the entity, codenamed Chaos. He was gone, and they had nothing.
"Idiots, the girl isn't designed to be assassin, she could never take over his job," Jerry thought aloud. "Unless..."
*****
"According to her, I have to find her, then get to her, so she can merge with me," Nate spoke into the microphone, committing everything he was saying to a audio recording on the onboard harddrive in his bike. "What that means is...I have no idea what that means. Also according to her I have found her many times before, but have always had my mind wiped, now all the memories that had been wiped are back, and I remember. Are you getting all this?"
"Affirmative," the computer chimed in his earpiece.
"Good."
He pulled into an alley, crossing two lanes of heavy traffic with ease to pull up behind a tavern; the tavern carrying the name "Leviathan's." The bike skidded to a halt beside some trashcans and he looked around, then got off. A secret platform began to lower his bike underground, then was replaced by a piece of asphalt that was exactly as it was before. He walked around to the front of the building and stepped inside, walking down a short hallway to the main room; in which there was the bar, and a few tables, most of which were empty at this time of day. A rather pretty waitress was at one of the table taking an order, and behind the bar was a tall man, about 6'3", with short-cropped and spiked hair, who was wiping a glass and looking very bored. Nate stepped up to the bar and sat down on one of the stools, rapping his knuckle twice on the countertop.
"Haven't seen you in a while," the bartender said not even looking at him. "The usual I suppose?"
"Yeah," Nate said turning around in the stool to place his elbows on the bar behind him, and leaning his back against the rounded brass lip. "How've things been Devin?"
"So-so, you know, once you leave WOOHP, they don't care much for you, don't even keep proper surveillance," he said with a small laugh and slid a bottle of Guinness towards Nate. "You here on official business, or just for a visit?"
"I got out, so they'll probably be looking for me," the green-clad assassin replied, taking a sip of his beer. "I need a room, preferably one with two beds."
"Ah, expecting some latenight visitors, are we?" Devin asked leaning in close.
"You could say that, three of them actually," Nate smirked. "You remember the three spies that Jerry hired a couple years ago?"
"Yeah, what about 'em?"
"One of them kinda has it in for me, and where one goes the others usually follow. WOOHP knows my hangouts, they'll most likely send those three after me. Here's a picture," Nate slid a picture of three girls, with himself behind them, over the counter. "If you see them, send them up to me room."
"Can do," Devin made a half-assed salute gesture, which might have been half-decent, had he not done it with his elbows on the countertop.
The waitress, Nate noticed, had finished taking the order and was walking back to the counter when she spotted Nate. She was a fairly tall woman, between 5'5" and 5'7", and was very, how shall I say...well endowed. Sparkling blue eyes looked at Nate, with a bit of wonder, as if trying to remember him from somewhere. Her brow was furrowed and her loosely curled blonde hair was pulled forward slightly.
"Nate, is that you?" she asked.
"Yeah, how you been Gracie?" he ruffed her hair.
"Quit it," she batted at his hand. "Where have you been? It's been six months, you never call, you never write, and...who are they?"
She was looking at the picture that her employer was currently drooling over. With a rapid movement of her hand, she was now the one holding it, her eyes transfixed on the redhead. Grace had come to San Francisco for one reason, to escape public ridicule, being the lesbian that she was.
"Who's Red?" she asked never taking her eyes from the picture.
"That Sam, you might like her," Nate sipped his beer again. "I'll be heading back tomorrow, I have to pick up something."
"You mean Project E," Devin corrected him.
"Yeah, that."
Here we go, two backgrounds to sum up. Devin Levia (you never gave more your last name, so I improvised), 21 years old, once worked for WOOHP as a top-level researcher. He had worked on a project called LEVIATHAN, a large, serpent-styled machine for underwater combat. When the project was cancelled (way over budget) he left WOOHP and moved up to San Francisco to open a bar/hotel, hence the name of the pub. The bar caters mainly to straight men and the lesbians that come to ogle the waitress.
Grace Williams a busty 19 year old lesbian who had once been like Sam, Clover and Alex, a WOOHP agent, but left when she was 17 due to what had called "a hostile working environment." Truth be told she was getting too involved with one female agent and left because she found out the girl wasn't gay. She had collected what money she could and bought a bus ticket up to San Fran, to be with her own kind. Having known Devin from WOOHP, he was quick to give her a job.
Well, that was easy enough, back to the story.
"You're going back to get what they took, right?" Devin inquired leaning over the counter.
"Right, the girl."
"What girl?" Grace asked looking a bit confused.
"For the nanomachines to bond with Nate's cells, they had to remove some chromosomes, which grew into a female version of himself. I believe that's how it went, I was kept in the dark about most of what they did."
Nate blinked, "I thought you worked on the LEVIATHAN, not Project E?"
"Natalie tends to let things slip when she's had one too many," he smirked and popped open another bottle, handing it to Nate, seeing the one he had at the moment was empty. "She still comes through here once in a while, when they give her clearance."
