…
"Hey! My dad just bought me a new console! Want to come over to my house and try it out?"
…
"You are not going back into the forest until you have repaid your sin, young man! Is that clear?"
"Hey, you gotta help me! The girls are chasing me again! Can I hide in your locker until they're gone? Please?"
…
"God has given me a precious gift tonight. Don't worry, little one, you'll be safe with me. You've survived this far all by yourself, don't you?"
"Someone as brave as you needs a proper name…A name that shall be remembered for years to come and be honored by the new generations…"
"I name you… Valentin. A name that embodies strength and health."
*GASP*
Valentin woke up abruptly, upon hearing loud steps coming near him, and the sound of a door sliding to a side. His sleep had been suddenly interrupted by a squad of armed men, and a well dressed woman entering into his room. The woman looked at him, and started to speak in a language he didn't know.
"¿A ver, por qué este paciente aún no está listo? ¡Se supone que las torturas deberían haber surtido efecto hace rato!" The woman said, in an angry tone.
"Ya quisiéramos saber eso, jefa. Ya le han hecho casi de todo, y aún así, no se ha roto."
One of the men said.
"Grr…Estos malditos dragones…son tan difíciles de doblegar…¡Y la jefa quiere que este chico esté listo para final de mes! ¡El plazo era de tres meses para tenerlo listo!"
"Los del centro de rehabilitación están haciendo lo que pueden…usted ya sabe que no todos los pa-"
"¡SILENCIO! ¡NO ME IMPORTA ALGO TAN IRRELEVANTE COMO LA INDIVIDUALIDAD DE ESTOS SERES! ¡DE NO SER PORQUE LA REHABILITADORA PRINCIPAL SE PEGÓ UN TIRO HACE UN MES, ESTO NO ESTARÍA PASANDO!" The woman shouted, kicking the table in rage. After a moment, she looked again at Vali, and spat in his face.
"…a ver si te gusta lo que te mandaré que te hagan…¡David! ¡Dale algo de comer a este imbécil y ordena al laboratorio de I+D que preparen el suero desmemorizador! Ya sabes que a la princesa le gusta que sus juguetes estén en buenas condiciones. ¡Andando!"
The woman said, leaving with the men. However, one of them stayed in the room, following the orders.
Reaching into the cart that the soldiers had brought, he pulled out several packets before preparing them in the provided plate and bowl. Raising an eyebrow as he saw the meal, the soldier idly commented, "Beef lasagna and pork risotto? Lucky you, getting a French MRE today. In my time, the MREs we were given tasted like crap. I'm glad that some governments actually care about their soldier's taste buds, instead of sending them meals that should be illegal to feed people with."
After a few minutes of waiting, the heating bag finally cooked the pre-cooked sachets with the main course. The guard served both of them, and approached Vali. With a push of a button, the muzzle that covered his mouth opened.
Setting down the plate and bowl, the soldier scooped some of the risotto with a spoon and held it up to Vali. "Come on, time to eat. We don't have all day."
Vali opened his mouth, and took the incoming spoon of food. It had a soft, yet creamy taste, and the not so salty parmesan cheese that was mixed with the rice finished to wrap it up.
"Hmm…tasty." Vali thought, while the soldier kept feeding him.
As Vali finished the risotto, the soldier got up. Leaving the cell, he pressed a few more buttons, which shut the door, as well as releasing Vali's restraints. "You can finish the lasagna yourself," he said through the door. "From my experience, that stuff falls apart really easily, and I'd rather not get in trouble for getting you dirty."
Vali stood up, and approached the remaining dish. Using the same spoon, he took a decent portion, and ate it. It wasn't any different from the lasagna that Miss Gracia used to make sometimes. Still, he enjoyed the dish, and continued to eat.
As Vali was about to finish the lasagna, his spoon hit something hard. Confused, he jabbed at it a few times, before setting the spoon aside and digging the mysterious object out. A utility knife fell into his lap, along with a plastic bag with a slip of paper and card inside.
"...What 's this?" Vali thought, opening the plastic bag. Then, he used his index claw to cut the small piece of tape that kept the paper closed, and unfolded it. He pulled out the card and turned it around, noting the words 'master keycard' written on the side in thick black marker. Putting it aside, he took the paper and read the note on it.
'If you're reading this, that means the guy preparing your meal didn't notice it, and I'm hoping that's the case. I never liked this job, but unfortunately the world runs on money. If you don't have money, you can't do anything. But there are lines I refuse to cross. I recognized you from photos and the stories I've heard. Take the knife and card. You'll need them to get out of here.
A friend of Gracia.'
Vali was skeptical about the note's veracity, but knowing that maybe this was his only chance to escape, he took the keycard, and hid it in his inner pocket. After that, he picked up the knife from the floor, cleaned it and hid it in his right boot. Then, he headed up to the door, but when he was close to it, it suddenly opened, and two guards rushed inside.
