Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Cowboy Bebop: Insomnia ❯ Upon the Sky, So Tearless Blue ( Chapter 1 )

Cowboy Bebop: Insomnia

By: Sara Angeldust

Session 1: Upon the Sky, So Tearless Blue

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Disclaimer:

Standard disclaimer applies here. I do not own the Cowboy Bebop characters mentioned throughout this story. The only ones that are mine are Rain, Bren, Gendrig, Dane, and any other new ones you may find. I am doing this simply for pleasure and not getting any money for it *snap monkies*, so don’t sue me. ^-^V

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Authors Note:

Heya people! This is the first and only time I will write an AN (author’s note) at the beginning of a chapter, usually they will come at the end. First of all I wanna say that this is my first Cowboy Bebop fanfic so don’t jump on my incorrect ass so quickly, I will try to be as true to the characters as possible. Secondly, I wish to state here and now that in my story, YES Spike survived his "little" fight with Vicious. Now I don’t want a million reviews stating how this can’t be and blah blah blah, this is my little delusional world, let me live in it. And lastly I wanna state that this story revolves around my original character, Rain, so you may not see the other main characters all the time, but they will pop up on a frequent enough basis. Thank you for reading this story and for those of you nice enough to, reviewing. It started off as literally, a dream, died, and then blossomed again, so I’ve put much work into this. Thanks. ^-^ ~~~~~~~~~~

Full Synopsis:

Trying to escape the twisted strands of the revived Red Dragon Syndicate, Rain stumbles upon the one person with any answers to her life. But can this man, who has died and been born again, and his four members of the Bebop, save what remains of her soul? Or will the truth about what the Syndicate has done swallow them all… Welcome back Space Cowboy… ~~~~~~~~~

Upon the sky, so tearless blue

A moonlit night, a lonely melody

It plays on the winds, a darkened storm.

This night a lonely stray

Walks among the living, a shadow at its feet

Waiting, nearing it’s endless journey

For the truth is bared, for all to see

Upon the sky, so tearless blue -Sara Angeldust ~~~~~~~~

Mars~

Two years after the death of Vicious and the imminent reconstruction of the Red Dragon Syndicate

Staring lightheaded towards the ground, a gasp of immense pain escaped her lips. Stars danced in front of her eyes at the effort it took to breathe. How long had she been there? Minutes? Hours? Days? Her body ached with such agony that she couldn’t think straight, let alone calculate any sort of a time scale. A bead of bloody sweat slowly made it’s way down her temple, falling in the stain she knew was forming on her lap. There was no asking how much longer she could stand it, she knew she was going to pass out. Yet something inside her told her not to. A voice screamed at her that she had to stay awake, had to survive.

You’ve already lived until this point, why give it all up now?

Because this hurts like a …

You’ve been in worse pain.

This stopped her. Had she? There were far too many broken bones to be counted, and one too may bullet hole scars to say if it was true. She was known for her constant array of injuries from assignments taken too lightly, yet were any of them this bad? The answer was no. They had all been sustained in the heat of a fight, the adrenaline pumping through her veins, pain deadened by the flow. They had never been purposefully inflicted on her for the pure joy of causing her pain. That was what made this time different, why she was about to drop out of the chair she was sitting in, and fall onto the cold cement ground she knew was beneath her.

A curse filled her lips as she tried to concentrate in the darkness. She shouldn’t have even been in this damn situation. If only some people had kept their big mouths shut! She had been born into the syndicate for god’s sake, her place of rank should have been assured from the day she was born. And still someone had to insist on making her go through the initiation rights. To ‘prove herself’, as Gendrig had told her. Bull. She was more then an asset to the dwindling population of the syndicate, if not the syndicate, and everyone knew it. As soon as she was freed from this torture she was going to find the bastard and kill him.

You don’t really mean that.

Of course I do. I’m going to do it this time. I’m going to find him and rip his throat out.

You would never.

Jeez, I know myself far too well.

