West Coast Shuffle (Part Four)

I did not have a car yet. This irked me. Yes, I knew how to get around the area without one, but walking the hills all the time was for the birds. Especially when I was traveling with others. Feet pounding the pavement once more, I led the motley trio consisting of guy, girl, and A.I. to whatever adventure the day had for us.

"We're going to the mall today," I said, trudging downhill grumpily, "There has to be something in this town that gets Laura's attention."

It was still my mission to put a goddamn smile on her face at least once, come hell or high water.

Laura interjected, offended at being talked about while she was around, "I am standing right here… again."

I looked back at her half-apologetically, "I know. But you're no help here. I've tried," I turned to my second tagalog, snapping at him, "Wolf! You're supposed to be smart and attentive. What have you noticed?"

"Nothing that will aid you in your endeavor," He said. If I didn't know any better, He sounded disappointed, "But is visiting a shopping mall really the best approach?"

I shrugged. True enough, malls weren't what they used to be, but there was enough variety to where we could find something, "Either that, or we sit home and Google shit until something comes up, but that's boring, right Laura?" No response, "…Laura?"

I turned back and saw Laura staring at a house across the street from where we were. It was one of the homes in the row, one that had been vacant for a while. About a year and a half before, it blew up. That had been scary, I remembered. Just a few blocks from my house.

"What's up?" I asked. Laura just remained still, staring straight ahead, "Hello? Laura? You there?" Wolf sat down in front of her and waved his tails to get her attention. That did the trick, "Are you alright?"

She realized that she had been staring and finally responded to us, "I am not hurt."

That wasn't what I meant. There was something swimming around in her head, and it wasn't good, "That's not what I mean," I said with a sigh before deciding to explain what I knew about that place, "That house. The family there died in an explosion a while back. I didn't really know 'em, but the girl who lived there rode my bus," What was her name? It was all over the place right after it happened – in the news and the school, "Megan Kinn-..."

That surname was familiar, because it belonged to the person who was with me. I trailed off and focused on Laura's face. She looked like she had seen a ghost, horrified that I'd made some kind of connection between her and the girl who lived in that house.

More than horrified, it looked like she was about to burst into tears, which stunned me more than anything else. It stunned me long enough that she took off running like a bat out of hell before I could do anything to try and stop her.

To say I was at a loss was an understatement, "Wolf, what was that?" I asked, reaching out for my metal cohort's support.

Wolf's tails drooped to the ground as he stood up and looked off in the direction that Laura ran in, "I do not know, Bellamy. But at the end, she was afraid. Very afraid. Right after you brought up that name," He pointed out for my benefit.

It wasn't even that. It had been the entire exchange, "What about before that? I've never seen her... cry," That had been surreal.

Wolf seemed to be at a loss. The nuances of human interaction were lost on him, "I do not know. I cannot read most human emotions. Fear is the easiest for my sensors to detect. It has more physical traits for me to pick up on. Others, not so much."

Not only him. Me as well. At least as far as this girl was concerned. She was a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, housed in a conundrum. The closest problem I had to compare it with was getting closer to Ruth, and at least she was completely willing to let me in, even though she wasn't entirely able to make it easy due to her circumstances. Even then, she didn't stone-wall me at every turn like Laura was.

Yet again, for the second time that day, I was reminded of Laura's sole request during a talk we'd had back at school. She had never asked anything of me before or since.

"Please, be patient with me. I am… not good with people."

"Fuck," I muttered to myself as her words repeated inside of my head. I wasn't going to give up on her, no matter how difficult she was, "We've gotta go get her now, don't we?"

Wolf nodded and shook himself out, as though he were preparing to be active, "That would likely be the correct course of action."

"Do you know where she is?"

"The mutant Laura Kinney is 3621 feet northeast from our location."

She was how far away? Good lord, that girl was in shape, "What? We've been standing here for how long? Three minutes? Four?"

"Three minutes, twenty-one seconds, to be exact," Wolf specified for me.

I knew Laura was in much better condition than everyone else on my team, except for maybe me, but I didn't expect that, "You're telling me she's on course to run a goddamn 5 minute mile?" I looked in the direction Wolf had indicated and got even more heated, "God, I hate running uphill!"

And yet, I did it. Because that was how much I cared. Wolf, the asshole at heart that he was, didn't bother keeping pace with me. Even using my powers to speed myself up, he was still way faster than me and left me in the dust.

"I hate you so much!" I yelled at him as he started pulling away, "Fine! Screw this!" I channeled light energy to my fist and shot it at the ground underneath me to give me a boost up onto the rooftops. All of those parkour kids could fuck off. They wished they could do what I could.

Somewhere along the line, I'd lost him, but kept roof-hopping and searching regardless. I cleared entire streets trying to stay going in the same direction. I wound up hoofing it all the way to Russian Hill before I got a call from my wayward wolf friend.

"You've got some nerve calling after ditching me," I greeted him with the moment I picked up the phone, "Where are you?"

I said those things in jest, mostly, but it was no laughing matter once he told me why he was calling, "There are armed individuals nearby, gathered near Hyde and Lombard Street," Wolf said suspiciously, "I do not know why they are here. I have not heard any talk of orders."

That wasn't good. Even if it didn't involve us, we were way closer to any paramilitary action than I would have wanted, "Have you found Laura yet?"

"No."

