S-CRY-ed Fan Fiction ❯ Alter Ego ❯ Alter Ego Chapter 7 ( Chapter 7 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Shellbullet 
Janette shows her fighting skills and the squad gets a "special assignment." Could be interesting....
Anime/Manga: S-CRY-ed Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Post-apocalyptic / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 11.19.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 178 | Status: Completed
Janette shows her fighting skills and the squad gets a "special assignment." Could be interesting....
Anime/Manga: S-CRY-ed Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Post-apocalyptic / Action | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 11.19.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 178 | Status: Completed
Alter Ego Chapter 7
I have decided to continue with the same POV from chapter 6.
I do not Own s-CRY-ed or any of the characters other than Rob and Megumi. So.... on with the show.
--------------------------
“Excuse me Sir!”
Rob is startled out of his nap by Lieutenant Aoki. “Huh? Wha?” he mutters incoherently as he wipes a small amount of drool from the corner of his mouth.
“We have almost arrived in the next target area. We will be there in about an hour”
“Oh, very good. Tell me when we get there. Carry on Lieutenant.” Rob gives him a halfhearted salute and dismisses him. “Ugh.... just when I was starting to relax.”
It has been a little more than a week since Rob left HOLD to participate in the great native alter hunt. He has been partnered with another A class alter user named Janette for the duration of the mission and put in command of a full platoon of soldiers and hardware. Since the beginning of the mission he has kept mostly to himself, sleeping on top of the command vehicle, reading, occasionally chatting with the troops. He usually only came down when needed or when he gets bored.
They have been relatively fortunate during the past week or so. They have successfully taken over three territories with only slight resistance. There was always the typical militia group that was dead set against letting us into their territory. Rob and Janette have not even had to fight them. When talking and negotiations didn’t work, just a little nonlethal show of force from the soldiers would quiet them down very quickly. He was just a little disappointed that the people hadn’t
put up just a little more of a fight. He would have.
And of course, in every territory they had come across the local native alter users. It was always just one or two that chose to show themselves and try to stop them. Rob can still remember the first one they came across....
************
It was about one day after we got into our first assigned territory. The takeover had gone very smoothly and we would be out of the area shortly. The territories closest to the city are relatively small and easy to occupy. We were only stopping long enough to provide cover for the garrison teams to set up shop. This first successful takeover had everyone in high spirits except for me. I knew better. The deeper we got into the lost ground the territories would get bigger, the local population would become less cooperative, and the native alter users would get ALOT stronger. After all, that’s where I came from.
We had set up our temporary base on the outskirts of the largest town in the area. It was pretty desolate with some abandoned shacks, random wreckage, and lots of trees and weeds. Most of the soldiers were milling about talking or performing various tasks, Janette was talking to a few soldiers about the best ways to use grenades, rockets, and various other explosives in and out of combat, and I was taking a little nap under a nearby tree with my notebook nearby.
Suddenly I heard panicked yelling and my eyes popped open in time to see two panicked soldiers bailing out of one of the escort jeeps that was currently floating higher and higher into the air. It floated over to the edge of our camp where a rather angry looking teenager was standing. Next to him was what I assumed was his alter. It’s an independent type. It looked like a small robot about two feet shorter than it’s master. It had a blocky head, long flexible metal arms with what look like the horseshoe type magnets on the ends of them, and on it’s chest it had a positive and negative symbol on it.
By this time I had ran over to where the commotion was and Janette and a whole bunch of armed soldiers were also gathering there, leveling their weapons at the teenager.
I scribbled something on my notebook and walked over to Janette and whispered to her, “Come with me. Let’s try to settle this without any casualties.”
She immediately nodded and said, “OK, we’ll try that first.”
Janette and I walked past the front rank of soldiers toward the teenager and stop about twenty five feet away from him. When he saw us I caught a brief glimpse of fear on his face but it is gone in a second.
“Stay back!” he yelled, “I want you HOLY assholes out of this territory or I’ll kill all of you.”
I held up my hand and said, “Hey take it easy. We really don’t want to hurt anyone here.”
Janette added, “Yeah, we’re just passing through. We won’t cause any trouble if you don’t.”
“Bullshit! All the surrounding areas are being taken over by HOLD! Do you honestly think that I’ll believe you?”
I gave him one last chance, “Look we really don’t want a fight right now. You can surrender with absolutely no problems. If that doesn’t work for you, then if you put the jeep down, we’ll let you just turn around, walk away, and we’ll forget we ever saw you. How does that sound?”
While he was thinking I turned my notebook around behind my back, revealing what I had written to the soldiers: STAND BY WITH ROCKETS. BE QUIET! After a moment of hesitation I heard a couple soldiers in the back of the ranks quietly walk away to get the rockets.
