Shadows of Angels, part 34, R

[Daughterof_Evil]

Just taking a break in the monotonous hiatus of this child of the night. What have you lovelies been doing while I was away? Homework? Housework? Head-banging?

This part includes mild sexual innuendo, mild medical gore, and mild swearing. Thank you all again for your wonmderful support...you have no idea what it means to me.
***
“ …in other news, German Intergang leader Hans Klirren has dominated an entire city block of Berlin for his stronghold, leading many authorities to believe he is either bracing for an attack or becoming insane…”

Tan skin, red kevlar, that mask. Running pale fingertips down his peaceful face. Fingers through his gelled, dark hair. He stirred in his sleep, and she sat back, afraid she had disturbed him, but went back to the stitches on his arm, admiring the gentle profile of his handsome face as he turned away from her.

“ Intergang colonies in Colombia continue to gain both suspicion and support from the international community. Many countries are still wary from the Bastille Day bombing in Paris, though the Colombian sect of Intergang is quick to point out it has nothing to do with the quarrel of American and European sublets…”

His thin chest heaving with an unconscious sigh was the last thing X remembered before rousing from sleep, the covers bundled around her torso. She found herself asleep on a large cushion atop a Persian rug in the middle of a bare wood floor. The walls were sepia-colored, hung with Pakistani tapestries. A fan had been ripped out of the ceiling, and its exposed cords were spewing from an empty socket.

She sat up and rubbed the back of her neck. She could only remember moving through the dark tourist channels of the Paris sewer system, listening to the slap of the water, watching their shadows bounce across the wet-gleaming brick walls. Saru crouched down next to her. He was in a pair of sweat pants, tabi socks, and a blue tank top.

“ Sweep where?” he asked.

She blinked at him. “ Huh?”

He pointed at her crumpled bed and attempted the English again. “ Sreeeep weru?”

The withdrawal hit her like a sledgehammer, hard and swift. She suddenly noticed the sweat soaking through her gauze-thin nightshirt, the prickles of cold along her skin, the blinding headache. The beef steroids were not helping her in the least, and every day the pain grew more punctual, the sickness more violent.

She darted up and out of the room, past a concerned Saru and an emotionless Hiramiaku, and threw up blood in the steel kitchen sink.
***
“ Just hold still, child,”

There was a man standing over her, shortish and grey, with a comb-over and a pair of surgical goggles perched on a beaked nose. She trembled with fear and cold and pain, and every time her body was wracked with agony, a shock went through her. She could feel the metallic taste in the back of her mouth, her skin crawling with microscopic minds, the tiny worlds built behind her eyeballs.

The doctor pulled a pair of tongs out of a bloody mess above her eyebrows. A bit of soft grey material sat between the halves, and he tossed it into a steel basin. He bit his lips, tinkered with a few wires running over her left eye.

“ Try to move it now,” he advised.

She did. A metal pinky finger quivered.

“ Good,” He was satisfied, and smiled.

“ The work isn’t going fast enough,” said a deep and smooth voice behind him.

“ You can’t rush art,” the doctor said, glaring at the man out of the corner of his eye. “ We’ll put her in the machine tomorrow, we should let her get her last night’s sleep,”

They receded into the dark. The light haloing her tortured body remained.

She felt herself hating.
***
A knock at the door. Helen listened, then muted the TV and left the kitchen. She paused at the front.

“ Who is it?”

“ It’s Bruce,”

The clatter as she unlatched the door. He was watching it all happen in his mind, like a tape he’d already seen. The red door flew open.

“ Mr. Wayne!” she cried, surprised. A sweatshirt, jeans, a tan Pakistani scarf holding her twists back in a perfect black arc behind her head. She was wearing blue socks.

“ Please, it’s Bruce,” he reminded her. He held out a bouquet of golden lilies wrapped in green tissue paper and secured with an orange silk bow. She took them, then, slightly embarrassed, invited him in.

The suite was small and just glimpsed the bay through the forest of investment buildings surrounding it. Green walls, carpet patterned with some faded baroque style, blue couches filled with foam. A kitchenette was set clumsily into the corner, and the other corner was the cordoned-off bedroom and bath.

Helen was talking. “…they just moved me here.”

“ So the case is going to take longer than normal?” he asked nonchalantly. She was moving around the kitchenette like a Nubian goddess.

“ Probably,” She stopped and leaned against the doorway. The TV was still muted, and images of sloping Colombian forests were intersected with slips of farmland. Coca crops grown beside corn. Banana plantations. Small, half-naked sun-browned children climbing in papaya trees with machetes on their waists. Interrupted by an image of a shaved-head Venezuelan man in a white suit, speaking without words.

“ No work today?” she asked. “ It’s eleven thirty,”

He started. “ No, I just left early.”

“ What did you need?” she questioned.

“ Would you come out with me?” he asked gently, somewhat embarrassed.

She looked at the floor. “ Bruce, I would love to, but—“

“ You can’t date anyone involved with the case, I know,” he said, raising a hand to silence her.

She shook her head, smiling. “ But, just…look at me!” She gestured at the jeans, sweatshirt, bandana. “ I look awful!”

He gave her a slightly sad, pleading smile. “ You look lovely.”

Six hours later, the jewel blue of the Caribbean sea spread out around the crescent of white sand. The air was light, fragrant with the smell of broken palms, and the sun was a bright white disc in the sky.

Helen was stretched out on a beach chair, dressed in a white two-piece and a light blue sarong. Her twists were brought back with a tie, her brown skin glowing like mahogany, black-lensed sunglasses shielding closed eyes.

“ So this whole island is yours?” she asked quietly.

“ Mm-hm,”

“ Not a person on it,” He could hear the grin in her voice.

“ You bring girls here a lot?” she asked.

He smiled down at the sand. “ So you’ve found out my secret plan.”

“ You’re transparent, Bruce Wayne,”
***
The horizon was still dusky from the sun, and slowly, around her, palettes of white and green and yellow flickered on in the impetus of electricity. Entire buildings lit up from top to bottom in a skin of trembling light.

She popped open the double windows with a tiny pick that anyone else would have mistaken for a very elaborate ballpoint pen. As she slid silkily in, the curtains caught the wind and brushed her arms, testing her stealth skills. She pushed them away, annoyed, and continued on into the room.

The partial blackout of the hotel’s ample generators had proven useful, as the built-in alarm system was silent and absent. The room, reduced to a few shapely curves of grey, spelled itself out for her. Couch, kitchenette, television, bed sealed behind French doors to the side. Shimmying to some distant music playing in her head, she moved into the bedroom, barely disturbing the slightly cracked door.

There was nothing under the bed but a pair of socks that she had a feeling didn’t belong to Agent Arroway. Checking through the closet, where her carryall was stowed in impeccable neatness. There were steel cases in there beside it, stacked almost up to the ceiling. She pulled the one on the top down and put it on the bed, opening it.

