November Has Come +Climax+

November Has Come: Part One

Jack.  Fucking.  Depp.

The name scarred itself into Mary's brain, surged through her powerful arms, and emblazoned it on the punching bag in front of her with her fists.  This was supposed to be her big moment, her rise to the top upon the new horizons of ThrowDown.  But instead, this scrawny little blond punk had to jump the gun.  The match wasn't even over, she thought... Tucker could have pulled off the upset.  Then he'd have attacked her for nothing.  This was supposed to be her moment, she thought angrily as a series of lightning-quick jabs made the heavy bag creak on it's rusted chain, taking far more abuse than it was meant to.

Now, she thought, this piece of shit wants to make it personal.  Another one of the 'established' guys trying to take their territory back from the newcomers who, in all honesty, were dominating.  Everyone was afraid of their spot... everything from threatening to quit, to throwing tantrums in the hope that the ever-changing management would hear.  As far as she could follow, Donovan Troi was the one in charge now.  Bear had... vanished... after making that final payment to the Church.  Shion denied any involvement in this disappearance... then again, Shion denied a lot of things when it came to Church business.

Annoyance turned to anger, and anger turned explosive as the barrage of bloody-knuckled fists were replaced by a series of even more crushing kicks.  Who the fuck was Jack Depp to say, to do, anything?  To attack Shion?  Shion, a professional martial artist in her own right, and a master of the graceful Wushu style, could have slaughtered him herself.  But in the ring, it was all about Mary.  Just as in King of Fighters, it was all about Shion, and the Church of Orochi that the two represented.  Mary resentfully sometimes, after feeling the full scope of just what the Church was doing.

Another series of violent kicks finally forced the rusted chains to give way, and the heavy bag slumped to the floor.  Inwardly surprised, but outwardly not missing a beat, the Shooter straddled the bag and began to execute a violent Ground & Pound... the classic shoot fighting maneuver she'd yet to try out on any unsuspecting victims in the IPW.  All this time here, she thought angrily, turning that anger into violent aggression upon that massive sack of sand underneath her grip, and they haven't once given me what I've wanted.  I finally have the Pride Title, and now it means nothing.  And a match that's supposedly my specialty... fuck, she thought angrily, pounding her fists in tempo with her ever-quickening heartbeat.  Submission matches aren't my specialty.  Cage matches, octagon-style UFC type cage matches.

For a minute, she almost got to thinking that the ThrowDown staff was no better than the Rage staff.  But then she remembered staring down at that card the night after Shock, and the shock of what Depp had dared do to her and her 'lover', wore down a bit.  Second-to-main event... with a card as massive as this one was, the 11-match card damned near dwarfing Shock itself pre-Rage, it might as well have been considered the second main event.

At least I'm getting a little respect, she thought as she stood up, staring down in anger at the now-leaking vinyl sack of sand that had one stood up to professional boxers and kickboxers alike.  Mary took her eyes off of her prey, and scanned the crowd that had gathered around her.  As with when she first touched down in the States all those months ago, Mary was unsure of just what they were staring at... of course, the obvious choice was her violent demolition of a heavy bag.  But there was also the monstrous tattoo taking up her back, hidden only very slightly by a sports bra strap... a sports bra that, try as it might, couldn't hope to suppress all the 'jiggle' Mary's rather huge breasts had.

The shooter calmly walked over to her gym bag and, not even bothering to shower first... having seen the condition of these public showers in America... reached into it.  Without even looking back, she tossed a pair of $100 bills at the owner's feet and calmly made her way out.

She tried to suppress the smirk until she was at least across the street... this whole Yakuza thing was still new to her, but she had her little Yakuza 'moment' right there in that gym, and she felt proud of herself.

Proud, and frozen, the second that first burst of icy wind roared against her sweat-covered flesh.  November had come, alright, and brought with it rather nasty temperatures.  When it's all over, she thought ruefully as she hustled to get to her car before freezing over, I won't even get the satisfaction of seeing some cherry blossoms.  The thought of Jack's face, blossoming in blood, would have to suffice for now.