Meanwhile the teenager has made up his mind. “No way! You guys came barging in here like you own it. I’m going to either force you out of here or die trying.”
I sighed heavily, “I see.... So now all that remains is to decide who gets to fight you. How do we decide that?”
Janette perked up and says brightly, “Ooh I know! How about rock, paper, scissors!”
Both me and the teenager stared at her in disbelief for a second before I said, “Sure, why not!” And with that the teenager’s mouth dropped open completely and he started to look really pissed.
“What are you doing! Do you think this is a joke?”
Janette started things off, “Okay get ready.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Thre e.”
We both showed our choices. She picked paper, I picked rock.
She threw her hands up in the air and shouted, “Yeah! I win!”
“Yeah, fine. But I get the next one.” I muttered, kind of disappointed.
“You assholes! I’ll kill all of you!! Hit ‘em!!” He pointed at us and commands his alter to throw the jeep at us.
“NOW!!!!” I yelled and a split second later six rockets streak from the rear ranks of the troops. Five hit the jeep flying towards us, turned it into scrap in midair and it fell to the ground, harmless for the moment. When the smoke and dust cleared I saw that the last rocket was still going in midair. Twisting and turning in the air about ten feet away from the teenager and his alter, but not going an inch closer to either of them.
Janette gasped then said out loud, “He put up a magnetic energy barrier!”
“Heh. That was a dirty trick HOLY man. Too bad it didn’t work.” He concentrated for a moment and before the timer on the rocket could run out and explode he flexed the field and sent the rocket flying off in another direction where it exploded harmlessly.
I smiled slyly at him, “I just wanted to take the jeep out of the equation. I’m not the one you need to worry about.”
“Yeah, you still need to deal with me!” said Janette with an almost maniacal grin on her face as the telltale glow of her alter manifested around her.
‘Excellent, now I can see what she can do.’ I thought to myself, ‘Let’s see how she handles him.’
Nearby rocks and bushes broke down into alter mist and gathered around her. Her hair changed color from blonde to a very dark, almost black, shade of green. Then her outfit began to change. Her boots became metallic looking and her HOLY uniform became what appeared to be a green fighting kimono with a circuit-like embroidery pattern on it. It had long sleeves and slits up the sides of the dress up to the top of her legs.
When her transformation was over she adjusted her boots by tapping the tips of her feet on the ground which revealed thin spines on the bottom of the boots. After that she looked directly at the teenager and said sweetly, “To be fair, I’ll let you attack first,” as small arcs of green electricity crackle around her body.
When I saw that I realized that her alter power is electrical in nature. ‘Of course, the spines on her boots must keep her grounded to protect her from sudden power surges’
The kid got pretty pissed when she said this. “Oh yeah?! Fine, you bitch! Take this!”
He gestured toward her, giving a mental command to his alter. The alter faced several of the abandoned shacks and pointed it’s arms at them. Both alter and master seemed to strain ever so slightly for a second before I heard the screeching and groaning of metal and wood bending and warping under intense stress. Seconds later, nails, bolts, support beams, roof sections, and various other metal objects ripped free of the shacks and floated into the air around him. I could see him sweating. Moving so many objects at once was really putting a lot of strain on him.
“Let’s see if you can handle a few thousand new piercings!!!” He pointed at her and dozens of sharp fragments of metal instantly flew toward her so fast they make sharp whistling noises as they cut through the air.
But, incredibly, just as the metal shards are about to hit her, I felt a static charge make the hair on my arms and the back of my neck raise up and there was a loud crackling noise, a flare of light, and Janette was gone! She reappeared about twenty feet away from where she disappeared with a smug look on her face. “Wanna try that again tough guy?”
The kid’s face turned crimson with anger. He sputtered something that I couldn’t quite understand (but it didn’t sound very nice) and sends more nails and jagged scrap sailing at her. The result was the same: a loud crackle, a flash of light, and suddenly Janette is in another place, leaving the scrap to embed itself in the ground and nearby trees. No matter how many times he tried, she continued to seemingly teleport all over the place. It was very hard for even me to keep track of her.
‘She’s just playing with him. She could end this at any time. Why isn’t she?’
The kid is panting with effort and when she reappears Janette isn’t even breaking a sweat. She stands still for a second and says, “You sure you don’t want to just surrender? You’re a mess. And even if you do somehow manage to beat me, you’ll be in no condition to beat my partner.” She points at me as I sat cross-legged on the ground watching the fight intently, waiting for my chance to jump in.
Still breathing heavily he says, “I don’t care..... if I die... as long as I..... take some of you with me!”