It was solid with the prismatic glow of jewel-cased compact discs, all lined up in neat rows. They had complicated code-names, but a single flick of her mind deciphered the real things from the dummies. She wasn’t stupid, she scoffed as she brought down another case, this one containing the laptop.

Unsurprisingly, it was encoded with the type of meek and understated security that government facilities contained. She dismantled it accordingly, stripping away the system in a ridiculously simple action, then accessed each disc one by one. The third of the good ones had the things she needed. She shut down the computer, zipping the security measures back up as she left it. She removed something from her utility belt; it looked like a tuning fork modeled to resemble a tube of mascara. On the handle end, there was a tiny LED screen. She applied the disc to the forked end so that it clamped over the hole in the middle. The disc began to spin, faster and faster.

There was a rumble in the hall, shouted words. The maitre d. Her blue eyes widened down at the small device and the spinning disc, looking more and more like some tin foil UFO from a cheap 50s sci-fi movie.

The LED screen lit up blue with black letters. SCAN COMPLETE. She removed the disc and replaced it perfectly into the case it came from, then stacked it back in the closet. She checked her watch. Seven minutes, thirty-four seconds. Sweating, she shut the closet and sped past the French doors, out into the suite. She dove for the window and its lacy white curtains, pulling it shut behind her just as the lights in the room behind her blazed on.
***
It was evening when they got to New Providence Island, and Helen had had to admit to Bruce that she didn’t know he could fly a helicopter. Then paid him the ten bucks she owed him for the bet.

Parts of New Providence, he explained, were in a constant state of celebration. Expatriates from Cuba, the Middle Americas, and Africa had started sprawling communities that fed off of tourist money. Entire blocks were squared away with strings of light bulbs, holding in foreign languages that spewed from the stuffed bars.

He directed her into one cantina in particular, one without a name other than a picture of a man standing in a whale’s mouth on a plank of artificially aged driftwood hanging over the door. Everything was neat, but chaotic. South American orquestra music spilled from aged speakers anchored in every corner. The floors were a mess of differently patterned red and yellow tiles, the walls plastered with dated travel posters from Spain, Argentina, Italy, Morocco, Portugal. Booths lining the edges of the bar were crammed with vacationers, but upon seeing Bruce and Helen, a tiny African girl with beads in her hair cleared a table for them in the quieter corner.

“ A friend of mine owns this place,” Bruce explained.

The minute he finished that seeming disclaimer, a woman across the room exploded from the bar. She was South American, it looked, with glossy dark hair brought back in a bun with a paper rose tucked behind her ear. Dressed in a ruffled white midriff top and a wrap skirt printed like the backdrop of a Tarzan movie, just leaves and flowers. Large brown eyes lined heavily with shadow, lips stained purple-black with paintstick.

“ Señor Wayne!” she exclaimed, moving over to them just as a sultry jungle animal might. The small African girl followed faithfully.

“ Kimali told me you were here,” she said, pulling Bruce from the booth in a single move. Helen stifled a laugh.

Bruce grinned, embarrassed. “ Helen Arroway, this is Consuela Alverez,”

“ Nice to meet you!” cried Consuela. Helen smiled politely.

“ Papa wants to thank you for the relief money you sent to our village in Guatemala,” Consuela told Bruce. Kimali took Bruce’s spot across from Helen. “ He’s just dying to see you again.”

Before he could protest, Consuela had pulled him out of range and towards the bar, behind a wall of stained red and yellow glass, and into the kitchen. It was empty.

Consuela became very serious. “ Did you need to bring the agent?” she asked, dropping her heavy South American accent for a milder Cuban one.

“ It was the only way I’d have reason for coming down here,” he said. “ Besides, I’ve got people perusing her files right now.”

She sighed. “ Very well. My people in Costa Rica are saying that massive amounts of the working class have begun inquiring about the Intergang colonies in Colombia.”

“ Yes?” Bruce wasn’t thinking about Consuela Alverez, but really about the woman named Consuela Guemaria, a former Cuban intelligence agent who went rogue after escaping the country in a shipping crate.

“ They are creating fodder for the revolution, Bruce! These colonies in Colombia are nothing but humanitarian fronts for drug lords. Many of these people are already on their payroll as it is.”

“ And what about Germany and France?”

“ The same. Intergang there is functioning under the guise of little-known importers, using these as a means of bringing in large amounts of weapons from the South American colonies.”

“ They’re planning a war,”

Consuela nodded. “ Mullen is going to make a move for Klirren’s power soon. He has Annaka Behm, the insider, to tell him the structure and weaknesses of German Intergang. He has Nevig Lockhardt’s offshore money to fund his campaign. He has the hacker Asmodeus to disrupt communications. We’re not even sure what this Weapon X is yet.”

“ And somewhere in there is Coquin,”

“ Who we have no idea who that could be. We don’t intend to find out. They’re a sleeper, and we’ll keep it that way till the last possible moment.”

“ Have you heard from La Touga?”

“ Brugnon?” Consuela looked flustered. She had joined leagues with Brugnon La Touga after her escape into exile, working for select clients with bigger budgets than the Cuban government. “ I thought you said he was in Gotham,”

“ He’s left.”

“ That stunt of yours couldn’t have helped.”

“ He didn’t know the real Heinrich was sedated and dropped in Ontario until after he gave me the information, so it doesn’t matter.”

“ Well, if we’re lucky we’ll see him again in a few months and not in a few years like last time. He’s already dropped off the map,” Consuela commented bitterly. Like most females Brugnon came into contact with, they had shared a brief intimate relationship that had hardened over into cold professional competition.

“ You’ve got to admit you’re a little glad to see him escape,” Bruce prodded.

“ As a co-worker, yes,” she concurred. “ As the ass in who he is a pain, not by a long shot.”

Bruce looked over his shoulder. “ I have to go. She’ll get suspicious.”

Consuela agreed and let him go with a wave of her hand. Three cooks appeared, almost automatically, and began preparing meals. Bruce left the kitchen as a bunch of beef hit the frying pan with a hiss and a cloud of steam. She had never asked what the playboy Bruce Wayne was doing inquiring about international terrorists, and for that he respected her.

Kimali and Helen were at the table talking, the former swinging her legs under the table.

“ Sorry about that,” Bruce apologized as Kimali darted away, into the kitchen, towards her mistress the guerilla-trained former assassin.

“ No problem,” Helen said. “ You’re a popular guy, that’s all.”

They must have talked after that, but what Bruce could remember spontaneously and by will at that moment would have no consequence later. He looked across the table into Helen’s deep, black eyes, and took her hands in his.

[The_NewCatwoman]

Homework and Housework yes, but head-banging? Nooooo




I really enjoyed this part, and found that Consuela must have some kind of idea of Bruce's... extra cirricular activities to know about he decoy doesn't she.




