Episode 2:
Violet Flames; The Man with a Flashing Sword
She woke up slowly, eyes focusing on
the blurry image of leafy branches waving gently above her head. She wondered idly what she was doing lying on
her back in the middle of a forest, before the events which had occurred what
felt like only moments ago came back to her in a sudden, terrifying rush. Her eyes snapped open fully and she sat
bolt-upright from her prone position, as though she’d been released by a
powerful spring.
“Urk…” she squeaked when a wave of nausea instantly accompanied this
sudden movement, and she leaned back against the nearest tree and swallowed
repeatedly until it passed. Of course you’re going to be sick, moron!
You just got struck by lightning,
for heaven’s sake!
Wait a minute…struck by
lightning? Aneko blinked, her brow
furrowing in confusion. Being sick was
the least of her worries. Shouldn’t she
be dead? “It…missed me,” she muttered. Or had it even happened? Maybe she’d cracked her head on a rock when
she fell? But…that was impossible. For one thing, her head didn’t even
hurt. Besides, she had felt the bolt strike the tree, had felt
the wild electricity race through her veins.
She had smelled the ionized air around her and heard the wood crackle as
it gave way beneath her fingers. She
looked down at her hand; it stung like crazy, and the skin of her palm was red
and burned and sported several large, ugly blisters.
Hah! There, you see? I didn’t imagine it, she thought triumphantly,
examining the tender flesh. Strange,
though; it wasn’t damaged nearly as badly as she thought it should be—such as there being nothing
left of it but charred bones—for having touched
something that was several million times more powerful than an electric fence.
She frowned again and looked around,
searching for the tree that had been struck…or at least what remained of it,
anyway. It had to have been blown into toothpicks from the blast! And yet, as her eyes took in her
surroundings, she could see no sign of the shredded, smoldering remains. There was no fire, no smoke, no nothing. Every tree within the vicinity of the area
remained whole and intact, and unless she had been blown far, far away from the source of the
lightning strike, she didn’t see how it was possible to miss finding the
results of nature’s handiwork.
“I’m going crazy. That’s what it is,” Aneko muttered, cleaning
the mud off her bedraggled form as best she could. “I tripped, got knocked out somehow, and had
a freaking nightmare. That’s all it
was.” This didn’t explain the smarting
wounds on her hand, but she supposed it could
have been some kind of weird brush-burn gotten from scraping her palm against a
rough tree root or stone…
At any rate, the storm seemed to have mostly
passed—Just how long had she been out, anyway? She was lucky she hadn’t drowned in that downpour!—and the sky was clearing, the eerie color
having faded into a normal, washed-out gray which was swiftly approaching the
blue-black of dusk. Huffing a sigh,
certain that by now her parents had called every police department that side of
the country, Aneko shouldered her bag and followed the path toward her home,
wanting nothing more than to soak in a hot bath and then curl up under her
covers and sleep. After
scarfing the entire contents of the refrigerator
first, of course. She was starving!
So wrapped up in thoughts of fried chicken
and apple pie was she that it took her nearly five minutes to realize that she
wasn’t actually getting any closer to home than she had been before she’d started walking. She stopped dead in her tracks, frowned, and
looked around. What was going on? It normally took her three minutes tops to
get from one side of Tree Island to the other; she knew ‘cause
she’d timed herself on more than one occasion.
The thing was barely a hundred feet wide, if even that. But she’d been walking for twice that time,
and she still hadn’t reached the edge
of the trees! Had she somehow gotten
turned around and was heading back toward Chase’s house?
No, that didn’t make sense, either. She still should have reached the end by
then. Unless…she’d somehow managed to
turn so that she followed the length of the miniature forest rather than its width. It was entirely possible, as addled as her
wits currently were. She sighed in
annoyance and turned around, determined to go back, before stopping again. How did she even know which direction to
go? “Don’t even tell me I’m lost behind my own house!”
she groaned, smacking her unhurt palm to her forehead in frustration. “Chase’ll never let me live this one down!”
Of course, it wasn’t like
she had to tell him or anything,
either. She pondered for a moment, then
shrugged and shouldered her pack again and began walking. It was to her great relief that only a minute
or so later she caught sight of a light glimmering faintly through the
trees. “Finally!” she breathed, heading
quickly toward the yellow glow. “Bath
and supper, here I come!”
~~~{~@ ~~~{~@
~~~{~@
Two minutes later, it was beginning to
look as though she wasn’t going to get her bath or her supper for quite some
time yet. Aneko stood motionless at the
edge of what was apparently an actual forest,
her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide as she gaped at the scene that lay
directly before her. What she had
assumed was the porch-light shining in her own back yard had actually turned
out to be a street lamp shining at the very edge of…a village.
She tilted her head curiously to one
side. Or was it a town?
An old-fashioned neighborhood,
maybe?
