Episode 7: Research (Ego)

Somewhere between listening to Shogun's radio and waking up three days later aboard Clair Leonelli's speedboat yacht to discover a wanted Magnagalian emigrant standing on the bow like a masthead, Monica Gabriel's life and plans had spiraled out of her hands. And it really made her blood boil.

"We didn't ask him to come for a reason," she complained to Kyoko over breakfast, stabbing viciously into her oatmeal with a spoon like it was responsible for Boma's coming. "Doesn't he understand when people try to be considerate?"

"I think it's sweet of him," Kyoko replied, trying to calm the girl down. "He cares more about Daisuke than his own safety."

"You can't deny the fact that he will be useful," Shun added from the other end of the table, sipping coffee. "He is familiar with the city and a skilled fighter."

"You sang a different tune last night, Dictator," Giovanni called from the kitchen mockingly; once again, his duties as Vampire's caretaker had expanded to 'cook and dishmaid.'

Shun grit his teeth at the jibe and took another mouthful of coffee. "Please stop referring to me that way. I find it offensive for you to dig up the past, especially since your own records are less than spotless."

Clair, licking his spoon clean like a bored child, stopped in mid-lick; his eyes slid to Shun with his tongue poised against the smooth metal. "Yes, but we don't care. There's the difference. At any rate, I agree with you about Boma." He put down his spoon. "If nothing else, he makes the game more interesting." He chuckled to himself. "He has a habit of doing that."

"He certainly does," Shun agreed tersely. "Excuse me." Pushing his chair away from the table, he took his dishes to the small sink and deposited them on the counter for Giovanni to attend to, then forced himself to walk calmly away.

The wind buffered his head the instant he stepped out on deck, blowing his pale hair around his head in a wild halo. Smoothing it with one hand, he leaned on the railing and watched Boma, perched stalwartly on the bow, for a few long moments. He had just decided to retire to his cabin when the dark man spoke.

"You are not welcome here."

"By you or everyone else?" Shun inquired, irony tugging on the corners of his mouth.

"By them. You came for Daisuke?"

Shun wished the other man would turn around. Speaking to his back felt so disconcerting. "I did."

"Then I do not mind."

"You're the only one who believes me."

"You have no reason to lie, no motive to betray again."

"Don't I?" Shun tilted his head back, removing his glasses and enjoying the wind. What would the citizens of Judoh say if they saw him now, disheveled by the elements and isolated by even the lowest denizens of the underworld, with only a genetically altered serial murderer for company? What would Phia say if she knew the bile that had been filling him with every slight, every crack in armor he had thought impenetrable? It was his fault they upset him so. He had allowed them to rankle him, and for his weakness he suffered. "You know as well as I that there are worse things the justice system does than kill a man."

"That does not justify anything." Boma dropped his mask, viewed Shun with red lupine eyes. "What makes the beast lies within."

"What if I can't change that?" asked Shun, repulsed by the change in his colleague's appearance but, in a broken moment, driven to confide.

"Then there is no hope for you. Do they upset you because you are ashamed or because you do not like remembering your loss?"

This had gotten a bit too personal. He did not need to be lectured by a convict. Shun regretted his lapse into self-disclosure. "Both. Who can blame me? You certainly cannot. You've done the exact same thing."

"Except for you, there really is a chance." The human face shimmered back into place atop Boma's broad shoulders. "Your Usagi is real. Find him, Shun Aurora, and take your second chance."

He'd forgotten the man delighted in overdramatics. Shun sighed to himself as he spoke. "What do you think I'm doing?"

Boma scrutinized the face before him. "I cannot be sure. For you do not yourself know." Turning, he crossed his arms again and resumed his impassive stare across the wide swaths of ocean laid out before the craft.

For his part, Shun returned to his cabin as per his usual plan, unwilling to associate with his fellows. But voices questioned his motives and intent anyway, and he could not run away from them. They came from a pain in his gut.

O0o0o0o0o0o0

Magnagalia was granted a three-week period of amnesty in which its delegate, Leorza, would act as go-between for the Celestials and the government to work out an agreement satisfactory to both parties. Said delegate celebrated his victory with an old friend, but she did not seem to share his delight.

"Don't tell me you wanted them all to die, Nona," Leorza prodded gently; they had left the ship with permission from her companions and sat on the beach watching the vessel bob up and down instead.

While she looked perfectly natural sitting reflectively on the sand, her elder companion stood out awkwardly, pristinely slicked snowy hair and mustache more suited for some dark drawing room than the outside elements. "No, I'm glad we'll be able to help someone for real at last," she conceded without looking at him. "You know what's bothering me."