Janette says, “Sorry, that’s not an option” and flashes out of existence and reappears right behind the kid. “It’s our job to take you alive.” Before he can react she grabs him by the shoulder. He convulses violently as emerald arcs of electricity course through his body. He loses his concentration and his alter disintegrateses before he collapses onto the ground in a twitching heap.
After a brief moment of silence the troops began to cheer and say things like, “We got our first one!!,” “I knew she’d be able to beat him!,” and “That stupid native didn’t stand a chance!”
I got a little annoyed but before I could say anything Janette yells at them, “Hey, Shut up for a second!!” The troops immediately freeze. “He’s not dead. He’s just unconscious. And I don’t feel like fighting him again if he wakes up. So hurry and lock him up or do you want to fight him when he snaps out of it?”
They instantly scrambled to get the unconscious kid restrained and moved into the holding area of the command vehicle. When the soldiers are either gone or not paying attention to her she deactivated her alter. Her clothes and hair returned to normal and she kinda slumps down onto the ground, looking weak and exhausted.
I walked over to her and said, “Hey, are you gonna be okay?”
She took a deep breath before replying, “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” she got up off the ground and dusted herself off. “It always takes a lot out of me when I teleport that much. I just need some rest and some food and I’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“I want to ask you something” I said.
“Sure, go ahead, ask away.”
“You had the advantage from the beginning. You were playing with him the whole time. You could have finished things right away, so why didn’t you?”
“Well...” she hesitated for a second and bit her bottom lip before replying, “I really don’t like killing people, so I wanted to tire him out enough for me to get close and knock him out quickly and easily. I made sure to only give him a big enough charge to knock him out for a couple hours.”
“Hmm, I see.” I said thoughtfully.
“That’s the way I’ve always done things and how I’ll keep doing it.”
I smiled appreciatively at her, “I like that outlook. Sometimes it takes more skill to not kill an opponent in a fight like that. I respect that.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“But...” I said seriously, “....sometimes it is necessary to kill an enemy. Just remember, the alters we’re going to face are only going to get stronger the deeper we get into the Lost Ground, so we might come across an enemy that will be too strong to subdue like this kid.”
She looked shocked at what I said and then stared up into the sky as if to try and find comfort there before saying, “Yeah, I know that.” she suddenly smiled and looked at me with a determined yet happy expression on her face, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try, right?”
I grinned back at her, “Sure, why not!”
From that point on we’ve had an agreement between us. We’re gonna do our best to try and take a prisoner alive and only take their lives as an absolute last resort. So far, we have been able to stick to that agreement. But I think we both know that, sooner or later, we will have to break that agreement.
**************
Now fully awake, Rob gets up and goes down the hatch inside the command vehicle to see if there’s anything to do. Even when they’re traveling between areas there still isn’t much to do if you’re off duty. ‘Hmm, I wonder if Private Wyndham is off duty now. I’ll see if he wants to play that awesome fighting game he brought with him.’
But before Rob can find him Lieutenant Aoki comes up to him. “Excuse me sir but you have a call from headquarters.”
Rob raises an eyebrow, “Really? Who is it?”
“Someone from tactical and logistics named Megumi.”
“Oh! Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Rob rushed over to the nearest comm console, hits the blinking button near the top of the console and the screen blinks to life and displays a picture of Megumi looking back at him.
“Hey, do ya miss me?” she says smartly.
“Yeah, I definitely do.” Rob smirks, “I also miss getting violently woken up by you every morning.” he says sarcastically. “I take it you’re doing fine?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been more concerned about you. But if the info I’m getting on your platoon is accurate, you’ve been doing very well too. A lot of people here are impressed with your progress. Especially since you haven’t had a single casualty the entire time.”
“Yeah, we’ve all agreed to try and get this done with as little loss of life as possible.”
She smiles, “That’s good. I’m very glad to hear that. But unfortunately, I didn’t call just to check up on you. I have official orders for you and your platoon.”
Rob sighs heavily, “Yeah, I kinda guessed. Alright, what are they?”
“Rufus got some information from the intelligence division about a day ago and he wants you to change course and go into the territory east of your current location.”
“Why’s that?”
“The information says it is the home territory of a small group of alter users who could pose a problem to the operation. You’re orders are to put a stop to the threat.”
“Okay, so how am I supposed to find them?”
“This particular gang is known to be very territorial so they’ll probably find you before you find them.”
“Great. So I’m guessing they’re going to be a little annoyed when we roll into their backyard, right?”
“Yeah.... probably.”
Rob let out a very heavy breath, “Awesome... alright, I’d better go and let everyone know of the change of plans and this new situation. I’ll be sure to review the data you sent.”
