Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - Nine at the Beginning

[Guo Zhenglai]

The yarrow stalks are cast…

Heaven is above, the lake below;
The image is one of Treading.

The Sage treads on the tiger’s tail,
And is not bitten.

Success.


A nine at the beginning:
Simple conduct. Progress without blame.

Hong Kong. It was one of two special administration districts in all of the People’s Republic of China, the other being Macau. It was a sprawling urban morass that one couldn’t fully imagine until they’d actually walked its streets. It had inspired movies, video games, television shows, and cultural trends, and it had been a center of international business for decades. These days, its population exceeded 9 million persons, and almost all of them were concentrated in the north of Hong Kong Island and the legendary city of Kowloon. Though many of the world’s common people have continued to remain blissfully unaware of it (despite innumerable movies and books on the subject), Hong Kong had also been the center of Triad activity since around World War II.

Just over two miles southwest of Kowloon, and across the Hong Kong Harbor, was Lan Kwai Fong, for the past several decades one of the two most famous and frequented night life scenes in the entire city. Whether you were a tired expat businessman just looking for a good place to stop in for a drink after a long day of work or a young tourist looking for a good place to party the night away, Lan Kwai Fong had a place to meet your needs. C Club, one of the Hong Kong’s most popular and reliable dance clubs, was one such place.

A little after midnight in mid-July, the temperature still hovered somewhere around 80 degrees, and the air was hot and sticky. Despite this, Lan Kwai Fong was as crowded as ever, with hundreds of people of both genders, and many different nationalities roaming the streets. Working his way slowly through the crowds, and leaning heavily on an antique cane, was a man who was nearly a century older than most of those he passed. For the most part, the crowds parted willingly as the ancient little man approached, eyeing him quizzically and hiding a smile as he passed. Many of them wondered what a helpless old man like him thought he was doing wandering around Hong Kong’s Party Central at such a late hour - none of them would ever realize that he was probably the least helpless person on the entire street.

The bouncers for C Club were not really prepared when the oldest looking man they’d ever seen requested entry into the club, but they are not really prepared for how disarmingly polite and charming he was either, and almost before they’d had time to realize what was going on the old man was past them, and hobbling his way through the crowds towards the back of the house. Their confusion was short-lived however; within moments, both bouncers quite literally had no memory of the old man’s passing; it was as though he never existed as far as they were concerned. Within, the old man was quickly swallowed up in the churning crowds, lost to both sight and memory.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Flitting between the Hong Kong skyscrapers, far above the milling nighttime crowds below, Tso Gui made his way to his target. Technically, Tso Gui was only a sze kau in the Wo Shing Wo triad, but he was also a nova, and so he was so much more than a mere sze kau as well. In fact, it would have been fair to say he was a rising star within the Wo Shing Wo. Someday soon, Tso Gui expected to be promoted. But for the moment, he had his mission.

Tso Gui was about to kill a man. It wouldn’t be his first time, oh no, but it would be one of the most important kills of his career. With this one kill, his entire brotherhood would be pushed to the fore of the Hong Kong underworld and the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood would be quickly crushed under their heels. Tso Gui could hardly wait - it would be just like in the movies - guns blazing, quantum powers flashing, honor, betrayal, sex, death, glory, and power! He would be a hero.

But first, he needed to stop his freefall, or else he would only succeed in becoming a wet stain on the concrete. Hard to become a hero after that. Focus, Gui, focus.

Catching himself on one of the hundreds of banners that hung between the buildings of Central District, Tso Gui spun on the taut chord, letting go when his body was horizontal, the street and its crowds some 40 or 50 meters below his back, and launched himself at a phenomenal speed into the heart of a narrow street more crowded with banners and flyers above than with people below - and there was quite a crowd out tonight, too. He performed a dazzling series of mid-air back flips, twists, and turns, and narrowly missed steel cabling, sturdy billboards, and hanging banners with each maneuver. Each time Tso Gui began to lose altitude, a quick spin on one of the dozens of steel cables spanning between the buildings, or a casual leap from a ledge or scaffolding was all it took to regain it again.

Finally, Tso Gui reached his destination via a stunning display of silent acrobatics that required the use of three billboards, two ledges, one handy scaffolding, and two more steel cables, all of it culminating in an ever so soft landing on a window ledge a mere three stories over the heads of hundreds of late-night partiers stumbling back and forth between the pubs and clubs that line Lan Kwai Fong street. A few quick, furtive movements with the window’s catch, and it was open. Tso Gui told the building’s alarms to keep silent, which they did, and then he slipped in through the window and into the room beyond. Now, he just had to wait.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

The yarrow stalks are cast…

Heaven is above, the lake below;
The image is one of Treading.

The Sage treads on the tiger’s tail,
And is not bitten.

Success.


A nine at the beginning:
Simple conduct. Progress without blame.

Hong Kong. It was one of two special administration districts in all of the People’s Republic of China, the other being Macau. It was a sprawling urban morass that one couldn’t fully imagine until they’d actually walked its streets. It had inspired movies, video games, television shows, and cultural trends, and it had been a center of international business for decades. These days, its population exceeded 9 million persons, and almost all of them were concentrated in the north of Hong Kong Island and the legendary city of Kowloon. Though many of the world’s common people have continued to remain blissfully unaware of it (despite innumerable movies and books on the subject), Hong Kong had also been the center of Triad activity since around World War II.

Just over two miles southwest of Kowloon, and across the Hong Kong Harbor, was Lan Kwai Fong, for the past several decades one of the two most famous and frequented night life scenes in the entire city. Whether you were a tired expat businessman just looking for a good place to stop in for a drink after a long day of work or a young tourist looking for a good place to party the night away, Lan Kwai Fong had a place to meet your needs. C Club, one of the Hong Kong’s most popular and reliable dance clubs, was one such place.

A little after midnight in mid-July, the temperature still hovered somewhere around 80 degrees, and the air was hot and sticky. Despite this, Lan Kwai Fong was as crowded as ever, with hundreds of people of both genders, and many different nationalities roaming the streets. Working his way slowly through the crowds, and leaning heavily on an antique cane, was a man who was nearly a century older than most of those he passed. For the most part, the crowds parted willingly as the ancient little man approached, eyeing him quizzically and hiding a smile as he passed. Many of them wondered what a helpless old man like him thought he was doing wandering around Hong Kong’s Party Central at such a late hour - none of them would ever realize that he was probably the least helpless person on the entire street.

The bouncers for C Club were not really prepared when the oldest looking man they’d ever seen requested entry into the club, but they are not really prepared for how disarmingly polite and charming he was either, and almost before they’d had time to realize what was going on the old man was past them, and hobbling his way through the crowds towards the back of the house. Their confusion was short-lived however; within moments, both bouncers quite literally had no memory of the old man’s passing; it was as though he never existed as far as they were concerned. Within, the old man was quickly swallowed up in the churning crowds, lost to both sight and memory.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Flitting between the Hong Kong skyscrapers, far above the milling nighttime crowds below, Tso Gui made his way to his target. Technically, Tso Gui was only a sze kau in the Wo Shing Wo triad, but he was also a nova, and so he was so much more than a mere sze kau as well. In fact, it would have been fair to say he was a rising star within the Wo Shing Wo. Someday soon, Tso Gui expected to be promoted. But for the moment, he had his mission.

Tso Gui was about to kill a man. It wouldn’t be his first time, oh no, but it would be one of the most important kills of his career. With this one kill, his entire brotherhood would be pushed to the fore of the Hong Kong underworld and the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood would be quickly crushed under their heels. Tso Gui could hardly wait - it would be just like in the movies - guns blazing, quantum powers flashing, honor, betrayal, sex, death, glory, and power! He would be a hero.

But first, he needed to stop his freefall, or else he would only succeed in becoming a wet stain on the concrete. Hard to become a hero after that. Focus, Gui, focus.

Catching himself on one of the hundreds of banners that hung between the buildings of Central District, Tso Gui spun on the taut chord, letting go when his body was horizontal, the street and its crowds some 40 or 50 meters below his back, and launched himself at a phenomenal speed into the heart of a narrow street more crowded with banners and flyers above than with people below - and there was quite a crowd out tonight, too. He performed a dazzling series of mid-air back flips, twists, and turns, and narrowly missed steel cabling, sturdy billboards, and hanging banners with each maneuver. Each time Tso Gui began to lose altitude, a quick spin on one of the dozens of steel cables spanning between the buildings, or a casual leap from a ledge or scaffolding was all it took to regain it again.

Finally, Tso Gui reached his destination via a stunning display of silent acrobatics that required the use of three billboards, two ledges, one handy scaffolding, and two more steel cables, all of it culminating in an ever so soft landing on a window ledge a mere three stories over the heads of hundreds of late-night partiers stumbling back and forth between the pubs and clubs that line Lan Kwai Fong street. A few quick, furtive movements with the window’s catch, and it was open. Tso Gui told the building’s alarms to keep silent, which they did, and then he slipped in through the window and into the room beyond. Now, he just had to wait.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A nine in the second place:
Treading a smooth, level course.
The perseverance of a dark man

Brings good fortune.

Above C Club was C Bar, which, coincidentally enough, served drinks and provided a quieter venue for those wishing to get off their feet and enjoy a good time with friends. And above C Bar? There are few who knew, and most of them knew many other things besides, most of which could get them arrested.

Ru Fei Long is one of those who knew what was above C Bar - indeed, he was above C Bar now - and he did know quite a bit more besides, and yes, much of it could (and probably would) get him arrested one of these days. Ru Fei Long was a member of the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood. His number was 49, and he was assigned as a bodyguard for Chiang Wang (no relation to the much more famous Kai-shek), whose number was 415, and who was the White Paper Fan of the Chiu-Chiao chapter in Hong Kong. The rooms above C Bar were the offices of Chiang Wang, which is why Chiang was here, which in turn was why Ru Fei Long was here.

“What time is it?”, asked Wang.

Yang Shan glanced at his watch and stifled a sigh of irritation, “it’s just after midnight, Chiang.”

As Chiang Wang was the advisor for the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood in Hong Kong, so Yang Shan was the advisor for Chiang Wang. As such, his position carried more authority, if not more respect, than that of Ru’s own position in Chiang’s retinue.

Chiang Wang cursed under his breath and glared angrily ahead as he walked, “Goddammit! How do I always wind up late to these conference calls?”

Ru Fei Long rolled his eyes and said nothing.

“With respect, brother”, said Yang Shan, his tone dry and only slightly reprimanding, “you were the one who insisted on stopping in Wan Chai first. Perhaps we should wait until after these meetings before seeking out entertainment for the night?”

“Oh, don’t lecture me, Shan, not right now!” muttered Chiang, “and you, Fei Long, why didn’t you say anything? Aren’t you supposed to be watching out for us?”

Fei Long had learned enough about his new boss in the two months since he’d been assigned to him to know that he wasn’t really angry, at least not at him. This was just his way, and Fei Long took no offense at it.

“Apologies, Tai Lou, I will strive to do better next time.”

“Ha! You see?”, chuckled Chiang Wang as he gave Yang Shan a slap on the shoulder, and shook his finger playfully but annoyingly under Shan’s nose, “Fei Long knows how to show proper respect! You could learn a few things from him, I think.”

