Fan Fiction ❯ TAU Elite Squad ❯ TAU 02 ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

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TAU ELITE
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Just An Average Day
Chapter 02
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2004
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Dragon rolled to a stop at the bottom of the cliff and Akiko looked over at the over police car. She felt a little embarrassed about losing her temper like that, but people like Carl got under her skin so quickly. As if she had been a waste of his air or something. Growing up on this world allowed people like her to grow into their powers safely, unlike some other worlds where the people would have killed her before she left the hospital.

Carl was the type of person that should never have been allowed to be in a position he was in. Where they could easily control and manipulate everyone around him to further his own ends. Unfortunately, he was a good example of the types of people in charge of things these days. So full of hate that they couldn’t see beyond the end of their nose.

So she decided to play peacemaker and apologize to Officer Levin for her actions the next tie she talked to him. As far as she could tell, neither of the guys were around so she could set things right. She wasn’t sure where they were either, but it wasn’t like a cop to abandon his patrol car this quickly, so she figured they had to be around somewhere. They were probably hiding from her or hiked down to the local convenience store.

She’d only been up at Megan’s house for a little over twenty minutes, so she wasn’t sure where they went off to. For a second she considered looking around for them in the bushes, but decided that it would only cause even more problems if she actually found them. She did have to do one thing before she left the area though, just to make sure she didn’t get into any more trouble with her superiors.

After securing her motorcycle, it only took her a few seconds to walk over to the police car and see the amount of damage she’d caused with her earlier actions. She winced inside her helmet as she noticed the broken headlights and dents to the body of the car. There were days that she really underestimated her own strength, especially when she was angry.

She moved to the front of the car after examining it for several seconds, knelt down, and grabbed onto the bumper just where it connected to the frame and lifted. A groaning sound filled the air for a second as the car’s own weight started to twist it out of shape and cause even more damage. With a quick spin, she flipped it over and dropped it on its wheels. Then she watched as it bounced a few times. She winced as another piece of the light bar fell off and broke as it hit the ground.

She dusted her hands off she shrugged and nodded. “Good enough.”

With a snap the front driver’s side tire broke and fell off the axel.

“Ooops.”

Then she saw something on the ground and reached down to pick it up and examined it in the moon light. It took her a second, but she realized that she’d found a pair of Tellraine cuffs. Instead of the usual two wrist cuffs, a third cuff branched off from the middle to lock a dangerous tail in place.

Akiko figured it must have fallen out of the police car at some point after she left. Perhaps they were from when Officer Levin and the jerk crawled out of the car. That reminded her of the broken axel and she winced again, looked around to see if there were any witnesses.

She didn’t spot any hiding in plain sight, so she turned and tip toed back over to Dragon whistling innocently. Then she looked around again just to make sure there wasn’t anyone around and sighed loudly.

“Well that’s going to cause problems, so I’d better get out of here before I get into anymore trouble.”

Then she hopped on, and rode off before anyone could see her. She pulled out onto the main road and headed back into Prime Light City, quickly vanishing in the distance as she topped the hill. For several seconds the area is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but then the branches of a nearby tree starts to shack.

Officer Levin and Carl fall of the tree and landed in a heap on the ground. They rolled around for several seconds before coming to their feet and Carl reached into his coat and pulled out a large hand gun.

“She’s dead!”

“You started this you moron!”

“You didn’t even help, I should kill you right where you stand!” Carl yelled and pointed his gun at Officer Levin, though the cop didn’t look like he was very impressed.

“You’re standing on thin ice Detective, if you continue to act like this you won’t have a job for to much longer. Learn to have a little consideration for other people.”

“I will rid this city of all the freaks…” Carl snarled, throwing his hands in the air as he ranted, nearly foaming at the moth.

Officer Levin moved before Carl could react, drawing and shooting the Detective with a taser gun before the guy could react. His screech of shock echoed for a second before the man fell to the ground and twitched a few times. Levin quickly reloaded the taser gun, dropping the disposable taser cartridge on the ground as he walked over to the car.

“She could have been a little more careful with my car, but at least it’s back on its wheels, sort of." Levin muttered as he ignored his downed partner.

Groaning loudly, Carl rolled over and tried to get back to his feet, but his body didn’t want to work. “You bastard…kill…” He slurred as his arms gave out and he fell down again.

The officer walked over and kicked Carl over onto his back and glared down at the man. “Your opinion isn’t wanted here you moron.”

**********

“Well?” The man asked in a flat voice as he sat behind his desk and glared at the short haired man in front of him.

They were in a dark office, with all the lights out except one on the desk that really didn’t light up the room. There were large windows that covered two of the walls that allowed anyone to overlook the city with the most magnificent view in all of Prime Light City. The two of them were cloaked in shadows as the man sitting at the desk held a picture frame in his hand.

“Sir, we’ve sent a number of men out to investigate the crime and see if any information is available among the police.”

“What about the TAU?” He snapped.

“They are being watched and monitored as well.”

“Any suspects so far?”

“Taka has been trying to blame it on Megan Palthas, but she doesn’t have the type of abilities to pull this off. Taka seems to hate her for some reason, but we haven’t been able to figure out why yet.” The second man said as he flipped through a folder.

“Are there any suspects at all that stand out?”

“There are a couple of men that live near the Zone that have popped up lately. We are investigating them.”

“Who are they?”

The man placed two folders on the desk. “The first is named James Kanaka, he’s thirty two years old, average height, and is classified as an Alpha level TAU.”

“And his abilities?”

“He’s the leader of a small gang of TAU, his power is listed as material transformation. James tends to carry around a number of small objects, usually small metal bits of rebar.”

The man scowled and sat forward. “Rebar?”

“Yes sir, he doesn’t usually cause a major problem, but he could easily transform the rebar into the weapons that killed your family sir. The other one is a psychokinetic creationist named Akira, we don’t know his last name, but his past is somewhat sketchy so we think it’s an alias. He can picture something in his mind and create it out of thin air.”

“What about the other aspects of the crime? The destruction of the house, that giant hole in the ground, is there anything that might point to anyone?”

“We are still investigating sir, so far we’ve found over thirty suspects within the city that could have pulled it off. Three of them are even in the PL City TAU Unit. We recently captured one of them after he leveled a bar downtown. We have him in our custody and have had him under severe questioning for some time now.”

“What’s his record like?”

“He has an average service record, though he is a bit of a hot head when he’s out on a case and likes to blow things up, it gives him a charge. He used to be their big gun.”

The man just nodded and sat back in his chair. “To bad.”

“Indeed, we will find out if he has anything to do with the killings.”

“Get on it as quickly as you can and get me more information on these two suspects as well, I will find the bastard.”