“Okay, good luck. I’m rooting for you.” and with that Megumi signed off.
Rob stares at the blank screen for a few seconds longer, lost in thought, before opening up the information that Megumi had sent. After only a couple seconds of reading his eyes widen in surprise.
“What?! No way!!!”
Rob runs over to the comm panel and calls Janette.
“Hey Janette! You there?”
After a second a tired sounding voice comes over speaker, “What is it? You sound frantic.”
“We need to stop now. We’ve got new orders and I have to let everyone know what we’re up against.”
Her voice sounds concerned and has a slight hint of disbelief as she replies. “Is it really that important?”
“Oh yeah. This is huge! We’re stopping now so I can fill everyone in.” and with that he signs off.
Rob runs up to the control room in the command vehicle. Once there he finds the communications officer.
“Hey, contact all the other vehicles and tell them to stop. We have new orders. I’ll fill them in when everyone is ready.”
---About twenty minutes later–
All the vehicles have stopped and the troops and support staff have gathered around where Rob and Megumi are standing. There is a low murmur of conversation through the entire crowd, mostly people asking each other what’s going on, with a few scattered yawns and complaints about being woken up so late at night.
Now sure that everyone is present Rob speaks up. “Hey, everyone pay attention! This is important!”
Everyone immediately quiets down and listens to him.
“I just got new orders from HQ. They’re sending us on a special mission and I wanted to let you all know what we’re going up against.” Rob pauses for a second before continuing, “We are going after a small but particularly nasty gang that headquarters has deemed a threat to the mission.”
One of the soldiers near the front speaks up, “What’s the problem then? We’ve been handling gangs and native alters the whole mission. We can handle a simple band of rejects.”
Rob stares, mildly annoyed, at the soldier and sighs, “I was getting to that. The problem is that this is no normal gang. This gang is called Sadondes and every single major member is a skilled alter user.”
That immediately sets off a wave of murmuring through the crowd of soldiers and personnel. Even Janette raises her eyebrow as she looks at me.
“There’s no doubt that this is a dangerous situation we’re going into, and I don’t want any unnecessary fatalities. So when, not if, they find us I want you to follow any order Janette or I give you no matter what it is. Even if it’s to retreat. Otherwise it’s possible some of you could get killed.”
Rob takes a deep breath and continues, “I wouldn’t ask you to follow us into such a dangerous situation if I didn’t have complete faith in all of your skills. So if you really don’t want to get involved in this you can step forward now and I’ll get you transferred out tomorrow.”
As Rob tensely awaits a reaction, Janette looks back and forth from him to the crowd of soldiers in front of them with a shocked and anxious look on her face. Rob can almost hear people trying to make up their minds. He can hear them moving around and the ever so slight hissing noise of people talking under their breath, either to themselves or to the person next to them, trying to decide what to do.
Rob looks down at the ground and closes his eyes as the crowd grows silent, positive the next thing he hears will be the sound of many boots stepping forward to leave, each one a sign of his failure. Instead, what he hears is a loud, singular shuffling and the sharp noise of boots clicking together. Rob looks up to see every single soldier and personnel standing at attention waiting for him to continue. Even Janette has a grin on her face and gives him an impressed thumbs-up.
He lets out a breath he forgot he was holding and smiles. “Thanks a lot you guys. Then I guess I can take this as a sign that you’re all ready for this?”
An audible “YES SIR!” rings out from the crowd. Dispelling any further doubts he has.
“Alright everyone! Lets get going, we’ve got a job to do!”
With that all of the assembled personnel quickly go back to their vehicles so they can proceed on their way to what is sure to be a very dangerous place....
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Author’s Notes
I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter. Sorry it took so long, it was a combination of computer problems, school, work, and the fact that I’m a procrastinator in the truest sense of the word. And the fact I found a great website to download all the current episodes of Bleach doesn’t help things.
Also, my friend Kat Rhye Lee Dezaraye (aka. Parallel-Blue13115 on fanfiction.net) has a very nice Scryed fan site called Red Alert. It has a nifty interactive section where you can create a profile of an alter user in either the Lost Ground section or the City. Unfortunately she lost a lot of traffic due to a URL change she had to make so give her site a visit. You can reach her website via the link in her profile. She is also the author of a couple stories like “The Specters Seven” and “Tracing the Windowpane.” Both of which are personal favorites of mine. So give them a read.
Also, unfortunately, I lost the memory stick that had all the potential new characters for the story i have gotten from people. So i'm opening this up to all the readers of my story: send me a description of your own character and his/her alter power. Appearance, behavior, afiliation (HOLY, gang, none, etc.) and a thourough description of their alter power. I think getting an idea for a alter power from another person is much more fun and interesting than making them up myself. (plus its also easier!) They're often more unique and personal if you think of what YOUR alter power would be. Also, if you gave me permission to use your character before, please resend me the information. Especially you Taiki Ishikawa. Thanks everyone.
