Spring Chapter 2: What's wrong about a better life?
It was a pretty bright March morning in the Kerning City region, but it was said that nowhere inside the city was as bright in the morning as the region known to the administration as Jordania Villa, but to the citizenry as "Fifty Miles" for the distinction of being the district at the fifty-mile mark of the city's first expressway, the Seaside Express. The fact that Jordania Villa was located furthest away from sea level should be enough to explain everything, if not for some of the more ridiculous urban legends – mostly involving ghosts and deathly apparitions - having to get in the way of just about everything. Nonetheless, to Adamu Fuitami, Jordania Villa has a very important place in his heart.
"It's this place I call home... nuh-uh!" Declared the energetic, brown-haired youth as he stretched his back to meet the warm glow of the sun. "Along with the rest I call my friends. Come on, Karen, and get Jason and Terry along too."
"Stop acting like you owned this place, stupid Adamu," growled the brown-skinned redhead as she hollered for the boys. "Y'boys, move faster already!"
"We're moving, we're moving!" Jason yelled back impatiently,"but it's not like we're you, Karen! We're carrying all of our damned camping equipment up 'em here steps, alright?"
He jabbed his right thumb towards the haversack he was carrying, the strong gusts of winds rendering his hair unkempt and messy, as his medium-built body frantically fought against the hill and gravity itself.
The other boy, Terry, was having a harder time than Jason, his bone-thin build and thick glasses suggesting a more sedentary disposition than the rough tumbles of camping trips.
"You're just goldarn weak," scolded Karen as she decided to lug some of the stuff Terry wasn't able to. Before long, she screamed in shock, having come close to falling down the staircase from merely attempting to carry a huge, bulging bag of canned food.
"Here we go," Adamu blurted out, leaping very far down to a flat intermediate platform where Karen and Terry was. "Let me carry the bag for you."
By "carrying", he had other intentions from Jason, who was languishing on the final steps of the staircase. Instead, he prepared small bursts of concentrated energy in his feet, then used the extraordinary strength derived from that to "flash-jump", a jump much more potent and powerful than a normal one. With expert ease, he made use of the smaller "steps" on the cliff that led to their intended campsite and lifted a camera stand all the way up. As though to tease the teenagers, Adamu then leapt down all the way again to meet Karen and Terry, still struggling with the remainder of the stuff to carry.
"Adamu, if you're going to make fun of us like this ever again, we're so not coming here ever!"
"Yea, show-off!"
Adamu snickered. "Since when have the two of you, Karen and Jason... ever agreed on anything at all?"
That got the duo panicking in two different places.
"What? No, no, no... what are you talking about, Adamu?!"
"No way, dude, what do you mean, I agreed anything between that girl and me?!"
"Hey, what did you mean by 'that girl', you bum?"
"Who are you calling a bum, girl?!"
Adamu sighed off, but it was one of a happy tune and jingle to it. It was just like any other day in the Waywards' party, with a jovial mood surrounding the quartet.
***
"Good morning, Sir! Good morning, Madam!"
"At ease, Sergeant," was a crisp reply from the male officer. "What's the status on The Island now?"
"Not very good, sir. We've lost contact with all the fire teams from 430th Infantry's Bravo Battalion yesterday."
"Bravo Battalion, you say? Please uplink their fire movement charts on the screen now."
"Will do, sir."
Rear-Admiral Oodama Akitsuki tried to breathe in as low a tone as possible. Any sudden breathing from the tawny-haired, bespectacled forty-something would definitely set the Sergeant off on a panic attack, so he had to be careful. Human management, he was told. Painfully meticulous work it must have been for the Chief of Army, then.
"Aki, what do you make of it?"
The lady who spoke, Rear-Admiral Inoue Kaori, his colleague of over ten years, displayed a face of impatience with her brows creased and crumpled. "We must've lost all of the men, you know."
"There's still a chance they're just being radio-jammed," reasoned Akitsuki. "If they knew their radio was jammed, they'll wait for uplinks again."
"You really think so, Aki?"
Aki walked over to Kaori's side, and whispered into her ears.
"OK, now, a survivor from The Island is bad enough. Don't make it worse."
"Fine, fine, whatever you say -- oh, here's their fire movement chart. Sergeant?"
"Yes, Madam...?"
"Could you explain to me the scenario now? Calmly, please."
The Sergeant, as ordered, calmly took to the stylus with a slight tremble to the hands, and scribbled onto the projector directly. "Here, Madam, from the south of our L.S.T., we have discovered a compound which could be a hostile mining facility."
"What are the indicators of a production facility, and have you ascertained their presence?"
"The indicators of production are waste metal, unusual noises, and polluted rivers. The first was a mess of machinery discovered by Fire Team Three yesterday, at 1501 hours, here," the Sergeant explained, pointing to a spot close to a river.
"The second indicator was recorded by Fire Team Five at approximately 1640 hours, in the same location as Fire Team Three and approximately some two kilometers away from the source of production, or mining. Fire Team One has collected a sample of river water down here-" as he stroked through a region that looked like a meander or a river, "- and field tests at approximately 1827 hours indicate four thousand percent more of chlorine than purified drinking water."
Akitsuki looked closely at Kaori's positive facial features, and the female Admiral began to notice her colleague's stare when the Sergeant ended his explanation.
"What was that stare for? Haven't you seen enough of me all these years?"
"Looks like your method worked," grinned Akitsuki. "The programme we devised for on-the-field production detecting, remember?"