“Yes sir, we’re already getting ready to bring them in for a little talk. We just need a few days get everything into position.”

“Good.”

**********

After leaving Megan’s house, it took her about twenty minutes to ride across the city now that the evening traffic had died down. There were only a few cars on the freeway as headed for the Police station where she needed to turn in her report. She wasn’t really thinking about anything as she rode, so when a grey furred Tellraine squirrel girl on a racing bike and a skin tight out fit suddenly pulled up beside her she was a little surprised.

The girl revved her racing bike a couple of times and Akiko gestured towards and exit. They exited the freeway, headed down the street to a small park about half a mile down, and pulled into the parking lot. Akiko backed Dragon into a spot next to the girl’s motorcycle and took her helmet off. She grinned at her long time friend.

“Karuna, are you still chasing that old man?!” Akiko asked with an evil grin.

“Akiko, you slut, I never chased after an old man!” Karuna said and used her furry tail to thump Akiko a few times. They’d gone to school together for several years and been friends ever since.

They hugged and laughed for a little while.

“So what bring out on a night like this?” Akiko asked as they moved over to a nearby bench and sat down.

“I haven’t had a chance to get out and just ride for a couple of months, my job has been pretty hectic lately. So, I figured this was as good a time as any other to go out and have a little fun.”

“What’s been going on these days? You’re still a dancer aren’t you?”

Karuna nodded. “Yep, best erotic dancer in the city.”

“Most likely the most perverted you mean, I’ve never seen you date the same guy twice.”

The squirrel girl laughed. “I can’t help it they are all so boring! So what have you been doing? You have that stressed look you used to get in school when you were studying for a test.”

“My Captain has been out checking up on Megan.”

“That man is going to get into trouble with that obsession of his one of these days.”

“Megan seems to be ignoring him for the most part, but she rarely leaves her house these days. It’s kind of sad.”

“She just needs to find a better place to live.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think she would even think of moving. That house is everything she’s ever wanted, so she won’t give it up without a fight.”

Karuna looked over at Akiko’s motorcycle. “How’s Dragon doing these days, she looks like she’d still ready to eat the nearest motorcycle and have a bit of room left over for the rider.”

“Dragon’s in great shape, even the computer seems to be working perfectly. All though I’ve had to add in a few things that my superiors insisted on, like a siren and a mini light bar.”

“Poor Dragon, she must hate them.” Karuna said.

Akiko shrugged. “These things happen occasionally. I was just heading for the station when you spotted me, but I’m in no hurry get there, this is supposed to be my night off and it’s already been shot to hell.”

“We still have time to go out and party tonight.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun. I haven’t been out to a club in a long time.” Akiko said excitedly, and then frown and sighed loudly in defeat. “But I’m pretty sure that by the time I get done with my report tonight it’s going be to late.”

“Will it take that long?”

Akiko nodded and looked even more dejected. “Two hours at least for me to finish up the report, go home, change clothes, and go somewhere. By that time it’ll be past midnight at least.”

“That sucks!” Her tail stood straight up as she yelled and pounded the table a couple of times. “I want to dance!”

“Me too.” Akiko muttered as she stood up and stretched. “Do you want to go dancing sometime next week perhaps?”

“Sure!” Karuna chirped and nodded a few times.

“Great, give me a call sometime next week and we can set up a time and place to meet up.”

Karuna nodded as she stood up and started walking over to her motorcycle, but not before rubbing her tail under Akiko’s chin and giggled. “Take that!”

“Oooh, I’ll have to make you pay for that.” Akiko said as she glared at Karuna for a second before she spit out a mouth full of hair and gagged. “Gross!”

“You gotta catch me first!” Karuna yelled as she ran over to her motorcycle, hopped on, and raced off with a wave.

Spitting out more squirrel tail hair, Akiko grumbled as she stomped over to Dragon and put her helmet on. As Dragon roared to life once more she leaned against the tank and plotted her revenge on Karuna, the girl was going to pay, but she had to find the perfect plan first. Perhaps a bottle of pink hair dye disguised as shampoo?

**********

Prime Light City's largest police station served a large number of different duties, because of this the city planners placed it in a somewhat isolated location. There were smaller police stations situated throughout the city, but the main building, the headquarters was more like a military base than a police station. It was located at the very edge of the city, near where farms used to grow the cities food. Akiko's own squad was assigned to the base itself and it was where she had to report to every morning before she went out to do her duties.

A little while later she rode down a long road the ran along the edge of a canal that brought the city it's water from a plant a couple hundred miles away. The empty lands gave them a lot of open ground to work with when they trained or got new equipment in to play with. The Swat Team's mini tank was always out in the fields practicing evasive maneuvers on the weekends.

They even used the fields to teach all the officers defensive driving techniques. There wasn't to much going on tonight as she sped down the access road that led to Headquarters, here and there she would pass a police car or the occasional civilian car, but otherwise it was quiet.

Most of the cars were heading in the opposite direction as people went home for the night and let the graveyard shift take over for a few hours. She didn't really pay attention to them as she rode, instead she slowed down a little and coasted onto a wide driveway that led to the main entrance to the base; the whole thing was circled in a twelve foot chain link fence topped with razor wire. If you could name any law enforcement related vehicle or group, there was a building or a bit of land devoted to the subject.

As she came to a stop behind a couple of cars Akiko glanced into the night sky where a large ten story building dominated everything in front of her. Almost every light in the building was turned on, shining like stars, illuminating the smaller buildings around the area. So bright in areas that it was almost impossible to tell that it was night out. A spot light rose into the sky from the roof, a guide for the small army of flying vehicles they used for patrolling the sky. She could see a couple of them landing even as the cars in front of her moved forward and allowed her to reach the main gate.

She rolled to a stop and glanced over at the guard shack where several officers were providing security for the grounds. The building itself was large enough to hold about a dozen officers. They were all writing reports, working on computers, or resting between patrols of the fence before they headed out again. An old man stepped out as she reached into her coat and pulled out a card and handed it to him. He had clipboard in his hand with a small device attached to the side.

“Officer Shoo, you're in a little late tonight aren't you?” Officers Davies asked as he ran her card through the little device and logged her in.

“Yeah a little, Taka asked me to run a little errand for him and I’m just stopping by to fill out the report for him.” Akiko said as she took off her helmet and shook her hair around.

“Have you seen those Detectives that are running around with the patrol drivers?”

“I think so, might have met one earlier, though I’m not sure since I’ve been off duty for the last couple of days. I’ll need to get caught up on things while I’m here.”

“You’ll know them when you see them.” Davies said as he handed her card back after making a couple of notes on the paperwork.

“I’ll be back in a second.”