And until next time just remember, Kisuke Urahara ROCKS!!!
I have decided to continue with the same POV from chapter 6.
I do not Own s-CRY-ed or any of the characters other than Rob and Megumi. So.... on with the show.
--------------------------
“Excuse me Sir!”
Rob is startled out of his nap by Lieutenant Aoki. “Huh? Wha?” he mutters incoherently as he wipes a small amount of drool from the corner of his mouth.
“We have almost arrived in the next target area. We will be there in about an hour”
“Oh, very good. Tell me when we get there. Carry on Lieutenant.” Rob gives him a halfhearted salute and dismisses him. “Ugh.... just when I was starting to relax.”
It has been a little more than a week since Rob left HOLD to participate in the great native alter hunt. He has been partnered with another A class alter user named Janette for the duration of the mission and put in command of a full platoon of soldiers and hardware. Since the beginning of the mission he has kept mostly to himself, sleeping on top of the command vehicle, reading, occasionally chatting with the troops. He usually only came down when needed or when he gets bored.
They have been relatively fortunate during the past week or so. They have successfully taken over three territories with only slight resistance. There was always the typical militia group that was dead set against letting us into their territory. Rob and Janette have not even had to fight them. When talking and negotiations didn’t work, just a little nonlethal show of force from the soldiers would quiet them down very quickly. He was just a little disappointed that the people hadn’t
put up just a little more of a fight. He would have.
And of course, in every territory they had come across the local native alter users. It was always just one or two that chose to show themselves and try to stop them. Rob can still remember the first one they came across....
************
It was about one day after we got into our first assigned territory. The takeover had gone very smoothly and we would be out of the area shortly. The territories closest to the city are relatively small and easy to occupy. We were only stopping long enough to provide cover for the garrison teams to set up shop. This first successful takeover had everyone in high spirits except for me. I knew better. The deeper we got into the lost ground the territories would get bigger, the local population would become less cooperative, and the native alter users would get ALOT stronger. After all, that’s where I came from.
We had set up our temporary base on the outskirts of the largest town in the area. It was pretty desolate with some abandoned shacks, random wreckage, and lots of trees and weeds. Most of the soldiers were milling about talking or performing various tasks, Janette was talking to a few soldiers about the best ways to use grenades, rockets, and various other explosives in and out of combat, and I was taking a little nap under a nearby tree with my notebook nearby.
Suddenly I heard panicked yelling and my eyes popped open in time to see two panicked soldiers bailing out of one of the escort jeeps that was currently floating higher and higher into the air. It floated over to the edge of our camp where a rather angry looking teenager was standing. Next to him was what I assumed was his alter. It’s an independent type. It looked like a small robot about two feet shorter than it’s master. It had a blocky head, long flexible metal arms with what look like the horseshoe type magnets on the ends of them, and on it’s chest it had a positive and negative symbol on it.
By this time I had ran over to where the commotion was and Janette and a whole bunch of armed soldiers were also gathering there, leveling their weapons at the teenager.
I scribbled something on my notebook and walked over to Janette and whispered to her, “Come with me. Let’s try to settle this without any casualties.”
She immediately nodded and said, “OK, we’ll try that first.”
Janette and I walked past the front rank of soldiers toward the teenager and stop about twenty five feet away from him. When he saw us I caught a brief glimpse of fear on his face but it is gone in a second.
“Stay back!” he yelled, “I want you HOLY assholes out of this territory or I’ll kill all of you.”
I held up my hand and said, “Hey take it easy. We really don’t want to hurt anyone here.”
Janette added, “Yeah, we’re just passing through. We won’t cause any trouble if you don’t.”
“Bullshit! All the surrounding areas are being taken over by HOLD! Do you honestly think that I’ll believe you?”
I gave him one last chance, “Look we really don’t want a fight right now. You can surrender with absolutely no problems. If that doesn’t work for you, then if you put the jeep down, we’ll let you just turn around, walk away, and we’ll forget we ever saw you. How does that sound?”
While he was thinking I turned my notebook around behind my back, revealing what I had written to the soldiers: STAND BY WITH ROCKETS. BE QUIET! After a moment of hesitation I heard a couple soldiers in the back of the ranks quietly walk away to get the rockets.
Meanwhile the teenager has made up his mind. “No way! You guys came barging in here like you own it. I’m going to either force you out of here or die trying.”
I sighed heavily, “I see.... So now all that remains is to decide who gets to fight you. How do we decide that?”
