Warning: content
Chapter 0
You turn on your TV. It's two in the morning, and you can't sleep. Maybe a little TV will lull you to sleep.
The screen takes amoment to warm up... always has, ever since those electromagnetic wierdos moved in across the street. On the other hand, it forces the yappies (Young Alien Professionals) to put down their cellulars while they drive through your neighborhood, and so there's been a lot less accidents since then. The local PTA voted to endorse them sticking around.
A pretty japanese girl is sitting behind a news-desk. She's tall, and as the picture comes in more clearly you realize she's a real stunner, with long lustrous black hair falling at least as far as the desktop. You've seen worse on late-night tv... you leave it on, and sit down in the comfortable chair.
"Hi!" She says. A colorbar graphic announces her name as Rei Hino. "And welcome to Nexus-Watch! Our roving reporters keep an eye on the street, and let you know what's going on. First off, we've got a special report on the recent chainsaw slayings."
The camera moves across the soundstage, pointing at a blonde woman who is currently hopping up and down on one foot and holding her other, wincing in pain. "OW! Ow ow ow ow ow"
"MINA!" The name comes out as a strangled shout, or a loud whisper.
Mina notices the camera and turns a rich shade of scarlet. "Ahh.. ahh... sorreeeee..." She sits down and picks up a shief of papers, trying to look professional. The colorbar switches to announce her as Mina Aino. "As previous watchers of Nexus-watch already know, there has been a series of nasty murders across the main section of Nexus, all involving a chainsaw. Maximum Cop had this to say."
The newsroom is replaced with the image of MC headquarters. A beligered cop, more of the administrative type, is standing with bleary eyes and a rumpled suit, giving a statement to a number of reporters. "At this time, we have some leads on the chainsaw killer, but they are leads we cannot share at this time. We expect an arrest at any time."
The camera pulls back, and focuses on a short girl with blue-black hair in a short haircut, also japanese, with a bookish/academic air about her. She's holding a microphone festuned with 'NexusWatch' stickers. The colorbar graphic identifies her as Ami Anderson.
"It's an interesting fact to note that over the past four years, statements such as this have nine out of ten times proved to be false - either a bounty hunter turned in the culprit or else the crime remained unsolved. So as nice as it is for MC to make a statement, I'm afraid it can be considered linquisticly null."
The picture of Ami shrinks down to a small block over Mina's shoulder. Mina looks puzzled. "What?"
Ami, in the small window, looks annoyed. "He's lying, Mina."
"Oh! Okay. Thank you very much, Ami."
The little picture of Ami dissapeares as she hangs her head in embarrassment.
Mina smiles. "However, one of our reporters says that she has s potted the enigmatic Joe Black, a detective with quite a string of successes, as being on the case. Usagi?"
The screen is switched to show the outside of a dark ally, where Usagi, another japanese blonde, only with a pair of long pigtails falling from the top of her head, is apparently chatting with someone else, not realizing she's on the air.
"God, he's such a hunk"
"Yeah, he reminds me of my old boyfriend," says someone off camera.
"You WISH! I've seen pictures of your boyfriend."
"USAGI!" Rei's voice doesn't even pretend to disguise it's anger.
"What? What?"
"You-are-on-the-air!"
Usagi turns a credible shade of crimson herself, and tries to snap to attention. Unfortunately, she steps on her own pigtail as she does so, which causes her to fall over in a heap. The camera points down to show her sprawled on the street.
"Well, um, yeah" Usagi says as she stands. "Anyway, I've just seen Joe Black going down into this allyway. He looked very determined and able and so *hunky*."
Rei's voice again interrupts the woman. "Usagi! That's not the way a reporter should speak!" "Too bad. That's what I've got to report. If someone that good looking is tracking down the killer, then I feel safer already. "
"Me too" cuts in what seems to be the camerawoman.
"And I still think we should have called the show 'Hunk-watch'."
"USAGI! You are such a ditz!"
The picture of Usagi shrinks down to another over-the shoulder shot, as Rei turns in her chair and starts sticking out her tongue at her reporter. Usagi returns the sentiment, and this goes on for a moment. After a few exchanges Rei notices the camera is on, and is back to her normal smiling face in a flash.
