Episode 5: Punishment (Worry)

The man whimpered as his own whip cracked across his back, scrabbling with desperate fingers on the table but unable to escape the reach of the woman wielding it. "F-f-forgive me..." he sputtered in desperation, sweat shining on his round brow and making his thin mustaches limp with the dampness. Feverishly he watched her through his round glasses as she raised her hand for another blow.

This time his cry was premature, a preemptive shriek of terror before the leather scoured his open flesh. Shivering, he screwed his eyes shut, unable to watch any longer. "Stop..." he moaned. "It won't happen ag-g-gain..."

"It had better not," replied the woman matter-of-factly, cracking the whip in the air and sending the man on the table cowering at the sound. Pushing a button on the table's surface, she freed his left ankle from the shackle locking it down. "You may have started the experiment, but the girl belongs to Leorza now. Got that?"

"L-l-leorza? N-not you, Baroness?" Quaking too badly to stand, he remained flat on his stomach, raw wounds crisscrossing his open back in a sadistic patchwork. "I th-thought..."

"No, you didn't," replied the woman dryly, toying with the whip, turning it over in her manicured hands and picking bloody strands free. "You jumped when you were told. Who's the trained one, then, beast master? Not that I oppose such an arrangement. I like how domesticated you've become. Now, if you want any more of that stuff from Leorza, I suggest you tend to those cuts in secret. Not a word to the big bosses upstairs. The last thing we want is for the syndicate to rise just as the lights go out on the world above, hmm?"

"No one will kn-know, Baroness." Standing at last, he fetched his top hat from a hook on the wall and placed it with trembling fingers onto his head. "Will you be keeping the wh-whi--"

She tossed it at him; he fumbled the catch and had to bend over, wincing as the wounds on his back strained. No sooner had he straightened than he had to catch his red coat, also flung his direction by the woman in the lab coat. "Thank you, B-baroness."

She smiled, lit a cigarette. "You're welcome. Now get out of my sight." Bowing, he did as he was commanded, slamming the door behind him with not undue vigor; she listened with amusement until his footsteps faded, puffing thoughtfully on her cigarette. They were all the same, really. Thought they ruled the world, but in the face of real talent and ambition...

The earbud in her coat pocket beeped; holding the cigarette daintily between her teeth, she pulled it out and put it on. "We're done," she reported, removing the cigarette and snuffing it on the table, grinding it until only ashes and a scour mark remained. "He won't give us any more trouble. How about your end?"

The voice in her ear remained to the untrained listener devoid of emotion, but she thought she detected perhaps a faint hint of satisfaction in the tenor. "As expected, Trinity. I've deflected all questions pertaining to the boy for the time being. He will be getting here soon, I should think."

"Usagi's a good girl. Don't give me that suspicion." She undid the top button holding her coat on, sighed. "You should have seen how white he got when he realized we knew already."

"I do not gain pleasure from such things, as you know." A pause, then, "Nona is here."

"Well, I thought the boy proved that. Don't tell me you're still bitter. There's a reason I choked during your sob story, and it's not because I was holding back tears." Already she regretted destroying her cigarette; it had been the last in her pack and she wanted another.

"I find your change in tone a bit disconcerting, Trinity. Informality is not yet called for between us."

"I'm very informal by nature, Leorza." She kicked her heels off, crossed fishnet-stockinged legs as she sat on the table and leaned back. "It comes with being human. You should add it to your repertoire, see how you like it."

"I may rethink our arrangement if you continue to behave like this towards me."

"Be my guest. I'm not the parasite here. I have better things to do with the syndicate than use it to further your advancement. Do your own damn work."

"A good leader watches her back, especially when things are going well. Don't make unnecessary enemies."

She scoffed. "Your money and prestige aren't here yet. If I emigrate, I'll be sure to look out for your supporters. But here? Not seeing any, without me."

"Do you wish for your city to continue existing?"

Sitting up, she blinked in surprise at the sudden question. "You wouldn't," she laughed nervously. "Not just because I teased you. What about your plans?"

"Plans can be altered, sped up. I've waited over fifty years and am fully prepared to wait another two hundred. If forced, though, I can settle for just Judoh."