“Alright.” Akiko said as she put her card away. During the day things were much more simple, but as the sun went down they tended to really batten down the hatches and prepare for anything. A couple years before a group of TAU from the Zone attacked the Station and killed over forty officers before they were taken down permanently. Since then they the station was always on guard against attack from the Zone.

She glanced over at Davies as he called someone inside, nodded, and pressed a button just out of sight. The gate in front of her rose up and the large one just beyond that slowly pulled open a couple of seconds later. She revved Dragon a couple of times and entered the base, letting the lights along from the ten story building illuminate the area.

The entire area at one point in time had actually been part of a large college. A couple decades before they ran out of money as greed and politics managed to shut the school down and the state ended up buying it. From there it grew was renovated and expanded quite a bit.

The main building, set at the back corner of the grounds, had over one hundred offices committed to everything from loud noise complaints to full scale investigations. Then there were the smaller buildings placed around it, one of which was the old collage campus building. They were all one and two story buildings, each one build and converted to suit a special need. The city used them to hold and house the various vehicle divisions that they needed to fight crime in Prime Light City.

The motorcycle patrol building had an attached garage that contained enough space to hold over fifty motorcycles, a garage for repairs, and enough room to house ten men and woman at any one time. There were also several offices in the building devoted to the motorcycle daily patrol’s duties while still staying in contact with the main building.

Akiko rarely had any contact with the division itself unless it was in the line of duty, though she did know some of the people that worked there.

There were buildings on the grounds, used by the City, to store the vehicles that they used in emergencies. At the same time, the maintenance division kept them all in perfect working order, repairing them, and made sure nothing went wrong. They also had a building that held the special equipment that the police needed in rare circumstances, like swat gear, tanks, battering rams, riot gear. There was even a special munitions department, which issued special weapons to the officers.

Certain types of TAU required special weapons, to just slow them down, when they went on a rampage. Super powered bad guys were actually quite common because the government tended to look down on TAU and gave the choice jobs to less dangerous people. To combat them, the building for their weapons, was almost as complex as anything found on a military base.

She never really thought about most of the stuff that they held in the there though. Since she rarely had time to go out and get permission to use the things. She just figured they had to keep it somewhere and with the TAU division just a short distance away, along with its own security, it was as safe as it could be.

The TAU division used the worst facilities available to all the divisions on site and they expected them to do an above average job with substandard equipment. The building they used, was originally storage building for old unwanted items collected from the other buildings when more space was needed. Akiko even had a an old school desk that she used for her desk, though it was heavily modified from its original use. When you were a TAU, you had to be resourceful or you didn’t survive for very long, especially in Police work.

Over the last twenty years TAU had become more and more common around the world as their crimes and accomplishments made them famous. Scientists were studying the increase in children with TAU abilities and they were not getting much information on the subject, making it impossible to figure out why so many were being born.

Some of the more tolerant scientists of the time were guessing that something about the planet was causing it, but nothing proved it totally. So the people did what they always did, they adapted to the unknown and tried to incorporate them into everyday life. As always there were a few bumps along the road and that was another reason why the TAU division was created.

After moving into the building, they spent several days reworking the equipment within the building so that they could use it effectively. Even if the equipment was decades old, they always managed to find a way to use it in some way. The repair bay in their building had quite a few cobbled together vehicles that were nearly unrecognizable now from what they used to be. They even had the frame of an ancient plane collecting dust in one corner.

She shook herself out of her thoughts as she started backing Dragon into an open space at the back of the building. Akiko took her helmet off as she got stood up beside the motorcycle. Then she stretched for a few seconds and sighed as she thought about Karuna’s plan to spend the night dancing. It wasn’t often that she got a chance to have fun like that, though there was a chance that she might get a chance to drag Megan out with her if she could drag the girl out of her room.

She glanced up into the sky where the three moons hung above the city, only one of them was full, the other two were still half moons. Three full moons in the sky was an incredibly rare occurrence. A full moon always brought something interesting to the city. Back on old Earth the full moon always made things weird, increased crime rates, animal mating times, and other weird things like that.

It had other effects here, though the humans did get a little restless during a full moon, with three full moons things really got strange. Instead, they had a planet full of Tellraine and that liked to celebrate every chance they could get. It didn’t matter what it was, so long as they had a chance to have fun, like a triple full moon. She figured that there would be parties going on all over the city by then.

She grinned tiredly as she took off her gloves and placed them in her helmet and activated Dragon’s computer. Jina quickly up linked with computer and started the standard check of all systems, also leaving a reminder for her to have the chips turned over to investigations to see if they could tell where they came from.

She still wasn’t sure where they came from, but she recognized a level of technology that wasn’t used on the planet these days. High Tech toys were only available to the planetary government that helped to rule the planet along side the Tellraine. This kind of technology was incredibly expensive, she figured just one of these chips had to cost more than she made in a year.

There were times when she wished she had a detective’s eye for things, but she knew her limits and figured that it would be a few years before she might get a chance to advance her training. Being a detective was a dream, but one she would work toward at her own slow pace. She would need to get a lot more experience before that would happen though.

“Akiko!”

Turning around, she watched as a blue haired girl head in her direction, running like only a girl wearing a tight knee length skirt could. She trotted up and had to take a second to pant for air before she straitened up. The girl was a little shorter than Akiko and had her hair up in a tight bun on top of her head with little bits hanging down around her ears and forehead.

Akiko was always amazed that the officers of the Motorcycle division were forced to wear their uniforms at all times while on duty. The white shirt, tie, a blue jacket, and either a pair of pants or a knee dark blue length skirt that was almost impossible to move around in because it cinched in at the knees. This allowed very little leg movement.

“Hi Mika!” Akiko said with a little wave.

“What are you doing here so late?”

Akiko shrugged. “Taka sent me out on a little mission.”

“What happened?”

“I went to check on my friend Megan again.”

Mika bounced happily. “Megan Palthas! I’ve got get an autograph from her one of these days!”

“Sure, just let know when and I can get you one.” Akiko said with a grin.

“Thanks!”

“What did you need anyway?”

“Oh yeah, Captain Little wanted me to tell you to turn Dragon's pipes off when you come in here this late. It was rattling the windows in his office.” She said with a little tittering laugh.

Laughing along with her, Akiko just nodded. “I’ll turn them off when I leave. I’m so used to the noise that I don’t even notice it anymore.”

“It certainly lets everyone know you’re around.”

Akiko just grinned.

“I’ll talk to you later Akiko, I can’t stay around to long. Do you want to do anything this weekend?”

“What, hang out with the scary TAU?” She asked innocently.

Mika made a rude noise. “Like that matters to anyone. Later Akiko, give me a call if you are going out, we can meet up.”

“Sure, maybe we can find Deric.”

