Tamayo: Baka! This ain't the Oscars, you know!
Ritsuko: Omedetou, Bakacal san. Congratulations on your first year at fanfiction dot net!
Bakacal: In any case, two important dates for Bakacal fan(s) out there: my birthday was on May 18, and my first anniversary on fanfiction dot net is on the 21st. Without any further ado, let's start the show with an extra long anniversary chapter!
Disclaimer: (sung by Eric Idle) Always look on the bright side of non ownership, since Bakacal owns nothing except his own characters and stuff.
Battle Six
Fallen Devil
Friday evening
The Piffle Princess store in Honolulu
Chris Soryu gave a strained smile as he maneuvered the aging Dodge Police Interceptor into a parking spot. At least he hadn't hit anything. He quietly rolled into an angled parking space as he set the parking brake, shifted to "park", and cut the engine.
This was not a car he would have purchased of his own volition. It was literally a relic from the days of low fuel prices and lax environmental standards. Ironically, it was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" in a certain sense, as it had belonged to the Honolulu Police Department until budget concerns forced a sale to an obscure company called "Piffle Princess" as a company car. Unfortunately, even after all the time that had passed, the company had yet to get rid of this gas guzzling tank, and it once again passed into the hands of a PP employee on official business.
"I swear I'm putting some Chevron executive's kid through college," said Chris as he stepped out of the car. "I've seen tanks with better gas mileage." May stepped out of the other side and nodded.
"Come on, otousan," she said. "Chief Icchan's got a job for us to do. Look, the police are here already." She pointed to five Honolulu police officers, most of them surprised at the Asian man who was carrying a small doll in his hands. They were even more surprised when a girl who looked like she was still in grade school stepped out of the car, also with a doll in her hands. Chris smiled as he approached the officers.
"Christopher Soryu, Piffle Princess," he said as he handed his ID card to one of the policemen, who nodded. "This is my daughter, May. We're here to support you." The rest of the police officers nodded somewhat unenthusiastically.
"I'm Lieutenant Rachel Tyler," said a tall policewoman. "I'm leading the operation. Good to have you aboard, Mr. Soryu, May."
"What the heck are they thinking?" one of the policemen asked another in a soft whisper. "Sending some old Asian guy and his grade school daughter to support us? And they're armed with dolls, for Ford's sake." A short policewoman with "L. Hasegawa" on her nameplate shook her head.
"Haven't you ever seen any kung fu movies, Davis?" she asked her colleague. "The old guy and his students are always the best fighters." Chris grimaced.
"I'm not even fifty," he said. "I'm still young." May and the officers chuckled.
"Still," said Davis, "you're armed with dolls. How do you expect to support us?" Chris smiled.
"When you're dealing with doll fanatics, you need doll experts," he said. "Chief Icchan decided that it would be best to have a skilled deus participate in the operations." Lieutenant Tyler nodded.
"You know how to handle police operations, right?" she asked. Chris shrugged.
"I spent five years as an officer in the Navy, and May has some skill at fencing," he offered. Tyler smiled.
"Good enough, for two civilians, I guess," she said. She looked at May.
"How old are you?" she asked politely. May beamed.
"I'm a sophomore at Cal State Hayward," she answered cheerfully. "I just turned twenty!" Tyler's jaw dropped.
"You're not serious," she gaped. May shook her head.
"Nope!" she said. "I just turned twenty last June!" Hasegawa smiled.
"You've certainly aged well," she said. "You don't look a day past eleven." Davis was more direct.
"You're such a shrimp!" he exclaimed, kneeling next to May and putting his hand on her head. "Do you have to sit on phone books in class?" May blushed. Chris started as he heard a car engine quickly revving in the distance.
"Did you hear that?" he asked. Tyler nodded.