"Well, that's the update on the Chainsaw murders. Now, onto a strange situation in one of the outlying areas of the Nexus, where an assassin is being stalked by a number of bountyhunters."
The screen shifts to a street scene, where a blonde man, tall and slim, is professionally looking into the camera. He's very beautiful, and for a moment you almost mistook him for a woman. The colorbar at the bottom of the screen identifies him as Haruka.
"Greetings, and welcome to the New Amsterdam Megaplex sub-world. This dimension is a particularly interesting one, as although all sorts of fantastic creatures can creep through it, the populace is somehow able to completely ignore it and pretend that everything is mundane. As such, I may be one of ten people in this world to be able to see what I'm reporting to you."
"Two weeks ago a particularly nasty hit went down, an assassination that was carried out by Aello," and a picture of the bird-girl pops up on the screen, " who is now wanted by a police department which is trying to decide if they're chasing the impossible, or just someone who, and I quote, "wears some sort of bird costume when killing crimes."
"The Aello creature seems to be holded up in an empty apartment in this area."
The picture switches to previously recorded footage, which is sowing a large panther in silver powered armor.
"Bounty hunters as strange as this one have shown up in this backwater dimension," the panter notices the camera and bats it into the air. The viewpoint soars up into the air, and then falls down to some roof. The picture becomes static for a moment before it cuts back to Haruka. "The bounty hunter did not wish to be interviewed at this time."
The camera returns to Rei. "Thank you. Next up is Michelle, who has just arrived at a strange portal that has opened up in downtown."
The camera opens up on a normal looking street. There's a convenience store, a strip mall, some apartments trying to attract new customers. There's also a rippling oval in mid-air. Two men carry a third through the portal, stepping over a large spiky woman laying in the street. The men nearly collapse as the portal begins to ever-so-slowly close.
A voiceover begins. "This is Micheru. As luck would have it, I was just driving by when my sensitive detected a rip in the local spacetime fabric. This strange event seems to have just begin."
One of the men looks around, jumps up, and runs over to the strip mall. The camera tracks him entering the Liquor store, and then tracks back. Some sort of hidious, damaged cyborg is seen through the portal, which seems to have shrunk a little more. The cyborg, lying down, looks through, and then turns to look at two figures in the background.
The man who had run off runs back, carrying a pair of bottles of something. He puts them on a car roof, and makes makeshift bombs with them. At this point the portal has gotten noticably smaller. The man swears, and runs to the portal. He lights the bomb, and tries to throw it onto the cyborg, through the gateway. Then he grabs the man he'd carried through before, and stands up, letting the man lean against him. He sticks one of the man's hands through the portal, and waits.
The camera switches back to Rei. She smiles. "Next up is the weekly drug report, telling us of the latest 'highs' of the drug community." The camera slides across - weekend update style - to a slightly bombed-out looking japanese girl with dark hair, pale skin, and black clothing. She only looks to be about fifteen.
"Hi."
There's a pause, and then Rei whispers, "Hotaru? You're on camera!"
"Woah! I thought I was on a chair." She checks. "I *am* on a chair." She grins evilly towards Rei. "Tried to fool me, huh?"
Pause.
"Wha? Look forward?"
She turns and looks at the camera again. "DUDE! I'm on TV!" She blinks. "Oh, hey. Look, there's this new drug called 'Communion'. It's really gnarly. It lets you talk to God! For real!"
She looks around. Rei is looking at her as if she's on drugs.
"No, really. Jesus showed up! He fixed my front steps, too!"
The camera quickly slides back to Rei, who is talking to a brown- haired girl. "She is such an... OH!" She turns back to the camera. "Anyway, now on to the weather, which is run by..." She cringes, "Hotaru again."
Another camera is turned on, and shows Hotaru in front of a bizzaree weather map of the Nexus. She grins like a drug fiend. "Heeeeyyyy.... I'm Hotaru, your hippy dippy weatherman...."
It's this which finally lulls you to sleep.
Chapter 1
Here Is The News!
It's a mad scientist's laboratory. Old, 1950's era electronic components lie about the room, some of it active and buzzing (a quartet of Jacob's Ladders sing to the sky in harmony) and some dead and discarded, or not yet incorporated into whatever the scientist in question is working on.