She sighed. It was true. She did know herself far too well. She could never find the strength to kill someone out of pure, cold, blood. Sure, she could do it if it had been assigned to her, but never for personal gain, never for herself.

I’m just not that kind of person. Damn it all!

She could feel the blood rushing to her head as she had it leaned forward, eyes staring at the dark floor of the cold cellar, arms to her sides. In a last minute effort not to faint she brought her head back up straight, sighing, her body twitching then relaxing. What time was it? It had to have been 48 hours by now, wouldn’t it? Stupid syndicate and their stupid rules, it could all burn for what she cared.

As she stared towards the still door she could feel the sweat on her body, the pure feeling of her sweat and blood pouring down ever crevice of her soul. What a feeling. Unlike some people in the syndicate, she did not feed off of it, but it did have that calming effect once in awhile. What a disgusting thought, to live only for the pleasure of blood and sweat. Yet she knew far too many men like that, as well as far too many women who clung to men like that. Whores. Thank God for her abilities as a fighter, or Gendrig would have been more then happy to shove her onto that low rung on the syndicates’ ladder. It was her pure will that had prevented it from happening.

Will was it? Well, whatever it was called, it was proving itself true by saving her butt more then once. Taking another deep breathe, long, sticky strands of her light green hair fell around her face, and without the strength to move them, she left them were they lay, leaning her head back against the wall. She had been far too busy trying to keep herself alive to have remembered to tie up her extremely long, greenish-brown hair when the ‘welcoming committee’ had arrived in her room that morning. Though it probably would have helped to have remembered, since her knee length hair had turned out to be a weak point during the blood fight. The men had been more then happy to use it against her, pulling it so hard that in some places it felt like she didn’t even have any at all. A touch on these areas proved her wrong but still, it hurt like Hell. Not only did her head hurt, but her intire body, causing her so much agony she knew she would faint at any moment, if not from the pain, then from the lack of blood. God knew there was enough in the puddle on the floor to say at least that much.

Are you going to faint now?

Of course I am you dumb ass. Can’t you figure out that much?

"I would highly advise against it."

Her head snapped up, if snapped is what you could call it. It was more like, moved slowly forward. Either way she raised her head to see who had opened the door to speak to her, for that was what had happened. As her eyes cleared themselves as best they could, she could make out a figure standing at the door. He was tall, with shoulder length black hair and a small amount of stubble on his defiant chin. He looked at her with stern, cold eyes, that much she could tell, Hell knew what color they were since her eyes had not yet adjusted to the light.

Sitting in the chair like a rag doll, a pool of blood around her, she knew she must have looked like a pretty mangled site, really, looking much worse then she actually felt. But it had been a long time since she had been given the luxury to revel in her own pain. Most of the time the situation had called for immediate action, no time for pain, so she was taking this as a vacation.

Pulling out of her thoughts, she focused again at the man at the door, giving him a look of stone. This was enough to get a nod from him and cause him to move away from the opened door. Silent exchanges like these were frequent between her and other members of the Syndicate. She maintained a silent demeanor not just because she really had nothing to say, but also to keep the others unbalanced. In her life, it had become a necessity to be able to cause a potential enemy to underestimate you, especially in a fight. It was for this reason that she had probably survived as long as she had. It was good for her that women were still revered as a lesser species.

All the thinking she had been doing had allowed her to focus on something other then her pain, and as she lifted herself from the chair her body screamed in defiance. Every muscle seemed to tear its way away from her bones, causing ripples of jagged ice to go throughout her body like lightning. The action did not paralyze her as it would have most, but did the opposite, it spurred her body to move forward, walking at a steady pace towards the cell door. She clutched lightly at her left arm, out of its socket and bleeding from a knife wound which she had been unable to avoid. Again, holding her arm an act not really meant for its practicality, but for its act of making her seem weaker then she really was. She could quickly reset a dislocation, but she knew men would be standing outside the door waiting to see her in her weakened state. So give them their fun, she thought, all the better for when they came to try and kill her in the future, and they all would try. But none would ever do the deed, this she promised herself.

