Iron wheels scraped against steel rails in their familiar tooth-jarring screech that heralded the arrival of the 2:00 am express, which disgorged its few weary passengers onto the platform, where they dispersed along their own ways. Two people headed out across the grass; one was a college student who had stayed up late to help a classmate study for her exam, the other was a large man who had his mind on meeting with a business partner in one of the tenements.
The student knew nothing of this and probably wouldn't have cared. All he wanted was to grab a cup of hot tea and crawl into bed. Hell, forget the tea. Sleep was more important; he was so tired that his eyes were starting to play tricks on him. The shadows cast by the bushes and trees in the park seemed to take on a life of their own. For instance, one shrub held a striking resemblance to a squid on a pogo stick. A skinny cherry tree looked like his little sister's hair when one of her friends had accidentally dumped a pot of treacle on her head. And the stand of pines over there definitely looked as though something menacing was hiding in them-
A dark shape darted out of the pines with incredible speed, slamming into the other man like a runaway truck. With a screech of mad metallic laughter, it buried its fingers in the stricken man's shoulder. The sound of bones snapping like twigs carried clearly over the victim's agonized shrieks, and the thing kept up a steady chorus of insane giggles as it slowly tore the man apart.
The college student stood gaping in shock for the first few seconds, unable to believe what he was seeing. Then, with a courage he never knew he possessed, he rushed to aid the squealing victim. "Stop it! Get off of him!" He cried, throwing himself at the murderer.
The moment he touched the creature, he knew he had made an enormous mistake. It was like hitting a man-shaped steel framework padded with three or four inches of tough leather. Moonlight gleamed off of a helmet of polished black bone and the blood spattered liberally over thickly muscled arms. It turned its head to look at him, and he screamed in terror at what he didn't see there. With a smooth, almost contemptuously easy motion, the creature shrugged him off and straight-armed him across the chest with enough force to knock him into the grass several yards away, bones snapping under the impact.
For a solid quarter-hour he lay there aching and breathless, listening to crickets and screams and laughter and the horrible ripping and cracking sounds of messy dismemberment. At last, the monster rose from its kill and loped away, still chortling to itself. Not long after, he heard soft voices.
"Oh, damn," a rich bass voice muttered, "It's killed again, Van. Can't you keep a leash on that beast?"
"You know it only follows me around because it wants to, Piper." A lighter, utterly calm baritone replied. "I could almost swear that it's avoiding us on purpose."
"You know better than that." The one called Piper admonished as he stepped over to inspect the gory mess. He was an amazingly tall man, with red skin, black clothes, and dark glasses. "The damn thing doesn't have a brain. The only thing it can do on purpose is to kill whatever gets too close. And, man, did it ever do a number on this poor sod."
"At least we can be sure that he deserved every compound fracture. I wonder what this one was up to; the last three kills were nowhere near so, ah, elaborate." The one called Van was not as tall as his massive companion, but he was one-eyed and absolutely silver-pale in the moonlight. The only spot of color on him was the remaining eye, which burned bloodred in an impassive face. The pale man turned to look at the prone student, who was close to panic. "Whoops. Leftovers."
The unlikely pair moved forward to get a better look. "He ain't dead," Piper rumbled, "that's a new one."
"Hmm. Three cracked ribs, a broken shoulder and collarbone. He got off lightly." Van replied, pinning the young man's frightened gaze with his ruby stare. The eye had no pupil and seemed to be glowing... "Should we alert the authorities?"
"Why bother?" Piper asked as police sirens began to wail. "Someone already has. No doubt the screaming woke up the entire neighborhood. Let's go before people start asking annoying questions, eh?"
The two left just before a group of frightened and frustrated policemen and paramedics rushed in to see if there were any survivors.
"All right, who forgot to water the lilies?" Yohji demanded, fingering a wilted leaf.
"You did." Ken said, waving the morning paper at his teammate. "It was your turn to do the watering last night, remember? Only you came back at midnight last night, fell over on the couch downstairs, and passed out cold."
"You do the best impersonation of a canned ham I've ever seen, Yohji." Omi chuckled, handing him the hose.
Yohji harrumphed peevishly, but took the hose and sprayed the drooping plants. "So what's gone wrong with the world today?"
Ken unrolled the newspaper and scowled. "Let's see... There's been a couple of earthquakes in Honshu, one or two of the volcanoes are acting up, the prime minister was pelted with pies by protestors again, China is still upset by those Falun Gong people, and the killer's struck again."
"The killer?" Aya asked as he raised the steel blinds in the doors and windows. "How many this time?"
"Just one, and he tore the poor slob to bits. Oh, hey! There was a survivor this time, some college kid who actually saw the killer!"
"Really?" Omi asked.
"Yeah. He swore blind that the murderer isn't human. That it -get this- didn't have a face, and it ripped up that guy with its bare hands, laughing all the time."
"That's stupid." Yohji said. "How can it laugh if it doesn't have a face?"
"That's pretty much what the police said." Ken replied. "They think it's some guy going around in a mask using some sort of blunt object, like a crowbar or a hook or something of that nature."
"They're quite wrong, of course." A new voice broke in.
"Hi, Manx." Omi said pleasantly.
Medium-sized and pretty, with her vivid red hair and snappy beret, Manx stood in the doorway with a thick folder under her arm.
