Disclaimer: I think you can guess.
Note: This story takes place about one year after Talpa's defeat. Due to instances of violence, language, and sexual innuendos, I'm rating it PG13, so don't say I didn't warn ya.
"I'm sorry miss, but you're not allowed to see her."
Tai's golden face flushed deep crimson. "What do you mean I'm not allowed!?? Why the hell am I not allowed!?? I'm her best friend!"
"I'm sorry miss, but as I said, you'll have to wait for the doctor's approval," the desk clerk said, rising from her chair.
"Frickin' moron," she muttered. "I don't care what you say! That's my best friend in there, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit here and wait for some doctor to tell me I can see her!"
"Miss, if you don't calm down I'll be forced to call security-"
"Good! Call them!"
"That won't be neccesary," a tall, white-coated man stated calmly from behind them. "I'll take this from here, Anna."
"But Sir-"
"It's all right, I've got it under control." He turned to Tai, who was still glaring at the woman murderously. "Tai, could you come with me, please? I've got to talk to you."
With a last glare at the poor nurse, Tai reluctantly turned away and followed the doctor down the hospital's busy hallway.
"Tai." She looked up - way up - at him. "Do you want to tell me what that was all about? You never blow up like that; it isn't like you."
Tai looked at her older cousin like she were appalled by the question. "What else would it be about? Really, Chris, sometimes you worry me. I...I'm just worried about Randi... And that stupid nurse! Don't even get me started on her!" They walked in silent thought for a while, side by side. "So...how is she?"
Chris sighed. "It's hard to tell just yet. Randi's condition has stabilized, but she's been comatose since sometime last night, and we're no closer to an explanation than we've been for the last two weeks. It's a complete mystery to us."
"And there's still no sign of any disease or recent injury?" Tai winced slightly as they passed through a door marked 'Intensive Care Unit'.
"No. That's the most puzzling thing. No known disease includes all of her symptoms, and the only way the internal bleeding she suffered from earlier could have been caused is by physical trauma."
"But she was never injured," Tai added dejectedly.
They stopped outside one of the small hospital rooms. Tai peered through the glass into room, a fearful, morbid curiousity knawing at her insides.
"Now, Tai," Chris said sternly.
"Hmm?"
"You have to promise me that if I let you go in there, you won't say anything that could upset her - I don't care if she is comatose - and you'll call me immediately if she wakes up or if there's any change, you got that? I'm doing you a big favor by allowing you in there alone. I'm not even Randi's doctor, after all."
Tai never took her eyes off of her friend's prone form just on the other side of the glass. "You worry too much," she whispered without an ounce of conviction in her honey-sweet voice. Watching the bed like it would dissipate into the air at any moment with Randi in it, she moved past her cousin to the door and pushed it open. Chris watched her like she would disappear, but loyally stayed in the hall. With a long, drawn out sigh, he muttered something unintelligible and wandered away down the hall.
Tai's swift, graceful movements were weighed heavily with caution and fear as she warily approached the hospital bed on which a young girl lie, dead to the outside world. Tai finally gathered enough nerve to sit on the edge of the bed, though it was enough to break her heart just to see the attractive young girl there, her face ashen and features drawn as if she were destined to the worst of fates, yet unable to call out or fight back.
She'd always thought that Randi was pretty. Maybe it wasn't the dazzling brilliance of a runway model, but it was there. And she wasn't even the only one who saw it. Tai'd caught many a guy at school eyeing Randi as they walked down the halls. And her strength. Randi had always been so strong; even when it was only on the outside.
A tear escaped Tai's eye, plowing a trail down her fair cheeks. She tasted it on her lips, salty and bitter, and found that it fit the occasion perfectly. A sob wrenched itself from her lips. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it was meant to be. Hadn't they been through enough? Had all their suffering been in vain? Just what sacrifice would it take to appease the gods and demons that gripped their small world with an iron fist?