A reptilian hand reaches down, and grasps a slightly rusty set of jump cables, lifting them up to a face like a small tyrannosaurus rex. Grunting, the saurian attaches one set of clamps to some large, humming block of machinery, and the other clamps to thin, diaphanous webbing that stretches across one wall.
Nothing happens.
The scientist curses, and gives the humming block of machinery a surprisingly energetic kick. It skids up on one edge, and slides across a foot of floor before running into what seems to be a stack of 'Boys Life' magazines. The obstacle causes the machine to come down onto the stone flooring with a thump that causes many light objects in the room to jump into the air for a moment.
A wave of energy washes over the webbing, leaving in it's wake the image of a television studio, where a pretty, blonde haired girl around her early twenties is sitting behind a news-desk. She is looking up at the camera, and she speaks.
"Here is the news."
Minako sighed as the hot lights turned off, and allowed her back to finally relax back into the soft cushions that had tempted her since the beginning of the broadcast. She hated it when Rei called in sick - having to be on camera for the full broadcast wore her out. Which, she reflected, was why Rei usually did the job - having been a Shinto priestess had taught her how to handle herself in public. Whereas she had to keep reminding herself not to panic.
Shutting her eyes for a moment, she considered just dropping off to sleep there. Which of course is when a large weight dropped into her lap.
Opening her eyes, she confirmed that Artemis, her white cat/friend, had landed in her lap. "C'mon..."
Artemis shook his head. "Nope. Get on up. I can't let you sleep here - if nothing else, you'll be complaining about your back all day tomorrow, and that's a bother I don't want." The lay of his ears showed Minako he was serious.
She straightened up, and grinned. "So, Luna turned you down again?"
"She'll change her mind eventually"
Laughing, she gave him a scratch on the head, and then stood up. Through long practice, Artemis jumped up on her shoulder and rubbed against her head. Waving to everyone who hadn't had to go out and report from the street, she made her way into the dressing room and changed into more comfortable clothing: light blue jeans made soft by use and a sweatshirt an old boyfriend had given her. She tried to remember whether the 'Griffins' had been football or hockey, and was slightly depressed when she couldn't remember the sport, much less the boy's name. //Jeff? Martin?//
Walking through the foyer for the Television Company her crew was currently working for; she was stopped for a moment by the view out of the glass windows. Sheets of water were falling down, crashing into the cobblestone streets and trying to overflow the gutters. She could feel Artemis tense on her shoulder.
"Don't worry, Scaredy-Cat," She said as she went over to the umbrella stand and fished out some rain protection, "Sailor V is always prepared!" She struck a self-mocking pose, holding the umbrella out like some sort of magical scepter. "In the name of Love and Justice, I will protect you from the evil rain!" After a moment the smile faded. She and the rest of the sailor senshi had lost all of their magical abilities when they became trapped in the Nexus, for reasons they didn't understand. They were coping as best they could as 'normal' people, but she missed the excitement of protecting her Princess. Now that Princess Serenity was just Usagi, no-one much wanted to attack them anymore.
Leaning the glass door open, she pushed the button that released
the umbrella, letting it expand before she left the safety of the
building to the shelter of her umbrella, the dark weather
supporting her introspective mood. She started to walk home for a
few blocks, but paused part way. To her right, down the street, was
an all-night deli/coffee shop, and she felt she could use something
warm to drink. Besides, now that she was away from work, she wasn't
nearly as tired as she had thought. Artemis made an inquiring
noise, which died off as she walked towards the shop. Maybe he
understood.
Some anonymous gentleman (or gentlewoman - it wasn't clear from their rain gear) held open the door for her as she entered the shop, and with a second press of a button the memory plastic of the umbrella shrunk itself down, carefully shaking itself free of water without getting her feet any wetter. The place was quiet tonight, a few booths taken up by various people. She spotted a few bioroids she knew from the area, and a homeless person who seemed to be made up of layers of newspaper talking to itself. She walked up to the wooden bar, and asked for a Rueben and a glass of mocha latte, indicating with a wave of her hand the booth she intended to sit in. A brush of Artemis' head against her own reminded her to order a tuna salad as well. She sat down, and gazed out at the rain, and her own reflection in the mirror until her sandwich came.