"And there you go, outshining all our poor flowers again, ma'am." Yohji said, bowing her into the shop.
"It might help if you watered them more often." Manx smiled. "Fun's over people; I'm here on business."
"A killer is loose in the streets of the city," Persia's familiar image informed them, "and it is a far more deadly one than usual."
The picture shifted, showing a menacing figure bespattered with gore, turning to glare at the camera with an eyeless stare that was more uncomfortable than any other they had ever seen. It was tall, very powerfully built, and mottled with dull greys and blacks that provided excellent night camouflage.
"This creature is indeed not human, for the agent who took this picture emptied his gun into the thing's head without any effect." Persia continued. "The agent is expected to survive, but he will never regain the use of his arm. Recently, a great deal of state-of-the-art laboratory and diagnostic equipment was stolen from a government lab, along with programs containing entire libraries of genetic research. It is presumed that the killer is an escaped experiment.
"In addition, these two men have been observed wherever the creature has made a kill."
The images showed two tall men, one skull-faced, red-skinned and dark-clad, and the other one was pale, single-eyed, and deadly calm.
"Find them. Destroy whoever is creating such monsters. Hunters of light, hunt the tomorrows of the dark beasts!"
"Funny thing he forgot to mention," Manx remarked as she unpacked the mission folders, "every single person that monster massacred was on the police's black list. Persia would have set you guys on their tails if you hadn't been so busy uprooting that drug ring. Are you all taking this mission?"
There were no objections from anyone.
"What about the others who were hurt?" Aya asked, opening his folder.
"Innocent as apricots, all of them. They were just in the way." Manx told him.
"Does Kritiker have any idea who stole the lab equipment?" Ken asked.
"Not a clue." Manx admitted grudgingly. "Whoever they are, they're very good at covering their tracks. Good luck catching these guys. I think you're going to need it."
The Weiss boys had cause to remember Manx's parting words; they searched the city for several days, but all they came up with was more mangled corpses. "Hey, calm down, Aya," Yohji said one evening when the tall redhead was beginning to growl at shadows, "our luck will change soon. The beast can't hide forever."
How right he was...
The eighth day of searching led them down obscure, badly-lit alleys in one of the shabbier districts of the city, where every street was claustrophobically crowded, and apparently built to confuse the enemy. Aya, whose mood hadn't improved at all over the past week, was sending off such a concentration of pissed-assassin vibes that the local muggers avoided their group totally. He was just dying for an excuse to take it out on something...
"Are you sure you brought a compass?" Yohji asked Ken, who was staring over Omi's shoulder at a street map that resembled multicolored spaghetti.
"Will you relax?" Ken retorted, longing for his motorcycle. "Yes, I did bring a compass, and no, we are not lost. Right, Omi?"
"Um." Omi said, trying to figure out whether he was holding the map right way up.
Aya was fast losing interest. Travelling in numbers may be the safer option, but it would have been so much easier to locate the wretched creature if they had let him scout alone! Allowing his teammate's argument roll past him, he concentrated on watching the alleys. They were being watched, of course. Eyes belonging to beggars, street-gangs, and the odd lone mugger or two gleamed at them from a safe distance, not daring to come forward-- a shadow figure flickered at the corner of his eye; one that didn't move like a human, but more like a big hunting cat.
Yohji, Ken, and Omi were too wrapped up in their discussion to notice Aya slip away to investigate. "No, turn it the other way!" Ken insisted. "We came in on willow street from the south, didn't we, Aya. Aya? Hey, where'd he go?"
Yohji growled. "Damn stupid jerk's run off again. Does he really think he can fight that thing by himself?"
"Maybe." Omi said dubiously. "He's very proud of his skill with a sword."
Just then, a shockingly loud whoop of mirth split the night air, closely followed by the sound of running feet. A few seconds later, Aya pounded past them at a dead run, a look of angry concentration on his face. "Now that's weird." Ken said. "Aya doesn't run away from anything."
Right after he said that, the killer thundered past them like a steam locomotive, totally ignoring the fact that it had been stabbed by a professional.
"Except maybe that." Omi said, shaken by what he had seen. "His sword's stuck right through that thing's chest!"
"Aya's gonna need help. Come on!" Yohji shouted and took off after the killer, with Ken and Omi close behind.
The chase was a nightmare. Aya was absolutely determined not to let that horror get its hands on him. Inwardly, he cursed himself for a feckless idiot. He should have known that a creature capable of surviving eight point-blank gunshots to the head wouldn't even notice a blade. He darted around every corner he could find, trying to lose the shadow-fiend that giggled madly behind him while the path got progressively more crowded. He leaped dented trash cans like a deer, skidded through huddled groups of lean-tos, stumbled over heaps of crumbling brick as fast as he could go, but the crashing and screams behind him told him that the creature was far too close for comfort.
