[FFML] [FIC][Illusions] Fool's Minstrel (02)

[Mike Ching]

"Two Custard Crepes and a Yakisoba...right!" Mikage
gasped as she jotted
the information and table number down as quickly as
she could. When she
began her job, wearing one of Teresa's spare uniforms,
Sayo worried
about how it fit, having never worn anything like it
before in her life.
However, the work in the cafe had been tougher than
she'd originally
imagined, leaving her no time to bother about the
fashion of her
clothing. There were only three people working in the
cafe throughout
including herself. And the number of customers piling
in for lunch was
staggering. M.Y. Home was a small cafe, and did not
have the money or
the need for an internal computer network. It kept
them all busy, with
Yuu in the kitchen and the waitressing duty split
between herself and
Espinoza.

The trend, she found, was the fact that almost all of
them were men. Not
the formally-dressed businessfolk, but street
merchants, messengers,
shopkeepers, and the like. Mikage had always thought
MegaTokyo an
advanced, ultra-technological city, but it surprised
her to see all-too
human construction workers in the mix as well.
Clearly, machines did not
permeate every facet of life here. She felt more at
home now, knowing
that people in the city weren't all that different
from the old town
she, Shion, and her grandmother had lived their lives
in. As Mikage
hurried to the counter, she allowed herself that
feeling of warm
comfort, of knowing all was well.

That feeling died an abrupt death as SOMEONE rudely
grabbed her butt.

"Wah!" Sayo gasped in absolute shock--Whipping around,
all she could
think of was disgust as she focused a pair of offended
eyes back at the
toothy grin on one of them, sitting smug with a leg
over one table. He
wore a thick pompadour, and had on a loud pink shirt
that was almost as
ugly as the look he was giving back to the girl.

"Just making sure it's real and not silicone, baby,"
he puckered up,
making a smacking sound with his lips before returning
to his grin.
"Can't be too sure with all those artificial dollies
running the city."

"Why you..." Mikage began, but was quickly dragged out
of the way by the
gentle tug of a smiling Espinoza. Sayo had been half
ready to shove a
solid palm into the man's nose, but the older girl
walked the newcomer
to the counter, calmly reassuring her with a pat on
the back.

"It's all right, Sayo-chan," the senior waitress told
her. Mikage found
it odd that Espinoza did not seem the least bit
flustered at the obvious
harassment. "Maybe you could help Yuu out in the
kitchen a moment? I'll
take that man's order for you."

"But..." Mikage began, but stopped, feeling foolish.
It would not do to
cause a scene in the cafe, especially the first day of
her job. Also,
this was the city, not her town. It simply wasn't her
place to do
anything that might invite further trouble.

"Customer is always right, Sayo-chan," Teresa
answered, still smiling
innocently as she turned away, returning to the table
of the man who
groped Mikage. Worried, Sayo called out the orders in
her hand to Yuu,
then quickly looked over to the other waitress, before
moving to take
another person's order.

*Sometimes,* Mikage wondered, *I wonder why Shion
wanted to come here so
badly...*

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Fool's Minstrel
02.
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

"May I take your order, sir?" Teresa Espinoza chirped
happily as she met
the man who had molested Sayo only moments earlier.

"You're supposed to say 'Coffee, Tea, or Me',
honeybunch," The man
leered, but after a few seconds turned serious, seeing
that the
reference was completely lost on the other waitress.
"All right. I'll
have iced tea. Make it snappy."

"Right away, sir," Teresa smiled, turning to the
kitchen.

=*=*=*=

The first hint Mikage had of what was happening was
the distinctly un-
manly scream that tore through the cafe. Her head
whipped around in the
direction of the yell, clearly aware that it was the
same customer who
had groped her earlier.

The man was the center of attention in the cafe, all
eyes to him as he
gasped, shocked, as he dripped iced tea all over. The
garish pink of his
shirt began to run down, following the flow of his
drink to the floor.
Beside him, Teresa stood, unshakeable with her grin,
holding an empty
glass upside down over the man with all the innocent
candor she could
muster.

"The HELL did you do THAT for, you stupid ditz?!?" the
man howled all
the way to his feet, instantly grabbing the attention
of every diner in
the restaurant. For a second, Mikage's heart sank. The
man looked ready
to hit the waitress, standing right in front of him.
Sayo tensed,
wondering if she could get between the pair before
something erupted.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, sir," Teresa replied to the
sputtering groper,
the smile still on her face as she spoke. With a bow,
she then
announced: "The cafe would like to request that
customers please do not
fondle or grope the staff, as accidents such as this
may happen."

All eyes around the restaurant, originally startled by
the man's scream,
now glared at the molester, who had the good grace to
sit down and sink
beneath his seat in utter humiliation. Already,
pink-tinged iced tea
began to pool in his seat, even as the shirt began to
take on a lighter,
more drab color. Quite a few in the diner even laughed
at his expense.

Sayo simply gawked at the entire exchange, staring
stunned as Espinoza
walked past her, empty glass in hand. "T...Teresa..."

The other waitress merely kept her pixielike smile as
she nonchalantly
walked off to get a new glass.

=*=*=*=

Waiting was a hard thing for a pilot to do in the
fall.