Also, I can't wait to see what happens to X, and who was that in Helen's apartment?



Also, I wanted to thank you on your own posts about what you said about the hotel pool swimming. I was going for something that could suck the gloom out of the rest of the story, as it wasn't very... happy.



Thanks so much, and eagerly awaiting the next post.

[Panther]

“ You can’t rush art,”

I'm sorry, all I could think of after reading that was Toy Story II and the crazy chess man. Great line. Was that a flashback? You have an interesting tendacy to mix dream sequences, flashbacks and the present together to make the reader wonder sometimes what's reality and what isn't. It took a second reading for the descriptions of what the docor was actaully /doing/ to hit me. If you ever come across a black and white silent film form the 20's called 'Metropolis' (not the same as the anime movie just come out, but some similar themes). I suggets you watch it. It's got the orginal mad scientist. And I know I've mentioned Kage Baker's books before, but this post really reminded me of how one character sadly considered herself 'a bad little machine'.

I loved X's thoughts on 'the boy in red'. So heartrenderingly sweet! I also like Saru's attempts at English. Better than my Japanses! What of 'the man in purple'? Might he make an appearence along the way?

/Very/ curiuous as to what Bruce is up to, but, if I may say so, this is my favorite part of the whole post:

“ You’re transparent, Bruce Wayne,”

oh the irony!!!
later,

[Sable Phoenix]

I entered the room, not hoping for much; the last couple times I had been here I had only found an old copy of the manuscript I was looking for, much-thumbed, slightly crumpled and dog-eared, and half-buried under a growing pile of new pages. But lo and behold, as I glanced over the pile today, right near the top, a new page with "Shadows of Angels, Part 34" across the front! I scrabbled into the pile and devoured it. Then, sated for the moment, I placed back on top of the pile for the next avid reader.

Why, oh WHY do you string us along so, DoE? I just cannot wait for each subsequent installment. The sub-plot between Bruce and Helen is becoming very intriguing. Write faster!

[witness]

After waiting for so long! This was another excellent chapter. I, too, want to know who was in Helen's apartment. One thing that's still bugging me is you ended the last chapter in that way and in this chapter there was absolutely NO mention of it!!! GRRR......way to string us along DoE! As always, I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter!

[Daughterof_Evil]

Catwoman: Thanks a bunch. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And no head-banging? What have you been doing all week? I'm still looking forward to more Perfect Dark...you left it in a tantalizing place.

Sable Phoenix: I'm very happy to see you back. It's been awhile since I was able to put together a new episode because my "editor" was checking to see if the references to her characters were all in order. And I'm just wiggling with joy over your lovely comments.

Panther: Yes, I took that quote from Toy Story II...it was just so appropriate. And yes, I have seen Metropolis (the Fritz Lang movie, not the Tezuka Osamu anime that came out that I'm still trying to get tickets to), I actually own it and am very fond of it. The Debussy they use for backround music was just elegant. And I'll get back to X and Saru...try Japanese, I know you can do it!!

witness: Now, you know that's just how I am. I like messing with people's brains. I just got through with reading more from your story and was angry with myself for having not gotten to it in so long. So I left you a message. Thanks for the nice things you said, and you won't have to wait all that long for another, I promise.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Thanks for the nice things you all said. I'm excited now that I know you haven't forgotten about me or my bevy of misfits.

The following part contains song lyrics from the anime The Utena Movie, another story about angels, demons, revolution...and older brothers. The song is called Fiancee ni Naritai or, translated, I Want to be Your Fiancee, and is sung by Mitsuhiro Oikawa, who plays the voice of the villain of the movie itself. It was Romanized on the site Bara no Unmei by Ming Ling, who I give much credit to. Proceeding the chorus is a rough translation from the actual movie itself. Also, the Shiori Massage parlor is named after a character from the movie who has some *ahem* questionable virtues.

Also, the characters Memoria and Praevidare Khasekemwy are not mine but belong to my best friend Tonbo Rosso, the creator of Hiramiaku and Saru.

This part includes some major sexual innuendo (of both the hetero- and homosexual type), and a little blood. A note as well on the Japanese: in Japan, onii-sama means "older brother", but can also be used to refer to someone slightly older than you who you are very close to or admire. Depending on age, this type of relationship can go from onii-sama all the way to oji-sama, or "uncle".
***
Saru had hauled her into the bathroom and put her in the tub, running the water very warm. He left, came back with a basin of cold water and a rag. He soaked the rag in the ice water and tied in around her forehead.

" Hi-Hi-Hiramiaku-sempai," X murmured, voice shaking. " I ha-have some...to tell...her..."

" She is gone," Saru said. He knelt on the floor. Tiny little green ceramic tiles. The ceiling was stained with flowering splotches of tan. The shower curtain had cartoonish-looking fish on it.

X turned on her side. Her pajamas were soaked through, sticking to her, floating around her like a layer of skin that had separated from her body. Saru put a large, comforting hand on her forehead, on her cheek, checking her temperature. The jade bead around her neck sank to the bottom of the tub.

X began to whisper, her words just barely trembling along the surface of the water. The cell phone was ringing in the other room. Saru got up and left to answer it.

X continued to talk to herself, not even in real words, but noises, like a code used among animals. Her body went limp. Her head slipped under the water. There, everything was jewel-like, cool and blue, and she kept talking. Voices came and went in her ear. One stayed, repeated, gentle and soothing.

" If it's any consolation, Hollye, you're nothing like him..."
***
The red neon tubing on the front was molded into the shape of a rose, one petal continually flying away in its simple animation. The sign read SHIORI MASSAGE. He had been across the street once before, breaking up a group of cocaine dealers hunkered down in a fifth floor flat. This place had never caught his attention, because there were at least three hundred others in the city exactly like it.

The windows were screened with red lace curtains, and the bright sign in the upper right hand corner still read OPEN despite it being eleven thirty at night. He rode a jump line to a second story window, making short work of the baroque-looking burglar bars with a tiny plasma torch.

He got tangled in more red lace curtains trying to get in the window. The entire room was lined with aromatherapy candles, all sizes and colors, some lit, others not. There was a massage bed in the corner, posters of exotic locales plastered on the walls. Robin sat on the floor and cut the rest of the red lace off his boot with a utility knife.

He heard the crack of a primer behind him. " Get up slowly," said a feminine British voice.

He got to his feet, hands up in the air, and turned. She was very pale, with eyes so light they were white. And silverish hair, cut short around her head and fluffed up like down with gel. Wearing a black vinyl vest with a ruffled white lace blouse, black knickers, black sheer stockings and little pilgrim shoes with buckles on them.

She was carrying a huge, chromed shotgun, aimed directly at his face. No older than he was. She circled him, nudging him towards the door, out into the hall, down the stairs and into a parlor done all in maroon velvet. There were a few Manets on the walls, real ones, not reproductions, and the more he thought about it, the more he remembered them missing from some museum in France.