Halfway through his tuna salad, Artemis sat back on the tabletop and looked at her for a moment. "Minako?"
"Hmmm" She focused on her companion.
"What's wrong?"
She sighed. "I dunno. I'm... just not feeling right anymore."
"Not cut out to be a TV news anchorperson?"
She sighed. "A little. I mean... we all used to be so much *more*." Frustration filled the last word. "We saved the world how many times?"
Artemis shrugged. "I lost count. Six?"
She shook her head. "And we helped so many others. And now... we're in this multi-dimensional smorgasbord of worlds, and even if we had our powers there'd be ten times as many as good or better. And we don't even have them!"
Artemis thought back to when it had been just him and her, a frightened teenager fighting crime in London. "It was always exciting. You used to hate that." There was a trace of accusation in his tone.
She grinned weakly. "Didn't I? All I wanted was to be let alone. Each time I thought I was going to die." Her voice dropped. "And sometime in there... I got used to it." Her voice twisted, like someone contemplating liver and deciding it was good after all. "I *liked* it."
She spent a few moments contemplating that - that perhaps what she
missed was the chance to almost get herself killed a few times a
week.
Then a voice, harsh and aggressive, cut through her musings.
"Hey, Bitch! Get out of my booth!"
For a disjointed moment she thought the voice was directed at herself, but after a moment she saw the large, bulky teen was two booths down, shouting at the homeless person wrapped in newspapers, now twitching and moaning in confusion. Poor thing might not even know the language.
She took a moment to glance at the bully and the three other teens accompanying him. They all probably played football or something in a nearby school - she'd seen them before and categorized them as adolescent-stupid-bully before. Besides the bully, there was a pair of thin blonde toadies who almost looked like twins, and a slightly overweight kid with glasses who looked very uncomfortable. She just hadn't been lucky enough to see them in action before.
The bully, enraged by the homeless one's continued presence in the booth, reached out to grab it by the neck. As he did, a trio of what looked like beaks stabbed out through the newspaper covering most of it's 'face' and pecked at the bully's wrist. Unfortunately, this did nothing but enrage the boy anymore. Minako watched as his hand shot to his waist, where he apparently had a knife.
There's a thin, small voice in everyone's head. It's the one that speaks up in times like this. It says "It's not your problem", or "You could get hurt", or "It's someone else's business."
Minako had always had trouble listening to the Voice. Before the kid had noticed, she had slid out of the booth and kicked him high, knocking the knife across the room, where it slid under the cigarette machine. Before the brute could respond to that attack she twirled and kicked him again between the legs, making him collapse to the ground.
The bully's sidekicks weren't about to take this standing up. They rushed her together. She grinned, and grabbed one of the arms reached out towards her, turning around and letting the thug's own momentum throw him across the room, landing in a booth wrong-way down. Turning to get the other one, she found Artemis was hanging around his head and scratching and wailing like a banshee - a treatment that made the kid throw up his hands and run for the door screaming. The overweight guy had apparently left as well.
Then out of nowhere a blow handed on the side of her head that
dropped her to the floor. <
Minako readied herself, dropping into a combat-stance as best she
could, hoping that his inexperience would prevent him from
realizing how much he'd rattled her with that punch.
"Fine. I lead." said a terse voice over her shoulder, as she
noticed someone pointing a 45 at her assailant over her left
shoulder. The bully's face whitened.
The person on the other end of the .45 was a short, redheaded girl
in a well-used trenchcoat that showed it's quality in how good it
still looked for its age. She made a motion towards the door with
her hand, and the bully and remaining hench-bully took only a
moment before they ran off into the rain.
Minako grinned, and then winced at the pain, a moment of vertigo
causing her to clutch at the table in front of her. Her new friend
helped her into the booth, as Artemis leapt back and forth, meowing
concernedly.
After a few moments, the world decided to behave, and she chanced a
glance out at the world. Artemis was nearly beside himself, weaving
back and forth on the table and looking helpless. Her new friend
was seated next to her, stroking her back and looking concernedly
at her. A nasty red scar ran up from the corner of her mouth up to
her eye, and the discordance this lent to an otherwise cheerfully
cute face wrenched at her.
"Hey, you okay?"
