Ravenport: Luna's Awakening

by Alistair Jones

  “Aw man c’mon my dude, lighten up. It’s funny.”

  On top of the lid was a small keyboard and a thickly rounded helmet that completely obscured the eyes. Kenneth removes his shades and starts to get to his task, his hands typing in commands at light speeds. The sounds of high pitched machinery whine through the machine as it works, fulfilling every order it was given.

  Miguel turns back towards Kenneth and heads to the large briefcase, opening it. Inside were four handmade satchel charges, each about the size of a small child’s backpack. There were small boxes strapped to the outer part of them with a simplistic timer on it. Miguel smiles deeply.

  “Ooooh. These look good...look really good.”

  Small electric blue lights periodically peek out from underneath the lid of the machine Kenneth is working on.

  “Yeah, I snagged a really good blueprint for em. Amazing what you find on the net these days man. And I just don’t make those for anybody, but for you, I’ve got your back. Just...uh...don’t do anything bad with ‘em okay?”

  Miguel shuts the briefcase. “See Ken, that’s what I like about you, you don’t ask questions. Now’s a terrible time to start for the record but I will tell you that no, I’m not going to do anything bad with them. I’m merely solving a problem. That’s all.”

  Kenneth pulls up the lid and slides off the helm, grabbing the arm off of the contraption and holding it out to Miguel.

  “Well if...if you say so bro. Here’s your leftie back. But I’m gonna give you the run down real quick.”

  Miguel takes his arm and holds it up to his shoulder. With a solid *SH-SHUNK!* it slides back into place, Miguel shuddering again on re-entry. He flexes his fingers, feeling much better to be back in one piece.

  “So basically, I snuck in there and took off the safety on it, so you can now totally send the power from your batt into your hand. Electro-gloves, you know? But if you do that it’s seriously gonna cut down on your juice, so you gotta take it easy on it.”

  Miguel nods attentively, letting his arm drop to his side. “It’s just the hand that gets electrified, right?”

  Kenneth nods. “Yep! Now remember, you have some serious power in that thing, so don’t go like, chargin’ up and then like, scratch your pit er’ somethin. That’s a real good way to put yourself in the hospital.”

  “I got the idea, thanks. Anything else before I go?”

  “Uh...no man. I think you are good. If you need anything else, you lemme know, alright?”

  Kenneth holds his fist out, and Miguel reciprocates the greeting by doing the same. They both bring those same hands into a genuine handshake. Miguel turns to grab his briefcase and starts to step back out of the door.

  “Tell Ryu I said hi. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen him runnin’ around.”

  Kenneth reaches back to put on his shades, nodding towards Miguel. “Well you know that turbo-nerd, sittin up in that office, running the Dojo. But yeah, I’ll get at him for ya. Later bro!”

  Miguel waves and steps out of the house, closing the door behind him. Sliding the briefcase in the backseat of the SUV, he sighs and gets in himself, starting his car up.

  “Just...solving a problem. That’s all Kenneth.” Miguel mutters darkly.

  Miguel told Luna to be ready by the time he returned, and sure enough, the werewolf was wearing her sweat suit she’d worn the first time they went out. Miguel takes a quick dip into his room to re-equip himself with both of his guns before departing. After double checking the stairway for any chance that someone might walk in, the pair sneaks out again and hop into Miguel’s SUV unnoticed. Luna did enjoy being indoors more often than outdoors but just being able to get away from the couch and that television felt nice. She’d complain about her living situation more, but considering the circumstances in which this arrangement was set up, it felt like the wrong time to bring it up. The time was coming soon though.

  Luna gets comfortable in the car as she reclines, watching the various buildings of downtown Ravenport pass her by. The area was almost radically split between the various skyscrapers of the massive tech corporations that called Ravenport home and an area called ‘The Scratch’ which was full of the faded glory of Ravenport’s yesteryears. Most of the people that lived there were quite poor but would rather tolerate it than have some of their antiques altered or destroyed. As the fancy plazas and the high tech squares pass her by and they start heading into the Scratch, Luna turns towards Miguel with a raised brow.

