Nikholas F. Toledo Zu

presents


The Kiyone Chronicles - No Need for Kiyone!!!


An Exclusively Kiyone Fanfic

by Nikholas 'Don Juan' F. Toledo
(Overseas Corr...  Oh, Hell.  So I'm still home.  Sue me.  Or rather, 
don't.  My tuition's damned expensive because of the out-of-state fee...)


introductory notice (or warning, whichever) - Yep.  This makes the fifth 
writing project I've started that I actually hope to finish...  Be wary, 
I am doing this purely on a whim =)



Part I - No Need for Strangers!!!

	"Mihoshi?"

	"Mihoshi?" The slender girl with the long, bluish-green hair called 
out from the kitchen.  

	"Mihoshi?  Where are you?  WE'VE GOT WOOOOOORK!  You're going to 
make us laaaaate!" she screamed, eyes twitching in anguish.  "Do you 
remember what our boss said?  The next time we're late will be the 
LAAAAAST!  C'mon Mihoshi!"  She started tearing through the apartment, 
checking under couches, tables, in closets, under the stove, behind the 
refrigerator.

	"MihoooooooooshiIIIIIIIIIIII!  We haven't paid the rent in months, 
we can't even afford bread and water if we get FI-IIIIIIRED!  WHEEEEERE 
AAAAARE YOUUUUUUUUUU?" She slumped against the wall and slid down it, a 
tremendous pressure building in her blood vessels, a painful pulsing 
sensation growing in her temples...  It was only her normal reaction to 
her partner, but normally, she was too busy to succumb to the terrible 
urge to just give up on everything.  "Oh, Gods, please, please..."  She 
curled over, sobbed intermittently for a while, and passed out.


	Kai groaned, servos creaking as he struggled out of the dumpster 
he'd fallen unconscious in.  A sickly looking yellow-green mixture of 
nutrient fluid and lubricant leaked from his broken nose, his ears and 
from the corner of his mouth.  His smooth, pale blue skin was marred with 
bruises everywhere, and his left arm was bent backwards, twisted upon the 
elbow.  He touched his ears and winced at the pain.  

	He touched his eyelids, and cautiously, opened them - his yellow 
cat's eyes taking in the dizzying spitfires of the city lights, crazy 
flickerings of neon, and orange sodium gas lamps, and the occasional 
lasers dancing in the night sky.  

	"At least...  I can see..."  He turned his attention to his left 
arm.  "God, this is going to hurt..."  He tore a strip of cloth from his 
ragged black jumpsuit, and stuffed it into his mouth.  Biting down hard, 
oily tears streamed from his eyes as he choked down on his scream.  He 
pushed his left forearm back into the correct alignment, shards of 
metallic bone tearing through the delicate skin as he did so.  He 
shuddered as he tapped into the power of his heart of golden energy...  
The glowing lines traced themselves under his skin, from his chest, 
through his shoulder and down to the shattered elbow.  

	The intense glow brightened that dim alleyway for a moment, 
attracting the attention of a group of scavenging, leather-clad Rats with 
their chains, spikes and daggers...  Their red eyes brightened as they 
intensified their night-vision in the anticipation of some prey.  They 
smirked, revealing needle teeth as they stalked into the alleyway, 
searching through the shadows for the source of that labored heartbeat...

	One of them, the leader, carried nunchaku, and began to whirl them 
through the fetid air, the distinctive whistling and the clacking of the 
chain filling the little corridor of darkness.  They couldn't see him 
yet, but he knew that there was no escape as soon as he heard their 
chittering teeth getting so close...  

	Stupid!  Should have checked if I was clear first, he thought.  No 
time now...  must give them no chance...

	"KIIIIIIIYAAAAAAAA!!!"  Kai screamed, tearing through the thin 
metal of the dumpster's walls in an explosion of garbage and piercing 
white light.  The leader was fast, hissing as he swung with his weapon in 
an arc that should have shattered Kai's skull...  if it had hit.  Kai 
caught it with his left, stepped back as he dragged the suddenly off-
balance Rat towards him, and broke its neck with his elbow as he spun.

