KIDS
"Uat is tees? Nite manoves?" asks Eddie to the young girl next to him, Jalissia, the oldest daughter of Kit Piper, observing the crowd of people, some of them very odd looking, gathering in the ample spaces of the Fish Factory.
"Night manouvrers? No, Eddie, this is a party!"
"Partee? Whas partee?"
"A party... a party is people enjoying each other company. And food, music, dances... having fun, you know?"
The two years and a half old kid shakes his head. "Back home, uncle Charlee never had fun. Only training. Be prepared, he olwees said Eddee".
"Never had fun? But what kind of uncle was your uncle Charley?"
"Caeend... good!" says Eddie
GUYS
The ample terrace overlooking the bay is lit by the moon, big and silver, and up on the zenith, like a big lamp suspended there right for the purpose of the party. Many people, humans and metahumans, males and females, are on the terraces, talking, drinking, dancing. Some of them can't even be ascribed to that category.
One is the giant turtle-like creature break-dancing on the tiled floor, surrounded by a crowd of cheering people, clapping their hands. Another is a young, human like being with long blond hairs, frowning at the turtle form a distance.
Bahagrupta and Tayden.
A demon and an angel.
"Why that face, Tayden? You seem the only one not to like the Lord of the flies and of the rotten lands. He's quite the attraction of the evening" says smiling Ozzie, offering a lager to the blond young man.
He refuses raising his open hand, without saying a word.
Ozzie raises an eybrows, quizzically, looking at Euro, that sits on the balaustrade closing the terrace, next to Tayden.
"Demons and angels don't bode well together, Baxter" explains the Italian.
Ozzie's eyes widens up. "You mean that... thing... is not another of those freaks from Jake's?"
"So he claims, Baxter" respond laconically Euro.
"What? What do you means by that? He is a demon and you know it, Ed. You call him uncle!" shouts, very uncharacteristically Tayden.
"Ahh, I don't know, Tayden. He claims of having being the "pet demon" of my mom, which was a... witch, let's call her this way. And I believe it, I mean, I believe he stayed at the order of my mom many years ago. But about his demonitude... if I can say so... I don't know. I see just one man with a very distorted and mutated figure, nothing more ugly or bizarre than Jake's catfish like body... and minor powers a lot less uncanny than Mick's one, by the way. So, if you ask me to be sincere, regardless of what you can think, yes, I believe he is a meta. I don't believe in demons, sorry. Not in the biblical sense. Sorry, Tayden." Euro shrugs.
"I can't believe YOU, of all the people, are saying that! And what about me? If I exist, why demons shouldn't?"
"Mhhh... Tayden, I even more sorry, but I don't think angels exist. Not in the sense you claims. I think you, too, are just a meta. I am sure you really believe of being one, but I am sure you are just a metahuman. Maybe you are near immortality, and had invisible powers that allowed you to see the life of other peoples, and now you have lost them, keeping your simple "emphatic" power... I think you should sympathize with Baaghrupta, he is more like you than what you would admit..." says Euro, opening his arms.
Tayden simply walked away.
"Oh oh, the catholic pissed the angel off!" remarks Grissom Montag, coming closer, after having watched the scene from afar. "So the Italian boy all church and restaurant have turned atheistic, eh? What happened, mate?"
"I am not atheistic, Griss. I believe in God and in the words of Christ. Just, how can we meet and fight with or alongside gods of ancient, lost religions, and believe OUR pantheon is not a creation of mind? I don't know if Tayden is just a man that believes of being an angel, or is an alien or inhabitant of a different dimension, or the creation of the beliefs of Christian people; what I can't stand is that a self proclaimed servant of God... a god that said "love your enemy".. is hostile toward a good fella like Baaghrupta. Just that."
"Just that? Really?"
"Well, I had access to the papers of the Annunaki... I found out how and when Nannar Sin made allegiance with a Sumerian patriarch and ordered him to leave Harran... I guess you understand what I am referring to."
"Perfectly. Quite interesting, too..."
Ozzie wonders what the two are talking about and left.
"And that doesn't make you at last a little more skeptic?" ask Montag.
"In all honesty, no. Looking at the see and the sky, feeling the breeze on my skin... it's enough proof, for me, that God exist."
GALS
Grissom Montag's eyes catch the brief glimpse of a well known woman across the many heads of the crowd.
"Guess who has come back!" he says. "Sorry Ed, we'll have to return on the matter later. I have a friend to welcome." The British walked away from Euro, toward the main hall.
A tall, oriental looking woman with short black hairs is his target.
"Nadia! I have been to the hospital in Trieste, but you where gone. What happened?" says Grissom, teleporting himself right in front of the woman.
"Griss!" exclaims Nadia, jumping back, startled by the apparition. "I have met... friends. But I have come to say goodbye."
The woman wears a long silk dress, practically transparent, that allows a complete vision of her body tattoo, the Sumerian god EN-LIL. whose eyes, tattooed over the woman's nipples, are looking very malevolently at the British archaeologist. Or so they seem.
"You seem fascinated by my tattoo, Griss. Would you take a look closer? My room should still be empty" Nadia smiles mischievously.
Grissom's mouth left corner bends up, as he offers the lady his arms, making way for the stairs.
In that moment, on the terrace, a green glow forms out of nowhere and then fades out, revealing a tall woman in a strange metal suit, a cross between an high tech gear and a ancient greek armor. As being liquid, the armor melts, becoming a navel ring on the flat belly of the woman.