Sitting on a plot of reclaimed land near the edge of
Hokkaido
prefecture, T'n'T had acquired a small amount to use
as a new stopover
point for it's small aircraft. While the company's
aerial lift vehicles
were fully capable of traveling from MegaTokyo to any
point in Japan and
other regions in East Asia, there was a benefit to the
still-developing
private airstrip. Publicly, it was a company-owned
airport, one with
facilities to accept and repair most light planes
passing by. Privately,
it was the site of a future T'n'T branch office, one
tasked with
aerospace development. As an aside, it made for an
ideal training ground
for T'n'T helicopter pilots; not merely for corporate
transport and
delivery, but for the megacorp's 'other' activities.

The heater in the lounge droned on, but he felt far
too warm and
stifled, despite the autumn coolness. The small space
clashed with the
large heater, one that seemed more at place in a
spaceship than out in a
country office. Bored, Matt Lewis popped another stick
of gum in his
mouth. The room he waited in was stark and silent,
padded to dampen
sounds and listening devices. Pilots and guests
normally took their time
here, separating the building from the helideck, and
the dull paste-
white tones of the room drove one mad enough into
random and nonsensical
conversation.

*That's typical,* he thought. *Corporate bigwigs don't
want their
secrets spilling out to their competition or the
missus.*

He was a full ten minutes earlier than expected, but
the bored look on
his face belied the excitement he felt, the chance to
finally fly
Toratotaka's upper-level craft. After officially
quitting his previous
occupation with the United Nations some years before,
he'd signed up for
work with Toratotaka. However, it had not come easy;
to date, he was
still not taken seriously by the company due to his
previous
associations.

The company had him started on smaller vehicles, all
of which he'd found
too simple. Hovercraft and light trucks were hardly
the sort of
transport he enjoyed driving--being a US Navy pilot
long before his UN
days, Matt wanted nothing more than to be strapped
into a high-speed bat
out of hell, screaming through the sky.

And now his patience was rewarded. A few more minutes
of waiting was
minor compared to all he'd gone through previously.

"You Lewis?"

Matt looked up. He was fully expecting someone in full
flying gear,
flight suit and all.  Instead he was greeted by an
older man, graying at
the temples, who wore the same casual Toratotaka work
jacket and jeans
as he did.

"In the flesh," Lewis stood, shaking the man's hand.
"You?"

"Will Clayderman. Used to work for the 160th."

"No shit? The Night Stalkers?" Matt's eyes popped out.
The 160th Special
Operations Air Regiment or SOAR were pilots of a
different breed from
the jet jocks he'd hung out with during his Navy days.
The Night
Stalkers earned his respect; only the 160th was
willing to fly into
enemy fire to rescue troops behind lines, in absolute
darkness, with no
air or ground support, and the full knowledge that
their own government
would disown them if shot down, captured or killed.
Being a regular
military pilot, Matt couldn't imagine accepting a
mission that entailed
being abandoned by the country he served. "Hell, you
guys are something
else."

"Not really. I'm just lucky I had good men on my
team," Clayderman
smirked back, warmly clapping Lewis shoulder as he led
him out of the
white room onto the tarmac. The doors opened to a cool
breeze whipping
across the cityscape. "So, you think you can fly the
Airwolf, kiddo?"

"You kidding? I can fly anything," Lewis winked
confidently as the
approached the lone helicopter sitting on the deck.
The vehicle had a
sleek curvature to it's form, more aerodynamic than
necessary of
ordinary helicopters or civilian VTOL. Though Matt
knew the Airwolf--so
named by a T'n'T staffer with a library of old videos
and too much time
on his hands--had far more muscle than one would think
necessary for a
civilian craft.

"It's kinda tricky. The Airwolf isn't like other
helos," Will opened up
the vehicle, the palm-reader on the door handles
recognizing him
instantly. He then opened the copilot seat for Lewis,
who was yet to be
cleared for the vehicles. The pair began to strap
themselves in, running
the basic pre-flight checks. "They're kind of like
rockets with rotors,
if you know what I mean. Not as cool as the old V-22
Osprey, but good
enough."

"Well, it's a lot more roomy than it looks," Matt
commented. The seat
automatically adjusted to his spine; somewhere on
board, the craft was
taking his measurements and weight, storing them for
future reference.
The technology was one that had yet to be sold for
public consumption.
It helped, providing stiff support where necessary,
reminding Lewis that
the vehicle was meant for much faster travel than one
would expect of a
helicopter. "Least it's not as cramped as those AD
Police Firefly
gyros."

"Hey, don't knock the smaller VTOLs," Clayderman
smiled. The ADP had
phased out the small Gyrocopter two years before, and
T'n'T had used
some for small-scale cargo lifting. Will knew Matt had
handled a few in
that capacity, and it was clear the younger pilot
disliked them. "They
can get into those hard-to-reach spots. I prefer the
Chippewa myself."

"Those little runts?" Lewis scoffed. "No thanks."

"Maybe, but you can park a Chippewa in a parking lot
and still pack
enough ordnance to flatten a city block," Clayderman
grins. Successor to
the "Little Bird" light multipurpose helicopters of
the past century,
the AH-126 "Chippewa" was best described as a marble
wearing two hats.
Co-designed by the Russian Kamov Agency and Gulf and
Bradley, it
possessed the unique coaxial rotor-on-top-of-rotor
design unique to
Kamov, and had support mounts to carry weapons or
extra troop seats.
They were the 160th SOAR's pocket-sized brawn; small,
but armed with
rockets and two 50 caliber machineguns for massive yet
almost surgically
precise firepower in tight urban areas.

