Mai growled in frustration and flung the shade into the van, locking it in a restraining harness. Then she faced the spire, and began her journey up it’s rough side, climbing the web like surface at a rate far beyond what a normal human could maintain. Halfway up, however, she was forced to stop when the webbing became slick and hardened into a dark iridescent green shell. She looked back down and all around her, searching for an alternative route. Mai saw a shallow depression in the webbing to her left and climbed over to it. Probing the sagging webs, she found that they seemed to have been made over a window, but the window had broken sometime later, resulting in a soft spot in the tower’s defensive shell. Punching through it, she found that she was right, and tore a hole large enough for herself to fit through. Leaping through into the dark room, she rolled to a crouch and paused make sure no-one had noticed her entrance. Standing slowly, she saw that she was in an office, abandoned and desolate. Moving through it quickly, she was nearly at the doorway when she heard a noise outside.
Two Daodan Mutants prowled past, the deep shadows obscuring their hunched bodies until they were close, and Mai had to fight not to run from the hideous apparitions. She waited until they were gone, and then quietly ran down the hallway and turned to climb up the stairs to the next floor. For the next half hour she climbed the tower in this fashion, hiding from the Daodan and fighting them when she couldn’t hide. Eventually she emerged into the top floor, where the infestation was thickest. There were holes ripped in the walls, and hardened webs coated all exposed surfaces including the furniture, which had been turned into pillars of webbing, making the large room look like an ancient cave or forest. She crept along the surreal scene, scanning for any sign of Sarai. Then she rounded a pillar, and came face-to-mask with Mukade. He was seated in a throne constructed of the carapace. Sarai hung from the ceiling next to him, half encased in a cocoon. Her eyes widened, and she struggled against her bonds, trying to speak past the web on her mouth. Mukade laughed at the girl’s struggles, then, when she didn’t cease her struggles, he stood and stilled her with a vicious punch to the face. Sarai slumped unconscious. Mai’s fury rose up inside her, and she felt her Daodan stir, ready to lend it’s strength. Mukade turned back to Mai, impassive behind his mask.
“Mai Hasegawa. Again you have tracked me to the top of a tower and forced me to fight. Only this time I see that you have embraced the Daodan’s power. Or have you?” He crouched and circled, moving away from the throne so he had room to move. “You are afraid of what you could become if you opened yourself to it. Afraid of seeing your true self revealed. Such a pity.”
“What are you?” She asked, desperate to turn her attention away from the weakness Mukade had pinned down.
“I am the Daodan. I am the physical manifestation created by the human’s tampering with the Daodan’s power. Your brother brought me to life in his mad experiments. Barabas was my first incarnation, a flawed body, but it was quickly remedied when Muro gave me this one, by far the better, and then he allowed me to manifest in his own body, but you killed him before the transformation could be completed. In another path, I would have manifested fully, had you killed Griffin and allowed yourself to become dark. But now I have come back, fueled by the raw power generated by the masses of Daodan implantations happening every day, thanks to you and your father.”
He laughed again and lunged at her, the whipping his hands back and pulling daggers from the spikes between his shoulders. Mai unholstered her pistol and emptied the clip at him, but the ninja didn’t even slow. She tossed it away and was reaching for the mercury bow when he hit her, kicking out and slashing with his daggers. She parried quickly, but received a cut on her arm, which healed even as she watched. Somehow, she managed to land a return kick, and he staggered back a few steps, allowing her to pull the mercury bow around and fire a shot point-blank into his chest, knocking him down. But he rolled back, and stood, facing her. Then he exploded into color, blue and red Daodan glow pulsing around his shimmering body. Mai pumped her own Daodan to it’s maximum, lending energy to the mercury bow, enabling her to empty all her ammo clips in around ten seconds. But they all deflected off Mukade’s glow, hitting the ceiling and floor instead. Tossing the gun away, she threw herself at him, taking him by surprise and managing to knock the daggers from his hands. The two figures whirled around each other, blows flying between them and deflected before they could land. Finally, the black ninja got both his fists together and he delivered a punch to her chest, throwing her back against a pillar, where she slumped to the ground, her Daodan spent. He leapt at her, grasping Mai’s throat, choking the life from her.
“Foolish girl. You. Should’ve taken. The Daodan’s power. Now you will die.” She looked up into his mask, seeing her reflection there, struggling for breath. Mai looked deep into her face, now wavering and changing, emerging as Konoko, a cruel smile playing across her lips. And she reconciled herself to the girl, accepting herself. Then her eyes rolled back, and she slumped lifeless to the ground. Mukade stepped back, looking down at the defeated Mai. He turned away. And Mai exploded to life behind him, leaping up and smashing into his back, crushing him against the floor. She stepped off, and he rolled to his feet, stunned.
“I know who I am.” She whispered, then stepped forward and flexed her new Imago mucles, ripping him in half. Then she turned to Sarai, her white armor glowing, but with a hint of darkness, a wild untamed power that was halfway between good and evil, able to heal or kill with equal ease. She blasted the cocoon away, and Sarai rolled to her feet, running to her mother and enveloping her in a tight hug. Then they left the tower, the webs crumbling and the mutations writhing as they were returned to their original state.