  “So...uhm...you haven’t told me where we’re going yet so…”

  Miguel’s stoic driving expression is broken; his mind focused on other things at the moment. He turns his head towards her with a pained smile, gesturing towards her.

  “Oh, you want to know...of course! I’m sorry, I completely forgot. We’re heading into the Scratch. To a distributing center of Scar’s.”

  Luna crosses her arms and brings a finger up to her chin, scratching it. “Oh...how did you know where it was?”

  Miguel jerks a thumb behind him. “Remember that first night where you fought sword girl?”

  Luna nods quickly.

  “Well, while you two were scrapping I snuck into one of the trucks and found a phone. I had to crack the stupid little code on it, but once I got in, I started going through emails and text messages. Between that and a little bit of internet mapping, I eventually figured out where he’s got his stuff hiding. He’s got a few small warehouses around, but if we nail the distributing center, it’ll hurt him the most.”

  Luna taps her chin, ruffling the fine fur found there. “Uh...huh. Well, that makes sense I guess. So what’s the plan?”

  Miguel rhythmically taps his metal fingers on the steering wheel of his vehicle. “...We’re going to blow it up again.”

  Luna’s ears lower at the news, turning to look at him fully. “Uh...l-last time everything kind of burned up. I mean that was at the docks, so nobody else got hurt, but this one is in the city right? Won’t...the fire spread?”

  Miguel shifts stiffly in his seat. “I know. The grenades I got last time were supposed to do that. It’s why I switched it up and got satchel charges this time. More explosive and less fire. And if it’s anything like the rest of the buildings in the Scratch, it’ll be made of brick. Can’t get more fireproof than something made by it.”

  Miguel interjects with a shrug. “Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll call the fire department the second I get the bombs set. Okay?”

  The werewolf still peers at him, clearly worried about the method. She eventually drops it and sighs, leaning back in her seat again.

  “So how are we going to do this? I don’t think sneaking around again is gonna work.”

  Miguel shakes his head. “No, probably not. Which is why you are going to come in here with me. I’ll need you to cause a distraction while we look for his goods. Probably more Rust.”

  “Uh...Rust? Like the thing that metal does when it’s out in water or whatever?”

  “I don’t think that’s what it is, but that’s what it was called on the shipping manifests.”

  Luna shrugs. “Do you know what he wants all that stuff for then?”

  Miguel’s face turns stoic again. “No, but I plan on taking out as much of it as I can. If he’s shipping an actual ton of it in, it’s gotta be important for something.”

  Luna’s ears fall to her side, knowing that look he was putting on. It was the same one he had given her when he first told her what he was doing. She goes quiet and pulls her hoodie up over her face, resigning herself to hoping that things went better this time.

  It took another hour to drive through the relatively thick traffic that poured through Downtown Ravenport and head into the Scratch. It was getting to be pretty late now, sometime past 10 p.m. Luna figured, but she didn’t have a phone or a watch to make sure. The street lamps were the only thing guiding them beyond the headlights, and even the lamps in the neighborhood stopped consistently working. Miguel pulls into a nearby
alleyway and parks the car, getting out and opening the back door of the vehicle.

  “You know,” Miguel says with some finality. “I’ve always hated this place.”

  Luna steps out of the car after scanning the alley for any potential pedestrians and finding none.

  “Why?”

  Miguel opens the briefcase he got from Kenneth and pulls out two of the satchel charges, slinging them over his back. “Because no matter how many times I combed this beat, nothing ever got better. It didn’t get better when I used to live here, and it didn’t get better when I became a cop either.”

  Luna’s eyes widen in surprise. “You? Used to live? Here? In the Scratch?”

  “It...it wasn’t always called that.” Miguel says, closing the door and locking it back. “Back when I was a kid, it was called the King’s Mantle, or just Mantle for short. Those big tech guys, Nova Corp, Dojotech, Zillion...they were nowhere near as big as they are now. Hell, I don’t even think Dojo was even around back then. But when they started getting money, they kind of just spawned their own little world around them. And little by little they started taking more and more land, bulldozing old stuff, putting in new stuff, and taking away where people used to live. With nowhere to go and no place to get work, the Mantle just got poorer and poorer until...well, what you see now.”