Lewis remained unimpressed. "I'll stick to the big
birds, thanks."

"Speaking of which," Will started up the Airwolf, then
stretched,
crossing his arms across his chest. "You think you can
handle this big
bird?"

"You sure?" Matt wagged his eyebrows.

"There hasn't been a pilot yet that pull tricks that
can spook me, kid.
I've seen it all," Clayderman guffawed. One of the
reasons Lewis was
being cleared for the Airwolf was for a need; T'n'T's
little groups of
secret troops needed a good pilot for their
transports. That meant a
pilot that had no fear, and the skills to pull off the
impossible. If
the young daredevil thought he could impress his boss,
Will would have
to disappoint him. "Surprise me, kid."

"You said so," Lewis then happily put his hands on the
controls. There
was an air of uneasiness in Will as he heard
that--most hotshots would
by now be boasting of what they could do, and
Clayderman would dare
them. But the way Matt simply smiled...and Will
wondered why the younger
man was adjusting the position of the thrust nacelles.
"Y'know, I've
always wondered--can an Airwolf use it's jet engines
to backflip off the
ground?"

"Wha--?"

Before the older T'n'T pilot could refute the claim,
he was thrown
backwards in his seat as the vehicle's thrusters
kicked in. Normally
used to boost the vehicle to above Mach 1 on
long-range trips, the
engines shot the craft straight up nearly 10 meters
off the helipad. The
Airwolf did a single vertical coin-toss flip just
before righting itself
atop the pad in a dead hover.

Without further argument, the helicopter's wheels
touched the ground
below, a flawless landing by any book. More
flabbergasted than
impressed, Clayderman glared darkly at the perfectly
amused young pilot,
even as the aghast radio from the control center
started screaming in
their ears. The older man slapped the comm closed as
he glared at Matt.

"Son, you pull this kinda crap often, don't you?"

"Night Stalkers don't quit sir," Lewis grinned back.

Will did not even honor that response with a groan.
All he could do was
put a hand to his forehead.

=*=*=*=

Several floors below, another new trainee was deep in
worry.

Sweating under his coveralls, Tom Wellington could not
help but wonder
if his days at T'n'T were numbered. As an Electronics
Engineering
graduate student from Massachusetts' legendary MIT, he
had chosen to
work for the Japanese-American Megacorp instead of the
all-American Gulf
and Bradley for a chance to be assigned to Japan. He
got it, assigned to
Hokkaido to help with the development of a new R&D
branch office and
test ground. And here he was, hoping that he had not
somehow blown his
chances out of the water. Despite his well-chiseled
jaw and Scottish
heritage, Tom was not a person with a forceful
personality. Nervously
adjusting the earpiece he'd been wearing, he found
himself automatically
explaining himself about the incident at the Hokkaido
development
center's helideck.

"I--I cleared him for it since Clayderman told me it
was OK. There
weren't any other techs to sign off on the refueling
sheet, so I didn't
think it'd do any harm. I--I never realized that he'd
actually TRY the
thrust jets while on the deck," there was an audible
swallow as the
young tech looked straight up at the imposing figure
standing six-feet-
two, all of blue endo-steel and cybernetics. In an
ordinary situation,
he would have found the sight of a 55C boomer--an
early model one at
that--wearing technicians' coveralls and extra-large
sneakers as odd,
even hilarious. But as he kept one eye on the helideck
monitor and
another on the boomer who was technically
his boss, he wondered if said boomer would yell at him
and somehow,
accidentally roast him to a crisp with that
mouth-mounted cannon Tom
knew they had. "I--I mean, if I KNEW he'd have tried
something like
that, I'd never have had the thrusters fueled and
ready..."

He needn't have worried. The blue boomer hushed
whatever else Wellington
had to say with a mild gesture of his hands. Though
his full identity
number was the jaw-breaking Bu-55C-AX25, the Research
and Development
division's head tech preferred to be called Alex.
Series 55C though he
was, was anything but dangerous; he'd had the cannon
removed from his
throat long before joining the company. That, and
unlike other 55C's, he
had a sense of humor.

"You're not the problem, kid. THAT, my young friend,
is a PROBLEM," the
boomer used his pencil as a pointer, wiggling it at
the monitor screen
like an old-style teacher's baton. The all-too
mischievous face of the
pilot was clear in the security camera, even as the
flight controller
screamed holy murder at him--thankfully, sound was
edited out. "That, my
friend, is Matt Lewis. Stay FAR away from him. If you
need to fly and
he's the pilot, jump out of the plane and take the bus
instead."

"You're...NOT going to chew me out?"

"You?" The blue boomer's left optic rose a bit, then
his head turned to
the screen. By now, the tower controller was tearing
at his hair. Alex
couldn't tell from the picture, but from Clayderman's
reaction in the
scene--a slap of the forehead--he could imagine that
Lewis had let go of
another one of his wise ass commentaries. "No, kid.
ANYTHING that
involves Matt Lewis is SOLELY Matt Lewis' fault."