No, she decided, it was way too big for that. Well,
whatever it was, Aneko was almost one hundred percent certain that it had not been there before! She blinked, rubbed her eyes hard with both
hands, grunting at the stab of pain in her burnt palm, looked again, and
blinked once more. “I need glasses,” she
decided abruptly. That…or
a really good shrink.
“There’s got to be a reasonable explanation
for this,” she muttered to herself. A
town didn’t just pop up overnight, like a bunch of daisies in a field, and she
hadn’t been walking that long! Besides, something looked wrong. The buildings didn’t seem like the normal,
everyday structures that one passed on the street, and the layout was shaped
wrong for a city; everything seemed to spread out rather than up. The buildings
themselves definitely held a very un-modern
look about them. They appeared to be
made of wood, rather than steel and brick.
They looked, she realized, more like something one would see in a
picture book, or maybe…
Or maybe
a history book, she thought
uneasily. She stepped from the shadowed
cover of the trees and wandered cautiously into the city. Yes, she decided, this place was definitely
big enough to be called an actual city, although it was far smaller than any city
she’d ever been into. Most of the buildings—Houses? she
wondered—were surrounded by tall, wooden fences, and the streets were really
nothing more than wide, cobblestone paths.
Every dozen feet or so, lanterns swung gently from iron posts. Real
lanterns, she noted, with flames and everything. Not light bulbs and wires.
It was extremely quiet. “Too
quiet,” Aneko murmured, then winced at how inane that sounded. She could hear horses whinnying somewhere,
and off to her left a dog barked a few times before falling silent again. She frowned, tilting her head to one side as
though to better hear. But she
heard…nothing.
Where were the noises common in a busy,
lived-in city? Televisions and radios
blaring, people talking, kids playing in the streets…horns and running engines
and squealing tires from cars…?
Heck…where were all the cars?
Aneko was beginning to feel more and
more uneasy. This place was utterly
foreign to her. It was as though she’d
been sucked through some vortex and dumped into another dimension or
something. Last time she’d checked, she
didn’t think she’d been living in an
episode of Star Trek…
A flurry of laughter and movement
caught her eye, and she turned toward a large building that appeared to be some
kind of business, judging by the flurry of activity from within its walls. A delicious aroma drifted out to delicately
tease her nose, causing her mouth to water and her stomach to complain
loudly. A restaurant, she thought excitedly, only to feel her shoulders
slump a second later. It was really too
bad that she didn’t have any actual money…
Still, she found herself moving
closer to the building, drawn by the smells and the quiet murmur of
voices. She paused in a shadowy ally,
examining her surroundings, noting the people coming and going from the
restaurant. Her eyes widened. “What the…?” she murmured softly, honing in
on a particular couple as they strolled from the entrance of the restaurant.
They were Japanese. Not that there was anything unusual about
that; it was what they were wearing that caught Aneko’s attention. The woman—a beautiful lady with long black
hair and intelligent eyes—was dressed in a kimono of crimson silk embroidered
with white cranes, complete with a contrasting obi of rich purple. She looked regal. The man she was with, who towered over her by
a good six inches, wore some kind of white suit that could have been some kind
of a karate uniform (only a lot more scruffy-looking). The jacket hung open loosely, revealing a
well-muscled chest (Aneko drooled slightly at that) which was uncovered by any
kind of undershirt. There was a layer of
bandages wrapped around his waist and at least one of his hands was also
bandaged. A red bandanna held a mop of
unruly brown hair at bay, and a bony fishtail jutted out from the corner of his
mouth like a cigarette. His slanted eyes
were dark brown, and at the moment they were glaring
down at the woman by his side. A snatch
of conversation reached Aneko’s ears. It
sounded like they were arguing.
They were both definitely speaking
in Japanese.
Aneko turned her attention back to
the restaurant, noting the thinness of the (paper?) walls, the unique, although
quite distinct, design of the building.
Another couple came outside, also dressed in traditional Japanese
clothing. A little girl skipped out
after them, latching her hands firmly around her parents’ fingers and
exclaiming in a high, tinny voice.
Aneko watched in wonder as they
turned to head off in the other direction, before turning her gaze back to the
building, and the large sign that hung over the door. It was written in Japanese kanji, and Aneko
leaned weakly against the (thankfully solid) structure of the fence she hid behind. “What is
going on here?” she whispered to
herself. “Am I in
Even more worrisome than that…exactly what year in
Aneko pursed her lips and frowned as she
considered. Of course, it was always
possible that she’d landed in some kind of show or fair where everybody
play-acted and dressed up as traditional characters and stuff, like in a
Renaissance faire or like they did at the Plymouth Plantation in
Aneko moaned and rubbed her temple
absently. All this thinking was
beginning to give her a headache. Okay, she thought grimly, until I can find proof of it otherwise, I
think I’m going to have to consider that somehow I actually got sucked back in time into another freakin’
country, and until I figure out what
to do next, I’m pretty much stuck here for now.