Yang Shan smiled and was about to respond, but instead he jerked his back sharply, the smile still on his face, but the light gone from his eyes. Ru Fei Long, who had just looked back with a smile of his own on his lips, knew immediately what had happened, and immediately reached for his guns as he spun around, his smile gone as quickly as it had appeared. Behind him, Yang Shan’s corpse traced a lazy arc through the air before it hit the ground, blood just beginning to stream from the bullet hole directly through the center of his forehead.

The door to Chiang Wang’s office was still nicely closed, a single bullet hole marring its surface, when Fei Long turned back towards it. As he watched another hole suddenly appeared next to, and a little below it, and this time he heard the cracking sound as the wood splintered with the bullet’s passing. He also felt it as the bullet hit him in the left shoulder, nearly spinning him around with the force of it.

Just for the hell of it, Fei Long raised the gun in his right hand and fired off three shots at the door.

*Damn, this hurts! Gotta move! Gotta get the boss, and move!* he thought as he turned and ran back down the hall. He grabbed Chiang with his good arm and hollered, “go!”, gritting his teeth in pain as he fired off the gun in his left hand and felt the recoil as it vibrated past the gunshot wound in his shoulder.

For a baseline, Ru Fei Long was very good. In fact, it was not entirely out of the question that he was the most dangerous baseline on the island - perhaps the entire territory. But even so, when the door to Chiang’s office suddenly flew off its hinges and went hurtling down the hall towards Fei Long and Wang, his reflexes were only just fast enough for him to more or less fall on top of his boss, dragging them both down to the floor as the door went sailing overhead.

No sooner was the door past him than Fei Long was up and moving, but no sooner was he up than he found himself watching what his fear-addled mind irrationally identified as one of the Eight Immortals moving towards him, hobbling on a cane. *Must be Iron Crutch Li, then* thought Fei Long, wondering if maybe blood loss was already causing him to experience hallucinations as he raised his gun to fire at the old man.

Fei Long didn’t see the old man’s cane move, but he certainly felt it when it struck his hand, leaving him with one more stinging pain and causing his gun to fly out of his hand and bounce off of a nearby wall before skittering across the tiled floor of the hall. Then the Immortal slipped between him and the terrified Chiang Wang with no more difficulty than water, and continued down the hall.

Stunned, frightened, and in pain, Fei Long turned to watch his hallucination as it limped towards the battered doorframe of Chiang’s office and the dark figure that now filled it. The assassin was dressed in some kind of futuristic-looking ninja suit or something, complete with a mask. But one look at the glowing red eyes peering out from that mask, and Fei Long knew what he’d already begun to suspect; his enemy was a nova, and all that stood between them was Fei Long’s hallucinations.

*This is not my night* thought Ru Fei Long.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A nine in the second place:
Treading a smooth, level course.
The perseverance of a dark man

Brings good fortune.

Above C Club was C Bar, which, coincidentally enough, served drinks and provided a quieter venue for those wishing to get off their feet and enjoy a good time with friends. And above C Bar? There are few who knew, and most of them knew many other things besides, most of which could get them arrested.

Ru Fei Long is one of those who knew what was above C Bar - indeed, he was above C Bar now - and he did know quite a bit more besides, and yes, much of it could (and probably would) get him arrested one of these days. Ru Fei Long was a member of the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood. His number was 49, and he was assigned as a bodyguard for Chiang Wang (no relation to the much more famous Kai-shek), whose number was 415, and who was the White Paper Fan of the Chiu-Chiao chapter in Hong Kong. The rooms above C Bar were the offices of Chiang Wang, which is why Chiang was here, which in turn was why Ru Fei Long was here.

“What time is it?”, asked Wang.

Yang Shan glanced at his watch and stifled a sigh of irritation, “it’s just after midnight, Chiang.”

As Chiang Wang was the advisor for the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood in Hong Kong, so Yang Shan was the advisor for Chiang Wang. As such, his position carried more authority, if not more respect, than that of Ru’s own position in Chiang’s retinue.

Chiang Wang cursed under his breath and glared angrily ahead as he walked, “Goddammit! How do I always wind up late to these conference calls?”

Ru Fei Long rolled his eyes and said nothing.

“With respect, brother”, said Yang Shan, his tone dry and only slightly reprimanding, “you were the one who insisted on stopping in Wan Chai first. Perhaps we should wait until after these meetings before seeking out entertainment for the night?”

“Oh, don’t lecture me, Shan, not right now!” muttered Chiang, “and you, Fei Long, why didn’t you say anything? Aren’t you supposed to be watching out for us?”

Fei Long had learned enough about his new boss in the two months since he’d been assigned to him to know that he wasn’t really angry, at least not at him. This was just his way, and Fei Long took no offense at it.

“Apologies, Tai Lou, I will strive to do better next time.”

“Ha! You see?”, chuckled Chiang Wang as he gave Yang Shan a slap on the shoulder, and shook his finger playfully but annoyingly under Shan’s nose, “Fei Long knows how to show proper respect! You could learn a few things from him, I think.”

Yang Shan smiled and was about to respond, but instead he jerked his back sharply, the smile still on his face, but the light gone from his eyes. Ru Fei Long, who had just looked back with a smile of his own on his lips, knew immediately what had happened, and immediately reached for his guns as he spun around, his smile gone as quickly as it had appeared. Behind him, Yang Shan’s corpse traced a lazy arc through the air before it hit the ground, blood just beginning to stream from the bullet hole directly through the center of his forehead.

The door to Chiang Wang’s office was still nicely closed, a single bullet hole marring its surface, when Fei Long turned back towards it. As he watched another hole suddenly appeared next to, and a little below it, and this time he heard the cracking sound as the wood splintered with the bullet’s passing. He also felt it as the bullet hit him in the left shoulder, nearly spinning him around with the force of it.

Just for the hell of it, Fei Long raised the gun in his right hand and fired off three shots at the door.

*Damn, this hurts! Gotta move! Gotta get the boss, and move!* he thought as he turned and ran back down the hall. He grabbed Chiang with his good arm and hollered, “go!”, gritting his teeth in pain as he fired off the gun in his left hand and felt the recoil as it vibrated past the gunshot wound in his shoulder.

For a baseline, Ru Fei Long was very good. In fact, it was not entirely out of the question that he was the most dangerous baseline on the island - perhaps the entire territory. But even so, when the door to Chiang’s office suddenly flew off its hinges and went hurtling down the hall towards Fei Long and Wang, his reflexes were only just fast enough for him to more or less fall on top of his boss, dragging them both down to the floor as the door went sailing overhead.

No sooner was the door past him than Fei Long was up and moving, but no sooner was he up than he found himself watching what his fear-addled mind irrationally identified as one of the Eight Immortals moving towards him, hobbling on a cane. *Must be Iron Crutch Li, then* thought Fei Long, wondering if maybe blood loss was already causing him to experience hallucinations as he raised his gun to fire at the old man.

Fei Long didn’t see the old man’s cane move, but he certainly felt it when it struck his hand, leaving him with one more stinging pain and causing his gun to fly out of his hand and bounce off of a nearby wall before skittering across the tiled floor of the hall. Then the Immortal slipped between him and the terrified Chiang Wang with no more difficulty than water, and continued down the hall.

Stunned, frightened, and in pain, Fei Long turned to watch his hallucination as it limped towards the battered doorframe of Chiang’s office and the dark figure that now filled it. The assassin was dressed in some kind of futuristic-looking ninja suit or something, complete with a mask. But one look at the glowing red eyes peering out from that mask, and Fei Long knew what he’d already begun to suspect; his enemy was a nova, and all that stood between them was Fei Long’s hallucinations.

*This is not my night* thought Ru Fei Long.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

*Shit!* thought Tso Gui, *this is not my night!*

One of Tso Gui’s more useful powers was the ability to see the heat patterns of living creatures - even through walls and other obstacles - which was how he’d known just where to aim to kill Yang Shan. The problem was, his “heat vision” really was heat vision - it worked just like that really great MilSpec Thermal Imaging technology you saw in the movies. So while he could see all three of the men approaching him through the door of Chiang’s office, they all looked more or less the same - just a human-shaped blob of mostly white and light grey walking through a sea of mostly black and dark grey.

And the real problem was; Yang Shan was not the man he’d been sent to kill.

*Shit!*

He knew he’d made a mistake the instant that bastard Fei Long had turned and ran with the third man - the one he’d thought was Yang Shan - and hustled him down the hall without even glancing at the dying man behind him. He’d fired another shot immediately, but Fei Long had ruined things again by getting in the way of the bullet. That wasn’t entirely bad, but it was nowhere near what Tso Gui wanted, which was to see Chiang Wang’s corpse bleeding on the ground at his feet!

Two quick steps and Gui was at the door, one swift kick and the door was gone, spinning and twisting down the hall ahead of him and leaving a trail of splintered wood in its wake. He was pretty sure that the door hadn’t actually hit either Chiang for Fei Long (how lucky was this stinking bastard, anyway?!), but it had sent them both sprawling to the ground, and that was all the advantage he’d needed. He’d heard about Fei Long, and he knew the man was good - but he wasn’t a nova, and there was simply no way he’d be able to get back up and turned around fast enough to pop off a shot at Gui, let alone hit him. It was over.

But then things had to go and get all screwy.

As he stepped into the battered office doorframe, Tso Gui thought he saw something moving down at the end of hall, near the stairwell. Unfortunately, the door he’d kicked (a little too hard, it seemed) was still spinning and twisting, and it just happened to be twisting into a more or less upright position as he looked, completely blocking his view of the hallway for an instant (he‘d already turned off the “heat vision“ after the trouble it‘d caused him - now he wished he‘d left it on).

Then, just as the door had reached an almost perfectly upright position within the hall, one of its bottom corners ricocheted loudly between the floor and the wall. It seemed to catch in the process, and this, combined with its momentum, caused the entire door to bounce away from the wall and spin sideways on what would have been its hinges as it did so.

The doorknob slammed into the opposite wall with a tremendous banging noise, shattering the illusion and sending the door bouncing chaotically towards the stairwell once again. But that wasn’t what Tso Gui was staring at.

As the door had “opened” on its invisible hinges it had opened to reveal a strange and, in this context, truly surreal image. A little old man was there, hobbling down the hall as though nothing were amiss, as though a full-sized office door careening down the hallway towards him, missing him by probably no more than five or six inches, while two panicking men - and one dead man - lay on the floor in front of him was nothing unusual.

Ru Fei Long was up and - probably feeling just as confused as Tso Gui - he raised his gun and pointed it at the old man. Tso Gui felt the first tingling of fear as he watched the old man’s withered, ancient arm swing out and use his cane to disarm Fei Long. It wasn’t just the incredible speed of the maneuver that started the tingling - though only a nova could move that fast, and a nova here just meant more trouble for Gui - it was the supreme confidence, serene smoothness, and seeming carelessness of it that triggered Tso Gui’s alarm.

Growing up, Tso Gui had always been fascinated by the many different martial arts traditions that had been developed by the ancestors of the Chinese people in days long past, and he frequently attended Wushu demonstrations in Hong Kong, and had watched many more on the OpNet. But only rarely had he been treated to the sight of a real Ancient Master, like the ones from the stories, demonstrating their kung fu skills for the public to see. And every time he’d watched one of those wizened, bent old men shuffling about, executing seemingly simple, yet infinitely subtle movements, he’d always been struck by how casual, how almost careless they looked as they moved.

