Maybe I'm a Lion (KnK/Prototype Crossover)

[Seika]

... Well, that, or maybe allergies?

Adult lions would be lactose-intolerant, but I don't think Shiki is that saturated with ice cream.

[Dullahan]

It's back, and this time, it's personal.

--------------------------------------------

Yokota Air Base, Tokyo

“We've got something!”

“Where?”

“Shibuya Ward. Currently tracking on FLIR.”

“Put it up on the big board.”

“Sir.”

“You getting this, Winthrop?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Think this is it?”

“It's not a perfect match with the data from Two Bluff, but, well...I would say it's within parameters, except that we don't actually have any parameters to work with. Unless you can think of anything else which can make that speed on foot, though, I'd say that's your Runner, General.”

“I agree. What are we getting for ground speed, Lieutenant?”

“Estimated ground speed is eighty-two...no, eighty-three miles per hour. Heading north-northwest.”

“Don't lose it. Retask the other active Predator. I want both of them on FENRIS at all times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm. That's interesting...”

“What?”

“Look at the path he's taking.”

“What about it?”

“He's sticking to low rooftops instead of moving higher. FENRIS is prioritising horizontal displacement over altitude.”

“Meaning, it doesn't care about being seen or not.”

“Exactly. Ordinarily, going rooftop-to-rooftop like that, you'd want as much altitude as possible to avoid detection by ground-level observers. That's what we saw in Two Bluff, and if anything it should be more evident in an urban area like this.”

“Question is, why would FENRIS do that?”

“If we assume the host is behaving rationally, all we can conclude is that he's either running towards something or away from something.”

“And if it's irrational?”

“Speculating on the motivations of crazy people isn't my department. Anyway, it’s no use considering this having as little solid data as we do now. At that velocity, though, he’ll be out of the prefecture within two hours.”

“Cross’s unit is prepared for immediate deployment. FENRIS tries to make for the border; we’ll stop it, at any cost. How are things on your end?”

“For the time being, the story is this: Japan has been the victim of an unprecedented act of bioterrorism, perpetrated by an as-yet unknown extra-national organisation. The US Government is – graciously – willing to offer its support and past experience containing this type of pandemic to the Japanese government, all as part of the continuing US-Japan alliance. Under the table, obviously. The Cabinet and JSDF seem to be buying that it’s a Soviet WMD which went AWOL back in the 1990s. For now. I should be getting a formal statement within the hour. There’s some trouble on our end, though.”

“Langley?”

“Higher. We’re under pressure from the White House. They want to minimise the US footprint – let the Japanese handle it.”

“The White House can fuck right off. We can’t afford to let anyone else handle this. Blackwatch has a mandate to carry out. Whether the infection is foreign or domestic shouldn’t be relevant.”

“Do you think it’s time we contacted the C-“

“I don’t think you want to finish that sentence. Not on this channel. In any case, that's my call to make, not yours.”

“Alright. But what do you want me to tell Washington?”

“What they want to hear. Tell them we’ll stick to low-visibility ops, minimal interference, all that shit. They can go and believe what they want, and we can go ahead and do our jobs.”

“Well put. But you understand I can’t just lie to the President.”

“Screw the President. He’d have us wait until it’s Walkers from here to Edo Castle before doing anything. This is not a fight we can afford to fuck around in. We stop this early, or we may as well roll over and hoist the white flag on behalf of the human race.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Winthrop out.”

“Christ...’I’ll see what I can do’, in-fucking-deed. Lieutenant?”

“Sir?”

“Roll back the feed. I want to see where FENRIS started running.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s see...crosses the highway there, before which, it’s on rooftops in that block...can we get this in higher resolution?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. It’s too close to the edge of our FOV.”

“Never mind. So...goes along there, and then down into...stop. Play forward from there. Half speed. Get a time check on that.”

“First acquisition of target is...zero-eight-thirty-two hours and thirty-six seconds, local time.”

“Anything before that?”

“First sight of FENRIS is immediately adjacent to...this building, sir. Street directory says it’s a restaurant. Unusual name. Looks...German?”

“Yeah. Ahnenerbe. Means 'Ancestral Heritage'. Are we to conclude that FENRIS was inside that building before it started running?”

“I believe so, sir. That address is only in our coverage area for the thirteen minutes preceding first acquisition, but there’s no sign of FENRIS anywhere in that period.”

“Okay. First up: Teams CARBON, SWITCHBACK, and RADIUS are to head out to the first contact site immediately. Japanese police and ambulance services will probably have a pretty quick response, so they need to get there fast to make sure we’re on the scene first. Secure the area, and detain and quarantine anyone confirmed to have been in the building with FENRIS. The exact contagion threat presented by airborne transmission from FENRIS is yet to be established, but until it is, we’re treating everyone who was inside that restaurant as a potential BLACKLIGHT carrier.”

“Sir.”

“Secondly: if FENRIS stops moving for longer than two minutes, or otherwise gets within thirty klicks of the prefectural border, order Cross’s unit to deploy with immediate effect. ROE is unrestricted – any collateral damage, we can justify retroactively once Winthrop finishes negotiating with the Japanese. I’ll be incommunicado for the next half-hour or so, so you’ll need to make that call should the circumstances arise. That is all.”

“Are you going somewhere, sir?”

“I have a phone call to make.”

Meanwhile

Where am I?

Don't know. Don't care. Anywhere's fine. Anywhere. Anywhere at all, as long as that thing-

Shiki Ryougi.

I double over in pain. Stop it. I can’t. I don’t want to remember that. I feel sick. Worse than ever before. Worse than back then, after her accident. I vomit, but only bile, murky yellow, drips out of my mouth onto the concrete. Don’t. Stop it. Don’t make me remember that thing-

It was a box with no walls, and nothing inside.

My vision blurs. I lose my balance, and fall to the ground.

A human-shaped hole in the world.

My hands won’t stop shaking. Every hair stands on end. The world around me wholly inverts between freezing cold to burning hot in a matter of seconds. I'm shivering.

No borders. No edge. But an inside and outside nonetheless.

Something cracks inside my mouth, and the familiar, thick, metallic taste of blood seeps in and mixes with the choking bitterness of bile and the teeth-etching acidity of stomach acid.

We have seen the other side. There is nothing there for us.

“Fuck.” says a hoarse, inhuman voice from somewhere, and I realise that it’s my own. “Fuck!”

I’m in an alleyway. No idea where. Don’t even know how long I was running for, nor do I know the direction. Could be anywhere. No identifying features. Concrete walls. Recessed roll-up metal dividers. Doors with numeric keypads to get in. Bins. Cardboard boxes. Drains. The usual continuous inner-city rumble, halfway between nails on a chalkboard and the sound of water boiling, punctuated by the screech of tires and synchronised to the ceaseless footstep waterfall of pedestrian crossings. White noise. The unchanging visual and audio backdrop I’ve become accustomed to over the past three years. Normality eats away at the illusion, little by little, sublimating the perception-breaking wrongness filling my memory into more easily-handled existential dread.

I was seriously going to die back there.

I don't want to think about it. It's too horrible. It's too horrible and cruel and stupid and unfair and wrong, wrong, wrong that I can't fucking stand it even for a second. I can't die. I shouldn't die. Not after having come all this way in the past eight hours – no, in the past three years. That's part of the reason. It wouldn't be fair. It won't have been worth it. If I die now, everything up to now will be retroactively rendered completely and utterly fucking pointless, and that is not going to happen. I have not come this far to die now. Not with so much further still to go.

But.

It isn't the whole story. There's more to it than just that. I know it. It's the sheer irrationality of the whole thing which is, more than anything else, pissing me off. The idea of dying is...abhorrent to me. I hate it. More than anything else in the world. I fear it. More than I care to admit. But none of that, none of it at all, explains what happened in that cafe. There was no reason to think I was going to die. None at all. Even if Ryougi did want to kill me – unlikely, but within the realm of possibility – she wouldn't have just carved me up in broad daylight in a cafe full of people, and especially not in front of Kokutou. It'd be out of character. There was fear of death, but there was no killing intent on her part to go with it.

I don't get it.

I don't understand why I was so afraid of her.

It's never been that way before.

I need to calm down. I'm not going to panic. It's not going to be how it was before. I'm in control now, so I need to think about this logically. Like a human. I just have to do that. Simple. I'm going to be okay. This is too far and too fast for even her to easily follow me, so I'm going to be okay. Think about it...

What has changed?