She gulped at the implications of that. So…gaaah! What do I do next?! she wailed silently, gripping her hair as she fought
back her rising panic. Oh boy did she ever wish she’d listened to
Chase right now! In fact, she really
wanted to talk to him. She really, really needed to talk to him. Chase was brilliant; he always had an answer
to everything. He could easily get her
out of this mess. He was her protector, curse it! So where was he now that she needed him to
protect her?!
In reply to her unspoken complaint,
the sky rumbled ominously above her, making her jump slightly, and she looked
up as the clouds lit faintly with lightning.
A few fat drops of rain splattered against her face, chilling her
already-cold cheeks even further.
“Great,” she muttered. “Just bloody perfect. As if I’m not soaked enough…”
A sudden frenzied barking just
beside her ear, luckily coming from the other
side of the fence, was still enough to nearly send her into cardiac
arrest. She squealed in alarm and
scrambled away from the wooden structure, noting that the dog’s barking was
attracting undo attention in her general direction. Gripping her pack straps, she turned and
bolted down the narrow alley between two buildings, hoping that she wouldn’t
run into anyone on the way. After all,
just because she appeared to be stuck somewhere in ancient
The rain began to fall harder,
thoroughly soaking Aneko’s already-damp body to the bone. She’d lost her umbrella; as useless a piece of
junk as it was, at least it had afforded her some protection. Now she had
nothing, and she was sorely tempted to throw all caution to the wind and pound
on the door of the nearest house and beg for shelter. Thanks to her overbearing grandmother, it was
a simple thing for her to speak Japanese (although writing it was a different story).
The woman had been a tyrant when it came to teaching Aneko about her
heritage, far worse than Chase ever was.
As soon as she felt that Aneko had learned enough Japanese to hold a
conversation by, she wouldn’t even greet
her granddaughter in English anymore.
“It’ll keep you in practice for when you really need it,” she used to
say, much to Aneko’s exasperation. After
all, where in the middle of the good old US of A was she ever going to need to know Japanese?
At the moment, Aneko was silently
thanking her grandmother for being so bloody stubborn for all those years. It seemed like her impromptu lessons in
language were about to come in handy, after all…assuming, of course, that she
could actually gather enough courage to approach a house and beg for
shelter. She had no idea what she would
tell anyone. “Hi! You don’t know me, but I’m a novice time
traveler who happened to get dumped…um…exactly what year is this, anyway? Anyway, do you think you could help me find a
way back to the year 2003? And I’d like
to arrive in
Oh yeah. Aneko snorted. That would go over real well.
Shivering, she wandered aimlessly
down the streets of whatever city it was that she’d managed to stumble upon. Several times,
she thought she caught glimpses of shadowy-looking figures hovering at the
street corners, or down dark alleys, but when she looked closer they were
always gone. She had almost decided that
it was just her mind playing tricks on her when she felt a definite presence
somewhere behind her. Oh great.
As if my life didn’t suck enough right now… she thought
despairingly. What she really needed at
the moment was a good hiding place.
She decided that being out in the
open was probably safer than skulking in the alleys, and turned immediately for
what she assumed would be the busier areas of the city, back toward the
restaurant. A lot of the buildings beside
it had looked like shops of some kind or other, although most of them looked
like they were closed up, probably due to the relentless rain that appeared to
have driven nearly everyone into their homes so that even the main roads were
now almost deserted. Aneko risked a
glance back over her shoulder, her worst fears confirmed when a large shadow
darted across the path behind her and into another alley. Turning back around, her eyes widening with
panic, she quickened her pace and prayed that she wouldn’t have another klutz
attack. She realized that she was
leaving the “business district” behind again, heading into a more residential
area, with fences surrounding individual properties and absolutely
no place to duck into that wouldn’t cause an alarm from the owners.
She cursed her stupidity for not
thinking to duck into a public building, like that restaurant. Despite the rain, it had appeared to be busy,
and so there was less of a chance of her being attacked by thugs if there were people around.
On the other hand, there was probably more of a chance to be arrested or something, looking like she did,
she thought with dark humor. Still, she
supposed she’d rather take a jail cell over a mugging, any day.
She could hear footsteps behind her,
and on an impulse ducked down yet another narrow alley and hurried through to
the other side and onto a wider road, turning the corner so fast that she
nearly slipped. She was now standing
before a gate that had a plaque on the fence with more kanji carved into
it. She thought she recognized one of
the characters. I think this place is a dojo, she thought in relief. A dojo meant at least some shelter, if not from the rain then at least from whatever punk
was following her. The gate, however,
was firmly shut and latched. Of course. As late as
it had grown by then, probably whoever ran the dojo had gone home long
already. Still, that wasn’t about to
deter her.