The girl made him sit in a chair in the corner that had doilies on the arms.

" Praevidare!" she called. A thump. Then, " What?"

" A caller, dear brother," she answered.

Someone came thudding down the stairs from the front in a rapid fashion; they were obviously in the basement. A boy appeared, pale, with black hair cut in a chili-bowl style feathered just over his ears. White eyes. Dressed in a white brocade vest and a black laced-over dress shirt ruffled at the cuffs and collar, white knickers, black silk stockings, patent leather shoes. He was slight, elegant-looking, with a silver cuff watch on his left wrist.

" And who is he?" A raise of the eyebrow. He was British, as well.

" Robin," she said.

" And what are you here for, Bird Boy?"the boy, Praevidare, asked. The secret depths of the Batcomputer had been right, the Khasekemwy children were bright.

" I heard about your ties to Intergang," he replied.

The two traded looks. A woman entered the room from the front, an artificially redheaded Chinese in a red silk robe and nothing else. She was gone in a moment, upstairs, and paid no attention to the gun in the girl's hand.

The girl, Memoria, pulled a chair out from under a nearby table, flipped it around, and sat on it backwards, while simultaneously placing the chrome shotgun on the table between them, its barrel staring him down and her finger resting on the trigger.

" What do you want to know and how will you pay us?" she asked. Her brother gave him a happy little smile.

" I won't turn you guys into the cops as a prostitution ring," Robin offered. A rotund man in a plaid suit left from upstairs.

Praevidare scoffed. " Please. We know the cops per-son-al-ee,"

" You people and your ethics," Memoria rolled her eyes.

Robin was thinking it through again.

" I think I can find a way for you to pay us," Praevidare suggested, winking at Robin.

" Don't fantasize, Praevidare. We'll figure that out later," his sister commanded. " Just tell us what you want."

" I need you to find someone for me in Intergang,"

" Who?"

He looked at the floor. " A teenaged girl."

" Name, age, ethnicity, nationality," the girl rattled off. As Robin stared blankly at her, she and her brother tapped their heads at the same time.

" We were bred for mental capacity," Praevidare explained. " Walking computers,"

" If it helps, I think she's working for Nevig Lockhardt."

" Bodyguard?"

" Yeah!"

She smiled. " Yes, we have that tape, too. I've never seen the girl before. But she's an Intergang baby, some orphan they picked up,"

" She's not!" he burst out.

" I know," she said calmly. " I just didn't want to tell you that."

" Do you know where she is?"

" No."

" Are you lying?"

" I'm not lying as much as I'm editing my information," she said. " You have to do that sometimes."

" Can you get me information where she could be?" he asked.

" Yes. But it would take time and money."

" What do you want in exchange?"

She smiled at him. " Some Wayne Enterprise stock,"

He glared at her. " Something else."

" That nifty belt!" Praevidare cried.

There was a heavy creaking sound coming from the stairs. Memoria watched blandly as a very large woman entered the room, dressed in a green dress trimmed in black silk roses with a big, whale-boned girdle encircling her giant waist. Her hair was salt-and-peppered, face heavily made up.

" First time customer?" she asked in a rich Southern bravado, gesturing at Robin with a lace fan.

" He's here for the other reason, Madame," Memoria said.

The woman blinked. " Praevidare?"

The boy in the corner giggled. " No, Madame. The other reason."

" Oh. He matches the décor with all that red, just make sure to stand him in a corner or something when you're done," Waving distractedly at them, she left.

" Excuse her, she's just here to watch over us," Memoria said. " Now, I believe the boy liked your belt?"

Robin reluctantly unbuckled his belt and tossed it at Praevidare, who put it on and flounced out of the room.

" Now that that's over with, can I ask why you want information on this girl?" Memoria questioned.

" Just...business," he said.

" Oh...Business," she said, stretching that last word out so it sounded like a curse.
***
Being dragged up from the depths of the water. Blue in the face. Unbreathing. She was slammed down hard on the bathroom floor. Mouth pulled open, head tilted back. Long, warm hands pumping at her chest. A mouth pressed to hers, forcing air into her lungs. Hot water coming out of her nose and mouth, coughing, spewing all over the tile. Saru turned her on her side and pounded on her back. Flashes of blue, pink. She went under.

She woke up to a repeated verse, something cycling over and over again, thinly lined with the robust tenor of someone adding their voice to the garbled, threadbare notes. She opened her eyes and sat directly up. Her hair was wet, sticking to her head.

The sound was Saru, dancing around the kitchen, wearing a ruffled pink apron and singing along with the stereo.

" Kotoba yori mo tashikana mono
karada yorimo aimai na mono
mitsukara nakute futari
kasuri kizu fuyash*te...

It's something more reliable than words
something less specific than touch
never to find it, we're forever lost
we will only get hurt more and more..."

X looked to her right arm and found about a dozen little gold pins sticking into the soft flesh. She stared at them. Acupuncture, manipulation of the nerves through the pressure of hair-fine needles. The same anatomical principles that Dim Mak was based upon, only acupuncture was meant for the release of pain, not the dispensation of it.

X got to her feet and padded towards the kitchen, holding her right arm straight. Someone had dressed her in a pair of red pajamas with cherry blossoms on them, the right sleeve rolled up to her elbow. It was dark outside the window in the kitchen. She watched Saru waltz around for a little while, then turned and explored the flat.

There were two bedrooms, one empty except for a futon, the other containing a feather mattress and two dozen motorcycle parts on the floor. Then one hall closet that was locked. The bathroom, floor still slick with water and a wet towel tossed into the corner. There was another locked door at the end of the hall, bearing a small tapestry of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction.

She heard him halfway down the hall. " Garage," a voice behind her said. She turned. It was Saru in his pink apron, stuffing a muffin into his mouth. There was a streak of flour against the black of his temple.

" Hiramiaku has a motorcycle?" X asked as they went for the kitchen.

" Motorcy-kurus," he corrected. " Prura."

They sat down in the kitchen, at the counter, where Saru gently removed the pins from X's lower arm and replaced them into a suede pouch unrolled on the Formica.

" You saved my life," X said.

He stuffed down another muffin, nodding. He took out the last pin.

" Thank you,"

He shrugged. She reached down the front of her nightshirt and pulled the necklace over her head. The leather string was still damp from the bath.

" Here," She put it in his hand. " You want to be my onii-sama?"

He struggled to swallow the muffin. " Sure," Put the necklace on over his head, then jumped up and rooted through the cupboard. He came up with a six-inch butcher knife with a stainless steel blade and an ebony handle. In a single swipe, he cut his left palm open.

" Bloodo-pact," he explained.

She took the knife from him and sliced at her right hand. The palm opened with a tiny flash of red, and she and Saru clasped hands to seal the deal.