Blushing, Mika turns and heads back into the building before Akiko can say anymore.

“That girl has it bad.” Akiko said and giggled a little as she thought to herself. ‘Though Deric did have that effect on the girls, even her at one point.’

Shaking her head, Aikio made her way across the sculpted lawn and minature park that made up the front portion of the main building. The place allowed the officers a quiet place to rest after a hard day at work, have a picnic, or to wander around. Like some of the parks back on Earth, the places looked completely natural on the surface, but if you went down just a few feet it was whole different story.

After passing through the park, she rounded the corner and walked over to her unit’s building where the TAU office was located. It looked like a big warehouse type building with a second section attached to the side where the offices were located. According to the official records, at one time this whole area was a school, all the little buildings.

The Tellraine used the place for several generations to educate their children, but as the city grew, the school eventually went out of business and forced to relocate. So they sold the grounds to the city and turned into the area it was today. Even the park area was originally part of the school, as a hunting ground used to teach survival.

The whole building was painted in dull grayish white and black paint, but it was so old and weather beaten that it could be pealed off easilly. A number of antennas were sticking out of the roof in a haphazard fashion. Some were from normal things like dispatch, but the others were from a number of sources like TV, radio, and a few that old members of the squad installed for unknown reasons.

One of those early TAU officers assigned to the building used his powers to manufacture a nearly indestructible sign for the unit and placed it above the main entrance that gave it a bit of dignity. Since then the building had seen some rather hard times since most of the officers didn’t really care about it one way or the other.

The sign itself was covered in a layer of unidentifiable substances that, on a breezy day, tended to get a little rank if you were down wind of the thing. Akiko still hadn’t figured out how people got in to soil the sign when locals weren’t allowed onto the property without an escort. However, she had a few suspicions that she hadn’t mentioned to anyone.

A she approached the front door to the building, two men, barely out of their teens, stood up and blocked her way as she approached. The first one was a large man, well over seven foot high, his eyes glowed just brightly enough that they could bee seen under the lights shining down on them from the flood light above the door. He barely fit in his uniform as it was and Akiko suspected that Jax had placed there to scare off people.

The other guy was almost the first guys opposite, at just under six foot, the guy radiated power. He stepped forward before Akiko got to close and held up a fist crackling with electricity. Elemental TAU were quite common, so she wasn’t to surprised or impressed.

"Halt."

“State your name and business here.” The other one rumbled from about three feet above her head. There was a lot of pent up rage and frustration in his voice that newer officers tended to have when they found out what kind of job they expected the TAU officers to do.

Akiko could easily recall being just like them once upon a time, but she’d mellowed over the last couple of years. Laid back was the best way to describe her these days. Stopping in front of the two rookies, she looked them over and wondered what they were doing. Obviously they were guarding the front doors, but she was in uniform.

Her assessment of them as teenagers wasn't to far off from the mark now that she was close enough to get a really good look at them. The two of them must have just recently graduated from high school, within the last few months at least. After that they must’ve been rushed through basic training instead of being allowed to go on to college.

TAU’s were a tricky subject around Prime Light City these days. On one hand they had the powers to do just about anything they wanted. Which, most of the time, seemed to be leading a perfectly normal life where they only used their powers when they needed too. Like her friend, Megan and the girl’s modeling and movie carrier.

The other kind, unfortunately, seemed to be more common though and refused to let anyone tell them how to lead their lives. Akiko understood the kind of pressure the government could bring down on a family with a TAU new born baby. From the day one is identified, things can change, and it’s hard to tell just what will happen.

This led to groups of Superheroes running around in spandex and posing for the camera while they fight various evil doers. Surprisingly, since Prime Light City had their own TAU division, superheroes weren’t seen around the city all that often. They would pop up every now and then just to cause problems and send the police running for the ‘special’ equipment. Akiko had to laugh a little, there was more than one occasion where a superhero came into town and ended up getting arrested for being a hero.

Usually Assault and Battery charges, breaking and entering, and destruction of private property. Those were the types of crimes she liked to handle the most, most super heroes were public nuicences that didn’t seem to quite grasp the fact that they had to have proof if they wanted to get someone arrested.

Capturing a criminal, tying him up, and dropping off on the doorstep of the police station was a total waste of time. A good lawyer could have the guy out on the street before they even had time to run his finger prints though the government directory. A number of super heroes around the world tended to be a bit too enthusiastic a times.

That led to the government forcibly recruiting any TAU that might be useful and providing a scholarship to the family, whether they wanted it or not. She thought of it as a form of the Draft, but with no way to get away even if you left the country. From that moment people like these two rookies had to learn quick or they would never make it through their first year.

She silently wondered what these two had planned, then shrugged mentally and glared at the short one. A person’s demeanor could give away quite a bit of information and Akiko knew that these two wanted her to pick a fight, they were bored and looking for trouble. It was actually kind of typical of the teenagers that came through the station, but Jax would break them of the habit. At the moment, she didn’t really want to play with them.

The first one was a big one, one of the most common forms TAU took when their powers activated was super strength. The second most common was size and strength and this big boy had both, standing over ten feet tall and arms bigger than she was. She glared up at him as he tried to intimidate her by staring down at her.

Akiko glanced over at the other guy and noticed that he was wearing a pair of wrap around sunglasses that covered his eyes completely. Considering it was nearly midnight and the lights from the main building were as bright as ever, she figured he might just be blocking the glare, but she doubted it. There was a barely noticeable glow at the very edges of the sun glasses. Dealing with a pair of rookies was not what she wanted to spend the rest of the night doing.

So, she sighed, glared the two rookies, and pointed at her collar tabs to make sure they saw them. "Well?"

They took a second look and nervously saluted before they stepped to the side and opened the door for her. “Sorry Ma’am.” They chorused.

"Pay more attention next time."

"Yes ma'am."

Quite a bit of internal construction had been performed on the building as well, so when she stepped through the doors she wasn’t greeted by a warehouse full of junk like the first recruits. Instead, it was a typical small room used to control access to other parts of the building. It kind of made the two guards out front useless, but rookies were a waste of time anyway.

There was a window cut into the wall to her right where the receptionist greeted anyone that came into the building. Akiko noticed that it was one of the regular Tellraine cat girls. They helped keep the whole building running normally, even in a crisis situation. Due to Tellraine territorial habits, only one kind of Tellraine could be assigned to a building without causing problems.

Mixing Tellraine races was not a good idea unless it was for a short time only, because the different races didn’t really get along with any of the other races. So Dog and Cat Tellraine, forced to work along side each other for longer than a few hours, tended to cause problems. Because Cat Tellraine are more like domesticated cats, they usually found jobs like this. The more aggressive Tellraine got used for guard duty and as soldiers.