Keep it in the ring, Mary tried to remind herself as she slid into the car, and immediately cranked up the heater before even bothering to mess with anything else.  Depp, so far, hasn't tried to attack me or Shion outside of the ring, or anything that might be considered normal wrestling fare.  I should probably be thankful, she thought as she rubbed her hands together in the slowly-warming, nearly airtight Aston Martin... the extremely expensive luxury car a gift from Rugal Bernstein, the leader of the Church of Orochi, himself.  Thankful that, after floundering on the midcard and being shoved against idiots like Overdose, Hellspawn, and fucking Umaga... after destroying wash-ups like DeShaun Christian and Aeson, Brock Nielsen and Steve Sovey, Garrett Wilson and Patricia Burrell, and armies of others falling to her feet, that she's finally gotten someone tossed in front of her, for whatever reason, might be able to give her a decent match.

Count your blessings, she thought, remembering back to a time when she was younger and believed bullshit lines like that.

It must have been the paranoia getting to her, she thought as she finally warmed up enough to reach over and grab the cellular phone from her gym bag.  Paranoia, and the cold.  Two things that had nearly killed her when she was younger, pounding the pavement as a petty enforcer for '41 Kill.  A street gang that had now been all but wiped out by the Church.

Mary's fingers nimbly flew across the cell's keys, having gotten better at this type of thing since Adelheid, Rugal's son, had introduced her to the wondrous toy that was the Blackberry.  She still preferred the cell phone, however... carpal tunnel could be crippling to a woman who used her hands to end careers.

A few rings, then a pick up... and on the other end, the sound of a man's voice.  A man who sounded more feminine than Shion herself.

"Church of Orochi.  How may I help you?"

Mary sighed... she was almost furious that a strange man was answering Shion's office number, until realizing just who this man was.  Mary could almost picture him on the other end of the line... somewhat scrawny, skin ghostly pale, short feminine blond hair, and those gentle blue eyes.  You're way too innocent to be a member of the Yakuza, Mary thought.  How the hell did you wind up with a father that owned it all?

"What are you doing in Shion's office, Adelheid?"

"Oh.  Miss Mary.  Guten Tag.  Shion stepped out for a minute.  She had some... paperwork... to take care of."

Paperwork... that could mean anything from hiring a new member of the 'faithful', to ordering a contract on someone's life.  It never meant actual paperwork, but who knows who's listening between phones.  Loose lips sank ships.

"Is she gonna be long, Adelheid?  I need to talk to her.  Gotta confirm our date tonight.  I'm taking her to the Blue Line.  Real classy place, I know she likes that type of thing."

She could almost hear Adelheid sweating on the other end of the line, such was the nervousness in his tone.  "Yes... well, Miss Mary... I'm afraid there's been a change of plans."

The frustration of the past week, and the phrase 'change of plans' coming up more and more frequently, forced a semi-muffled "fuck" past Mary's lips.  "What the fuck, Adelheid?"

"The Blue Line is a very lovely place, Miss Mary.  You'll not find a more sophisticated nightclub.  Class A food, a fully stocked bar, and it's a favored hangout of SNK circuit fighters when they're in the States."

"What... the fuck... happened?"

"Please don't be angry, Miss Mary, she just told me... I mean... she wanted to..."

She wasn't going to get a straight answer out of Adelheid at this point.  So the Shooter strapped in, peeled the jet-black Aston Martin out, and barreled through the streets, just barely obeying the speed limit.  Ten minutes later, the large office building that served as one of the Church of Orochi's homes away from home sprawled out in front of her.  Security out front almost stopped her, but recognized not only the eyepatch and the massive bust, but also the look of fury on her face, and merely held the door open as she stormed through the hallway.  Not missing a step, Mary took one quick glance at a hastily pieced-together letterboard detailing the offices of each Orochi operative, and made her way to room eleven.

One knock: No reply.

Three knocks: No reply.

One Yakuza kick: a broken lock and a terrified young German backing into the corner.  But at least now, she was in.

In retrospect, Mary realized she probably shouldn't have been so harsh on Adelheid... regardless of who his father was, Adelheid was still a sensitive and gentle soul.  But the anger at what Depp had dare do to her, to her moment, combined with the fact that this was the fifth time Shion had 'cancelled' their time together since they returned from Mary's 'recruitment' back in Japan, fueled the darker part of her she once thought she'd left back in '41 Kill.  She grabbed the young German man by the throat and stood him up, staring at him face-to-face, eyes-to-eye.

