Adventures In Parodyverse: Act Of Desperation, Part 3

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Adventures In Parodyverse - Act of Desperation, Part 3

    It looked like a war, all right. But not exactly what Yuki had in mind when Akiko told her that's what the preparations the Zoot Suit Gang were making were for.

    The Paradopolis Police Special Weapons and Tactics unit, along with dozens of police officers in full riot gear, rumbled down Zero Street only minutes after the meeting with Akiko. Yuki tapped into the police communication system to try and find out what's going on.

    "They're ordering a round up," Yuki said. "Apparently the last street battle was enough to make our inept police department take notice."

    "That's not a nice thing to say about them," Jay pointed out.

    "But fair," Yuki retorted.

    Jay shrugged, but didn't reply. He looked at Chiaki to see if she had any thoughts.

    "It's a geurilla battle we've been fighting," Chiaki spoke softly. "The Zero Street Gang probably called the police themselves to force the Zoot Suit Gang to either leave or face arrest."

    "Why would they do that?" Jay asked.

    Akiko seemed amused by the question. "Because they were losing, of course."

    Chiaki nodded in agreement. "They are trained well enough to avoid contact with the police. It's the Zoot Suit gang that posed a real danger to them. With them out of the way the Zero Street Gang can choose their enemy."

    "So they're coming here?" Yuki began to catch on.

    "Oh, great," Jay worried. He looked at Chiaki, who seemed very confident and not the slightest bit nervous.

    Akiko only smiled and broke the news.

---

    Jay was pale when Akiko finished explaining just what was going on around Zero Street, and Mangatown, and just about all of Paradopolis right under his, and the Lair Legion's, noses. How the Zero Street Gang was the Lynchpin's idea to control all the crime in Paradopolis by wiping out rivals or forcing them to play along. And how the Lynchpin had a master plan to take a share of every black-market and grey-market dollar made in the greater Paradopolis and Gothametropolis area.

    "Greedy bastard, isn't he?" Yuki commented when the tale was told.

    "As you can see," Akiko continued, "I may not have the resources to confront the Lynchpin directly but I have managed to convince Frankie and the Zoot Suit gang to do just that. He has so little foresight, that man...but I give him points for style. He managed to convince Gamona to leave the Lynchpin's employ."

    "You have the resources," Chiaki tried to convince her.

    "In the short term, yes," Akiko explained. "But as you can see, the Lynchpin and everyone associated with him...the Zero Street Gang...are relentless. I don't have the resources to fight a continual battle with him."

    "And that's why you're hiding out?" Jay asked.

    "That is a clever part of my plan," she replied. "The Lynchpin does not know I'm here. The Zero Street Gang will only report to him that I haven't been at my office. He will think he is succeeding while I wear him down from angles he never perceives."

    "The Lynchpin is no slouch," Yuki warned. "Well, he is, but he can't help it because chairs aren't designed for lumbar support on someone measured in tons, but that's not important. I mean he likely has contingencies of his own planned."

    Akiko glanced at Chiaki for a moment. "I have a secret weapon," she said calmly. "to help me always stay one step ahead."

    "Hmm." Yuki was skeptical, but she left it at that.

    The pink crime lord sensed Yuki's skepticism and prodded Chiaki to prove her worth. "Tell her how you stay one step ahead."

    Jay was genuinely curious too, wondering if once and for all the Psychic Samurai would be proven to live up to her name.

    "I have placed myself as an intermediary," Chiaki told them. "Using a false identity, of course. The Lynchpin has thought for years that he is doing business with a trusted associate."

    "I thought he disliked doing business with women," Yuki pointed out.

    "I keep all identity concealed," Chiaki explained. "He sends me email with a request. All financial transactions are electronic. Ironically--" she added with a sly smile, "He trusts me more as an associate because I reveal nothing."

    "And that will be his undoing," Akiko added. "I don't intend to bring him down. But I do intend to cripple him so he crawls back to Gothametropolis with his tail between his legs."

    "I think Frankie did a pretty good job of that already," Yuki noted. "He took Gamona, the Lynchpin's number one assassin."

    Akiko laughed at that. "You are misinformed. Frankie offered her the suit. But he also offered her freedom. She is freelance now, free to accept any work she's offered. The Lynchpin never allowed that, he treated her like a pet attack dog, and she was bored."

    "It wouldn't have taken much convincing," Chiaki added. "With SR1066 looking to become law, Gamona had to be afraid of being kept close to the Lynchpin. It's quite likely he would have used it to keep a short leash on her, to ensure her obedience."

    "More irony," Akiko added, "The very bill the Lynchpin is so strongly in favor of is crippling his support systems."

    "His weight is crippling his support systems even more," Yuki pointed out.

    "Come on, Yuki, enough with the weight jokes," Jay complained.

    "Have you ever been to his office?" Yuki asked. "I'm convinced he never leaves there because he can't get through the door."

    Chiaki laughed, causing tea to nearly come out of her nose. Akiko looked down, seeming amused, but she didn't visibly laugh.

    "Does anyone else find it disturbing that the Zero Street Gang is coming here to take us out?" Jay asked suddenly.

    Akiko seemed amused by that. "Jay, did you think about why this safehouse is above a comic book store?"

---

    "Can I help you?" the comic book store clerk asked as a group of four young men in black tee-shirts with a zero on the back wandered the store aimlessly. All four of them had shaved heads.

    "Where's Akiko Masamune?" one of them asked. "Asian, wears pink all the time?" he clarified when the clerk seemed confused.

