OSA Reimeiki

"Rachel. Captain Rachel. Can you hear us?"
A faint voice. Blurred images hovering above me. I struggle to open my eyes wider.
A more excited voice, "Dude! She's opening her eyes! She's alright!"
A sneering voice, "Of course. She only got nicked by that bullet. She's supposed to be a wolf-hawk-human mutant, what do you expect?"
I raise my head, groaning as I looked around. "Is-- Is everyone alright?" inwardly berate myself for my weakness . The metallic human bent down with a whirr of mechanics in her knees.
She answers, "No one else was injured, thanks to your efforts. As you can see, the Mafia fled upon your arrival. We are safe for now."

Suddenly, I remember something. "That pup-- I mean, that girl! The one always puffing on those death sticks! With the smell of smoke surrounding her! Where is she?!"
Another human, the one I recall being named Nicole, also bends down to speak to me. "You mean Maria? We don't know, she ran off with Anna somewhere, and they're not back yet. We were looking for them before we ran into those Mafia guys and you saved our butts."

I click my fangs together a few times in thought. That girl... Maria. She was the pup. I am sure of it. The pup I killed all years ago. But... how is she still alive? Throwing aside this puzzling thought for the moment, another conundrum crossed my mind.
The deformed pup Maria had changed a lot. Even deformed, she still had the eyes and wings of our race, but now, she seems entirely humanoid. A voice in my head responds, 'Of course she's changed. It's been over 15 years! She's grown up.' Mulling this thought over, I consider, 'That may just be true. Her eyes are an amber-hazel colour now, compared to the gold colour of our species. Perhaps spending so much time with the humans has dulled their colour?'
And the wings? It makes sense that they did not develop. All our young undergo rigorous training to develop broad, strong wings capable of flight. Pups who do not train have their wing stubs shrink back into the shoulder blades and they never grow. It all makes sense now.

Clearing my thoughts, I get back on my paws, sniffing my bandaged, partially-healed forelimb. The one with the powers, Rosita says, "Sorry it's only partially healed. Sensei hasn't taught me the complete healing arts yet, and I didn't want to cause more damage by taking risks."
I bow my head to her, "Thank you, with this level of healing, the pain is gone and I can use my limb again."

Emily pipes up, "But hey, Rosita, how did you conjure that awesome protective barrier? It was like someone out of an anime! But I thought you didn't have that level of magic yet!"
Rosita responds, "I don't know either. I never learned the barrier spell to that level, and even if I did know how to do it, I haven't developed that level of power yet. How I managed to do it is a mystery, I guess."
Here, Diya reopens her holographic screen, which she seems to be using quite a lot lately. Gotta love technology. "Rosita, I may be able to explain that. Kyna, you should hear this too."
"Quack." Kyna stands on the other side of Diya, staring at the multitude of rows and colomns of numbers scrolling down the screen.

"From these statistics and what you have told me about the energy field fluctuating, I have reached a conclusion," Diya tells the two. Diya turns to Kyna and says, "Kyna, whether you are aware or not, you have been lending a lot of your power to Rosita. Unable to control the combined amount of power, Rosita has been subconciously channeling it into her staff. Overloaded, it cannot transform back into its dormant bracelet form. But even so, the shift in raw power can be read in your auras, which is why we have all been feeling a little uneasy lately."

Nicole, who had been peering over Diya's shoulder at the screen, exclaims, "Whoa, dude! How the heck did you figure that our from those numbers?! That looks worse than our physics labs!"
Diya just shrugs and closes the screen, "That's just how it is."

Rosita turns to Kyna, "You've been giving me your power? Why?"
Kyna waddles from side to side a bit before responding, "I don't know. I didn't even really know I was doing it. I guess... I feel kind of like dead wood, and you can do so much more with your magic than I can."
Rosita looks shocked, "But you can summon ducks! And use their powers too!"
Kyna metaphorically shuffles her feathers, "Yeah, but what good is that in our situation?"
Rosita shakes her head, "No, Kyna, don't think like that. I'm sure your powers will come in handy one day."

Catherine crosses her arms and nods, "Yes, Kyna, consciously make an effort not to lend power to Rosita anymore. You're mucking up the atmosphere."
Wenhao quickly rephrases, "What Catherine means to say is, although your heart's in the right place, it isn't having the desired effect. Let's just go back to the way things used to be."
Catherine immediately snaps back, "Hey! Who told you to step in and misquote me, huh? You miserable, little--"
"Catherine! That's enough! Stop, or I'll sic John on you!" Diya glares.
"And what's that supposed to mean? My Johnny-wonny wouldn't hurt a fly!" Jessica puts her hands on her hips with a frown.
"Oh Jessie-bear, it's ok. Diya just means to say that I'm manly enough to handle Catherine, right Diya? And--" Twin laser beams shooting past John's head is enough to make him shut up.

"Humans! Please! Enough of your foolish quarreling. I thank you for saving me--" I start.
"Oh no no no no, you saved us first," Wenhao interjects, giving a little bow with much twirling of hands.
"--But I must locate Maria," I finish.
"Yeah, we ought to get a move on, guys. Before Anna and Maria get farther away," Nicole adds, settling the conversation.