"Where... the fuck... is Shion?"

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November Has Come: Part Two

"Well, I'm sure you can take care of him.  They only let him in the recent NGBC tournament out of pity, the poor fool doesn't have an ounce of fight left in him.  Keep me posted, Oswald."

The Chinese seductress, Shion, clicked her cellular phone off and slid it back into her dress slacks.  One could tell a lot about Shion by just what she wore underneath that Chinese dress she was always seen in... dress slacks for work, tights for fighting, stockings for seducing... and on the rare occasion, rarer these days, that she and Mary were alone, nothing at all.

She had been forced to make her most important calls on her cellular phone.  Regardless of how the Church tried to keep it's operations covert, the government was still poking it's nose in Church affairs.  Had Shion tried to do what she just did on a tapped line, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs... no, the FBI, probably.  The American government would be keeping close tabs on the organization, especially this close to a major election... would be all over her like a cheap suit.

A cheap suit, however, was all that kept the man in the parking lot comforted as he sat and watched.  Shion knew he was watching... the elderly Japanese man had been sitting in that van for the better part of an hour.  She didn't acknowledge his presence, however, from across the parking lot.  She merely stepped back inside the office, and let the man stew for a little while longer, before she'd call security to take care of this loiterer.

Shion normally would have exterminated the man herself, but she couldn't afford to cause undue problems with the Shinsegumi Squadron, a covert Japanese government agency, from which she recognized this man.  Washizuka, she remembered his name.  An uncommon name for an uncommon man.  So she'd merely settle with embarrassing this man in the eyes of his superiors, whom in an election year, were expecting swift results and a "November Surprise" for their American counterparts.

However, a feeling of dread slowly washed over Shion as she walked in... a couple of her fellow Church members had surprised looks on their faces.  That feeling quickened along with her pulse as Shion noticed a shard of what had once been the lock on her door was lying on the ground at her feet, not ten feet from her office.  Reaching behind her, underneath her flowing Chinese dress and to the pistol she kept hidden there. Shion slowed her pace to a near-crawl, her martial arts training allowing her to step so lightly, that she was virtually inaudible.  She thought about firing a warning shot first, but realized that Adelheid, that poor bastard, might still be in there.

Maybe Washizuka was just a distraction, she thought.  Maybe another member of the Shinsegumi Squadron was in there, 'questioning' Adelheid.  The poor boy would crack like an egg...

One swift spin, one quick hammer cock, and one quick shot rang out through the office...

---

"Yeah, well, nothing we could use, sir.  But if it's all the same to you, I think I'll hang around for a minute.  I saw that new member of the Church, that 'X' lady, storm into the building before Shion made her way out.  I have a feeling this could get interesting.  Keiichiro out."

---

Mary, facing away from the Chinese seductress, stood as still as a statue for several second, before letting her grip on Adelheid's collar slip, allowing the young High Priest to slump to the ground.

"You shot me!  Shion, I can't believe you shot me!"

Shion ran over to Adelheid, ignoring for a second the one-eyed monolith standing in the middle of the room as she checked the young German for marks, and finding one... she fiercely slapped Adelheid in the back of the head the second she did.

"That shot barely grazed you.", she grumbled out, pointing to the tear in the man's jeans, not even scratching the surface of the skin itself.  Adelheid, somewhat embarrassed, got back to his feet as Shion leveled the pistol at Mary.  It was hard, honestly, for her to hold a gun on the woman she loved.  But if she'd betrayed the Church...

"What the hell is going on here, Mary?"

Mary snickered slightly, keeping her hands down.  "So that's the only way we get to talk these days, is it?  With you pointing a gun at someone?"

A cold snarl marred Shion's otherwise handsome face as she replaced the pistol in it's hidden holster against the small of her back.  "Is that what this is all about?"

"I called here to confirm us going to the Blue Line tonight.  Instead, I get Adelheid answering with some chickenshit excuse you force-fed him.  Of all the people to get to do your dirty work... Adelheid?"

"I swear, Mary..."