"Assuming everything's the way you left it."

"Trinity, not two years have passed." Now it was his turn to be scornful. "I may have had my doubts, but I certainly hope that after my investments in his life my successor is not that complete a failure. To have produced such a catastrophe would soil my record."

"Well, we can't have that." Abruptly she yanked the bud out of her ear, terminated the conversation. He was all talk. They all were. Day in and day out, every "project" she'd picked out of the garbage that came crawling to the syndicate chattered nonstop about their "plans" for "advancements" and "progressions", but no one ever seemed willing to do any actual work. That's why she'd been drawn to Leorza at first: he had delivered on his intentions. It was a bit disappointing to find out she'd been wrong.

But what had she expected? Even if he was...different, he had still come to see the underworld as his only source of power. No one with a decent work ethic ever took that route, which disgusted her. After all, it made her job so damn difficult.

Plugging the bud back into her ear, she pressed a different button. "Baroness here, Secretary. I've just received a report from the delegate I sent them for you. He reports great chances of an extension. Now, about my compensation for thus exposing an agent. I want parts. That's right, machine parts..." Being in charge could be such a drag at times. A dishonest day's work was never done, and she wanted to get back to her toys.

O0o0o0o0o0

Watching the blips on the radar screen draw closer and closer, Clair Leonelli couldn't decide whether to curse the fates or laugh out loud for joy. Really, the situation was just too hysterical. They had successfully avoided the law only to run afoul of scavenging groups, who no doubt assumed the unknown vessel planned on infringing on "their" territory? He could die gagging on the irony. This would be too, too simple. Wouldn't they be sorry!

"Giovanni, fly the Vita flag," he ordered calmly, smirking as already his mind entertained visions of the presumptuous scavengers begging for mercy. "Let them know who they're dealing with. Oh, and keep the little girl off the deck. She'd hurt my image." Nodding, the tall man rushed off to do as he was told.

"What is that supposed to mean??" Monica demanded, stomping her foot; Clair ignored her and turned his attention back to the control panel and the android operating it.

"Scavenging is an illegal act," reported said android. "What measures should be taken, Monica?"

Oh, so now she was his partner in Aurora's absence? A lot of responsibility for such a little girl. That sort of thing could be dangerous. Cutting her off as she opened her mouth, Clair replied, "Wait and see what they do once we've got the flag up. Running away might make them suspicious, if they're the jumpy kind." Leaning on the cabin wall, he shoved his hands into his pants pockets and allowed himself a full-blown grin. "But if they fire a shot, they'll regret it."

o0o0o0o0o0

The old man had never considered himself to be the excitable sort; in his line of work, he couldn't afford to be jumpy or high-strung. The past year or so, however, had begun to change his opinion of himself as his prospects dwindled to the point where he'd actually cut the ties to his old lifestyle himself. Not that he'd had a choice...Yet his employer had taken him on again, and to his pleasant surprise things had actually gone well since then.

Until this.

Shaking his white curly head, Mauro replayed the small audio disc he'd found on his employer's pillow that morning when he'd at last been able to enter. The young man had recently been possessed with a desperate need to have his bedroom door lock changed, and after the fact had been stingy with the keys. Mauro had had to call in one of Company's Vita professional thieves—an expert lockpicker—to even get in, after calling for the young master through the door for over an hour with no response. After the disc (but no young master) had been discovered, he'd had to pay off the thief to remain quiet as well. All that, before even listening to the thing. Afterwards...

It started up again, and he felt his heart quicken with nervousness. It would never work, things could never work out the way his young master thought they would. The ruse would be discovered, and Vita overrun in the absence of its leader. He would be compromised again in a heartbeat, have to make that decision again. Feeling his heart quake in his chest, he didn't know if his health was up to it.

"Hey, Mauro. It's me. By the time I come back, I want my door fixed, no matter what you did to it. Hopefully the damage isn't too severe, as it's coming out of your salary.