I couldn't/wouldn't leave her behind for whatever bullshit was about to transpire, "Keep an eye on those guys, just in case," In case they started coming my way, "I'll get her myself."

"Hold on one moment," Wolf stopped me before I could hang up, "The mutant Laura Kinney is now 189 feet south from your current location."

So I'd gone a little bit past her? Very well. At least I'd dodged the goons with guns, "Cool. Be careful, Wolf."

"You as well," He said before hanging up. And that was it. Trouble was afoot, and we were stuck on the fringes of it, with potential to get sunk even deeper into it.

Off of the street, I finally caught up to my teammate at the old Lombard Street Reservoir that they'd turned into tennis and basketball courts. She wasn't alone. There was some muscular dark-skinned woman with black hair dressed in tactical gear that had way too much of her cleavage exposed. Not that this was the first thing I noticed. No, the first thing I noticed was that she was armed to the teeth. Guns, knives all down her thigh. I mean, she had a crossbow. Who used a crossbow?

Speaking of the crossbow, there was an arrow in Laura's chest. Well, if that wasn't a dead giveaway to interject myself, I didn't know what was.

An open-handed blast exploded off of the woman, sending her sliding to the ground and into the chain link fence around the courts.

Laura looked at her assailant, then over to me, "No! You should not be here!" She seemed terrified out of her mind, even after I'd done something to step in. If one of us was in trouble, wasn't it better to fight together? "Leave! Run away!"

"Are you out of your mind? Not without you," I said, pausing to take another shot at the woman as she started to stand back up. Once again, it exploded off of her and knocked her down, but she got right back up, "Seriously? You can just take those head-on?"

The woman didn't answer me, instead seething to herself about getting ambushed, "...Gonna rip your guts out..." Been there, done that. The more important thing was, how was she still in one piece? Let alone still moving around.

Laura answered my unasked question, "Kimura is almost indestructible," She said quietly.

The word 'Indestructible' covered a lot of ground. There was no way that I couldn't actually hurt this person, "That was the same thing as a hand grenade going off in her face. Twice," I said before noticing the name she had dropped, "Wait, this is Kimura?"

She certainly seemed unpleasant enough with the sadistic sneer on her face. And she had basically shrugged off what should have been a critical blow from yours truly. It wasn't like I could pull my punches on an attack that exploded.

Kimura seemed positively livid. Too bad. I wasn't in the business of caring about people who messed with my crew, "Sorry. Laura looked scared, so I figured you must not be very friendly. If you are, my bad."

Her anger temporarily gave way to the surrealism of some random kid coming out of nowhere in a red Street Fighter Zangief shirt to mess up her ambush, "Who the fuck are you?"

A fair question. One that wasn't getting an answer, seeing as how she was probably with the guys with guns Wolf told me about, "I'm with her. That's all you need to know."

Despite being outnumbered, Kimura didn't seem the slightest bit concerned, "This your boyfriend, X? He seems stupid enough," She spat hatefully at Laura, "I mean, your shitty little school sure didn't make you any smarter," Done with hearing all of that, I shot her with another explosive blast. It worked as well as you would imagine, "What the fuck!" She complained.

I still had my hand up from aiming palm-first at her, "Sorry. Just making sure that didn't actually hurt you," And just to make absolutely sure, I shot her again.

"You done!?" She finally snapped at me. I responded with one more blast that knocked her back through the chain-link fence that had been weakened by several explosions, "Goddamn it, do you morons need an engraved invitation? Get in here!"

When she issued her order, I pointed my hand straight up into the air and fired a blast that would have been visible quite far away. Wolf wasn't that far away. Hopefully, he would realize that meant to get his ass in gear, seeing as how a phone call wouldn't have been prudent.

Kimura sat up properly, handgun pointed my way. I shot her as she fired and again made contact, but this time, she managed to wing me in the shoulder. It hurt, but by now, I'd had worse. Laura yanked the crossbow bolt from her body and launched herself at Kimura, claws out. Why bother having them out? She couldn't stab the woman with them.

In the meantime, I had to deal with armed jerks rushing toward the courts with assault weapons. Fortunately, they had to run up stairs to get to the courts, which meant I had the high ground. And to aim, all I needed to do was line my hand up with whoever I was shooting at and think. You can't dodge light once it's coming your way, people.

Of course, they still had automatic weapons, and I could only get so many before they started unloading in my direction. Once again, thankfully I had the high ground, so that gave me a chance to at least fall back before I got all shot up. And then, something amazing happened.

It had been such a long time since Saberwolf had been turned loose against flesh and blood targets. I had forgotten what a sight it was to see him tear through a crowd of enemies. He was as surgical as a near half-ton machine could be.

With that being under control, I turned around to give Laura some help, just in time to have her thrown at my face by Kimura. She hit and we both went down hard.

The woman sported a nasty grin as she held up her handgun at the two of us, "Well-well-well. X marks the spot," And... then she shot us. Well, she shot Laura. A few of the bullets went through and hit me though, so she essentially shot us both.

I flipped out immediately. It hurt like hell. I didn't even want to see where I'd been hit. I pushed Laura off of me and started shooting all over the place, trying to tag the vicious bitch that had done the deed. I think I may have hit her once. I do know that some soldiers that managed to get away from Wolf and make it up the stairs to help Kimura were met with their doom at my hands.

And then things went dark.