It would be remembered later that that was the exact moment the kitchen window imploded, the glowing glass shards catching the light and reflecting the blood.

[Sable Phoenix]

NOOO! Such a cliffhanger! Why do you do this to us, DoE?

[Tonbo_Rosso]

Yeah, my babys are finally in the...um... real world!!

Exellent work Doe. I can't wait til' you post the rest. I think people are going to pull out there teeth when they read this.

Tonbo

[Panther]

Exscuse me while I drool all over your FANTASTIC writing!

The Name! You finally used the name! Ok, keep going - don't stop now! For gosh sakes follow up on this! I'm gonna breack down and again make a plea for X's memories to return. I think at this point it makes sense due to what Robin is up to.
Which leads me into how much I loved Robin's sleuthing.

"No, Madame. The /other/ reason."

"Oh. He matches the décor with all that red, just make sure to stand him in a corner or something when you're done," Waving distractedly at them, she left.

LOL! These siblings are two very intersting characters. Not good - but they don't strike me as being all out evil. Perhaps anti-hero material? When you say you borow them form Tonbo - does she create them for this story, for her own fanfcition, for some other type of story? Just curious.

The sound was Saru, dancing around the kitchen, wearing a ruffled pink apron.

Can I date him? Please?

Please don't leave us hanging too long!

[The_NewCatwoman]

Forgive me for not replying until now, I did read though. I thought this part was fantastic, and Saru volunteering to be X's big brother like that was just beautiful. Too bad they had to get blown away like that. And YES! you used her name, whoo hoo! Maybe there's hope for these doomed characters of your's (and Tonbo's) yet.

[witness]

Ack! you actually used her name! now i'm really going crazy! even though it was in her mind.....still! and then you have to go and try to blow them up? come on!!! i can't stand it anymore, post already!

[Daughterof_Evil]

Ah, lots of indignation. I just wanted to take the time to thank all of you for the things you've said. And thanks to Tonbo, who creates the characters for her own writings and which I then kidnap and use to my own advantage. She's writing a Bat-fic of her own, soon to come out, so please be kind enough to drool all over it when it does.

Without further adieu...

[Daughterof_Evil]

This computer has done everything possible to sabotage me, so before I explode it, I'll post this. It includes serious violence and antisocial behavior...which is the best kind. Enjoy.
***
The man who came in the window was the first unfortunate one to go. Saru ripped off his apron and threw it over his head, dragging him to the floor and planting the already bloody butcher knife directly into the top of his skull.

“ Isoide!” Saru yelled. Through the hole in the window two black canisters flew in, struck the ground spinning, then began fuming out gas. “ Isoide!”

X vaulted over the counter and into the living room, landing in a crouch on the wooden floor just as two more men came in the front door. She saw immediately the dull, flat glow coming off their submachine guns, and laid flat to the floor as the rake of bullets sliced through the couch.

The one in the back went down the second Saru’s butcher knife, thrown from a good twenty feet away with astounding accuracy, hit him in the neck. X bounced up off the floor and struck the other in the stomach, grabbing the gun. She hit them in the chest with the butt of the gun, just then realizing it was a woman. Ripping the weapon free, X let off a short, powerful blast of gunfire at the kitchen window as two more people in black slinked in through the mist of gas. They fell back, outward, in an arch into the alley.

More windows were breaking, in the bathroom, maybe the master bedroom. Shouts came from outside the front door. Saru grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall, toward the locked door bearing the mark of Kali.

He sent it flying off its hinges with a single kick. X bypassed the set of galvanized stairs and jumped directly over the railing, landing twenty feet below in perfect order, the machine gun still clenched in her fists. That’s when she saw them, lit up by the automatic movement-sensor lights. A dozen different motorcycles, every jewel-toned color reflecting the halogen lamps, chrome lit up like flares, leather embossed with tiny scratches and monograms. Two of them were partially dismantled, but the other ten looked untouched.

Saru jumped onto a particularly sleek-looking souped-up Harley-Davidson, one bearing the look of a hybrid animal with the micro-managed pieces of speedy little Italian roadsters. X got on behind him, accepting dully as he stuck the single helmet down onto her head, the helmet she assumed Hiramiaku ignored despite her younger brother’s pleadings. He jacked the kickstand up, breaking the engine into a loose purr, and took off just as the first bullets struck the concrete.

They hit the wooden garage door going forty, Saru’s head ducked in just slightly. The night outside was muggy, smelling like the dregs of sewage, and the street was wet from the vendors hosing down the brick-laid cement that afternoon. There was the growl of ceramic engines behind them, and X knew immediately what they were looking for.

One arm around Saru’s lanky waist, she turned half around and took out the three of the five riders with a single swipe of gunfire, the kickback of the weapon registering barely as a twitch, even in one hand. One of their motorcycles caught fire and exploded as it hit a building side. Two-hundred-year-old lead paint went up like a nova.

“ Saru-sama!” she cried over the noise. “ They’re coming for me!”

“ I know!” he cried back. He pressed his hand down on the accelerator, barely missing the front end of an antiquated museum-piece car, just clipping the back side of a fruit truck and scratching a rift down the lean flank of pretty chrome the Harley-Davidson flaunted.

“ Where are we going!?” she screamed.

“ Wherever this thing takes us!” he yelled in slightly accented Japanese. He pulled onto a major road, skipping through the ropes of waiting cars. Behind them, the two original riders were joined by three replacements, all of them riding mass-produced Japanese motorcycles with fiberglass frames painted in candy-like colors. Nothing as powerful as Hiramiaku’s hybrid Harley-Davidson.

Horns blared around them as Saru jerked the bike up and onto the back of a low-riding sports car, over its roof, and across two other cars. X noticed, rather strangely, that the sky overhead was beginning to seethe with dark clouds, and that the deep, gut-rending rumble she felt was not the motorcycle’s engine but the sound system of an oncoming storm. A thump, and they hit another car, bounced over its steel hood, then back down to the street. Saru cut off a German van and skipped up onto the sidewalk, into a pedestrian sidestreet. A rider caught up with them, side-by-side. X lifted her gun and blasted him off his bike with one shot.

They blew through a wooden fence exactly ten seconds later, though it flipped up on invisible hinges and didn’t break as the garage door had. Two riders behind them weren’t as lucky, however, and caught it on the downswing. The twisted masses of flesh and metal hit the pavement behind them, and the squealing of still-turning actuators became further and further away.

They went two blocks without hearing or seeing anyone dangerous. From the sweating glow of red neon, X knew they were in Montmatre, back where everything had begun. Saru pulled a drastic left, onto Blvd. De Clichy, passing at the corner a huge, gaudy building with a windmill built into it. A fusion of something old and something new, something no longer functional with something older than human morality.