"You don't need to know where I'm going or what I'm doing. That way no one can stop me. Try to keep Giovanni from tearing all over Judoh looking for me, as that would give away the secret." The young master snickered at that point in the recording, a sound that constantly portended further stress on his advisor's part. "The official byline that I came up with was that I was sick and taking very few calls, trusting you to run things until my recovery. But you're paid to think up that sort of thing, so change it if you think of something better.

"Oh, and if you think Papa had three yachts, your memory is going. He only had two. Should anyone ask, which they shouldn't if you do your job right."

He didn't used to get this nervous. Of that, Mauro was certain. Why, in his day...long ago, he'd been quite the formidable fighter himself, preferring in his idealism the sword to the gun. When Lorenzo Leonelli had first approached him, it had been to save his life in a back alley as vengeful gunmen surrounded him. Quixotic vigilantism could only go so far in a mercenary world, and the Mauro who stole from the thieves to give to his suffering family had been quickly running out of options. Yet in an instant, the entire way he viewed the word "family" had been altered. He had gained a new master, new charges...well, one new charge, who had provided enough trouble for a thousand. No, that was the wrong tense. Was still providing...

"I think that's it for me. Look after things for me, will you? Che Honsu's expecting me to call tomorrow. Tell him to switch half of the stuff we've got in vegetables to fruit. Word is that there's an orange blight spreading on the planting islands, and I think we can take advantage of that. If it turns out a loss, I'm blaming you, though. So don't go overboard. But if we make it big, both you and he get a tip.

"That's it from me. Don't get too bored while I'm gone." The message ended there, dissolving into static before clicking off entirely. Mauro took out his pocket handkerchief and mopped his brow, wiping off his small sunglasses as well before putting the cloth back away. "Young Master..." he chided softly. "What are you up to?" If only the previous Vampire had been able to curb the new one's impulsive tendencies a bit more! Lorenzo Leonelli would never have run off, leaving his advisor to run his crime empire during an indefinite absence.

Oh, the boy was going to get himself killed, and then it would all be over. The Leonelli family name, once spoken with respect, would have its flame snuffed a mere two generations into its reign. Mauro would have failed in his duties, both as an advisor and as a caretaker. Why, he'd practically raised the boy himself, overseen his studies and taught him everything he knew of fencing...he was almost Mauro's own son...

A son he'd sold out for the sake of some larger ideal. Even having been accepted back, a privilege he had neither expected nor felt he deserved, the guilt still wracked him from time to time, especially every time the young master began to resemble the elder in policy. He had been responsible for more than just upholding the family name, and he should have realized that. Even if it meant dying in the line of loyalty the way Ian and Mitchal had, he should have stayed by his young master's side the way he had been since the boy's birth.

Giovanni, though, had been at Clair's side since arriving as well. Where had he gotten to? Certainly Vampire hadn't planned on taking the man along—he'd even mentioned him in his message--so where had the bodyguard vanished to? And, come to think of it, didn't he have a key? Perhaps he had checked on the young master earlier, found the disc, and gone searching alone despite the orders on the disc not to. Why lock the door again, then?

Oh, this was too much. No matter how much the young master was trusting him to stay silent, some silences were meant to be broken. He couldn't go to the police, not in his position and the company's current vulnerability (and after the Echigo Group deal had gone so well, too! he lamented to himself); but other helpful institutions existed. Pulling out his portable phone, Mauro scrolled through a list of contacts before punching one in.

"Hello? Is this Shogun's beetle? This is Mauro, of Company Vita. Are you alone?...I see. Word has reached me you do investigative work in addition to your usual duties..."

He had no idea how apt his choice was, how much she already knew. And what she didn't know, she figured out fairly quickly, then made a few calls of her own.

o0o0o0o0o0

The scavengers fired. And, true to Clair's word, they regretted it. They regretted it from the moment they saw their prey bank around in the water to the moment they watched from three small lifeboats as their own vessels joined the treasure they'd been seeking on the ocean floor. None of them had really understood why one of the people on the yacht had bothered tossing grenades onto their boats when the transports had been sinking anyway. Too late, one member of the party remembered where he'd seen the symbol on the enemy's flag before and connected it with the favorite pastimes of the organization's reputedly unstable leader; but the additional information came in handy once they finally reached the twenty-mile mark and were picked up by a passing police vessel. Though it didn't manage to keep them from getting arrested, it made for a damn good story and sparked a covert investigation, which reached the desk of one Ken Edmundo after mere seconds of its inception.