"That's got to be an SUV, sometime within the last ten years," she said. "Load up!" she called as she pulled her standard issue revolver from her holster and loaded it. Hasegawa and the other officers did the same as Davis retrieved and loaded a shotgun from the police van. Chris assumed a fighting stance as May went behind a bush and picked up a long stout stick.
"Stay back," Chris warned his daughter as they heard a loud crashing sound and the squeal of tires. Within a second, a black SUV dragging pieces of wood careened into the parking lot, shaving the rear end off of Chris's Interceptor and narrowly missing the police van as it made a dangerously fast turn. Tyler nodded.
"Davis, now!" she ordered. Davis acknowledged with a quick nod and fired several shots at the SUV, knocking out several side windows and popping the right front tire. The hulking vehicle seemed to lose speed immediately, and when it crashed into the building, the officers quickly and efficiently surrounded it.
"Out of the car, now!" shouted Tyler as the officers held their guns ready. A teenager scrambled out of the shattered rear window and attempted to run for the road. Within a heartbeat, Chris was on top of him. The teenager turned and threw a punch, but with a quick block and a flick of his wrist, Chris was in control of the situation and the teen was forced to the ground, his arm twisted behind him. As Hasegawa handcuffed the juvenile offender and escorted him to the police van, two more boys attempted to flee the scene by breaking out of the back of the van. Davis fired a warning shot with the shotgun, then took aim.
One of the boys drew a pistol and fired twice at Davis, hitting him in the chest both times. As Davis fell, he fired once, knocking the armed boy to the ground and peppering his front side with shot. Tyler aimed and fired, felling the other boy with one shot.
Three more boys ran out of the wrecked van and into the store. As two of the officers followed them, several shots were fired. No one was hit, but the officers returned fire, putting several holes in the building. The boys proceeded to knock merchandise from the shelves and then took cover in a back room. Chris nodded as he ran to the scene.
"Damn," he though as the officers reloaded their weapons. When they had finished, they rushed in. Several gunshots rang out and one of the officers was knocked to the ground before he reached the door. The other fired two shots into the building before retreating. The front window exploded in a shower of glass as gunshots from the inside broke through. Chris ran to the fallen officer and dragged him along the ground, out of the line of fire from the building. He then ran into the building and took cover behind a service counter as gunshots rang out. As he pulled a small knife from his pocket, he saw a small doll moving along the ground. It reached the end of the counters, turned, saw Chris, and charged. Chris instantly recognized it as an angel. As he looked to the wall of the store, he could see in the semi darkness white glowing lights on a plastic cube about one foot on each side.
"A layer generator," he thought as the angel jumped up. He dropped the knife and caught the angel with his hand and gave it a good squeeze, careful not to break it. It began to struggle.
Layer generators were devices that could be used to create layers anywhere. By making angels within a certain area respond to signals from angel visors, it could create an area in which battles could be fought. By placing obstacles in the area, any layer environment could be simulated.
He pulled his own angel from his jacket. This male angel was clothed in a white shirt decorated with light blue swirls, a navy blue haramaki, a pair of navy blue slacks, and wore brown shoes on its feet. A small blue hat shaped like a teardrop sat atop its head. It was armed with a blue katana with a wave design on the blade and a blue shield painted with a reproduction of a Hokusai print of crashing waves with Mt. Fuji in the background.
"Go, Typhoon!" he called as he tossed the angel onto the floor and whipped a collapsible visor from his coat pocket. "Let the storming wind be your foe's requiem!" After he tossed his angel, he released the opposing angel and took refuge behind several overturned boxes. Even if her could not physically see, from the visor he could see what Typhoon saw.
His first order of business was to disable the first angel, the one he had released. Typhoon quickly charged and elbowed the opposing angel in the face. Using the opponent's head as a springboard and Typhoon's forearm to push it, Chris's angel propelled itself up and performed an airborne backflip before coming down hard with the katana. The blow went straight down and knocked the enemy to his knees with one hit. On his visor, Chris could see that the enemy angel's health was at 2 percent. He kept on his guard as the opposing angel attempted to stand.