“BLACKLIGHT.”

The answer is on my lips before I even finish forming the question. It's obvious, really. Firstly, people don't just become horrifying, existentially-threatening, unspeakable abominations overnight. Unless they're me. I'm a special case, ahaha... Secondly, from what I cautiously allow myself to remember, I don't think anyone else saw Ryougi as anything other than what she looks like normally. I'd have noticed them noticing. Seeing something like that? You'd be weird if you weren't scared shitless. Thinking about it like that makes me feel a little better. So. The problem isn't with her. It's with me. BLACKLIGHT has gone and broken something inside me, and now there's something about Shiki Ryougi which causes a kind of critical failure in my 'perception'. A hole. It's not like she's been painted over with black paint or rubbed out with an eraser. It's hard to describe. It's like a human-shaped volume that's been cut out of the world. Roughly excised. And inside the border, there's nothing. You literally can't see it, because there's nothing to see. Like a walking, talking blind spot. You can't see your own blind spot because the brain interpolates over the hole in your perception, but there's no such safeguard in place with her.

But why?

It doesn't make any fucking sense. That's the problem. It's not like how the Impulse alters your perception. That's more subtle. Unless you totally give in to it, it just sits in the back of your mind (save for occasional flare-ups) and changes, in small ways, how your brain processes certain parts of your environment. (As an example, recently it's been becoming more and more difficult to tell people apart. You know how, from a human point of view, all lions look pretty much the same without highly visible distinguishing features? Turns out that applies in reverse. Who knew, right?) But this is different. This isn't an altered way of processing what I see. This is seeing something which literally isn't there. Or, more accurately, the absence of something which should be there. Other humans can't see what I saw. The Impulse doesn't work that way. There was nothing in any of those guys' memories even remotely close to this. There's no influence I can account for which can possibly explain this.

A hallucination?

No. I don't hallucinate. I don't hallucinate, because I'm not crazy. Obviously. I...I may not be able to see things like everyone else, and there are parts of my mind which are completely gone or broken or fucked up by now which not even BLACKLIGHT can fix, but I don't hallucinate.

'I' don't, at least.

'I'...

Who else is here?

Fear. Fear and self-hatred are the only emotions I can isolate in the explosive, chaotic rush that follows. That was not a question I wanted to ask myself. Other people's thoughts I can accept. Animal impulses I can handle. Just as long as I can hold on to the definite fact that their process of ideation is not mine, I'm not going to go crazy. I can't accept the existence of something whose influence on my thought processes is undetectable until after the fact. I just can't.

It's been a success up till now.

For the briefest moment, the noises of the city around me multiply a thousand-fold, obliterating cognition, crushing any conscious thought, forcing its way into my mind and drowning out anything it finds there. It's that feeling of being buried alive again. I'm drowning. I can't breathe. It's just too loud. I want to yell and shout and scream and tell someone, anyone, anyone at all to shut up, shut up, shut up-

“Hahh!”

I was holding my breath. I didn't realise. I really need to pay more attention to these sorts of things. The world fades back into focus, and I begin to think again.

If it's not me, and it's not them, and it's not the Impulse...

There's nothing else apart from those. There can't be.

...it can only be the virus itself.

And that is ridiculous. Viruses don't think. Viruses don't perceive. Viruses (although this is a matter of some debate in medical circles) aren't even alive. A virus doesn't have an opinion.

Normally.

Even as I think that, it sounds like every inch the hollow self-reassurance it is. I’ve seen what BLACKLIGHT is. What it can do. Don't tell me something as ridiculous as that could possibly exist within the boundaries of conventional biology. The doctors are with me on this. No way in hell that thing's a regular virus. If it's even a virus at all. I'm not sure about this, but...altering someone's perception like this? Put it this way: if it's caused by a virus, it's more likely to be BLACKLIGHT than the common fucking cold.

I need to know.

That's what it all comes back to in the end. These guys – the Blackwatch soldiers – they don't know enough. Only generalities, no specifics. What BLACKLIGHT is, where it came from, how it works – they don't know. It wasn't necessary for them to know, so they were never told. But they do know people. They don't know the people those people know, but they know that the people the people they know know are likely to be the people I need to find. BLACKLIGHT is their creation. Scientists and soldiers, denizens of the vast and hidden Cold War-era American military-industrial complex. Most of them are probably going to be in the US, but that's a problem I can solve when I come to it. At least one of them has to know the truth. I'll get it out of them.

One way or another.

I highly doubt this development was intentional. An ultra-specific perception-altering bioweapon? Don’t make me laugh. That’s so unrealistic it couldn’t even be a ‘what-if’ scenario. Some combination of factors, some bizarre confluence of incalculably improbable coincidences has caused this. Understanding BLACKLIGHT will at least put me halfway along the road to understanding why.

Why her?

The question I least wanted to ask, but the one I should have asked to begin with. Why her? The one person, the one very person I need more than anything else, that I need...I need...to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I need her. I once had a reason for the need, but having been degraded this much, I find that the need itself is reason enough. It's all I can remember, anyway.

If I'd just been able to look at her-

It's almost funny. It just seems so...cruel. So malicious, so mean-spirited, so perfectly calculated just to fuck with me. It's perfection itself. I need to write this down when I get home. The ultimate expression of the paradigm underpinning the life of Lio Shirazumi, 20, drug dealer and part-time enlightened individual. Nothing can be done, no progress can be achieved, and not even one step forward can be made, without something pointlessly and disproportionately horrible happening to me.

But still, I'll keep going.

Didn’t you know? Lions don’t get depressed. They don’t have regrets, and they never feel sorry for themselves. They live every day like they’re immortal, freed from worry, fear and introspection. Who wouldn’t envy that? Not even I can say that the Impulse hasn’t been totally without its good points. For that, at the very least, I’m thankful. But that’s about the limit of it.

Always and ever, moving forward.

I brush the stray strands of hair out of my eyes. I straighten my red jacket. I brush the dirt and dust off my clothes and skin.

And I stand up.

In a few quick movements, I'm back on the rooftops. The cloud cover is still quite heavy after last night's storms. The humidity – unusually high for autumn – gives the air a pleasant, familiar quality. Combined with the characteristic smells of the city – gasoline, garbage, cooked food and ozone – it's like the air is filled with smoke from burning incense: this district's humble offering to the sprawling, urbanised shrine of hopeless causes stretching out to the horizon in every direction.

This is still the best day of my entire life, and like hell I’m going to let Shiki Ryougi convince me otherwise.

With both feet deftly balanced on someone else’s satellite dish, I catch sight of them, far to the northwest. Ten-plus kilometres away, and closing fast. Helicopters. Blackwatch. Took you long enough. To be honest, I’m surprised they didn’t find me earlier. I wouldn’t put it past them to have been tracking me – by satellite, or something – ever since that incident at the hospital. It’d be in character for them. Their resolve is unyielding. Their resources, without practical limit. From what I know, I’ve no doubt they’d throw the entire US Military at me without hesitation if they thought that was the only way to stop me. They’re a much more immediate threat to my existence than Ryougi’s ever been. Ryougi’s not unstoppable. Ryougi has shown pity. Mercy or remorse? Nah. But pity, definitely. Asagami can attest to that. Blackwatch are different. They’re unstoppable. Pitiless. Merciless. Ruthless. Those guys...they’ll never, ever stop, will they? Not until I’m dead, or they are.

“Alright, then...”

I remember the steps to follow. The flesh of my left arm fully reconfigures itself into the desired shape before I’ve even finished forming the intention.

“...WE’LL JUST SEE WHO GIVES UP FIRST!”

My feet hit the rooftop, and I start to run.

Earlier, Ahnenerbe

“...the fuck?”

I’m the first one to speak. Slowing getting to my feet – having fallen over, from sheer surprise if nothing else – I survey the damage. The restaurant looks like a hand grenade just went off inside it. Chairs are overturned. Paintings have fallen off walls. Dust fills the air, scattering the mid-morning sunlight into thick beams. Every booth and table in a rough straight line between the far corner and the front window has been utterly obliterated – a large, messy pile of splintered wood, torn fabric, twisted metal and broken glass fills the space they once occupied. It’s a miracle that no-one was sitting at any of those intervening tables. They’d almost certainly have been seriously injured, and probably killed. It’s only fortunate this place doesn’t get much morning traffic on weekdays.