"But I don't see..." Tom began, but was silenced by a
big blue palm
indicating him to stop.

"That airheaded nitwit would have been cleared for
those things a year
ago if he didn't keep mouthing off and running after
women," Alex spat,
although not altogether in spite. Cocking one head, he
turned back to
Tom. "Lewis and I joined the company together. He's
human, I'm a walking
tin can. I'm now middle management in tech, while he's
only beginning to
qualify for the special-duty birds. Trust me, Kiddo. I
KNOW Matt Lewis."

"If you say so," Wellington answered, but remained
doubtful. None of the
other techs in the ops room seemed to care; he didn't
know if it was
because they were indifferent to the act, or if they
were deliberately
ignoring his existence. "But won't the others give me
grief for signing
it off in the first place?"

"Listen up kid. T'n'T isn't Catholic School, and it
doesn't have nuns
with giant rulers roving the halls. Don't stress
yourself out about it,"
Alex then sat down, kicking back in the post while the
scenes on camera
all over played out. "Most everyone in Toratotaka is a
good sort, they
won't ream you for making an honest mistake...Save
maybe Kurusugawa
Ayaka."

"HER?" There was a strangled gurgle as Tom reflexively
grabbed his
chest. The act caused Alex to chuckle; apparently, the
kid already knew
EXACTLY who not to annoy in the company.

*He'll survive. Just needs to grow a backbone,* the
55C thought. Next,
he spoke aloud to allay the young man's present fears.
"Oh, don't worry
about it. Relax! Kurusugawa doesn't care a whit about
R&D or Logistics
as long as it doesn't bother her. You're in the clear.
90 per cent of
the time, she bitches about something just to bitch
about something."

"But shouldn't she..."

"Nope. Her brass-ass-plated worship's probably
counting the number of
cracks in the Great Wall of China and who she's going
to ream for it
today," Alex cheerily tapped the pencil to
 his metal head, apparently amused by the light
clerk-bell tone it
 produced. "That includes digging a hole all the way
to Hades, and
 questioning the denizens of hell herself. By Jove, I
think she's even
 going to blackmail Old Nick while she's at it!"

It was then that Tom finally snickered, relaxing for
the first time that
day. Alex might be a boomer, but no human being could
possibly beat his
twisted sense of humor. The younger Kurusugawa had
always been the
ComInt sort. And even though she was no longer an
SFIO, Ayaka still
preferred to handle the home front end of T'n'T's more
under-the-table
operations. To her face, they called it dedication.
Behind her back,
they called it a number of less pleasant,
unflattering, and often
amusing, things.

"Put it to you straight, rookie," the 55C twiddled a
pencil deftly
between thumb and forefinger, stopping to point it at
the scope-screen
from time to time. "As far as you and I are concerned,
Kurusugawa is
god. Of the repent-all-sinners, raining fire and
screaming brimstone
variety. Requiring living human sacrifices each and
every fortnight."

That was when a pair of deft female hands laid on
Alex's shoulders. The
55C felt the room go cold, even as he craned his neck
backwards to come
eye-to-eye with the subject in question. The normally
lovely face of
Ayaka Kurusugawa was curled up in barely restrained
rage as she looked
down on her subordinate. The second she raised a
eyebrow, the old boomer
suddenly got a sinking feeling in his biomechanical
stomach.

"Well, SAINT Alex...'god' commands you to shut your
blue metal trap and
meet her in her office down below in ten minutes,"
Ayaka smiled ferally
down on the 55C. "And if I EVER catch you calling me
'brass-plated' to
the new kids one more time, I'll personally recycle
your sorry little
blue butt, D5 case or not, into my new office
coffee-cup holder. And not
even Negako or the entire Kuromoroboshi Corps can stop
me."

"Yeah, about that. Uh..." caught red-handed, Alex's
optics shifted from
side to side for help. No such luck; the place cleared
out as surely as
it were suddenly radioactive, Tom Wellington there
only because he was
frozen in terror. The boomer finally tried his best
pleading tone:
"Would it help if I said..."

A loud WHANG sounded as Ayaka tipped the chair over,
sending the hapless
55C head-over-heels tumbling to the floor. All that
could be seen of
Alex were his size 17 sneakers.

"You," Ayaka glared at the new boy. "Get back to
work."

"Yes, your brass-ass-pla--" a panicked Wellington
suddenly clamped down
on his mouth, but it was already too late.
Kurusugawa's eyes narrowed
into razor-sharp slits.

"I. Am. WATCHING. You. Thomas. Alva. Wellington.
Remember that..."

=*=*=*=

It was late afternoon in MegaTokyo, but Canada was
only beginning to see
the wisps of morning. Tsurugi spent the last hour
cleaning out her room,
the temporary dorm where she and the other
Kuromoroboshi had settled
during their short stay in Canada. All of the girls in
the room were
drawn from different teams in Toratotaka, whom she had
heard of by name
but had no strong connections to. She hadn't felt up
to chatting with
her fellows as they were, mainly due to the focus of
her concentration.
The failed VR mission bugged her greatly, moreso than
she would openly
admit. The others seemed to either speak of it amongst
themselves, or
ignore it completely.

The fact that all but one of the other Kuromoroboshi
in the group failed
the same was of no source of comfort, either.