  Miguel gestures around him and shakes his head. “Only started being called the Scratch while I was gone when people started to notice what they had here. Exactly that. Scratch.”

  Luna tilts her head at the little lesson on city history she never knew, shaking her head. “I’m...really sorry to hear about it. Ever since I was little, I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know why.”

  Miguel looks out from the darkened alley and out towards the Center that they’d come here for, watching for anyone who dared to walk out in these dangerous, mostly dark streets at night. “Well, there you go. Now you know. So don’t be judging books by their covers, kid.”

  The Distribution Center is huge at first glance. It’s a two-story brick building, just like Miguel had predicted. It featured no external markings to denote it as one thing or another, but it did have multiple loading bays spread out on three sides. Oddly, at the moment, they all seemed to be empty. A few lights were on in the building, but only in certain places on the first floor. The outside perimeter is closed in by a tall chain link fence with razor wire cresting the top of it. There was a small parking lot there with two vehicles, one of which was a white luxury Cadillac and a scratched black sports bike.

  Luna and Miguel sneak up to the building when the coast was clear, sidling up to the tall fence. After a small bit of discussion, Luna simply tosses Miguel over the fence to avoid cutting through it. They canvas the building for a possible way to the roof and find one; an emergency ladder in the back. Miguel climbs it swiftly while Luna forgoes it, crouching down and leaping up onto the roof in a single bound.

  The view up here wasn’t much to look at, as the majority of the buildings surrounding this one were derelict or decaying. The snow had receded a little bit from all the snowfall they had before thanks to a few warmer winter days, but the flat roof is still quite wet. There is very little up here besides some ancient looking air conditioning units and some vent openings, but there was a skylight that looked to be in decent condition.

  “There.” Miguel gestures, pointing to it. “There’s our ticket in. Stay back, I’m going to take a look and see if that’s safe.”

  Luna nods and holds her ground while Miguel cautiously walks forward. The roof felt a little uneven in spots underneath her bare feet, it being in desperate need of repair. Miguel peers down through the skylight and sees a dim, old looking office room. It had ancient looking carpet and probably once housed cubicles of some sort, but that was ages ago now. Luna takes a step towards Miguel and feels the roof strain underneath her weight, her soft footpads picking up on whatever the material is shuddering beneath her.

  “Uh…M-M-Mr.Morales...th-the roof…”

  Miguel turns towards her ready to raise a finger to his mouth to quiet her, but he notices the scared expression on her face as she’s trying to remain calm and clearly failing. Luna’s tail goes stiff while she’s got her arms out to try to balance herself.

  “Whoa...just...take it easy...and step back, stay calm-like…”

  Luna raises her foot and slowly takes a step back, but the single point of pressure was enough to to get the fracture lines to spread from her foot. She falls through the roof with a sickening series of crunches, the werewolf wreathed in darkness, wires, and rotten roofing as she fell. Just as suddenly though, there was light as she plummets into a bathroom, landing side first on one of the stall doors before sliding off and landing on her back in a loud whine. She rolls over on the smooth tiled floor, holding her side but notices that there was a figure inside of the bathroom. She turns her head to look at her, finding it to be none other than Sakura herself, looking completely astonished by the werewolf’s sudden appearance.

  Luna starts to pick herself up, not sensing that she’d taken any other big hits on the way down besides the door. “Ow-ow-ow...zero out of ten, would not recommend.”

  Sakura finally finds her voice, pointing towards Luna. “H-h-how are you here? What the hell are you doing here? How fat IS your ass?”

  Luna frowns slightly at that, crossing her arms. “Hey! Rude.”

  Sakura instantly retorts. “Rude? You thought I was a dude last time!”

  Luna tilts her head in mild agreement. “...Fair.”

  Sakura takes a step towards Luna, the vampire’s fist smashing against a nearby wall.