"Mary... that's all I hear these days.  What happened to sweetheart"

"Sweetheart went out the door the second you broke mine down."

The looks shared by the two lovers could bore holes into the flimsy office walls.  Adelheid, opportunist that he was, decided to reward himself for all his hard work by giving himself the day off and getting the fuck out of the building.  As his car left, so did the van parked outside, trailing him closely for several miles...

Meanwhile, back in the temporary US Headquarters for the Church of Orochi, Shion inwardly forced her blood pressure to come down from quad digits as Mary stood still, quashing down some sort of inner turmoil... Shion couldn't read her 'lover', only having one eye worked to Mary's advantage for once.

"Mary... do you have any idea what I've been doing all day?  While you've been out training for filthy little 'heathen' Jack Depp, I've been playing God.  There's a shopkeeper down in Little China named Lee Pai Long, upon whose head I just put a rather large bounty.  He'll be dead within the hour.  While you're out there breaking bones, I'm out there deciding who lives and dies.  It's a heavy burden, Mary, and it's not a decision someone can make lightly.  Plus, now we've got the governments of two different countries breathing down our necks..."

"Yeah... bullshit.  Before I was a member of your Church, you and I spent all our time together.  Now that I've finally been recruited, I haven't seen you more than an hour a day, and during that time, we're either sleeping or fucking, and neither's been as satisfying as it used to be.  Now you've gone out of your way to find other people to ditch the person whom, in all honesty, is as close to a wife as you're gonna fucking get.  Now I got a little agitated, I'll admit, and maybe I was a bit hard on Adelheid, but it's only because I haven't seen you fucking all week, even through we share the same goddamned hotel room.  You got what you want from me, and now the love is gone... just like my ex-husband.  The parallels are too weird to be a coincidence."

Shion snarled... that she would even make that reference, true as it might be... "Yeah, well maybe I should just kill myself like he did.  Would that make things better?  Or do you plan on doing something drastic like driving your car into a Pachinko parlor, like back then?  Would that parallel what happened back then enough for you?"

That inner turmoil was quickly bubbling to the surface... but not in the way Mary had hoped.  Had she any tears left, she would have shed them right then and there.  But the busty, violent, one-eyed Shooter merely turned her back to Shion, as she felt the seductress had turned her back on her, and slowly left Shion's office.  No words exchanged, no angry glances, no trickling tears... just a cruel, sickening silence.

---

Keiichiro Washizuka wasn't completely satisfied with young Adelheid's answers, but at least the young Bernstein hadn't tried anything violent... the inquisition went rather pleasantly, although Washizuka was forced to let the boy go.  The "Japanese John Wayne", as he was called on the Last Blade circuit, wondered, as did everyone who met Adelheid, just how he could get mixed up in a racket like the Church of Orochi.  Then he remembered his last name, and realized that there was no way a man like Rugal would let his son enter anything other than the family 'business'.

He did come out with a crucial piece of evidence, however.  It seemed like Washizuka had plans that night... a night of dinner and fighting at the Blue Line... a fighter's paradise.

---

Mary could feel those two slips of paper burning a hole in her pocket as she stalked down the hallway.  For a second, she almost felt like turning her head and looking to see if Shion was following behind her.  But this was something that would have to be resolved later... much later, Mary had a feeling.  But she had reservations for two for a night at the Blue Line, and fuck if she was going to let her hard-earned money... legitimately earned money, taking out bastards like Jack Depp... go to waste.

It took a second for her to find the office, and this time, she bypassed a Yakuza kick in favor of merely opening the door, coming face-to-face with a tall, bald, seemingly Hispanic man with a thick goatee and a fashion sense that hearkened back to the days of old.  She'd heard about this man, this "Mr. Big"... so far, in all these years, nobody had been able to wheedle a real name out of him.  For the longest time, he'd just been "Mr. Big".  Mary had heard stories about this man... about how he'd once been the king of the underworld, before falling, and falling hard, at the hands of Geese Howard... the most hated man in the world, by most standards.  She almost felt bad for him... could allow herself to feel bad for a criminal these days, as she was in just as deep as he was when he was her age.

Mr. Big hadn't had anything concrete, anything "Big", as it were, happen for him since back in 1996.  So when this attractive, assertive, huge-breasted woman stood in front of his doorway and politely invited him to come to one of the classiest nightclubs around, all he could say was... what time?