Minako started to nod, but then thought better of it. "Yeah...
yeah, I'll be alright." She thought for a moment... something she
had to do... oh, that. "Thanks for the help."
The woman next to her grinned widely, almost making up for her
scar. "Not a problem. I was gong to step in earlier, but you were
doing fine without me." Then she frowned. "You're not okay. Is
there a doctor I can take you to?"
Minako winced. *No* Doctors. "No... Ahh...." The world went for a
dance for a moment, and came back for her after a minute. "I do
*live* near here." She shot a look at Artemis.
Artemis sighed. "She seems fine to me."
The woman jumped. "Your cat talks?"
Artemis looked at Minako a moment, and apparently decided to take
care of introductions himself. "Yeah. I'm Artemis. This here is
Minako Aino... and you are?"
The girl nodded after a moment. "I'm Margaret Lyons. Shall we get
her back?" She stopped, and looked up.
Nearly forgotten in all the excitement, the homeless thing that
Minako had been defending had made it's way over to where they
were, and the beaks were now singing... each one piping a different
tune. It was a pleasant tune, relaxing and almost refreshing in
it's melody. It somehow settled Minako's aching head down. After a
few moments of it, she felt well enough to sit up and look around.
Nothing hurt.
Minako grinned at her benefactor. "Thank you... I feel much
better."
"Good/Is Good/Bene/well. I/We/They are grateful/happy/surprised.
Help/aid/succor was/is/shall be unexpected/unusual/blessing." It
reached into one of it's many folds of newspapers with a beak and
retrieved a bundle, tied up with some sort of string, and wrapped
in newspaper. "Gratuity/gift/boon." It dropped it in front of her,
and then walked off in a gait that suggested it had several
different lengths of legs, trying their best to work together.
Margaret grinned at her. "You handle yourself pretty good."
Minako blushed. "Not *that* good. He shouldn't have surprised me
like that."
Artemis shrugged, and started working on his tuna salad now, glad
he wouldn't be forced to abandon it. "We're out of practice. It's
been, what, two years?"
Margaret raised an eyebrow. "You make a habit out of protecting
harmless people from being bullied in delicatessens?"
"No, no. You see..." Minako looked left and right, as if to tell a
big secret. "I used to be Sailor Venus!"
Margaret blinked. "Huh?"
"So fleeting, fame. A superhero on the world I came from. First
solo, then with a group. Unfortunately, when we got trapped here,
we lost our powers..." She could feel the melancholy trying to
return.
A snapping sound returned her to reality. Looking down, she saw a
business card. In large black letters, it read "A Friend In
Need..." and included net/matrix addresses, phone numbers, and an
address. "If you like to help," said Margaret, "Give us a call."
She nodded, and then realized that she was very tired. "Maybe I
will." She picked up the card from the table. "Thanks... for the
help. But now I need to get some sleep. I've got a full day
tomorrow." After some light chatter, and paying the bill, she left
with Artemis on her shoulder and the umbrella keeping the rain off,
considering the offer. There really wasn't any question - She'd end
up calling sometime soon.
Her rest that night was deep, and the next day was the happiest in
a long time.
Back in the deli, Margaret sighed, and finally allowed herself to
relax. "Well, *that* could have gone a lot better," she said to
herself as she pulled out a pad of paper, with a row of names down
the front. Taking out a pen, she crossed the name Minako Aino off
of the list.
Chapter 2
Joshua Windham was a Law student. A lot of the students at his
college were.
Unfortunately, the second statement means that the first statement
wasn't as much of a babe-magnet as he'd been hoping. Most of the
truly worthwhile (read: beautiful) girls at his college were in the
art department, and all of them that were interested in picking up
a lawyer for a husband had a large selection. He had to find a way
to stand out from the crowd. He looked good enough, but that wasn't
really helping. There were enough good-looking lawyers to be that
he was in the middle of the pack.
So he'd taken up observing the girls, trying to see what tended to
attract them to people. He'd be the first person to admit he was
shallow, although he'd rather describe it as 'goal-driven'... so he
just figured he'd find out what group a lot of the good-looking
ones belonged to, and join in. It couldn't be *too* bad, hm?