Grabbing him by the arms, they took him out and led him down a hall. "Hurry up, there's no time to waste," grunted the first guard. The second guard looked at Vali, and winked an eye.
Vali blinked in confusion when the guards came to a sudden stop around the corner. Looking around, his worry increased when he noticed that the guards had taken him to a camera-blind spot. He prepared himself for whatever would happen next, but he did not expect what the guards would do.
"We're tired of all this," sighed the second guard. "And we're planning on leaving, but not without doing something right for once." He and the first guard adjusted their body armor, leaving the backs of their necks exposed. "So make it look convincing, kid."
Eyes widening, Vali realized what was happening. Taking the guard's words into account, he raised his tail and quickly struck their exposed necks, knocking out the first guard and sending the second to the brink of unconsciousness.
"Good…luck…" The second guard whispered, giving a thumbs up before fainting.
Vali looked at both guards, and readjusting his clothes, he sprinted across the corridor in front of him, evading the cameras.
Inevitably, he ended up finding a couple of guards in his way. The guards were about to use their radios, but Vali burned them before they could alert of his breakout. Without much options, the guards quickly took their field knives, and rushed towards him.
Vali looked again to the guards on the ground. The idea of pretending to be one of them was risky, but he had no more options. He quickly undressed the guards, and replaced his current clothes with a camo jacket, a black training shirt, camo cargo pants and a black beret. Luckily, the clothes fitted him well. After securing the keycard on his left boot, he resumed his escape.
Passing a few soldiers, Vali stood firmly and faintly nodded at them, hoping his disguise would work. Thankfully, the soldiers seemed too distracted to realize he wasn't one of them.
"Guess this fits me even better than I thought. Hm…"
However, he wouldn't be so lucky the second time. "Hey, it's the escaped subject!" shouted a burly guard as he charged at Vali. The second guard followed suit, pulling out a stun baton.
Vali let out a burst of fire, forcing the guards back. Realizing that they were at a stairway, he charged forwards, shoving the guards down the stairs before retreating to the safety of a nearby room, using the keycard to access it. Catching his breath, he recovered and left the room to continue trying to find a way to escape.
However, his train of thought was interrupted when he realized that the clothes he was wearing were almost completely scorched. While running, the jacket fell to the ground, half molten, and so did the shirt, the beret, the pants, and even his underwear, which in theory shouldn't have been burned, but Vali's scales had torn through the cloth. He was effectively naked, with the sole exception of his footwear.
"Agh…the clothes burned…" Vali thought, blushing as he made a run for it, using his hands to cover himself.
Making his way through the compound suddenly became much more difficult, as he had to constantly hide and peek around corners. However, because he had the master keycard, he was able to get past several locked doors and make his way to a hangar, where he would be able to get out and fly away.
Vali tensed as he quickly came to a halt, noticing a highly-decorated soldier standing alone nearby. He prepared to run when he saw the soldier glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, only for the soldier to simply look away.
Stretching his arms, the soldier fake yawned and monotonously declared, "Oh my, it's so shocking that the day after I got here, one of the people captured would escape containment. I just know that my old friend Gracia will somehow find out about an incident at my workplace and interrogate me. And it would be such a shame if Valentin Fieraru escaped by hiding in the cargo plane right over there." He subtly pointed his thumb at a cargo plane being loaded on the other side of the hangar.
Again, Vali was skeptical about the whole situation, but when the soldier mentioned Gracia, he realized that this man was the one who was helping him escape. He stealthily approached one of the crates being loaded, and after quickly rearranging what was inside, he hid himself.
The box was subsequently sealed with nails, and transported by one of the men working there in a forklift. Vali waited until he could be certain that it was safe to exit. He could feel his heart beating like crazy, like it was about to burst.
"Everything's ready!" A man said in the distance.
"Okay. Start ignition!" A voice said through a speaker.
Watching the cargo plane pull out of the hangar and fly away, the decorated soldier chuckled under his breath. "Wait until Gracia finds out her kid went streaking."
—
Some time passed. The plane was already nearly ten miles over the ground, and from a box labeled "Uniforms" in the storage section, a familiar scaly arm emerged. A couple seconds later, another arm emerged, and went back into the inside of the box. Vali peeked through the holes, and seeing nothing in the coast, he threw a slash, shattering the wood and scattering it everywhere. There, Vali rolled outside of the box, still naked. He looked around.