She jumped and caught hold of the top of the
fence, glad that barbed wire hadn’t been invented yet, and with some difficulty
managed to pull herself over the top.
Getting down wasn’t as easy, and was much more painful as she landed not on her feet, but at least she was
away from the prying eyes of her shadow.
She winced and rubbed her butt as she got shakily to her feet, blinking
rain water out of her eyes. If she
didn’t come down with the queen mother of all head colds by the time this was
over, she’d probably die of shock instead, she thought humorlessly.
A flash of lightning lit the world around
her with eerie brightness and made her jump and scramble for the nearest cover,
which happened to be a tree. She
blinked, then rolled her eyes. “Okay,
moron, and what have we learned about
standing under trees in a freaking thunder
storm?” she scolded herself. She’d
managed to survive one lightning strike already, even if it had played her a nasty kind of prank;
she wasn’t going to press her luck by inviting another one to strike. With the way that luck had been going lately,
assuming she survived again, she’d probably get sent back to the ice age or
something this time.
Aneko took quick survey of her
surroundings. The yard was silent, and
there was no light coming from the buildings surrounding it. It definitely looked abandoned. I’ll
crash here for the night and leave in the morning before anyone comes back,
she thought. If not warm, at least the
dojo would be dry. She could stay there,
nip on back to the woods come sunrise and hide in them until she could figure
out what to do. Nodding resolutely,
Aneko turned to scan the yard and attempt to get her bearings. There were several buildings there; she had
no idea which one would be the actual dojo.
Well, the only way to find out, she decided, would be to take a look.
She shouldered her (increasingly heavy!)
pack and began to creep as silently as she knew how toward the nearest porch,
climbing the two wooden steps and creeping along the porch’s length, looking
for way into the building. As she passed
one room, the sound of movement from inside abruptly made her freeze in her
tracks, voice choking on a startled squeak as her eyes flew open wide. Someone was there?! She strained to
hear, and sure enough, the noise came again, like a soft murmur, or the light
little snore of a child. Aneko swore
fluently and silently—in two different languages—as she crept past the room,
her heart pounding painfully in her throat.
Of course it had never occurred to her that someone might actually live at the dojo! There were
several buildings on the property; why had she assumed that the rest were all
simply storage sheds and such? “You
really are stupid, aren’t you?” she
hissed at herself. Best she leave before
someone came out sporting a gun…assuming guns existed in this time, of
course. She still had no idea what
century it was.
Why
oh why didn’t I ever listen to Chase when he tried to tell me about
“Who are you? What are you doing in here?” a low, angry
voice demanded.
Aneko, taken completely by surprise, whirled
around to face the owner of the voice, opening her mouth to spout apologies and
excuses and beg that the man not hurt her.
However, all explanations died a swift death in her throat when her gaze
fell upon the one who’d spoken. Right on
cue, like some special effect in a B movie, lightning flared brilliantly in the
sky, illuminating a shock of long, bright hair the color of blood which flowed
and danced like living flames in the chilly, stormy breeze.
As impressive as
that wealth of hair was, however, it was nothing compared to the pair of
narrowed, burning, violet eyes which bore into her own from beneath it. That gaze held an intensity
unlike anything Aneko had ever encountered in her life; she could almost swear
that amber flames were dancing within the enigmatic depths. She suddenly felt rather like she was having
one of her famous stare-downs with her pet cat, Rumpleteaser,
only a thousand times more intense. She
could never beat that cat in a
staring contest; she knew if she continued to gaze into those incredible eyes, she’d probably melt into a puddle of goo right on the spot.
Thankfully, another flash of lightning
immediately took her attention from that luminous gaze when the flash of metal
caught her eyes. And that was when she noticed that this man
with the incredible eyes and fiery hair just happened to be pointing a very
sharp, very lethal-looking sword
right at her chest.
Instinct of Survival immediately shoved
Hormones out of the way, and Aneko sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the
Japanese blade, flashing silver-blue in the illumination the lightning so
kindly provided. Her limbs suddenly took
on a life of their own as they sent her scrambling backwards away from the
danger with only slightly more grace than a lame elephant.
Unfortunately for her, she was standing too
close to the edge of the porch, and (given the fact that she was a complete
yokel), her foot naturally slipped off of it.
Her eyes widening even more, she sought to correct herself, but the
heavy pack on her back saw to it that she couldn’t find her precarious
balance. Before she knew what was
happening, she was tumbling over the side of the porch with a loud shriek,
falling all three feet with arms and legs flailing madly, before landing on her
back with a pained “Oomph!”. As if that
wasn’t disgraceful enough, her head managed to find a convenient rock to strike
itself against on the way down.
Pain exploded, sharp and bright, behind her
eyes, and the last thing Aneko heard before the world once again turned white
was a soft, surprised, “Oro!” echoing from the
vicinity of the porch.