"Much to my chagrin, I assure you. Nona...why don't you trust me any more?"

"You helped my brother. You helped my son. Both of them were hurt so badly, so badly..." She ignored a single tear sliding down her cheek in the hope that failing to acknowledge it would make it somehow disappear. "And you make me think about it."

"Nona, dear, you can't blame me for helping my friends." He took out his handkerchief and blotted away the tear for her; she flinched at his touch. "And whose fault is it that your son suffered, hmm?"

"It can't be me," she insisted stonily. "Don't say things like that. It was you. You and your stupid machine...and Marius...you..."

"Marius had to end like that, Nona." His words were gentle, but their meaning cut at her. "Besides, all that is behind you now. You tired of it. You missed your real family. Aren't you happier now? I want you to be happy, Nona."

"I'm happy." She didn't sound it. "And so are my sons. Both of them are very, very happy."

"I'm sure."

"Leorza, what do you want me to believe?" She turned to him desperately. "Do you want to console me or hurt me?"

"Which do you want, Nona?"

She closed her eyes. "I want you to go away." Her eternal solution to every problem.

He stood in compliance. "I'm still your friend, Nona. I always have been. Please don't forget that." With that, he walked away, hands in his pockets.

Lying back on the sand, she stared up at the sun and fingered the amulet around her neck. She could feel the motion of the waves thrumming through her body, delighted in the warm sunlight like a lizard on a rock. One with her surroundings, her mind slipped away as the amulet pulsed in her fingers.

"I'm happy..." she whispered through tears as she let herself go. "I have to be."

o0o0o0o0o0o0

Though he'd been in many a fistfight before, Daisuke had never had an audience before and found it both exhilarating and annoying. Exhilarating, because those who cheered for him boosted his already considerable confidence. Annoying, because the other half of the arena kept trying to distract him. After all, they had money resting against him.

"Damn, you're slow!" Whipping his hips around, his foot connected solidly with his opponent's head; metal crunched beneath the impact, and the machine staggered. Behind it, another android readied the finishing punch and delivered, splintering skin and pistons as Daisuke's opponent dropped with a hole through its back. Half the stadium went wild as Daisuke mopped his brow and flashed the crowd a grin; the other yelled curses and threats. They'd lost a lot of money on the last fight, and would have to bet even more on the next one to save face.

"Not bad," said the woman with the lab coat, coming up to him to raise his arm in victory but jotting notes on her clipboard first. As she held his arm aloft, declaring 'D' and his partner the winners of yet another bout, she asked him, "How did the last one feel?"

"He's no J," Daisuke admitted, nodding at the machine who'd delivered the final blow. "But he ain't bad. His reflexes could be a little better; he doesn't pick up on tactics too quickly. It's an AI bug more than a physical thing."

"I see." He seemed to be breathing more heavily than he had before. "Do you need a break? I have enough data to start experimenting with the next level now."

"Well, lady, that depends on what 'next level' means," Daisuke replied offhandedly. "Care to clarify?"

"Usagi gets a chance to play with the machines while you help me pair her with one."

"Sounds good to me." Letting himself pant a little more now that he was out of immediate danger, he strolled over to the sidelines where the blue-haired girl had been watching him expressionlessly. "Hey, Usagi. Your turn, if that's okay."

"Very well." Her eyes closed, her swords appeared. "Where is the enemy?"

"Hold on. They're coming."

"...and in the next battle, this small girl will take on the Flower of Death!" The woman in the lab coat was yelling into a microphone. "All bets close three minutes in!"

"I will finish it in two," Usagi murmured, walking trancelike into the ring. Daisuke hollered at her back that she'd better not, because then all the criminals would get angry, and flopped down on the bench she had vacated.

The woman joined him shortly afterwards. "Just tell me what you notice about the way she works with her machine, Daisuke. I want this to be flawless."

"Um, if I pick right, do I get to leave?" He dared to question his fate. "I mean, I've been at this for over an hour and I still don't know my stakes in all this. I've just been following your plan though you haven't really told me anything, even your name."

"Most call me Baroness." She smiled at him, ran a painted fingernail down his cheek teasingly. "But you can call me Trinity."

"Leorza's pal?"

"He spoke of me?" The fight began, with Usagi and the machine Daisuke had been partnered to combating a grossly female android. "Hopefully he was kind, the naughty boy. Anyway, the plans for you...there aren't any, really. I'm hoping you'll decide to stick around once I'm through with you, though. Thus far I'm finding you to be quite entertaining. This is becoming one of the biggest attractions we've pulled in a long time, and considering how little advance notice everyone was given I'd say it's a huge success. You could settle down here very comfortably. I would make it worth your while."