Akiko reached into her jacket again and handed her pass over to Ciko, a short Tellraine blonde cat girl who looked just a little too innocent for her own good.

“Hi Ciko, thanks for calling me earlier.” Akiko said as she pulled out her pass and handed it to her.

“No problem, I figured you might want a warning.” She said and picked up a clip board. “Do you have your pass?”

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She took the pass, ran it through a reader on her side of the window and logged her in. “Did you get everything taken care of?”

“Yep, I just need to fill out a report and check out the case to see what is really going on.” Akiko explained as she took her pass back.

Ciko checked some paper work and ticked something off before she motioned for Akiko to step over to the door. “Head on in, and remember to check out when you leave.”

“No problem, talk to you later Ciko.”

The Tellraine’s ears flicked a couple of times and her tail reached up to the wall beside the window and pressed a button. “Bye!”

When the buzzer went off Akiko pulled the heavy reinforced door open and went inside, letting the door shut behind her with a muffled thump. The thing was one of those doors installed to stop people from forcing their way into the building and causing problems. So it weighed quite a bit. Simply kicking it down was nearly impossible as well, unless you were a TAU of course, then it was a whole different story.

She nodded to a couple of cat girl Tellraine that were talking to each other in the hall as she passed them. They were allowed to wear casual clothing so long as it wasn’t to distracting for the rest of the officers. It was also a general practice that the other departments used. They could also wear a civilian style uniform as well if they wanted to.

For some odd reason the cat girls made great secretaries and file clerks along with a whole plethora of other little skills that just made them completely indispensable. They even seemed to enjoy it too, which she found odd, but figured ‘to each their own’ and left it at that. Akiko couldn’t be a secretary to save her life, filing paperwork and making coffee went beyond her job description.

A few minutes later she arrived at the squad room, opened the large double doors, and stepped inside. She took a second to look around, but there were only a couple of people in the room. They looked up as she walked in and Akiko wasn’t sure, but it appeared that she might have interrupted something. She instantly recognized one of them, but she didn’t know the other one.

The first person was Jax and he was an average looking man, about five foot five or so, well muscled, and skin so black that he could get lost in a shadow. His super dark skin was because of his TAU ability to manipulate shadows and it affected the way he looked. As the squad commander and ranked just below Taka when it came to position and rank. He was the one that usually went out into the field with them when they had a to go out in a group, otherwise they usually worked alone or in pairs.

The other person was a girl with long pink hair and dressed in the TAU Squad’s dark blue dress uniform with its gloss white belt and ceremonial empty holster. She was just a little shorter than Jax and appeared to be wearing high heels to just to get that high.

Her hair was done up in two super thick braids that ran down the length of her back, flared off to the sides, and tied off at the ends. She was also wearing a pair of thick glasses that magnified her reddish white eyes. The hair itself had to weigh quite a bit, more than a normal human could tolerate, but the color of her eyes screamed out that she was TAU as well.

Jax smiled at her as he realized who just walked in. It was not a face Jax tended to use very often, he was the ultimate grouch. “Akiko, I’d like you to meet our newest member, she just graduated from the academy.”

Nodding to the girl, she reached out to shake her hand. “Akiko Shoo.” Akiko was pleased to see that the girl had a firm grip, far stronger than one would expect from such a small girl.

“I’m Tabitha Markso.”

“Akiko, Tabitha here is our newest big gun.” Jax explained.

“Oh? What happened to Demarko?”

“The moron got arrested the other day for blowing up that bar he frequents.” Jax explained. “Taka placed him on permanent suspension until he gets out of jail.”

Akiko had dealt with Demarko on several occasions and knew the guy was a loose cannon, but she was still surprised he’d been arrested. “Was he drunk?”

Jax sighed and nodded. “Taka has been covering for him for the last few months because we really needed him for the squad, but a few days ago his daughter was found over in the Zone selling.”

“What in the world was Cammi doing in the Zone in the first place?”

“The usual, drugs, pleasure, and easy money.”

“How long will he be gone for?”

“The lawyers want him given a minimum of fifty years for leveling the building and injuring a few people, but he has a good defense attorney so I really doubt it will be for that long.” Jax explained. “Perhaps a year or two, but he can never be a cop again. With any luck he will be granted a miracle and the government will step in and help him out with a deal.”

“Right, like they would ever do anything like that.” Akiko muttered and turned back to Tabitha. “Just out of curiosity what can you do?”

The girl smiled nervously. “I create weapons out of thin air strong enough to level a ten story building, it’s my strongest attack currently. My weakest one is just a beam of light and anything in between.”

“Hey not bad, Demarko was able to use sound waves and convert them into a plasma beam capable of slicing through a tank. It sounds like you might be stronger than Demarko as well. I’m looking forward to seeing you in action.” Akiko said with a grin.

“Akiko, Taka left a folder for you before he went home, it’s on my desk over there if you want to get it now. Were you able to get in contact with your friend?” He asked.

“Yeah, but she’s spent the last few days redecorating her room.”

“Again?”

“She usually does it when she’s feeling isolated and trapped. I’ll have to find out if it’s us making her feel that way or someone else.”

“Most likely us, they assigned some special detectives to watch her and a few others suspects.”

“I think I met one of them. A real character, it took him about thirty seconds to call me a freak and spout off a few other things.” Akiko growled.

“What did you do?”

“Flipped his car over on its top and rode off.”

“Did you fix it?”

Akiko shrugged. “Oh yeah, flipped it back over on its tires.”

“Akiko…” Jax growled.

“What, I only broke the axel, the lights, and scratched it up a bit. He deserved it and the car can be fixed, no big deal.” She muttered.

“Akiko, you have to learn when you can and can not do things like that.” Jax growled at her. “I won’t cover for you on this. These Detectives were assigned by the Governor himself, they have the ability to have you fired and tossed in prison if they need to.”

“By the Governor? Why would he take an interest in a simple murder case?”

Jax gave her a surprised look. “You don’t know?”

“Heard of what? I was told that someone was murdered and that my friend was being blamed for the whole thing.”

“The Governor’s whole family was murdered a week ago, the department hushed it up and never mentioned just who had died. The press will eventually find out, but right now the Governor is on the war path and will do everything in his power to bring whoever did this to justice before they do, but he doesn’t have much time.”

“And just why would anyone think Megan did this?”

“She is an uncooperative TAU that won’t work with the government, you know.”

Akiko rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and her powers make her beautiful and desirable, beyond that she’s completely normal.”

“She’s TAU, therefore in the eyes of certain people, she is a suspect.”

She stalked over to the desk, grabbed the file and opened it. “Is there anything in here that I really need to know about?”