“Is anyone hurt?!” asks one of the waitresses – luckily, protected from any injury behind the intact counter. Most of the diners were out of harm’s way, but there’s a chance some flying shrapnel might have hit someone. A chorus of uneasy affirmations goes up around the room. There’s some panicked shouting filtering through the broken front window from the street outside, but I don’t think it’s important.

“Ahh...ugh.”

I see it. A black-clothed hand, shakily being held up from behind a destroyed seating booth.

“Kokutou!”

A familiar dark-haired young man with rounded glasses uses what remains of the seat he was sitting on to prop himself up. There’s a small cut on his forehead which is bleeding a little, but aside from one of his lenses having fractured, there doesn’t seem to be anything else. I walk over to him, as fast as the scattered debris on the floor will allow.

“Ah, Shiki.” He smiles wryly, and coughs, probably from all the dust in the air. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” He adjusts his glasses, which looked like they were about to fall off. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah.” Fortunately, I was some way out of the path of whatever human tornado tore through this place. I’m glad he’s unharmed, though. I motion at the collapsed table, out from under which two dark formal shoes and about fifteen centimetres of leg each are visible. “Need help getting this off Azaka?”

“Thanks.” The two of us manage – with some difficulty – to lift the heavy wooden tabletop up off the ground. It must have been cheaply constructed; the legs affixed to the top with some kind of adhesive rather than nails or screws. The reaction force wholly detached all four of the table legs, causing the top to fall directly on top of the person sitting diametrically opposed to the direction of the line of destruction which leads outside the cafe. Azaka’s condition is somewhat worse than her brother’s. There’s a cut – not very deep, but quite long – on her cheek, probably from a fragment of a broken plate, and it’s bleeding quite heavily.

“Azaka! Your arm...”

She’s wincing in pain, exhaling in short, sharp bursts through gritted teeth, and the reason is obvious: her left arm is bent at both the wrist and halfway up the forearm at unnatural angles. There’s no exposed bone, but it’s definitely a serious break. She must have reflexively tried to use her left arm to shield herself from the impact of the table.

“Ah...Brother...” Her eyes have started watering. “...I think...” Whatever she was trying to say is cut off by sudden, sharp intake of breath as she attempts to move the arm.

“I’ll call an ambulance!” says one of the waitresses from behind them. Kokutou thanks her, and she hurriedly begins dialing a number on the telephone behind the counter.

“Don’t move it.” I advise. “It’s going to hurt like an absolute bitch regardless, but keep it still and it’ll hurt less.” I’ve had to deal with arm trauma before. Twice, actually. More serious than this, both times. She’ll live, without a doubt.

“You...don’t say...” Azaka grimaces at me. With her right arm, she manages to prop herself up on what remains of the booth’s seat. “D’you see...where he went?”

Kokutou shakes his head. “You mean the guy who was with you?” I ask. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised that it was a guy. I could have sworn, from behind, that those two had managed to pick up some foreign woman. Maybe that’s being unfair to Kokutou, though.

“Yeah.” replies Kokutou. “You remember Lio Shirazumi from high school, right?”

One of our upperclassmen is dropping out of school, and we held something like a farewell party for him.

His name’s Lio Shirazumi.

I invited you too, didn’t I?

“Vaguely.” I wave my hand, dismissively. “I never met him personally, but he was a friend of yours, right?” I turn my head to look at the trail of destruction leading out of the cafe and extending some way into the street. “He did this?

A human couldn’t have done this.

“Yeah. Well, I’m pretty sure.” He scratches his head. “It’s weird, though. He seemed...well, fine, really. Normal. He hadn’t changed at all since I last talked to him, aside from how he looked, obviously. But then, he took one look at you, and...” He gestures to the hole in the front of the cafe. “Out of here like a shot.”

No matter how you put it, that’s really weird.

I saw something – a red, gold and dark blue blur, to be precise – cause this. It was through the window and out of sight within half a second. Must have been doing at least a hundred kilometres an hour. On foot?

“I don’t suppose he mentioned anything to you...about how he was able to do all this, I mean?”

“Nothing. He said he’d been working for an NGO in Russia. Animal conservation. Although,” says Kokutou, frowning slightly, “I think he may not have been telling the whole truth.”

No shit.

“Must be one hell of an NGO...I should sign up...” comments Azaka, nursing her broken arm.

“Interesting.” It’s not a compliment or an observation. Just a statement. “Do you think it’s worth investigating?”

“This isn’t normal. We know that much. If Shirazumi-senpai turns out to be a case...to be someone like Fujino Asagami, then we should try to help him. I don’t know if he mistook you for someone else, or if he thinks he’s in danger from you for some reason, but he’s definitely scared of something. I mean, why else would he have run off like that?”

To be perfectly honest, I don’t see how anything – anyone – who can do something like this in the blink of an eye could possibly feel endangered by anything.

“I’m going to call Miss Touko. She might be able to tell us something.” continues Kokutou. He takes his phone – a depressingly old cell phone, one of the ones dating back to the days when they were used to make phone calls and nothing else; strangely appropriate for someone like him – and starts dialing a number. It’s getting pretty noisy in here, so he understandably makes his way to the cafe’s rear exit.

“Right. I’ll take care of Azaka ‘till you get back.”

“Hah...like I need your help...”

I sit down next to her. She’s not wincing anymore, but she’s still clearly in a fair bit of pain. She’s probably going to be without the use of her left arm for about a month. It’d probably just be easier to cut it off and get Touko to make a replacement. That brings a smile to my face.

“You’re smiling, Shiki...what evil are you plotting now?”

“Amputation.”

“Oh, of course...” She coughs. There’s still a fair bit of dust floating around in here. It’ll be a while before it settles. “...wait, what?”

“This Shirazumi guy,” I say, changing the subject, “...what was he like?”

“Who? Mikiya’s friend? Ah...tall-ish. He wore these really big, dark sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes. Blonde hair, but it didn’t look artificial, which was weird. Really thin. Looked like a tomboyish girl.” She turns to look at me. “A lot like you, actually. Had the same jacket as you, too. Well, not exactly the same, but similar.”

Weird.

“I meant in terms of personality.”

“Oh. Ahm...well, I’m probably a bit biased, seeing as he broke my arm, but...” She thinks for a few seconds. “He seemed like the kind of person who probably gets along with animals better than he does with other people.”

“Meaning...?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. One of those friend-to-all-living-things-type characters who have loads of pets and love them to bits, but get really flustered and gradually lose the ability to put together coherent sentences when they have to talk to other people. They naturally gravitate to becoming zookeepers and animal-rights activists and things like that. That’s probably why it was so easy to believe him when he said he worked for an animal-conservation NGO.”

In other words, the exact opposite of the kind of person you’d expect to tear up the inside of a cafe in broad daylight. Unless it’s an act.

“Was there anything that seemed unusual about him?”

“Not much...oh, there was one thing. I’m not sure if it was him or his clothes, but there was this weird smell around him. It was pretty faint, though. Sort of...sharp, and smoky. Like he’d been caught in a fire or something. I don’t know. I might have just imagined it.”

“Interesting. So-“

“Shiki!” It’s Kokutou. He was mildly shaken before, but now he looks seriously worried. Touko must have been trying harder than usual to scare the crap out of him. God, I hope she didn’t talk to him about boxes. “Listen to this.” He hands me the phone, and I hold it up to my ear. There’s some tinny audio coming through – clipped, and slightly fuzzy.

“-we are now able to make the statement that-“

It’s a television. I’m suddenly struck by the bizarre mental image of Touko Aozaki awkwardly holding the receiver up to one of her televisions, probably on her thirteenth or fourteenth cigarette of the day.

“-is wanted as the primary suspect in last night’s terrorist bombings. The National Police Agency has advised that Shirazumi is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous, and is not to be approached under any circumstances. Quarantine measures pertaining to the area surrounding the attack sites have been put in place by Toshima and Nerima Ward authorities. The precise nature of the biological agent is not known at this time, but is believed to be a variant of Cr-“

I give a low whistle, and hand the phone back to Kokutou.

“Well, terrorist cells technically count as NGOs, don’t they?” I say with a smirk. “You think he did it?”

“No.” Kokutou shakes his head, vehemently. “The Shirazumi I was talking to just a few minutes ago...there’s no way a guy like that could be a terrorist. I just can’t imagine it.”

There you go again, always thinking the best of people...

“It’s certainly true that he’d have to be a pretty dumb terrorist, to go out and have breakfast with damn near the entire country looking for him.”