“No!” She cried, falling to her knees. “Sarai! Why Sarai?”
Casey came up and knelt beside her, his face blank with shock. She crumpled into him, and his arms fell limply around her shoulders. Griffin and James also walked over, stopping a few feet away from the grieving couple. After a few minutes of silence, Griffin spoke softly.
“We need to go. The shades could come back any time, and we aren’t equipped to fight a horde of them.” He put his hand on Casey’s shoulder. “Come on, son. We’ll find Sar sometime, but if we stay here, she’s gone for sure.”
So they trudged back to the van, a broken family in the twice broken city. Griffin stated the vehicle as Mai and James climbed in the back and casey in the navigator seat. Driving out of the garage, they passed a street light, and Mai saw that there was a single large cocoon hanging from it. As they sped through the streets, more evidence of the mutation was visible. Webs spanned gaps between buildings; lights fizzled out of existence as strange creatures attacked the glowing bulbs; windows shattered; and doors were ripped from their fittings. Mai began to cry again, weeping for the city that she had worked so hard to rebuild. And then they passed through the city walls and sped out into the desert.
After an hour of driving, Griffin pulled up next to a cave entrance, and everyone piled out of the van. Mai sadly surveyed the jagged stone, rough granite that she was sure would be uncomfortable to sleep on. Walking inside, she shone a light around, looking for a flat spot to set up camp. She found it about fifty meters from the entrance, and set down the bundle she had been carrying. Heading back up, she nodded to the men, indicating that it was a good place to stop. They all hefted bundles of their own, and descended into the cave, their footsteps echoing off the hard walls. James laid his hand on her shoulder for a minute as he passed, murmuring:
“Our family seems to be intertwined with the Daodan, Mai. Whenever we extract a blessing from it, it takes payment in blood. We must break this cycle, Mai, or it will scour the world more surely than the poisonous air. This is the holocaust, and one race will serve the other at it’s end. Will we live as Humans, or Daodan?”
Then he walked deeper into the cave, and she stared after him, wondering at the man who’s life had been so drastically affected by the Daodan plant. Looking back at the van, she saw that Sarai had left her necklace in the vehicle, hanging from a hook in the ceiling. As she stared at the dangling pendant, a broken O with two bent ends, anger welled up in her, the same fury that she had felt when Shinatama was captured. Rising from her sadness, she stood and strode to the van, checking to make sure that her belt pouches were still stocked full of supplies. She holstered her pistol and slung the mercury bow across her back, emptying all the other supplies and weapons onto the stone just inside the the cave entrance. She left a note on top of the pile, explaining where she had gone, and then she walked back to the van and climbed in, but Griffin and Karen had extracted the battery cable, so that the van was powerless until they put it back.
Nice try. Mai thought as she activated her Daodan, pushing the energy away from herself and into the vehicle, powering it. Leaving the cave behind, she sped back towards the city, the hate and pain pumping more and more energy through her, which she then converted into speed. The desert blurred, and soon she was back in the city, flying through the streets deeper towards what was now an infected-looking hive where the mutations had started. Screeching to a halt, she leapt from the overheating vehicle and grabbed a shade that darted past. Flipping it above her head with one hand, she smashed it back down into the pavement, crushing it’s feeble attempts to escape.
“Where is Sarai?” She snarled, wisps of energy writhing around her. “What did you do with her?”
It struggled to answer coherently, speaking with a hiss. “Sssarai not hhhere. I not know Sssarai. Hive brothersss not tell me any Sssarai.”
“Prisoners!!! Where do you keep prisoners?” She shouted, the force of her cry slamming the shade’s head back into the concrete.
“We takesss no prisssonersss. All become Daodan. Mukade tell usss that humansss mussst become Daodan.” It gasped for breath, but Mai never loosed her grip.
“Where is Mukade? When will Sarai be transformed? Tell me!”
“Mukade at top of ssspire. I not know Sssarai.”
Mai growled in frustration and flung the shade into the van, locking it in a restraining harness. Then she faced the spire, and began her journey up it’s rough side, climbing the web like surface at a rate far beyond what a normal human could maintain.
It opens with Mukade speaking.
“Konoko. Only your daughter would so foolish as to force my hand.” He tossed a handful of bullets to the floor. “I would have thought you might teach her caution, if nothing else.” Mai shuddered at the cold voice from her past.
“How did you survive?” She said quietly, “I killed you on that rooftop.”
“You did. I lay dead for a long time, but now you have provided the means for my return.” He laughed again, and Mai lunged forward, desperate to kill the specter from her past, but Mukade dodged backwards rushed to the side, fading out of sight into the shadows. He reappeared near the door, but Sarai was already flying towards him, landing a punch in the small of his back and throwing him to the ground. The ninja rolled to his feet, but again Sar was there. She threw him to the floor, smashing his face against the tiles. His body went rigid for a second, and then fell limp. Mai saw the intentional move, and started to shout it to Sar, but was too late. The inexperienced girl relaxed her grip, thinking her opponent dead. The instant she did, Mukade leapt up and disappeared out the door, flinging Sarai against the wall with a sickening thud.