Walking out of the door, her body in a relaxed posture, right arm holding the left, she entered a large hallway full of light and an unruly sight. At least twenty of the Syndicate’s enforcers had come to see her walk out of that room. A few of the sleazy women hanging from scared and nonscared arms of the men, but not as many as she would have thought. For some women, blood was a nasty sight to bear, ironic that they had gotten involved with a syndicate, but then again, they were mostly prostitutes anyway.

Lined up against the walls of the fairly large hallway they all gave her looks of cold ice. Their faces and bodies ranged from late teens to late forties, pretty and ugly alike, really the syndicate had just stopped caring. Almost any man could join nowadays, regardless of position or connections as long as he passed the initiation, a new law imposed by Gendrig only three months after Vicious died (taking the Triad with him). It was this new policy of, you survive-you’re in that caused the great diversity within the syndicate. A diversity that had strengthened their fighting capabilities, but had weakened their solid image. Many of the regular members ranging from business men, hackers, scientists, politicians, and even a police force or two, had been making it a habit of staying far from head quarters, not wanting to get their hands dirty with the grime that were the enforcers, the very men that Gendrig injected everywhere to made sure that they had a smooth running job.

But none of this was really her concern, after all, she was just trying to survive this like all the rest. Well like most of the others, anyway, she thought. As she paraded herself down the hallway, she walked at a comfortable pace. Although the men she passed were dangerous not only to her, but all humanity, they didn’t dare attack or even touch her. This walking back to her rooms had turned into somewhat part of the initiation. Showing all others that you could be stronger then them and put some small scratches behind you would earn you respect from that day on. At least, that’s how it was supposed to work. All others had walked down the hallway with their heads held high, wounds left open, seemingly not caring that they had dripped blood in a trail down the hallway, but not her. She had earned her respect from most of the members by being so close to Gendrig, and those who she hadn’t, well, they would learn in their own time.

She had passed most of them now, and neared the end of her journey down the straight part of the dark hallway. The blood red wallpaper seemed to laugh at her as she made her way towards the T in the halls, the left taking her to her room. As she had walked she had made it a game to put each face to a certain wound she had obtained, thinking to teach its owner a lesson or two when she recovered. She had to laugh at herself though. She would never get revenge like that, not even if she tried. She just wasn’t that kind of killer.

As she progressed down the hall, almost to the end, she saw a welcome smile and had to nod back. Dane had been her friend ever since she had helped him with his own wounds after his initiation about a year and a half before. A kind and quiet guy by nature, he was about her own age, eighteen, and really didn’t belong in the syndicate, especially not as an enforcer. He had shortly cropped sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and a lanky body figure. Of course he did have plenty of muscles to spare, but you would never know it under the lax way he held himself or the constant smile he had on his face. The poor guy really didn’t belong in the bloody politics of the syndicate, but a sick mother and four starving siblings had forced him into it, the only way he knew he could make money enough to support them. He had been a martial artist all his life, as he had told her, but the assassinating added to it was a newly developed thing which he genuinely hated. He had not joined the syndicate for the protection, but for the money alone, and unlike others who spent it on drugs or weapons, he used it for a good purpose. If she had been capable of crying, she would have. Not for his situation, for in this day in age his problems were small compared with others, but for his soul. It was a sad thing that someone with such a pure heart had to suffer the way he did. Yet if you had asked Dane, it wasn’t suffering at all, just a path on life’s great journey, one that he was going to walk with his head held high.

She looked in his direction as he waved to her, cheery eyed as he usually was, and gave her a thumbs up. She resisted the urge to smile at him and continued on her way down the hall, the amount of people still waiting growing smaller and smaller. All she really wanted to do was get to her room, take a shower, and go to sleep. Sleep would be the best medicine. Well, sleep and a very large dose of aspirin, for her head felt like it was splitting apart from the constant banging of her headache.

As she walked her eyes began to blur, the first sign that she might give into the pain her body screamed. It was because of this hesitation in her step that caused her to be surprised by a voice beside her.