"I was at your conference four years ago when you spoke on the subject, Madam," declared the Sergeant proudly.
"OK, thank you very much, but let's get back to the job on hand. Aki, you should stop influencing your men to interject others in this manner, especially towards superiors!"
"Ha ha... I'm really sorry for that, it wasn't intended."
"Fine then. Anyway... What was the reason for your aggressive movement towards the facility?"
"We did not intend to move towards the facility, Madam. Fire Teams Five and Six were discovered by hostile scout dogs at around 1922 hours, and our Commanding Officer's orders were to retreat. However, by 2010 hours we discovered on our own that we were moving more west from our original positions than earlier, and our C.O. decided to deploy us some five klicks away from the facility, over here."
Kaori stared at Akitsuki really hard. "Akitsuki, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, the sudden-strike manouevre, Kaori... I can't believe an officer would have the idiotcy to follow this plan at all."
"That's because it worked back then, remember? Over ten years ago?"
"That's because we were younger, Kaori!"
"And we're not young enough now?"
"Whatever, Kaori. Then again, Kaori, I now tend to agree with you on what you just said earlier."
Kaori narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Akitsuki. "Didn't you say something about a radio-jam?"
"That can happen, but the chances of the Fire Teams surviving are looking really bleak. Sergeant, I think you know that yourself, no?"
"I hope it wasn't true, sir," was the short, stark reply. "I'd go crazy if I allowed myself to think that this nightmare is reality, sir."
Akitsuki took a deep breath. "Fine then, Sergeant. You're dismissed for now. Guys, get him a hot choc and make him feel welcome."
"Aye aye, sir," was the rather unsettling, girlish reply from one of the more manly-looking shipmates, muscles and girth all jam-packed in a tinny voice. "Come on, landlubber, we got some grub for ya."
As the Sergeant left the room on the brink of tears (for one reason... or the unmentionable other), Akitsuki looked at Kaori knowingly, then shook his head in exasperation.
"We're missing flower-boy's expertise here," Akitsuki blurted out. "He'd know what the hell is going on down here."
"We're going to have to depend on ourselves now, Aki..."
Kaori, in her frustration, slammed her right fist on the table pretty hard, and, given that the table was not made from wood of the oak variety, the entire table collapsed in a rather dramatic fashion, splitting first in half right through the middle and then collapsing from every other end. The end result was a wreck, so to speak.
"I mean, well... DAMNED, I wished he were here, too..."
Kaori looked upon the table, and winced internally as she saw another cut off her pay.
"...point taken," was Akitsuki's short reply.
***
"Ain't the stars pretty from out here, people?"
"Whoa... Fantastic!"
The night sky was a dazzling display of stars, dressing up the skies much more than what they could see from the dinky old blocks in the city. Every constellation that had been there for the past aeon was there for the quartet to look at, in all of their magnificent glory and sparkle. It was as though the night sky had decided to use sparkling spray on a black piece of paper in order to produce such a pretty sight.
"Adamu, you're actually into astronomy stuff?"
"No, not really..." replied the brown-haired youth. "It just brings back memories of my father. We used to be able to sit and talk here, and talk about his work, and my work, and our family..."
A slight hint of sadness flashed across his face, but he quickly shook himself out and, soon, was back to his usual goofy self.
"Now, you guys, I'm taking you out here so you guys can get something of an inspiration, or a relaxation thing that I didn't remember nuts about. Tomorrow's the Big One, so do your best. Tonight, though, let's just goof out."
"Right on. All that preparation from Miss Junko was a bit strenuous," grumbled Jason. "She makes us go all sorts of notes, gosh. We are going for an impromptu rap battle competition, not a choir showdown..."
"She knows what she's doing, for sure," reassured Adamu. "Just some trust in that lady, shall we? And... she's pretty cute, too. Nicest dimples I've seen."
"Which one comes first, trusting her or thinking she's cute?" As always, Karen's questions were short and sharp.
"Ooh, that hurt," joked Adamu as he faked a heart attack. "Well, both, I'd say! Serious-- what the hell?"
A phone call, a most inopportune one at that, broke up the quartet's banter in a rather clumsy manner.
"Gosh, why do they always have to do this to me," growled Adamu. "This is Fuitami speaking, who's this? ...what? Whoa, calm down, Junko-san... Calmly now... tell me what's going on..."
"Miss Junko is in trouble?! What the hell happened?!" Karen tugged at Adamu's shirt furiously, anxious to know what was going on.
"What the...? Not the jockers again! Just what the hell is wrong with that Sanger kid?! Kids, we're packing up. Pronto."
"Aww, man, Adamu dude, we're just having fun countin' the stars..." whined Jason. "Right, Terry?"
"No time for that no more," declared Adamu. "The Big One's postponed, for sure. The jockers jacked the electricity generator on the school compound over the limit, and there's a fire going on there now. I'm going back to help get some of the other students out."
"We'll help, too!"
"No, it's too dangerous," was Adamu's hurried reply. "Just pack up everything and put them all in the bags. Leave the sleeping bags outside in case I can't come back in two hours' time. Move closer to the wet weather sheds in case it rains. Karen, I'm counting on you to take care of the two boys."
"Hey, who needs that bossy girl to take care of us?!" Jason retorted. "We can manage fine, dude!"
"Whatever it is, I've no time for your sweet nothings. See you guys in two hours, okay?"
Adamu quickly scaled down the staircases with his flash-jumping, and in less than ten seconds he had already reached the bottom of the hill they were on, as though it was something he did every day.
