Description: Air travel should be a safe way into Taizhou, right? After all, it's not like there's giant power-grid draining anti-air chi-lasers that could shoot a helicopter out of the night sky... oh wait.
You'd imagine that money could get you a little more than a cramped chopper ride with some like-minded individuals. You're currently sitting in the carriage compartment of Aerospatiale's Super Frelon, a single-main rotor transport helicopter used in many countries for military and commercial applications both. In this case, it's a locally-produced Chinese variant called a Z-8. And from this particular model's comforts or lack thereof, it's not hard to imagine it being a charter company's first acquisition--from sometime in the 70s.
"Geheh...eheh.." the creature giggles quietly as it settled a steel talon on the controls of the Shinseikasen. The weapon forming a comprehensive targetting logistics projection in the air as a power warning light flickered, the thing--less than human, more than an animal--tried to suppress an urge to drool as it lines up its target.
Flying in at this hour was necessary, they said. 'The night will make it harder to see your approach,' they said. Unfortunately, that was some time after you paid, and a long time before the entire city of Taizhou suffered a 23 second power outage. That plunged the city into roughly 17 seconds of pitch darkness, leaving the only visible light in the sky not being generated by wildfires being the cabin lights in the helicopter. And then the entire city is bathed in a nimbus of white light and a preternatural hissing sound originating from atop a building somewhere in the ruins district of the city. The hiss slowly gives way to a cacophonic shriek, and a white lance of light cuts the smoke from nearby fires in half as it sweeps ony a few degrees upwards. Enough to completely scythe off the tail rotor of the given choice of entrance.
While only becoming slightly less lethally groundborne via autorotation, the helicopter is slowly spinning out of control. The pilot is unconscious. Two powerplants are burned out in the weapons strike and one rotor wing appears to have been completely sheared off when the tail of the aircraft was ripped off. Additionally, one of the accoutrements of the helicopter--parachutes--appear to have been cut to one. After all, those are expensive to replace. Warning lights and distress alerts blare all over the slowly spinning helicopter.
Well. At least it's cozy.
In the ranks of "R", there is a helicopter pilot named Ahmed Armonnhed. Hired into the organization around the same time as Alan R.B., the easy-going man and the known loudmouth formed an unlikely friendship - he found Alan hilarious, and everyone loves having a good sycophant. Seeking to get to Taizhou without Rugal's knowledge, Alan was certain he could rely on Ahmed to fly him in on the down-low, as the kids say.
That morning, Ahmed was shot down on an extraction of an agent from a deal gone bad. Hence, Alan's presence on the Super Frelon.
Hotaru may remember Alan from their brief meeting during the first Jinchuu tournament - he certainly remembers her. Eliminated in the second round, Alan revealed himself as an "R" plant when the Black Noah attacked the ship, though he had the misfortune to run into Hotaru during the initial assault, put down with an enormous blast of chi. He has a certain way of making a first impression - you don't forget Alan, who never seems to shut up, who has acheived worldwide fame as an asshole and a pervert.
For the entire flight, Alan has not said a word to Hotaru, hands clasped in front of his mouth, eyes closed, working to keep his breathing steady. Electricity dances about his skin in an unsettled fashion, crawling around the seat and floor around him, revealing his agitation.
He remains in this forced pose of serenity right up until The Incident. His eyes snap open at the shriek, entire body tensing, the faint crackle of his chi silencing for a moment - and then the interior lights start flickering as the helicopter's integrity is compromised. Alan utters his first word of the entire trip:
"Ahhhhhh, shit."
Finding transportation into a region that has come to affectionately be referred to as a 'ninja warzone' was even more of a challenge than the Futaba heiress had expected. Making it into Shanghai wasn't an issue. As a world class fighter, her visa's and passports were always kept up to date. But getting from there to her intended destination of the isolated region of Taizhou had a glaring issue: No one wanted to go near the place.
No coastal boating service, no commuter prop planes or jets... the roads were a bad way to go according to some, and would take too long according to others. No small number of bribes and promises of future repayments had to be made just to get in contact with one of the few outfits still crazy enough to take someone into Taizhou - provided the money offered was significant enough. They would only fly under the cover of night or so the plan went.