"Jackie!" shouts Drake across the terrace, recognizing the ex Vanguard member to whom he was paired on his first mission exactly an year before. His hoverchair buzzes its way toward the woman. "Jakie! Where did you disappear to?"
Jackie Monroe, Ameristar, turns toward the young man. "Drake! What happened to you, too?" and then she bites her lower lips, for the gaffe.
"Oh, condition worsened. Nothing I was not prepared to. But, tell me about you. After the mission in Africa, you did disappear. Miss Xyang said it was all ok, but we never get to know what happened to you" explains the young man.
"Eh, it's a long story. Basically I fought a conspiracy between Hoods, Futurists, Saros, our friend Euro and the Task Force of Jack Merlin. And we... me and my allies... did a good job. How's Ed, now?"
"He has returned five days ago, seems fine and has his kid with him. And the sword's gone, luckily. He seems a complete different person, now."
"Glad to hear that...."
"But you? What do you mean by conspiracy? And Merlin, what role did he have in that?"
"Ah, Drake, it's a complicate matter. That's why I kept vanguard out of that. There was Euro involved, and it was all spy-game and double crossing... Merlin was one of the bad guy, but we used him to fulfill our goals... surely he gained credit, too, and the Strikeforce is a follow up of that role he had..."
"And that's why you left, Jackie?"
"No, not exactly. You see, Merlin raped my... friend... Crasher, you remember her, right? The second rape she suffered in few months... she snapped out... and her father... and my master... asked me to bring her... away."
"Oh, I am sorry to hear that, Jackie. How she is, now?"
"Drake, it's too early to say that. She tried suicide three times. I hope she will recover... she is so young... too young to die..."
The man doesn't say anything, and just put his right hand over her shoulders.
Jackie raises her head, a sad smile appearing on her mouth, when her eyes catch the well know figure of a well endowed woman going up the stairs, arm in arm with Grissom Montag.
A woman she did not see for many months, now. More than a year.
"BITCH!" shouts Jackie, as the Gaia stone encased in her navel ring command the transformation of the living metal back into the armor.
Leaving Drake behind, Ameristar catapult herself toward the main hall and the stairs, firing bullets from her gauntlets at the adress of Nadia.
"BASTARD TRAITOR! How you dare to come here, you fucking piece of shit? Or maybe this is right your place, stinking rotten fish!" A flowing torrent of imprecations vomits outside the fuchsia gloss lips of Jackie Monroe.
Nadia jumps with grace over the stairs, avoiding the bullets. At the end of her last jump, she lands near a waiter, and quickly she takes his tray and throws it, like a freesbee, precisely over the jet pack of the Gaia armor, causing the fall of Ameristar before she has the time of teleporting away.
Every one of the people present is staring at the scene, unable to take side. Although no one ever saw the two ex-Vanguardians together, no one would have though they were not on their best terms, or even they knew each others. Especially their teammates are frozen, puzzled and fascinated by that fight so similar to a complex and graceful dance.
Quick as a panther, Nadia is over Ameristar, but the last gives a tremendous blow to one of Nadia's knee, making her fall to the ground. Ameristar stand up, and is about to kick the face of the Asian woman, when a giant hand stop her leg just one inch from Nadia's nose.
It's an horned giant, with a long curly beard and eyes like fire. The tattoo of Nadia's gone. The three meters tall demon take the armor with his both hands, and tore it apart like a tin can. The metal liquify back into the navel ring, and Nadia is fast to rip it out of Jackie's belly, and to throw it away, across the room.
As the tall woman cries for the pain, Nadia shouts "EN-LIL, back home!" The tall demon disappears back, returning to the form of tattoo over the body of the woman.
Nadia stand in the middle of the room, wiping away wheat and blood from her own face with her right arm. Then, she waves her index finger, to and from her face, looking at Ameristar. "Come on, sister, show me what you can do without your stone..."
Jackie put her closed right hand on the floor, and pushed over it to stand up, looking at Nadia with fiery eyes behind her long, blonde hairs. "Witch, I will teach you how we threat traitors!"
Jackie pulls herself up, and jumps in air, landing with her feet right over Nadia's chest. The oriental woman rolls down, and away, but is back on her feet in an instant, waiting Jackie in a karate stand.
"I don't understand why you call me traitor. I just left Myrrdin when I though I couldn't agree with his moves. I wouldn't have sell any secret to anybody, if I knew any secret. A thing I don't, by the way. You know how many things Myrrdin let spill out."
The two girls are now one in front of the other, exchanging blows that are warden off with great skill.
"You mettled with Euro's condition!" shouts Jackie.
"You didn't do anything to save him!" responds Nadia.
"You just wanted his sword!" yells Jackie, finally able to send a fist to Nadia's jaw.
The woman falls on the floor, but suddenly jumps on her feet, kicking Jackie right in the belly. "I could have spared him a lot of pain and many lives taken, if you would have helped me to take the sword!"
Jackie wipes away blood from her mouth. "You made league with Saros! You fucked with Merlin, bitch!"
"It was just in the line of works, witch. Like you never opened your ass to gather informations!"
"You bastard fat pig! You could have freed EN-LIL over Earth, with your lust for power!"
"You disillusioned amateur! Ready to leave this planet to Chaos for the pussy of that kid!"
"NOW STOP! I HAD ENOUGH!" At the top of the stairs, her katana in the right hand, dressed in a black silk kimono with a red winged dragon painted over, Nuriko has appeared.