"So, you survived after all, Rain." The voice made her jump and increased her headache three fold. Looking towards the voice she noticed its owner, Lucian. Rain gave him a venomous look and felt an animal growl rise in her throat. She hated that man beyond all reason. What a snake in the grass. Had she not known God to be a gracious master she would have sworn that he had brought Vicious back in the body of Lucian. She knew Lucian to remember Vicious as almost a mentor, someone who’s every motion in life was to be studied and learned from. Of course, Rain laughed, Vicious had died, and at the hands of an ex-syndicate member as well, Spike Spiegel, both dead as dead got. So Vicious really wasn’t as good a role model as Lucian thought. Rain’s slight smile turned into another frown as she stared Lucian down. He was handsome by any standard, and had Rain not known his true soul she would have liked him, purely based on looks alone. He was fair haired, a natural blond, his hair cascading down to just below his shoulders, his eyes the color of an ever pine tree, and his stance that of a care free man. He wore his usual dark gray trench coat over what Rain knew to be some old martial arts uniform which looked far too much like a business suit. To most he would seem a kind man, handsome and gentle, but she knew him far better then that. He was a cruel man, bent on nothing good at all.

She had known Lucian all her life, and all that time he had been her enemy. He had been a member of the syndicate back when Vicious had been on his way to taking it over, entering just after Spike Spiegel had left. He had supposedly proven himself a reliable ally and would have been Vicious’s right hand man had Vicious not been killed by his former ally, Spike. This fact alone fueled Lucian to be constantly at war with Rain. Rain, being the unofficial lap dog of Gendrig and his first resource. She believed that Lucian thought that if he could get rid of Rain that he would be the one next to Gendrig, and maybe, if he was lucky, would kill him and become leader instead. So far, Rain had been able to thwart all of his attacks, not because she felt she had any loyalty to Gendrig, that was far from being it, but because she refused to let Lucian kill Gendrig, therefore, placing her straight at the top of the Syndicate hierarchy and hit list. The last thing she wanted to do was to be forced to kill Lucian and have to deal with the complete mess that was the Syndicates "Triad". She refused to be the root of all the evils involved, feeling fine to just be tied to it.

Rain finally let her smile come as she continued her way down the hallway, never saying a word to Lucian as she passed. This must have disappointed him, for he had always been one to enjoy starting a fight, so as Rain passed him he continued with her, saying something that Rain refused to hear. As she turned left down her own hallway she found her room, the only door in the dark hallway, and turned the knob, walking straight into the dark foyer. She calmly, yet forcefully, closed the door behind her, shutting it in Lucian’s face. Leaning against the door, her eyes closed, she waited for him to get the message, when he finally did she heard his agitated foot steps stomp away from her room, headed in the opposite direction.

Rain sighed, glad to have him out of her hair, and to be back in her room. Most of the Syndicate members didn’t like to be anywhere near the headquarters, actually, she couldn’t really think of any that did. She was an exception though. Gendrig kept a leash on her like a prized bull dog, paranoid to let her go anywhere else. So he had given her a few small rooms in the halls of the building, suitable to live in, but in no way homely. There were three rooms, all drab and so very basic. A small living area connected to a bedroom, the bedroom to a bathroom. Even though it smells like death, what a relief to finally be back here. She thought, rubbing her still dislocated arm.

With a quick twist and thrust with her opposite arm, she fixed the problem and sighed, moving her arm in circles, making sure she had put it back correctly and that it was working. With her eyes still closed she made her way towards her bathroom, never turning on a light. Her senses had always been extremely sharp, and she could walk the most unfamiliar of streets blind folded, a task she practiced now, in the absolute darkness of her small compact rooms. Running her hand through her sticky hair, Rain finally made her way to her tiny bathroom, opening the door to an eerie silence beyond. As she stripped off her tattered, stained clothes she gave into the comfort of knowing she was somewhere where she didn’t have to worry too much about being attacked. Sighing, she turned on the water in her shower to a scalding hot temperature and stepped in, intent on washing all of the grime she had acquired off of her body. ~~~~~~~~~~~

