ZKC - Colliding Universes

Kaoru ran up to Toshiro and looked Sakura over. "She's passed out," said the young girl as Shiho walked up and began to check her condition.

"Her breathing is shallow, and she's bleeding internally, we need to get her to the hospital..." said Shiho said, calmly yet there was a tang of worry in her tone.

"We'll fly her to HQ on BABEL 1. It'll be faster, and she needs specialized care if she's an Esper. Besides, whatever this mess was, she'll need protection. It seems like some sort of illegal fighting league, judging from what the police have found here." Minamoto responded, support from the helicopter wheeling out a portable gurney. They took Sakura from a worried Toshiro's hands, and lay her on the bed, wheeling her to said helicopter.

The blob seemed to want to board the helicopter...but was simply too big. It pondered how it could enter the craft, in an almost comedic way.

Kaoru seemed to be watching this blob, pondering just what it was and what it was doing; she pointed at it while looking at Shiho and Aoi but neither of them knew what it was either.

"Anyone know what 'that' is?" she looked over at Minamoto and even Toshiro.

Minamoto adjusted his glasses, and noted the translucant entity's form...it seemed to have absorbed various objects into itself, but the signature was clear.

"It...looks much like a Live Metal, but--" *PFFFFFFSHHHH*

Suddenly, the blob made a massive burst of mist around the area. It was cool and smelled an odd mix of fragrant and metallic. Briefly, the entire group assembled within the mist saw an image of future Tokyo, destroyed and seemingly lifeless...before the image faded with the strange gas.

"Was that...some form of hypno?" Minamoto asked, before hearing a definite "Nyaaan..."

Looking down, he noted a feline which wore a collar around its neck. It scrambled and hopped into Kaoru's arms, purring. The collar had a live metal fragment, and etched in the fragment was the name 'Tango'.

The girls seemed to get excited at the signs of a kitty; which gave off a cute little meow. Minamoto stared at the feline for a moment, wondering what to do.

"Let's head back to HQs," he said after a moments thought.

Later...

The kitten was happy and rambunctious, playing with a ball of yarn while the Children watched. Toshiro was concerned for Sakura, having not been allowed to stay with her while the doctors worked. He still didn't trust them, but what choice did he have?

Minamoto, meanwhile, was researching the technology and trying to narrow down who made it. It was high end tech, and they'd learned that it allowed for radar, visual, and esper invisibility...reverse engineering was well underway.

Hospital Wing

Sakaki was rather tired, after spending several hours in surgery fixing up some of Sakura's injuries, he and his staff were able to take a much needed break. The mans scrubs were covered in the girls blood, which he took off quickly and discarded into a bio-hamper.

The head doctor walked in behind him, also discarding his scrubs and then going to wash his hands. "We'll continue the next round in three hours, get something to eat and rest your eyes until then," he said to Sakaki before leaving to take care of other things.

Sakaki sighed and rubbed the back of his head; he knew from looking at the x-rays that Sakura's injuries were serious but he hadn't expected to see just how serious they were; the X-rays didn't tell the full story, where-as his ability actually did.

"I guess I better update Minamoto on what is going on," he said and grabbed a coat off the hanger and slid it on. He walked into his office that was just down the hall and quickly grabbed up his things, including the folder that had some of Sakura's x-rays in them, minus the one for the head which she would be going through shortly and thus he didn't have.

The Children were in the hospital wing, mainly because Sakaki didn't want them to be there constantly worrying and potentially causing problems. Instead, they were down in the standby room where Fujiko was keeping an eye on the kids.

Fujiko tried to distract the Children in her own way, giving tips on how to catch Minamoto's interest. However, Toshiro felt himself excluded from the discussion. Feminine wiles were more frightening than interesting to him, so he found himself petting Tango, who rested comfortably in his lap. Tears welled up in his eyes, as he smiled down at the kitten gently.

"Tango-chan...How can you be here? Don't you remember that you died years ago?" He cuddled the animal which gave a pleased purr, a pet from his and Sakura's youth...