The military troop transport looked to have been built in the late 60's at the earliest. A flying bucket of rust and loose bolts just waiting to be rattled to pieces by the incessant vibrations of the rotors. But for the first half of the flight, it isn't the fear of the thing falling apart in the air that has Hotaru quiet and tense but maybe it should have been.
Instead, the teenaged fighter, clad in a white blouse, pink jacket, and long blue skirt, keeps glancing toward the young man sharing the flight with her in the flying deathtrap. Given their history, she is no more eager in talking to him than Alan seems intent in staying quiet, but it doesn't mean her mind doesn't wander. What a coincidence to run into the 'R' associate while enroute to the second Jinchuu. Going as a participant? A lightning imbued saboteur? Maybe both at once?
Quietly, Hotaru Futaba exhales, turning to look out the square window adjacent to the bench she's seated on The city lights carpet the ground below. They're almost there and this awkward flight can come to an end.
That's when the lights below vanish from sight all at once as the entire city's power grid finds itself being channeled into a singule violent purpose. A few seconds and one blinding flash later, and the stability of this already questionably stable chopper is destroyed all together. The startled scream the initial explosion provokes from the girl is mostly drown out by the sirens and alarms that begin to sound, accompanied by the unnerving cacophony of twisting metal and an array of blinking red and yellow lights.
Jumping up to her feet, she bangs the top of her head against one of the crossing beams of the passanger compartment before stumbling forward toward the cockpit. "We've been shot! They shot something at us!" She sounds incredulous, as if this entire trip thus far the thought that people down in that hotbed of conspiracy and war would be shooting innocent travelers out of the sky. This isn't like Jinchuu aboard the Seiryuu at all!
One moment, Alan is sitting in his seat, almost completely still.
The next, he's in two places at once - crouching in the middle of the plane, one hand flat on the ground, and also still sitting on the bench. Another second later, the sitting Alan dissolves into tiny lightnings.
It seems he's gotten... faster, since they've last met.
"Well, holy shit, congratulations," he mocks, standing up and adjusting his vest - then removing his Oakleys willingly, folding them up and slipping them into the breast pocket of his shirt. "You're some kind of high school Sherlock Holmes." He sways on his feet as the hellochopter starts dropping, teeth gritting. Why now? Why like this? Damnit! Alan locks uncharacteristically paranoid eyes on Hotaru, mouth pulling into a line, before he puts one hand on the roof to steady himself as he stalks toward the pilot's cabin, yanking the door open and sticking his head in.
"Goddamnit, he's unconcious! I can't fly one of these things!" Most of the flickering lights are going out now.
Lifting her left hand to rub the top of her head, Hotaru is turning toward Alan when he moves at the speed of electricity across the helicopter compartment. The blur of motion and spark of chi at first has the girl reacting defensively, right arm lifting, hand held sideways, clearly preparing to fend off a strike in a haphazard, startled fashion. Being in a chopper that just lost a few hundred pounds of its frame seems to have made her even jumpier about the 'R' associate. She realizes her mistake in an instant but there's no time to look sheepish about it as she lowers her guard and glances after Alan as he moves toward the front of the chopper.
Distracted by the combination of her head hurting, violent levels of wind noise rushing through the passanger area, and no small amount of raw adrenaline fueled fear, the mocking doesn't really register against the overriding desire to get out of this alive and make sure the other two do too. As Alan moves forward, Hotaru turns around to look over the compartment. Unlike the big airlines, there's no oxygen masks to drop down from the ceiling; no helpful pamphlets that ead 'In case of your air vehicle getting shot out of the sky...' to encourage those aboard to crouch forward in their seats with futile desparation.
What to do, what to do- Alan declares the pilot unconscious and the situation seems to only have gotten worse. His next exclaimation provokes a "You're a pilot?!" question yelled back up at him. Turning around in circles again, the far less experienced flyer looks over the cabin for anything that looks like it might be helpful. The backpack looking thing with shoulder and body straps mounted in a rack in the back seems promising, matching her picture of what a parachute probably looks like, but what's disconcerting is that it's the only one hanging there.