The tears ran blood red down her face, small drops of life flowing in waves down soft, innocent cheeks. Why she was crying crimson tears she would never fully understand, but the one thing she did know was that it was this miracle that caused her to wake from her deep sleep. How long had she been like this, the haze full and dense all around her almost naked body? The sensation of floating in a pool of something calmed her otherwise panicking mind. Where was she? Why couldn’t she remember anything? Like a sleeper coming out of a dream she opened her eyes, the warm sensation of some thick liquid welcoming her eyes. For some reason she did not protest this, nor did she try to struggle when she realized that she was not breathing air, but liquid, liquid air. Why she did not panic she would never know, but she took the images of her new world in strides, examing the lights outside of the large tube she was floating in.

What’s happened to me? Why…why can’t I remember anything…I…my past…

In some recess of her mind she knew she should be panicking, knew she should be crying out, but for some reason, her mind and body did not feel that way. The liquid almost rocked her like a child in a cradle, a comfort which she felt would soon be denied, so she clung to it.

Opening her eyes, she awoke to a strange sight. All around her people in white coats moved and hurried, screens shone bright green with words and messages beyond her current sight. The liquid she was in was tinted some what of a yellow, inhibiting her from seeing less then a few feet from the outside of her tube. It was then that one of these men in white coats stopped and came closer to the glass separating her from the outer world. All she could see was the fuzziness of his outline, at least fifty years old she could already tell he was shorter then her. His graying hair lay massed on top of his head, his glasses strewn across his face. They must have been in the room for a long time, she could almost smell their unwashed bodies through the glass.

A younger looking man with yellow hair stepped up next to the first man and they exchanged some words. By reading their lips she caught some words like, ‘open’ and ‘now’ but that was all. It perplexed her to know how she knew she could read their lips, for to her knowledge, it was not a skill all people had. How did she know that? She could remember nothing of her past, so how did she know anything at all? She felt so like a child, a newborn child not yet brought into the world, still hovering in the medium between life and death. Yet she knew she was fully matured, fully capable of adult thoughts and thinking processes.

Suddenly the whole world became so very cold. She never actually felt the tube open, nor the sensation of the liquid draining out, but the cold was almost unbearable. She fell forward onto the floor like a rage doll, her thin, wet sheer dress clinging to her body. Her lungs heaved as she took in her first real breathe of air, vomiting up the liquid that had onced occupied her lungs. As she lay on her side on the cold, hard ground, she felt as her stomach coughed up the remaining amount of liquid inside of it. It was then that she first felt the touch of another human, though harsh as it was, she was shocked out of breathe as the beating of another heart came to her ears. The sound was so strong, so hard, that she flew open her eyes, staring straight into those of the fifty year old man. She contemplated this as he rolled her onto her back and grabbed her wrist, taking her pulse most likely.

As she looked around the room all activity had stopped, everyone had stopped what they were doing just to stare at her, her limp body stewn across the floor.

"Gendrig, we should inform Vicious of this. He did want to know when she was woken up ."

She searched the room for the voice, which had come from the young blond haired man. She found him to her right, half bending over her himself. She supposed that the man holding her left wrist was the man he was referring to, Gendrig.

"No." Gendrig said, his voice strong, yet high pitched in a way that made her cringe. "Do not tell Vicious any of this. Inform him…inform him that we lost the subject…she is dead."

Dead? Am I dead?

"But Gendrig, this…this is blasphemy. If he finds out that she isn’t we’ll, we’ll ALL be dead. If he suspects any deception and tells the Triad…"

She could hear the urgency in his voice, yet the man beside her remained calm, moving from her wrist to examine her eyes and nose.

"I don’t care how you tell him, send one of the newer guys if you don’t want to be killed. As I said, the girl is dead. Now go, before I do his deed myself."

She watched as the blond haired man turned pale and shook his head, leaving with a hurried step toward a door some feet from her head.