...but that’s what I always liked about you.

Suddenly, there’s a screech of brakes outside the cafe. Turning my head to look out the destroyed window, I see two...no, three ambulances. Funny. Why weren’t there any sirens? Actually, on closer examination, they’re not regular ambulances. From the markings on the sides, it looks like they’re-

It all happens in less than ten seconds.

The back doors of the ‘ambulances’ burst open, and something like eight or ten men, wearing black combat fatigues and face-concealing gas masks and holding military assault rifles, burst out. In swift formation, they close off any possible route of escape through the front of the cafe. One of them – the leader, it looks like – gives two of them a hand signal, and they head towards the alleyway on the side of the cafe which connects round at the back with the rear exit.

We’re trapped.

Four of the gas-masked soldiers enter the cafe. Their weapons are lowered half-way; not actively hostile, but cautious. Ready to shoot if one of us makes a move. The leader looks around the room, counting the number of people inside. He nods, and says something I can’t understand to one of his subordinates, who takes out something which looks like a bulky, metal mobile phone, and starts talking into it.

English?

The leader lowers his rifle completely – a gesture meant to reassure us, most likely. There’s a stunned silence around the room. This is the second ridiculous thing to happen in this cafe today, and in some ways it’s even more bizarre than the first. The leader raises his arms, palms open, in yet another gesture of non-hostility. He begins to speak, in fluent, although faintly accented, Japanese.

“I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but I’m afraid that all of you are going to have to be taken into custody. Be advised-“He raises his voice, to shout over the uproar that follows this ridiculous assertion. “BE ADVISED, that this is for your own protection. You are not being accused or charged with any crime or misdemeanour. Nevertheless, should you attempt to resist or escape in any way, I and my men are authorised to use force, non-lethal and otherwise, to expedite your cooperation.”

“And who the hell are you?” I ask. I’m not sure why I decided to speak up. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

“I am not authorised to divulge that information at this time, suffice to say that my and my team’s presence here has been authorised by the national governments of both Japan and the United States of America. Now,” he says, as calmly and professionally as if he were reading the news on television, “I’m going to need to ask all of you to follow me.”

--------------------------------------------

One day Lio's going to discover that his real Origin isn't Consumption, it's Unreasonable Optimism. (jokes)

Look forward to some more Prototype-style helicopter takedowns next update!

Shiki's narration is much more difficult to write than Lio's. She doesn't talk to herself nearly as much. In addition, I really don't think I captured Azaka and Mikiya's characters very well at all. I'm sort of at a loss when it comes to writing characters who aren't crazy, you see...

Blackwatch are about to learn that there's no detainment cell yet built which can hold Shiki Ryougi for long.

This really didn't clear up anything at all about why Lio reacted how he did to Ryougi, huh...?

Also, boy will Ryougi be in for a surprise when she sees Shirazumi's face on the news and recognises him as the guy who made the "Isn't four a bit much?" comment to her all the way back in Murder Speculation Part 1. She hasn't made the connection yet.

Also, the 'sharp' and smoky smell Azaka refers to when describing Shirazumi is from the residual traces of gunpowder and explosives that have stuck to him after the fight at the hospital earlier that morning. The 'foreign woman' comment Shiki makes is a sneaky reference to how Lio bears more than a passing resemblance to Arcueid. Personally, though, I think he looks more like Gilgamesh, if the King of Heroes grew his hair out.

One last thing: what's everyone's opinion on the dialogue-only sections? Personally, I like them (I find it a lot easier to write dialogue, in most cases, than scene descriptions) but if they're getting annoying, I'll stop.

[xelloss]

Cornelius now knows too much for his own good. He's the closest one who has what Lio needs, so he's on the menu.

[Courier]

Well.....shit.

I mean it, there's nothing more to say then that. Its a very well put together chapter, from a technical standpoint to me, but the content....jeez, talk about escalation.

[Seika]

Was that a very subtle hint at the Church possibly being called in by Blackwatch ... ?

[Dullahan]

Was that a very subtle hint at the Church possibly being called in by Blackwatch ... ?

Very good guess. But no, it's a completely different shadowy clandestine organisation. The Church won't get involved for a while yet.

[Seika]

“Do you think it’s time we contacted the C-“

“I don’t think you want to finish that sentence. Not on this channel. In any case, that's my call to make, not yours.”

Right, so it's another shadowy, clandestine organisation beginning with C and qualified by the definite article. Hm...

[SeiKeo]

The CIA?!?!

[Dullahan]

The CIA?!?!

Winthrop works for the CIA. (He's attached to Blackwatch for the time being because the BLACKLIGHT leak isn't on US territory. He's there to act as a liason between them and the Japanese government.) Why would he need permission to talk to his own bosses? If you really want to know, they're referring to the shadowy, clandestine organisation implied in the game to be behind Blackwatch. "So high up, that to see the office of the President, you had to look down." is the quote. You'll find out all about them (and their shadowy, clandestine goals) once we get round to doing the backstories of Weisstein and PARIAH.

[Aiden]

Just read all of this in one sitting after finishing Prototype 2 this week. (great gameplay, disappointing story. Annoyed about what they did with Mercer)

I love the attention to detail and blending the settings together that you've been giving this. Blackwatch is characterized perfectly, Lio is an awesome protagonist when it's from his perspective like this.

PARIAH is appropriately creepy.

And the reality, of course, is that Ryougi Shiki is a worse abomination/deviation from human existence than Blacklight ever could be.

At least Blacklight is native to the planet.

Akasha? Not so much. There is something so very, very alien about that.

[Seika]

At least Blacklight is native to the planet.

Akasha? Not so much. There is something so very, very alien about that.

Weeellll. It's not like you'd have life on Earth without Akasha, either. It's just that the extent of Akasha reaches so far beyond Earth that it seems alien. It's one of Rakkyo's joyous paradoxes - that the Void is also the Spiral of Origin, the origin of everything.

[Aiden]

Weeellll. It's not like you'd have life on Earth without Akasha, either. It's just that the extent of Akasha reaches so far beyond Earth that it seems alien. It's one of Rakkyo's joyous paradoxes - that the Void is also the Spiral of Origin, the origin of everything.

Yeah; given that places like Mercury in Nasuverse lack stuff like 'concepts of death, thought, and self', Akasha encompasses so much that even identifying Earth and things native to it is an effort in futility/an exercise for the omniscient.

Edit: Also, making it everything means it is also nothing, because you can't discern a difference between the two.

Everything all at once without boundaries except with all possible boundaries and meanings simultaneously regardless of contradiction/in addition to contradiction.

[ZidanReign]

Reaction to new chapter-

[Flere821]

=D

New chapter is great. Don't worry about the excess amount of dialogue or monologue, it looks fine to me.

Though I am hoping Ryougi, Kokutou and Azaka won't get in deep trouble from this outcome... the last thing I want to see is some trigger-happy soldier thinks it's best to just erase everyone at the scene and blow several holes into Kokutou >.>

[Aiden]

=D

New chapter is great. Don't worry about the excess amount of dialogue or monologue, it looks fine to me.

Though I am hoping Ryougi, Kokutou and Azaka won't get in deep trouble from this outcome... the last thing I want to see is some trigger-happy soldier thinks it's best to just erase everyone at the scene and blow several holes into Kokutou >.>

Well if that happens, we can sit back and watch Lio and Shiki tear Blackwatch a new asshole.

[Dullahan]

^^^ Double K. Very nice.

=D

New chapter is great. Don't worry about the excess amount of dialogue or monologue, it looks fine to me.

Though I am hoping Ryougi, Kokutou and Azaka won't get in deep trouble from this outcome... the last thing I want to see is some trigger-happy soldier thinks it's best to just erase everyone at the scene and blow several holes into Kokutou >.>

Relax. I've got big plans for those three, and especially for Ryougi. They're not dying on my watch just yet.

[Flere821]

Relax. I've got big plans for those three, and especially for Ryougi. They're not dying on my watch just yet.

That's good to hear =)

[Dullahan]

After working at breakneck speed to get this out before my exams start, it's finally here. Allow me to profusely apologise for the long wait for this update. It won't happen again. I hope.

-----------------------------

Earlier, Yokota Air Base

Click.

“And that, gentlemen, is what we are going to be fighting.”