Janette perked up and says brightly, “Ooh I know! How about rock, paper, scissors!”
Both me and the teenager stared at her in disbelief for a second before I said, “Sure, why not!” And with that the teenager’s mouth dropped open completely and he started to look really pissed.
“What are you doing! Do you think this is a joke?”
Janette started things off, “Okay get ready.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Thre e.”
We both showed our choices. She picked paper, I picked rock.
She threw her hands up in the air and shouted, “Yeah! I win!”
“Yeah, fine. But I get the next one.” I muttered, kind of disappointed.
“You assholes! I’ll kill all of you!! Hit ‘em!!” He pointed at us and commands his alter to throw the jeep at us.
“NOW!!!!” I yelled and a split second later six rockets streak from the rear ranks of the troops. Five hit the jeep flying towards us, turned it into scrap in midair and it fell to the ground, harmless for the moment. When the smoke and dust cleared I saw that the last rocket was still going in midair. Twisting and turning in the air about ten feet away from the teenager and his alter, but not going an inch closer to either of them.
Janette gasped then said out loud, “He put up a magnetic energy barrier!”
“Heh. That was a dirty trick HOLY man. Too bad it didn’t work.” He concentrated for a moment and before the timer on the rocket could run out and explode he flexed the field and sent the rocket flying off in another direction where it exploded harmlessly.
I smiled slyly at him, “I just wanted to take the jeep out of the equation. I’m not the one you need to worry about.”
“Yeah, you still need to deal with me!” said Janette with an almost maniacal grin on her face as the telltale glow of her alter manifested around her.
‘Excellent, now I can see what she can do.’ I thought to myself, ‘Let’s see how she handles him.’
Nearby rocks and bushes broke down into alter mist and gathered around her. Her hair changed color from blonde to a very dark, almost black, shade of green. Then her outfit began to change. Her boots became metallic looking and her HOLY uniform became what appeared to be a green fighting kimono with a circuit-like embroidery pattern on it. It had long sleeves and slits up the sides of the dress up to the top of her legs.
When her transformation was over she adjusted her boots by tapping the tips of her feet on the ground which revealed thin spines on the bottom of the boots. After that she looked directly at the teenager and said sweetly, “To be fair, I’ll let you attack first,” as small arcs of green electricity crackle around her body.
When I saw that I realized that her alter power is electrical in nature. ‘Of course, the spines on her boots must keep her grounded to protect her from sudden power surges’
The kid got pretty pissed when she said this. “Oh yeah?! Fine, you bitch! Take this!”
He gestured toward her, giving a mental command to his alter. The alter faced several of the abandoned shacks and pointed it’s arms at them. Both alter and master seemed to strain ever so slightly for a second before I heard the screeching and groaning of metal and wood bending and warping under intense stress. Seconds later, nails, bolts, support beams, roof sections, and various other metal objects ripped free of the shacks and floated into the air around him. I could see him sweating. Moving so many objects at once was really putting a lot of strain on him.
“Let’s see if you can handle a few thousand new piercings!!!” He pointed at her and dozens of sharp fragments of metal instantly flew toward her so fast they make sharp whistling noises as they cut through the air.
But, incredibly, just as the metal shards are about to hit her, I felt a static charge make the hair on my arms and the back of my neck raise up and there was a loud crackling noise, a flare of light, and Janette was gone! She reappeared about twenty feet away from where she disappeared with a smug look on her face. “Wanna try that again tough guy?”
The kid’s face turned crimson with anger. He sputtered something that I couldn’t quite understand (but it didn’t sound very nice) and sends more nails and jagged scrap sailing at her. The result was the same: a loud crackle, a flash of light, and suddenly Janette is in another place, leaving the scrap to embed itself in the ground and nearby trees. No matter how many times he tried, she continued to seemingly teleport all over the place. It was very hard for even me to keep track of her.
‘She’s just playing with him. She could end this at any time. Why isn’t she?’
The kid is panting with effort and when she reappears Janette isn’t even breaking a sweat. She stands still for a second and says, “You sure you don’t want to just surrender? You’re a mess. And even if you do somehow manage to beat me, you’ll be in no condition to beat my partner.” She points at me as I sat cross-legged on the ground watching the fight intently, waiting for my chance to jump in.
Still breathing heavily he says, “I don’t care..... if I die... as long as I..... take some of you with me!”
Janette says, “Sorry, that’s not an option” and flashes out of existence and reappears right behind the kid. “It’s our job to take you alive.” Before he can react she grabs him by the shoulder. He convulses violently as emerald arcs of electricity course through his body. He loses his concentration and his alter disintegrateses before he collapses onto the ground in a twitching heap.