She returned her fuzzy attention to the man who was still examing her, his hands checking for what she thought were breaks or bruises on her body. This man, Gendrig, it was at that very moment that she knew she hated him, knew she would never grow to like him. That, and the words that he spoke so low, that only she could hear them.

"Stupid fool. I will not give her up, not now, not after what I’ve gone through to get her into this world. No. No Vicious, you will not have His child. Not while I’m alive." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rain stared calmly at the ceiling above her, it’s dark shadows casting strange shapes across her bed. The scenes of that dream, that memory, floated fresh in her mind. Such dreams were always on her mind, haunting her, trying to unbalance her. None ever would. She would not let them. Such weaknesses could get her killed, or worse. Thoughts aside she wondered again what Gendrig had meant by His child. Who was He? She new exactly who her mother was, that secret had not been kept from her, but He was another story.

What have you never told me Gendrig? What is so important about Him?

"This will never do." She said out loud. And it was true, wondering would never get her anywhere. Her whole life she had been taught to act without thought, just to act. It had saved her life so many times and it would have to be the principal she would use to get the answers she wanted. Never contemplate, just do. Tomorrow she would talk to Gendrig. Tomorrow she would learn.

Closing her eyes Rain fell back into a dreamless sleep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning was one of slow process, with nothing to really do Rain found herself wondering around the maze of hallways and rooms within the buildings which housed some of the Syndicates main offices. It’s predecessor would be proud and astonished at the shear size of the syndicate’s grounds now. What was less then a few buildings had turned into almost an intire section of the mars city. Though people unconnected to the syndicate passed freely within, unbeknownst of the group all around them, those involved in the syndicate and the darker side of the city knew it well, and either stayed far away or worked within it’s walls.

The syndicate had acquired a very large group of informants and spies which kept bars, clubs, and stores around the surrounding area, and the reputation of the area being one for rowdy parties kept the information and jobs coming. Their hadn’t been a rival syndicate since Vicious was killed, and Gendrig had reduced the Triad to nothing but bumbling cousins of those who had once been the leaders. Puppets, brougth back to life to be used only for image and no real purpose. He was the true leader, the Don of the new syndicate.

It seemed many things had gone downhill since Gendrig took over. She knew this from the fact that she had been around when the syndicate had been at it’s best. Three years had taught her much about how it should work, how people should respond and go about their business. Those days had changed, and even though their territory had grown significantly, the businessmen, politicians, and other high ranking people had begun to back out. Knowing that they were going to be losing business, they slowly, and stealthily, tried to drop from the Red Dragon’s syndicates ranks, and as business began a slow decline, so did the syndicates ties to the black market. Their ways of making money were slowly turning into cheap copouts, and only a handful of true business men remained. The trafficking of illegal products their last resort.

The true reason for this drop of connections was really because of Gendrig’s obsession with having as many "enforcers" as he could. He too had been around when the names Vicious and Spike had been ones to be feared, and the idea that he too could posses that kind of power fueled him to bring in as many second-rate killers as possible. He spread them like insects where he could, using them as his ears and eyes to what his legions, and enemies, were doing. But none of them could be trusted, and he didn’t seem to care. Some of them broke off and started their own little groups, others allowed themselves to be bribed by the organizations they were sent to watch. Really, the only true card he played was her. Rain was really the only enforcer he had that any of the business men feared, or knew they couldn’t bribe into becoming their lakey in return. And when Gendrig sent her to do something, she did it, no questions asked, no pleads taken. She was an enigma to most of them, since she could strike, kill, and be gone before any of them knew she had been there. She was to be feared, even she knew that, but sometimes it seemed they feared her a bit too much, the reasons for this beyond her. It seemed that they knew some deep dark secret that even she could not recall, a fact that had come into play in more then a few situations. This fact aside, it seemed that the newly aquired rowdyness of the flalying syndicate had been unorganizing previously loyal participants. The syndicate had always been a bonded type of organization, and the infiltration of men with not a single connection to it had been like a nasty mole on their faces. So they became more and more suspicious themselves, their actions unreliable, only the threat of letting Rain after the remaining few keeping them in line enough that Gendrig didn’t have to fear for his life…yet.