*Kurogane Otome...*

It was that one Kuromoroboshi, the one who had taken
the bed closest to
the dorm's entrance, that Tsubame took note of. Otome
wasn't assigned to
any of the active KMT units. In fact, she was barely
out of training
when she was transferred to the Canada exercises. None
of the KMT in the
room knew anything else about her, and Kurogane mainly
kept to herself.
Tsurugi wondered--the three weeks she had been
training, she'd not seen
much of her--a girl with few words to offer, and oddly
the same flat
demeanor their teacher Negako Moroboshi wore.

*And she was the only one to beat the sim,* Tsubame's
brow creased.

"Inspection!" Otome barked, a husky, almost boyish
tone in her cold,
commanding voice.

All snapped to respectful, if silent, attention, when
the tall, solid
silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway. Cousin to
Dame McTavish,
Jamie McTavish had been commander of FSDC for almost
as long as the unit
had been active, yet didn't seem to carry the same
look of age one
expected of such an office. The force leader of one of
the best military
units in the world glared at the Kuromoroboshi, from
head to toe with
the stern, masterful eye of a drill sergeant. The
T'n'T elites regarded
him with both awe and respect.

The FSDC commander nodded, then stepped outside. The
Kuromoroboshi knew
the routine, the blue-black hair of Otome Kurogane the
first to
disappear out the door. It was the man's style, to
step aside and speak
with trainees, give them his thoughts of their
performance. The dorm
door closed, and all was silent. What McTavish spoke
was to that person
and person alone; he knew better than to humiliate the
highly-motivated
in front of their peers. A few minutes and the door
opened again, the
next KMT snapping to attention with her carry bag and
exiting. This
would continue on for the next half-hour.

Tsubame was last. When her time came to leave, she
held her head high,
banishing thoughts of turmoil to the back of her mind.
Outside, Jamie
McTavish stood as the girl approached.

"Tsurugi," McTavish finally nodded. There was no one
else in the hall or
the room; what he was to say was for Tsubame's ears
alone. "Your
performance these few days were on par. However, that
last simulation
was a poor showing. Not something I'd expect from
Negako's students."

"I could have done better, Sir!" Tsubame snapped,
almost reflexively.

"Well, you certainly weren't able to use your full
capabilities in the
VR sim, were you?" McTavish's voice softened, and his
demeanor seemed to
warm. The James McTavish facing her now was less
authoritative, more
paternal this time, than the time she had spent with
his troops in the
past three weeks. "As you know, most of the others
failed that sim, as
well."

"Sir..." Tsurugi then felt it was the right time to
voice her complaint.
"It wasn't fair. In a real situation, I would have
been able to tell the
difference between the real Diedre and a fake."

"THAT, Tsurugi, was the whole point," The voice turned
stern once again,
and Tsubame wondered if she hadn't taken the wrong
tack.

Commander McTavish straightened. "The objective of the
simulation was to
test perception, not skills. Think of it as a
practical application of
your teacher's coda: never rely solely on technical
advantages, be
prepared for anything. Only Kurogane got it right."

"I see, sir," Tsurugi nodded, refraining from
mentioning her personal
experience with that fact, years back. She wondered
how Kurogane was
able to figure it out, but restrained herself from
asking. "I'll try to
learn from it."

"Tsubame, in the end, it's just a simulation. It
prepares you for the
real thing, but I have to say that there's lots of
things that the 'real
thing' could turn out to be that the simulation can't
simulate,"
McTavish was stopped by a long whistle, the officer of
the watch
signalling the last call for outbound flights for the
day. It wouldn't
do for him to delay the KM's return to MegaTokyo.
"Well, don't think too
badly about it. I'm sure you'll understand."

Tsubame didn't, but kept that thought to herself.

=*=*=*=

"M.Y. Home again?" Tomoru shrugged as he and his
partner made their way
down the back streets of the city. Neither were
thrilled over the dead
end they encountered on their case, the passing of the
lunch hour only
seemed to wear their patience even thinner. "Is there
a REASON you wanna
go to the same place for lunch everyday?"

"I'm hungry. End of discussion," Iwanaga snapped back
in response, but
it was more than that. The case they were assigned to
investigate was
the first real job they'd had in months. While divorce
investigation
cases were a-plenty, most of them were short cases,
just enough to get
them past the week. "Let's just go in there and eat
something. Okay?"

"Depends on what exactly you want eaten," Tomoru
ribbed his more serious
partner. "Say it man, you have the hots for Teresa."

"Can it!" Shingo finally yelled. "Look, Tomoru. All I
want..."

"...is to avoid having to eat that crap Kaoru serves
you up for lunch. I
COMPLETELY understand," Minazuki smirked at his
partner--who in turn had
nothing to say. Iwanaga's wife Kaoru had been on a
health kick since
three months ago, and contrary to Shingo's
predictions, had kept at it
constantly to the current day. "Jeez, you could file
for divorce with
all that rabbit food she's heaping on you.""

"I love my wife," Shingo finally, exasperatedly,
replied. "But if I
don't get a damn thick, rich, juicy steak in the next
hour, I'm going to
scream."