"But if I decide to go instead? If I decide to visit my mother or head back to my hometown?"

She smiled, playing with a button on her coat, then to give her fingers something to do lit a cigarette. In the arena, Usagi thrust her blades through the enemy machine's head: one minute, forty-seven seconds. "You won't."

o0o0o0o0o0o0

The floor buckled, the sky flashed and crashed, and Monica bit off a scream as she covered her head with a blanket. "We will arrive in Magnagalia in approximately twelve hours," J had reported earlier that night when the little rescue group had checked up on him. "Sailing has been smooth but storms now seem imminent. I will adjust our speed appropriately." At the time she'd scoffed at the idea of a storm stopping them. Now she was foreseeing her death, penniless and forgotten, at the bottom of the lonely ocean floor. She didn't want to die, not yet, not while her mother still needed her and while she remained poor!

She didn't want to be afraid of the storm, either; that was something to which only snotty-nosed little kids fell victim. But as the yacht jumped and bobbed in the roiling waters, still moving at a heady clip towards its destination, she screwed her eyes shut against the flashes of light visible through her porthole window. The thunder bore down on her, clawing across her eardrums and resonating through her bones; gritting her teeth, she shivered. And she'd thought herself fearless! Breaking Daisuke out of Magnagalia would seem like child's play in comparison to surviving this night. Assuming, of course, she survived at all.

Lots of storms had hit Judoh, of course; she had weathered them in the wagon with little difficulty, making shadow puppets against the lightning backdrop to amuse her mother and herself while poor Parsley stood soaking in the rain, placid even as the elements argued overhead. She wanted him around now, wanted to stroke his stubbly fur and breathe in his dusky but reassuring smell. Parsley, to her, smelled like home. And in the light of the bolts teasing the water outside, home could not have been farther away.

The light flashed in the porthole again, and in shrinking away from it Monica slid off the bed and landed with a thud on the rocking cabin floor. Rubbing her sore bottom and wrapping herself in her sheet, she shakily made her way to the door. She'd weather the storm in the hallway, where she couldn't see outside. Then it wouldn't all seem so real and vivid.

Oh, who was she kidding? What good was there in denying the facts? No ship could survive in weather like this. They were going to die, and because they died, Daisuke would die, and then back on Judoh her mother would die not knowing what had happened to her daughter. And Ken would die angry at her for hurting her mother. And Parsley would die because he was only an animal and animals did not live very long, but with her dead at sea no one would see to it that he got a proper grave for people to put flowers on and everything.

The world was so small seen through the lens of mortality, especially for a eleven-year-old child. As she choked back sobs, tears began to run down her pale sweaty face; hiccuping, she wiped her face and looked up into scruffy green eyes.

"Hey, hey, little lady. What's the matter?" Giovanni knelt and teased away the tears in the corners of her eyes with the corner of his sheet. "Don't like thunder?"

"That's none of your business," she tried to snap, but her angry tone lacked force. "Go back to bed. What are you doing up?"

Giovanni hefted a glass in one hand. "Vampire wanted something to drink. I'll be right back." Standing, he made his way to the master bedroom door and, opening it, sidled in. It closed with a snap behind him, and Monica threw the sheet over her head again. There. Now the world had gone away.

A horrific crash overhead jolted through her entire body, yanking a cry from lips resolved to dumbness. Had she thought herself tough, a realist well-jaded by the world and proud of it? No, when the chips were down, Monica lost every bet that mattered. She was a hysterical coward, the worst kind of lily-livered scum on earth. The lowest of the low. It was just as well she was going to die. No one back home would ever know how badly she had failed them.

"Playing hide-and-seek? I found you. You're it now. Count to twenty, little lady." Giovanni pulled the sheet off her curled-up body; she made an indignant half-growl, half-squeal and grabbed for the fabric. He, however, held it far above her head in a taunting manner. "Go on, count. I swear I'll hide."

"No thanks. I don't play baby games. Give that back." She stood on quivering legs, well aware her knees were beating a shaky rhythm as they knocked against each other. The boat heaved as she lunged for the sheet, knocking her into him with a cry; he grabbed her, dropping to one knee, and held her close until the rocking subsided.

"You're a lousy actress," he told her, handing the sheet back. "Give it up, okay?"

"I've already given up," Monica whimpered, downcast. "We're going to die."

"Hey, hey." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Have a little more faith in the old man, eh? He won't let us go under. Don't you believe in your friend?"

"J's not perfect," corrected Monica sadly. "He can't do everything. He can't fight nature and win."