"What's with all of these boxes?" Vali thought, exploring the area. Most of the boxes were labeled with phrases in languages he wasn't able to understand, but the ones that he was able to, had labels that went from "Supplies" "Weapons" "Prototypes" "Combat Equipment" to "Thermal clothes" "Armor plates". There was even a small one that was completely steel forged and armed with a built in padlock, with the label "Parmesan Cheese Wheel". He then looked back at the box he hid himself in, and noticing the text, he pulled out a nylon bag, and opened it. Inside, there was a complete uniform, with a typical tan camouflage pattern. Vali hurried to dress himself with these new clothes, not wanting to spend another second naked.
Adjusting his newly acquired jacket, and impulsively putting on a beret that was included in the bundle, Vali leaned against a wall, ducking out of sight of a guard. A few seconds passed, before he continued on his way. Eventually reaching a door, he peeked through and nodded to himself when he saw a snack bar completely devoid of people. He opened the door, thinking about raiding the snack bar to collect some food before finding another place to hide, only for an alarm to blare.
"Alert: unidentified personnel has entered the break room."
Tensing up, Vali quickly ran back to the crate he had hidden in, putting everything back in order before going in the crate and closing it shut. Right after that, a loud slam was heard, and multiple footsteps were heard, entering the room.
"Looks like we have a stowaway…X-Rays, now!" A deep voice ordered.
One of the men lowered their goggles, and by pressing a button, an image of the whole place in black and white appeared. There, a complete skeleton with organs was hiding, ducked inside of the furthest box in the storage room. The man pointed at it, and with a hand gesture, the squad slowly approached Vali's location. "We found the stowaway! Approaching them now!"
Inside the box, Vali heard the soldiers approaching him. This was it. The end of the line. He was going to be eventually escorted to who-knows-where, and the cycle would repeat again. But he refused to give himself up. He had to go home, back to Gracia, back to his friends.
Quickly searching for something to write on, he continued to scavenge through the box until he found a decently sized piece of paper. Then, using his fangs, he bit his left thumb, and using the blood that came out of the wound, he quickly drew a series of symbols over the piece of paper. A moment later, the work was done. All that was left was to trigger it.
"Come on, work!" thought Vali urgently as he activated the talisman. The paper glowed, shining its light over the entire plane. Everything rumbled, before a bright flash blinded everyone. And then everything went wrong.
Vali felt the plane shake violently, and his eyes widened in surprise when the plane began tearing itself apart as it fell to the ground, faster and faster.. "What's going on?" he thought, "It was supposed to send me back home!"
"Warning: Critical sys-tem fai…lure…"
But it was too late to do anything. With every second it passed, the plane just got closer and closer to the ground. Vali stood in shock, and knowing what was going to happen, he shoved himself again into the box he initially infiltrated the plane in, and took on a fetal position. He waited for the impact, shaking. The plane continued to fall, until…
*CRASH*
—
Switching point of view…
Nitori and a group of kappa were taking a break in the nearby river.
"Ahhhh~ There's nothing better than a short dive to refresh oneself after a hard day of work." Nitori said, drying in the sun.
"True. Remodeling the entrance of the Moriya Shrine was quite the task. But hey, at least it was worth it, considering how juicy the payment was." One kappa said.
"Hey, folks, what do you think if I invite you all later for a round of drinks? I'll pay for them!" The leader kappa said.
"Hell yeah!" Everyone cheered in unison.
Suddenly, a strong wind swung the trees with a lot of force, and took away most of the kappa's hats. They looked around, confused. But then…
"What 's that?" One of the kappas said, pointing into the sky.
Everyone looked up, and they saw a strange object falling, not too far from them. Nitori pulled out a pair of binoculars, and looked.
"...Is that…a plane?!" Nitori said, watching as it continued to fall. Then, the plane broke in half, and its contents started to slowly fall from it.
"It's gonna fall in our territory! Attention, alert the salvage crews and rescue brigade and bring fireproof gear!" The leading kappa said, as a squad of kappa flew away quickly.
"I'll call the tengu guards just in case there are survivors who aren't friendly!" shouted a second kappa.
The rest of the kappa stayed in place, watching the plane break apart. The pilot cabin separated from the plane, and its pilots fell, without a single chance of survival.
Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard. The part of the plane that contained the fuel was the first one to impact, causing an enormous fire. Then, a massive crash was heard. The rest of the plane had hit land.
Several minutes later…
Nitori and the other kappas made their way into the crash site. A big portion of the plane was intact, and an assortment of boxes were scattered not too far from each other. There were kappas already opening them, and examining its contents, and various tengu watching out for any undesired visitor.
"We've been checking these boxes. The labels are written in a strange language, and it seems like we'll need more men to transport this. It's more than we expected." A kappa from the rescue squad said to the arriving group. "The others are busy dealing with the fire that was caused by the explosion."
"Sir! We've found multiple human corpses just a couple hundred meters from here! It seems they were most of the plane's passengers!" Another kappa shouted, arriving in a hurry.