    The clerk laughed. "Dude, if I could get an Asian girl wearing pink in here this place would be packed."

    "Where does that door go?" the gang member asked. He pulled it open just as he got his answer.

    "The bathroom."

    The shaved head man slammed the door and coughed as the smell reached him.

    "Yeah. The toilet is backed up. I have a guy coming to fix it."

    "We're wasting our time," another gang member piped up.

    "No, we're not," the first guy disagreed. "Start tearing this place apart. There has to be a door somewhere."

    As shelves were being pulled off the wall and comics and action figures were thrown to the floor, the clerk quietly began tallying their value on the cash register.

    And then Hatman appeared in the doorway.

    "Oh, thank god, it's Hatman!" the clerk exclaimed. "These guys owe me four hundred bucks in damages so far."

    "Get him!" the lead gang member charged. They pulled out knives and ran at Hatman...

    ...and the blades of the knives were broken clean off with a single swipe of a very long and sharp sword. Before any of them could draw guns the sword was at the throat of the supposed leader, and a young Asian woman was at the other end.

    The other gang members drew guns and pointed them at Chiaki.

    "Psychic or not," the leader said, seeming to have knowledge of the Psychic Samurai's existence, "You can't stop three people from shooting you."

    "But I can." Yuki suddenly snatched one of the two armed men and tossed him into the other two, piling them on top of each other.

    "Fine, you got us," the leader said. "But we'll just be back out of jail in an hour."

    "That's not why we captured you," Chiaki told him. "We need to know where you are based."

    "I'm not telling you nothin'."

    "Very well," Chiaki sighed. She pressed the sword against his chin and sliced gently into his flesh, giving him the distinct impression that she was slitting his throat.

    "All right, all right!" he let out those strangled words, and gasped when the pressure of the sword was removed from his skin. "Look, all I know is that the guy in charge calls himself Patient Zero. We go where he tells us."

    "Now that's a stupid name," Yuki pointed out.

    "How dare you make fun of a great leader!" the leader launched himself at Yuki in a fury. Chiaki, simply out of amusement, let him go, knowing that he had no idea what he was getting himself into. "How dare--"

    He was cut off in mid-sentence as Yuki hit him hard on the shoulder, crumpling him unconcious to the ground.

    "Yuki!" Jay protested, "How are we going to get information out of him now?"

    "I could wake up him," Yuki suggested, "But you won't like how I do it."

    "Patient Zero," Chiaki mumbled to herself, seeming lost in thought. "Why would he select such a name? And why do his gang behave more like followers than employees?"

    "Usually the term 'patient zero' refers to the first person to contract a virus--" She looked in horror at Jay and Chiaki. "Do you two feel okay?" She scanned them quickly with infrared to make sure their body temperatures seemed normal.

    "It's a philisophy," Akiko Masamune interrupted as she suddenly entered the room. "Not a virus. It's a blood oath. Quite barbaric if you ask me."

    "I think I understand," Jay finally piped up. "His philosophy is infectious, not a virus. It's stupid, but it kind of makes sense."

    "He believes that the world has turned its back on metas," Akiko told them, "and if they want rights they have to take them by force. You have to understand these are all people who have just been released from prison, and believe they were placed there unjustly. Patient Zero is fanning dangerous flames."

    "What's going to happen when we arrest him?" Jay asked, feeling a chill as he anticipated the answer.

    "You'd better bring an army," Akiko warned.

    Yuki shrugged. "For now that's a moot point. We have to find him first."

    "That part is easy," a calm female voice replied. It was Gamona, still wearing the zoot suit but alone.

---

    Jay felt unsure and a little afraid of being led anywhere by the woman who tried to kill him so many times. But he was following Chaki's confident lead - the Psychic Samurai was unafraid of the alien assassin Gamona, and didn't even keep her hand near her sword.

    The Zero Street Gang was smarter than anyone thought. While their name implied a base near Zero Street, and even their 'soldiers' were present almost exclusively there, their base was a few blocks away. Their leader, Patient Zero, waged war two streets away while he remained safe.

    "How did you know where this place was?" Yuki asked Gamona. She didn't seem afraid either, but Yuki wasn't afraid of anyone.

    "He invited me to join his gang," Gamona explained. She didn't say any more about it as she led them to the door. "This is as far as I go," she said. "I don't fight other people's battles for free anymore."

    Chiaki bowed slightly. "I thank you for the great help you've given us already. Have a good journey."

    Gamona nodded and lowered the hat she wore slightly as she silently slipped into the distance.

    "This is it." Yuki sounded both excited and nervous. "I can feel it."

    Jay and Chiaki didn't bother to comment. They just pushed the door open together and entered the building.

    The inside of the building was dark and moldy-smelling. The sound of water dripping came form somewhere inside, but no one could tell exactly where.

    "He's an elemental," Chiaki whispered. "Like Liu Xi."

    Jay looked at her, confused, wondering once again just how psychic she might be.

    "Every element is represented here," she pointed out. "In this building. It's a hideout and a trap in one."

    "He can't use void too, can he?" Yuki asked.

    "That is very rare," Chiaki told her. "Liu Xi is likely the only person on Earth who can."

    "How can we fight an elemental?" Jay asked. "Seeing as how we don't have Liu Xi with us."

    Chiaki looked at him as if the answer were so simple. "We don't," she said. "We trick him instead."

TO BE CONTINUED

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2006 by Jason Froikin, and may not be
-- reprinted without permission.
-- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
-- Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
-- Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin

Post By Anime Jason Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 08:02:45 pm EST	Subject Adventures In Parodyverse: Act Of Desperation, Part 3

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