But no one on the side of the victors knew anything about that. Their fight had really only begun—with each other.

"Was that really necessary?" Shun pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, but as he had already performed the agitated tic three times in the course of mere minutes he ended up squashing the lenses against his eyes and the glasses slid back down anyway.

"Not really," Clair admitted as Giovanni , behind him, folded the Vita flag to put it back away. "But they won't be bothering us again."

"They wouldn't have bothered us if we had outrun them, either," Shun countered sternly. "I thought we agreed to make use of your boat due to its speed."

"It also comes with nice turrets, don't you think?" asked Clair. "Let's just consider what happened back there a demonstration of my preparedness."

"Preparedness for what? Getting us all killed? Those people have nowhere to go and--"

"Oh, so now you care about the plight of the lawless?" Clair giggled. "The scavengers and parasites have your sympathy? Don't make me laugh. Just be grateful I didn't have them killed."

"I would not have shot to kill." J spoke up from the controls of the boat. "It goes against my programming. Even for sinking the two boats, I will have to type written apologies to the city director."

"I'll do it, J," replied Kyoko to appease him, more concerned about the tension between members of her party than the legal repercussions of admittedly juvenile behavior on the young don's part. She, too, was worried about the people in the lifeboats, but certain other people's welfare came first. In particular, one young man stood out in her mind, but they would never reach him if their group dissolved less than a day into the expedition. Her own explosion of the previous morning had, at least in her mind, been completely forgotten.

"All I'm saying is," Shun persisted, "that you have to consider everyone's position here. Not all of us are as invincible as you, Vampire."

Clair's shoulders shook. "Are you scared, Dictator Aurora? Worried about getting another demotion? What would that constitute, I wonder? Picking up the trash the trash people create on their lunch breaks? Sorting the Underground's sewage?" With every new option presented, Shun's right eye twitched and his mouth grew more taut. His hands balled into fists. "Any way you look at it, you're going to get in trouble again for just getting away. You should have considered that first. Unless, of course, you're counting on being bailed out again by your little broth--"

He was cut off as Shun, finally reaching his limit, darted out an arm and grabbed the don's collar, yanking him close and pulling back an arm to punch. No sooner had his fingers closed around the plum-colored cloth, though, than the blond man found a gun pointed at his head by his victim's companion.

"I wouldn't go any further if I were you," Giovanni warned Shun, frowning. "Vampire values his personal space. Now back off. Before I make you."

Reluctantly Shun let go of the boy's shirt and backed away a few paces, but the fight had not quite left him. "You tell us to trust you, but you carry a gun even around friends?" he asked. "Is that not somewhat contradictory?"

"I don't think so," Giovanni growled, stepping in front of Clair to shield him. "After all, we aren't all friends here."

"Gentlemen, that's quite enough," Kyoko began saucily, but Monica put in much more emphatic opinions.

"That's IT!!! I have HAD it with both of you! YOU—" she jabbed a finger at Clair "--and YOU, who should be more grateful I invited you—" she turned to Shun "--both of you, to your rooms THIS INSTANT! I don't want fights on my rescue squad! Jeez, how are we supposed to work together if we can't even talk without yelling at each other? You boys with your stupid guns! Go to your rooms and cool off!!" She glared at both of them when neither made a move to obey. "NOW!!!"

"No need to shout," Clair objected with a smile, hands in the air. "I get it. I've been a bad little boy, so I have to go take a time-out. Come on, Giovanni. You're the one waving the silly little toy around. Let's go pay for being such bad boys." Waving to Monica over his shoulder, he retreated, Giovanni following in bemusement. Seeing her orders had "worked" on one of the arguing parties, Monica glared expectantly at Shun, who refused to budge.

J, for unfathomable reasons of his own, chose in this tense time to offer Kyoko his opinion. "A man only acts when he is prepared to face the consequences of his actions. If Shun Aurora did not want to get in further trouble, he should not have come."