He heard the gunshot and quickly moved Typhoon to avoid the attack. On his left, on top of a pile of angel eggs that had been knocked off the shelf, he could see an angel standing with a smoking rifle. Unlike tournament sanctioned weapons, this was designed to shoot small pieces of metal and was clearly not an official Piffle Princess weapon.
At least not one that was sold in stores.
Typhoon took cover behind a collection of collapsed boxes and pulled a small pistol from the haramaki. Like the opposing angel's rifle, it was designed to shoot small pieces of metal. However, as an official employee on law enforcement duties, Chris was allowed to carry a gun and equip his angel with firearms while his opponent was not. Despite this, Chris preferred using nondamaging means to apprehend criminals such as the Angelic Devils.
He waited for two seconds, then quickly moved Typhoon out from the boxes and aimed. The opposing angel fired several shots that Typhoon easily dodged while still staying locked on. As he was about to pull the trigger, though, the opposing angel fell from its perch and was replaced by a white angel in a white leotard and a white cloak. The white angel carried a rapier and a small circular shield and struck a pose before it was toppled by a third angel.
"Ack!" Chris heard a familiar voice. "I fell!" Chris sighed.
"May, I thought I told you to get someplace safe." May chuckled.
"Yeah right," she said. "I can help out too, you know." Gunshots rang out as the two angels took cover behind the same pile of boxes.
"You all right?" Chris asked his daughter. Her angel struck a confident pose.
"Yukikaze can handle anything," he heard her say as the three opposing angels gathered together. All three carried long rifles that had obviously been illegally acquired. They seemed to not know where their targets were.
"Right," said Chris as the three angels formed themselves into a circle defense position. He nodded and Typhoon charged with the katana. It quickly disarmed the previously damaged angel and finished it with one hit. The other two angels attempted to counter the sudden attack, but their rifles were made useless by the proximity of their enemy. They fired wildly for a second before they were silenced by several quick swordstrokes from Typhoon.
"Hey!" cried May in indignation. "Where's my share?" Chris chuckled as several more angels were thrown in from the direction of the back of the store.
"Incoming," he called as three more angels landed. May crooned.
"Yay!" she exclaimed as Yukikaze charged forward. The fencer angel quickly engaged one of the opposing angels. Yukikaze lunged with the rapier and landed a hit on the chest before its opponent could react. With a graceful series of sword strokes, Yukikaze maneuvered the enemy back and back before using the shield to push it into an avalanche of boxes. The enemy angel quickly tore through the cardboard prison and charged. Yukikaze dodged and clobbered it on the head with the shield. The enemy angel went down. Chris nodded and stood up.
"I'll go to the back," he said. "May, keep those angels busy." May nodded and grinned.
"No problem," she answered. "Go for it!" Chris nodded and, using the counters and shelves for cover, made his way to the back of the store. He spotted the closed door and, quickly apologizing to Icchan, ran in and kicked down the door.
The three boys in the back of the store seemed surprised at Chris's sudden intrusion, but quickly drew pistols and fired several poorly aimed shots before attempting to run. Chris quickly overtook one of the boys, who turned and attempted to punch him. Chris dodged to the right and landed a disabling blow to the boy's stomach with the flat edge of his left hand. As the boy doubled over, another boy turned and fired a shot at Chris, who easily dodged to the left. Chris then knocked the gun out of the boy's hand with one well aimed attack and sent him to the ground, clutching his head, with another. The last boy tried to tackle Chris, but the former Navy officer used his arms to protect his face and slammed the boy against the wall, knocking him out in the process. When Chris backed away, the boy slid down and landed in a heap on the floor. Chris nodded decisively.
