Post by Wachter on Feb 4, 2017 11:16:33 GMT
Bird of Prey: First Cry
Philippines. December 31, 1939
The villagers rushed into the jungle as fast as their two legs could carry them, leaving behind a trail of dropped belongings. Meng Manami watched them go. Her father organized the retreat as the sky over Manilla blackened with the unnatural storm. Every second brought it closer to the village. She remembered her childhood friend Alan teaching her the trick of counting the seconds between lightning bolts and thunder. She used it now. Counting Mississippis he called it.
One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three Mississippi… four Mississippi… She kept counting, dreaming of what’d be like to actually visit that state.
The peal of thunder overwhelmed her. Shudders shook on the shacks. Her long hair billowed behind her while the wind blew through the village. It wasn’t right. No normal storm worked like that at this time of year. When she looked back towards the city, she imagined she could see beings hidden within the clouds casting down their wrath upon the innocent below. It was a flight of fancy. It couldn’t possibly be real.
Meng helped shepherd the young and elderly on their way. The village knew that they were in danger from more than simply the weather. Even if something wasn’t hidden away with the heavens, someone would be following along in its wake. An approaching disaster. Secluded away as they were, as they had been since her father had moved the family out here in the middle of nowhere even by the Philippines’ standards, they had heard the horrors of the Empire of the Rising Sun attacking their neighbors. War was coming.
It might already be here.
She picked up a doll a little girl dropped. It reminded her of her childhood. Alan had given her one. He had called her Molly too because his adorable lisp made him butcher her name. “Molly Main.” Or was it Mayne? Why was she thinking of him so much today? The last she had heard from him was months ago in a letter talking all about his promotion to CEO of a broadcasting company. He was half the world away living a life she could only fantasize about. Molly… Meng… She had responsibilities here. She…
She cried.
Arrows rained from the sky. Fleeing villagers fell to the dirt, bleeding into the leaves and vines, impaled by dozens and dozens of arrows. The storm had arrived in a different fashion. She watched her father turn towards her. Their eyes met one another. She knew his unspoken command. No words were needed. There wasn’t enough time. An arrow pierced his eye.
Her legs gave way in horror. She couldn’t do… She couldn’t.
Dark grey clothed figures rushed out the jungle. Hoods and masks hid their faces. They left their own trail, dropping bows and drawing swords. The enemy charged ahead unheeding of any potential danger. There was none. The defender had already fallen… he fell. She fell with him.
A beacon of emerald light shot into the sky parting the dark clouds in the distance. It gave her the willpower to grip the doll tighter. Strength. It was like fire. The pillar of green flame transformed before her eyes into a brilliant purple. Slowly it retracted, taking with it all her hopes and dreams.
The screams of her people echoed around her. Tears left tracks down the dusty stains on her cheeks. The attackers cut them down in cold blood. It was too chaotic to be terrified. Only horrified. That was the only way one could describe the murder of small children, of the weak and defenseless.
They came for her. A man clad in grey like all the others, his sword stained scarlet. He flicked droplets on ground as he sheathed it. Meng could feel his leer. A part of her regretted her beauty. Not that it likely mattered. The elderly still spoke of the horrors of previous wars. It didn’t matter. Just the fact that she was a woman was enough.
In the whistling of slashes, Meng heard the dull thud of something with weight behind it cracking bones. The man reached for the veil covering his face. She expected him to be Japanese. He wasn’t. His skin was copper colored. Not a hue found on this part of the world. Surprisingly, though he leered, she felt no lascivious desire. It was something else.
Fanatical maybe?
The thunder masked the thumping sounds close by. The man didn’t seem to have noticed it yet. He lifted her up by her shirt, ripping it.
“<Where’s the Totem?>” he demanded in perfect Tagalog with an accent she did not recognize. It was almost… American?
“<Where is the Totem?!>”
Thunder and thuds echoed around her, drowning out the cries that were already starting to die.
Meng struck out with her right hand, slamming it into his chest. Stunned, she spun around, the back of her knuckles connected against his jaw with a resounding crack. She completed her circle, sweeping out his feet from under him, spiraling closer to the ground to snatch an arrow that fell from his quiver out of the air. The last look on his face was that of surprise. She made that expression eternal as she drove the arrow though his neck.
Quickly she stripped him of a pair of knives on his belt. She wiped the tears from her cheeks yet a fraction of a second later she realized it only made things worse. Blood stained her hands. Now it marred her face.