"Aya!" The shout caught his attention, and he steered toward it gladly. Boy, was it ever good to know that he wasn't alone in this mess. His thoughts were interrupted as a dark hand struck the wall by his ear as he ducked around a corner, powdering the brickwork with a chilling crack. He bolted down the passage as fast as his tiring legs could carry him, right into a dead end. The impact stunned him briefly and Aya's legs tried to buckle under him. Leaning heavily against the wall, he looked up to face his enemy. It had slowed its advance, approaching slowly, fingers like blunt tenterhooks flexing eagerly. It was huge, and it really didn't have a face, just a blank oval of grey-mottled skin with a few dips and hollows to show the suggestion of a skull, fiendishly lit by the anemic streetlight glowing far overhead. The hilt of his katana protruded like a ghastly ornament from its chest, and Aya didn't quite dare to come close enough to pull it out. Aya could almost taste the thing's hunger. Where the hell were his teammates?!
A strand of living gold hissed out of the shadows to tangle the monster up with the nearby lamppost. Three darts followed it, sticking firmly into the dark flesh, and Ken came out of the darkness right behind them, gauntlet ripping long furrows in its back and side. The weapons proved to be useless, however. The monster gave a bark of laughter as the darts popped back out again, and the slashes healed right up without a trace. Ken scrambled back frantically as it lunged at him, missing only because Yohji's cable held, the lamppost creaking in complaint. Annoyed by the holdup, the monster strained at the cable; with several sad pinging noises, the wire snapped, allowing the monster to dart behind them and cut off their only means of escape. It closed in on them, forcing them up against the wall, and then stopped short again. The remaining strands of Yohji's cable had tangled themselves around the hilt of Aya's sword, tethering it to the lamppost. Growling in annoyance, the creature yanked the sword out of its chest and then paused, staring at it as if trying to remember something. It giggled whimsically and tossed the blade away, focusing its eyeless gaze on Omi. Lunging forward, it wrapped its arms around him, snatching the shortest member of the team up into a huge bear hug, patted him on the head, and then put him back down and wandered off, chortling to itself.
Omi just stood there, too stunned even to fall over.
Ken blinked after the departing creature, then turned as Omi sank to the ground with a whimper. "Omi! Are you all right?"
"NO!" Omi cried, clearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"How many ribs did it crack?" Yohji asked.
"None!" Omi replied, "And that's what bothers me!"
"Weird." Yohji muttered. "Hey Aya, you okay?"
"Blunt!" Aya roared, clutching his sword.
"What?" Ken said.
"Blunt, blunt, blunt! Point, edge, all blunt! Even the flat is blunt, and that didn't have an edge to begin with!"
"Um, Aya?" Ken began.
"The damn thing couldn't cut butter unless I dropped a brick on it, and it certainly can't cut the mustard now! I want that thing's head on a plate!" With that, he stomped off in search of the car, never minding the fact that he didn't know where it was.
The others watched him go with some uneasiness.
Ken had a horrible thought. "Guys, who drove us here?"
"Aya." Omi said glumly.
Brief silence.
"I am not sitting in the front seat." Yohji stated firmly, following their pissed-off leader.
"Me neither." Omi replied quickly.
"Or me." Ken said.
"Let's put Yohji in the front seat, he's expendable." Omi suggested.
"Oh, yeah?" Yohji retorted. "Like we need a dart-hurling shrimp?"
Omi took offense to this. "I happen to be the brains of this chicken outfit, and--"
"Help me find the damn car!" Aya snarled.
"Maybe we can strap Yohji to the hood." Ken suggested, prompting Yohji to bop him one.
Two figures watched them go from the rooftops. "Think they'll be trouble, Van?"
One red eye gleamed in the darkness as it focussed on the arguing assassins. "Perhaps. They are the local heroes, after all, and they're hunting the same thing we are."
"I just hope it doesn't start hunting them." Piper heaved a long sigh. "That redhead, though. He's got problems."
It took the Weiss boys a solid hour to locate Aya's car, which didn't improve Aya's temper at all. The fact that someone had decorated every inch of the vehicle with vividly spray-painted logos helped even less.
"I'm still not riding up front." Ken muttered to Yohji.
"Moot point anyway." Omi put in. "He's just strapped his sword into it like it was a little kid."
"Or his sister." Yohji agreed.
"C'mon, Omi, you can sit in Yohji's lap."
Omi recoiled in disgust. "No way! I don't know where it's been!"
"Now wait just a minute--" Yohji exploded.
"Get in the car." Aya didn't bother to raise his voice.
"Yessir." They chorused and piled in.
"Aya? I know that you're really upset about your sword," Ken said as Aya started up the car, "But could you try to contain your road rage and remember to drive responsibleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrghhh!!!!!!"
Aya was not about to control his temper. He punched the accelerator so hard that the car did a wheelie out of the parking space and took off down the road like a bat out of hell, managing to ignore the fact that his teammates were clutching the seats and screaming in terror. On the freeway he deliberately cut off three fully loaded semis and a pizza truck. By the time they got back to the flower shop, Ken, Yohji, and Omi had all acquired several grey hairs.
"Are we there yet?" Omi whimpered as the car dropped below mach 2.
"Yeah," Yohji panted, "Aya just has to parallel-park, is all."
A horrible notion. "Saigon bug-out!" Ken yelped.
"Chinese fire drill!" Yohji agreed.
"Chinese fire-drilling, sir!" Omi shouted and dove for the door handle.
Two seconds later, they stood on the sidewalk catching their breath. "We're getting better at these quick getaways," Yohji said breathlessly, "but you could have just opened the door, Ken."
"The window was already open." Ken muttered.