"Great…Bring the corpses here for immediate cremation! Don't forget to remove their clothes! We don't want any hungry youkai to come here and interrupt our tasks, do we?" The leader kappa said, as the other one left again.
Moving into the subject of interest, the group took a look into the boxes. Some of them were slightly broken, letting their contents be shown. But for the most part, they were almost intact.
"What 's this?" One kappa said, taking out a long, heavy plastic case from one of the boxes. "How is this supposed to be op-oh, it's right here." She said, unlocking the case. Inside, there was a disassembled weapon, resembling an assault rifle. It came with everything, from its user's guide, to the full bundle of custom-made accessories, and a handful of ammo magazines.
"Don't touch that, it's a gun from the Outside World!" Nitori snapped, slamming the case shut. "I'll deal with this later. Chief, tell your men to take everything inside all these boxes, and to take it to my laboratory! I don't want anybody peeping into this stuff until I see it myself."
"Okay. Everyone, you heard Miss Nitori! Transport the contents of every important box into her lab, now!" The kappa leader declared.
The kappas around quickly got moving. They opened every box to the best of their abilities. From radio receivers, complicated night vision systems, explosive charges, weapons of various sizes and calibers, clothes, and even some never-seen-before artifacts, everything heavy enough was individually taken away from there, while the lighter things were kept in their original boxes. The only things the men weren't able to transport immediately were the iron safe, and a big, white striped box. It took more than four men to move it into an improvised extraction device, and then it was taken out of there by a squad of crow tengu, while the second one took half more of the previous amount of personnel to be transported.
Some minutes passed, and most of the boxes were already being salvaged for materials. There was one box left, looking more damaged than the rest. The group approached it, quickly noticing it had been opened prior to the accident.
"Eh? This box…" Nitori said, taking a look inside. After putting aside some of the bags inside of it, her eyes widened in shock. Inside, still in a fetal position, and injured, rested what looked like a youkai she had never seen before in her life. He wore clothes in a strange pattern that had the color of dirt. His scales, horns and hair, all gave signs of what he could be. A dragon.
"There's a survivor here! Where are the paramedics?!" Nitori shouted. Right after she said that, a squad of medic kappas approached her, and with care, took the survivor out of his shelter. Everyone was surprised.
"Well…looks like we have a much bigger problem right now. An outsider." The leader kappa said.
*Flash*
The group turned to see a familiar tengu taking photographs of the survivor, and quickly writing out a draft on her notebook.
"Well, look who got here in a blink of an eye. Hi, Aya." Nitori said, looking at the girl.
"What headline should I use for this…hmmm…what about "The survivor who fought against all odds?" "Stranger takes the quickest route into Gensokyo?" Maybe I should do this…this….and this…." Aya said, completely focused on her task.
"You can't catch a break, huh?"
"Of course I can't! Not with such an important incident like this! After all, you don't see this kind of stuff…on such a large scale!" Aya said, taking more photos of the scenery.
"He 's breathing. But it will take a while for him to wake up. Let's get him into the infirmary." Another tengu said, carrying the dragon in a fireman's carry, and taking flight. Nitori and the leading kappa left after him.
"I'll see you two later. Got quite the load of work to do." Aya said, waving at them and flying away.
—
Later that day…
"A plane crash? In Gensokyo?" Sanae said, while looking at Aya, who had just arrived to give her the news. "Where is the survivor now?"
"The kappa took him to the infirmary in tengu village for first aid. I'll be going there, since I need to interview him. You know, usual protocol." Aya answered, taking flight, and leaving.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Sanae said, going after her. "I want to meet him too!"
Meanwhile, in Hakurei Shrine Reimu stared blankly at the front page of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper.
"Breaking news! A plane has crashed into the depths of Youkai Mountain! A single survivor was found! The incident happened right past midday. According to the testimonies of people who were close, it seems like the wreckage killed almost all of their passengers, despite the efforts to resuscitate them. The debris left by the incident is currently being cleaned out. More details on this incident are coming up tomorrow!"
"So a plane from the Outside World crashed in Youkai Mountain, huh?" she mumbled. Tossing the paper away, she grunted and laid down on the floor of the shrine. "Eh, that's all the way over in Sanae's turf, so not my problem."
"Aye, what's with the long face? Is Aya spreading shady stuff again?" A voice came from behind, that being Suika, in an unusually sober mood. She walked over to her, and picked up the paper, reading it.
"Hm, this ain't like nothing i've seen before. Interesting. Hey, at least it isn't a montage." Suika said, returning the paper to Reimu and taking a sip of her gourd. "Do you want some?"
"Sure, why not? I don't have anything in particular to do today."
And then both of them spent the rest of the evening drinking, ignoring the incident completely.