"Oh, I'd love to have some nice, juicy steak too,"
Tomoru continued to
needle his partner as the two stepped into the busy
cafe, making their
way to a small window table. "...but for today our
wallets tell us to
settle for M.Y. Home's budget special Burger."

"If you want, we could go down the street and pay
twice as much for that
McDonalds reconstituted beancurd protein and recycled
wet cardboard
crap," Shingo protested, but sat down without another
complaint.
Minazuki took the other seat. Neither spoke for a full
minute as the
busy sounds of the cafe continued on about them.
Finally, Iwanaga bent
over, burying his face in his hands. "Dammit, Tomoru.
This is the first
really big case we've had in years. BIG. I could
finally get my mortgage
paid off. Kaoru and I can finally start planning for
our first kid. This
is big, future-making money we're talking here, and AD
Police is telling
us to sod off. Bastards."

"Amen to that," Minazuki nodded, but his mind was
wandering. They were
hired, initially, to trace down a yacht that their
client said belonged
to his father. They were supposed to take pictures of
it, basically
build a case wherein their client--who preferred to
remain nameless--
could reposses the boat. The first cursory
investigation pointed the
pair towards the smaller of MegaTokyo's three private
harbor piers.
Simple enough, except that the two investigators found
no yacht, and a
dead body. Tomoru preferred to let Shingo do the
thinking, but it seemed
far too convenient for the two not to be connected. To
let go of his own
thoughts, he called out to a familiar waitress making
the rounds. "Hey
Teresa!"

"Tomoru! Shingo!" the waitress waved, then spoke with
her companion,
leaving the customers she was previously speaking with
to her care
before approaching the detectives at their table. "Ah!
It's been awhile
since I've seen you two."

"Hey, hey. Three days isn't 'awhile', you know,"
Minazuki responded with
mock indignance. He and Iwanaga had known M.Y. Home
ever since the
original had opened, and had gotten used to Teresa's
oddities for almost
as long. "How's Yuu doing with her foot, anyway? Cast
come off yet?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid. Doctor says another month or
so," Teresa nods,
taking out a pen from her pocket. "What will it be
today?"

"Give me the usual," Minazuki remarked. It was a
running gag, as he
never really had a usual meal at the place; Tomoru
liked to challenge
the owner to come up with something interesting for a
low-priced lunch.
"And make a double-ought cheeseburger for my friend
here."

"Eeeh? But isn't Kaoru trying to put you on a
vegetarian diet?" Espinoza
twittered cheerily, in a way that seemed more impish
than innocent. "Oh
dear...What will your wife say, Shingo?

Iwanaga mumbled threateningly.

"Special Double cheeseburger..." Espinoza smiled, not
missing a beat.

"Speaking of which, I notice there's a new girl with
you," Tomoru looked
past Teresa to give the new girl an eyeful. A longer
look and he
chuckled, giving the new girl an appreciative
once-over. "And man, does
she look nice in your waitress outfit."

"She's just sixteen, you cradle-snatcher. And a
country girl at that,"
Teresa chided the leering detective, tapping the end
of her pen on his
skull. All her seeming vapidity disappeared at that
moment, a hint to
both P.I.s that she was quite serious. "And if you
don't want staple
wire in your hamburger, you'll keep those dirty eyes
to yourself."

"You're no fun," Minazuki pouted, then turned his gaze
elsewhere. "So,
is the other new waitress jailbait too?"

Espinoza blinked, then turned to look at the 'other'
waitress the
detective mentioned.

=*=*=*=

"Yuu Asuka."

Mikage turned to the commanding voice she heard,
wondering who it was
that barked out such an order. The first thing she saw
was a woman not
much older than she, garbed in a blue waitress outfit
of a different cut
from the type she wore. Her face was pretty in a wild
sort of way, short
black hair cropped close like a lion's mane. But it
was the way the
woman carried herself that grabbed Sayo's
attention--tensed, like a
coiled spring waiting to lunge. Much like how some of
the troublemakers
in her old town moved when it was clear they were
looking for a fight.

"I'm Yuu Asuka," another voice interrupted before
Mikage could answer
the stranger. Yuu walked out of the kitchen, wiping
hands on a paper
towelette slowly as she limped into their view. There
was a stern look
on her face, as if she had been expecting this
encounter, prompting
Mikage to wonder if her new boss had gotten into an
argument with a
rival cafe. By now, the customers in M.Y. Home had
stopped to take stock
of the whole situation.

"Usui Kanako," the girl remarked with a cold stare, as
if all the other
people within were beneath her notice. "Kopaka Grill
Restaurant. Style:
Muay Thai. I challenge you to a duel."

*A Barbecue Grill?* hearing that, Sayo was torn
between being
underwhelmed and laughing her head off. Issuing
challenges between rival
fighting schools was one thing, but between
restaurants it sounded
downright...silly. Still, she knew fights themselves
were no joke.

"I'm not fighting you," Yuu replied. Sayo watched as
her boss stepped
out from behind the counter, to face the other woman.
Her plaster-cast
leg was clear in view, but there wasn't the slightest
hint of
understanding or pity from Kanako. Still, Yuu tapped
her injured foot
heel-down, the noise making a point all its own. "I
can't fight."

"I won't accept a forfeiture," Usui snobbishly
remarked, looking around
at the customers, who seemed rapt at the drama
unfolding before them.
"You're just afraid to fight me, that's all."