"...There goes the man," sighed Karen. "Now I'm alone and stuck with the both of ya."
"Cheer up, Karen," Terry blurted out in a rare streak of speech. "Here are my poker cards."
"...Wanna play bridge?" Karen waved the poker cards at Jason in a teasing manner. Amongst the four, she was the best at the game.
"Fine, bridge it is! You'll lose to me for sure!"
That, despite having lost one too many times on the game. Then again, Jason's bravery has got to be given credit for, no?
***
Where Adamu had rushed off to was the scene of a really huge blaze that engulfed the school his Wayward gang were studying in. Junko was inconsolable as she wept away in the arms of another man Adamu assumed to be her fiance.
"Junko-san, what is going on now?"
"The... some of the students are still in them - Jared, let go of me, I want to go in I want to go in I want to go in!"
"Junko, no! Don't, please, stop panicking on me, Junko, you're scaring me!"
"But those are students! My students! I can't watch them die on me! Jared, let me go, you sonofa--"
"I'll go, Junko-san," interjected Adamu. "I'll go save them."
"Don't you go crazy too, sir," replied a shocked Jared. "The fire in there is too big!"
"I have to try. I am a member of the Jordania Vigilante. How many are still in there, Junko?"
"Six.."
Before either Junko or Jared could stop the kid, Adamu leapt off in the direction of the fire.
***
"Nice try, Mister Sanger," remarked one of a motley gang crowding somewhere outside of school as they watched the fire burn, helpless. Not that the gang would have even lifted a finger.
"Whoa, Dare-dude, you the man! Now you literally blew the place up with that guitar of yours!"
"Says who I blew up the school?" Remarked the daredevil in question, a kid with a hair of black, blue and gold, with a matching three-piece consisting of a white undershirt, a blue collared T-shirt and a jet black leather jacket.
"It's not my fault, dude, I swear to God it isn't. The school's electrical system is weak! It can't run my guitar without exploding to bits!"
"Either way, you caused the fire, Dare-dude! Way to go, now we have no education for nuts!"
"Aww, who needs education?" Snickered the daredevil. "All you need is to learn how ta fight against wussies, like this!"
With one solid, hard punch, he shoved his fist unkindly into the face of the second person who spoke about blowing up the place. The jock, despite being a muscled jock one-and-a-half times that of the daredevil, had his two front teeth smashed as he flew back some distance away, knocked unconscious.
"Sometimes, assholes need ta learn how to fucking shut up," cursed the daredevil. "Let's watch the fire. We don't wanna be suspected of nothing. Remember, nothing happened."
"Yea, yea, Sanger-boy, we got you."
***
Hot and choking. Those were the first two words that struck Adamu when he rushed headlong into the compound. Someone had thrown him a couple of wet towels before he went through the school gates, almost as if they were expecting a firefighting hero to emerge from this. Covering his nose, he yelled at the top of his voice, at the risk of smoke inhalation.
"Hello? Is there anyone in there? Hello!"
Adamu tried the signage for any form of help. Junko was a personal friend of his whom he met, when Adamu turned up at one of Terry's Parent-Teacher Appointments as his legal guardian, and so Adamu was quite aware of Junko's work as both a teacher and a musical talent.
If she's here late at this hour, it must have something to do with singing and compositing. Maybe I should try the dance and choir rooms, he reasoned with himself as his eyes teared up and reddened from all the smoke. Somehow, he managed to find a room named just like that, some thirty meters from the door he entered the school building from.
"Anybody in there?" He yelled once more. This time, it wasn't met by mere echoes.
"Over here! Help us!"
Though his vision was badly interrupted by the smoke, he could make out the tables and a part of the building that had collapsed as a result of the burning fire. They must've been trapped in there, reasoned Adamu once more as he shoved the debris and mess of tables blocking his way with his bare hands. Both palms burned by the hot metal, Adamu was quite relieved to find the kids at the end of it all, cowering under the tables for temporary protection.
"Help us," spoke one of the boys weakly. "I'm... tired..."
"Hang in tight, kid," Adamu replied hurriedly while clearing his nasals of smoke and any other soot. "Here, breath into the towel. You won't feel so sick and tired. You guys, are you all right? How many of you are here?"
"We... we have six of us," replied a little blonde, her face and hair dirtied by all the soot but otherwise uninjured.
"But the Nairako brothers..."
The girl pointed in that direction, choked by the smoke as she wheezed away in agony. The Nairako brothers, of whom Adamu noticed their eyes the most even from a distance, were clearly terrified by the entire episode, and as it seemed, both were injured and immobilised in place.
My god, what the hell?
"Two more kids... over there, behind the teacher's desk--" Adamu pointed out hurriedly, almost about to rush to the rescue. Almost.
"Big Brother, watch out! From above!"
"What in the--"
The wood-concrete mix collapsed from all the burning, and its contents mercilessly smashed into the teacher's desk and everywhere close to Adamu and the rest of the students.
"Oh shit!Notthe desk!!!"
"We have to hurry, Big Brother!" Urged the other students, clearly panicking. "The whole place is about to collapse!"
"Argh!" Adamu had wanted to kick himself, but it won't help things for now. "Kids, grab me on the arm!"
They duly did so, and, as fast as his dragged-down feet could, Adamu made haste for the exit as more and more of the classroom collapsed from right behind them, the burning fire still seething at their every orifice. Braving the smoke, Adamu signalled for the wall and backed them up, and soon they were collectively crawling out of the burning school building with towel in hand.