From the window of the Standby room, the kids would notice the raging storm outside, dumping a constant amount of rain over the city. Shiho stood beside the window, leaning up against it while she stared outward, she had her hand on the window and could vaguely feel what was going on around the building.

Aoi was busy with her hat, fixing it up and stitching up a hole that had formed in it during the last mission while Kaoru was listening to Fujiko although her eyes occasionally wondered over to Toshiro; the girls took interest right away when they overheard him say something about the kitten dying. "What do you mean?" Kaoru asked and scutted*sp* over to him.

In the hallway, Sakaki stopped by Minamoto's office to talk to him about the young girl.

Toshiro looked to Kaoru, surprised he'd been heard evidently, before looking down to the kitten he was petting. It purred, seeming to feel safe near him and recognizing him...

"Tango-chan was a kitten Sakura and I found a while back. She was a runt which would have died from starvation if we didn't help, so we fed her with a syringe...but she eventually got sick and died. All I could do was pet her and try to keep her comfortable..." Another tear leaked down.

"...but here she is. Three years later, healthy, and having not aged a day. I'm happy, but I just don't understand how."



Meanwhile, Minamoto looked up from his own studies at the Esper Doctor.

"How is she, Sakaki?" He asked with concern...

Sakaki sighed and set a folder down on Minamoto's desk for him to look at. "She's got multiple injuries across pretty much all of her body, some are fairly old while others are new. She's got a lot of broken bones that are in various stages of healing, the oldest I found was just over three years ago."

The man folded his arm over his chest while looking down at the folder. "Her right lung is collasped, so we'll need to do transplant surgery. I also found evidence that she was tortured physically, marks across her body show evidence of either knives or some other instrument, possibly needles - which might explain the blood work."

He opened the folder to show Minamoto the bloodwork. "Her bloodwork shows a high concentration of a steroid commonly found used by ESPer drug users in order to increase their psychic potency. Its a dangerous drug, and on a child her age, the levels that I found would easily have killed her."

"Then.. we have the other problem," he turned the page to show an x-ray of some of the bones. "I'll need Shiho and Kaoru's help, unfortunantly the girl has some serious internal bleeding going on that myself and the other doctors can't isolate even with the scans, we fear it might be somewhere within this blob," he tapped an image that showed a dark mass that surrounded where Sakura's kidney was. "But unless we know exactly 'what' is bleeding we can't take the risk of opening that part of her up, she could bleed out."

Sakaki sighed, he sounded frustrated. "Where was she found anyway?" he asked.

Standby room.

"He could've been an ESPer," Kaoru said and stratched gently under the kittens chin.

Office

Minamoto's eyes narrowed...and he gave a sigh.

"...It's not often I wish ill on anyone...but I hope that the people that did this never get out of prison. It seems to have been some sort of fighting ring. The other espers we found there testified to the fact they were kidnapped and used to fight for wagers. Evidently this girl was often pit against some huge Roviet juggernaut. Some rumors of politicians betting as well have been stated, which we're investigating."

"Before we do that, Sakaki, I want you to see something." Minamoto said, sliding a file over. It was Toshiro's file, and contained an ability known as 'Body Audit'.

"It seems his ability was classified in part because he can fight the aging process of people, like Director Tsubomi. It's also, however, able to be used for healing, as well as organ or limb reconstruction...there's no mention whatsoever of the gravitic, psychometry, psychokinesis, or teleportation abilities he's demonstrated though. I hate putting it on his shoulders, but if things are that bad...we may be better off regrowing that lung and maybe even the kidney. He seems powerful enough to preserve his own life in spite of brain injury, at least." Also in the file, however, was a strange looking note.

"Lost in lab accident, never retrieved. Presumed KIA."


Standby Room

"I suppose it's possible..." Toshiro said, smiling at his kitty. He didn't understand what kind of esper his kitty was, and it didn't occur to him to use psychometry to look. The kitten purred at Kaoru's scoochies, and let out a cute meow.

Office

"What's this?" Sakaki asked, picking up the file and looking at the note. "Lab accident?"