“Sarai!” Mai ran to her daughter, gently cradling the unconscious girl. Karen came up quietly to them, extending one unnaturally long hand, the other inserted into a socket in her PDA. An electrical spark flashed between her splayed fingers, weaving a semi-transparent web around her hand. She ran her hand over Sar’s body, hovering a few inches above the comatose girl. Again, her eyes flickered behind half-closed lids, and she spoke in a hollow voice.
“She has broken ribs in three places, a slight concussion where her head hit the wall, and numerous bruises and abrasions.” Her hand stopped glowing. “Two hypo injections should be enough to heal her, as her Daodan chrysalis is already working to repair the damage.” Karen opened her eyes and sat back against the wall, while Mai took two hypos from Sar’s belt and activated them on her daughter. Griffin watched the women for a minute before his patience ran out.
“We can’t just sit here. Casey and I will go pull Hasegawa out of his office, and we’ll pick you up on our way out.” He turned towards the doorway, but his son didn’t follow. “Casey, I know you’re concerned about Sar, but We’ve got a job to do, and Mai can take care of her just fine.” Casey nodded mutely and reluctantly followed Griffin from the room.
Five minutes later, Sarai opened her eyes and blearily looked about. Mai jumped a little when she felt Sarai move. She looked and saw that the hypos had done their job perfectly, judging from the slight yellow nimbus writhing around her daughter’s hands. Supporting her back, she helped the girl into a sitting position, and then into a standing position, but Sar shrugged off the help, rolling her shoulders and stretching to relieve the cramps that had formed from healing so quickly.
“How do you feel?” Mai asked, a touch of concern in her voice.
“I’m fine.” Sar bounced from foot to foot, trying to release some pent up energy. “I feel great, actually. Better than ever.”
Just then, Griffin and Casey came out of the office, James trailing behind them, lugging a box full of files and papers along with him. Mai, Karen, and Sarai fell in step with them, and the group descended down the stairs to the parking level. Mai kept a sharp eye out for Mukade, but didn’t see him, and she fervently hoped that he was just another hallucination, but judging from the way the others glanced around them as well, Mukade wasn’t just a memory.
What she did notice was that Sar had lost the fearful edge that had made her nervous before. The young woman strode along as if she were invulnerable, and Mai was reminded of the overconfident Furies she had fought all those years ago. Sar had inherited her father’s skin tones and Griffin’s serious face, but her green eyes and purple hair came from the Hasegawa side of the family. She was still thinking when the Shades attacked. Shades were a variant of Daodan that some people chose to mutate into. Looking like a thin hairless bat without wing membranes, they were preferred by criminals and other unsavory types, because of their superior night vision and climbing abilities.
The screams came a split second before the shades attacked, materializing from the shadows around the small group. Mai whirled, coming face to face with one, it’s fangs glistening in the darkness. The hideous thing shrieked again and lunged at her, barely missing as she dodged to the side. She jabbed back at it, her fist crushing it’s neck and crumpling the windpipe. But the obstinate beast wouldn’t die yet, and raked her face with it’s long claws, leaving three bloody streaks down her cheek. She hit it again, and managed to get behind the thing and break it’s back. Looking around, she saw that the others were similarly occupied, but were holding their own, except for James, who hadn’t fought in a long time. Even Karen had managed to put up a fight, inserting her fingers into a shade’s spine, attacking it with her thoughts. Mai ran to defend James, beating back the shade attacking him, but another swooped down to take it’s place, and she resumed fighting once again. The battle continued in this way for ten minutes, and then the shades suddenly retreated, disappearing into the shadows. Breathing hard, Mai looked around, checking to make sure that everyone was uninjured. Griffin had a few scrapes, Casey was cut on the arm, Karen had a few bruises, and James was a bit frightened, but otherwise everyone was okay. She nodded to herself, but then Casey asked a question that changed everything.
“What happened to Sarai?” His voice cracked.
Mai whirled around, but Sarai was nowhere to be seen. Then she spotted a trail of blood where something had been dragged away. She ran along it, but it ended suddenly, a lone scrap of purple hair laying at the end.
Sarai would look more like Casey than Mai, with purple hair of course. I imagine that her moves would be a bit more... brutal than konoko's. Just in case you do make her, Samer.
]]>The thing that attracted my mind was Sarai. She is characteristic. She has her own opinion, sometimes she is stubborn but looks like she is obedient to Konoko. She is such a cute child. I'm also impressed by her Daodan glow's color, yellow (:D). I wonder what her appearance would be, maybe she would be like Shinatama in some ways?
I like your writing style. You use simple word, but you make the story have its fascination by the way you lead the story go. It's easy to read and enjoy it for me 'cause I'm not very knowledgeable about English.
+++ plus marks for you. Keep going!
]]>that's a recap since u said u didn't read the story
but whatever way u are going to go with it, is fine I realllllyy like the story a lot so far, you have a very grabbing writing style
++ ^_^
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