A muscle spasmed in Shun's cheek, made him grit his teeth. "You all seem to be overlooking one crucial detail in your assessments of me: I came. I knew going into this madness that I wasn't going to return and face no charges of any kind, and I am prepared to own up for my actions as I have always done in the past. Never have I acted in any way contrary to what seemed right to my judgment at the time. And, despite what you all may believe, I happen to--" He swallowed and adjusted his glasses again. "I happen to love my brother. I happen to be concerned about him. For that reason, and no other, I agreed to come along on this admittedly asinine expedition. In that manner, I am the same as all of you. So I respectfully request to be treated as such." Casting a glance around the group, he too headed for his cabin. "Please accord me at least this one courtesy. For Daisuke's sake." He descended.

The girls and J were silent for several long moments, staring after him in the doorway. Monica snapped out of it first and returned to bouncing ideas for rescue methods off of J's superhuman sense of judgment. Kyoko pulled her jacket tighter around her body and stared back whence they had come. Judoh could no longer be seen on the horizon, even as that morning's thin black line. It was simply gone, swallowed by the distance. As if it had never existed. As if she would never see it again.

"You are being silly," she scolded herself, and went to talk things over with J and Monica. Best to keep her eyes on the goal and nothing else. After all, Daisuke was the only thing binding her little group together.

O0o0o0o0o0

After coming all the way through the tunnels in secret, the last thing Daisuke wanted to do was eavesdrop on board the Celestials' ship, but Usagi had insisted her master should not be disturbed and thus they should wait outside the door. In secret, of course; the Celestials wanted to shut down her master's city and so she did not trust them.

So while she kept lookout down the long, dazzlingly clean hallway, Daisuke remained with an ear pressed against the door to what presumably was a conference room. He had come this way, and he would be damned if he didn' t figure out what in the world was going on.

"You suggest we were deceived?"

"I suggest that it is possible. In a way, does it not prove the people of Magnagalia are in their hearts humane creatures for such tunnels to exist? Seeing the problem, well-meaning individuals have devised ways to free their fellow men from the torments imposed by their oppressive government. They fear the government and thus cannot stand against it, but in secret—ah, in secret the ways of humanity are always revealed." The voice, a slightly throaty tenor, sounded vaguely familiar to Daisuke, but he could not place it. With a start, he realized what stood out about it to him: the speaker had a pronounced, well-groomed Judoh accent. "I suggest the proper course of action is not abandonment of the city but thoughtful reconstruction of legislative, executive, and judicial offices."

"It's their own responsibility to rule themselves," objected a third voice; murmurs of consent rippled in its wake. Buoyed by the ripples, it continued. "We do not seek to be tyrants."

"Yet sometimes the observer sees more plainly than he who remains in the thick of the storm," the Judoh-speaker protested mildly. "What of the future of Magnagalia, if she is left to fend for herself? Bereft of resources, the evil and corruption will only spread as her citizens struggle to survive. It is our duty—yes, I claim membership among you—to keep that from happening. We have the means to do so. To do otherwise—is that not the real evil?"

He's good, Daisuke appraised with a raised brow, but all other analysis ended as another voice spoke up.

"Leorza, get out." The woman's cool, clean voice had not changed from what little he could remember of it. "I will not discuss these things with you. Coming from your mouth, these words do not mean what they should."

"I disagree," said another. "Leorza spent more time with the humans than did you, Nona. If we are to attempt to help these people, we will need his counsel."

"Why has he chosen to return, though? Did you consider that?" The woman sounded half-choked. "How did he spend those long years when we feared him dead?"

"I see my presence here must be reconsidered. I understand entirely. If you'll excuse me, then, I shall make myself scarce until you decide. Until then, my friends..." Daisuke was pulled away from the door and around the corner by Usagi, mouth covered by her bloody hand. "My master comes," she hissed. "We will not have much time to speak with him."

"Tss ith nt vry dgnfd." He had wanted to say "This is not very dignified" but lost the vowels somewhere. Then he saw Usagi's master and lost the capacity of speech altogether. All his mind could manage to wring out of its jumbled confusion was I know this man from somewhere...his face...I know this face...

But he could not for the life of him remember why.