Amazingly, Aya managed to park the car without so much as scratching the new paint job. Muttering sourly with his sword clutched tightly in his fist, Aya stomped into the shop and up the stairs to his room. The others followed nervously. "Guys, whose turn was it to water the lilies?" Omi asked.
"Aya's."
"I'll water them." Omi sighed.
Aya had several days to put the edge back on his blade. The fiendish beast whose breastbone had dulled it had vanished into thin air, leaving a lot of frantic media speculation in its wake. The entire city buzzed with apprehension, the papers were full of worried articles, the television hummed with people who claimed to have seen it, and the gossip flew thick between the girls who visited the flower shop. "What if it goes after students next? Oh, noooo!" They cried. Every single one of them had a friend who had a friend of a friend who had seen it, and their stories started out scary and just got worse. In addition, more large and peculiar thefts occurred: A number of brand-new Cray computers had disappeared from government storage, an entire shipment of lab equipment never arrived at its proper destination, and three tankers of classified chemicals vanished without a trace. Not even Omi could locate them, although he tried his best.
When the break finally came, it was a doozy. The mortal remains of a band of drug runners were found smeared thinly over the interior of a dockside warehouse, and the killer itself burst out of the shadows to fatally maul one of the investigators-- right in front of a news camera team. The fact that the late investigator had been taking bribes from the Yakuza for years was lost in the hype.
The Weiss boys followed up on that case and on several others, sometimes arriving just minutes too late; and every time they arrived at the scene, they caught glimpses of two mysterious figures, one red, one white. Aya's temper got progressively stinkier every time they went out, and the others were starting to become more than a little grouchy themselves. They wouldn't even let Aya near his car except to let him clean it.
To their credit, they did catch up with the killer once in some old sewer tunnels near the docks. The wretched beast led them a merry chase through the badly-lit, foul-smelling labyrinth before making its escape through the lair of a former band of kidnappers. "Former", because it had finished dealing with the criminals before the Weiss boys arrived. Aya and the others burst into the lair and then skidded to a stop on the bloodsoaked carpet, halted by the frightened eyes of three dozen small children who'd had to watch a nightmare creature crack their captors open like eggs. In the end, they had to let Aya vent his temper on the furniture while Omi made an anonymous phone call to the police. "Feeling better, Aya?" Ken asked as they walked back to Yohji's dune buggy.
Aya glared at him, picking bits of desk out of his fist. "No."
Yohji sighed, gazing up at the stars. "I don't get it." He muttered half to himself. "We're the best team Kritiker's got. We've faced villains with every psychosis in the book, freaky mutants, psychobitches, mad scientists, freakier mutants, evil sorcerers, and zillions of cranky guys with guns. How come we're having such trouble with this thing?"
"Because all the other people we've fought were more or less human," Omi answered as they climbed into the car, "Y'know, things that Aya could stick his sword in with some hope that they'd actually die? I don't know what this thing is. I'm just glad that it didn't take all those kids apart, too."
"Yeah. I don't think I could've handled that." Ken said, and then stopped. "Guys. Look over there, across the street."
There they were again. Two tall figures, one white, one red, were mounting a pair of oddly-built motorcycles. With a snarl, Aya lunged for the wheel, nearly shoving Yohji over the side. Yohji barely had time to squeeze into the front passenger seat before Aya punched the accelerator, sending them straight towards the two cyclists on a collision course. The mysterious pair were not about to become roadkill, so they sped off down the street with the dune buggy roaring behind them. "Oh, God, please not another chase scene!" Ken wailed, clutching the seat for dear life. "Yohji, punch him out or something!"
"At this speed?! You're nuts!" Yohji gasped. "We'll crash!"
"We're gonna crash anyway!" Omi screamed.
Omi wasn't joking. The two cyclists had swerved into a dead-end alley, and the dead end loomed up above them like the end of the world. Astonishingly, they didn't crash. Lifting up their front wheels, they hit the wall as though it was an on-ramp and shot impossibly upwards, out of sight and out of reach. Aya wasn't so far gone in his rage that he thought he could do that, too. He hit the brakes just in time to prevent them from becoming a tacky wall mural. "Impossible! That's just not possible!!" He snarled.
Ken gave Yohji a significant look, which was passed on to Omi. Wordlessly, Omi dipped a dart into a vial of sedative and handed it up to Yohji, who then poked Aya with it. Aya slumped over the wheel, dead to the world. "Let's go home." Ken sighed. "I feel the need for a stiff drink."
"Likewise." Yohji grunted as he rearranged Aya.
"I just wish I was old enough." Omi said mournfully.
"I'll make you some cocoa." Ken replied.
"It's your turn to water the lilies, by the way." Omi said for no reason at all.
Aya was exceptionally put out when he woke up around noon the next day, but a big breakfast, a can of beer, and a bootlegged copy of "Tron" helped him out of it. Especially the part where the tank blew up the lightcycles.
"Another day, another dollar." Muttered Yohji, as he checked his garrote for kinks.
"Another thirty-five cents after taxes, you mean." Ken corrected him, running a whetstone over his bearclaws. "So, what did Manx have to say, Aya?"
Aya glowered at the phone. "She and the rest of Kritiker are getting a little frantic. Every time they get the least bit close to whoever is stealing all that laboratory and computer equipment, they lose track of agents and then find the bodies two days later in a series of small boxes. They're upset that we haven't been doing much better, either."