"We can make it! Faster! Come on, come on! Argh!!!"
With a final push, Adamu shoved the kids with his burnt palms, every inch of him screaming out in pain. Jared and Junko, waiting anxiously at the front door, found him collapsed and unconscious at the last step as he ran out of steam, and rushed in to pull the brunet out of danger.
"Get him outta here!" Jared shouted as the firefighters and their fire engines finally meandered their way to the burning school. The professionals heaved him to safety, and, as it turned out, just oh-so-timely. In less than a minute afterwards, the front of the school building collapsed into a pile of sad burning cinders.
***
"...He's awake now," breathed a relieved Junko. "Adamu, are you all right?"
I couldn't save the twins.
"...are you all right, Adamu?"
It was all that jocker's fault.
"Doctor, please come over here..."
Adamu never felt better, he'd decided with himself. If the jockers didn't start the fire with their stupid antics, none of this would've happened. It definitely wasn't Junko's fault, nor the students.
"...Where... is that Sanger kid?"
"The Sanger... you mean him?"
"I asked: WHERE IS THE SANGER KID???!"
From a short distance away from the medical personnel, the jockers were still idling around as the other teachers trickled into the school compound trying to handle the massive mess of administration. The daredevil was whistling away, almost as if he was trying to sing a tune with the flames emanating from with the burning building, when he heard the outburst from Adamu.
"What the hell was that for, dude?" He asked, challenging Adamu as he teasingly flicked a finger towards the brunet. "Wanna pick a fight with me--"
Before he could respond in time, Adamu, his eyes reddened now by something that wasn't due to the smoke, landed a hard punch on the Sanger's stomach region, forcing him to keel away in pain as Adamu was restricted by some four other guys from his posse.
"What the fuck is this, a punch to the stomach?!"
"Go to hell, you killer!"
The daredevil took it as his cue to run, and made haste for a motorbike parked nearby.
"All you need in the world is just one friggin' key," he remarked, plugging what seemed to be a one-size-fits-all key into the motorbike's slot. Whirring the bike into life, the daredevil managed to scrape out of danger just before the brunet managed to slash him with a recently-broken glass bottle.
"That was close," he breathed, heavy on the rhythm as he tried to regain his composure at a red light junction some one kilometer away from the school. As it turned out, it was a really bad call.
"Roar!" Went the utterly enraged Adamu, his entire body leaping into the night sky, using the same flash-jumping from earlier, only now, instead of climbing rock walls, he was using it to leap from building to building.
"What the hell? This guy is plain starkin' mad!" Quivered the daredevil, eyes wide open in abject horror, for once finally displaying signs of weakness. "W-What the hell is wrong with him?!"
The daredevil gripped tight on the stolen bike, and beat the red lights a second before it turned green, narrowly missing a sedan emerging from the left of the adjacent road as the motorist within blared his horn in anger. Thinking that pedestrians would do well as his cover, he utilised a "ramp" that was actually just an escalated wooden platform, and leapt into the midst of midnight pedestrians who were in various states of drunkenness.
"That was a good kick from that vod-- Watch out, a motorbike!"
"What in the name of Victoria-- whoa!!!"
The loud whirring of the desperate motorbike was only slightly louder than the beastly cries of the enraged flash-jumping brunet. Talk about being hopping mad.
***
At the same time, the person waiting for Lena was quite mad, too, but his was more of concern. Lena's a special issue with him, and if she gets into trouble, he would trouble the hell out of himself to get Lena out of her own mess. The chase from earlier left him with another massive headache to deal with, so he has got no choice but to deal an equal amount of nagging to the very innocent young mage.
"Lena, what the hell was that for? You got yourself in trouble with those guys again?!"
"I..."
"D'you know how hard it was for me to get you off The Snarl's list the other time around, yo?"
"I... I am sorry... But I swear it wasn't my fault!"
"Fuck it, yo, I know The Snarl had always got problems with everybody. Forget it, girl."
The man, revealed by a dim street light to be a thoroughly dark-skinned person with a loud black head full of curls freshly permed, grabbed Lena by the wrist and took a good look. He grimaced in mock pain upon seeing the damage wrought by The Snarl's cronies on her wrists.
"Gosh, The Snarl's two other kids have a really brute way of hurting girls, those wankers. This is gonna hurt for a bit, so bear with it."
Lena winced as the man pressed hard against her right wrist, treating the blue-black marks on it with a hard massage. Her involuntary groaning was not without its reason, as the pain was massive to deal with on the touch.
"Hey, you guys downstairs, go somewhere else if ya are doing your business!" Shouted an irate female voice from above, irritated by the loud groaning from Lena.
"Shut up, bitch," yelled the man.
"Jon, forget it... let's leave this to another time."
"You very sure you're okay with this pain, Lena? It hurts like a bitch if you're gonna sleep with it--"
"As it is now, you're already making me hurt so much I'm disturbin' someone else!"
"Fine, fine, Lena Kotsworth, you win. Oh yea, guess what?"
"Yea?"
"I've finally stashed enough to make my move to Henesys. I'm thinking of bringing your family along and out of this mess."
"Oh really? You have the money--"
"Shh, not so loud mate!"
"Whoops, sorry... But wow, seriously, Jon, that's not easy at all..."
"SAVE ME!!!"
The plea for help literally ripped through the now-quiet, sleeping neighbourhood, along with the loud keening of a motorbike in the distance.