“Not really, it’s a basic murder investigation, but because of the Governor it has turned into a witch hunt and pray to god that you don’t end up on their list of suspects.”

“Is Demarko’s punishment because of the Governor?” She asked as she flipped through the file.

“I don’t know.” Jax said.

“This job gets more and more aggravating as the months drag on.” Akiko muttered.

“Things will settle down eventually, until then just keep your head down and make sure to cover your ass. Just remember that we like a low profile and everything will work out. Now, I need to get back to Tabitha’s training and tour, would you like to join us?”

Akiko could see the look in his eye and knew he would make her pay for it if she said yes. He was trying to pick the girl up and didn’t want her to get in the way. So she shook her head. “No thanks, I need to read through this file anyway and fill out a report on what happened up at Megan’s place. It was nice to meet you Tabitha.”

The girl nodded as Jax led her out of the office and took her down the hall to the firing range. It was one of the few places that TAU were allowed to use a gun, otherwise they weren’t even allowed to use them unless they were on duty. Even then the guns were the old ones used by the department when the regular divisions were given a newer more powerful model.

Akiko wondered if the girl really would fall for Jax’s somewhat dubious charms, then shrugged, and decided that it wasn’t any of her business. There was someone else she had to worry about. Other than Jax’s sex life. Megan’s position with the police was getting worse and worse as the weeks dragged on if she kept ignoring them she might end up being arrested eventually. She sat down at one of the tables scattered around the room and began to read the file.

It only took her about thirty minutes to read through it and fill out a quick report about what had happened up at Megan’s house earlier. She made a special note in the report about Carl’s words and her actions to his abuse. It would most likely be ignored, but at least this way there was something written down about it. As soon as she finished she stood up, stretched a little, and tossed the folder back on Jax’s desk along with her report.

When Jax got back he would make sure everything was filled out so that it could be sent to all the departments that got a copy. Then she figured that it was time to head home for a little rest. So she started for the exit and check out with Ciko. Her and the cat girls around the office got along quite well for some reason. Unlike some of the other officers that let their resentment get the better of them.

Yawning, she headed down the hall and hoped she would be able to get home as quickly as she could. The last couple of hours had taken a lot out of her and she wanted to get a bit of sleep. Standing up she took a second to toss the paper work on Jax’s desk and headed for the door when the alarm started going off. She listened to the tone of the alarm and cursed under her breath, she dashed out the hall, turned a couple of corners and headed down the corridor that led to the far side of the building.

There were only two alarms set up within the building, one in case of an attack that had never been set off, and one that went off every other week. They had a temporary TAU holding cell set up at the back of the building. It was effective against low powered TAU criminals, blocking telepaths and other types of powers, but they rarely ever had to fool with that kind TAU.

Instead they were constantly forced to hold the type that could level buildings and cut mountains in half, the really dangerous ones that didn’t think they had to follow the laws. Total psychopaths, ones that didn’t have a shred morality in their bones, and would kill anyone that got in their way. It was the classic example of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

It was something the cell block really wasn’t designed to hold for any length of time and the government refused to upgrade the cells so long as there were TAU officers there to stop escapes. They figured that since the officers captured the criminals, they could hold them as well. They transferred the strong ones to The Anvil, a TAU holding facility, as quickly as they could, but that still took a couple of days to arrange.

It didn’t help that she hadn’t been on duty for the last couple of days either. So she wasn’t sure who was locked up down there, but she still had to respond to the alarm anyway. As she ran down the hall she sensed something over in the cell block, a rumbling that passed through the floor and nearly shook a couple of the cat girls off their feet. They all fell to the floor and hissed a little as their tails lashed around.

Akiko ignored them as she ran, but didn’t really put much thought into the girl’s behaviors. Tellraine were always a bit hard to read even at the best of times. Then a few seconds later she rounded a corner and slid to a stop as she found herself in front of several leather clad men in biker outfits.

AT their feet she spotted four TAU officers unconscious on the ground. The floor around them looked as if a giant ball had slammed into them before they could even retaliate. They were wearing the special uniforms of the cell guards so she could tell at a glance what they were, the armor was a dead give away, but even that wasn’t enough to save them. As far as she could see they didn’t appear to be hurt to much, they were just unconscious.

A huge man, almost as wide as the corridor they were standing in, similar in size to the rookie guarding the front door, was holding what had to be one of the guard’s weapons, as he took noticed of her for the first time. She turned to study him as he pointed the gun right at her head and sneered. “You will take us to nearest exit or I’ll kill you right here you traitor!”

Ignoring the typical insult about TAU cops used by anyone that lived in or near the Zone, Akiko glanced at the gun and just smirked at him. “You don’t actually expect me to be afraid of that old peace of crap do you? The regular offices get better weapons than we do.”

“You bitch I warned…” He yelled.

She could see him building up the nerve to pull the trigger, so she almost casually reached out and with her left hand and crushed the gun with a screech of metal. The guy backed up a couple of steps and looked at the now useless gun. Then he shrugged and tossed it to the floor with a curse and glared at her. “I deal with scum like you all the time, you don’t stand a chance against me no matter what your powers are Traitor!”

“Oh?” Akiko asked. She was kind of curious who this guy was to make a statement like that. Most of the time a criminal would just rant and rave about killing them for getting in their way. This was a new approach and she wondered what the guy was thinking. It suggested that he wasn’t one of the usual types of morons that came Zone, but something else, but at the moment all she really wanted to do was stop him from hurting anyone else. If he was from the Zone she would have to over power him. TAU from the Zone were stubborn and stupid.

The rest of his men seemed to be unafraid of her as well, that meant she would have to make them understand that she wasn’t one of the rookies that seemed to be huddling in the background. All though Jax was quickly rounding up a few of the men and getting ready to pull something. Akiko figured she would play along and distract the big guy while Jax went to work.

“Now how in the world did you get here?” She asked. “Just go back to your cell and we can all get some sleep.”

“They broke out of their cells…” The guard on the floor groaned out. “Don’t know how.”

Akiko narrowed her eyes at the guys and wondered what they were up to just standing around as if they didn’t have a care in the world, they certainly weren’t aware of Jax as he and a few others started to move towards them. “Well if you broke out you will be going right back in.”

They laughed at that and just ignored her. “There is no way we will be staying here.” The big one said.

“So what is your TAU power, big guy?” She asked and smirked at him. “Do you fart and fly around? Calling yourself the Great Tooter?”

“You’ll pay for that.” He snarled as he held up his hand.

She knew that the guards were not incompetent enough to be caught off guard after everything that happened around here. They even had special classes to train the guards to fight much stronger opponents. Therefore, she figured that they’d been taken down before they had a chance to go into action. “You could at least tell me your name. Hey you, just doesn’t cut it as a name. Unless of course you like The Great…”

“Call me Tonnage.” He snarled at her.