  “Look, I’ve already had you screw up one thing for me this week. I don’t need you to screw up a sec-” Sakura looks back up towards the gaping hole Luna made and then looks back down towards her. “Where the hell is your partner?”

  Luna shrugs. “Beats me.”

  Sakura’s hand pulls away from her sword and instead go over her gloves, pulling them off and stuffing them in her pocket. She rolls up the sleeve of her right arm, exposing some pale skin. Luna’s ears tilt upwards.

  “What are you doing?”

  Sakura flicks her hand out as a red spear-pointed blade of energy shoots out from over the top of her wrist.

  “Setting up Round 2.”

  Chapter 11

  Round 2

  Sakura wastes little time with her new blade, swinging it straight towards Luna, slicing the outside edges of the bathroom stalls in the process. Luna, like before, could easily see how to dodge it but, unlike the last time, there was precious little room to work with. She leaps to the vampire’s opposite side, evading the swing as it plunges behind her. Sakura’s blood knife easily carves through the wall behind Luna, the vampire bringing her knife to bear against her opponent again. Sakura throws a few horizontal slashes with as much speed as she can muster, but Luna keeps backing out of range of them.

  Going on the offensive, Luna throws blow towards Sakura’s head, the vampire sidestepping as quickly as the attack began. The knife goes in again, aiming for Luna’s stomach and landing a light graze across the side of it. Sakura goes in for a second hit, but the werewolf grabs her by the neck, putting her in a strong chokehold. Luna lifts the vampire off of the ground, watching her try to kick and squirm out of her grasp. Sakura’s struggles were forcing her to keep her stance wide, as this much swinging might throw her off balance. She growls at Sakura, increasing the pressure of vice grip on her neck.

  Fear seeping into her mind, Sakura starts to panic. Clearly unable to think of a better option, Sakura puts the palms of both hands out to her sides and channels a powerful blast of wind, propelling the both of them forward and through the bathroom door, blasting it to splinters.

  The duo land in the old office room that Miguel had spied from above, and it looked about as old as it smelled. The abandoned room had been stripped out, all except for the carpet and a few support beams. The wind burst was strong enough to force Luna to drop her op
ponent and hit the ground, clutching her stomach in pain. Sakura managed to stick the landing, albeit sloppily, landing on her feet, but nearly losing her balance and turning towards the werewolf.

  “And now there’s plenty of room for me. And no cars for you. I know your partner is here. After I finish you, I’m going to find him and end this.”

  Luna gets to her feet and looks up towards the skylight, finding a panel of it open. It looked like Miguel managed to get down here, but where he might have gone was another matter entirely. Sakura unsheathes her blade, letting it cut her thumb to coat it in blood and turn it back to it’s trademark scarlet color. Realizing that she was going to be attacked again, Luna desperately searches for a weapon and looks to the side of the bathroom. Judging by the exposed wooden beams and the bare plumbing, the lavatory was once part of a set. Multiple pieces of debris lay scattered across the ground, but chief amongst them was a long-handled sledgehammer. There were other tools there, but they were all covered a thick layer of cobwebs.

  Luna dashes back and grabs the sledgehammer and hoists it into action, only to realize that the metallic head of the thing was stuck to the ground. She gives it another hefty pull, arching her back with effort, but the hammer refused to budge. Sakura perks an eyebrow up as she just watches Luna’s back, unsure of what’s going on. She knew what it looked like but...no...that couldn’t be it.

  Sakura calls out. “Uh, what the hell are you doing?”

  Luna gives one final wrench of her arms and rips the sledgehammer from the floor, only to find that the head of the hammer stayed put. She visibly faulters as she looks at the stick she’d managed to pry up from the floor, whatever it was keeping the two parts together had weakened over time. It was still long enough to be considered a short metal staff, but Luna looks heartbroken.

  “Awwww...c’mon. Again?”

  Sakura witnesses Luna’s misfortune and snickers, drawing both hands to her blade. “About time something went in my way. Your little stunts end here, I’ll make sure of that.”