Standby Room

"Hey Toshiro-kun?" Kaoru looked at Toshiro curiously, her two friend glancing over at her for a moment. "Ummm....." she pondered the question in her mind but wasn't entirely certain 'if' she should ask but after a few moments she shook her head. "Nevermind..."

Office

Minamoto gave a sigh, and handed Sakaki a second file... "Evidently, since he had the Body Audit ability, and was an already a ward of the government since he was an orphan, some politician with lobbyists to please thought it would be a good idea to record his ability into a Live Metal pendant here at BABEL HQ for medical and cosmetic purposes. The Director agreed because evidently her age altering abilities have a limit, but she didn't realize just how dangerous or greedy their version of the test was."

Several still photos of the event taken from video footage were in the file, showing the scanning device exploding, plunging debris into his head, and the boy vanishing. "...I'm still looking for who was in charge of that experiment. We didn't know he could teleport, and that was intentionally omitted by someone...BABEL, through some lapse of attentiveness and care, allowed this."

Standby Room

"Hmm?" Toshiro looked to Kaoru, curious.

"...What is it?"

Office

Sakaki shook his head. "And then things went wrong," he said as he listeened and read the file. "Any chance that even though this was approved by the chief that the scientists working on this boy could've been rogue?" he asked.

Standby room

"This might be rather rude of me, but..." Kaoru searched for some way to ask this question without it sounding like she was prying, but then, she kind of was regardless. "Where are your parents?" she stared at the boy.

Office

"Well...Supervisor Suwa was in charge of the project, but she was simply less than sane rather than intentionally malicious. We do suspect sabotage, but I've yet to secure any evidence. Fortunately, he has the power needed to help with his sister...provided he has your medical guidance."

Standby room

Toshiro should have expected the question. He looked a bit sad, remembering. "Mom...well, she had health problems, especially around the time she was pregnant with Sakura. A few years after that, she died from a strange fever. Dad died in a car accident six months later. It's just me, her, and now Tango again."

Office

"Thing is though, is he ok to be helping? I'm worried about pushing him a bit and given its a siblings he might push to hard..." said a worried Sakaki.

Standby room

Kaoru was quiet while she took in what Toshiro had said, after about a minute or two of silence, she looked at her companions and then back at Toshiro. "What about Sakura then? Your little sister?" she asked.

Office

"I don't know. I'd say do what you can, and if it's not enough we call in the Children...all four of them." Minamoto said, with a sigh.

Standby room

"That's who I meant by 'her'. Yes, she's my little sister. She was kidnapped though. I remember that now...all that time and what was I doing? Sleeping in a hospital bed when she needed me most."

Standby Room

Kaoru was at a loss of what more to say, she didn't really know how the boy truly felt as she didn't have any younger siblings of her own, only an older one, and thus didn't know what it felt like to loss one - even if temporarily. Although she suspected that if such a thing happened to Aoi or Shiho, she would.

She looked over at Fujiko for answers.

Office

"My main worry is her brain, a cerebral scan is being performed right now but it'll be a few before we have the results," Sakaki rubbed his chin. "I guess it would be best for us to inform Toshiro about his sister, can't really keep it from him..." Sakaki sounded unsure of this path though, he didn't know how the boy would react.

Standby Room

Fujiko's smile was a bit sad, as she recalled how she lost her battle group of Espers during the war. Even Kyosuke was lost to her, at least as the kind boy he once was. Now he was an extremist and a murderer. She put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"That's not necessarily true. Fujiko isn't sure what happened to hurt you, but it wasn't something we meant to do. If you stay here, Fujiko is sure these three will be your friends too." Toshiro opened his mouth to respond, but decided against it. He didn't quite trust the group, not yet, though the girls seemed nice...

"Ah, do you think you could help Fujiko? Her powers don't quite fight aging as well as yours. Maybe you could help take her back to her late...no...early twenties?" Fujiko asked, making Toshiro put his hand to his face. So that was why they wanted him to stay.


Office

Minamoto pondered the matter, before giving a sigh. "What would we tell him right now? 'Hey, your sister is hurt, but we're waiting to determine the extent of any brain damage'? No...I think we should wait until we have more information."