"What the hell was that for, Lena?" Went a startled Jon as his head swung in the direction of the plea.
"I... I don't know. Let's go that way, the sound seems to be from there."
The pair ran out from the side alley into Trinity Street, where all they could see from a distance was a motorbike and an odd, flickering shadow near it. As the two items got closer and closer, it was revealed to be a youth in a motorbike being chased by a...
"A 'flyer? What the hell?!" Gasped Jon in shock. "One of them friggin' flash-jumpin' flyers?!"
"What the... Darren?!"
"Somebody, anybody... Save me from this mad dawg! He's gonna kill me!"
Darren just saved me earlier on. Now that he's in trouble, how can I not help?!
"I'm going to claw the shadow down, Jon. Stay away!"
"Whoa, I'm outta here! Careful with that wrist, girl! I don't wanna mess with no stinkin' magic claw or a bad wrist first thing tomorrow morning!"
"Don't worry, I won't break my wrist, you doofus!"
Lena prepared her hands with energy as the motorbike zoomed past her, raking her faded dress up in multiple directions. She willed herself to stay focused as the shadow drew closer.
The moment it went past her, Lena quickly and unhesitatingly slashed her hands in the direction of the shadow. Struck by the potent magic claw's ultramarine-tinted energies, the shadow yelped in pain as it crashed down onto the asphalt, narrowly missing the bridge that linked the East and West of Berksley as it fell from high up and started rolling down the street until it came to a halt.
"That was a crash landing if I ever saw one," quipped Jon as he emerged from the alley they came from, safely tucked away from the power of the magic claw.
"Let's check up on that person now, Jon."
"Agreed, Lena. And mug him while we're on it."
"Jon!"
Lena ran for the figure that wasn't really moving. just shaking uncontrollably on the dark asphalt of Trinity Street. So much for trinity, she thought before running a visual check on the brunet.
"He must've been mad trying to get to the motorbike in this flyin' manner," declared Jon as he swiped the wallet off Adamu's body. "Oh, freakin' hell no!"
"...What's wrong, Jon?"
"Oh, my effing god... you just struck down a member of the Jordania vigilante!"
"WHAT? Hey, Jon, this is no freakin' joking matter!"
"I'm not kidding, Lena! Look at the badge in his wallet!"
Lena snatched the inappropriately appropriated wallet from Jon, and, upon seeing the maple leaf logo that accompanied the side of the vigilante's insignia, she was utterly silent, holding her mouth in involutarily as she stared at the unconscious Adamu, feeling mixed all over.
"...shit."
"Jon, relax now, there's a way to fix Lena out of this... out of this... outta this... I GOT IT!"
"What?"
"Get away. From here. Go to this place and call on this guy here Alexander, on Telling Street. He will link you up to a few routes of escape. Go now!"
"But my family, my kid brother--"
"Just go, damned it! I'll take care of things for ya! Besides, remember, I'm getting outta here as well! I'll take Uncle and Aunty along as well!"
"...Thanks, Jon..."
"What the hell for, girl? You saved my life outside the drinkin' hole the last time around, so this is the way I'm gonna repay you. I won't rest until I'm done with my dues, alright girl?"
The sound of police sirens rang from beyond, prompting the pair to quickly get out of the area. Lena realised midway through that she had Adamu's wallet in hand, so she flung what she thought was his wallet back, accidentally hitting a semi-conscious Adamu and waking him up.
"Quick, quick!"
And then, perhaps a tad too late, she realised that she still had Adamu's wallet in hand; the wallet she flung was her own.
***
"...What the hell... Ouch... who the hell me struck me with a damned magic claw..."
It was ninety-nine levels of pain for the brunet, laying on the asphalt as the cool winds blew against him. He was bleeding, but thankfully it wasn't anything too serious despite the fall from a considerable height. He glanced at the bridge in the distance, thankful that nothing had hit the bridge during his abrupt descent, of which he is only scantily aware of due to his rage.
"That Darrel Sanger... I'll never forgive this bastard... Those two kids he killed, he'll fuckin' pay for it!"
"Adamu!"
Junko? Jared? "What... why are the both of you here?" he asked, still lying on the floor due to the sheer amount of pain that coursed through him.
"We were scared... We borrow the Principal's car and tailed you all the way from school after you chased that Darrel..."
"I'm so not going to forgive this son of a bitch," cursed Adamu. "Ouch!"
"Shoot, he's totally whacked. I'll call the ambulance--"
"It's okay, dude, I'll walk to the hospital... ouch."
"You're in no condition to even stand up, dude. I'm getting the ambulance."
"I said I can -- ouch!"
Ninety-nine levels of pain was more than the human body could withstand.
"Damned you, Jared!"
"Don't even move, this is a doctor's orders. Just stay quiet and shut up. Hey, whose wallet is this over here..."
"Huh?"
"...Lena Kotsworth... West Berksley.A fuckin' slummer," he groaned in mock-agony. "Another one of the dirt-poor."
"Jared, I'll be the one asking you to shut up now," groaned Adamu, clearly irritated. "What... kind of tone is that with your speaking about West Berksley?"
"They stole everything around town, then proceed to waste it. Why should I care to respect them slummers?"
"Jared..."
Before Junko's fiance knew it, Adam delivered him a roundhouse punch with what little is left inside him, surprising the blond doctor so much he staggered, lost his balance completely and crashed onto the asphalt floor. Once Adamu was done dishing out the punch, his world collapsed back in black, only thinking of any possible connections with "Lena Kotsworth" in his subconscious.
