Alana's World Tour: Roanapur
Chapter 3: Enter Shenhua, the knife wielding assassin
Disclaimer: I do not own Black Lagoon or the concept of Intelligent Devices
Dutch explained what happened to Balalaika about the yacht and informed her it was sitting at the dock next to the Black Lagoon, when Alana interjected and said that it was also next to her own yacht.
"Hmm" the Russian woman mused. "I'm impressed. I would have expected Two Hands to sink it."
"She would have, but Alana thought it would be a waste of a good boat."
"We'll discuss who gets the boat later. Right now, Mr. Chang wants to speak with you. Said it was pretty urgent."
"Mr. Chang?" Alana asked the hacker.
"Leader of the Triads here in Roanapur." Benny answered.
"Yes. He wants you to do a job for him." Balalaika said.
"What's the pay?" Dutch asked.
"100,000. American."
"Up-front, or all totaled?" Revy asked.
"Up front." she said. "Twice that once the job is complete."
"Cool." Revy said as she downed the cognac.
With the major business aside, Balalaika turned her attention to the young woman who had come in with them and spoken only once during the talks.
"Who's the woman?" she asked.
"She's a childhood friend of mine." Rock replied.
"Really?" she asked. "What's her name?"
"Alana Helsing."
"So she's the one we're talking about. But her name sounds so familiar, where have I heard it from before?"
"She is the heiress to the Helsing Clan." Dutch said, somewhat quickly.
Balalaika had to restrain her eyes from going wide at that news though she said "Alright then, that explains that. The Helsing Clan rose to power over 20 years ago in North America, something about vampires, just a load of bullshit if you ask me. Does she have any special skills?"
"She's a martial arts expert with additional training in firearms."
"Really? Any good?"
The group looked at each other, as if trying not to laugh.
"Test her." Dutch remarked.
Balalaika silently motioned for three of her men to move on the woman. Rock only had a second to make the same motion towards his childhood friend, before all hell broke loose. The three men, all highly skilled, fully trained soldiers who had been trained by Balalaika for years, lunged at the woman in an attempt to take her down.
Alana merely flexed the fingers on her right hand, a quick shimmer revealing her wires as they shot around one man and he suddenly attacked his two compatriots. "What the hell is going on?" one of them said in surprise as the two guys turned on their comrade in an attempt to put him down without killing him. Rock looked at Alana and he noticed her fingers moving in a way like that of a puppet master but extremely quickly, every little movement of her fingers controlling the soldier that her wires had wrapped around as he was forced to fight his comrades, ducking, dodging, weaving, attacking and countering, until finally the two men collapsed and the lone one that remained standing dropped like a brick as Alana used her wires one last time before they came undone and returned to her gloves.
Balalaika just stared in shock as her men fell unconscious to the ground. She turned to the Lagoon couriers and raised an eyebrow.
"How the hell can you afford her?" she asked.
"She's my childhood friend." Rock replied.
And here I thought Rock couldn't get any more useful. She thought as she looked at her men. And I guess I'll have to cut out the red meat for them.
Of course Balalaika had no way of knowing that Alana's wires were the catalyst to take control of that man's mind so as to control his body as if it were her own to take those tough men down. The regular street fighters in Argall would have been able to hold their own against the men, but that was because Argall street fighters at one point or another spent weeks at a time in one fight after another. That in and of itself made strength, skill, and discipline a necessity, especially with vampires and werewolves regularly competing alongside humans.
The group went to see Bai Ji-shin Chang of the Triads, more commonly referred to as Mr. Chang, although teased by Balalaika with the name "Babe", at his place of business.
While the group was having lunch, Alana took notice of the very attractive Taiwanese knife fighter who stood just behind Mr. Chang. She looked like either a bodyguard or assistant, but she got the feeling that there was a lot more to the knife fighter than met the eye.
Alana took short glances at the woman. She was taller than Revy, with a curvacious, slender build and long legs. She was dressed in an ankle-length reddish-purple cheongsam, cut high over the thighs which had a pair of high leg-straps on them with small knives hooked to them. She wore a loose long-sleeved white jacket with gold trim and red slippers on her feet. Her hair was long with a greenish tint to it, stretching down her back in a long ponytail, with part of her hair draped over the right side of her face. Her features were rather sharp, her makeup applied perfectly over her slim, delicate-looking bone structure, her eyes were a dark green, and held an aura of fierceness in them.