After a brief moment of silence the troops began to cheer and say things like, “We got our first one!!,” “I knew she’d be able to beat him!,” and “That stupid native didn’t stand a chance!”
I got a little annoyed but before I could say anything Janette yells at them, “Hey, Shut up for a second!!” The troops immediately freeze. “He’s not dead. He’s just unconscious. And I don’t feel like fighting him again if he wakes up. So hurry and lock him up or do you want to fight him when he snaps out of it?”
They instantly scrambled to get the unconscious kid restrained and moved into the holding area of the command vehicle. When the soldiers are either gone or not paying attention to her she deactivated her alter. Her clothes and hair returned to normal and she kinda slumps down onto the ground, looking weak and exhausted.
I walked over to her and said, “Hey, are you gonna be okay?”
She took a deep breath before replying, “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” she got up off the ground and dusted herself off. “It always takes a lot out of me when I teleport that much. I just need some rest and some food and I’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“I want to ask you something” I said.
“Sure, go ahead, ask away.”
“You had the advantage from the beginning. You were playing with him the whole time. You could have finished things right away, so why didn’t you?”
“Well...” she hesitated for a second and bit her bottom lip before replying, “I really don’t like killing people, so I wanted to tire him out enough for me to get close and knock him out quickly and easily. I made sure to only give him a big enough charge to knock him out for a couple hours.”
“Hmm, I see.” I said thoughtfully.
“That’s the way I’ve always done things and how I’ll keep doing it.”
I smiled appreciatively at her, “I like that outlook. Sometimes it takes more skill to not kill an opponent in a fight like that. I respect that.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“But...” I said seriously, “....sometimes it is necessary to kill an enemy. Just remember, the alters we’re going to face are only going to get stronger the deeper we get into the Lost Ground, so we might come across an enemy that will be too strong to subdue like this kid.”
She looked shocked at what I said and then stared up into the sky as if to try and find comfort there before saying, “Yeah, I know that.” she suddenly smiled and looked at me with a determined yet happy expression on her face, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try, right?”
I grinned back at her, “Sure, why not!”
From that point on we’ve had an agreement between us. We’re gonna do our best to try and take a prisoner alive and only take their lives as an absolute last resort. So far, we have been able to stick to that agreement. But I think we both know that, sooner or later, we will have to break that agreement.
**************
Now fully awake, Rob gets up and goes down the hatch inside the command vehicle to see if there’s anything to do. Even when they’re traveling between areas there still isn’t much to do if you’re off duty. ‘Hmm, I wonder if Private Wyndham is off duty now. I’ll see if he wants to play that awesome fighting game he brought with him.’
But before Rob can find him Lieutenant Aoki comes up to him. “Excuse me sir but you have a call from headquarters.”
Rob raises an eyebrow, “Really? Who is it?”
“Someone from tactical and logistics named Megumi.”
“Oh! Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Rob rushed over to the nearest comm console, hits the blinking button near the top of the console and the screen blinks to life and displays a picture of Megumi looking back at him.
“Hey, do ya miss me?” she says smartly.
“Yeah, I definitely do.” Rob smirks, “I also miss getting violently woken up by you every morning.” he says sarcastically. “I take it you’re doing fine?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been more concerned about you. But if the info I’m getting on your platoon is accurate, you’ve been doing very well too. A lot of people here are impressed with your progress. Especially since you haven’t had a single casualty the entire time.”
“Yeah, we’ve all agreed to try and get this done with as little loss of life as possible.”
She smiles, “That’s good. I’m very glad to hear that. But unfortunately, I didn’t call just to check up on you. I have official orders for you and your platoon.”
Rob sighs heavily, “Yeah, I kinda guessed. Alright, what are they?”
“Rufus got some information from the intelligence division about a day ago and he wants you to change course and go into the territory east of your current location.”
“Why’s that?”
“The information says it is the home territory of a small group of alter users who could pose a problem to the operation. You’re orders are to put a stop to the threat.”
“Okay, so how am I supposed to find them?”
“This particular gang is known to be very territorial so they’ll probably find you before you find them.”
“Great. So I’m guessing they’re going to be a little annoyed when we roll into their backyard, right?”
“Yeah.... probably.”
Rob let out a very heavy breath, “Awesome... alright, I’d better go and let everyone know of the change of plans and this new situation. I’ll be sure to review the data you sent.”
“Okay, good luck. I’m rooting for you.” and with that Megumi signed off.
Rob stares at the blank screen for a few seconds longer, lost in thought, before opening up the information that Megumi had sent. After only a couple seconds of reading his eyes widen in surprise.
“What?! No way!!!”
Rob runs over to the comm panel and calls Janette.