Everything was very quiet here, in this place of sin. They passed slowly, the prostitutes hanging glumly on the sidewalks, the johns walking with hungry eyes, the sandwich-boarded strippers advertising outside their respective clubs. Saru, perhaps from some concern for the mental health of his young charge, sped up, passing an American sedan paused at a stop sign. A flash of hot yellow flew by them, accompanied by the high-pitched whine of a ceramic motor. The rider stopped, turned, and stared at them.

Saru was swearing, now, and backing the bike up with his feet. The stopped sedan got in X’s line of sight, and she found she couldn’t face firing into a car full of potential innocents. Then, a gun in her face, another pointed at Saru. A woman wearing a ski mask, with grey eyes. She hung half out the back window of the sedan, a 7.5 mm pistol in both hands. The rider on the yellow motorcycle came up to the back of the car to head them off.

Saru put up his hands. The woman asked in French for them to turn off the motorcycle.

Saru shrugged. “ Cannot understand,”

The woman asked again, firmly this time, leveling both guns with Saru’s face. He smiled, charmingly, and reached over gently, putting his hands on the woman’s wrists. The yellow motorcyclist yelled and aimed his machine gun. The French woman was trembling, X could tell.

Saru leaned over. “ The safety is on,”

X got her cue. She put her bare feet to the ground and sent the bike backwards. Saru, a former pick-pocket, silkily removed the guns from the woman’s hands, flipping them behind him, to X, who dropped her machine gun. She slipped them into the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. The entire synchronization went by as a single, fluid movement. As they turned to escape, Saru struck out with his right leg, kicking the rider off his yellow Kawasaki and into the back windshield of the sedan.

“ Amateurs,” Saru scoffed, revving the engine and skirting a bicycle messenger at the same time. X could feel the cold, blank barrels of the pistols nudging slightly against her hip. She fastened both arms around Saru’s thin frame and held on.

She didn’t know how they suddenly got there, but there they were, in an empty tunnel, the lights mounted against the circular walls blurring past like one singular image. There were bullets. More riders behind them. A car trying to meet them neck-and-neck, the driver trying to blow out their engine. Saru dipped dangerously to the right, dancing with the sedan, taunting the driver with a raised middle finger. X took one of the pistols and fired at the undercarriage, trying to strike something, anything, that would give them an edge. Saru decelerated, swooping around behind the sedan.

The French woman had another gun, this time something semi-automatic, grey, the size of a dictionary. A single shot pierced the back windshield, throwing the woman’s head forward, her now limp arm hanging out the window and the gun going with it. X risked to looked behind her. Coming up hard and fast on the right was a woman with hollow black insets for eyes on a brand-new BMW motorcycle, painted mist silver. Hiramiaku.

She bobbed behind them for a second, taking a second to deliver a handful of steel spikes onto the road. There was a raucous snapping sound, a crash. Mangled fiberglass raking along the concrete, breaking bones. She accelerated, coming up so she was face to face with them. She was wearing black sunglasses, despite it being night, and an outfit of black leather. No helmet, just her bright red hair whipped back by the wind.

She and Saru exchanged brief information yelled through the turbulence. Then she sped up and away as Saru dropped back, behind the sedan. Hiramiaku matched the car for speed. She did something with the gas lever, pinning it down, and then jumped in a single graceful arch, hitting the top of the car just as her beautiful silver motorcycle fell onto its side and crashed somewhere behind them.

The driver began evasive movements, swerving erratically, firing up through the roof with his pistol. Hiramiaku turned backwards on the roof, hopped a little, and crashed feet-first through the flimsy safety-glass of the windshield. She disappeared inside. A moment later, the driver’s side door opened and the man flew out, striking the road and disappearing somewhere behind them.

They could see the cut-out image of the tunnel’s end before them, and with it, the dancing red lights of a series of police cruisers lined up across the exit. Hiramiaku gestured something at her brother, and he fell in file behind the sedan. He slowed, the tendons of his hand releasing as he took pressure off the accelerator.

X imagined Hiramiaku inside the car, alone, counting down. Did she, like X, see the numbers in her brain? The ten, eight, six? Or did she see, lit up in white reflective paint like the instructions painted onto the asphalt, CAUTION? SLOW? DEATH?

X held very tight to Saru.

He was grumbling, to himself, “ She is not wearing her sito-beruto,”

About one hundred feet before the end, Hiramiaku sped up, then jerked the steering wheel so the sedan flew in a horizontal wave at the cruisers. Tires burning, the squeal of the rubber. She struck the police cars side-to-side, knocking two out of the way. Saru sped up instinctively, flying through the gap his sister had made. Behind them, Hiramiaku reversed the broken sedan, then plowed through the tiny exit and escaped.

The police fired upon them, scrambling to pursue. X could feel Saru talking, and paid attention.

“ She will lose the car,” he told her, in Japanese. “ And we must lose this bike, or they will blow our tires out up the road.”

She nodded. He pulled a left, onto a one-way street, while Hiramiaku pulled a sharp right. X saw Saru’s target at once: a parking garage. He flew in, smashing through the automated arm at the check-in booth, and up six ramps to the roof level. They stopped immediately, leaving the motorcycle in the pathway. Saru popped open the seat and fished some things out: two harnesses, two grappling hooks attached to guns.

“ You stir have guns?” he asked.

“ Yes,” She handed one to him, which he stuffed into one of the million pockets of his pants. She kept the other, the one she had fired, for herself.

He gave her one of the harnesses, the type Hiramiaku had used the night they’d interrogated Georges, and put his own on. Fastened around the waist and thighs, a running cable around the edge. Velcro, metal clips, a dozen little snaps held it all together. It seemed a foolish thing to entrust one’s life to.

Then the grappling gun, an industrial-strength one, the type with a rechargeable, collapsing grappling hook that would spew out a one-inch steel-and-elastic cable guaranteed to hold two thousand pounds. The gun clipped to the belt. They could hear the sirens Dopplering in the streets, like the cries of wounded animals. Saru took her arm and pulled her to the edge.

X didn’t hestitate. She shot the gun, waited for the ping of its mark, then leapt. Behind her, on the parking garage, a police cruiser ran over their Harley-Davidson.

Falling, face-first towards the street. She leaned into the descent, body tensed but relaxed for the blow. She hit the side of the building on mark, and took off running, partially horizontal, the cable carrying her along. The glass and steel was cold under her bare feet.

Saru was behind her. Above her, Hiramiaku moved as lithely as some kind of predatory animal, a long, leather scabbard attached to her side.

Something fast, painful, and very hard hit her directly in the face. She could feel the soft, warm smell of flesh, a slight tinge of perfume. A woman, hanging off the roof by a cable, holding a truncheon, flinging herself across the expanse of glass. X smashed into her at full-force, tossing the mercenary off the building side. She jumped across the street in one move, landing on the facade of a faux Gothic establishment, hands hooked into the lacy loops in the stone. She stayed stationary for a moment, crouched horizontally, while Hiramiaku and Saru joined her.