Morons, all criminals had to be idiots as far as she was concerned. If that didn’t give her a clue what his power was she would eat her socks. “Let me guess, you make things heavy?”

“Oh yes, very, very heavy and you are my next little toy to use it on.”

Akiko smiled at him. “I won’t work on me.”

Tonnage screamed and stomped his foot, shattering the floor and causing some of the ceiling to fall on his head. He ignored it as he glared at her. “I’ll show you what I can do!”

“Do your worst, moron.” Akiko muttered and folded her arms and glanced down the end of hall to make sure Jax knew when to act. He nodded at her and motioned for her to continue what she was doing. Tonnage was as stupid as he looked and there was no way he could pull off a sneak attack in his current state.

He started to glow and held a hand out to her as he laughed like an idiot. “Die!”

She could feel the gravity building on her as she stood there, but after ten seconds, she yawned and checked her watch. Behind the big oaf, she could see his men quietly being taken back into custody by Jax and several other officers. One of the old timers could manipulate sound, so he was making their attack on the crew absolutely silent.

It would take them a few seconds to get the rest of them back into custody with Jax’s shadow power making sure Tonnage didn’t notice anything out of the corner of his eye. “This is boring big guy, can’t you do anything else? How about making me really light weight, that would be a good change of pace. I haven’t walked on the ceiling in a while.”

“How can you still move, you must weigh thousands of pounds right now. You should have been crushed into a tiny little patty.” He growled.

Blinking in surprise she lifted up her leg and noticed that she was leaving foot prints in the floor. “Interesting, I can’t feel a thing. Are you sure you’re doing it right?”

“What?!” Tonnage screamed and increased his glow.

Akiko felt this increase quite a bit more than the first one, but that was only as her weight passed the ten ton range. She could feel the muscles in her arms and legs straining against the weight, but she was more amazed that the floor hadn’t given out yet. There was a basement below her that held their weapons and underground bunker. “I’m impressed, you’re doing better than before, but this is really boring. If you don’t stop and give yourself up I’m going to punch you.”

Tonnage growled for a second deep in his throat just before he screamed out and increased his power again. “Take this, I’ll make you so heavy that you sink into the ground and vanish forever!”

Behind Tonnage she could see Jax giving her the thumbs up to act as she saw fit. Relaxing a bit, she unfolded her arms and took up a fighting stance and glared at Tonnage, deciding on the type of blow she wanted to give him.

“I’ve had enough, you’ve had your chance and you blew it by being arrogant and rather stupid. Though you are from the Zone, so intelligence isn’t exactly your strong suit is it?” Akiko said as she stepped forward and palm punched him in the chest.

He screamed in shock as all fifteen tons of Akiko’s weight was used to add force to the blow and sent him flying off his feet. Several officers dove out of the way as his massive bulk went by, his scream alerting anyone in the corridor that he was heading their way. Then he hit a wall and continued on through with an explosion of bricks, out into the parking lot, and bounced a few times before skidding about forty yards. He then came to a rolling stop at the foot of the next building over, several spot lights instantly lit up the area and focused on him and damage to the wall he flew from.

His eyes were open as he lay against the building holding his chest and whimpering in pain. He almost wet himself as Akiko stepped out of the hole in the building and jumped into the air, easily crossing the distance between them. Then she landed right beside him as if she was an avenging angel on the war path.

She glared down at him for a second and used her foot to flip him over onto his stomach. It didn’t take much for her to ignore his scream of pain as she pressed him down with her foot and reached into her belt pouch. The special TAU restrictive Handcuffs were placed on him a second later, securing his hands and feet completely. She had to admit that that she might have overdone that just a bit, but the guy hurt some of her friends, so as far as she was concerned he got what he deserved.

The cuffs levered his hands high behind his back and made it impossible for him break free. They also immobilized his feet so he couldn’t run or jump away. The things used leverage to keep the TAU in place and Akiko knew through her training that even she couldn’t break them with all her strength. She casually reached down and lifted him up, as if he didn’t weigh over four hundred pounds, and walked back over to building.

“You know, you really should have just made a run for it, there was a chance you might have gotten away then. Instead you had to play macho moron and look where that got you.”

He groaned.

“Well that was fun, perhaps we can play again some time.” Akiko said as they reached the building. She didn’t bother to use the door as she stepped back through the hole and looked around. “Where did he need to go anyway?”

Jax, who was surveying the damage to the building, glared at her for a second. Then he sighed and pointed off to the right. “Over there for now, we need to process him for even more crimes now.”

“Sounds good to me, although he really wasn’t all that dangerous to begin with.” Akiko said as she dropped him down on the ground next to the other members of his gang. They all got wide eyed as they saw their leader beat up and hog tied like a large cow. Tonnage just groaned and hoped this didn’t ruin his reputation.

She saw that Tabitha was also in the room and wondered what she thought of the excitement.

“Akiko, you broke the building again.” Jax snarled.

“Again?” Tabitha asked.

“Sorry about that, I barely hit the guy, but I forgot to take into account that I weighed over fifteen tons by the time I did attack him.” Akiko said with a shrug. She glanced around as a brick suddenly fell off the top of the hole and broke into several pieces on the ground.

Everyone turned to look at it.

Akiko laughed nervously.

“You’ll repair the damage tomorrow when you come in or else I’ll suspend you for the rest of your natural born life! Now go write a report on this and get out of here before I really get mad at you!” Jax yelled at her.

“Yeah, yeah.” Akiko muttered and smiled nervously as she walked out of the room.

There was a couple of TAU medical staff, a pair of Healers, were treating the downed guards in the middle of the hallway and making sure they would be healthy enough to go home. They were wearing the grey and white uniforms that made them stand out as medical personal, with large red crosses on their backs and arms.

The Unit had several rooms devoted to the officers injured in the line of duty. For some reason most hospitals weren’t equipped with the right kind of medical supplies to help an injured TAU. It required a completely different form of medical training just to be certified in the field. Those few that could use their abilities to heal or mimic the ability were always in high demand. Akiko looked at her bruised hand and kind of wished she had the ability to heal herself, but figured it would just be one more headache if it actually did happen.

One of the Healers was a small man with a bald spot carrying the equipment they used in emergencies or when they were out in the field. Akiko didn’t remember the man’s name, but she did know that he was a senior Healer within the Squad and had been there for several decades now. She glanced down at the injured man and noticed that over half of the guy’s body was beginning to turn into giant bruise.

The other Healer was a girl with short blue hair that shimmered whenever she moved, the guy she was working on was also developing a giant bruise across his body. Akiko thought about it for a couple of seconds before she realized that Tonnage must have slapped these guys down, hard, and they were just beginning to show the after effects of the fight.