"Me, too." Grumbled Omi. "C'mon, let's get moving. Maybe we'll get lucky this time."
So saying, they piled into Yohji's car and took off for the last place where the monster had been spotted, a park on the north end of the city. Traffic wasn't too bad for once, so they were nearly there when they heard the first screams of mortal agony and terror. "It's here!" Ken shouted.
Yohji somehow managed to wedge the car into a parking space that was too small for it and they swarmed out almost before it was parked, running across the grass toward the horrible noises that emanated from a small grove of trees. They were exactly fifteen seconds too late. The monster was gone, and all that was left of the victim was a heap of dead meat. "Shit!" Snapped Aya, looking for the creature's trail and finding nothing as usual.
"Let's spread out and look around," Ken suggested, "It can't have gone far."
"Oh, godsdamnit, too late again." An unfamiliar voice rumbled from the trees.
"Thirty-eight seconds too late, to be exact." Another, slightly metallic voice agreed.
Aya and the others spun around to face the intruders. It was the same pair they'd been catching glimpses of ever since this crazy adventure began, standing only a few meters away. Aya suddenly saw red. Three and a half mortal weeks of frustration and fury suddenly welled up in his hindbrain and exploded behind his eyes. With an inarticulate shriek of rage, he drew his sword and threw himself at the red-skinned stranger, hell-bent on the sort of mayhem one finds in certain video games.
"Aya!" Omi shouted after him, and then, "Ken! Yohji!" As the other two leaped after him. "Am I the only one with any sense around here?!"
The red man only grinned as Aya bore down on him, reached behind his shoulders, and then drew two swords of his own and crossed them in one lightning fast movement. Aya's sword crashed down on this blocking maneuver and stuck, creaking ominously as the two swordsmen tried each other's strength. "Sooooo," the red man drawled pleasantly, "it's this game we play, is it?" His eyes were a dark gleam behind the sunglasses. "En garde!" And they were off, embroiled in a vicious slashing swordfight.
Ken, meanwhile, had engaged the other, bringing his bearclaws around for a killing stroke. The pale man raised an arm to block the blow, and three bright silver somethings shot out of the back of his hand with a sharp click. Ken found his weapon suddenly tangled up in three foot-long, gently curved blades. "They came out of his hand! His actual hand! He's not wearing a gauntlet or anything!" Ken thought frantically, staring at their fists.
His foe fixed his eyes with his single ruby one, and gave him a strange smile. "Bearclaws. A man after my own heart." His other wrist suddenly sprouted a second set of blades. "How fortunate that I feel the need to blow off some steam."
As Ken and Aya were trying to cope with these nasty surprises, Yohji danced around them, looking for a way to distract or tangle up their opponents without getting either himself or his teammates killed. Omi had drawn a trio of darts from his bandolier and hurled them at Van with a sharp grunt of effort. They struck the tall fighter squarely in the upper back and bounced off with sharp pinging noises. Their target didn't even notice. Omi goggled for a moment, gritted his teeth, and loaded his crossbow with his biggest dart, a bolt guaranteed to pierce the skull of an elephant. There was no way that white bastard could be wearing any armor under that T-shirt of his. Omi's elephant-killer dart launched off the bow with such force that it bruised Omi's breastbone, and bounced off of the back of the silver man's skull with a clang. The albino turned, irritated, to glare at Omi. "Do you mind?" He snapped.
Omi collapsed against a tree with a small groan, and began to bang his head against it.
Yohji, meanwhile, used this distraction as an opportunity to tangle his cable around Van's wrist just long enough for Ken to get in a lethal uppercut that should have sliced his adversary open from groin to chin. Instead, all he got was a horrible screech of steel scraping over steel and some badly blunted claws. The silver man stared down at his front. "Damn." He said peevishly. "That was my favorite shirt." He favored Yohji with a singularly unpleasant glare and then, wrapping his trapped hand even more thoroughly in the wire, hauled on it hard enough to lift Yohji off of his feet and hurl him right into Omi.
Ken backed away as that ruby stare burned into him again. A split second later, a pale hand that felt like an industrial clamp gripped his arm, swung him around, and sent him flying over to land on Yohji, knocking both of them cold. Omi continued to bang his head on the tree in the vague hope that he could jar the world back into reality this way. "You're going to get a migraine like that." Van informed him.
"Shut up!" Omi snarled.
Van shrugged and turned to his friend, who was still giving Aya the workout of a lifetime. "We've wasted enough time, Piper. Let's go before I lose the Hunter's trail entirely."
Piper bashed Aya's sword out of the way and essayed a slash that would have taken Aya's leg off at the knee if he'd been one fraction slower. "Oh, come on, Van," he panted, "I haven't had this much fun since we left the home system. This kid's almost as good as Bully."
Aya did not like anyone badmouthing his skill with his sword; Piper saw that right off.
"Even though Bully is only half his size. Faster too. This is a lovely little diversion, isn't it?"
"Piper, stop teasing him. It's not healthy for humans to froth at the mouth like that." Van admonished.
"That's okay." Piper replied dismissively. "It means that he'll drop his inhibitions and show me what he's really made of. Traditional sword techniques are so dull, don't you think?"