***
Lena nervously walked up the apartment, more than anyone else at that moment, because it was common knowledge that the Snarl's posse was some two streets down Telling Street. That so many men were smoking their joints and lives away on the dinky, smelly steps was not helpful in calming her nerves, either. Thankfully, though, the smoke all but dulled the addicts' senses, and so they could only make out a tiny blur of Lena's features.
Slowly does it, Lena, she willed herself. You did nothing wrong. You're just trying to get away from West Berksley.
"Okay, here goes... very good evening to you, Mister Alexander."
"...Lena, is it?"
"Yea, my name's Lena, how'd you know? Jon recommended you to me."
"Ah, that's my good man," he chortled out as Lena shuffled around uncomfortably, irritated at the prospect of being a wanted figure now, albeit not her fault entirely. She was only all out to save Darren from trouble, though why he decided to scream his way down the street was still incomprehensible.
"Ain'tcha timin' just right on target," chortled the plump man as he expertly ran his fingers through some of the papers on his desk. "I've got the perfect job for you... Actually, I was having trouble finding for the perfect people in the first place."
"A job?" Lena blurted, as the plump man handed her a file of sorts, coated with lots of dust.
"Yea, you go work far away for a period of time, and I'm not joking when I say I'm gonna charge you a bit for this. It's not easy linking people to jobs, ya know." He then proceeded to take the file out of Lena's hands in a rather condescending manner, his eyebrows raised and his lips pouted.
"...How much... exactly?" Lena asked, wary of Alexander's increasingly weird demeanour.
"Not too much, I assure you... just twenty grand."
Twenty grand! "No friggin' way, Alexander, that's too much..."
"Well, I assume you want to get arrested, then? Most of the customers who come to me are trying to run from the 'fuzzies or from themselves."
"Um... no... But there must be a better way than getting fleeced..."
"Fleeced, you say! Now that's a harsh word to use, ya know. Besides, the one thing I didn't have the time to tell Jon about... might interest you."
"...What?" Lena blurted, her face now coated with a mixture of worry and irritation.
"Y'know, it was simple. Snarlie came up to me and told me that if ever I were to see you, I'm gonna have to tell him where you are. He looked mighty pissed, and somewhat blinded too. Kept knocking into my furniture, bang, bang."
"Ah... so you're gonna blackmail me?" Lena spat, flicking her ten fingers open as she charged all ten digits with mana power filled to the brim.
"Since this place settles things with ultraviolence, I don't mind settling this here issue... with my magical fingers."
"Whoa, whoa, there, careful lady," shuddered Alexander as he took a few involuntary steps back. "That thing there on yer fingers... is a dangerous thing!"
"Now you know how it feels like, don't you? Tell me how to get to this job!"
"F...fine, you prissy little girl... I shouldn't have had Jon recommend such a firebrand to me--"
"Come again," she hissed, her fingers still glowing.
"Aieee! Fine! Go to this lady, Madame Tussa, first thing tomorrow morning. You'll be going to work on a ship as a maid."
What, a maid? It wasn't like she had many options to begin with, either, so Lena could do nothing much but take it.
"Whatever, then... not like there's a better option now..."
At this point of time, while Lena contemplated her fate, Alexander began fiddling with his device, dialling away. He was never as happy as he was when the call got through to The Snarl.
"Snarlie! Hey, let me tell ya somethin'! The girl's at my place now!"
Oh, holy crap! "Alexander!!! What the..."
"I don't like being threatened into losin' my money. I'm worse than a woman scorned, I tell ya," he growled,
"When I'm out of the woods, I'm going to come back for your blood, Alexander! I'll kill you for this!"
Lena made her way out of Alexander's dinky apartment, and abruptly swung her figure leftwards, perhaps just in time, to find The Snarl on the left end of the apartment's narrow corridor, and his cronies on the other.
"Shit!"
"Little girlie, cough the fuckin' money out. Now."
"Didn't I say it'll be over my dead body, asshole?!" Lena proceeded to pick up one of Alexander's torn shoes, and, with her fingers still not disenchanted yet, flung it in full force onto the Snarl. It hit the gangster with so much force that he was thrown off his feet high, and through a series of unfortunate trips onto the flower pots and the platforms behind him, he knocked hard onto the sharp-as-blades metal railings and started bleeding profusely. The rest of the motley gang, on seeing this extraordinary sight of violence, began to have a lot of second thoughts as Lena brandished a broomstick before them.
"Out of my way," she hissed. "Out of my way if you don't want to get hurt."
Bit by bit, the gang retreated, giving her more and more leeway as she continued to stare at them fiercely and with intent to murder. With a sudden stroke, much to the surprise of the first few of the mob who was terrorised into retreating, she slammed her broomstick backwards, striking a smashed-bottle wielding, back-stabbing, rip-roaring Alexander by the direct underneath of his chin. The sheer momentum of the strike, the fragility of the metal railings and Alexander's own obesity all contribute to a violent end, as his body was thrown off the apartment building in the aftermath of Lena's strike.
He wailed in anti-gravitational despair, as his entire cash-fat frame fell all the way through, ending abruptly with a bone-crunching, earth-shattering crash into a parked mini-bus on the ground floor, back first.
"I... I said... out of my way, didn't you hear?"