"You mean Natalie Rivage?" the girl in the waitress getup asked looking between the two, who nodded. "She was hot."
The two men sighed.
"What?"
"Nothing," Devin said quickly and passed her the order for the table.
"How do you do that?" she asked taking the plate. "You're hands didn't leave the counter once."
"It's magic," he said with a bit of aloofness.
"Do you know what they were using her for?" Nate asked bent on getting his answers.
"They were engineering her to be the pilot for the Daedalus," he whispered back. "They basically split you in half from what I heard, and it was easy to copy the procedure they used on you, on her, only these nanites are modified, more advanced than yours."
"I know that, but there was another."
"Oh, you mean Chaos, he's gone, thrown in the reactor. It matters not anyway, she's much more valuable than he could ever be."
They stayed there in silence for a few minutes, with Grace occasionally coming back to the counter with an order. She may have been blonde, and a little ditzy (kinda like Clover), but she knew when people didn't want to talk (unlike Clover).
*****
"Good of you to come girls, we've been review past entries in Nate's files, and we believe we've found where he is," Jerry said as the three spies stepped through the doors. Not even waiting for a reply he continued, "Here are you're gadgets, laser lipstick, nightvision sunglasses, and PESS."
"Thanks Jerry, but we don't want any candy," Alex said waving her arms in front of her in a "No" gesture.
"Not pez, P-E-S-S, Personal ElectroStatic Shield," he tossed them each a bracelet with a different colored disc in it. "It forms an impenetrable bubble around you, but be advised, they only last for about two minutes before needing to be recharged."
"What else?" Sam asked knowing there had to be more.
"Yes, this electromagnetic net gun, it'll gave you three chances to capture and disable him," the head of WOOHP said tossing Sam what looked to be a modified evapo-blaster (you know, the stupid thing that evaporates water). "Now get going to the hangar, you're ride is waiting for you there. Clover, hang back a second."
"What is it Jer?" she asked standing in front of him.
"Take this, it's an EM taser, one touch and he'll be completely immobilized," he handed her the taser and when she was about to leave he said, "I'm counting on you Clover, don't come back empty handed."
"Yes, Sir," she saluted and left.
"There will be hell to pay if you do," Jerry said when she was long gone. He then pressed a button on the intercom, "How is the Daedalus coming?"
"So far so good, we've had to make do with the data that we have, seeing as how most of it was destroyed when Levia left," a tech's voice answered.
"Why would you destroy such valuable data?"
"It was per your orders, Sir," the tech's voice trembled slightly.
=+=
"It's called Murphy's Law, Jerry," Nate said as he laid down his favorite monster card. "Everything can and will go wrong. Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning will attack, destroying your monster, and then attack again for game."
"Shoot, I can never draw the right cards," Jerry said from the other side of the table.
"Drawing the right cards and using the cards you draw properly are two different things, Jerry. A good duelist would know how to use the cards in his hand to his advantage, and not wait on one monster to win for him."
Nate grabbed his deck and the deck he'd lent his father, getting ready to go.
"One more time," Jerry said sternly, and Nate set the deck down in front of him, proceeding to shuffle his own.
=+=
"Sir, are you there?" the voice in the intercom aroused Jerry from his reverie.
"Yes, I'm here, I was just remembering something," the aging man said.
"We've found Levia's tertiary files, we should have the Daedalus Project up and running within the week, once we finish decrypting these files."
"Good work, you should all take a break and get back to work tomorrow, set the computers to auto and have them decrypt through the night."
"Yes, Sir," the tech said with a tinge of glee in his voice. "Good night, Sir."
The intercom went dead and Jerry was left in the silence of his cavernous office. Looking over at the clock her saw that it was almost two AM, he couldn't remember the last time he'd sent his agents out this late, but he wasn't about to call them back; this mission was too important.
"Murphy's Law, you used to talk about it all the time Erica," he swiveled his chair absentmindedly. "I guess he's more like you than I thought."
A rectangular hole opened in his desk, about five inches by half an inch. A small holo-projector floated up from the hole, with its base soon following. An image appeared in between the two, and image of a woman, in her mid thirties with sparkling green eyes and deep green hair. She was sort of half turned from the camera, not facing it full on, so only one of her eyes had that twinkle, the other looking dark and foreboding. The half of her mouth that was in the light was a smile, while the other half held no expression at all. These were the two faces of WOOHP's best assassin, Erica Sindel.
TBC
There, I'm finally done, sorry for it taking so long. I had school, and work, and free dueling on Wednesdays. Don't get me wrong, I do miss the writing, it's just that I can somehow only get inspiration at midnight, and listening to some good rock music. Devin, if there is something about your character that you want changed, too bad, I wanted to make him at least half descent and respectable. Okay, what I'm looking for now are names for the mystery girl. I'm having a very hard time deciding on one, so I figured I'd leave it to the fans. That's all from me, I could keep rambling, but I know barely any of you read this anyway.