These were men who’d spent so much time learning their art, who’d had so many decades to dissect and study every movement from every angle, who had mastered their style so utterly, that they had boiled the movements down to their concentrated essence and so could accomplish with a flick of the wrist what younger men required a powerful long-handed strike to accomplish.

As he watched the newcomer shuffle effortlessly past Fei Long and Chiang Wang with that same detached look of calm serenity, Tso Gui knew he was looking at a real life Master - probably a Grandmaster - and probably of a style so old and so secret he didn’t even its name. Ok, so maybe he was getting a little carried away with that last bit.

Whoever he was though, he was obviously a nova, and he obviously had skill, and he was definitely heading directly for Tso Gui. Things were going from bad to worse, and he was getting sick of it! Time to end this.

Tso Gui stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

*Shit!* thought Tso Gui, *this is not my night!*

One of Tso Gui’s more useful powers was the ability to see the heat patterns of living creatures - even through walls and other obstacles - which was how he’d known just where to aim to kill Yang Shan. The problem was, his “heat vision” really was heat vision - it worked just like that really great MilSpec Thermal Imaging technology you saw in the movies. So while he could see all three of the men approaching him through the door of Chiang’s office, they all looked more or less the same - just a human-shaped blob of mostly white and light grey walking through a sea of mostly black and dark grey.

And the real problem was; Yang Shan was not the man he’d been sent to kill.

*Shit!*

He knew he’d made a mistake the instant that bastard Fei Long had turned and ran with the third man - the one he’d thought was Yang Shan - and hustled him down the hall without even glancing at the dying man behind him. He’d fired another shot immediately, but Fei Long had ruined things again by getting in the way of the bullet. That wasn’t entirely bad, but it was nowhere near what Tso Gui wanted, which was to see Chiang Wang’s corpse bleeding on the ground at his feet!

Two quick steps and Gui was at the door, one swift kick and the door was gone, spinning and twisting down the hall ahead of him and leaving a trail of splintered wood in its wake. He was pretty sure that the door hadn’t actually hit either Chiang for Fei Long (how lucky was this stinking bastard, anyway?!), but it had sent them both sprawling to the ground, and that was all the advantage he’d needed. He’d heard about Fei Long, and he knew the man was good - but he wasn’t a nova, and there was simply no way he’d be able to get back up and turned around fast enough to pop off a shot at Gui, let alone hit him. It was over.

But then things had to go and get all screwy.

As he stepped into the battered office doorframe, Tso Gui thought he saw something moving down at the end of hall, near the stairwell. Unfortunately, the door he’d kicked (a little too hard, it seemed) was still spinning and twisting, and it just happened to be twisting into a more or less upright position as he looked, completely blocking his view of the hallway for an instant (he‘d already turned off the “heat vision“ after the trouble it‘d caused him - now he wished he‘d left it on).

Then, just as the door had reached an almost perfectly upright position within the hall, one of its bottom corners ricocheted loudly between the floor and the wall. It seemed to catch in the process, and this, combined with its momentum, caused the entire door to bounce away from the wall and spin sideways on what would have been its hinges as it did so.

The doorknob slammed into the opposite wall with a tremendous banging noise, shattering the illusion and sending the door bouncing chaotically towards the stairwell once again. But that wasn’t what Tso Gui was staring at.

As the door had “opened” on its invisible hinges it had opened to reveal a strange and, in this context, truly surreal image. A little old man was there, hobbling down the hall as though nothing were amiss, as though a full-sized office door careening down the hallway towards him, missing him by probably no more than five or six inches, while two panicking men - and one dead man - lay on the floor in front of him was nothing unusual.

Ru Fei Long was up and - probably feeling just as confused as Tso Gui - he raised his gun and pointed it at the old man. Tso Gui felt the first tingling of fear as he watched the old man’s withered, ancient arm swing out and use his cane to disarm Fei Long. It wasn’t just the incredible speed of the maneuver that started the tingling - though only a nova could move that fast, and a nova here just meant more trouble for Gui - it was the supreme confidence, serene smoothness, and seeming carelessness of it that triggered Tso Gui’s alarm.

Growing up, Tso Gui had always been fascinated by the many different martial arts traditions that had been developed by the ancestors of the Chinese people in days long past, and he frequently attended Wushu demonstrations in Hong Kong, and had watched many more on the OpNet. But only rarely had he been treated to the sight of a real Ancient Master, like the ones from the stories, demonstrating their kung fu skills for the public to see. And every time he’d watched one of those wizened, bent old men shuffling about, executing seemingly simple, yet infinitely subtle movements, he’d always been struck by how casual, how almost careless they looked as they moved.

These were men who’d spent so much time learning their art, who’d had so many decades to dissect and study every movement from every angle, who had mastered their style so utterly, that they had boiled the movements down to their concentrated essence and so could accomplish with a flick of the wrist what younger men required a powerful long-handed strike to accomplish.

As he watched the newcomer shuffle effortlessly past Fei Long and Chiang Wang with that same detached look of calm serenity, Tso Gui knew he was looking at a real life Master - probably a Grandmaster - and probably of a style so old and so secret he didn’t even its name. Ok, so maybe he was getting a little carried away with that last bit.

Whoever he was though, he was obviously a nova, and he obviously had skill, and he was definitely heading directly for Tso Gui. Things were going from bad to worse, and he was getting sick of it! Time to end this.

Tso Gui stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A six in the third place:
A one-eyed man has sight, but no depth of vision,
A lame man is able to step, but he makes no progress,
If he treads on the tail of the tiger,
He is bitten.

Misfortune.

Guo Zhenglai did not jostle his way through the crowds of the C Club, and they did not jostle him. He stepped where there was a place to step, and he did not step where there was no place to step. His progress was smooth, unhurried, and efficient.

When he reached the stairs up to C Bar, Guo Zhenglai did not wrestle with his arthritic left hip, nor did he force his legs to carry him up the stairs faster. He moved at the speed his old body set for him. His progress was slow, unhurried, and difficult.

When he entered the C Bar it was much less crowded, and most of its patrons were seated, and so presented no obstacle, but Zhenglai did not hurry his pace. Halfway through the bartender called out to him, asking if he could be of any service. Zhenglai stopped and walked up to the bar, asking what teas the man might have available. Death waited at the top of the next set of stairs, but Zhenglai felt no concern, he felt no worry, and he felt no need to rush towards the inevitable.

Surprisingly, the bartender had a decent selection of teas available, and Zhenglai gladly accepted an oolong tea, which the bartender was kind enough not to charge him for, out of respect for his advanced age. Zhenglai quietly accepted it, and sat contentedly enjoying his tea for several long minutes. While he drank, he watched three young men in expensive business suits, one of them obviously packing hidden firearms, and all of them in an obvious rush, storm through the bar and make their way up to the third floor above. Zhenglai turned back towards the bar and took one last sip of his tea.

“So”, asked the bartender, “what’s your story, old timer?”

“I’m not sure, yet”, answered Guo Zhenglai, smiling and setting his teacup carefully back on its dish, “but I will let you know once I’ve reached its ending.”

The bartender chuckled as he watched the little old man go, and then he promptly forgot all about him.

Guo Zhenglai’s progress up the second set of stairs was no faster, and no slower, than it was up the first.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A six in the third place:
A one-eyed man has sight, but no depth of vision,
A lame man is able to step, but he makes no progress,
If he treads on the tail of the tiger,
He is bitten.

Misfortune.

Guo Zhenglai did not jostle his way through the crowds of the C Club, and they did not jostle him. He stepped where there was a place to step, and he did not step where there was no place to step. His progress was smooth, unhurried, and efficient.

When he reached the stairs up to C Bar, Guo Zhenglai did not wrestle with his arthritic left hip, nor did he force his legs to carry him up the stairs faster. He moved at the speed his old body set for him. His progress was slow, unhurried, and difficult.

When he entered the C Bar it was much less crowded, and most of its patrons were seated, and so presented no obstacle, but Zhenglai did not hurry his pace. Halfway through the bartender called out to him, asking if he could be of any service. Zhenglai stopped and walked up to the bar, asking what teas the man might have available. Death waited at the top of the next set of stairs, but Zhenglai felt no concern, he felt no worry, and he felt no need to rush towards the inevitable.

Surprisingly, the bartender had a decent selection of teas available, and Zhenglai gladly accepted an oolong tea, which the bartender was kind enough not to charge him for, out of respect for his advanced age. Zhenglai quietly accepted it, and sat contentedly enjoying his tea for several long minutes. While he drank, he watched three young men in expensive business suits, one of them obviously packing hidden firearms, and all of them in an obvious rush, storm through the bar and make their way up to the third floor above. Zhenglai turned back towards the bar and took one last sip of his tea.

“So”, asked the bartender, “what’s your story, old timer?”

“I’m not sure, yet”, answered Guo Zhenglai, smiling and setting his teacup carefully back on its dish, “but I will let you know once I’ve reached its ending.”

The bartender chuckled as he watched the little old man go, and then he promptly forgot all about him.

Guo Zhenglai’s progress up the second set of stairs was no faster, and no slower, than it was up the first.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

As he reached the top of the stairs, Zhenglai found there was quite a lot for him to take in. Aside from the two men who were just in the process of falling flat on their faces, there was also the dead man already lying on the floor behind them.

*Ah, there is the first of the death that I foresaw* thought Zhenglai, *but there is yet more of it to come; best to be cautious.*

There was also, of course, the large office door hurtling down the hallway towards him as well (apparently the explanation for the two men diving to the ground in front of him), and, just stepping into the doorway at the far end of the hall, was the man from his visions, the one he’d come to find. The Dark Man, who was lame, and more than half blind, though he did not know it. The agent of demons, and unwitting harbinger of a war not yet come. He would be dead very soon, though it saddened Zhenglai to know it.

Guo Zhenglai’s visions had not prepared him for a door flying directly at him at something in excess of thirty kilometers per hour, but it was no matter. The Dao taught one to remain free of expectations, and to tread without worry or complaint the path that was set before them. Zhenglai knew he was still on the correct path, and he would hold to it, come what may.

*Ah, but to ‘hold until full is not as good as stopping’* thought Zhenglai amusedly to himself, and he stopped. Sure enough, so did the door. Its edge caught on a corner of the hall and it spun suddenly on its axis, opening the way for Zhenglai as it then continued on its own.

*Very good, then* he thought, as he continued forward.

There passed the exchange between himself and poor Ru Fei Long, wherein the latter lost his weapon and the former continued on without slowing, and then Zhenglai was facing the object of his journey.

The Dark Man stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

Guo Zhenglai stepped to one side and watched the bullet go past him.

Turning back to the Dark Man, who was looking at him with a stunned expression in his glowing red eyes, Zhenglai spoke softly to him.

“Perhaps you should put your gun down”, he suggested, “I do not think you will be needing it again tonight, my son”. The figure dressed all in black seemed frightened at his words, and even more bewildered than ever, but he obediently stooped down and carefully placed his gun on the ground at his feet before standing again.

For approximately two seconds Guo Zhenglai stared calmly while the Dark Man stood awkwardly with his hands at his sides, not quite daring to meet the Ancient Master’s gaze, like a nervous student awaiting a scolding from his teacher.