Tai was afraid. She was afraid that she already knew the answers, and that she'd lost the best friend she'd ever cared to have, for real this time.
Another sob slipped out, and another tear. It was followed by another. Tai knew she was losing control of the situation, as if she'd ever had any, and sniffed hard, cutting her tears off at the head. She breathed in deeply, not sure if she should laugh or scream.
"Randi, I'm...I'm so scared," she admitted shakily in a small voice. Drawing in the strength she would need to get through this, she continued. "I am so scared. I don't know how to handle this. You know me, Randi. I don't get upset. Not like this...
"You remember...after the accident, when you were trying to deal with it all, and I was so mean to you? I never knew why I did that. It took me months to figure it out, and when I finally did, I didn't have the nerve to tell you. I...I was afraid. You lost your mom and your brother in that car crash, and it was so horrible... It was so stupid, but I thought... I thought that if you could lose them, maybe I could lose you, or my parents. I suffered that loss once when my biological parents gave me up, but I don't think I could ever do it again... so I pushed you away."
She sighed. "Look, Ri," she said, taking Randi's hand into her own. "I didn't come here to talk to you about our less-than-perfect past. What I'm trying to say is that I don't want you to go. No one - no one - has ever stood by me and been as wonderful a friend to me as you have. And that means so much to me... You'll never know how special you are - not just to me, but to everyone who's ever taken the chance to get to know you. And I mean the real you, not the person you pretend to be for all of the people who are too dumb or too narrow-minded to see through it. You don't show enough of that person, but I know you're in there. You show her every time you smile, every time you make a joke, every time you talk about something or share something that really matters to you. You're so smart, and so talented. I don't know anyone that is as diverse or open-minded, someone who can be betrayed in the worst possible ways, and still be able to welcome people back with open arms. That's your weak point, I think. You can never say no. It's not your fault, just your nature." She paused again, forcing back the tidal wave of emotions threatening to drown her.
"You remember that Dylan Thomas poem? The one from that movie? I don't want you to forget that poem, Randi. You have to hold on - I won't let you give up on us yet. Remember? 'Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, sitting there on that sad height, Curse, bless me now with fierce tears I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light...' You've got to fight for us, Ri. For me, and you, and everything that has ever meant anything at all. 'Cause they won't exist without you. I won't exist without you."
"I've never told you this before, Ri, but you are one of the only people who can make me smile anymore. I mean that in the most literal and sincere of ways. It's strange, really. Even if you're just in the same room, I'll laugh and smile way more than I would if you weren't there." Tai cracked a smile. "Even if it isn't at you that I'm laughing."
Tai watched her face intently, almost waiting for a response. "Ri?" Her voice got very soft. "Tell me you understand, Ri. I need to know that you can hear me."
She sighed, her strength almost gone. Then, a miraculous thing happened. A pressure, not so much as to be a grip, but a definite increase toward one, closed around her hand. It was Randi's; she was responding.
"Randi?" Tai felt her heart jump into her throat as her anxiety skyrocketed, her dark midnight eyes scouring the features of her friend's face. "Can you hear me?"
She gasped as the room burst into brilliant reality. Swirls of liquid light made of every color imaginable danced and twirled before her eyes, blotting out the hospital room, and even the bed. The only things visible were Tai, the still unconscious Randi, and their psychadelic environment. Tai could feel the soft cushioning of the hospital bed beneath her still, but as she looked down, all she saw was the swirling mass of colors.
What is this place?? I must be hallucinating.
As she surveyed everything there was to see intimately, the living embodiment of Nature's pallet swam faster and faster in large circles in a particular space that was mere feet ahead of her, so fast that it appeared to be a solid surface, the colors blurring and integrating to pitch black, creating a screen of sorts. As she stared into its depths, a scene that startled her as much as it confused her shimmered into place.