	The Rats jerked, stung by the electronic surge signaling the death 
of their leader.  They hissed, and moved in with their pipes and chains 
and make-shift weaponry.  

	Kai knew he was doomed...  this pack was too large.  His feet 
shifted as he danced, talons extended to maximum.  In the dim light, his 
blue form seemed like a ghost, but that didn't matter to the heat-vision 
of the Rats.  He raked them down, shredding through armor and cybernetic 
flesh with ease in the initial moment of surprise.  Two down...  Three 
down in as many seconds.  But his heart was tiring fast, and he hadn't 
been able to complete the repairs on his arm...  A swung punch, without 
too much force, but hard as the carbon-armored gauntlet on the Rat's fist 
was all it took to break the arm again.  Then they were on him, snarling, 
spitting and howling as they kicked and struck at him blindly, hate 
lending strength to their starved limbs.  

	Individually, the strikes were directed clumsily, feeble, almost 
pathetic.  But Kai was already weak and badly damaged...  

	He coughed as the Rats paused, detecting a new heat reading in the 
alley.  

	Gunshots roared in the narrowness, echoing, shocking the crowd.  

	This was his only chance left.  He screamed again, even louder as 
he pushed his magnetic heart to its limits...  He tore apart the one 
standing on him with the force of his mind's scream.  

	That was a costly maneuver, leaving him helpless for the minutes it 
would take for him to recover from the burning agony in his mind and in 
his chest, but the gamble worked.

	The intervention of the second person's well-aimed gunfire, as well 
as the shock of seeing one of their own vivisected before their eyes and 
the dawning realization that their leaders were dead was enough to 
frighten off the disorganized Rats.

	Kai's eyes flickered open as the heat in his veins ebbed to 
tolerable levels, and took in the sight of that aquiline face framed by 
the sea of aqua-colored hair.  "...you..." he gasped, his slightly 
luminescent blood pulsing from his mouth.  "Get to...  hotel...  please."

	Kiyone's heart at last began to slow to a normal pace as she put 
aside her Galaxy Police-issue pistol, and tore the sleeves off of her 
uniform to use as bandages.

	"How did I get here?" she murmured.  One moment, she was screaming 
for her partner...  next she was in the middle of an insane blur of 
frenzied, black-clad animal-like savages, attacking...  kicking...  
killing the most handsome creature she'd ever seen in her life.  And oh, 
she thought, he was sooo very... handsome.  Damn.  Act professional, 
stupid!  Gonna be acting like Mihoshi soon...  The thought made her 
shudder... almost as much as the stranger.  Dammit!  Pay attention!  

	She berated herself ruthlessly as she resumed tending to the worst 
of his wounds.

	
	She jerked awake and relaxed back into the warm comfort of her 
blankets.  "Just a dream," she muttered, rolling over...

	And falling off of the couch.

	Couch?  Wait a minute...  We don't have a couch...  a fuzzy 
reconstruction of the events of the previous night began to intrude upon 
her consciousness.  Mostly because the blue-skinned apparition from the 
night before was in a bed three feet away.  The room, she'd paid for with 
an alien-looking credstick she'd found in one of his pockets.  No 
identification.  She'd been lucky though...  At least, whatever world she 
was on, they used Galactic Standard...  So she couldn't be TOO lost...  
she hoped.  The inhabitants of this world appeared to be mostly robotic, 
with a group of controlling humanoids in charge of things.  She'd never 
heard of any place quite like this tremendous city with its strange 
mixture of slender, tapering spires of silver and clumsy, blocky, rust-
colored monoliths and wondered where the heck she was.  She gazed 
outside, wondering at the incredible size of the city and its 
buildings...  No, she revised that thought, the city was one HUGE 
building.  She wondered if it was one of the world-cities - a city 
covering the entire globe in a sheath of steel civilization.  But all of 
those were supposed to have been destroyed in the last war.

	"Mihoshi, I swear, if I find out that this is your fault, I'm going 
to KILL you..."