So many men were against him and his ideals that it had almost become funny to her. She had learned most of this from her eaves dropping upon conversations of syndicate members, behind doors and walls as she walked alone through the halls and streets. Though Gendrig had spoken privately with her about informing him of these conversations, for he knew all of her skills well, she silently refused to do it. Any information given to him would only cause him to send her on a ‘job’ in which she would have to kill someone. Not that it bothered her, for she had grown up around death, and killing was not something she took as a big thing, but it was the principle of doing his dirty work for him that was beginning to make her sick. Especially now that she understood what was happening to the inner workings of the syndicate.

So whenever he would ask her what new news she had for him she would make something up, something that would not have to involve her, something that was a mere smidgen of the truth, and let that be that. She felt that these meetings were making Gendrig more smug as the days went on. She knew he felt that he was in charge, that he had a complete grip on the syndicate’s situation and that no one would defy him. Had he known how many of the men he thought were in allegiance with him weren’t, there would be hell to pay. Of course, he would never do any of the actual paying, it would be her, she would be the only one to actually go out and kill them, and it was that reason alone that was keeping the street members, not just the business men, in line. It was the knowing that she could come after them at any moment, just from the flick of a finger from Gendrig. They feared her, most of them that was, and they knew she would do anything he told her to without distinction. It disgusted her how much this ‘family’ was really more like a master and his scheming dogs.

Turning a corner on her walk through the buildings, Rain came face to face with someone that she actually wanted to see.

"Hey babe, what’s up?" Dane said, a goofy smile on his face.

Rain gave him a flick of a smile and nodded her head, indicating that nothing was "up". Dane gave her and even bigger smile and came up to her, putting his arm around her shoulder in a friendly manner. Dane had always been like a brother to her, about her age and a bit taller then her they had become fast friends, a breathe of fresh air for Rain. So many of the men were bent on killing and earning money, not making friends. Dane was so innocent yet so brutal when he knew he had to be. She wished so much for him to get out of the syndicate, to get a real job, and support his mother the right way, but as he told her, he knew no other way too, and arguing with him never got anywhere.

"Ahh, silent again today are we? Ya know Rain, you really should smile more, you have a very pretty one."

This made her snort.

"Dane, have you forgotten where you are? This is a syndicate, not a circus, what is there to smile about?"

Dane laughed as they began to walk down the hallway, his arm still around her shoulder.

"Aw come on, no wonder no one ever wants to be around you, you’re so negative all the time. Lighten up…oh and oh yeah." At this Dane seemed to sober up himself. Stopping, he turned to look at Rain straight in the eyes, his sense of fun almost totally gone. She stared at him not knowing what he was going to say, but if he was acting serious, it could not be good.

"Gendrig wants to see you. All the enforcers and even some of the ‘others’ are gathering in the audience chamber. Something’s up and I don’t like the smell of it."

Rain stared soberly back at him. Something public that involved her? Well this was new. Gendrig had never tried to put her skills into the syndicates public, let alone even confirm that she existed at some points. Yet if he had the audacity to invite her into something public it must be good. So with a sigh Rain voluntarily went with Dane, to what exactly, she really wasn’t sure.

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I’m going to leave this as the end of the first chapter. What do you guys think? Good, bad, eh? I don’t know if I’m going to write anymore on a count of some nasty writers block, but if I get good enough feedback on this I may just. Yah never know. Also, be advised that I just hacked off the end of this and posted it, so there may be more then a few grammatical and spelling errors in it. I’ve also tried as hard as possible to make this a believable story, so I did a fair amount of research on Chinese Syndicates etc. How’s my information on that? Good, bad, etc. Please read and review, I take all reviews with an open mind. Thanks for the time, and feel free to visit my website *shameless plug* http://www.otakusdream.tk

thanks

-Sara Angeldust