Finally, he mustered up the will to look the old man in the eyes with his own red ones and ask with a gruff and uncertain voice, “who are you?”

Zhenglai looked saddened and disappointed as he answered by saying, “that is not the question you should be asking, my son. You know the question, but you do not ask; are you so afraid to know the answer?”

The Dark Man swallowed hard, and seemed very nearly terrified, but he still managed to ask, “why won’t I need my weapon anymore tonight?”

Guo Zhenglai nodded in approval and answered, “that is the correct question. You will not need your weapon anymore, my son, because you have reached the end of your journey”, he paused briefly, and the sadness crept back into his ancient eyes, “and because the young man whom I disarmed earlier has just regained his own weapon.”

Zhenglai sighed as the Dark Man’s eyes grew wide and he looked past him with the sudden light of realization in them. But the light died as quickly as it appeared, accompanied by the deafening roar of inevitable fate, which was carried on the backs of three 9mm shells that had exploded from Ru Fei Long’s gun a few microseconds before.

The Dark Man took one staggering step forward, the final step in the journey of his short life, and then, falling violently to the ground, he passed through death’s door.

The ancient little man with the ancient brass cane stood and gazed at him with pursed lips and sad eyes while a man almost one hundred years his junior walked up next to him and stopped, joining him in his contemplation of a corpse.

“Tso Gui”, muttered Fei Long, “nova enforcer for the Wo Shing Wo. Fucking bastard. A curse on your family, you erupted shit.” Then he turned, and walked back down the hall to tend to his boss.

*'Tso Gui'?* thought Zhenglai, *how ironic. And how appropriate.*

Then he turned his back on the corpse and started walking again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

As he reached the top of the stairs, Zhenglai found there was quite a lot for him to take in. Aside from the two men who were just in the process of falling flat on their faces, there was also the dead man already lying on the floor behind them.

*Ah, there is the first of the death that I foresaw* thought Zhenglai, *but there is yet more of it to come; best to be cautious.*

There was also, of course, the large office door hurtling down the hallway towards him as well (apparently the explanation for the two men diving to the ground in front of him), and, just stepping into the doorway at the far end of the hall, was the man from his visions, the one he’d come to find. The Dark Man, who was lame, and more than half blind, though he did not know it. The agent of demons, and unwitting harbinger of a war not yet come. He would be dead very soon, though it saddened Zhenglai to know it.

Guo Zhenglai’s visions had not prepared him for a door flying directly at him at something in excess of thirty kilometers per hour, but it was no matter. The Dao taught one to remain free of expectations, and to tread without worry or complaint the path that was set before them. Zhenglai knew he was still on the correct path, and he would hold to it, come what may.

*Ah, but to ‘hold until full is not as good as stopping’* thought Zhenglai amusedly to himself, and he stopped. Sure enough, so did the door. Its edge caught on a corner of the hall and it spun suddenly on its axis, opening the way for Zhenglai as it then continued on its own.

*Very good, then* he thought, as he continued forward.

There passed the exchange between himself and poor Ru Fei Long, wherein the latter lost his weapon and the former continued on without slowing, and then Zhenglai was facing the object of his journey.

The Dark Man stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

Guo Zhenglai stepped to one side and watched the bullet go past him.

Turning back to the Dark Man, who was looking at him with a stunned expression in his glowing red eyes, Zhenglai spoke softly to him.

“Perhaps you should put your gun down”, he suggested, “I do not think you will be needing it again tonight, my son”. The figure dressed all in black seemed frightened at his words, and even more bewildered than ever, but he obediently stooped down and carefully placed his gun on the ground at his feet before standing again.

For approximately two seconds Guo Zhenglai stared calmly while the Dark Man stood awkwardly with his hands at his sides, not quite daring to meet the Ancient Master’s gaze, like a nervous student awaiting a scolding from his teacher.

Finally, he mustered up the will to look the old man in the eyes with his own red ones and ask with a gruff and uncertain voice, “who are you?”

Zhenglai looked saddened and disappointed as he answered by saying, “that is not the question you should be asking, my son. You know the question, but you do not ask; are you so afraid to know the answer?”

The Dark Man swallowed hard, and seemed very nearly terrified, but he still managed to ask, “why won’t I need my weapon anymore tonight?”

Guo Zhenglai nodded in approval and answered, “that is the correct question. You will not need your weapon anymore, my son, because you have reached the end of your journey”, he paused briefly, and the sadness crept back into his ancient eyes, “and because the young man whom I disarmed earlier has just regained his own weapon.”

Zhenglai sighed as the Dark Man’s eyes grew wide and he looked past him with the sudden light of realization in them. But the light died as quickly as it appeared, accompanied by the deafening roar of inevitable fate, which was carried on the backs of three 9mm shells that had exploded from Ru Fei Long’s gun a few microseconds before.

The Dark Man took one staggering step forward, the final step in the journey of his short life, and then, falling violently to the ground, he passed through death’s door.

The ancient little man with the ancient brass cane stood and gazed at him with pursed lips and sad eyes while a man almost one hundred years his junior walked up next to him and stopped, joining him in his contemplation of a corpse.

“Tso Gui”, muttered Fei Long, “nova enforcer for the Wo Shing Wo. Fucking bastard. A curse on your family, you erupted shit.” Then he turned, and walked back down the hall to tend to his boss.

*'Tso Gui'?* thought Zhenglai, *how ironic. And how appropriate.*

Then he turned his back on the corpse and started walking again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A nine in the fourth place:
He treads on the tail of the tiger.
Caution and circumspection
Lead ultimately to good fortune.

Ru Fei Long turned as the little old nova came doddering up behind him. He had no doubt that the old one was a nova; it had not escaped him how the Wo Shing Wo’s assassin had been so easily manipulated into dropping his gun and signing his own death warrant in the process. Fei Long wasn’t sure if he trusted the old man, but that he and Chiang both owed him a debt was certain.

“Pardon me, Tai Lou, but are you alright?”, asked ‘Iron Crutch Li’ (as Fei Long still thought of him in his mind).

Chiang Wang seemed taken aback by the much older man’s use of the traditional Triad honorific for a senior member of a brotherhood; ‘Tai Lou’, which meant essentially ‘elder brother’. For that matter, so was Fei Long. This man was clearly their elder, and he was clearly at least partly responsible for Chiang’s continued good health. For Wang to be addressed in such a way by such an unusual person was, well… unusual!

Gathering himself visibly, Wang took stock of himself before answering, “Uh, yes. Yes, I believe I am. Thank you.”

“You are welcome”, answered ‘Iron Crutch’.

Fei Long, still feeling anxious, went back to take a second look at Tso Gui before taking his weapon (he looked dead, but you could never be sure with a nova), and then he moved to check poor Yang Shan.

Chiang Wang noticed. “Is he- ?”

“Dead”, Fei Long answered. “Probably before he hit the ground.”

Fei Long pulled out his cell phone and began muttering in a quiet but urgent voice, probably trying to get some more sze kau in to help protect Chiang, as well as to help clean up the mess. He seemed to have forgotten about his wounded shoulder entirely.

Wang seemed equal parts outraged and sad at the news of his advisor’s death. He began to pace, and as he did so he smoothed out his suit, tried to fix his hair, checked his watch, then he stopped, cursed, and stamped his foot as he did so.

“I’ve missed the conference call! The Japanese will be outraged! This whole night has been a disaster!”

“Ah”, said old ‘Iron Crutch, seeming to perk up suddenly, “yes, your meeting. It is very important that you tell me who it is you are supposed to speak with.”

Chiang Wang’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and behind the old man Fei Long stopped speaking.

“With respect, honored elder”, stated Wang delicately, “that is Triad business, not yours. Now, I ask you, why do you need to know?” Behind them, Fei Long took a step closer to the old man.

“Is it not a enough that I stopped your killer?” The ancient Immortal seemed utterly genuine, even a little confused by the sudden tension in the hall, but even so, he was making Fei Long nervous.

Chiang Wang said with finality, “No.”

The old man stood quietly leaning on his cane for a long, tension-laden moment, and then nodded his head and “hmmmed” with a finality of his own.

“Very well then, young man”, he said, “I will show you what has brought me here.”

Chiang Wang appeared confused for an instant, and looked as though he were about to ask something else, but then his eyes widened dramatically, and sweat could actually be seen to burst from his forehead. He squinted as though in pain, and half-stumbled until his back was to the wall behind him.

Fei Long’s guns were out faster than many novas could have managed. Both barrels stopped an inch from old ‘Iron Crutch’s’ temple, and Fei Long’s voice was low and intense as he pulled back both hammers with his thumbs. The sound of the weapons as they were armed was surprisingly loud.

“What the hell are you doing to him, old man?”

But Wang put his hand up suddenly, his face pale and drawn, and said, “no, it’s alright, Fei Long. Our new friend has just shown me… many things. Terrible things.”

Fei Long started to respond, but Chiang Wang silenced him with his hand again and looked up at the old man through pain-slitted eyes.

“Is it true? Is it all true?”, he asked.

“The visions led me here. I have no reason to believe they are false”, responded the old man. Then, with more gentleness in his voice than Fei Long would have believed possible under the circumstances, old ‘Iron Crutch’ asked, “now will you tell me what I need to know?”

Wang hesitated for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped like a man forfeiting a battle. “Kuroi Kiri”, was all he said.

“Thank you, very much”, the old man said simply, and then the phone began to ring. The sudden shrill sound startled both of the baselines, and Fei Long nearly shot the damn phone in surprise, so jangled were his nerves after all the excitement. But the old Taoist Immortal seemed lost in thought as he stared in the direction of Wang’s office and the phone within.

“Answer it”, he said after only the second ring, “it is the man you came here to speak to. ‘Kuroi Kiri’. I sense he had troubles of his own. He was delayed, as you were.”

“What? Are you certain?”, exclaimed Chiang, already moving for his office. Fei Long just stood where he was, feeling increasingly lost and out of the loop.

“I am”, responded the old man. “Chiang”, he said, stopping the other in his tracks, “give him a message for me. Tell him I wish to meet with him in precisely twenty-four hours.”

Chiang looked over his shoulder and his jaw went slack. The old Immortal was standing in front of a shimmering golden-rimmed opening in the air that looked onto another place. Gathering his wits, Chiang blurted out, “wait! Where will you meet him?”

The old man just smiled. “Wherever he is at the time”, was all he said.

Chiang Wang and Ru Fei Long both stood staring stupidly as the little nova walked through his warp for about a second, and then Chiang again blurted out, “wait! I don’t even know your name!”

But it was too late; the mysterious old man had gone, as strangely, and as quickly, as he had appeared.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

A nine in the fifth place:
Resolute conduct.

Perseverance, with awareness of danger.

Guo Zhenglai stepped through the Pathless Way and emerged in an opulent Tokyo high rise suite. The interior design managed to project an image of traditional Japanese simplicity and sparseness, while still making clear the wealth of its occupants. It spoke highly of the interior designer that this dualistic image of simplicity and opulence was not utterly ruined by the sizeable gathering of thuggish-looking Japanese men in flashy suits who were all currently pointing guns at Zhenglai’s chest and forehead. He was unsurprised to see Ru Fei Long standing in the midst of the them, his left arm in a sling. Fei Long had been in the vision that had, in part, led Zhenglai here, after all.