She figured she was lucky to be strong enough to withstand what the big man had thrown at her. The two Healers looked like they had everything working, so she just nodded at them as they worked and moved to continue back to the Squad room. She would check on the two guards when she got back tomorrow, more than likely they would be okay to go home before their shifts was over.

“Would you like us to check your hand out as well?” Dr. Krise asked as he lifted one of the guards onto a stretcher, using his telekinetic ability to lift the man off the ground.

“No thanks Doc, that guy didn’t hurt me. I just hit him to hard, figure I’ll be find by time I come back tomorrow.”

“Are you certain? You can’t claim any kind of workman’s compensation if you leave the building without being checked over. Then find out you really are hurt later on.” The woman reminded her.

Akiko stopped and considered it for a few seconds, then shrugged. “That’s okay, I know my limits and that guy didn’t get to close to them.”

“Akiko, you shouldn’t be so stubborn about letting them look at you.” A man said as he stepped around the corner. He was over six feet high and had a swept up hair style that made him look even taller as it defied gravity. He grinned at her and for a second before he looked down at the two unconscious men on the floor. “I see James and Lee are were taken down this time, how careless of them.”

“Carter.” Akiko muttered and nodded at the guy.

“So cold, do you hate me that much?”

“Hate is such a strong word.” Akiko told him.

“So true.”

“I just loath you.” She snapped and walked off before he could say anything else to tick her off even more. His mere presence was enough to make her want to punch the guy.

“She’s a feisty one, but I’ll get her one of these days.” Carter said with a grin, put on a pair of sunglasses, and watched Akiko as she turned the corner and vanished into the women’s bathroom.

The blue haired nurse just rolled her eyes and continued to work on the injured man. She ignored Carter as he glanced down at her and smiled in a knowing way. The man had a reputation she had found out about the hard way. She made a mental note to warn the new girl about him, though she might not have to if Jax had anything to say about it.

“Do you have him stabilized yet, Tina?” Dr. Krise asked as he levitated the second guard off the floor. “We need to get these men to the infirmary, lets move.”

“Yes sir.” Tina said.

Carter shrugged when she didn’t acknowledge him and headed down the hall to see what else had happened in the cell block while he was out on patrol. He sniffed the air and grinned as he entered the room and almost yelled. “I smell a newbie, where’s the whip cream...”

Several of the men groaned as Carter clapped his hands and smiled at them. There was one like him in every group ever created, sometimes even two or more. Jax just glared at the man as he sauntered around the room examining everyone for some reason.

**********

“You stand over there and roll up the sleeve of your uniform.” Dr. Dago told the three girls as they filed into the room. He was in his mid thirties, had short brown hair that was graying at the sides of his, and a beard that surrounded his mouth.

The short haired Sara made quite a stir in school when she came in this morning. Riyka and Seki froze in shock the instant they saw their friend for the first time since the birthday party the day before. The only reason they recognized her was because they knew about the incident at her house.

Sara’s long black hair was the envy of all the girls in school, the silent wave of shock that spread from her the instant she walked through the front door had been deafening to say the least. She would have cried even then, but she ran out of tears after spending most of the night crying into her pillow. Then things went from bad to worse in less than two hours.

Then to make things worse, her mother was the one that fixed her burnt hair up after the accident. Something the woman didn’t want to do, so it wasn’t a very good job. It looked like someone had placed a bowl on top of her head and cut off the excess with a knife. She looked horrible! The boys would have told her differently since she looked good with wild short hair.

“Are you girls ready for this?” The doctor asked as he finished assembling three needles and sat them out on a tray.

“Not really sir.” They said.

Dr. Dago chuckled and nodded, making them feel a little better. “Everyone feels that way. You don’t have to worry, we do this to everyone every six months. It’s perfectly normal.”

“I’m so tired of this.” Riyka muttered and adjusted her glasses. “Why do we have to do this anyway?”

“They’ve never told us, we just do it twice a year during our time in high school.” Seki supplied hesitantly. She still felt bad about being exiled from her friend’s house like that, so she wasn’t what she could or couldn’t say.

“It’s just a simple blood test.”

Sara sighed.

“Miss Tetshiko, I’ll take you first.”

“Alright.” She muttered and sat down on the stool next to the doctor and held up her arm.

“Sara, what is your mom going to do about your hair?” Seki asked as she got her blood taken.

“I have an appointment at the salon after school to get it trimmed up and styled.”

“What about your sister?” Riyka asked.

“They are blaming the fire on me, so I’m grounded and my sister gets off scott free.” Sara snarled.

“But she’s the one that set the fire!” Riyka gasped.

“I know, but apparently I’m supposed to control her actions when she does something like this.”

“So what about…”

“We might have to cancel that.” Sara muttered sadly.

“We’ve been planning that for months!”

“I can’t do anything when I’m grounded.”

“This sucks!” Riyka grabbed her head and yelled.

As soon as the other two girls had her blood drawn they were excused. Since it was still first period they had to hurry back to class. Sara stomped back into class and did what she could to ignore the wave of shocked silence that spread through the class.

The boys on the other hand were stating to really take notice of her, though she didn’t notice. She was too busy thinking about her lost hair, and what the girls thought about her, to even think about school.

Mr. Bennings, the teacher, raised an eyebrow as Sara stomped into the classroom and slumped at her desk and sighed. He might have to talk to the girl in a day or two if she continued to act like that. It was best to catch the problem in the beginning and not to let it fester for months on end.

“Alright, all of you take out your math books and get ready to learn about the mystery of algebra.”

**********

End Part Two

End Notes – Ah, notes time, this chapter has gone through a major alteration from my first original version. The world around the characters is growing at an alarming rate and I hope it’s believable enough to make it a good read. In this chapter we got a taste of what Akiko is really capable of when she goes into combat. In the next chapter we well get to see even more, but for now that will have to wait until I get ch 3 fixed as well.

The Tellraine race is really expanding with each part I use them in. Akiko’s friend Karuna is a humanoid squirrel complete with tail and a slightly animal like face complete with a body that just won’t quit. The girl’s fur just accentuates her whole figure and making her very cute. It’s a fact that the girl is quite aware of and she plays it to the hilt. Ciko and the girls at the station, about 30 of them are all cat girls with varying looks. If you need an example, just look at the cat girl army in the anime UFO Valkyrie Princess.

It was mentioned to me that it was funny that the humans would be more hateful towards the TAU humans than an alien race. This dislike isn’t all consuming, it’s just something that humans tend to do when they are presented with the strange and the bizarre. They fought the Tellraine race at first, but over time, they just adapted to them and leaned that they could get along.

C. Rose
Ertle2@msn.com