It was thusly that he was following Kirsten McDougal. Kirsten had a
fairly cute face, and some understated red hair... but what really
drew him in was her huge breasts. He just *had* to get his hands on
them. He was ambling along in her wake, reading the latest issue of
the college's liberal 'underground' newspaper. Well, they wanted to
be underground, but they were funded by the student council, so
they pretended by using piss-poor production values. It was the
usual anti-capitalist liberal claptrap, with some anti-capitalist
eco-terrorist claptrap. He idly considered picking up a few more
issues and saving on toilet paper.
The next time he looked up, Kirsten had disappeared. He took a
moment, set aside the newspaper, and looked about. A simple paper
sign on a nearby door drew his attention.
"A Friend In Need..." he read aloud.
"Excuse me?" a voice behind him said.
He looked up. It was Janice Wisely. He'd rated her a 9 during
cheerleading practice last week, but his roommate thought she was
top of the world. She smiled at him, and as he basked in the
warmth, he considered upgrading her to a 9.5.
"Can you excuse me? I'd like to go in."
He gave his best chivalrous bow, and stepped aside. As she opened
the door, he saw Kirsten was sitting inside, talking to someone, so
he slipped in behind Janice, looking as if he'd arrived at the
meeting with her. He then sat off to the side, and watched.
It was some sort of cross between a fraternity and a charity, he
decided. The group would go out and do good deeds, and then get
together and have parties to celebrate how good and nice they all
were. They were all pretty friendly together, the members from last
year greeting each other with hugs and plenty of physical contact.
The women were almost all lookers, as well. He considered the
possibility that plenty of physical work kept them in shape. Then
he considered Kirsten, after working all day, her shirt plastered
to her tits with sweat... he had to sit up straighter in his chair
after that.
So he pledged. It would help his social life (Chicks dig guys who
help out others), it would look good on his resume (Employers like
people who join charities), and it would help keep him in shape,
get him out of the campus. He might even use it to con some money
out of good-old-mom. Three weeks later he did get his hands on
Kirsten's tits. Two months after that he had Janice Wisely in his
bed. She was the submissive type, and let him do anything he wanted
with her. He even shared with his roommate. Hey, he was a
charitable guy now! By then they'd accepted him as a 'Brother',
with the amount of work he'd been doing to impress the babes.
It went on like that - every two weeks he'd go out and help build a
house for the homeless, or collect canned goods, or help clean the
trash out of a park. And every couple of months he'd switch to a
new girlfriend... and with the new girls arriving each year, he
never quite ran out. He was particularly fond of the twins, who
would try anything once - even with each other.
And then he graduated, and went on to a law firm, and worked his
ass off. He burned out in a year between the constant drudge work
of his job and working 20 hours a day. He just couldn't handle it.
His girlfriend at the time left him. They'd been engaged, but she
didn't want to be married to a loser, after all. He knew he'd have
dropped her the same way if she'd lost her looks, so how could he
argue? His parents disowned him as well.
He spent a few years drifting from one job to another. Short order
cook, construction, computer data entry, pizza chef, nothing for
too long. His overarching failure at life didn't let him get too
successful at anything else. He couldn't stand the idea that he'd
wasted so many years of college. It was more comforting to think
that his entire life was a waste. Then he didn't really even have
to try.
And then one day he woke up in a motel room, splattered with the
blood of three 14-year old girls, their naked corpses torn open in
front of him, blood and semen smeared over them and him. His mind
immediately went blank, and the cops tearing open the door of his
room and leveling more guns at him then he'd ever seen in the
movies didn't help. They treated him pretty roughly - he 'fell'
down some stairs twice before they put him in his cell, the cuts
and bruises on his skin bleeding slowly. He hoped they'd just leave
him in here and forget him. How much lower could his life go? He
didn't know if he'd really done what they'd said he did. He didn't
know if he cared.
It was two days before anyone even talked to him. The door opened,
and they dragged him out, pushed him along a corridor, and dropped
him into a seat in a small dark room with one table, a second
chair, and a camera up high on the wall, watching him. In the chair
opposite him sat a large person. A lawyer? Pro bono cases don't let
you get that fat.
"Hi," he said, more out of habit than anything else.
His visitor smiled at him. "A Friend In Need?"