An unremarkable looking man of hard to determine age, wearing an expensive but practical suit, stood up from where he had been sitting at an elegant couch and stepped forward. “Ah, you have come”, he said in Japanese, and performed a respectful Japanese bow, “I am Kuroi Kiri.”

Fei Long stepped forward and spoke, apparently having been assigned the task of translating, in the event the mysterious old nova only spoke Cantonese, “he says-”

“I know what he says, young man”, Zhenglai cut him off, speaking fluent, but accented, Japanese. Kiri, and several of those gathered (who were all still pointing their guns), raised an eyebrow at this.

“I am honored that you are willing to see me”, said the old man, performing an even more respectful, and utterly authentic looking traditional Chinese bow, “I am Guo Zhenglai.”

Introductions having been made, the younger man turned and indicated another couch opposite the one he had been sitting at. “Please, have a seat, honored elder.” A subtle look, and a movement of his hand, and the guns were put away, and a room full of Yakuza thugs tried very hard not to be intrusive while their betters spoke.

“So”, said Kiri, “welcome to my humble home, Guo-san. Now, what did you wish to speak with me about?”

The old man merely stared back at him with an unreadable expression and replied, “this is not your home, Kiri-san, and I did not come here to speak to you.”

Fei Long, standing off to one side, wondered if the old man was crazy. His answer to Kiri had been tantamount to an insult, and it could be seen as an implied threat. Already, several of the Yaks were starting to reach for weapons again, and the tension had just been ratcheted up several notches in as many seconds. The old fart seemed to have a real talent for creating tension, now that Fei Long thought about it. And if he got himself killed, it was likely that Fei Long would be as well. He really had to wonder how his fate had suddenly been so tightly wound with that of this mysterious, old, and complete stranger.

‘You’re being sent to Tokyo in the morning, Fei Long’, Boss Chiang had told him. ‘They’re going to need an eyewitness to verify the old man’s identity.’ Ru Fei Long had tried very hard to hide his exasperation at this. ‘But why, Tai Lou? Why all this fuss over one crazy old man? We have problems of our own here. I should be here, protecting you. That’s my job.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Fei Long. Things have changed’, Chiang had said, with a strange light in his eyes. ‘Things have changed.’ Ever since last night when old Iron Crutch had done… whatever it was he’d done to Fei Long’s boss, Chiang had been acting funny. He was almost impassioned, like he was a different man. Fei Long didn’t like it.

He’d already mentioned the possibility that the old man had mind control powers to Kuroi Kiri once he’d arrived in Tokyo, and he expected the Black Mist of the Nakato Gumi would be dealing with this ‘Guo Zhenglai’ anytime now. But now that the moment had come, it had suddenly begun to occur to Fei Long that he was essentially all alone in the land of the enemy, and it had been his very own boss who had arranged this meeting and vouched for the old man, and if the old man provoked the Japanese into a killing frenzy, there really wasn’t much of a guarantee that he would be escaping unscathed, all things considered.

Kiri had been sitting and staring back at the elder nova before him with a serious expression on his face for a few seconds, but suddenly he smiled. “It seems we cannot deceive you, Guo-san. No, this is not where I live. Please, pardon us for the deception, but I felt it best to feel you out.” He looked Zhenglai over once, and added, “to determine what you know… and how.”

He stared expectantly at the old man, obviously expecting a response of some kind, but he got none. Guo Zhenglai simply sat there, looking old and bent and not a little senile as he moved his gaze, seemingly at random, over the room and its occupants. One might almost believe that he’d forgotten that Kuroi Kiri was there at all.

Kiri was a very talented and, in his own way, powerful nova, especially in the social arena, so he hid his chagrin at the old man’s behavior quite well, and none of the baselines in the room had any inkling of their boss’s rapidly worsening mood.

He sighed and, making a concession to the old man’s age and the possibility that he really was just a bit senile, he decided to skip the subtle displays of power and implied threats and jump right to the point, and said, “if you did not come to speak with me, then why have you come, honored elder?”

“Ah”, said Zhenglai, his attention returning to Kiri, “very good. That was the correct question, and it was your first; I am most pleased.” He nodded to himself and chuckled in a satisfied manner, and in that moment there was not a man in the room who did not wonder just how old their guest really was. “I did not come here to speak with anyone”, he said, “the information I require will reveal itself presently without the need for discourse. And the only person I specifically wish to be introduced to here is a woman.”

This time, there was not a man in the room who did not wonder just how senile their guest really was. Many of the them laughed openly at his remark.

Kuroi smiled, but it held no insult in it (or none that he would let show, at least), “apologies, Guo-san, but you are mistaken. As you will see if you look around you, there are no woman here!”

Guo Zhenglai smiled in an open and guileless way, accepting the light mockery of those around him with an easy humility that surprised and impressed many of them even as they laughed. The old man was easy to like, even if he was a bit soft in the head.

“No”, Zhenglai said, still smiling, “I am quite sure of myself. The woman I speak of is standing right there, in plain sight of everyone, even if they don't know it yet”, he pointed to an empty place next to the couch Kuroi sat in. “Unless”, he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “you mean to say that is a man who stands next to you!”

This time Kuroi Kiri was not quite able to completely hide his surprise and dismay at Zhenglai’s words. He stared at the little old man in front of him, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then closed it again. Then he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, and gestured dismissively with the other, speaking in a low tight voice, “Youkai-san! Show yourself.”

For a moment nothing happened, and then suddenly the air next to the couch that Kuroi was sitting on began to clear away as though it were a fog or mist, revealing a slender, diminutive Japanese woman as it did so. At first her appearance was exceptionally average, to the point that her face became difficult to remember clearly within moments of looking away from it, but then her average looks seemed to thin and fade like a fog as well. When it had cleared her appearance had become, instead of exceptionally average, exceptionally beautiful. Striking even.

Everyone in the room was staring at her in surprise, and it was apparent that even many of the Yakuza thugs present had not known that she had been there. Around the room there were whisperings and mutterings, and over and over again the same word was repeated in hushed tones. “Youkai”. A word that meant “Phantom” or “Ghost”, but it had a secondary meaning as well; “Solution”. As in, “The Final __”.

All those who had extensive dealing with the Yakuza had at least heard rumors of Youkai, the specter, the invisible hand of the Yakuza. Enforcer, spy, and sometime assassin, no one on the street even knew if Youkai was a man or a woman - though all knew Youkai was a nova. Ru Fei Long had heard of Yukai all the way over in Hong Kong, and now he even knew ‘he’ was a ‘she’. A damn good looking ‘she’ too, even if she was Japanese and a Yak. This was turning into one crazy night. Fei Long had had enough of crazy nights - with or without the hot chicks - he’d had enough.

Youkai was looking intently at Guo Zhenglai, and he looked back, his expression inscrutable.

Kuroi Kiri, trying to break the tension once again, said, “it seems there really is no deceiving you, Guo-san. I must, once again, apologize for my rudeness. Honored elder, allow me to introduce one the Nakato Gumi’s chief nova enforcers, known as ‘Youkai’ within our ranks. Her real name is unknown, even to myself.” Youkai said nothing, but only looked from Guo Zhenglai to Kuroi, and back again. “Please”, continued Kuroi, “forgive her if she does not introduce herself, as she never speaks. She is mute, you see.”

Leaning forward again, Kiri asked Zhenglai, “now I must know, how could you possibly see her? As far as we know, Youkai is capable of becoming completely invisible to all known means of detection. How is it you knew she was there?”

“The answer, Kiri-san”, said Zhenglai, “is that I could not see her. Not at all. But when I looked at the future, I saw that she had been standing there all along, so I knew she would be standing there when I pointed at her as well.”

“A precog”, said Kiri, as though to himself, and then he continued more loudly, “please tell me, what else have you seen? Is this how you knew to be at Chiang-san’s place last night?”

“I am sorry”, answered Zhenglai, “but I cannot tell you that now, for we are out of time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kuroi Kiri, smiling benignly even as he glanced meaningfully at the men behind Zhenglai. “We have all night, Guo-san, surely you can take the time to tell me a little about yourself?” Behind the old man several Yakuza thugs were beginning to move in towards him, and their expressions were hard. Standing next to Kiri, Youkai’s posture tensed minutely, though her expression remained detached and unreadable.

“But I cannot”, answered Zhenglai, “we are all about to be shot at. A conversation would be most inappropriate.”

Kuroi Kiri stared, Youkai’s posture tensed visibly, and behind Zhenglai, all of the Yakuza thugs froze dead in their tracks. Ru Fei Long let out a small, highly fatalistic sigh, and reached for his gun with his good arm. He didn’t trust the old man, but somehow, he knew he could believe him.

The window behind Kuroi Kiri exploded in a hail of bullets, and then all was chaos.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

As thimble-sized chunks of teflon-coated death sprayed across the high rise suite, several men died. But other men reacted, and Fei Long was among them. His good hand had already started reaching for the firearm tucked under his jacket at the strange old man’s words, so he was among the first to react when the bullets started to fly, and in short order his own bullets were added to the chaos. He was not the only one to react quickly, though.

A split-second after the first bullet punched through the glass of the window that doubled as the suite’s western wall, a swirling, churning blackness exploded outward from Kuroi Kiri, completely enveloping him and growing rapidly to fill over half the suite. An instant later, though, the entire mass of it boiled out of the broken window and went roiling across the empty expanse of air between their building and the one across the street where, Fei Long realized, the shooting was coming from. As the suite emptied of the cloud of moving shadow, Fei Long saw the one called Youkai reach out and grab Kiri - and then they both vanished into thin air. A second after that, the mass of churning shadow impacted with the building across the way, and then vanished within.

All around him men were stumbling and running, shooting over their shoulders as they did so, all of them beating a hasty retreat out of the apartment, now that their boss had vanished. Fei Long figured he should join them. As he looked across the street while taking a last parting shot at his unknown attackers before fleeing, he was surprised to that it looked like their building was being hit with mortar rounds or something. Entire chunks of the building were being blown to powder by some unknown force. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that force was probably a nova, though, and there were only so many of those around. He didn’t think it was the old guy - it just didn’t seem like his style, somehow - so it was probably Youkai or Kiri. Speaking of which, where was that crazy old nova?

As Ru Fei Long sprinted out the door to the suite and into the hall on the other side, he tripped on a corpse and fell. As luck or fate would have it, this saved his life. Twice. It probably saved the lives of many of those in the hall as well. Both a bullet and a frag grenade flew over his head from the direction of the hall elevator just as he fell, narrowly missing him as they impacted inside the apartment suite. Had Fei Long still been standing, the bullet probably would have killed him, and the grenade definitely would have killed him and, in all likelihood, all of the Yaks pressed up against the walls on either side as well. He didn’t have much opportunity to ponder on his good joss, however, as the grenade exploded at about the same time that he was hitting the ground, and it took another second or two before he could think at all, let alone ponder deep thoughts.

Trying to clear his head, Ru Fei Long used the corpse as cover, and peered over its torso, taking aim at the men with guns he could see firing from either side of the elevator at the end of the hall. A second passed, seeming to take whole minutes with it, and then a man’s head looked out from the elevator’s door. A quick squeeze of his weapon’s trigger and that man’s life ended. He followed that up with a few extra rounds fired in the general direction of the other heads peeking out here and there, causing most of them to promptly duck back behind the narrow walls on either side of the elevator.