"All clear!" he shouted. Within a few minutes, Tyler and Hasegawa took charge of the situation and the boys were in handcuffs. As Tyler covered them with the shotgun, Hasegawa and Chris went to retrieve the two bodies in the parking lot. May and another officer tended to Davis as the last officer spoke on a radio. Chris took the pulse of one of the boys. The boy gasped.
"Momma," he whimpered. "Momma..." Chris nodded
"You're gonna be okay, kid," he lied softly. The boy smiled and closed his eyes.
Several years prior
"Mister...um, Sooriu?"
"Soryu."
"Right. Lieutenant Johnson will see you now."
"Thank you."
Chris stood up from the leather couch and pushed past a door that read "Intensive Care Unit, authorized personnel only". He saw the police officer standing beside the bed. He saluted when Chris entered.
"Lieutenant Mark Johnson of the California Highway Patrol, I assume?" Chris said. The officer nodded.
"I'm Ensign Soryu, U.S. Navy," Chris continued. "I was told you have information on the..." He paused for a moment.
"Incident," Chris said finally. Johnson nodded.
"Around noon yesterday, Seaman Antonio Henderson was on the campus of Pacific High School in San Leandro on his normal recruiting rounds. During the lunch hour, there was an incident in which a student smuggled a small firearm onto the campus and began firing randomly. Regrettably, Seaman Henderson was caught in the crossfire." Chris nodded.
"May I see him?" he asked. Johnson nodded. Chris thanked the officer and pulled up a chair next to the bed. Johnson handed him a manila folder, which Chris opened and read to himself.
"I see," he said after a few minutes. He leaned over, close to the prone form of Seaman Henderson.
"You're gonna be okay, kid," he lied softly. Henderson's skull had been easily punctured by a stray bullet, and, having had a summer job at a local hospital in his high school days, Chris knew enough about the human body to know when a gunshot victim was doomed. Seaman Henderson smiled and closed his eyes.
"Thank you, sir," he said as he tried to bring his hand to a salute.
Several days later
"Are you sure about this, Chris?" asked the admiral as he finished reading the letter that Chris had handed to him. Chris nodded.
"I'm positive, sir. I've done my time. My work is done." The admiral sighed.
"I'd feel a lot better if you stayed on, you know. You've gotten to be a pretty good recruiter and a fine programmer."
"I know, sir. You keep telling me."
"Right." There was a brief pause before Chris spoke.
"Sir?" The admiral shook his head.
"Go ahead. I can't stop you. Just...take care of yourself, okay? And don't try to do anything to hurt our recruiting efforts." Chris smiled.
"I understand, sir. Here." The lone gold bar of an ensign clinked on the desk as Chris removed it from his collar and placed it there. The admiral nodded.
"You know where you're going, son?" he asked. Chris nodded.
"Back to Hawaii, sir," he said. "I've got family there, after all." The admiral sighed.
"I'll miss you," he told Chris. Ensign Christopher Soryu saluted for the last time as a member of the United States Navy.
"Sir! Thank you, sir!" The admiral waved him off.
"See you around, Chris."
"You too, sir."
The day after that
"Sir?"
Chris regained consciousness as he felt pain shoot through his legs. He shut his eyes in an attempt to shut out the pain. The orderly nodded as Chris came to.
"Ensign, um..." The orderly struggled to pronounce the name.
"Soryu."
"Eh?
"That's my name," said Chris. "And don't call me ensign. I quit today."
"Yesterday, more like," the orderly answered. "You've been out for almost twenty hours from the morphine since, well..." The orderly showed Chris the accident report. Chris sweat dropped.
"Great," he said. "Just great. Surviving five years in the Navy to be done in by a bicycle. I think my pride hurts more than my legs."
The white space faded out as the parking lot came back into view.
"He's a goner," Chris said with finality as he examined the wound. It was a clean shot to the head that had punctured the skull with minimal tumbling. The hole was thankfully not much larger than the bullet itself and his face was smiling from the endorphins to raise the pain threshold, so the boy would most likely die with minimal pain. His brown hair was matted with blood. Hasegawa examined the boy who had been wounded with the shotgun.