There has to be more, right? Stepping up onto one of the benches, using the ceiling to brace herself from falling over from the spinning sensation only growing worse, Hotaru pulls open one of the overhead compartments to start yanking items out of it onto the cabin floor. Sheets, blankets, a jacket... nothing that looks parachute shaped though. "What kind of passanger service only has one parachute??" she grumbles incrediously.
"/Can't,/" Alan responds, irritably. "Caannnnnnnnnnnnnnn'T." He claps his hands, making a little crack of thunder to with the 'T', because that's just a real douche move. "Look, just... just sit tight for a second." He vanishes into the pilot's cabin.
Alan rummages around in there, which makes a holy racket, glancing repeatedly at the skyline, which is just starting to get a spin going. It's gonna get really hard to keep balance here soon, even for a fighter... well, /he's/ going to have a harder time, Hotaru uses some - in Alan's own words - 'crazy-ass chinko shit', which'll probably help. He pats down the pilot's corpse (in another startling out-of-character move, he didn't go all out and tell the younger girl he was dead, head cracked on his own controls), ripping apart any storage containers. He has no fear for his life. Alan is absolutely certain he can find some way to survive this crash. He /has/ to make it into Taizhou. He has to see if...
"Shit, shit!" Alan tears the storage locker right out of the floor, hurling it against the wall with a loud crash in rage. Monies flutter around, in a riot of multi-national wealth, and the bottle of cheap wine inside shatters, splattering the wall. He kicks the door of the pilot's cabin open just in time to hear Hotaru's... ominous grumbling. The boxer freezes in place, then slips his hands into his pockets.
Pressing his lips together, eyes bright, his body relaxes, chi starting to swirl around the edges of his clothes near exposed skin. "One parachute, huh?"
"Oh." is the somewhat disappointed reply Alan gets when Hotaru realizes that she had optimistically misheard what he said moments prior. The more he talks, the more she remembers why she felt pretty justified in chiblasting him into the deck of Seishirou's fancy, oversized yacht. Well, that, and the whole hostile-takeover thing.
With each passing second the sounds of the dying engines become harder to hear and the roar of rushing wind through the severed section of the tail grows all the more overwhelming. The first overhead compartment emptied onto the floor, the teenaged traveler stumbles her way across the cabin to the only other overhead storage visible with the intent to clean it out as well. "Yeah!" she exclaims back as she steps up onto another bench to augment her reach enough to pop open the door.
"There's just one!" she reiterates. "Unless there's something in this space here," she continues, having to shout just to make sure that she's heard, hair whipping about her face as she stretches up to inspect the second cargo box. "We'll have to figure out how to make it work-"
The chopper shifts violently as it dives through a cross-current, causing Hotaru to wobble a little, catching herself with one foot on the bench, one hand against the wall, and the other against one gripping one of the various cables crossing over the top of the cabin, "How to make it work for all three of us!" Already her mind is iterating over various ideas of how to share a parachute across three people, each less practical than the one before it.
"Three?!" Alan asks incredulously. "You should be more worried about yourse-" He fares less well as the chopper wracks its occupants, boots skidding on the deck before he's tossed casually in the other direction, crashing shoulder-first into the wall, knocking his hands out of his pockets. A few of his iron rings scatter, along with his onyx-inlaid cigarette case - he grabs that first, snapping it open and thumbing a cigarette out of it, lighting it with a flick of his hand.
"...don't worry about the pilot," he starts, hands flashing to get his rings before they slide out of sight or off the plane. "If he can't move for himself, there's no way we're saving him." Alan straightens, flashing a cruel smile as he pulls his rings on. "That's life, and death." At this point, it's almost crueller than just telling her he's dead.
Alan sweeps the things Hotaru's dug out of the compartments, kicking things out of the way as he moves toward the back of the chopper, where the exit door is, sticking his head out the window and scowling. He stares out there for what feels like a long time, before saying, "Why're you going to that damn city? You even have a real reason?" Alan locks an intense gaze on Hotaru, working out two different things in his head: first, a way to get the parachute away from the girl.
Second, god help him, a way for them both to get out of here. He's gonna get himself killed thinking like this.