Shenhua stared at the woman in return. She was equal in height to Revy, but seemed younger. She was dressed simple: black t-shirt, shoulder holsters carrying two massive pistols, white gloves, white pants, ruby red belt with a katana and wakizashi at her waist, and black riding boots that went to just below her knees. Her arms were slim but toned, revealing she had considerable strength. Her features were beautiful and graceful to such an extent that Shenhua felt she couldn't be human, as though she had never been in a fight in her life. But her blue eyes, if one looked deep enough, held the spirit of a noble warrior. That told her that she had been in more than her share of fights.
There was an unspoken message that passed between them, as if they were telepathically saying 'hello' to each other, though in Alana's case, that was true.
Rock seemed to be the only one to notice the pair's eyes locking with each other on occasion. He actually smiled at seeing that Alana had interest in making an additional friend and ally in Shenhua.
"So what is the job, sir" Revy asked the Triad leader.
"It's a rescue mission." Mr. Chang replied.
Revy and the others looked at each other, naturally confused.
"A rescue mission?" Rock asked.
"Yes."
"You want us to rescue someone?" Dutch asked.
"Yes." Mr. Chang replied.
Alana knew what this was leading up to so she entered the conversation. "What seems to be the problem?"
"This." Mr. Chang said as he pulled a picture of an adolescent girl out of his pocket and placed it on the table. "Several weeks ago, the daughter of a Triad boss from Hong Kong was kidnapped by rogue agents. They are holding her for ransom here in Roanapur."
"And you have no intention of paying." Revy said as Rock looked at the picture.
"We can pay, but we won't. Because of who is involved." Mr. Chang replied.
"What do you mean?" Rock asked.
"The leader of this group is one of my former Lieutenants. I trained him." Mr. Chang answered, then shivered when he felt a massive increase in dark power coming from Alana as her hair began to pulse from red to black and her eyes from blue to ruby red. The air around her was starting to darken as well, casting her eyes in a very unsettling veil of shadow as they began to glow. Luckily Rock was able to keep his cool as he asked "What's his name?"
"Gang" he said after he calmed down.
"How good is he?" Revy asked.
"If he's kept up his practice, he is in equal skill to you, Revy." Chang replied.
"I see." Revy replied.
Alana looked at the female gunfighter, and actually found her shaken. She didn't wonder why, Revy had a very distinct desire to keep on living, regardless of how she came off as not caring to those who knew her.
"The Hong Kong leader wants his daughter back without a mark. Alive and breathing. I need you all to be at your best on this. Understood?"
"Of course." Rock replied. "Where is the girl being held?"
"Shenhua knows where. You will be working for her for this." Chang said.
"Alright then, let's get going." Rock said. Alana had no complaints, she was simply awaiting the chance to show the traitors the traditional punishment for such an effrontery.
Locating the hideout wasn't as easy as the group intended. Mostly because it was right in plain view of everything. A small warehouse on the East side of the city. Alana had to inwardly praise the ingenuity Gang possessed, as the most unexpected place to hide was in plain sight.
"Well this is cute." Dutch quipped.
"How many entrances and exits?" Revy asked.
"Two" Shenhua replied. "One in back, one up top. Back window."
"Alright. Alana, you take the upstairs entrance. She might be upstairs. The rest of us will go in the front." Revy remarked.
"No" Shenhua replied.
"What?" the gunfighter asked.
"Shenhua go with Alana." the knife fighter said, Alana nodding her approval.
"Fine." Revy huffed.
The pair went up to the second floor landing and slipped into the window not finding any guards.
"What wrong?" Shenhua asked when she noticed Alana's pausing, barely noticing the shimmer as the wires in Alana's right glove shot out.
"Something is naught right."
"What?"
"It was too easy to gain entry."
Suddenly, a group of five men emerged from the shadows and behind boxes, looking as if they were struggling against something just as a shimmer revealed Alana's wires wrapped around them.
"Thought so." Alana remarked. "As much as I would like to make these traitorous wastes of flesh suffer for their sins. We are stressed for time and stealth. So I will make this silent." Alana finished as she mind controlled the five into slitting their own throats.
Shenhua was dumbfounded as she watched the Chi in Alana's wires, the woman was controlling five men like extensions of her own body and forcing them to commit suicide. Just as Shenhua came to her senses she felt something just out of sight as Alana stood back straight and her wires vanished.