It took a moment. College had been many years ago, a happy time he
tried not to think about. To his embarrassment/lust, the sight of
Kirsten's breasts, his hands running over them, was the first thing
to his mind. And then, unsure, he said it. "Is a friend in need?"
His visitor nodded. "Right. Don't worry, we'll help. My name is
Chuck Serino. We're working on the evidence, getting together some
really good lawyers. If you didn't do this, then you will not spend
one more day in jail than is at all necessary." The man's hand came
to him, and he grabbed it. For a fat guy, his grip was firm and
unyielding.
But he couldn't stand the hope. He'd lived too long without it.
"What... what if I did it?"
Mr. Serino frowned. "It's a possibility. That's why we're helping
go over the evidence here. Usually we'd have trouble from the local
police, but as it happens one of the forensic scientists here is a
member." He smiled. "We'll find out your guilt or innocence, and
then we'll go on from there."
His head hurt, so he leaned over and rubbed it. He almost wished he
was guilty. Then the abortion that was his life could finally end.
Mr. Serino chatted on for a while more, but he didn't pay any
attention. It didn't really matter. They'd try him, put him in a
chair, and kill him.
As they 'escorted' him back to his cell, making sure he scraped off
some skin going up the steps, he wished they'd hurry the fuck up.
"There is no such thing as 'neutral'," her Master once told
Thessily Azul, about six months ago.
He had been testing her again, at the time. The idea was that she
would go to a busy street in Angel City. She would be completely
blindfolded. Her hands would be straight at her side, never moving.
Her Master would sit on her shoulders. Then she had to run a mile
in three minutes. Without bumping into people, without going off of
the sidewalk, without being hit by a car or rickshaw.
Three minutes. After her first two tries, she had gotten it down to
four-and-a-half. So they took a break in a small coffee shop, where
they sipped tea and chatted. They overheard some people playing a
game at a nearby table, and her Master asked if he could borrow the
rulebook to peruse. He thought it was an amusing diversion until he
had gotten to the alignment section.
Good, he could deal with. Did so every day.
Evil, he could deal with. He didn't like it, but it was a part of
life.
Law, he could see. He liked how the writers did not assume it was
good.
Chaos, he also could see. He liked how the writers did not assume
it was evil.
But neutral?
He said it again. "There is no such thing as 'neutral'. There are
two sides to morality in life. You are good, or you are evil. There
is no true middle ground. If you put off a decision as to be good
or evil, you are simply blinding yourself to what you really are."
Now, she stood on the rooftop, air whistling by. She wasn't paying
attention to it though; she was instead listening, feeling the
power flow through her and around her. It was her eyes, her touch,
and her smell. It told her, for example, about the person sneaking
across the rooftop behind her. To almost anyone else, it would have
been impossible to know she was there.
But for a Jedi Knight who is strong in the Force, there is no
surprise.
A year ago it wasn't so. Thessily had been walking home from work,
feeling pretty good for herself. She'd been working with the Master
for almost a year now, and thought she was doing pretty well, and
between that and her previous martial arts work she figured that
she knew how to take care of herself.
The rent in the Force that she suddenly felt open up near her
almost sent her to her knees.
She quickly cast about, and the flow of the Force told her where
she needed to go. She ran around the corner, and into the ally, and
saw the one girl, her brains smashed over the wall. She was still
being raped. The other girl... well, she was being submissive, and
still lived, although she must have been in incredible pain. As she
thought about it, the Force, for a moment, let her know a hint of
what the girl was feeling.
The pure hot rage that consumed her was so hot she was amazed that
her clothes had not started to smolder. In a fraction of a second a
knife-thrust of her hand hit the first thug's throat, dropping him
to the ground gasping for air. A twist on one leg, and her foot
embedded into another of the rapists' exposed genitals. As she
straightened up, her right hand grasped the cylinder on her hip,
pulling it off the belt hook and activating it.
The "SHRAK!THummmmmmmmmm..." of an activated LightSabre was
familiar to her ears. She took a step forward, pivoted, and just
barely missed the last thug's head as she realized what she was
about to do: kill a person in a state of Rage. Thessily stepped
back, her target cowering in front of her, and fought for control
of her emotions.
"Rage, Fear, these are the tools of the Dark side of the force,
Thessily. They give quick, easy power - but that power will only
drag you down into the evil that feeds it."