No-one says a word. There are about fifty of them in the room – faces of professional soldiers, hidden beneath balaclavas, gas masks and anti-flash sunglasses in unequal measure, all kitted up in black combat fatigues. All of them, to a man, armed. Battle rifles. Shotguns. Grenade launchers. Light machine guns. Anti-materiel rifles, equipped with thermal sights. The vast logistic apparatus of the American war machine dances to the tune of no one man, but if it did, that man would have to be Lieutenant-General Peter Randall. There’s probably some battalion in Iraq that’s going to be cursing Blackwatch’s name (if they knew it, of course) for the next month or so, but priorities are priorities. The Wisemen unit aren’t unprofessional enough to openly act like kids at Christmas in the presence of a truckload of shiny new kit, but God knows that’s what they feel like.

“Any questions before we get down to nuts and bolts?”

Cross – sorry, Captain Robert Cross, 1^st Biological Warfare Command – isn’t expecting there to be many. What they’ve just seen on that video from the helicopter that went down at Nerima General Hospital this morning was unbelievable, no-one can deny – but Blackwatch wouldn’t be Blackwatch if its members hadn’t built up a certain tolerance for this kind of thing. Indeed, he’s pretty sure some of them are actually grinning under the balaclavas.

“Alright.” With the push of a button, Cross turns off the digital projector. There’s no need to worry about leaks – turns out the Air Force had the funding to TEMPEST-shield the entire building, so they don’t have to use those ridiculous nineteen-eighties-style slide projectors, nor do they have to run a white noise generator to screw with anyone laser-miking the windows. It may seem paranoid, but considering that Japan’s barely a hop, a skip and a jump away from China, the DPRK and the former Soviet Union, it’s worth it not to underestimate the opposition. We can’t talk here; this is spook country, he thinks. Something sharing common ancestry with a smile flashes across his face at the reference.

“First up, let’s talk weapons. You’ll notice your loadings are roughly evenly split between seven-six-two and five-five-six millimetre rounds. That was my decision. Keep in mind, though, that your average Runner will just laugh off regular infantry small arms fire. Even with our numerical advantage, it’s pretty likely it’d be able to heal its wounds faster than we could do damage to it. Now, the good Doctor McMullen is over at Nerima General Hospital doing some detective work as we speak, and judging from the volume of spent ammunition he’s found, it looks like FENRIS is an even tougher opponent than our mutual friend from Two Bluff, Arizona. No problem. All that means is we have to hit harder. Be aware, however, that you can’t bring down a Runner through delivering shock to organ or musculature systems. Physical interdiction of its main body is the only reliable way – hence, explosives. Grenadiers-“ He looks around the room, making note of the ten-or-so men armed with six-cylinder MGLs. From fifty soldiers in total, the Wisemen Unit is divided into five fire teams of ten men each, making a total of two grenadiers per team. “-those red forty-mike-mikes you’re carrying are M1060s. Thermobaric payload. Those of you who were attached to CJTF-82 in Afghanistan are familiar with them. They work on the same principle as fuel-air explosives. Regular HE rounds were able to slow down FENRIS temporarily. With these, we can do better.”

“Sir.” It’s one of the men near the front. “Will that have any effect on our ROE?” Cross understands where he’s coming from. Ten-sixties are a godsend for clearing cave systems up in the mountains in Afghanistan, but in Blue-zone urban warfare like this, they’re an absolute nightmare in terms of collateral damage.

“The word from the Old Man is that we’re essentially weapons free from the word go. No restrictions, no ceasefire zones. The top brass, you see-“Cross says with a wry smile, “-really want this thing dead. However, and I’d like to make this clear, we are not out here to recklessly endanger civilian lives. Seeing as we’ll be the ones with boots on the ground, so to speak, we’re entitled to make decisions regarding our own use of force. Up to this point, FENRIS has only killed a total of nine people – two doctors, all of team Oxide and their pilots. While our higher-ups can think in terms of potential damage caused by us failing to take out FENRIS and weigh that against whatever we do to achieve that goal, the Japanese – who they will have to justify this whole exercise to in the end – won’t. To answer your question, while it’s certainly possible and would probably be effective for us to level a city block in order to take out FENRIS, that is not what we are going to do. We’re gonna play this smart.”

“Sir, what are the conditions regarding capturing versus killing FENRIS?” asks one of the snipers. He’s wearing orange-tinted marksman’s sunglasses over a balaclava, with a Barrett M107 slung over his shoulder.

“Capture if possible, eliminate if necessary. That’s what our orders say. Off the record, though, the Old Man made it clear that killing FENRIS takes priority over any reason the lab coats could give for bringing him in alive. We have a hunting license, gentlemen. We’re going to put it to good use.” A chorus of nods go around the room. These are all good soldiers, in Cross’s opinion; every last one of them. They’re all in this unit for various reasons. Some got dumped here by their superiors to save their own asses when an operation went south. Some chose Blackwatch over spending the next few decades in Leavenworth. Some, God forbid, volunteered to be here, just as some of them were volunteered themselves. And every single one of them is ready to face absolutely certain death – or worse – on a daily basis. Why? There are many reasons. For some, it’s for God. For most, it’s for the United States of America. For others, it’s for the rush of combat, or for the thrill of endangering their own lives, or, hell, some of them probably just enjoy killing people. Anything goes; no-one is safe, nothing is sacred, as the unit motto says. Because as long as they’re still alive at the end of the day, these psychos and misfits are going to be the psychos and misfits who saved the goddamn world.

And what a fine thing that is.

“Now,” begins Cross, “Here’s what we’re going to do...”

Meanwhile

Authenticate yourself.

“Lieutenant-General Peter William Randall, First Biological Warfare Command.”

Authenticating..................................[OK]
REDCROWN has CONNECTED
Testing uplink latency..........................[OK]
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY] has SET MODE -L
Client-side logging has been DISABLED

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: For security reasons, I am going to terminate this conversation once ten minutes have elapsed or the matter is concluded, whichever comes first.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: This is only a formality, General. I trust you will understand, given the circumstances.

“Of course.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Good.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Now, what is your concern?

“Permission to speak candidly?”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Granted.

“I want to know if there's anything about BLACKLIGHT I haven't been made aware of.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Go on.

“Specifically, have you been going behind my back in research policy discussions with Gentek?”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: That is insubordination. Remember, Randall, that we are under no obligation to keep you informed of anything it is deemed unnecessary for you to know.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Let him finish. Why would you think that, General?

“First up, let's talk about how things are at the moment. As you're well aware, we're quarantining two potential release sites as infection hotspots: Nerima General Hospital and the Suibayashi Hotel in Ikebukuro. All standard red-line procedure: no-one gets in, no-one gets out.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Your point being?

“I want you to guess how many cases of BLACKLIGHT infection we actually found, in both of those places, once the first round of blood tests came back.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: I could not possibly imagine.

“Zero. Every single person inside the Red Zone was clean. Now, I know what your immediate response is going to be, so let me say it for you. Could it have been a coincidence? Sure. As unlikely as it is, shit like that does happen. I'm not taking any chances; that's why I'm still going to bring in everyone who was in that restaurant with FENRIS for tests, just in case. But – and I want to make this very clear – those properties are not in accordance with the BLACKLIGHT design brief I was given. The objective of the DX-1118C strain revision should have kept the virus's epidemiology roughly in line with the Two Bluff strain. That's not happening. If it was even half as contagious as in Two Bluff, we should have seen a lot more infected cases than we are currently.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Is that a bad thing?

“It's not a bad thing. Practically speaking. However, the point stands that BLACKLIGHT is not behaving in the manner I expected it to, and the expectations I had of BLACKLIGHT's behaviour were based on information that, first and foremost, you gave me.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: And you believe that this indicates we have been withholding information on BLACKLIGHT from you?

“With all due respect, I have a job to do out here. BLACKLIGHT doesn't work like a local insurgency or civil conflict. If the information I have isn't one-hundred-percent on the mark, we are going to be in deep shit if this escalates. Whatever I haven't been told, I can't take into account when making decisions, and that is going to have real-world consequences.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: I think you can rest assured that we wouldn't withhold any information from you that would impair you in performing your duty, Randall.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: After all, we have precisely as much invested in putting a stop to this BLACKLIGHT leak as you do.

“Look – I have the Wisemen Unit heading out right now with orders to terminate the Runner with extreme prejudice. Those orders were given, by me, on the assumption that this Runner, this infection, would behave in a manner consistent with what we saw in Two Bluff, Arizona. If that turns out not to be the case, I need to know what the points of difference between that Runner and this one will be.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Aside from the obvious one, I wasn't aware there were any substantial differences.