Once stabilized better, Hotaru reaches into the second compartment, pulling a big net onto the floor before reaching back in for the rest of the assorted junk that had been shoved in there over the years this old bird had been in service. She pauses when Alan says not to worry about the pilot, glancing back over her shoulder, eyes settling on his as he offers a quick lesson on life and death and survival of the fittest. The gaze she levels his way lasts a long few seconds before she looks away again, the girl not saying a word about trying to save the presumed unconcious pilot's life along with her own.
"Huh?!" she exclaims back as she pulls a six-pack of beer before letting it tumble to the floor enroute toward the exit. Hell of a time for questions like that, she thinks, trying to focus on how to survive at the same time she lets his question roll around in her head. It's not an easy question to answer over the tumultuous noise raging about in the falling death bucket.
Hotaru pauses in her frantic search, hands gripping the edge of the compartment for support. "When I was out on that boat last time!" It's easy enough to guess what she's talking about there. "I saw a glimpse of what Seishirou Ryouhara intended to change the world into!" She closes her eyes for a moment. Does it matter now? "They say he's dead now, you know?!" she continues, opening her eyes again to fish a toolbox out of the compartment and let it crash to the floor. "I had to see for myself his legacy - I had to see how his story really ends!"
She glances over her shoulder toward Alan for a moment as she pulls a long length of rope out of the back of that overhead compartment. "Need to know, for myself, if he was a visionary." She teeters for a moment, catching herself quickly. "Or just a dangerous psycopath! Whether the things he told me back then were real or not!" Behind Alan, the horizon slowly lifts into view, the world spinning below them. Hotaru catches her breath. Time is running out. The guy might be right about not being able to save the 'third'.
Turning toward the cockpit, her attention lingers there, clearly trying to figure out what to do with the third man unaccounted for even while she has yet to solve how she and Alan could get out.
Alan holds onto a handle with his right hand, the lightning bolt of hair down the side of his face swaying as the hellochopter spins faster and faster. On the Suiryuu, Alan's view of things was... narrow. Limited. "Yeah... that is what 'they' say," he responds, his tone making it clear how much stock he puts in what 'they' say. Especially where someone like Seishirou is concerned.
Alan holds up his left wrist, staring at the silver chain there, a bracelet made for a woman's arm, almost too tight for him to wear it. It's a simple chain, out of place with the finery you'd expect from Alan. The kind of thing a high schooler would get as a gift. "That free world a'his." It was on the Black Noah, long after Jinchuu, that Alan had his real meeting with Seishirou. "A place that things like money and how important your parents on don't decide things." The boxer closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath."
"Psychopath, or visionary. Maybe he's gotta be a little bit of both." Alan lets the handle go, and starts walking toward Hotaru. "You know who I work for, you'd have to be a fuckin' idiot to trust me." His mouth twists into a smirk, and he flicks ash off his black and gold cigarette before holding one hand out.
"I'm a lightweight, and you're /tiny./ I figure that parachute can handle both of us, and we're strong enough to survive a rough landing. You hang onto me, I figure we can both use that thing."
At Alan's audible skepticism as to the reports of the Ryouhara's demise, Hotaru pauses as if caught off guard. She had accepted the rumors on face value rather than applying a healthy amount of doubt to them. She should know better - they WERE talking about the man who spent weeks walking among a boat full of people disguised as his long since dead grandfather. Who's to say he's really dead?
She spends only a split second before dismissing it. There's time to wonder about that plenty much later. Her eyes settle on the chain on Alan's arm - a momento of something, she surmizes, it seems humbly out of place with the flashy young man's normal apparel. Alan's words are heard as he describes a piece of Seishirou's world vision, and Hotaru nods just slightly - or maybe head bobs because the ride is getting violently rougher now.
"And here," she replies as he moves closer, his expression occupied by that teasing smirk. "I was hoping that you had changed careers since that last time." 'R' Organization. She shouldn't trust him in the slightest. "You seem different." Maybe she just didn't have much chance to judge in that last exchange. She doesn't have time think about it any further.