	Then, he moved uneasily, as if in a dream.  Kai began to speak, and 
Kiyone swore that his voice was too beautiful to be real...  Musical, the 
only word that came close and still it was so inadequate to describe the 
thrill that it was to hear it.  

	"The lights...  Damn those lights!  Traitors, all of them...  
Water-chains..."  His fingers curled and straightened in his fevered 
sleep, slicing the tough synth-foam mattress.

	Eyes still heavy with sleep, she stumbled over in her shorts and 
undershirt, and laid a cool hand on his brow.  His temperature was 
intermittently burning hot and icy cold...  But the fluctuations didn't 
seem to be as bad as from the night before, and was she imagining it or 
was his formerly broken nose now straight?  The sheets were stained green 
with the blood that had seeped through the bandages, but it was crusty, 
dried.  She wanted to check for his pulse, but had checked the usual 
places and his anatomy, while it was remarkably human in some ways, was 
completely baffling in others.  She laid her head against his chest, and 
at least it seemed that his heart was beating easier now, and his breath 
was not as labored.

	She tried to sound soothing, but she was never a morning person, 
and it came out somewhat rough, like sandpaper.  "It's all right," she 
cleared her throat.  "You're safe..." 

	Kiyone fell back, stunned by the electricity that suddenly flowed 
along his body.  She could see lights moving beneath his skin, and he 
groaned as his eyes fluttered open and closed.  It was only then that she 
noticed the strong, spicy scent that he gave off - vaguely like cinnamon.

	His eyes snapped open.  "MOVE!" 

	She dove for her pistol at his warning and rolled, barely avoiding 
the blazing energy fire that just burst through the door.  She aimed and 
fired from behind the meager cover offered by the couch, and though her 
weapon's charges struck the attacker dead center thrice, and once in what 
looked like an eye, the steel monster was completely unharmed.  

	"Shit!"  She leaped away from the couch as the shiny, eight-armed 
machine brought its guns to bear on the couch, blasting through it and 
the wall behind it.  The burning cloth set off a fire detector, and a 
cool, damp mist that flashed into steam upon contact with the thing's hot 
energy weapons began to fill the room as alarms sounded.

	Visibility was bad, but Kiyone started firing rapidly at feet of 
the metal monstrosity, and the weakened floor collapsed beneath it, 
sending it crashing down.  

	Kai was impressed.  The female was brave, and quick on her feet and 
in action...  even if her attempts were ineffective.  

	Brilliant beams of scintillating red began to shoot up from the 
floor.  

	"Great," she muttered.

	She'd held it off for long enough, Kai thought.  He should have 
recovered enough by now to deal with this...  He hoped.  He jumped off 
the bed, charged at Kiyone, swept her into his arms (despite her quick 
protests!) and crashed through and out of the window.  She swallowed, 
hard, wondering how far up they were.  "Trust me," Kai said as he 
concentrated, pushing at the containment fields of his heart.  He used it 
to slow their descent, lightning crackling around them in a field of 
carefully calculated force.  

	Every hair on Kiyone's body stood on end from the energy about them 
as well as from the bitter cold air.  She held tightly onto the blue-
skinned stranger, partially in fear of falling and mostly because his 
high body temperature was warming her a little, keeping her from 
shivering too badly.  I won't scream, she repeated in her head.  Mihoshi 
screams, I do NOT scream...  Ohhh shiiiiiiit.  

	A spear of red fire brushed uncomfortably close by them, and 
interfered with his field enough so that they dropped just a little 
quicker.  She shouted above the sound of the roaring winds, "You'd better 
keep me from falling!"  She let go of him and used both hands to steady 
her grip on her blaster, only her muscular legs gripping his waist.  She 
blushed a little, but she knew this was hardly the time to be shy.  He 
helped by wrapping his strong arms around her and concentrating on 
shielding them from the assault of red energy.  