With a scream of rage, Aya threw caution to the winds and attempted to run Piper through. Bad move. Piper easily deflected the stroke and then seized Aya's wrists in a pair of hands that he didn't have a moment before. Aya stood stock still, staring in shock at Piper's new hands. They had eight fingers each.
"Look at it this way Piper," Van said wearily, "if you make me lose the trail again, I will personally drag you naked through a vat of carpet tacks and then dip you in rubbing alcohol. Got that?"
"Oh, all right." Piper groaned, sheathed one sword, punched Aya out, and then threw him over onto the pile.
"Oof!" Squeaked Omi from underneath Aya.
"Sorry. Oh, by the way, if you keep banging your head like that, you'll get a migraine."
"Shut up!"
"Suit yourself."
The weird pair left without further comment, leaving Omi to calm down on his own. Eventually, the realization that he was the only member of the team still on his feet sank in. He would have to drive them home. Oh, no. Ken gave a miserable little moan. "Ken, are you all right?" Omi asked.
"Omi?" Ken slurred vaguely. "Wha' hoppen? 'S three of you, Omi."
"You've got to help me get the others to the car, Ken. See if you can grab Aya."
Ken stared owlishly at Aya, who was already sporting a handsome shiner. "Which one? 'S four of him." Ken attempted to grab Aya, but missed by several inches and collapsed on his nose. "Nope, 's not that one." He said rather indistinctly.
Omi managed to get the others into the car after a few false starts, whereupon Ken passed out again. Omi was having a bad case of nerves as he clambered into the driver's seat and stuck the key into the ignition. "Okay." He muttered to himself. I don't have my license yet, but I can drive a scooter anywhere. How much different can a car be?" He looked at the dashboard. "I wonder what all these dials are for."
Omi managed to get them home without playing chicken with anything, not even the little old granny-lady on the moped. Yohji came back to the land of the living just long enough to help Omi lug the others inside, where he spilled a bucket of water all over the lilies and himself before falling over on the couch.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Crawford stalked the halls of the laboratory complex, composing his journal entry for the day in his mind. It was the first quiet moment to himself that he'd had all day. "Dear journal," he thought to himself, "how do I get myself into situations like this? And why is it always the Takatoris we wind up with? I'm being silly, of course. We only work for those rich and mad enough to hire us. The Takatori family is extremely rich, and madder than anyone else. (But who am I to talk, considering my teammates. Nagi's repressed, Schuldich is a nymphomaniacal jerk, and Farfie is, well, Farfie.) Well, maybe they're not as mad as Farfie. If that guy were any more totally bats than he already is, he'd be swinging around the city in a black cape and have a near-fatal attraction to searchlights. Heh. Maybe I should go back to California. It's warmer there, and nobody tries to take over the world.
"And that brings us to our current boss. Weird cousin Kaijin Takatori, mad geneticist extraordinare, who likes the idea of supersoldiers and total domination, but hates people. And then there's that horrible thing that's been wandering around the city lately. Kaijin wants us to believe that it's one of his, but I doubt it. We tried one of his creations out on Tot, but she just beat the stupid thing to death with her umbrella. How embarrassing.
"And that's another thing to complain about. Every time I hear the Japanese pronunciation of her name, I keep thinking of that dog in "Wizard of Oz". The only reason we keep her around is that Nagi gets upset if we even look at her funny. What does that kid see in her, anyway? I'd have done away with the girl long ago, just for her experimenting on Farfie. I wish she'd stop trying to find out how hyper he can get--"
"Crawford!" Schuldich's mental voice rattled around his brain, making Crawford wince.
"What now?" He asked acidly.
"We need some help in the conference room. Fast."
When Crawford arrived, the others were all staring up at Farfarello, who was swinging around in circles on the ceiling fan and whooping with glee. "All right," Crawford snarled, "Who's been feeding him sugar again?"
"SPWINGY!!!" Farfie shouted, losing his grip on the fan and landing on Schuldich. "Spwingy spwingy spwingy!!"
"Ooof!" Said Schuldich.
Crawford firmly resisted the impulse to go buy a one-way airline ticket to California and hauled Farfie off of the redhead. "Get a grip on yourself, would you?"
Farfie cackled madly and bounced off across the room, chanting "spwingy" under his breath. It seemed to be his new favorite word.
"At least he doesn't think he's a stingray anymore," Nagi said, coming up beside Crawford, who was thinking longingly of beach parties. "He almost drowned before we got him out of the fishtank. We really should think about getting him committed to an asylum sometime."
"I had a look into the future last night with that in mind." Crawford replied in a resigned tone. "I saw him escape, murder everyone inside but the canary, kick his way out through the basement door, and join a punk lesbian motorcycle gang. I think that keeping him around might just be preferable, in the long run."
"SPWINGY!!!"
"How?" Nagi said.
"I wish I knew."
Tot came in at that point, waving an empty paper bag in one hand and looking annoyed. "Okay," she piped, "who ate all my sugar candy? I had nearly three pounds!"
"Let me guess." Schuldich wheezed. "You left it out on the kitchen counter where anyone could have gotten at it again."
She blinked at him innocently. "Yes?"
"Spwingy!" Farfie caroled, cartwheeling past them to smack into a wall and crumple to the floor, where the sugar crash began to set in.
"You do that on purpose, don't you?" Schuldich accused.