The mob was thoroughly terrified now at the sight of the unfortunate Alexander making a violent descent to ground floor. Finally, the mob yielded altogether, giving the lady the wide berth she demanded as they scrambled out in terror of her presence, with a jumble of fear and panic.
"Thank you," she quipped, her eyebrows creased badly as she tried to hold her tears back. It wasn't the first time someone made her this mad, but deep within the tough exterior of a violent mage was a girl worried for the safety of her friends and relatives.
Once she hit ground level, she started to run towards Trinity Street again, still in her faded skirt.
It was impossible to return home.
"I'm so sorry, Dad, Mum... I'm so sorry," she cried, her tears flowing freely from her cheeks as she ran in the direction of the Shih Lin district, ignoring a smiling Jon altogether as she sped past him in a panicked blur.
"What the hell just happened, girl? Yo!"
Thinking that Lena was just plain hurried or just much too hasty for her own good, the happy-go-lucky Jon went past a few blocks, down into Telling Street to meet up with Alexander over supper and was about to thank Alexander, when he saw a worried mob gathered around a wrecked mini-bus.
"...Oh... shit."
Alexander, with glass bottle still in his somewhat firm grasp, and his mouth still bleeding from the gums, looked seriously injured - possibly dead, too.
Hell I'm sure, that's Lena's work," gagged a horrified Jon, in between little hops and jumps that don't flatter his height much
"Now her posse is seriously gonna be in fer it..."
Then his internal monologue stopped abruptly.
"Wait, the thing is... her posse is my posse..."
The Snarl, emerging from a nearby apartment block with his head still bleeding badly from the hard scrape, gifted the afro-kid a very, very, very cold snarl, the worst that he could muster ever since learning that his mother was an ex-prostitute. The snarl, though, didn't actually send shivers down Jon's spine more than what he thought would follow that snarl. The mob from right behind The Snarl was clearly looking for someone to blame, and he was it.
"Oh, the fuckin' hell..."
***
A good distance away from the Trinity Street Bridge, Darrel was sitting his bum down and counting the stars while the bike he rode on was left toppled in the midst of the streets. He ran for his life in such a panicked manner, his breathing was constantly heavy for the past hour or so. Hiding in one corner on the East side, he raised his middle finger at the ambulance that carried Adamu to the hospital while wailing away in the light flashes of red and blue.
"Damned you for trying to hurt me, wanker!" He shouted, jubilant at his victory, albeit one that he obtained through a series of lucky circumstances. "I'll make sure you get sued by me at the end of this!"
While Darrel watched the ambulance speed off into the distance, the family limousine had turned the corner behind him, and Darren had already spotted him waving a rude gesture at something.
"Says who you're going to sue anybody? Dad won't approve of this, for sure," Darren spoke, winding his own window down.
"Eh heh heh... Darren bro," blurted Darrel the daredevil with a weak smile, his presence before his sibling like a tramp against a businessman. "So sorry to trouble you for this again."
"Not as if this is the first time I had to bail my elder brother out," snorted Darren, as he emerged from his vehicle. "You've caused deaths this time. I already told you before, with your utter immaturity and everything, you're going to cause somebody to die sooner or later. See?"
"W-well, it's all the school electrical systems' fault, it wasn't me!"
"We had a friggin' huge underground system for you to play with at home! What is it with you that you've got to cause chaos in school, too?!"
"I... I didn't know the electricity was so weak! I mean, well, it worked my guitar well! I wanted to rock the school with heavy metal!"
"How old is that school now?"
"Uh... twenty years?" Darrel squeaked weakly.
"Wrong! It is well over forty years old! For god's sake, would you just search yourself and stop getting into trouble already?!"
"Well..." Darrel was searching his head for some more excuses, but went blank on it. Then a little silhouette shimmered some junctions down the road, and Darrel desperately latched on to that as a final excuse.
"Oh, look at that...!"
A young girl's silhouette ran across the now-empty Trinity Street, presumably hurried the way she blitzed across. Normally, the ten-lane street demarcated by a lane barrier right smack in the middle would have been better crossed using the bridge, but on this occasion the silhouette didn't even bother with the bridge, choosing to just leap right over the barrier.
"I think that was the girl who saved me just now from that madman, yea. She has some awesome power with da claw!"
"What madman? What girl... wait, did you just mention a girl?"
"Long story, bro. Anyway, she saved me, so I've got to - uhh, where the hell is she running off to in such a hurry?"
Darren noticed the silhouette had a very familiar air about her, especially on the hair where there were some curls... curls?
Something's not right... isn't that Lena over there?! Those curls must be it!
"Butler, let's go. Now!"
"To where, young master?"
"After the girl! Follow her!"
"Hey, Darren bro! Where are you going?!"
"You stick your ass in, now! Before I leave you to feed the dogs!"
The limousine sped down the road, and turned at the junction where they saw the girl run past. Darren was pretty sure that the girl was Lena, and that she was in trouble. But what kind of trouble can anybody get into at this ungodly hour?
"Um, Darrel?"
"Y...yea, bro?" Replied Darrel, fending off a slight chill.
"Question: Who the hell did this girl you talked about, strike down just now?"
"Uhh... let's see... it was a brown-haired madman if I ever saw one... umm... he's a member of the Jordania vigilante... THAT'S IT! His name is Adam something! Lunatic, I say, he's a looney through and through!" Responded Darrel animatedly, angry that he had had to run so far off to get out of trouble.
Adamu Fuitami, wasn't it? Best vigilante in business that I keep hearing about, and when I last saw him he has this almost scout-like demeanour to his whole being. Obsessed about the whole vigilante thing, almost to a fault.