At that point, X wondered where the boy in red was. In heaven? In hell? She had never believed in those places, but other people did, and it was times like these that probably incited them to think that way.

“ We have some things to discuss,” Hiramiaku told her as she landed.

“ Indeed,” X said calmly.

“ And I’ve never lied to anyone in my entire life, so I’ll be telling you the truth.”

X looked at her.

“ I have reason to believe you are a Hoshi Aka assassin, X. The last of their kind. But you must already know that, listening in on me.”

“ Yes.”

Hiramiaku pushed off from the faux Gothic and hit the one next to it. Saru and X followed, across art deco and post-modern and replicated baroque. They landed on a low tenement-style noodle house, behind a lattice-work red neon sign that advertised a specific type of microwave ramen in block letters.

The attacks came immediately, the moment they were vertical and stationary. People coming at them from all sides. X unhooked herself from her tether and used the cable as a weapon, deflecting punches sent at her from one tall, lanky man in ninja-black. He broke out a pair of sharp, steel razor sais and jumped at her. She ducked, punched him hard in the stomach, then swooped around behind him and snagged the cable around his neck. One sharp pull, and she heard his spine snap, right between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. She took the sais and attached the suspension rope to the utility ladder running down from the roof.

She could hear Hiramiaku speaking throughout the fight. “ Raised in the darkness, trained fanatically, like I was. We’re flesh but not flesh.”

Saru took advantage of the elasticity of his cable and ran up the back side of the neon ramen sign, flying backwards in a spinning circlet once he reached the top.

He was in mid-air when X tossed him the sais. He caught them, still spinning, and hit the roof, jabbed at an attacker, then shied back as the opponent collapsed.

“ The girl!” someone yelled. A man. “ Get the girl!”

X stood back, arms raised in defense, as three others rushed at her. She turned, jumped, and spun, hitting one in the side of the head with such force he went down immediately. She landed upon the tarmac on all fours, flipped halfway up, and struck the next man in the chest with her heel. She could feel the vibration of his splintering sternum all the way up her leg.

She flipped backward and landed in a crouch. Gesturing mockingly with her two first fingers for the third to come at her.

He pulled a six-inch knife from his boot and jumped at her. She grabbed his knife-hand and crushed the fingers, prying the blade from him. He jabbed at her with the unbroken hand, and she dodged it with her wrist, plunging the knife into the inside of his elbow. He yelped, and staggered back.

She punched and kicked him in the stomach till he finally kicked her back, hitting her in the side, then planting that foot and coming at her with a roundhouse from the other leg. She ducked, and he swept straight over her. She stood at the last second and planted one fist into his bottom jaw, throwing him up and backward. He hit the ground about six feet away, limp.

It was about then, when the first drops of rain began to splatter the rooftop, that Hiramiaku produced from the scabbard at her side a long, lean katana, its handle wrapped in red satin cording. A man in black stood placidly across from her. She executed a series of intricate swordsman’s exercises, the blade flickering through the sparse rain.

Hiramiaku jumped backwards, off the building, and Saru followed her. X ran to the edge, grabbed the lead, and hooked herself up. She jumped to the next building.

There was no tension in the cord, and the further she fell, the more she realized there was something wrong. The next roof was three stories down. She covered her face, and crashed into a water-retention tank on her side.

The blackout was barely a second long. When her head stopped whirling, she found herself surrounded by carcasses of twisted steel, sheets of corrugated iron, long-rusted solders. There was an acrid, slightly sweet taste in her mouth. The metal around her shifted and creaked, she heard scraps of impatient German. She could smell their warm bodies.

X breathed quietly for a few seconds. There was a slightly bent piece of sheet metal balancing precariously above her, shielding her from view. She grappled at her waistband, searching for the gun. It was gone, lost somewhere in the forest of steel.

More German, louder this time. The bent plate of sheet metal above her shook, then fell. Spatters of rain hit her face. She looked upward directly into the bright blue eyes of a man with brown hair. The tiny creases around his eyes amplified as he looked at her.

“ Hier!” he cried. He turned to his comrades and exchanged a brief, quick conversation. There was a flash of grey, white skin, and he disappeared. She heard the squeal of metal around her.

“ Imoto-sama!”

She gasped. “ Onii-sama!”

A long, pale hand reached through the gap above her and pulled her out by her wrist. The left arm of her pajama top had separated at the shoulder, and her white skin was filmed with red. Saru, panting, tugged her across the roof, pulled her close, and fell.

Using her as a balance on his left side, he ran along the building sides. It was raining harder now, and through the veil of silver-grey, she saw a bit of Hiramiaku soaring up the street and onto one of those glass and steel monstrosities that were beginning to eat away at Paris’ quaint and ancient exterior.

X twisted abruptly, using the momentum to toss them across the street, up against the windowed office building. Saru hit the retract button on his grappling hook, and they both ran horizontally up the building side.

They could hear, somewhere in the distance, the hum of the roving police helicopters, and see the pale sweep of their searchlights against the buildings.

The ping of crashing steel was the first thing they heard, along with the long, thin wail of the wind as it whipped over the top of the building. Hiramiaku, tall form silhouetted against the dousing rain, locked in sword combat with another, a man. It was obvious, with the slant of the challenging blade, the defense moves, the attacks, that this opponent was her equal.

Saru let out a little wail of horror and went through the pockets of his pants. When he realized what was missing, he looked to X.

“ Shimata…” he murmured.

X stood out there near the edge, holding the gun in two fists. She had it pointed at the man who was fighting Hiramiaku. She took a step forward.

“ Stop!” she cried. “ Or I’ll shoot!”

The man deflected a blow from Hiramiaku, then looked at her. He had no face; he was wearing a ninja mask, the type with optic lenses where the eyes should have been. Hiramiaku stood back.

“ Uguisu,” she said into the wind, “ this has nothing to do with you…”

With one flick of his wrist, the man in black hurled a silver throwing star at her. X raised one hand and caught it between two fingers, not even blinking. The man sort of grinned at her by a contortion of his mask. She fired four times, two bullets were deflected with the blade of his eighteenth-century saber, two others sailed just past his ear.

Hiramiaku had hit him with about four different attacks within the next .2 seconds, pushing him towards the edge. X followed, circling them nervously. Saru, in turn, followed X. His straight, dark hair was plastered to his head.

The fight was unrelenting and brutal. Hiramiaku once took the time to whip the handle of her katana across her rival’s face, bringing a bloody splatter from his cheekbone. X could somehow hear and feel the veins rupture. He turned on Hiramiaku, kicking her straight across the roof. He pulled two silver darts from his wrist pocket and threw them. They flew right past Hiramiaku’s face as she jumped for him, and both struck Saru in the upper right arm, bringing a gout of blood from his pale skin.