Tot contrived to look even more cute and innocent. "Farfie's so funny when he goes spwingy, isn't he?"
"Land.... Shark...." Farfarello grated as his head came to pieces on the inside. He looked ready to share the misery around.
Nagi lifted them into the rafters as Farfie made vicious swipes at their ankles, growling and dribbling into the rug.
"Things have been ever so much more funny when Farfie goes spwingy, not like those ugly things that Mr. Kaijin has been cooking up. They aren't funny at all, and Mr. Rabbi hates them too."
Schuldich gave Nagi a disgusted look and shoved the girl off of the rafter. "What do you see in that twit, Nagi?"
Nagi merely lifted Tot back out of Farfie's reach and tipped Schuldich off instead. There was a double squawk from below as the telepath landed on Farfie. To make matters worse, Kaijin walked in just then. "What are you loonies doing in here?" He demanded. "You're supposed to be keeping an eye out for intruders! I demand an explanation!"
"Land.... Shark....." Farfie croaked from somewhere under a dazed Schuldich.
Crawford put his face in his hands and thought about tropical sunsets.
"Lemme get this straight," Ken said, nursing his bruises, "you drove us home last night?"
"I was the only one of us still conscious." Omi replied testily. "You guys were doing your canned-ham impressions at the time."
"At least you got us home without marrying us to a tree." Yohji muttered, trying to untangle the knots in his cable. "Just what did happen last night? I woke up very sore, and my shirt is damp."
"We ran into those two guys, I know that," Aya said, polishing nicks out of his sword blade, "after that it got sorta hazy."
Omi nodded morosely. Just thinking about the night before gave him a headache. "We fought those two all right, but we didn't get anywhere. I don't think they're any more human than our main target."
"How so?" Yohji asked.
Omi held up three darts and a crossbow bolt; the darts had bent points, and the bolt's point was snapped off at the base. "That white guy was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Yohji. I hit him in the back and head. He's gotta be a robot or something."
Ken flinched. "That would explain the blades in his wrists. And the way my claws went dull trying to slash him. How 'bout the big red guy?"
Aya scowled, fingering his bruised cheekbone. "Excellent swordsman, and that double-sword technique... He's better than Reiji Takatori." Aya frowned again, remembering something. "And he's got a second set of arms."
"What?!" Ken and Yohji said in unison.
"Two sets of arms. He was holding his swords in one pair, and the other two hands were gripping my wrists. They had eight fingers and claws. Then he dropped a sword and punched me out. I want out of this case. I didn't sign up to fight demons."
"It's still our responsibility," Omi said, opening a can of soda.
"True." Yohji sighed. "Kritiker will insist on that. We're just going to have to grit our teeth and bring these bastards down. After all, if we don't, they may stop paying us. By the way, Omi, just why did I wake up with a damp shirt?"
"You watered the lilies."
"Oh. I think I need to work on my aim."
It was several days before they got close to their quarry again, and by the time they did, they were all surly from lack of sleep. It was quite by accident that they found it; Yohji, unfamiliar with the East side of the city, had gotten lost. What made it worse was that precious few gas stations are open at three o'clock in the morning, so directions, or at least a road map, were impossible to get. They were cruising around an abandoned-looking complex of warehouses and parking lots when they heard the scream. It wasn't from a victim this time, however. Only one thing made a sound like that, and it wasn't amused. Shrill, metallic, and topful of murderous rage, the monster was shrieking bloody murder on the other side of a crumbling warehouse, accompanied by what sounded like a Hell's Angels rally.
Our heroes didn't even hesitate. Parking the car in a shadowy spot, they crept carefully around the corner to see what was going on. It was bedlam. There had to be fifty or sixty hired thugs on motorcycles whizzing around the huge lot, all them swinging long lengths of heavy chain. In the center of all of this was the monster, already tangled up in several chains, but still screaming and doing its level best to get at its attackers. As the Weiss boys watched, it hauled three bikers off of their vehicles and would have killed them if it hadn't been yanked to a halt by five others.
"Guys, look," Omi whispered, "They're all trying to get it into that armored truck over there. Someone wants it bad."
"Whoever they are, we know who's helping them." Ken said, flicking a finger at five familiar figures standing at the edge of the brawl. "If they're wrapped up in this, we know who's causing us trouble."
"Schwartz." Aya hissed. "And that girl from Schrient."
There was a low growl from Omi. Death flashed in his eyes. "Tot." He snarled. "I hate that girl!" With that, he streaked out of concealment straight toward his enemy. "DIEEE!!!"
The others were a bit shocked at his attitude. "And he's supposed to be the sensible one?" Yohji asked as they followed.
The Schwartz team wasn't all that surprised to see them here. Crawford was in the habit of having a look at the future every morning and had seen this coming. Shouting at the bikers to get that monster into the van and away, he grinned and engaged Aya, leaving Schuldich, Nagi, and Farfarello to deal with Yohji and Ken. Omi was busy chasing Tot all over the place. "Die! Die! Die!" He shouted, hurling darts everywhere.
"No! No! No!" Tot replied, deflecting the darts with her parasol and aiming a kick at him.
It all went downhill from there, unfortunately. Aya had trouble dealing with Crawford at the best of times, Ken and Yohji were trying not to let Schuldich get into their heads or let Nagi turn their own weapons on them. Farfie made a dreadful nuisance of himself, and then there were all these bikers with chain whips zooming around, too.