The source of the thuds and grunts of pain became clear once she glanced around. Surviving villagers were still fleeing, crawling if they had to, into the jungle. The men, however, fought like she had fought. Her people improvised weapons out of anything and right this moment, there was a lot to utilize. Even the doll she still held. She tossed it into the face of a rushing attacker and spilled his intestines with a single swipe of the stolen knife.
It was remarkably sharp.
A mass of grey bodies littered the village center. None of the men were there… There was only a woman clad in white stained crimson with blood. Like the attackers, she had a veil masking her lower face, long blond hair flowing out behind her as she struck and struck with the most efficient moves Meng had ever seen. Not even her father in his younger days could have so little excess movement, no wasted effort. She spun with a staff, taking on half a dozen or more of the grey foes. Bones broke. Skulls cracked.
She caught an arrow as it was fired at nigh point blank range from behind her. The pole stabbed backwards then flicked up, lifting the archer off his feet. The woman was an elegant murderer… A dancer. An artist in killing. Meng recognized her own style in those moves.
Then there were no more standing enemies. The flash of lightning and the one Mississippi later signaled that the storm was nearly here.
The lady in white glanced her way. She saw the two bodies. Meng readied her knife as she stepped over corpses and approached. The men had already begun looting for potential armament.
“Molly Manami?” The woman’s voice was musical and lovely. A drastic contrast to the death she left in her wake.
“No one calls me Molly anymore,” she replied unconsciously in English. “My name is Meng.”
“Meng… Where is your father? Where is the Keeper?”
“How do you – how do you know me by Molly?” Was this fate? Destiny? Was this why sweet little Alan with his cherubic cheeks was in her thoughts so often today?
“We have a mutual acquaintance in a Mr. Scott. Now tell me, where is the Keeper?”
Meng didn’t meet those piercing eyes. With the killing done, her father’s death hit her again. Stronger than the first. She felt the tears well up in the corner of her eyes.
“Dead.”
The woman cursed or at least it sounded like a curse in some unfamiliar language. One that Meng did not know.
“Did he entrust you with the Staff Totem?”
The tears stopped. Eyes narrowed and her grip tightened on the stolen knife. Before she knew it, she was on the ground, ears ringing. A heeled boot was at her throat.
“Who are you?”
“Al Ta’ir al Usfar”
Meng’s lips moved inaudibly. She couldn’t hope to pronounce it and at one time she had prided herself on her linguistic capabilities.
“You may call me Kanaryo.”
“Canary…?” Meng translated to English.
The veil shifted with the hints of a smile beneath. “Yes.”
“That is not a name.”
“More of a title…” Canary released some of the pressure off of her throat. “I am sorry about your father but it is very important to protect the Totem. That is what brings the Men of Death and their soldiers here today. They are after it, after all the Totems.”
“Indeed,” a cultured voice interrupted, “and I would venture that it is just as important to protect the Totems from the League.”
Canary freed Meng completely, a slight of hand dropping a yet another knife between her legs as she turned to face the newcomer. Meng craned her neck to see, shifting to hide the blade. The civilized voice belonged to the greyest figure of them all. He wore a full body stocking of it with dirty bandages climbing up his forearms and padded pauldrons over his shoulders. But most distinctive of all was the red horned mask covering his face with a twisted, toothy grin.
He stood relaxed. Not even his grip on his thin sword expressed any sense of tension. In this scene of carnage, he was at home like the demon he paraded himself to be. And he was clean. Meng had a feeling that wasn’t because he hadn’t killed any of her people. He was that skilled. She shifted her weight to make sure she had yet another knife at her disposal.
“Dusan – “
“Do not!” he snapped, “do not refer to me by that name. It is the one he gave me and I reject it as I do the perversion of his teachings.”
“Are you Sensei’s man with all your heart now?” Canary asked. There was whispered sadness in her tone. “Are you his… Aka Oni?”
Red Ogre? Demon? That explained the mask…
“I am.” The Oni’s voice was just as sad yet hatred pervaded its inflection. “Sensei’s path is the one true path to a peace and order for this chaotic world.”
“Then I am truly sorry…” Canary reached up to pull her mask down to her neck, revealing pouty lips.
“Nooo!” The grey clothed man charged, closing the distance quicker than Meng thought possible.
It wasn’t enough. As the storm finally rolled over them, a cry sounded. The loudest cry she had ever heard. It was almost beyond the human range. Meng covered her ears and she was behind Canary. Dusan…
The blast lifted him off his feet at point blank range.
Canary’s cry kept going, drowning out everything else.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”