“Superficially, there aren't. From what we've observed via Predators, its physical capabilities seem to be slightly higher than what the Two Bluff Runner was able to achieve at her peak level of performance, but the difference isn't so large that I wouldn't chalk it up to statistical variation. What I'm concerned about is what happened in Nerima General Hospital. We're still piecing together the scenario, but what we've turned up so far is...unusual.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: How so?

“I'm keeping this under wraps for the time being, but there were certain parts of the in-flight recording from the Black Hawk that went down that were, for want of a better word, inexplicable. Here, let me show you.”

Click.

“-lion. A fuckin' lion. Fuck!”

“Keep it tight. That thing isn't down yet, I'm sure of it.”

“Just had to be a fuckin' lion. Jesus.”

“Think of it as a big pussycat.”

“Sure as hell ain't no fuckin' pussycat I ever s-there he is, there he is!”

“Taking the shot!”

Click.

“The Black Hawk crashed less than a minute after the end of that recording, after sustaining damage from – and this was also unusual – 'severe lateral distortion of the main rotor shaft'. I'm going to assume you know what's meant by that.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Yes, we do. And you're right; that is, indeed, very unusual.

“That's not all. FENRIS' blood samples weren't normal either. They tested positive for BLACKLIGHT, all right, but they all had component proportions more in line with the blood of large cats than humans. The doctor who operated on FENRIS thinks it's due to some pre-existing genetic condition.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Interesting.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: What, so the Runner's a lion or something? Sure looked human to me on the Black Hawk's video feed. Well, mostly human.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Are you looking into the doctor's theory, General?

“It's on the back burner for now. I'll have Winthrop get CIA Station Tokyo to check out FENRIS' past once he's done with the Japanese. I'm not expecting anything to come up, though. It's more likely than anything else, in my opinion, that this is a BLACKLIGHT side-effect.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: So talk to Gentek about it, not us. You've got McMullen out there with you, don't you?

“Gentek is suspect. I believe it may have been compromised.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: What makes you think that?

“The ultimatum Mercer sent McMullen earlier today. I assume it must have filtered up to at least one of you by now.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: We have it.

“Pay attention to what Mercer threatens. 'A death count in the pentuple-digits' or something like that, right? Mercer himself believed that BLACKLIGHT had the potential to cause a pandemic on a massive scale. So, let's say he sets up his bio-bomb insurance policy in the belief that that's the case. The bomb goes off, BLACKLIGHT is released, and what happens? Zero infected cases, and one abnormal Runner. Now, I've never dealt with Mercer personally, but McMullen has told me he was the best of the best – near the top of his field, albeit a paranoid, sociopathic little bastard if ever there was one. So why the disparity?”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: There are any number of potential explanations. Whatever similarities they logically must have, DX-1118C is the product of seven years of refinement on top of the strain that was active in Two Bluff. Human testing was scheduled for June of next year, although given the current situation that will have to be postponed indefinitely. In research like this, there is always the possibility of some unforeseen development.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Ironic, isn't it? The person whose expertise we have the greatest need of at this point is the one you had shot earlier today.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: To - in all honesty - respond to your concerns, General, allow me to categorically state that the project outline for BLACKLIGHT we drew up for Gentek and the one you were briefed with last month are one and the same. There is no hidden agenda on our part with respect to BLACKLIGHT. You have our word on that.

“Fair enough. But it's not impossible that someone at Gentek could be operating without your knowledge.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Aren't you being overly paranoid about all this, Randall?

“Possibly. I'm well aware that Fort Detrick has had its disagreements with Gentek in the past, but I do put a lot of stock in what they have to say when it comes to technical matters. Gentek would not – should not – have made a mistake like this. 'Unforeseen developments' can only extend so far, and they know it. Any large-scale dissimilarities in how the virus behaves – that would have had to have been designed in from the start.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: And yet Mercer's email would seem to imply that that wasn't the case.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Unless you're suggesting that someone at Gentek was able to substantially alter the virus right under the chief scientist's nose, which, to me, seems more than a little unrealistic.

“I'm not suggesting anything like that. But there's definitely something wrong with this picture.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: You don't know that for certain.

“I have a hunch.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: We can't act on a hunch, General. Even from you.

“I'm not expecting you to. Just...keep an eye on Gentek. If we're being played by someone in New York, I want to know who.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Keeping an eye on Gentek - and you - is who we are and what we do, General. Consider it done.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Is there anything else, General?

“Winthrop mentioned being under pressure from the President to negotiate in favour of a minimal US footprint in this operation. I'm aware that you can't tell the White House to stick it where the sun don't shine, but it would be helpful if something similar could be arranged.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: I can probably influence the President's decision through the Secretary of State. I'll have her briefed on the finer points of the situation; see if that changes her tune.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Will that be secure?
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: We have more leverage on her than we do on POTUS. She won't talk.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: I'll leave it up to you, in that case.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Of course. Oh, and one last thing, Randall.

“Yes?”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Even with as much uncertainty as you seem to have about this abnormal Runner, you still felt confident in sending Captain Cross to eliminate it.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: I'd like to know why that is.

“Because the son-of-a-bitch can damn well probably pull it off regardless.”

MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Let's hope you're right, Randall.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY]: Melchior out.
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY] has DISCONNECTED

“Well, that seems to be everything. If you'll excuse me, gentlemen.”

BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Of course.
REDCROWN has DISCONNECTED
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Do you think he suspects anything?
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Almost definitely not.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: At any rate, more direct intervention may be required.
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY]: I wish I had your confidence.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: There is no issue with local intervention at this stage in the scenario as long as FENRIS stays inside Tokyo, and the number of factors at play remains small.
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY]: There's still the possibility that a lot of people are going to die.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: ...I know that.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Remember - we did not choose this path, for the choice was not ours to make.
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY]: History will absolve us of our sins, but only as long as we are the ones to write it.
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Hah!
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY]: Well put, as always, Balthazar.
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY] has DISCONNECTED
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY] has DISCONNECTED
SESSION TERMINATED

Tokyo, 0914 Hours

“I see him. Start the clock.”

Western Tokyo stretches out below Cross like the green-and-brown floor of a vast, messy warehouse, littered with buildings in white, grey, brown and glinting glass out to the horizon in every direction except east, where it's just possible to see the morning sunlight glinting off the surface of the Bay and out into the Pacific Ocean. It’s a clear enough day that you can easily spot Mount Fuji peeking up through the haze layer out in the south-west, but there’s no time to admire the view. There’s work to be done. Cross makes the call.

“Copy that. All Wisemen units, this is Caesar Actual. We have eyes on FENRIS. I repeat, eyes on target.”

It’s a simple enough plan. Four helicopters – three Black Hawks and a single AH-1Z Viper ‘appropriated’ from the Marine battalion on Okinawa (They weren’t too happy about it, but, hey, what can you do? As long as they get it back in one piece, they’ve got no right to complain.) comprise the chase squad. The trap is set to the south, on the Tsurukawa Highway in Tamagawa, where it crosses the eponymal river over a natural, but unpopulated, island. Japanese police are taking care of clearing the road. All they have to do is bait FENRIS all the way there. Piece of cake, really.

“He's made us. Target is inbound. Repeat, target is inbound on our twelve o'clock. Range is ten-point-four klicks and closing.”

“From that far away? Fucker's got some wicked eyesight.”

“Predator intel puts FENRIS in Suginami City. Speed is one-twenty-four K-P-H; bearing is three-one-niner degrees.”

“Where's our predicted intercept?”

“Nishitokyo. From there it's ten klicks directly south to BEARTRAP.”

Cross is seated on the rightmost forward-facing seat in the Black Hawk's passenger compartment. Both the side doors have been fully opened, causing the roar of the wind rushing past to mingle with the noise of the rotors and engine and render normal conversation impossible. Near his feet, one of the guys is doing last-minute checks on the electrics of the right-hand M134. Cross is familiar with them. Not the biggest gun you can mount on the side of a helo or on top of a Humvee, but definitely worthy of respect in its own right. If you're in the mood to put an entire squad's worth of seven-six-two rounds downrange in the shortest possible amount of time, you can't do much better.

“Ten thousand metres to target.”

“Nero, Trajan, confirm status of BEARTRAP.”

“This is Nero Actual. BEARTRAP is good to go.”

“This is Trajan Actual. We're in position.”