Then, abruptly, the tide was turned. They heard the sound of steel clanging repeatedly on pavement, like someone was running in armored boots. There was a pause in the rhythm, and then a motorcycle and its rider sailed through the air in front of them to smash into three others. There was a startled squawk a moment later, and then Tot came hurtling through the air, landing on Crawford. Aya looked around and gaped in surprise at the tall pale figure that was currently smashing a Harley with a single, powerful kick.
"Heads up, Junior!" An all-too-familiar bass voice rumbled in his ear. Aya ducked as a long sword swept over his head, deflecting a length of chain that one of the bikers had swung at him. Piper grinned at him toothily, hauling the biker off of his vehicle. "Work now, gawp later."
Aya snarled and swung at Piper, who seized his wrist before he could finish the slash. "No, doofus!" Piper barked at him, turning him to face the enemy, "Fight them, not me. Believe it or not, we're on the same side in this one."
There was one last vengeful howl from the faceless killer on the other side of the lot as the hired thugs managed to manhandle it into the armored truck. The pale man, who had been fencing with Farfarello, looked up and cursed and then tried to charge the truck, slapping the maddened psycho out of the way. He might have caught the truck if Schuldich hadn't stepped out in front of him, blocking his path. "Not so fast, friend," Schuldich told him insolently, "We've gone to a lot of trouble to get that thing."
"Out of my way, telepath." Van said, anger coloring his tone.
"Naah. Out of my way, white boy." Schuldich replied, and then grabbed mentally for Van's mind.
Van staggered slightly, and then straightened up and smiled, opening his mind to the outside influence. Schuldich had a horrible moment as he realized that the awareness he'd just touched was far, far different from anything he'd ever seen before he crumpled to the ground with a sudden blinding headache.
Van looked up at the spot where the truck had been, but it was gone. Snarling a curse, he headed back over to Piper, who had just leveled Nagi. He wasn't the only one who had noticed the truck's departure; the bikers also realized that they didn't sign up to fight demons either and were heading for the hills. Crawford scraped himself up from the pavement, hauled Nagi over a shoulder, kicked Schuldich and Farfie until they got up, and then ran for it. Tot joined them a few moments later, looking rather put out as she pulled a dart out of her parasol. "Why didn't you warn us about this, Brad?" Schuldich groaned, clutching at his head.
"I didn't know this was going to happen!" Crawford panted. "I didn't see it this morning. I can't see the movements of those two strangers at all!"
"What?!" Schuldich asked, startled.
Crawford didn't bother to answer; Van was hot on their heels, his feet clanging on the pavement behind them.
Meanwhile, The Weiss boys stood catching their breath, watching Piper warily. Ken noticed that the huge man's sword was considerably longer and heavier than Aya's, and yet he handled the weapon like a toy. Piper was watching Van disappear into the shadows after the fleeing Schwartz team. With a sigh, he turned around to face Aya and the others, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. "I suppose you kids will be wanting an explanation about all this."
"Yes!" Ken burst out angrily, causing the others to stare at him. "Who the hell are you guys? What is that thing that's been killing all those people? Who's behind all those lab thefts? Don't tell me you don't know, 'cause I'll beat you up if you do!"
Piper actually looked a bit uncomfortable. "Actually, I know the answers to all of your questions except the last. Um. Where to start?" Ken glared at him. "Right. Do any of you guys read science fiction?"
Yohji gave Piper a suspicious look. "I saw 'Sex Kittens of Uranus' and 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' on late-night TV, but I fell asleep halfway through both of them. What does that have to do with anything?"
Piper stared pityingly at Yohji a moment before answering. "Quite a lot, since Van, Hunter, and I are from a different dimension. Oh, for Zwon's sake. Van!" He roared suddenly. "Get your chrome-plated ass back over here so you can help me explain things to these neophytes!"
Van came back out of the alley, holding something under one arm that struggled and squeaked like an outraged guinea pig. "You need something?"
Piper snorted. "Verbal help. Where've you been?"
"Gathering information." Van replied. His wriggling burden turned out to be Tot, who was belaboring his behind with her parasol. "Feisty little bunny-butt, isn't she?"
Omi's eyes gleamed evilly. "Can I kill her now?"
Van gave him a reproving glare. "Certainly not. We haven't even asked her any questions yet."
"Questions?" Yohji asked.
"Yup." Piper replied. "We haven't a clue where they've taken Hunter or who she's working for. She does."
"Shall we begin?" Van said. "Young lady, we would like to know who you work for, where his lair is, and what is he planning to do with Hunter--that's that nasty thing without a face, by the way."
Tot crossed her arms and pouted. "Not gonna tell."
"Really? I might let that young fellow with the darts torture you a bit."
"Oh, please," said Omi, testing the points.
"Don't care, not gonna tell."
"You're quite sure about this?"
"Not gonna tell."
Van eyed her with waning patience. "How 'bout a good hard spanking?"
That rattled Tot. "You wouldn't."
"Try me." Van turned to Piper. "Hey, Piper, what's that thing Enma does to his son when the kid gets too uppity?"
"The Hundred-Blow Spanking." Piper reminded him with a grin.
"Quite right. And a one--"