She backed up another step, shaking. The living girl had run into
the corner of the ally and was cowering, waiting to see what would
happen. The final assailant was beginning to straighten up. He
pulled up his pants and rearranged his equipment as he got ready to
fight, or flee. "Fucking Bitch," he muttered. "Goddam wreck my
fun..."
Thessily worked on ridding herself of anger. She had to dispose of
it, to replace it with the cool feel of the Force flowing through
her, or she was dead - even if she won tonight.
And that's when the first thug hit her on the head.
She went down like a sack of potatoes, the LightSabre dropping from
her hand and skittering across the ally. Luckily for her leg, the
automatic switch shut down the beam when she let go of the handle.
She looked up through eyes that refused to focus to see the man,
jeans still around his ankles, his dirty, bloody and enlarged organ
reaching down to her. In his hands, she saw that he was holding an
iron bar that was sunk into a piece of concrete, on which she could
see the blood from her head... and probably the corpse's.
'That's it...' she thought to herself, 'I'm dead.' She could barely
piece that thought together. Her head throbbed badly, and she
didn't think she'd have a sense of balance worth two cents even if
she could somehow stand up. She was finished.
The girl she had tried to help gave out a soft sound of despair
like the final breath of a baby bird. Instinctively, her head
turned to look at the girl; dirty, frightened, smeared with her own
blood and that of her fellow victim's. For a moment, pain from the
sudden movement almost caused her to black out. And then she saw
the dying hope in the girl's eyes.
"A Jedi is a protector. He kills, but he kills only to preserve
life." Her Master's voice was as clear as if he had been in the
alley with her. Perhaps in some way he was.
She knew what she was there to do. The wave of power that hit her
when the force once again flowed through her battered body was so
loud she was surprised the rapists didn't jump from the sound. Her
hand reached across the floor, and with a slap of hand hitting
metal, her LightSabre jumped back into her open hand. She rolled up
onto her knees, and cut off the one thug's legs. His scream covered
up whatever sound the weapon had made.
The blood from her head-wound was getting into her eyes, but that
didn't matter to her. She shut her eyes against the blood, and let
the force guide her arm. Later, she would find that she had cut the
long intestines out of the thug with the club. And then she let the
sabre drop to the ground, inert, as she dropped off into
unconsciousness.
The victim she was trying to save was Sharon Benoit. She'd spent a
little time cowering in the corner after everything had gone still,
but finally gathered the courage (and clothes) to run and call a
medical team.
They'd shared a room in the hospital, and joked about who had been
trying to save whom.
And now, Thessily knew Sharon was trying to sneak up on her. Again.
She gave a quick grin, and just as Sharon would have grabbed her by
the legs, jumped up into the air, back-flipped, and landed behind
the girl, reaching out to tap her on the back of the head. "Ha!
You're it."
Sharon's face collapsed into a parody of despair. "How am I *ever*
going to surprise you?"
Thessily snorted. Sharon already had surprised her. After her
rescue, and the trauma of a woman being killed next to her while
they were both being raped, Sharon had quickly grasped onto the
only thing left in her life that seemed to be safe: Thessily
herself. Shortly after she had left the hospital Sharon had moved
into the apartment building next door to hers, and then had started
spending much of her free time with the Jedi.
She sighed to herself. Sharon quickly made it quite clear that
although friendship was nice, she wanted something more physical
with her... but she was certain that it was simple backlash from
the rape and nothing more. A shiver went through her as she
remembered how... effective some of Sharon's come-ons had been.
Thessily had thought herself straight as an arrow, but she
suspected Sharon wouldn't be doing as well as she had been if that
were true.
Tonight, however, Sharon was keeping her hands to herself.
"Hey, someone's here to see you," she said.
Thessily's eyebrow raised. "Who?"
Sharon smiled. "Well... she's a friend I knew back in college.
Margaret Lyons. We were in Drama club together. She was Really
Good."
"You called her?"
Sharon shook her head. "Nah. We just happen to know each other.
She said she had... well, a proposition."
She did.
After a few moments, Thessily accepted. It was the least a Jedi
could do.
Unfortunately, Sharon accepted as well.
Chapter 3
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