He explains about the parachute and Hotaru gives him a level stare. No time to debate it. It's act now or never. "The pilot is dead, isn't he." she declares, demonstrating the insight that she is well known for. Something about how Alan is behaving tells her that he isn't quite as cutthroat as she might have liked to write him off as.
"Let's get out of here!" She reaches out, trying to shove th parachute pack into Alan's arms, thus taking the biggest risk of this trip since embarking on the endeavor. "You must know how to use it better than I do. I'll hang onto you!"
"It's not the kind of career you change," Alan responds cooly, one hand out for the parachute. "Tricky contract." He accepts the parachute without mentioning the pilot, silently turning it around in his hands, getting a quick feel for what type it is before swinging it on, buckling straps with little fumbling. At the level of 'R' Alan is at, you do a lot of airdropping. Once he has it all on, he gives it a quick yank, and says, "Cracked his skull. He's fucked."
Alan spits the cigarette to the side, rolling his neck as he turns around, holding one arm out as he steps quickly to the door. "Grab something!" Alan holds onto the handle next to the door, lifts one foot, and slams it out, electricity spiralling around his foot.
With a resounding wrench, the door goes flying off, immediately swallowed by the insane winds as the helicopter spins down. A normal person probably wouldn't survive a parachute jump of this height. For a moment, Alan looks like he's just... going to jump. This is because he is. All the instincts he's built up around himself to run from his past are screaming at him to just... go. With a clearly visible effort, he switches hands on the handle, turning around, and holding one arm open. "Get one hand on the latch over my shoulder! Pull it when I tell you to!" He has to shout at the top of his lungs.
She takes his reply about the career change with an even expression. She can only begin to imagine the kind of debts, obligations, and catch 22's one racks up while trapped in an organization like 'R' or other large criminal carteels. No stranger to what those powers are capable of from an outsider's point of view, she need only look at the damage wrought upon Southtown to appreciate the danger they represent. No doubt they don't let their people go so easily. Especially not someone as capable as the chi-charged boxer.
She stands back as he fits the parachute on. He handles it like a man that's done it before. Which is good, because she hasn't a clue. He ditches the cigarette. That he'd even light one up at a time like this speaks volumes about the kind of harrowing experiences he's probably gone through before if he can so calmly smoke that thing in a falling disaster. "Okay." she replies as he declares the pilot's fate, sounding like she's accepting that to be the case even if reluctant to think the pilot's story ends there. Maybe if she hadn't pushed so hard or offered so much money to get him to take on this daredevil of a flight... well, there's no thinking on that now, she needs to pay rapt attention.
Alan moves to the door and Hotaru is at his side quickly, only to get buffetted back a little when the hatch is wrenched off. It's almost impossible to hear him but she can tell they have to jump *now*. With no time to consider propriety in light of a painful stop ahead if they don't act immediately, Hotaru hugs to Alan, wrapping one arm up around his neck from in front, as her other hand clenches tightly to one of the straps on the parachute itself. "OKAY!" she shouts back, shifting her posture just a little so that the hand gripping the strap takes hold of the latch he indicates. "NOW-!"
Alan bends at the knees once Hotaru has her hold, and... starts laughing. "Heh. Hahahahahaha! Ah, jeez, what a ridiculous situation /this/ is." Alan locks his hands together across Hotaru's back, chi spirals down his legs, and he /leaps./
The force of Alan's chi blasting against the helicopter knocks it further off-track, by design - now they don't risk being chopped up by the rotors. Sparks trail in the air behind them, and as the electricity returns to Alan's entire body proper, the spot where Hotaru's arm contacts his neck is... tingly. With less wind resistance, the fighters are falling faster than the helicopter, Alan angling his body to take them further and further away from it. "Pull it. Pull it!"
The backpack erupts, an old, dingy-looking parachute exploding out above them. Alan's grip becomes painful for a moment as he makes sure he won't drop Hotaru in the sudden /wrench/ - and his sunglasses fly out of his pocket, flying off into the distance. He stares after them as he puts one hand to the parachute itself, angling the two of them expertly toward Taizhou.
"Sure hope they don't shoot another one of those things," he quips, sneering out at the distance.
Log created on 22:44:40 04/13/2010 by Hotaru, and last modified on 17:11:43 04/18/2010.