One of Kiri’s men signaled him and shouted. “Quick”, he said, his Japanese coming out so rushed that Fei Long could barely understand him, “we’re taking the service stairs to the roof!”

He looked, and saw a door one of them had kicked open off to one side, out of the way of the crossfire. Standing placidly to one side of it was the old Immortal, Guo Zhenglai. He stared at Fei Long with a disconcerting frankness that made him avert his eyes. Crazy old goat. There was still no sign of Youkai or Kuroi Kiri.

Leaping to his feet and running through the open door into a dimly lit service hallway, Fei Long wondered what else could possibly go wrong tonight?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

On the roof, Fei Long was pleased to see a small group of expensive-looking aircars, and one very expensive-looking black helicopter parked several yards away. They would make for a handy getaway. And there was that damned old man again - how the hell did he keep getting ahead of Fei Long? He was already standing, with that same unperturbed expression on his face, next to the helicopter. Next to him were the two other novas in the group. Youkai was silently helping Kuroi Kiri get into the chopper, while he and the old Immortal were having some kind of conversation with each other. It figured. Of course the novas were sticking together and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Fei Long took off the sling holding his wounded arm and threw it to the ground at his feet. It was only getting in his way.

As Fei Long approached the gathering of Yaks and novas surrounding the aircars and the chopper, Kiri began shouting orders at his men. Because of the noise of the helicopter’s rotors and how fast he spoke, Fei Long wasn’t able to follow what was said, so he was left unprepared when one of the Yaks whom Kiri had been speaking to directly suddenly turned towards him and started herding him into one of the larger of the aircars. He was even more surprised when he realized that both little old Iron Crutch and Youkai were hopping into the very same car. Fei Long had a bad feeling about this.

Somewhat surprisingly, Youkai took the driver’s seat, while Iron Crutch took the back seat on the passenger’s side, a Yak that Fei Long vaguely remembered as having the name “Bento-san” took the back seat on the driver’s side, and Fei Long found himself sitting shotgun next to one of the most attractive women he’d ever seen up close, who also happened to be one of the most feared and legendary figures in the Pacific Rim. For a second, her beauty, and the combination of awkwardness and complete bizarreness in the entire situation, caused Fei Long to forget the urgency of their situation, but the sudden explosion coming from the service entry they’d used to get up here, followed by another hail of bullets ricocheting off of the (apparently bulletproof) windows and doors of their aircar reminded him. Youkai got the vehicle in gear and pulled her up into the air to join with the chopper and the other aircars, most of which were already pulling out beyond the rooftop and beginning their getaway.

There was a sudden *whoosh*, followed immediately by a muffled *thump*, which was itself followed by one of the most terrifically loud and terrifying sounds Fei Long had ever heard as the aircar that had been floating nearest to them exploded into a ball of flame. As their own vehicle was rocked sideways by the blast, Fei Long held on for dear life and silently cursed gods he didn’t really believe in. Youkai proved herself to be an able pilot, however, and despite all the “turbulence” she had the vehicle hurtling through the air in no time, and the rooftop, with all its bullets and explosions, was left far behind. The only problem that Fei Long could see was that they were going in the wrong direction….

“Uh… where are we going?”, he asked. “Everyone else is going that way”, he added, pointing back the way they had come.

Unsurprisingly, Youkai didn’t answer.

Bento, however, did. “We’re supposed to follow the ones who were shooting at us. Your friend says we’ll find out who they’re working for if we do”, he said, indicating Zhenglai while simultaneously scanning the sky outside the window.

“He’s not my friend”, said Fei Long bluntly, and without regard to what the old man thought about it, “and where the hell are these guys that we’re supposed to be following, anyway?”

Bento was about to answer that he didn’t know, but then he saw the old man craning his neck around so he could watch out the back window. His eyes following the old man’s gaze, Bento said more or less weakly, “uh…. behind us….” Then he lowered his window and proceeded to shoot in the general direction of the three sharp and sinister looking aircars that had suddenly appeared behind them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

Nine at the top:
One must look to his conduct, and weigh the favorable signs.
When everything is fulfilled,

Supreme good fortune comes.

Things were happening too quickly. Fei Long had barely gotten his own window lowered and joined Bento in firing at their pursuers when there was a brief flash of golden light from inside their own aircar, and then old Iron Crutch was suddenly gone. This was followed almost instantly by another golden flash from the interior of the central aircar pursuing them, which was itself followed almost instantly by much brighter - but much less golden - flashes as weapons were discharged from inside the vehicle.

Fei Long barely had time to register this, however, because the leftmost aircar suddenly burst into about a million shards of glass, metal, blood, and gore as it ran into a giant, invisible wall. Or at least that’s what it looked like. All Fei Long knew was that one minute it was doing a perfectly satisfactory job of endangering their lives, and the next it was raining down on the streets of Tokyo in a lethal hail of people- and car-parts, endangering a whole lot of other peoples’ lives.

Simultaneous with all this, Bento began shouting inexplicably at Fei Long.

“ Oi! Grab the fucking wheel!!”

Fei Long jerked his head back into the vehicle and was met with the alarming sight of a totally empty driver’s seat. Youkai was had disappeared. Again.

He grabbed the wheel.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Everything was moving in slow-motion. Youkai had all the time she needed to plan her course of action and make her move. She scanned her rear-view mirrors calmly, getting a fix on the vehicles chasing them. Calmly she turned invisible to all known means of detection, and calmly she became ephemeral, letting her seat - and the rest of the vehicle - pass through her without complaint.

She spun lazily in mid-air, hanging there through sheer, invisible, force of will and casually raised a hand that - in the strictest scientific sense - didn’t really exist anymore, towards the oncoming aircars. They seemed to her to be moving at a speed only marginally faster than ‘Slow’, so she felt no need to rush things.
She had already noticed what the strange old man was about in the middle car, so she ignored it and chose one of the other two at random. From her outstretched hand sprang nothing, but that nothing carried with it a tremendous kinetic force that utterly decimated its target. The vehicle, and all of its occupants, were pulped and shredded instantly.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This whole situation was fucking nuts! “Rock n’ Roll” Rokuro was one of the best aircar pilots in Tokyo, but if he’d known he’d be chasing an aircar with at least two (!) novas in it, he’d never have signed on for this job….

Everything had seemed to be going great when all of a sudden the interior of his car lit up in a weird golden light and, just like that, the oldest goddammed geezer he’d ever even heard of - let alone seen - was sitting in the middle of his back seat with an entirely inappropriate little smile on his face! Goro and Hideki (who had been - until just recently - the only two passengers in the back seat) jumped so hard that they probably would have fallen right out of the aircar if the doors hadn’t gotten in the way.

“Konnichi wa”, said the geezer with what sounded like sincere politeness.

*Blam, blam, blam, blam!!!!*, said the handguns of both Goro and Hideki, with what sounded like a sincere desire to kill something.

Rokuro didn’t really have time to pay attention to all this though, distracted as he was by the terrifying sight and horrendous noise of the aircar to his left exploding like a bug hitting a gigantic windshield. For the next several seconds, everything was a blur of violence and chaos to Rokuro.

He saw blood spattering his dashboard and the inside of the windshield. Without really thinking about it, he irrationally tried to clean it up by activating his windshield wipers.

He saw the aircar they’d all been chasing suddenly spin on its axis so it was facing towards them, and then it performed an impossibly dangerous and suicidal maneuver that somehow ended with the aircar to Rokuro’s right spinning lazily through the air before it collided with a nearby high-rise, smoke pouring out of it all the way.

He saw Tadashi (the man riding shotgun) twisted around in his seat, firing his own weapon repeatedly - presumably at the strange old man who’d appeared a moment before - but he was firing his gun wildly, and it was hard to imagine how he could avoid hitting Goro or Hideki at the same time. But then Rokuro glanced in his rearview and saw that it didn’t matter - it seemed they’d shot themselves while trying to hit the old man. Blood was everywhere.

In retrospect, considered Rokuro, firing blindly at someone sitting between them in a darkened, fast-moving vehicle probably wasn’t the wisest thing to’ve done….

Suddenly, Tadashi wasn’t moving anymore (though he didn’t look dead), and the old man’s hand was on Rokuro’s shoulder.

“Young man”, he said, “I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly slow this vehicle down to a more reasonable speed.”

To his great and lasting shame, “Rock n’ Roll” Rokuro’s only response to this request was to black out.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Events followed each other at precisely the right pace, one after the other as Zhenglai had known they would. He did not understand why Fei Long felt so rushed, or why Youkai grew impatient with the slow (to her) pace of things - to him, time moved neither too quickly, nor too slowly, and he was not rushed or impatient. He simply was.

Zhenglai watched the three pursuing aircars for a moment, and then he concentrated. Immediately he fell through the Pathless Way and landed in between to hardened killers.

“Konichi wa”, he said, in a sincerely polite greeting.

They shot at him.

This too happened in the order, and at the speed, that it must, and so Zhenglai was not unprepared. He expected nothing, but only let events flow as circumstances dictated. Because he was cautious and responsible with the life given him, Zhenglai knew that their bullets would have no place within him. Wherever he moved, there the bullets would not be. And it was so.

Unfortunately, the two killers on either side of him had thoughts only of death, and so the bullets were all to willing, eager, and able to find a place inside of them. Their deaths were quick, as deaths go, but not without pain.

The third killer, in the front seat next to the driver, was wrestling his own weapon out of his jacket and pointing it at Zhenglai in a futile attempt to put some of his own bullets where they were not destined to go, but Zhenglai barely paid the man any mind.

About a fifty meters in front of them, Fei Long seemed to be performing a midair maneuver so fantastically difficult that it amazed even a man more than a century old who could read the future as easily as the time. Zhenglai moved aside distractedly and easily so that the bullets from the third killer’s gun could pass unobstructed, but for the moment his attention was fixed on Fei Long.

Once he was satisfied that the young sze kau had succeeded in disabling the third of the vehicles pursuing them, Zhenglai reached out with his mind and put the third killer to sleep. Then he reached out and placed his hand reassuringly on the driver's shoulder.

“Young man”, he said, “I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly slow this vehicle down to a more reasonable speed.”

Sadly, the terrified young driver was not reassured by either Zhenglai's hand or his words, and slumped over in his seat unconscious.

Sighing, Zhenglai reached out and took hold of the wheel, genuinely curious as to how one drove these flying automobiles...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

Scrambling into the driver's seat, Ru Fei Long grabbed a hold of the air car's wheel, settling himself into position and trying not to crash. Fortunately for he and Bento, he succeeded. Fei Long had had enough of this for one evening, and decided to show these bloody Yaks why he was one of the most feared Triad enforcers in Hong Kong.

The most noteworthy thing that happened for the next half-second or so were the screams of Bento-san as he tried not to pass out, piss himself, or fall right out of the car. Fei Long was too busy steering to pay him much mind, though. The cause of Bento's extreme fear was that the crazy Chinaman in the front seat had just slammed on the brakes while simultaneously spinning the air car around a full one hundred and eighty degrees, and fitting it by the narrowest of margins in between the central Yak car - the one Old Iron Crutch seemed to be in - and the right-most Yak car.