"If Adamu wants you for dead, you must've done it real big," groaned Darren, observing the streets slowly for any signs of oddity.
"What me? What thing done real big? It was him, him, him! Never me!" Protested Darrel. "How could a fire cause him to go berserk on me like that--"
"You killed two, or so Trevor from the vigilante told me. I hear Adamu's this really nice guy who doesn't always get violent, ya know. Your loose tongue again, bro?"
"NO! Why is it always me? I'm the innocent one here, dude! Don'tcha trust your bro?"
Darren turned around and stared at him in a floaty manner, showing the whites on his eyes in a beleaguered manner.
"I trust you, Darrel Sanger..."
"Thank goodness you do..."
"...as much as I trust that the Bloody Amaryllis isn't doing anything funny, and that they're co-existing with the Marines very well."
"What the hell are you babbling about again? What's this to do with them Bloody Amaryllis again?"
Darren reached for a pair of earphones from behind his seat, and covered his ears with the mellow pulse of a two-step techno track. Darrel's grumblings were still audible, but negligible enough to be ignored altogether. Right now, though, Darren's main concern wasn't about his brother's grumblings, more of Lena's appearance - or disappearance, depending on one's perspective, too. They covered several streets down as the limousine cruised down the road at speeds not exceeding ten miles an hour.
"Boring head trip, dude! Stop looking for the girl already, man! Do you hear me? Hello?"
Wait up a moment, Darren told himself. That's the guy Lena struck down with the claw?!Where the hell could she be?! Exclaimed Darren internally, his eyebrows creased to a knot as he tried his hardest to look for any signs of the young mage. Kerning City is big, but it isn't that big!
The limousine slowly trudged past some of the more recent blocks within the East Berksley area, and past a garbage dump that was relatively clean and new. When the limousine was gone from sight, all that was left inside the garbage dump was minimal trash. Inside of a relatively unused trash-can was Lena, whose unusually accurate sixth sense told her of somebody trying to look for her. In her haste she had nowhere else in mind for a hiding place, until she spotted the trash-can conveniently seated in a blind corner to the right of the street (and by extension, the Sangers' limousine).
She was initially relieved to be just out of Darren's line of sight, since he was only staring into the left of the streets and did not notice the existence of the trash can in the blind corner. However, as the limousine trudged by, she noticed somebody else inside the vehicle, apparently talking in a loud, rude manner with his saliva splattering everywhere.
"What the hell... another Darren?!"
Then everything fell in place within Lena's heightened sensory, perception and recollective memory. "Darren Sanger", she remembered then, is one half of the Sanger brothers, the would-be heirs to the ultra-corporation, BlueWater Corp. The one she first met was, through and through, a good guy, with no airs about him and many talk of him being a devout priest of the Victorian Basilica. His older brother, Darrel, however, is a through and through wastrel, who thinks nothing more of money as a convenient source of enjoyment and entertainment. Their faces are alike, but Lena could tell straight away, based on mere intuition (albeit one that is accurate), that she saved the wastrel instead of a goody-two-shoes.
At this point of time, Darrel noticed suddenly, from the dimmer lighting at the back of the limousine, that somebody was hiding in one of the bins at a really tricky dark corner. He couldn't really make out who it was, but the fact that the person from inside the bin was staring so intently at the vehicle made him quite cock-sure of his guess. When it hit him that the person inside the bin was whom Darren might have been looking for all these while, it just struck him as so unbelievably funny that he started to roll in the back of the limousine from laughter.
"...Oh, god, forgive me... I saved the wrong person," she cried to herself from inside the rubbish bin, tears flowing down from her wrecked, dirtied features. "I can't believe I did so much wrong in twelve hours..."
Meanwhile, back in the limousine, the search grew weary on Darren as he continued rubbing his eyes and glared hard to the left of the streets, still unaware of the fact that Lena was on the other side. Darrel, being aware of the whole saga unfolding before him, was unable to stop laughing, and was giggling away loudly like a hyena let loose.
"...She wouldn't be hiding in one of these here bins, don'tcha think..." Darren told himself resignedly, on the brink of giving up the search.
"Ah ha ha... yea, right on, brudda," as Darrel continued to snickered really loudly, in a manner that Darren hardly noticed due to the earphones and Darren's general contempt of his older brother.
Shaking his head in confusion, Darren ordered the butler to drive them back to their residences.
At the same time, Darrel continued to snicker all the way back home, still laughing away loudly.
"Darren, oh Darren, sometimes you make me laugh so loud... Ha ha ha..."
"Shut up. I can hear your laughter a mile away," ordered his kid bro, who just took his earphones off to find a laughing hyena at the back of the limousine.
"Whatever... ah ha ha..."
Slowly, the break of dawn arrived with its soothing glow of light blue and white from beyond the city's horizon, as if to comfort her from all that has happened, that were all simply just tragic circumstances. Blowing her nose away loudly in a manner rather unbecoming of a pubescent girl, Lena had no choice but to stop crying in spite of herself, as she continued trudging her way to Madame Tussa. Shih Lin is seven districts away, which would mean a walk of at least three to four hours. To make matters worse, the walk is mostly uphill. If not for the fact that Adamu's wallet had enough money, this would be an impossible task. Then again, the nearest bus depot is at least two districts away, and Lena is decidedly human and decidedly tired.
A very, very long hike beckoned.
To be continued...