“Hey Janette! You there?”
After a second a tired sounding voice comes over speaker, “What is it? You sound frantic.”
“We need to stop now. We’ve got new orders and I have to let everyone know what we’re up against.”
Her voice sounds concerned and has a slight hint of disbelief as she replies. “Is it really that important?”
“Oh yeah. This is huge! We’re stopping now so I can fill everyone in.” and with that he signs off.
Rob runs up to the control room in the command vehicle. Once there he finds the communications officer.
“Hey, contact all the other vehicles and tell them to stop. We have new orders. I’ll fill them in when everyone is ready.”
---About twenty minutes later–
All the vehicles have stopped and the troops and support staff have gathered around where Rob and Megumi are standing. There is a low murmur of conversation through the entire crowd, mostly people asking each other what’s going on, with a few scattered yawns and complaints about being woken up so late at night.
Now sure that everyone is present Rob speaks up. “Hey, everyone pay attention! This is important!”
Everyone immediately quiets down and listens to him.
“I just got new orders from HQ. They’re sending us on a special mission and I wanted to let you all know what we’re going up against.” Rob pauses for a second before continuing, “We are going after a small but particularly nasty gang that headquarters has deemed a threat to the mission.”
One of the soldiers near the front speaks up, “What’s the problem then? We’ve been handling gangs and native alters the whole mission. We can handle a simple band of rejects.”
Rob stares, mildly annoyed, at the soldier and sighs, “I was getting to that. The problem is that this is no normal gang. This gang is called Sadondes and every single major member is a skilled alter user.”
That immediately sets off a wave of murmuring through the crowd of soldiers and personnel. Even Janette raises her eyebrow as she looks at me.
“There’s no doubt that this is a dangerous situation we’re going into, and I don’t want any unnecessary fatalities. So when, not if, they find us I want you to follow any order Janette or I give you no matter what it is. Even if it’s to retreat. Otherwise it’s possible some of you could get killed.”
Rob takes a deep breath and continues, “I wouldn’t ask you to follow us into such a dangerous situation if I didn’t have complete faith in all of your skills. So if you really don’t want to get involved in this you can step forward now and I’ll get you transferred out tomorrow.”
As Rob tensely awaits a reaction, Janette looks back and forth from him to the crowd of soldiers in front of them with a shocked and anxious look on her face. Rob can almost hear people trying to make up their minds. He can hear them moving around and the ever so slight hissing noise of people talking under their breath, either to themselves or to the person next to them, trying to decide what to do.
Rob looks down at the ground and closes his eyes as the crowd grows silent, positive the next thing he hears will be the sound of many boots stepping forward to leave, each one a sign of his failure. Instead, what he hears is a loud, singular shuffling and the sharp noise of boots clicking together. Rob looks up to see every single soldier and personnel standing at attention waiting for him to continue. Even Janette has a grin on her face and gives him an impressed thumbs-up.
He lets out a breath he forgot he was holding and smiles. “Thanks a lot you guys. Then I guess I can take this as a sign that you’re all ready for this?”
An audible “YES SIR!” rings out from the crowd. Dispelling any further doubts he has.
“Alright everyone! Lets get going, we’ve got a job to do!”
With that all of the assembled personnel quickly go back to their vehicles so they can proceed on their way to what is sure to be a very dangerous place....
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Author’s Notes
I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter. Sorry it took so long, it was a combination of computer problems, school, work, and the fact that I’m a procrastinator in the truest sense of the word. And the fact I found a great website to download all the current episodes of Bleach doesn’t help things.
Also, my friend Kat Rhye Lee Dezaraye (aka. Parallel-Blue13115 on fanfiction.net) has a very nice Scryed fan site called Red Alert. It has a nifty interactive section where you can create a profile of an alter user in either the Lost Ground section or the City. Unfortunately she lost a lot of traffic due to a URL change she had to make so give her site a visit. You can reach her website via the link in her profile. She is also the author of a couple stories like “The Specters Seven” and “Tracing the Windowpane.” Both of which are personal favorites of mine. So give them a read.
Also, unfortunately, I lost the memory stick that had all the potential new characters for the story i have gotten from people. So i'm opening this up to all the readers of my story: send me a description of your own character and his/her alter power. Appearance, behavior, afiliation (HOLY, gang, none, etc.) and a thourough description of their alter power. I think getting an idea for a alter power from another person is much more fun and interesting than making them up myself. (plus its also easier!) They're often more unique and personal if you think of what YOUR alter power would be. Also, if you gave me permission to use your character before, please resend me the information. Especially you Taiki Ishikawa. Thanks everyone.
And until next time just remember, Kisuke Urahara ROCKS!!!