Fei Long was, as they say, "in the zone" now, and he had eyes only for his target. He timed things perfectly, whipping the car around and into reverse, slowing it down just enough to slide neatly between the two pursuing air cars. The Yaks in the car to the right could only watch in stupid amazement as Fei Long - his window rolled down all the way - passed so close beside them he could have shaken hands with the Yak in the passenger seat. Shaking hands, however, was not on Fei Long's list of things to do tonight.

As the two open windows drew even with each other, Fei Long grabbed the gun sitting in his lap and emptied most of its clip into the Yaks' vehicle. He doubted the effects of this were lethal for all four of the Nipponese thugs in the car, but it didn't really matter. He'd shot the driver in the head, which was his only really definite objective here, but he'd also managed to shoot up the car's entire dashboard - as well as the thug in the passenger seat - and whatever he'd shot had the entire interior of the vehicle filled with smoke in no time.

Once safely past, and behind, the two formerly-pursuing air cars, Fei Long whipped his car around - Bento screamed that time, too - and watched in satisfaction as the car full of thugs veered off course in a slow, maundering spin that ended with it ricocheting off the corner of a nearby highrise and then falling at a shocking speed towards the streets below.

The final Yak car began slowing down ahead of him and Fei Long came up alongside it cautiously, both he and Bento-san ready to shoot at a moment's notice. To their mutual surprise, however, the vehicle was being driven by Old Iron Crutch himself, who had an expression on his wrinkled old face that was suspiciously exhilerated - like a child riding a bicycle for the first time...

Seeing them approaching, he slowed the vehicle further and rolled down his window. Once they were moving apace with each other, the old man smiled and shouted over the wind, "Well done, young man. You performed admirably. Now, let us land these machines on that" - and here he indicated a nearby building - "rooftop. I will meet you there."

And with that he sped off, maneuvering the air car with surprising alacrity. Fei Long followed.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

Ru Fei Long brought his air car in for a near-perfect landing, and thumbed the ignition to its off position. The powerful engine was still cycling down as both he and Bento-san hopped out of the car.

"Where did you learn to fly like that?", asked Bento.

"I dunno. Where'd you learn to scream like that?"

Bento looked about ready to take offense at this, but Fei Long slapped his shoulder and gave him the kind of look that Men of Action every know and understand, and somehow this made it all right. The look of anger left his face, and for the moment at least they were almost brothers.

As they rounded their vehicle and began the short walk over to where Old Iron Crutch had parked, they were surprised to find him standing over a kneeling Yak with a gun in his wrinkled old hand. Despite the fact that this was an incredibly incongruous image, Fei Long was struck by how naturally the old man held it. For some reason, he found it troubling.

As they approached, Zhenglai tossed the weapon towards Bento-san casually and then stepped aside. The kneeling Yak was visibly uncomfortable with this turn of events, and almost seemed to be pleading with Old Iron Crutch to take the weapon back. Zhenglai ignored him, his face impassive and unreadable, and simply said, "I have captured one of the enemy alive."

"Mmm", was all Bento-san had to say to this. Without another word, he walked right up to "Rock n' Roll" Rokuro and pistol-whipped him upside the head. Rokuro hissed in pain and cringed a bit, but otherwise seemed determined to make up for his shameful act of passing out from fear of an old man. When he looked back up at Bento and Fei Long there was a trickle of blood running down his forehead, but his eyes were defiant as he looked down and spat at Bento's shoes. Bento just cracked him in the head again, causing the man to nearly sprawl full length on the highrise's rooftop.

At just about this point in time, Youkai suddenly reappeared, materializing out of thin air like a dissapating cloud of steam in reverse. Everyone except the old man nearly jumped out their skins at this, but seeing her otherwordly beauty none of them were particularly angry at the surprise.

After a moment of respectful silence, as all three men once again came to grips with being in the presence of one of the most feared beings in the entire Eastern Rim, Bento turned back to Rokuro and grabbed him roughly by the collar. "Who sent you, kusotare?!" He cuffed him in the mouth with the butt of Zhenglai's pistol as incentive and then said, "Answer me!!"

Standing off to one side, the old man said, "That was not the correct question", his quiet voice cutting through Bento's concentration like a samurai's blade.

"Heh?", Bento asked.

"Oh, here we go again", mumbled Fei Long, slapping a hand to his forehead in frustration.

"...", remarked Youkai.

Zhenglai merely looked at them patiently, and then explained. "You are not asking him the correct question, young man."

As far as Bento - and, for that matter, Fei Long and Youkai - were concerned, this wasn't a very good explanation. But there was something about the old geezer that was hard to ignore, so after a moment of collecting himself, Bento gave him a polite little head-bow and stepped back from Rokuro. "My apologies, honored elder", he said in what was, for a Yakuza, a very polite tone, "begging your pardon, but what is the right question?"

In answer, Guo Zhenglai shifted his ancient eyes towards Rokuro and asked, in that same quiet voice, "where is the prisoner being held?" Everyone, including Youkai, just stared at him wondering (and not for the first time) if he was just a little senile.

Rokuro, however, gaped at him, unable to hide his shock and dismay. "You know about her?!" He seemed almost panicked at the idea. Old Iron Crutch nodded his head once with certainty. "But I do not know where she is. You must tell me."

"Hold on!", shouted Bento, belatedly trying to regain some control, not to mention understanding, of the situation. "What the hell is going on here? What prisoner?!"

Fei Long had long since given up trying to understand anything involving the old man, and didn't say anything. Neither did Youkai, but then, she was mute. She did, however, fix both Bento and Zhenglai with her intense gaze, making it clear that she was every bit as interested as her baseline associate in hearing Zhenglai's answer.

The wrinkled, tiny old man gave them a look of moderate exasperation, as if it annoyed him that he was required to explain something so obvious to them. All he said was, "the American Nova. She was taken from your people only a few days ago. I had thought you would be eager to get her back..."

Youkai stepped in front of Bento and put her hand to her face with thumb and pinkie extended in the universal gesture for talking on the phone. She needn't have bothered, however, Bento-san was already dialing Kuroi-san on his expensive, ridiculously high-tech Japanese cell phone. The boss would want to know about this. Troops would be mobilized, people would probably die, and all hell would definitely break loose before this night was over...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

The small hours of the morning were typically quiet hours for the Koto Ward of Tokyo, and all the more so for the waterfront neighborhood of Etchujima sitting within it. This particular morning would soon become a rather legendary exception to this rule, but not yet. For now it was still quiet. Mostly quiet, that is. One particular fenced in collection of nondescript industrial buildings and warehouses was fairly crawling with activity. If you knew how to look for it, that is.

Youkai knew how to look for it, as did Fei Long and Bento. Whether or not Old Iron Crutch did was up for debate, but they never had a chance to find out. They'd landed their aircars on a nearby rooftop and had only just begun to scope the place out.

"I can't believe your boss is sending just the four of us in there alone", muttered Ru Fei Long as he crouched at the roof's edge with Bento on one side and Youkai on the other. "Crazy-ass Nipponese. So what's the plan?"

Bento bristled at the insult, while Youkai actually turned and punched him in the arm. It was the first time she'd shown any personality since either of the men had met her, and it caught them both off-guard.

Fei Long nearly collapsed into Bento and stifled a cry, instead exclaiming in a wheezy whisper, "ai-yah, what was that for?!!?" He rubbed his arm vigorously and tried to ignore Bento-san's muffled laughter. Just then was when all three of them were backlit by a soft golden glow that was gone as quickly as it had come.

None of them wanted to turn around, and when they did they saw exactly what each of them had expected to. The old man was gone, and while they did not yet know where, somehow they just knew it would mean trouble and life-threatening danger for them.

Youkai was the first to spot him again and Fei Long flinched as she slapped his arm and pointed. Sure enough, there was Old Iron Crutch wandering right up to the front door of the main building. What was he thinking?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

The old man limped along, his cane tapping out a slow tempo with each step, as he approached his objective. The guard saw him almost immediately - hard to miss it when some old geezer comes stepping out of a golden doorway that forms out of thin air, after all - and despite his nervousness, he immediately stepped forward to deal with this new... er, 'threat'? 'Situation'? He wasn't sure what to call it or how to respond, and the old guy just looked so damned friendly.

He raised his weapon and called out, "Oi! Whatta you want, old man?"

"Old man?", muttered the old man, "Old man? Not very respectful, is he?" Zhenglai seemed almost unaware of the approaching guard, and entirely oblivious to the submachine gun he was pointing at him. But he finally looked the guard in the eye and acknowledged him, his wrinkled old hand waggling in the air in what the guard could only assume was some kind of greeting, and his voice cracking with age. "Hello there, young man. I seem to have gotten lost somehow. Do you know where I am?"

The guard had felt something in his head for an instant, but that instant was gone, and now he didn't remember it anymore. He didn't remember seeing the old man showing up via a glowing door in the air either. As far as the guard was concerned, the little old man with a limp and a cane was just what he looked to be: utterly harmless. In fact, now that the guard thought about it, he reminded him a lot of his own grandfather, dead these last five years.

The younger man smiled and lowered his weapon. At that moment, he wasn't a mercenary thug who hired himself out to the highest bidder, he was just a grandson being given an opportunity to honor his dead grandfather by helping another harmless old man. Good karma, that.

"Sure gramps, I know where ya are. But hey, let's get you inside huh? Where it's nice and warm! Then we'll figure out how you got way out here and get you home, alright?"

The kindly little old man, who seemed to be more than a bit senile now that the guard had a closer look at him, simply nodded in agreement and thanked the helpful youngster. It took a bit, but soon enough the old man had managed to struggle up the short flight of stairs to the building's main entrance - but only with the help and support of the young man. The guard really had to hand it to the old timer; he looked absolutely ancient, and it was damned impressive that he could move around at all at his age. He couldn't help but grin as he shook his head in wonderment, thinking that his own grandfather probably would have liked the old man leaning on his shoulder, and wishing the two of them could have met.

Still smiling, he moved ahead of the oldster and opened the door for him, ushering him in with a respectful bow. After months of living and thinking like a paid thug, it felt really good to do something nice like this for another person, especially a cool old man like this one. As he followed the old man inside of the industrial building, the young guard couldn't help but think that maybe it was time to choose a new career.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Guo Zhenglai]

Things had been going to hell in a casual, meandering, but nonetheless consistent sort of fashion since about fifteen seconds after the old man had walked right into the ‘enemy camp’. Youkai, Bento, and Fei Long had watched that door anxiously for fifteen very long seconds and then *BOOM!!!* - all of a sudden the double doors Old Iron Crutch had just walked through went sailing right off their hinges as one of the guards (possibly the same one who’d just let the old guy inside) crashed through them and then continued to hurtle through the air for another several yards. It was pretty intense.

,,

Almost before he’d realized what happened, Youkai had both he and Bento in a firm grip and was flying at a very reckless speed (in Fei Long’s opinion, at least) towards the complex’s courtyard and the now empty entrance way. Needless to say, the doors flying off their hinges, the guard sailing through the air before hitting the ground roughly and then proceeding to not move, and Youkai’s somewhat dramatic entrance had all combined to form the sort of distraction that the guards patrolling the borders of the compound couldn’t quite ignore. So they ran over to take a look at what all the hoopla was about, and to fire off some potshots at the three intruders.