	Kiyone hoped that no one was in the room below the one they'd 
occupied as she again aimed at the floor under the metal titan's broad 
feet.  It was a good thing that the armored monster was at the very edge, 
as her concentrated fire disturbed its footing enough to send it falling 
from the great height of the immense hotel/shopping mall complex 
contained in that tower of the city.  It shrieked as it sped by them, 
falling down to crash some one hundred floors below them. 

	That threat dealt with, she held onto the stranger tightly once 
more with both her arms, just managing to keep her voice even, "Could you 
please get us down now?"

	She noted her companion's sweat, and the exhausted look on his face 
as he replied, "Down is easy...  Down slowly is hard."  He grit his teeth 
as the pain in his chest began to grow.  "Don't...  don't have enough 
power..."  His scent turned slightly sour, probably having to do with his 
exertions, Kiyone thought.

	They started to fall, and this time, she did scream.  With the last 
of his energy, Kai, pushed sideways, and battered through the side of the 
tower, bringing them to a hard landing in another room after free-falling 
about thirty feet.

	Kiyone panted, "Does this always happen on the first date with 
you?"

	"Only... with women... I find especially interesting..." he gasped, 
clutching at his throbbing chest.

	"Galaxy Police Detective First Class Kiyone."  She extended a 
somewhat shaky hand.

	"Captain Nishiori Kai of the super Dreadnought 'Psychotic Rose' - 
Adventurer Extraordinaire, part-time bounty hunter and buckler of 
swashes!"  He clasped it warmly in his own, and pressed his lips to her 
hand delicately, before letting go and hunching over.   "Oh God, I'm 
gonna throw up!"  He covered his mouth with his hands.

	She raised an eyebrow inquisitively as she snatched back her hand.  

	"Using my Magnetic Heart," he choked, forcing the bile down, "is 
extremely strenuous...  It's a prototype cybernetic weapon, and all the 
others it was tested on died from the side-effects...  I wasn't exactly a 
volunteer at the time."  

	She stood, and checked the number of charges left in her pistol.  
"You mind telling me where we are, and what all these goons want with 
you?"

	He gasped, "How 'bout we get to safety first?  The rest of the team 
that's after us is probably searching this hotel floor by floor...  and 
you won't catch the rest of them by shooting the floor.  We need some 
firepower...  If only I still had the magic..." he stopped.  

	Kiyone raised an eyebrow, "Magic?"

	"Nevermind.  We have to get to the Almighty Bob's...  "

	"Bob's?" She blinked.

	He straightened out what was left of his jumpsuit.  "Bob owes me.  
Maybe I can twist his arm enough to get him to bring us to the dark side 
of the first moon of Twylerion."

	"Twylerion?"
	
	"It's the name of this world.  My ship's hiding in the shadow of 
the first moon - where the orbital bases of the Twylerion Republic can't 
detect it.  I'm something of a notorious criminal on this world, because 
I stand for freedom and..."

	"Justice?" Kiyone arched an eyebrow skeptically.

	"... And the right to make a buck, of course!  Come on.  We've got 
to get to the sewers...  it's the safest path to the Almighty Bob's." 

	She wrinkled her nose.  "No way!  Couldn't we just ambush whoever's 
chasing you and take their weapons?"  

	He chuckled.  "Girl, it'll take more than your pea-shooter to take 
down Sexy Chocolate.  I might've been able to, at the height of my Magic, 
but that's gone, burned out.  No, the sewers're our best chance - the 
TwylGov doesn't have security cameras and sensors down there that the 
bounty hunters can use to track us."

	"We need some rather serious help."


	"Kiyone?  Kiiiiiyone?   KIYONE!   WAAAAAAHHHH!  Kiiiiiiiyone!   You 
left me behind AGAIN!"  Far, far away, a blue-eyed, dark-skinned blond 
sobbed into her pillow.

Nikholas F. Toledo Zu @ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3145/mezza9.html
Vector, Switch, Yebah, Don Juan, goo, Pervert, Scruples, Hollie, NomaD,
Blitz, Gee, Datzo
Fanfiction @ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3145/fanfics.html
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Word from the Laity:  Wipe yer feet!  Bloody 'ell...
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