She saw, in shocking detail and crystal clarity, a dank dungeon formed of sheer evil, saw it as if she were looking through a window. Lying near death on the ground was a young man, his body battered and bloodied. His eyes shot open, and she was sucked into them like vacuums. Inside those eyes, she witnessed some of the most appalling acts of cruelty she'd ever laid eyes upon. She watched as the man suffered treacherous beatings and unbearable torment for days on end. She watched as the menacing evil of legends and myths fought for his soul. And then she saw a strikingly familiar image. The image was such a sharp contrast to the evils that she knew right off that she was staring at their opposite. This was the boy's lifeline, the one bond that had been strong enough to sustain him through the entire ordeal. This was shown in the form of another young man with a thick blond mane and one visible, piercing violet-grey eye. His smile was like the kiss of an angel upon her lips, and just the sight of him filled her with warmth and incredible strength.
There's some sort of a bond between us, he and I. I can feel it as if it were a stone resting in the palm of my hand... I've seen this boy's face somewhere before; where was it? A dream? Is this a dream, too?
You can heal her, child. Use your powers, and accept your birthright, a voice filled her head.
What? Who are you?
"Tai, hon," Chris' soft voice interrupted the dreamy world. "It's time to go now."
Tai just stared at him for a few moments, letting her eyes re-adjust to the hospital room as she forced order on the chaos in her mind. Assured that the dream was over, she cast one last lingering look at her friend's prone form still next to her. With that last painful look, Tai stood up and tore herself away from the bed.
Chris waited patiently as she exited before him, looking on the scene with sad eyes: Tai's distant, shell-shocked attitude; the young woman lying comatose on the hospital bed, her fate still uncertain. Chris sighed half-heartedly. He was a young man still, but he had lived far too long.
Candra of Cruelty stood before her master, her fellow Dark Warlords flanking her closely.
"What news do you have for me, my pets?"
"Master Talpa, Syria turned traitor and let Strata go, and Strata attacked Azrael and several gaurds, and even managed to free the traitors. Azrael is still alive, but he has sustained heavy injuries," Candra replied. "Not only that, but there appeared to be some outside intervention. Strata, he-"
"Yes, yes. I'm well aware of Strata's little light show, as I have been for quite some time."
The Warlords did a double take. "You mean you planned for their escape, Master?" Candra queried, just as surprised as her companions, the nerve-grating Lapin and his psycho buddy Venom.
Talpa's voice thundered with manic laughter. "So shocked, Candra? Did you really believe that I would allow them to escape so easily had I not planned for it? You really disappoint me. Strata has fallen directly into my trap, and my plans for him and his friends are perfectly secure."
Lapin looked at him curiously. "Then you mean that he was supposed to disappear into thin air without his friends, then?"
Talpa snapped to attention. "WHAT??" he bellowed. "Explain yourselves!"
"W-well that is, um, what I was trying to tell you before, sir," Candra stumbled, gesturing around wildly. "The, um, light show, as you put it, sir, happened, and then it just stopped. And he was just laying there on the ground, and he disappeared! Even the traitor leeches looked clueless!"
"Shimatta," Talpa cursed to himself. "I knew that the gaki would try to interfere sooner or later."
"Sir?"
He paused in contemplation. "Summon Mandilyn to the thrown room immediately," he ordered. Letting his tone darken immensely, he elaborated, "This turn in events may be to my advantage still." A sound which started as a low growl in his throat erupted into manic laughter that filled the dank stone room once again.
"Yes, Master," the puppets responded, making their exit quick.
Konnichi wa, minna! Well, any comments? This chapter is different from the others thus far in a major way, being that none of the Ronins even have a little part in this one. Don 't worry, though. It won't become a habit. And this chapter will be more important later on, and Tai and Randi will be very important later, along with a few of their friends...
Um, btw, "shimatta" is about the same as "damn it."
Well, that wraps up this bit! And as usual, don't be shy about emailing me! I'll even hear flames, if you can prove that you've got a sound reason to give one! Ja ne! Adios! Arrevederrci! Sayonara!
Aleksa ~~~<~~@