,,

Bento-san and Ru Fei Long had both gone charging through the ruined front doors just as quick as they could while Youkai had stayed out in the main courtyard so that she could hold off the small army of paid thugs that were making a concerted effort to kill them all. That was the last Fei Long had seen the woman, but it still sounded like the Third World War was going on behind him, so he figured that meant she was still alive at least. As for Fei Long and Bento-san, they’d had it easy at first, finding themselves in a front lobby full of unconscious guards (they had both stared for a moment, trying to reconcile their image of the frail little centenarian and his cane with the nova who was responsible for the ass-kicking that had so obviously taken place in there), but as soon as they’d passed the front lobby they’d run into resistance.

,,

Resistance that had only grown worse as they’d pushed their way down from the main floor to the basement level that good old “Rock n’ Roll” had told them the hostage was being kept on. They were now deep in the bowels of the complex, stuck in what seemed to be the middle of a maze of narrow halls and service passageways. They’d been determining their route thus far by heading in whichever direction had the most paid Yak thugs trying to kill them – which was a really bad policy, as Fei Long was well aware, but it was the best the two of them could come up with. And it seemed to be working, too, because they’d begun to hear sounds of violence further up ahead that was not aimed directly at them, which probably meant that they were finally catching up with Old Iron Crutch. Or so they could only hope.

,,

Ru Fei Long had lost track of how many times he’d been shot at in this one night – hell, in the past half hour! Since he was being shot at yet again, however, it was perhaps understandable that he couldn’t recall the precise number and that his mind was preoccupied with other things. Things like the several scores of bullets that kept missing him by only the narrowest of margins. Like, by inches every time.

,,

He couldn’t quite make up his mind if the men shooting at him had really great aim and really bad luck, or really poor aim and really great luck. Whichever way it went, it was working in his favor as he ducked into an open office doorway, just managing to get out of the way of a string of bullets sent his way by some Yak thug who’d popped unannounced and all of a sudden into the same hallway Fei Long had been moving down only an instant before. Like most people, Fei Long hated it when men with submachine guns did that.

,,

He glanced across the narrow hall to the open doorway that Bento-san was using for cover just as a spray of bullets tore into its doorframe. A splinter struck him in the cheek and Bento hissed through his teeth, jerking away from the frame and pulling a decent-sized piece of wood from under his eye. Bento looked up from the splinter and met Fei Long’s eyes from across the hall, his expression exactly matching Fei Long’s mood. Both the expression and the mood could be easily summed up as saying, ‘this totally sucks’.

,,

At about the same time they suddenly became aware that the Third World War seemed to be catching up with them from behind. Taking a chance, Fei Long stuck his head out into the hall and looked back the way they’d come while Bento covered him in the direction they were trying to go. Sure enough, there were lots of loud noises, telltale muzzle flashes reflecting on walls, and a decent amount of smoke pouring in from somewhere back the way they’d just come. The War looked to be almost on top of them.

Almost as if on cue, Youkai appeared at the end of the hall, walking backwards with a pistol in each hand, firing at something Fei Long couldn’t see. Then she turned and started walking towards Fei Long and Bento-san, that strange preternatural calm never leaving her face at all. Youkai stuffed one of the pistols in her waistband and then pulled something out of her jacket pocket, at the same time signaling for both of her teammates hiding in doorframes to get a move on. Ru Fei Long started to tell her that there were an unknown number of angry Yaks with big guns in the direction she was indicating who might object to their passage - but then he saw what Youkai had just pulled her from her jacket – a hand grenade. Youkai casually pulled the pin on the grenade and then tossed it over one shoulder behind her, without even bothering to watch where it landed (it bounced off one wall at the end of the hall and clattered off around the corner, actually).

Suddenly, Fei Long realized that the angry Yaks with big guns down at the other end of the hall didn’t seem so scary anymore. Funny how a grenade can really put things into perspective like that, huh?

Bento-san seemed to have put things into proper perspective as well, and was already making a run for it, so Fei Long just dropped in behind him. As the Triad gangster moonlighting as an elite member of the Yakuza had predicted, the angry Yaks with big guns at the other end of the hall tried to dispute their right to pass. But Youkai took offense at this and shot them all through the head, one, two, three, just like that.

Fei Long kept pressing forward and tried not to feel useless. Then the grenade went off behind them, and suddenly Fei Long was completely deaf and had other things on his mind than his nova associate’s superior lethality.

The next several seconds were a blur of pure chaos, smoke, and violence, but at some point he became aware that he, Bento-san, and Youkai had all stopped at the end of a hall that emptied into a low-ceilinged room almost as long as one of the hallways, but many times wider, all three of them staring at what was going on in that room.

It looked as though this room had been a checkpoint of sorts for the guards in the sub-levels, as there were quite a few of them sprawled (dead or unconscious, Fei Long couldn’t tell) all over the room, with cheap card tables and fold-up chairs mixed in amongst them. But that wasn’t what the three newcomers were staring at. They were staring slack jawed (even Youkai had parted her lips a little) at the sight of a little old man, the frail Immortal, Old Iron Crutch, Guo Zhenglai, fending off the simultaneous attacks of three perfectly identical, and obviously erupted, attackers.

The three identical novas, much to Fei Long’s surprise, seemed to be Chinese, and as he continued to watch Fei Long began to suspect they were actually the same person utilizing some kind of nova duplication power.

Watching them dance with the old man (and there was no other way to describe it – ‘fighting’ was far too crass a word to adequately convey the full force of their movements), it felt to Fei long as though a quartet of Kung Fu Masters had stepped straight out of one of the greatest wuxia films ever made and were now putting on a show simply for his benefit.

There passed a magical time of indeterminate length during which the three of them simply stood there and watched, because that seemed like the only appropriate thing to do. The very idea of intruding on the combatants seemed almost… sacrilegious. So they respectfully stood their ground and watched.

The ‘Triplets’ attacks were executed with such skill, speed, and ferocity that even Youkai felt her silent breath catch as she watched. Each and every strike, thrust, or kick was lethal, of that she had no doubt. Their style of fighting was harsh and brutal, but also very precise and beautiful, with many wide and sweeping combinations of impressive complexity.

And yet not a single blow could find purchase in the shuffling, frail old man.

And it was that aspect of the old Immortal’s style of fighting that was sending a slow chill up the spines of those watching. Compared to the Triplets, the old man’s movements seemed agonizingly slow and careful - almost cautious. Like he was performing a complex kata for review by some panel of invisible judges, while the three younger novas were busily trying to kill him. But as Fei Long looked closer, he realized that what seemed to be a single, unreasonably slow parry of one of the Triplets’ lightning fast strikes, was in fact an unfathomably complex series of maneuvers so tiny and delicate as to be almost imperceptible. And though the parry seemed almost tender in its delicate and serene movements, whereas the Triplet’s strike seemed to carry enough force to drop a rhino, the strike was nonetheless turned aside without ever coming close to its intended target.

And that was how all of the old man's movements were; each one seemingly simple at first glance, but containing layer upon layer of complexity below the surface, and each one flowing seemlessly, one into the other, until it became hard to tell where one movement ended and the next began.

Of the three watchers, only Youkai, with her nova senses and superior reflexes, could fully appreciate the import of what she was seeing. It helped, too that she had some knowledge of the heirarchy within Chinese Wu Shu schools. So she knew that the students within a 'wu-guan' ('fist school') were referred to as 'todai' ('disciple'), and she knew that she herself probably qualified as a 'shi-jie' ('teacher senior sister'). But if so, then the Triplets were obviously of shi-fu calibre, which of course meant 'teacher' or 'master'.

It was strange for her to realize this,as she knew that she was certainly faster than the old man, and almost as certainly faster than the Triplets. Even so, Youkai knew that she was watching her betters in combat, because there was Speed and then there was Skill, and - all else being equal - it would always be Skill that won battles. And the Triplets had more of the latter, even if she did have more of the former.

However, Youkai knew that there were titles accorded more respect than that of shi-fu. The first of them being 'shi-gong' (meaning 'teacher's teacher' or, more literally, 'teacher grandfather'). But there was another title that existed above all of them, the final level of expertise, normally awarded to a master only in death. That title was 'zong-shi', the 'ancestral teacher', the Master to whom all lesser masters must yield.

Watching the ancient little nova with his ancient brass-headed cane as he effortlessly manipulated three full-blown shi-fu with all the skill of a Go prodigy, goading and baiting them into a trap whose outlines she could barely grasp, Youkai understood that she was watching a living Zong-shi.

And of course, the Yakuza thugs who'd managed to survive Youkai's grenade chose that precise moment to start shooting at Bento, Fei Long, and Youkai. Bento took a bullet in the leg and dropped to one knee. Youkai reacted immediately and dragged him out of the hallway and propped him against the wall. Fei Long reacted rather less quickly than Youkai, but pretty damn fast nonetheless. He also took cover behind the wall on the opposite side of the hall and started shooting like his life depended on it. Because it did.

Behind them three shi-fu did battle with one zong-shi, dodging the occasional stray bullet along with each others' fists.

[z-Infinity]

Infinity raised her hand against the light, wondering if this was real or if she was hallucinating again. Anything was possible. She had learned that well and so she was prepared for anything, she thought. She was oddly calm about it, too; not having any say in her fate should have been freaking her out. Honestly, it felt like it was happening to someone else.

Someone yelling at her in Chinese while grabbing her arm jarred her right out of her weird funk. “Fuckin’ bitterness,” she muttered as softly as she could as she was hauled to her feet. She readied herself for the beatings or some other humiliation; instead, he dragged her out of the cell. Infinity’s eyes widened in surprise as she saw the outside of her cinder block home for the first time in days. All she saw was another cinder block corridor. She thought that they might be teasing her, but her captor dragged her forward to the iron door at the end of the hall.

He opened that door straight into hell. Infinity flinched as the roar of gunfire invaded her senses, followed by the screams and cries of men fighting. The door had opened into another corridor but at the end of this one, she could see a larger room. This is where the wholesale chaos and mayhem were coming from, and it was that room that her captor dragged her toward.

As he reached the door, he doubled his grip on her arm and dragged her onward. Infinity tried to stop, having a natural and absolutely healthy fear of entering a room full of whizzing bullets and dying people. But the hard-faced Triad member yanked her into the room anyway, brooking no resistance. They both hunched down, trying not to get shot as they crossed the back of the room. The goal was a door – probably an exit.

Infinity glanced at a swirl of movement inside the room. Four men were fighting, three of them very familiar – more familiar than she’d ever wanted them to be. The fourth was an ancient old Chinese man who was somehow holding his own against Yaozu. Infinity didn’t have the knowledge to understand the skill she was seeing here but she did understand that she was seeing two ass-kicking martial artists. Had she been allowed to stop and stare, she would have – it was grace and power going head to head and she wanted to see who would win.

She also grasped something else. This was her chance to escape. She started to thrash, pulling against the man holding her. “Hey, let go of me you little Chinese fuck!” she screamed, batting wildly at the man tugging at her. He cursed at her in Chinese and backhanded her. In response, Infinity grabbed his hand and bit him. His curses became enraged and wild, but she didn’t let go. This was her chance to be free of Yaozu, and she was taking the opportunity.