The atmosphere inside the helicopter – inasmuch as you could ascribe any kind of permanent quality to it, given the force of the wind rushing in through the open doors – is one situated halfway between professional detachment and raw, carnivorous bloodlust. A panoply of small human movements tells the entire story, even with the sounds produced being drowned out as soon as they're emitted. Magazines are loaded. Chambers are checked. Charging handles actuated in deft, practised motions. Sights calibrated and recalibrated. Laser pointers are flicked on while safeties are flicked off. The precision-engineered machinery of modern warfare could not have asked for a better way to fulfil its intended purpose. This is what the Wisemen Unit live for.

“Ninety-five hundred metres.”

“Hadrian, Nerva, confirm you have eyes on.”

“Ah...copy that, Caesar. Got him tagged on VIS, twelve o'clock.”

“Same here, Caesar. Hadrian has the target.”

There's no need to think back over the precise details. When you're planning for a combat situation, complexity is the enemy just as much – if not more so – than whoever the opposition happen to be. The more elements a plan has, the more possible points of failure. An ideal battle plan would be one that is not contingent on the opposition doing one particular thing instead of another – in short, one that charts a defined path to victory for any possible course of events. In practice, like most ideals, this is unachievable. At most, the actions of human opponents can only be accounted for in the most general of terms. As for non-human opponents...well; that, as they say, is a horse of a different colour entirely. Cross knows what Runners are, and what they can do – he knows from first-hand experience, from a tiny farming town called Two Bluff out in the badlands of Arizona, so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things that fewer than fifty people probably even noticed when it abruptly stopped appearing on maps in 2001. It took three weeks to follow her trail from all the way back at the lab in New Mexico. It took three days of wearing her down from a distance before Cross was able to move in for the kill. Going mano-a-mano with a Runner – even an incomplete one, as Samantha Weaver was – was not a fight he's going to forget in a while. It's what made him a legend in the battalion, and to this day he's been known to receive completely sincere salutes from men at least three ranks above him. Cross, however, doesn't think of himself as an 'unstoppable badass', as he overheard himself being referred to as on the high-supersonic jet over from New York. More than anything else, he considers it as being a difference of perspective. Words like 'immortal', 'invulnerable', 'superhuman' – these are all relative terms to him. Subjective. A matter of opinion; an abstract, not a concrete entity in the physical sense. As long as you have one simple plan and you know what you're doing, thinks Cross, there's nothing you can't kill.

“Nine thousand metres.”

Cross has a plan.

“Caesar, this is Odin Two-One. GAMEKEEPER is online, I say again, GAMEKEEPER is active. Ready when you are.”

And he knows what he's doing.

Meanwhile

I have no idea what I'm doing.

To be honest, I actually feel really bad about it. There's something very distasteful to me about engaging what's probably going to be a well-armed and organised opponent in a fight with no plan whatsoever and simply expecting my completely ridiculous supernatural ability to let me come out on top regardless. I don't know why, but the idea really pisses me off. It's not that I think it's unfair, it's more like...I would feel cheated, somehow, if I actually won doing that. Or maybe I'd feel like I'd cheated.

Do I want to be the kind of idiot who would do something like that?

No. I mean, it worked pretty well for me at the hospital, but that...that was a special case.

I feel my boots connect with another concrete rooftop. I'm moving fast enough now that I can clear most of the smaller gaps between buildings – as long as they're the same height – without having to put too much effort into my vertical leaps. When there's a big height difference, things get a bit trickier, but nothing I can't manage. I was pretty good at climbing sheer surfaces like the sides of buildings before, partially due to practice and partially due to the Impulse, but now I can simply run up them, just as easily as you might run along a length of flat ground. It'd probably be scary as hell if you were afraid of heights, but, fortunately, I think my regular rooftop-running habits have basically burned that out of me entirely. I'm not too sure what the physiological basis is for how I can do it, though. It seems to simplistic to say that my speed is such that I can be all the way up the wall before gravity finds out what I've done. I have a horrible feeling that the laws of physics aren't going to be too happy with me once they catch wind of this. Incidentally, this air resistance is getting really annoying. Anyone who's ever stuck their head out of the window of a car going at over a hundred kilometres an hour should know what I mean. At the speed I'm going at, it's almost like...well, I was about to say sprinting through water, but it's not actually as bad as that. I suppose it's more like running through air, at a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour.

Exactly like it, in fact. If only because nothing else is.

There are so many air conditioners up here, though. It's fucking nuts. What possible purpose can they serve? Does the population of Western Tokyo honestly feel the need to pretend that they're living ten or twenty degrees of latitude to the north (or, alternatively, very, very far south) of where they are now? This is idiotic. It's not even summer. I'm tempted to tear half of them off their mountings just on the principle of the thing.

Ah, that's it.

I think I just worked it out. Relying completely on inherent ability is...well, it's something an animal would do. More to the point: it's what that did. I'm trying to stay objective, here. It's getting difficult. All I have are these guys' memories to work with, and they are decidedly unpleasant. No matter how hard I try to remember who or what 'I' was between the explosion and the point at which 'Lio Shirazumi' was reacquired, I can't. It's like trying to see through a brick wall. I don't know what that thing was that killed (killed?) Hayashibara, Ashitake, Ellison, O'Hara and Blackrow. It was certainly 'me' – for a certain value of 'me', that is – but I can't remember anything it did firsthand. Well, I can. Firsthand. But it's not my firsthand. It's...well, it is my firsthand. Now. Technically. But it's not the me-who-was-that-before-it-ah, fuck this shit. The situation regarding my memories is, needless to say, complicated. I really don't want to think about it right now. Ironically, the Impulse is actually helping me here. The only 'I' which remembers the Impulse is me – Lio Shirazumi. The Impulse is still present, hence, that's who I am. QED. I wonder if that's what's helping me stay the dominant personality. Have I dissociated myself from the memories of the other five? Or-

Who am 'I'? Or, rather, which is 'I'?

Fuck it. Fuck it! I don't care. I have to deal with Araya most likely trying to kill me and Ryougi turning into a monster and the Impulse trying to eat me and the entire fucking US Military trying to kill me and I-don't-have-time-for-this. Please. As long as there is an 'I' – don't interrupt me – and as long as I can still identify with the memories of being Lio Shirazumi – Which. I. Can. – this is a non-issue. Alright?

…

...Good.

Who are you even talking to?

“Go fuck yourself.”

The point is, I'm not going to be like that. I don't want to be like that. I...well, from their perspective, I guess I'm the bad guy. Nothing I can do about that. But that doesn't mean I have to play their game. I start gradually allowing myself to lose velocity, with the aim to come to a complete stop in about five or six rooftops. I shouldn't have been running to begin with. It was a stupid thing to do, and I shouldn't have done it. I let my emotions get the better of me, and this is where I ended up.

Ah, Ryougi, Ryougi, Ryougi.

Such a troublesome woman. Anyone would think she was trying to drive me to distraction through existential dread. On anyone other than me, that might have actually worked. However, I am – as in many other things – an exception. The thing that no-one tells you about existential dread, about living every single day with the inescapable fate of death or a variable-speed descent into insanity, about being left alone with no-one but the voices in your head for company-

-is that you get used to it.

Well, I did, at least. But I was probably pretty weird to begin with. Enough of that. Now, the time has come to make the change. I can no longer afford to simply act on impulse (or Impulse). I need a plan. I need a strategy. Man or monster – what need do I have to make such a black-and-white distinction? I'm simply a man making use of monstrous methods. I invert the clump of flesh which comprises the ‘whipfist’ back into a normal arm. If I’m smart enough, I won’t need it. Firmly planting my boots on the roof of an apartment block bound by nothing but chain-link fence around and the endless blue sky above, I can't help but let a smile escape my mouth as I turn to face my oncoming opponents.

“Alright.”

The smile becomes a smirk, and I begin the operation.

“I need skills. What have you got?”

Web of Intrigue – Unarmed CQC

“Too many unnecessary movements. Keep your strikes strong, fast and simple. Hit with your core – not your extremities. You want to take down your opponent as fast as possible, so you can move on to the next one.”

“That was a basic judo throw. Simple, but effective. On a concrete or metal surface, it is not something you want to be on the receiving end of.”

“Let's say your opponent has a knife. Fighting an unarmed guy in close quarters – he probably thinks he's shit hot. This is how you prove him wrong.”