X slid over to him on the slippery glass, tucking her gun into her pants and pressing one hand over his wounds. He was breathing strangely, his eyes had gone all blank, and his mouth sort of hung open, bottom lip shaking. Both darts were lost in his arm, deep in the flesh.

“ Kso,” she heard him mutter. “ Kso, that hurts…”

X dropped the gun before him and got up, throwing herself into the middle of the fray. Someone’s blade cut a little notch across her back; she had a feeling it was Hiramiaku. She turned in mid-air and drove her bare heel into the man’s chin. He flew back a little, and X hit him again and again in the stomach until the plush of red up his throat was almost palpable even to her.

His fist in her hair. “ Don’t get feisty, syau ning,” said an electronically garbled voice. His knee jacked up and hit her in the face, along her left cheekbone.

She pulled away from him with an angry jolt and struck him hard on the chin with the flat of her palm. Unfazed, he turned on heel and kicked at her, but she jumped in an impossible backward flip, landing on one foot and driving her fist towards him, at the same time spinning again, madly, in a pinwheel striking out at him at all angles. She stopped, back to him, turned, two fingers poised for his throat, and struck.

One hand knocked her away, and the sword’s blade came down hard on her left arm, striking sparks. He shied back, then hit again. More sparks. X whirled over in a horizontal flip, hitting him in the head with her fist.

Catching her off guard, he turned and hit her in the temple with the hilt of his saber, but she ignored him and reached over to crush his neck. Something very hard hit her in the ribs, and she tumbled to the side, just barely catching herself from falling over the edge.

Hiramiaku stood over her. “ Gomen, Uguisu-chan. I regret that I must hurt someone Saru so cares about,”

The battle resumed immediately. Saru got to his feet, one hand gripping his bloody arm, and began circling the fighting pair. His eyes met X’s once or twice, but he was calm, maybe too calm.

And suddenly, it was over. A slice of silver as the katana went flying through the pounding rain, and Hiramiaku hit the tarmac on her side. Her opponent held his blade to her neck, then removed it and stood back.

It took X a moment to realize it was Hiramiaku’s laughter she heard, and not some very deep, very earthen thunder. She looked up, brushing fronds of wet red hair out of her eyes. She was smiling.

She got up. “ This is it, then. My final mission. You know, I thought I was born without all that kamikaze crap,”

She turned on heel, and without another single word, ran to the edge and leapt.

The more X thought about it, the more she thought she heard Saru screaming before Hiramiaku’s feet ever left the roof. The man in black had disappeared. X stood there, cold, numb, barely breathing. Saru stumbled to his feet, seeming now to be only a skeleton, a pale white cut-out against the blackness of sky. He was screaming, screaming like she had never heard anyone scream before. It was an animal sound, cold and primal, dredged up from the very base of him. He went to the edge, screamed again, collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably.

She went calmly to his side. He was shouting about not leaving him alone, about wanting to go with her, wanting to be with her, and X was abruptly holding him back as he thrashed for the edge. Her right cheek was pressed to the small of his back. He was wailing, all his warmth seemed to come from that. She began to whisper, very quietly.

“ Onii-sama, don’t go, please. I need you here. Don’t leave me all alone in this world. I’d have died if it weren’t for you…”

That was the way the Intergang mercenaries found them five minutes later, sitting near the edge. The boy/man Saru was curled up on his side, shaking, eyes wide with fear. His head was up against the girl’s chest, and she was holding him very close, one hand on his shoulder, the other smoothing out his hair. She was wearing torn red pajamas with tiny white flowers on them. Soaked through, the cotton sticking to her muscles.

They both seemed to know that the street below was bathed in their mistress’s blood.

She didn’t look at them as they approached. They had their guns drawn, night-vision goggles on, bundled in capes of kevlar and leather. Their pirated helicopter beat noisily behind them, searchlight catching them in its beam. Suddenly, she glanced up at them, briefly, then back at the boy. She didn’t say anything.

[Tonbo_Rosso]

BOne jarring motorcycle chases, deuls on the side of sky scrapers, mysterious ninja that can beat Hiramiaku, and the sudden plummet of our fearless theif? What's next folks?



In other words POST DOE POST!!

Thank you

Tonbo

[witness]

Post DoE Post!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, this was an exciting chapter to read. The fight was incredible, and I want to know who that ninja was thata could actually beat Hiramiaku. Very sad that Intergang now has X and Saru. I wonder what they'll do to Saru? I can't wait much longer for the next chapter!!!!

[Panther]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........



I'm sorry, I just drooled all over the story.

Also, I'm afraid at this point all I can do is incoherently bable excitidly about [swear word deleted] awesome this story is.

I just re-read it for the fourth time and I am in still in shock about the sheer force that leaps from the words and hits you right between the eyes, leaving the reader, quite frankly, gasping for air.

Must go catch my breath, (agian!)

please post more soon!!!!!!!!!!!

later,

[Sable Phoenix]

Whaaat?!

I'm at a loss for words after that last episode. I still am in shock at Hiramiaku's death (or is she really dead? People "die" in Batman's universe all the time and come back...). But I really cannot describe my feelings other than that.

And the fight on the rooftop... wow. Incredible episode, DoE.

Now I've got to know... who's the mysterious, invincible ninja, and what part does he play in the story? Things are becoming so complicated they're almost difficult to follow.

[The_NewCatwoman]

Nooooooooo!

Hiramiaku was NOT supposed to die!

Okay, maybe she was...

I know I can't really talk, I mean I killed off Bruce Wayne for God's sakes, as well as Superman, Barbara, uhhhhh.... Tim/Robin, errrrr.... Harley, The Joker (but I doubt anyone misses him)...

So I guess I REALLY can't even complain about you killing off such a great character.

Okay, I love you, buh-bye
- Mindy


-tNC

[Daughterof_Evil]

Oh, how excited I was to receive so many replies! I'll get to you all, I swear!

Tonbo: Nice to see you, babe. Just checking up on your characters, eh? Making sure there are no indecent exposures? Thank you for the encouragement, doll. I'll get to it soon enough. Saw Revolutionary Boy Wonder and loved it. You've got such a handle on the Utena universe!

witness: Thank you for saying it was exciting...I wrote it while on a two-day Underworld bender, so it really goes with the music. I have to say though, that your story ended wonderfully. The allusion to violence is always more fun than the act itself...

Panther: For gosh sakes! Wipe up your drool, woman! If anything, I am the one currently salivating over your work! It is, to say the absolute least, divine.

Sable Phoenix: Sorry about the complicatedness of it...I am afraid it only gets worse. But thank you for your kind words, and an interesting point about the Batman universe, there really have been some resurrections for the books. But you'll have to ask Tonbo about that; Hiramiaku is, after all, her demented brainchild.

the New Catwoman: Yes, I do remember the much contested deaths you have executed in your stories! Evil, evil woman! I'm reading your current stories and am shocked and stunned at appropriate turns. Got to love you, tNC.