"Aw, c'mon kid." The hand on her shoulder moved up to her head, ruffled her hair. "If you keep frowning, your pretty little face is gonna stay that way. Tell you what. I'll cut you a deal. You come back to my place, and if it looks like we're going down, I'll carry you to the lifeboat in one arm while I've got Vampire in the other. What do you say?"

"Clair's too heavy to carry in one arm," she sniffed derisively. He sighed.

"You'd be surprised, actually...at the very least, you wouldn't be weathering the thing alone. Look. You haven't noticed the storm while you were talking to me, right?"

As she opened her mouth to reply, the booming thunder cut her off and she reconsidered. Seeing the perplexed look cross her face, he smiled and lifted her in his arms. "I won't use only one just yet," he told her. "Save that for emergencies. Jeez, little lady, I think Vampire is actually lighter than you. What are you hiding under that dress?"

She stuck her tongue out at him but held on tight. "Clair's not allowed to find out about this," she warned him stiffly. "I don't want to be laughed at."

"Not a word," the bodyguard promised. "To be honest, I don't want to be laughed at either. And can you imagine what this would do for my family image?"

Thinking about the man walking into a Company Vita meeting holding her in his arms, she giggled. "The public loves sappy stories," she informed him. "It might actually help in some circles."

"What, Mafia Consoles Desolate Child, so Let's All Let Them Embezzle The Hell Out Of Us?" He grinned. "With a picture of Vampire playing on the swings."

"He doesn't!"

"Like I said, you'd be surprised." Talking about nothing, they walked to his room together and shut the door behind them. In the hall outside, the storm still boiled and roared. But to Monica, its appetite had somehow lessened.

O0o0o0o0o0

Faintly Usagi became aware of a rushing sound through her ears; blinking and returning to the waking world, it distorted and became wild applause. Strewn around her in the arena were still-whirring but dismembered machine parts, oil slicking the ground and staining her boots.

Surveying the crowd staring down at her in awe and exaltation, she turned solemnly to the dark-skinned, muscular man wiping oil off his own hands. Gears whirring as his joints moved, he met her eyes and grinned a predator's smile. "Well done, partner. Master will be pleased."

"Partner?" She knew the world, dimly, but could not comprehend why this machine-man would use it to describe her. On the bench next to the arena the boy Daisuke Aurora sat in dumbfounded shock; she must have done an exceptionally good job to strike him wordless, she decided. Master's associate, clutching a clipboard close to her bosom, came rushing over to throw Usagi's arm up in the air, addressing the crowd.

"And the final victor of the evening—Usagi the Wolf's Prize and her partner, Grendel the Steel Giant!"

So his name was Grendel. She didn't care much for him, distrusted the wildness in his eyes, artificially-created or not. His leering grin reminded her too much of those idiots who...those men from a long time ago whose faces, if she concentrated through the haze, she could almost remember. She had hated those men, then. Now she had no room within her for hate. Now she only had peace and contentment. For that, she had her master to thank.

"May I return to my master now, Baroness?" she asked the woman. Tilting her head, the dark-haired beauty considered the query, licking her lips thoughtfully. Usagi waited impassively for a reply.

Finally, she got it. "I suppose so," Baroness decided. "Well done today, Usagi. Come back tomorrow for Grendel's tune-up. We've got a lot of work to do before you two will really be ready to serve. But soon—I'll make you one of the most well-known people in the whole syndicate. Won't you like that?"

"I do not know," replied the girl truthfully. "Should I tend to Daisuke Aurora as well?"

"Who?...Oh, him. No, I haven't quite decided where to throw him yet. Go back to Leorza now, celebrate his victory over the Celestials. Be a dear and tell him I want to see him soon, won't you?"

"I shall report it immediately," Usagi promised before fading into the shadows. Trinity, still in the center of the arena, watched the patch of darkness until she was certain the girl had gone, then turned her sultry gaze to where Daisuke sat, seemingly at ease but most likely planning his escape. No, Leorza had made only one mistake in his little mistake. He'd left Nona's son in the hands of the syndicate. And she'd heard enough about Nona to make her sick. She wanted the damn fool of a woman to suffer for being such a stupid hussy, holy Celestial or not. And if the son suffered, and the mother found out...

She couldn't reveal her treatment of him until Magnagalia was well out of danger. But there were ways of making people keep silent. Nona Aurora would meet her beloved son again whether she wanted to or not, thanks to the genuine concern of a dedicated citizen committed to restoring broken homes.

But first Trinity and her pet projects would have a little more fun with the boy. And no one who played with Trinity's toys ever came out wanting to repeat the playdate.