Alana had just returned to a standing posture and turned around to Shenhua as the woman pulled one of her Khukuri knives and threw it at her. Alana dodged the blade, but followed its path to a sixth man who was hiding behind the crates.
"Thank you" she said.
"Welcome." Shenhua replied. "You strong."
"Why thank you." she said, looking back at the man with the blade sticking out of his forehead. "You're good."
(Downstairs)
What's going on up there?" Gang asked, slamming his clip into his modified Desert Eagles.
"Maybe the boys are training against each other?" one of the men asked.
"Or maybe we have…" Gang began till he heard the sound of a crash. "intruders!"
(Upstairs)
"Oops, maybe I charged too forcefully." Alana said as she quickly drained a man of blood and then punched his head with enough force to scramble his brains.
"Shenhua think you correct." Shenhua quipped nervously.
"Could be." Alana said.
"GET THEM!" one of the men shouted.
Quick as lightning, the men charged towards the pair like a stampede. Alana quickly grabbed Shenhua's wrists and spun her around, hurling her into the air and over the men. Shenhua quickly picked up on her plan as she flew through the air, and pulled her Khukuri knives from behind her body. The spinning action of the woman caused her knives to slash and strike at the men, who passed underneath her. She killed two men before landing on the other side of them as Alana lowered into a drawing stance.
The thugs, still believing that they had the advantage, thought little of the loss of two of their numbers, and attacked the pair. Half charged Alana, while the other half charged Shenhua.
Shenhua gripped her knives as she leapt towards them, moving to and fro like a dancer, spinning and dodging their attacks, as she quickly retaliated with her own. Alana had drawn her blades with her Katana in her right hand and her wakizashi in her left, and charged forward, her attacks with a graceful skill and precision that she moved like a dancer herself. Their blades dug deep into the enemies' bodies: their necks, their arms, their legs, their chests. To anyone that saw the two, they would have been amazed at how skilled they were at cutting people up, while not getting any blood upon themselves.
It took less than a minute for them to slice the thugs up like pieces of meat, each one that Shenhua took out falling around her as if she had planned it that way from the start. The first two fell when she had flown over them, the last fell one-by-one to her Khukuri knives. The first was slashed across his neck, the second was impaled in his forehead, the third to a chest strike, and the fourth to a stomach stab.
Alana had charged forward, using both her blades like a whirlwind, slashing the men one by one or two by two through the neck and severing their necks right where they met their collars right between vertebra, or just outright slicing them in two from one shoulder to the opposite hip or right through their waists. The wind coming from the two grooves on Alana's blades as well as the cutting edges made whistling sounds audible from a couple of feet away, Six whistles for perfectly angled cuts from two high quality swords.
The pair froze as they looked at each other's handiwork. Alana looked at the dead men Shenhua was responsible for and Shenhua did the same for the men Alana was responsible for, but then she was shocked to see Alana walk over into the pooling blood as it was quickly absorbed through Alana's boots, leaving the men drained completely. As Shenhua continued contemplating what kind of creature Alana was, a series of heavy shots rang out from downstairs.
"Two-Hands." Shenhua said.
Quickly the pair raced downstairs, coming off the steps to find Revy and a man wearing a black trench coat and shades shooting it out with each other.
"Alana look!" Shenhua said as she tapped Alana on the shoulder, causing her to look over and notice a young girl about 10 or 11 years old, tied to a chair, and being used as a shield by the man shooting at Revy. Luckily Revy was missing.
Without thinking, Alana moved towards the pair, spinning through the air and landing on the back of the chair, straddling it like a pommel horse and swinging her legs around quickly, striking the man in the head, knocking him back towards a group of medium-sized crates. Alana landed next to the girl, grabbed her chair, and vanished into a shadow on the floor, taking the girl with her and reappearing where Shenhua was waiting for her.
Gang shook the shock out of his head as he gripped his guns and prepared to retrieve the kidnapped girl, only to see Revy leap over the crates he had been knocked around, guns blazing.
Arsenal
Alana's daishō – A paired katana and wakizashi carried by Alana, these blades were made at the order of the Vampire Lord of Japan as a gesture of good will towards the North American Vampire Lord, Lady Caitir Helsing. Featuring blessed silver and titanium blades, these intricately engraved blades have unequaled cutting force against the undead and are equally deadly against humans or other foes, such as Werewolves for example.