"This one's still breathing," she called to Chris as she stood up. "He looks like Swiss cheese, but he'll pull through." Chris nodded weakly.
"Six Angelic Devils, one crashed SUV, one killed and one wounded by gunshots, one officer wounded, one Dodge Police Interceptor trashed," Chris reeled off as he rolled his eyes. They walked to the officer tending Davis as the officer on the radio nodded and ran to them.
"HQ's got a paddy wagon en route now," he told them. The officer tending Davis nodded.
"Tell them to get an ambulance as well," he said. "If I saw right, we have four gunshot victims." Chris nodded.
"One of the boys is dead," he said. "How's he pulling through?" he asked, indicating Davis's motionless body. May smiled.
"He's unconscious, but his vitals are pretty good for someone who got shot in the chest," she told him. "As far as I can tell, he hasn't gone into shock, and the bullets haven't hit any vital organs. The other officer is okay, just scared out his wits." Hasegawa sighed.
"That's a relief," she said as a large van with "Honolulu Police" on the side rolled into the parking lot. The four prisoners without gunshot wounds were loaded and carted away. Within a few minutes that felt like hours, they could hear the blades of a helicopter approaching. It was obvious that dispatch had alerted the nearest large hospital to the incident.
They loaded the bodies and watched as the helicopter took off into the night sky. Chris went behind a bush at the edge of the parking lot and, after looking around to be sure that no one was watching, vomited.
Later that evening, Honolulu Police Department
"And that's what happened, officer," Chris said before taking another sip of tea. The officer nodded as he continued to type.
"That's about it for the report," he said. "Wanna make a statement?" Chris put down the mug of tea and nodded.
"I'm too old to be playing Rambo?" He said as he massaged his leg. It never really fully healed after the run in he had with the bicycle in front of the naval base, and his actions earlier that night had put a slight strain on it. The two men laughed at Chris's joke.
"I suppose I'd better get back home, then," he said, checking his slightly outdated analog watch. "It's late as it is, and the Interceptor's a complete write off."
"Not to worry. Rach'll give you a ride." Chris blinked. The officer smiled.
"I know you just saw her shoot to kill," said the officer, noticing the look of shock and apprehension on Chris's face, "but she's a good person. Trust her." Chris nodded.
"You say that like I have a choice," he told the officer, who grinned.
"Don't tell her I said this," he whispered to Chris, "but she's really scary when she gets mad. Not to mention she's got ears from hell." Chris looked past the officer's shoulder and winced as a fist came down on the officer's head. The officer grimaced as Rachel stood grinning broadly, her fist seemingly planted in the officer's skull.
"Is it that bad to have ears from hell?" she asked as she moved her fist from side to side. Chris nodded and stood up, taking his angel from the desk as did so.
"Let's go," he said.
A darkened room somewhere in Honolulu, Hawaii
: So, Percy has failed, has he?
: Yes. He was killed, and the other five have been captured by the local police. The group stole nothing of value.
: No matter. He was only a small fry anyway. The raid was insignificant. WE already have what we need.
: ...
: This is getting interesting. I will have to pay a visit myself.
: Shall we move forward with the plan?
: Yes.
: If we can sabotage the opening ceremonies tomorrow...
: No. WHEN we sabotage the ceremonies tomorrow, our mission will be complete.
: Our conquest of Angelic Layer will be complete.
: True enough. Vaccines have been distributed, and the you-know-what is ready. Tomorrow, playtime is over, and the real war begins.
: Yes!
Bakacal: Well, this chapter gave some insight into why Chris left the Navy. We also learn absolutely nothing about the Angelic Devils. In the next chapter, the Opening Ceremonies began in earnest, and some of the old legends (as described in Motokonobaka's works) will appear. Go Kurokoneko! As always, reviews, suggestions, and flames are welcomed.