Web of Intrigue – Marksmanship

“That, you assholes, was the sound of a Kalashnikov AK-47. I assure you, by the end of your tour, you're gonna be hearing it in your sleep.”

“Thirty-two point one six seconds, no missed targets. That's your best time on the course yet, if I'm not mistaken. I can see why they picked you for First Recon.”

“What you have there, Sergeant, is a Barret M82CQ. Coast Guard uses 'em to take out drug boats. That's what your team are going to be covering us with when we assault the compound. Should handle pretty similarly to the regular M82. We've cleared the range out to the thousand-metre targets for you. Best you go get some practice.”

Web of Intrigue – Explosives

“EOD units are all currently engaged, Cap. We disarm that IED ourselves, or this convoy is going to be stuck in the Red Zone for at least an hour...yeah, I see it...looks like it's a Soviet AT mine derivative. Tell Baseplate we got this, over.”

“The answer is no, you don't get to 'blow shit up'. Not yet. Prove you can reliably hit targets with your 203, then you can start with the live rounds.”

“Eyes on the sniper. Ellison, get your SMAW out. Someone else, get a camera or something...Why? New kit. Thermobaric warhead. You don't want photos of it, I don't know what's fuckin' wrong with you.”

Web of Intrigue – Armed CQC

“Over the next five weeks, you'll be learning Krav Maga techniques developed by the Israeli military. The main focus will be the use of your rifle as a close-combat weapon. We're also covering room clearing, sound minimisation and bayonet and counter-bayonet tactics. Any questions?”

“And now...second place in the 1979 Kanagawa Prefecture Inter-School Kendo Championship goes to...Awasuke Hayashibara, of Chouen Academy!”

“...when men were to take up arms, the predominant object was the sword...When I've done sword fights in movies, I've always thought about, what are they for?...Often these things were right at the point of history...”

Web of Intrigue – Helicopters

“To the airport, Hayashibara. The crime scene is up in the mountains, and we need you on-site ASAP. The NPA are even putting up the cost of flying you in via helicopter.”

“A Hind-D...shit. That thing spots us, we're dead...alright. Stay low, and follow my lead. We're following this ditch around to the north side.”

“Yeah. Sometimes, that's all it takes. Without the tail rotor to balance the torque from the main one, it doesn't take long for the helo to start spinning out of control. Looks like that's what forced Foxtrot to bail.”

I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

It's not like these are new memories – I had them before, acquired from the five unluckiest people in Japan. That is, I remember having these memories before I 'remembered' the memories that I am now remembering. Wait. No, I mean that – before just now – I already remembered knowing what I know now, because I just remembered it. God damn it. As if the initial disorientation wasn't bad enough, I'm getting a headache just from trying to describe it. It's probably better if I just don't bother.

Yeah, probably.

For some reason, I'm getting a strange sense of – nostalgia? Call it deja vu – from my – the soldiers' – memories. Recollections of the Middle East are what's causing it. I don't think it's from overlaps between the three separate sets. In fact, if I had to take a guess, I'd say-

Ah, but of course.

Lion country. Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean. Formerly inhabited by numerous instances of my illustrious preincarnations. 'I' (probably me, but you can never be sure) remember reading about it somewhere. Not at the moment, obviously. Too many humans hanging around there, what with their wars and pollution and overpopulation and other such defilements...there's no place for lions there any more. Still, they do remember it. There's probably certain landscape features that haven't changed for thousands of years. Enough to trigger patterns of recognition; perhaps, even, of familiarity. How things change, huh?

“All these skills...”

Enough of that. I have more practical problems to solve.

“...are completely fucking useless!”

Sure, maybe they'd be helpful if, I don't know, I had a gun or a rocket launcher or something. As far as I can see, it's only them who have stuff like that. All the CQC in the world isn't going to make a damn bit of difference against a helicopter. This is so goddamn annoying. I even went to the trouble of doing a cool pose, and it didn't fucking work.

Noriko Takaya, why have you forsaken me?

“Damn it!”

They'll be here soon.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

I'm so pissed off, I just want to kill someone.

“DAMN IT!”

So I do something stupid. Predictable, right?

In three quick strides, I cross the rooftop to where one of the uncountable infinity of air conditioners is sitting. I glare at it. I grit my teeth.

And I kick it.

...whoa.

Whoa.

“...whoa.”

It sails off into the air at what must be...a hundred? Two hundred kilometres an hour? Either way, tearing through the chain-link fence surrounding the rooftop only slowed it down. Trailing broken shards of metal and plastic, it arcs over the nearby highway-

Um...

-and smashes through the sixth-floor window of the building on the other side.

...sorry...about...that?

I scratch my head. I imagine I must look very stupid right about now. I really wasn't expecting that to happen.

Although...

The former mounting of the A/C unit, now a wreck of twisted metal and snapped bolts, catches my eye.

Not like there's any shortage of those.

No, there's not. I could keep kicking them off rooftops...all...day...

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Obviously.

This is...

The best idea ever.

...THE BEST IDEA EVER!

-----------------------------

Anyone who's played Prototype will remember the uncannily high amounts of conveniently placed air conditioners on every rooftop in New York. If you remembered that, then you'll probably be able to guess what Shirazumi's about to do.

The third entry in the "Armed CQC" WOI is the opening narration to "Reclaiming the Blade", which is a real documentary about medieval european swordsmanship that actually exists and you can (and should) watch. Presumably, one of the guys Shirazumi ate remembered watching it at some point.

It seems the sinister SEELE-ish organisation are busy plotting their sinister plots...using IRC. I was originally going to do the full Evangelion thing and have them put in a SOUND ONLY appearance, but I decided to try and one-up that by reducing them to sinister monospaced computer text.

Does Shirazumi like GAINAX mecha anime, or is it one of the other five guys? A very good question. He didn't start making references 'till he'd already eaten those guys, soo....well, I'll leave it up to your imagination. Whichever is funniest.

Don't worry about Blackwatch, though. Captain Cross is a freakin' badass. This is a man who fought Alex Mercer on foot with a goddamn stun baton, and nearly won. In terms of physical capabilities, I've put him roughly at Kotomine's level. He's also about as smart as Kotomine, too. Once you see BEARTRAP and GAMEKEEPER in action, you'll see what I mean. He really does know exactly what he's doing.

Expect to hear a lot more about Shirazumi's literal identity crisis later on. The nature of the 'I' as well as the idea of the 'box' will be repeated motifs throughout the story.

You may think that Blackwatch have been extremely quick to react, in objective terms. After all, the leak was barely eight hours ago, and they already have boots on the ground, so to speak. That's not because of me messing up my time scales. There is...well, spoilers. You'll find out. Later.

Shirazumi's internal monologue seems to be developing a tendency to go from 'dead serious' to 'lulzy' and vice versa at the drop of a hat...well, given the guy's mental state at the moment, rapid mood swings are probably the least of his problems.

[Seika]

the Japanese – who they will have to justify this whole exercise to in the end – won’t.

Tad awkward sounding with that second hanging 'to', particularly since the next sentence begins with a 'to' as well. Perhaps "the Japanese - to who(m) they will have to justify this whole exercise in the end"?

Authenticating..................................[OK]
REDCROWN has CONNECTED
Testing uplink latency..........................[OK]
MELCHIOR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
KASPAR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY] has CONNECTED
BALTHAZAR-[TEXT ONLY] has SET MODE -L
Client-side logging has been DISABLED

I saw what you were doing here, even before you mentioned it in the notes. Actually put me off balance for half a second, because I had the impression that the three MAGI-designated participants were AIs.

Anyone who's played Prototype will remember the uncannily high amounts of conveniently placed air conditioners on every rooftop in New York. If you remembered that, then you'll probably be able to guess what Shirazumi's about to do.

Oh, I do know. I do!

It seems the sinister SEELE-ish organisation are busy plotting their sinister plots...using IRC. I was originally going to do the full Evangelion thing and have them put in a SOUND ONLY appearance, but I decided to try and one-up that by reducing them to sinister monospaced computer text.

Does Shirazumi like GAINAX mecha anime, or is it one of the other five guys? A very good question. He didn't start making references 'till he'd already eaten those guys, soo....well, I'll leave it up to your imagination. Whichever is funniest.

It's all pretty much in keeping with the source material (if more explicit). If you run through Nasu's interviews, you will see tonnes of Eva references coming up. He's quite a fan.

[Aiden]

Having played both Prototype games (2, what the fuck did you do to the setting I loved?!), I can say I know exactly what he's going to do here.