Reunited with the group of humans, I join them in their search for their missing companions.

---

"Please, consigliere*, forgive the boss's failure," Geno prostrates himself before a masked figure seated confortably in a recliner.
The masked figure snarls, "The boss? You know nothing of the Italian Mafia, you lowly associate. The one you may refer to as the boss is an authority higher than myself! This hulking brute here, he is nothing but a capo." He gets up and kicks the bound man in the side, who keels over, whimpering something through his gag.
The consigliere frowns and kicks him again. "Do not whimper like a whipped cur. It brings shame upon the family." With a rough yank, he rips the gag away. "Now, speak."

"Pl-please sir! It was not our fault! There was a mutant, some sort of cross between a wolf and a hawk and a human! My men saw it too! Come on, tell him!" He looks pleadingly to his men. However, they shrink back from his haggard gaze, afraid to bring the wrath of the consigliere down upon them.
The consigliere barks our a harsh laugh, "It appears that your men saw nothing! You lie, capo."
"No! I swear it! It is all true!" the man cries, desperatly grasping the consigliere's pant leg, earning himself another kick in the face.
The consigliere frowns and sighs. "Today has not been a good day. Not a single deal followed through, so now I need to clean up the job, and now you come along and further tarnish this family's failing reputation. Men!"
"Yessir!"
"Finish this. I'm going for a walk."
"Yessir!"

A round of gunshots is heard as the consigliere walks calmly out of the warehouse with his bodyguards.

"Terrible, terrible," the consigliere mutters to himself, reaching for a cigar.
"Don't dwell on that idiot, Vincenzo," his bodyguard claps a hand on his shoulder.
"No, I'm talking about the failed transactions, you dummy," Vincenzo scoffs, pulling out a lighter. He rolls the cigar around in his fingers and continues walking, deep in thought. Not paying attention to where he was heading, he rounds the corner and immediately almost trips over an outstretched leg.

"Watch where you stick your legs, amico," he snarls, clearly in a bad mood.
The outstretched leg belonged to a emo-looking person, a curtain of black hair hanging over her face.
(Oh wait! Anna, got a haircut (a long time ago >.<) so I can't say that anymore. Scratch that then. )
She makes no motion of even acknowledging his presense. Vincenzo sees this, and is further enraged. "Hey! Look at me when I speak to you, urchin!" He reaches down and grabs her chin, forcing her to look at him.

Recognizing her, he freezes, hand dropping in disbelief. His bodyguard, who had been standing back during the exchange between the two, hesitantly reaches out a hand to tap his statue-still boss. He stops as Vincenzo drops to his knees, cupping both his hands around the girl's face.
"Anna... Anna, can it really be you?" he whispers.
Hearing her name from the lips of this man, she peers closer into his face, trying to match it with a name. "You are... Jimmy?"
Vincenzo almost cried and laughed at the same time, "Yes! It is I, Jimmy Wei! Oh Anna, you remember me!"

Confused, the bodyguard succeeds in tapping his boss's shoulder this time and queries, "Erm, Vincenzo? Who's this? And why does she call you 'Jimmy'?"
"I went by Jimmy** during my time in Canada before I came to Italy. This girl and I met during junior high, and we haven't met since then. Our transactions were completed through middle people, so there hasn't been any contact between the two of us for many years."
"But... what is she to you?"
"She is... that... and much more. Or... at least... she used to be."

Snapping out of his reverie, Vincenzo taps his chin in thought, "But for her to have personally come to Italy, there must be a problem." He uses his thumb to push back her eyelids, revealing the whites of her eyes. He checks her pulse while noting her complexion. Completing his brief examination, he reaches into his trench coat pocket while saying, "Definitely symptoms of withdrawal." Taking out a package of white powder, he administers the drug.
Almost immediately, the light returns to Anna's eyes, and she takes a very deep breath, inhaling deeply through her nose. "Ohhhh... much better. =)"

She looks up, seeing Jimmy for the first time. "Jimmy! What are you doing here, druggie?"
The bodyguard is shocked. "Dare you address my master in such a vulgar way?!"
"No, from her, it's acceptable," Jimmy stops him, offering a hand to help Anna up.
Completely ignoring the hand, Anna leaps up on her own, nearly bashing her head into Jimmy's nose. The bodyguard scratches his head, "So, umm... sir, what exactly is this girl's relationship with you to call you so familiarly?"
Jimmy looks into the setting sun, and replies, "She was my-- "

---

* A consigliere is a higher-up in the Italian Mafia who plays the role of chief advisor to the head boss himself. Very powerful dude. Don't cross him.

**Jimmy is a short form of the English name James, which is derived from the Italian name Vin-CENZ-o.
Anna needs a fellow druggie in the story. As it turns out, he's gone beyond the call of my imagination this time and is now an Italian Mafioso drug lord. As different as he seems from the real Jimmy, the druggie aspect is not the only aspect of his personality that will be carried over into Reimeiki. You'll see =P

Additional Note: This was the first Reimeiki post that I wrote on Word and transferred over. I have no length perception when writing on Word. And formatting gets screwed up. >.< (Fixed now, should be ok. I hope.)