"I said I'm not fighting you!" Yuu replied, more
forcefully this time,
before turning around, ready to return to the kitchen.

"You were the winner of the last Venus Games three
years ago," Kanako
pointed at Yuu's back dramatically. Her bravado seemed
overriding any
sort of decorum she might have had about issuing a
very public
challenge. "I will be the winner this time, and I'll
prove it."

"You don't even know what the games are all about!"
Yuu continued behind
the counter, not looking back. Sayo stayed put, not
completely
comprehending what was going on, but was almost
assured that it was
over.

"Are you insulting me? You think I can't fight, right?
You think I can't
beat you!"

"...stupid..." It was then that Asuka stopped, turning
to face the girl.
There was a look in Yuu's eye that Sayo caught--a hint
of violence.
"Fine. For your own good, I'll fight you."

"Asuka-San, you can't fight her!" Mikage then gasped,
taking hold of the
owner's arm. Part of it was concern for her employer,
but another was to
avoid violence in the cafe if possible. "Your leg's
still sprained! You
can't fight in that condition!"

"A challenge was given," Kanako remarked.
Flippantly, she then shrugged. "Rules are rules."

"Thanks Sayo," Yuu then smiled, wagging her finger at
her as if she were
a little girl. She began to untie her apron, folding
it neatly to put
aside. "But I can handle myself. You don't need to
worry."

"That's unfair!" Mikage pleaded, though she knew it
was no good; both
Yuu and Kanako seemed ready to get started, right in
the middle of the
cafe. People around stopped in mid-meal, watching the
drama unfold.
Summoning her strength, Sayo then blurted aloud: "How
about a proxy?"

Kanako, for the first time, seemed jolted. "What?"

"A---a proxy," Mikage replied, suddenly standing
between the two. There
was no way she was going to let a fight boil over in
the cafe, but the
way the other girl crossed her arms smugly, She knew
there was little
other choice. There was no way she could let her new
boss, injured foot
and all, take a beating. Everyone was watching, which
made Mikage all
the more nervous. Before her boss could say anything
else, Sayo crossed
the distance to face Usui. "I'll go in Yuu's place."

"What?" Yuu blinked. "Sayo, you can't be serious--"

Usui raised a hand. "What's your name, kid?"

"Sayo," Mikage swallowed. "Mikage, Sayo."

"Hi," Kanako smirked. "Bye."

A sharp cry, and Kanako's fist shot out straight to
Sayo's face.  A
fast, solid blow, and Usui felt that her
opponent...wasn't there.

The next thing she knew, she was staring at the
ceiling.

...window.

...floor.

CRASH.

=*=*=*=

"A~~." was all the sentence Yuu could form as she saw
the Kopaka Grill
girl drop, face flat, onto her cafe's floor without
another word. The
cafe patrons were just as stunned into silence; it
simply happened too
fast for them to follow.

"Fifty-eight seconds," Teresa chirped from behind, as
she looked up from
her watch. "Wow, that's two minutes faster than your
best, Yuu-san."

Yuu shook her head as she watched Usui curse, then
slowly rise.

"I think she just made her mad."

=*=*=*=

"Ugh..." a dizzy Usui managed to mumble out, not
completely sure if she
was standing upright or somehow upside-down. She shook
her head
vigorously before realizing that the white square
shining in her face
was actually one of the floor tiles. Slowly pushing
herself off the
floor, she turned to look for her opponent. Sayo kept
both palms faced
toward Kanako, almost casual in the stance she chose.

There was silence in the cafe. Some of the newcomers,
ones who'd come
specifically to see a fight, wore looks of stunned
silence in their
eyes. Apparently, they had never seen Sayo or her
fighting style before,
and were chattering about it excitedly.

"You're a tricky one," Usui grinned slightly as she
stood. With a shake
of her head and a light chuckle, she returned to her
own, familiar
stance. "But tricks won't win the fight!"

Mikage had no return banter. Facing an unknown
opponent, she hadn't even
the slightest amount of flippancy. The concentration
was vividly
captured in the way she gave the other girl her full
attention, all
nervousness gone from her.

=*=*=*=

*Sayo's cautious,* Asuka noted, and remembered her own
failings. When
she first took up the martial arts, Yuu was quite
overconfident and too
sure of her own abilities, while oblivious to the way
that it hurt
others. Friends and family, most of all. In her own
mind she fought to
help protect her long-lost brother and their business,
but eventually,
she came to realize that the fighting arts she had
trained in were what
lost Masaki to her forever. Still, she was interested;
the fighting
style and frame of mind Sayo Mikage portrayed was
unfamiliar to her.
*What is it?*

"Nothing to say?" Kanako drew a breath, psyching
herself up for the next
attack. Inwardly she smiled. Hands clapped together as
she gave a formal
bow towards the other girl. It was flattering to think
that someone was
actually taking her seriously as a contender. And this
Sayo apparently
wasn't playing around. "All right, here I come again!"

She hadn't had the time to think.

=*=*=*=

Usui's reflexes and training taught her to attack the
foundation of an
enemy, the legs that held them straight and firm in
their stance. To
this, she used a short fast kick to the opponent's
shin or ankles using
the ball of her foot as the striking point. The 'Ti',
or push-kick as
some westerners call it, is normally used as a
keep-away action rather
than an attack. Muay Thai practitioners use it often
to gain some
distance from their opponents in a match. Aimed at the
legs, such a blow
was usually fast and powerful enough to injure one if
struck dead-on at
an enemy's ankles.

The blow did not connect, that much Kanako knew. No
self-respecting
martial artist of any caliber would stand around for
such, some trained
to skip backwards from an attempted kick. Grapplers
often feigned such
an attack to get a fighter to react, backing into a
trap, and Usui did
the same; she had planned to drive the new girl off
balance for another
blow.

Unfortunately, Sayo did not dodge so vibrantly. In
fact, to Kanako's
surprise, she did not dodge at all.

One second, Mikage was standing, palms facing Usui in
a somewhat on-
guard position. The next second, Mikage was standing
at an angle--right
beside Kanako as her kick shot out and missed her
target of feigned
attack. On the next quarter-second--Kanako wasn't
really counting the
time--she was thrown completely sideways in the
direction opposite of
where Mikage was--clear and away from the customers
present.

A disastrous CRASH sounded as Usui Kanako slammed to
the floor on her
left side before somersaulting legs-first--finally in
a humiliating,
undignified position on her rump to the absolute
laughter of all
spectators present.

"Dammit, stand still!" Usui yelled, though not before
glaring daggers at
the customers who'd laughed at her ill-timed landing.
Standing once
more, there was a cracking of knuckles before she
turned to face the
girl again. "I've had enough of you, kid! Warm-up is
over!"

The sudden right jab was lightning-fast, and had it
connected, it would
have made a jarring impact to one's skull. Mikage
ducked the blow, fast
though it was, but Kanako was not going to chance this
time; her aim was
now to take the other girl down at all cost. The jab
spun into a left
hooking knee strike, another Muay Thai weapon of
choice that aimed for
the ribs and stomach. Usui leapt into her knee's
movement, giving it
power and momentum that simple waist action could not
do. Kanako was
confident of a good hit, when she suddenly felt a soft
pair of palms
press on her belly.

*Wait, hang on a sec--*

All the wind flushed out of her lungs as the whole
world flew backwards
in her vision. Something flat, hard, and solid slammed
into her back--
and at once she wondered how anyone could throw a
concrete wall at her
from behind. Kanako's brain managed to form half the
thought of a curse
before her face kissed the floor.

=*=*=*=

"Cheee...no wonder Teresa told us to stay put," Tomoru
whistled after
seeing the lightning-fast exchange. He half-expected
the wild-haired,
loud waitress girl to get back up again after the last
hit, but she
hadn't moved since being plastered to the far end
wall. The whole
'fight', if it could be called such, took a minute and
a half. The
crowding mass of customers were now a-jabber with
discussion of what
they'd just seen. Some ruled it out as a cheap
marketing ploy by another
cafe, others wondered if this wasn't the sort of
hidden camera gag that
TV stations would play on unsuspecting everyday folk.
Minazuki was just
impressed with the fight, and lost no time in
admitting so. "This is
probably one of the coolest things I've seen happen
here."

"...It's like with Masaki all over again," Shingo
muttered morosely.
That had gotten Minazuki's attention; He looked to his
partner, who
seemed to be grinding his teeth at this revelation.
"This thing is
back."

"Don't exaggerate, Shingo. That was three years
ago..."

"You never know," Iwanaga glumly replied, even as he
watched Mikage rush
to the unconscious girl's side. *Crap has a bad way of
repeating itself
in this damned town...*

=*=*=*=

*That was incredible,* Asuka did not say aloud. The
cafe owner couldn't
believe what she'd just seen; an impressive display of
martial skill,
and yet it was like nothing she'd ever encountered
before. She'd been
practicing martial arts since childhood and had been
excellent at it,
but the way her new employee fought was something
else. As she and
Teresa approached Sayo and the unconscious Usui, the
cafe was abuzz with
talk and activity. The action had happened so fast and
smoothly that
many must have thought it a staged play for their
benefit.

And that was another thing. The way Mikage had
fought--none of the
bystanders were caught up in the action, despite the
speed of the
movements and the power with which Kanako had been
hitting. Sayo seemed
not to have used any effort or force at all,
redirecting the blows,
throwing Usui off at every angle--In effect, using all
of the Kopaka
Grill girl's massive strength against her. It was as
if, without making
any attempt at effort, she was in full control of the
entire fight, from
start to finish.

Mikage had turned the other girl on her back. Kanako
seemed almost
peacefully and blissfully asleep on the floor, even as
Sayo breathed a
sigh of relief, that her opponent had not been gravely
injured. As soon
as she noticed, her face turned upward to look at
Asuka.

"Sayo..." Yuu began, wondering whether to thank her
new employee, chide
her for interfering, or simply tell her to forget
about it. But at the
moment, with all the people in the cafe, and the way
things had suddenly
turned up, she had no idea how to begin.

"Yuu-san," Sayo had an honest, questioning look on her
face. "What's
this...Venus Games?"

=*=*=*=
=*=*=*=


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<i>"I figured Daredevil must be Catholic because only a Catholic could be both an attorney and a vigilante."</i> -<b>Frank Miller</b>
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