---

If it was possible for a human being to spontaneously combust, Shion felt like she could do it right then and there.  The Chinese High Priestess screamed an angered "Hold all my calls" to whomever was standing outside, in charge of such things, as she slammed the door shut as best she could with the knob missing.  Not satisfied with that, she stormed into the office room's half-bathroom and locked herself into that small space.   They probably thought she was masturbating again, she thought.  Let them think whatever, she resigned herself, as long as they're not thinking the truth.

And that truth came as she sat down on the toilet, lid down, and proceeded to cry as she'd never cried before.

---

The players on in this cruel play of love and loss were set... Mary X, the star, the tragic shoot fighter turned lover turned burning sphere of anger and fury.  Shion, the cruel seductress trapped in her own web of deceit.  Adelheid Bernstein, a young innocent in a world of thieves.  Keiichiro Washizuka, the last good man in a police organization gone bad.  Mr. Big, a man who was on top of the world below, only to lose it all in one fell swoop.  One last player in this game, the Eurotrash street-thug Billy Kane, had yet to show his face.  But there would be a night of reckoning down at the Blue Line, a night that would leave nobody unscathed.

Day slowly segued into night, as it always did, as the Blue Line opened it's doors...

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November Has Come: Part Three

The seedy, run-down motel room that Mary had hastily stuffed her meager belongings into, was a far cry from the penthouse suites she'd gotten used to sharing with Shion.  But after the incident at the base, she was pretty sure she couldn't share anything with Shion tonight.

Her Aston Martin looked rather out of place in a parking lot full of run-down junk heaps meant to chauffer hookers and horny senators around, but Mary was more than used to looking, to being, out of place.  Just as her eyepatch looked out of place with the rest of her ensemble, which she'd remembered to grab before heading off to find somewhere else to stay the night.  She had a feeling she wouldn't get any rest on a piece of shit mattress like the one she was stuck with here... but she wasn't going to get any sleep anyways.  So it fit.

Another thing that fit her that night, was the outfit she'd chosen.  Fit like a glove, Adelheid made sure of that.  She made a mental reminder to thank him... she had a lot to thank the effeminate German man over.  And after tonight, a lot to apologize for as well.  He knew she wasn't, regardless of her achingly feminine figure, the type to wear dresses.  So it was a classy pair of black dress slacks with matching shoes and an unbuttoned white dress shirt, left open just enough to show her incredible cleavage.  She'd even gone as far, tonight, as to put in her glass eye in lieu of her leather eyepatch, and combed what she had of her shortly cropped raven hair over the right side of her face... just for some illusion of normalcy.

Mary stood up and glanced over herself in what cropped view the murky bathroom mirror could give her.  Several movements to make sure everything fit and flowed perfectly, and just because she was certain she was alone, a couple of cheesecake poses.  The little things she did, on occasion, to remind herself that she was still a woman.  Difficult to do, in a business that requires you to be hard as often as possible.

Mary sighed, running a hand through her shimmering raven hair.  To say that she'd been having second thoughts about joining the Church of Orochi, was an understatement.  But she got the tattoo... she was in for life.  But just 'in' what?  Finding out was the justification she'd given herself for inviting Mr. Big to the Blue Line that night, aside from having already made reservations and having been blown off by someone else she was having second thoughts about.  People talked about Shion, the Chinese seductress, and for the most part, Mary tried not to listen.  But usually, people don't constantly talk about matters like that without reason.

There was so much on Mary's mind that night, she almost felt like canceling herself.  The state of her life, her relationships, in shambles as she could see them.  The unresolved issues of her past that Shion had so carelessly brought up.  And in the back of her mind, Jack Depp.  Jack fucking Depp.  She'd hate to make him, an 'innocent' man, suffer for all the shit she'd gone through over the past couple of weeks.  But it'd be an outlet.

A sharp rap at the door shook Mary out of her reverie.  Apparently, Mr. Big was as punctual as he was dominating.  Mary grabbed her wallet and keys and opened the door.  She expected to come face-to-chest with the massive, dark-skinned, bald-headed Yakuza veteran.

Instead, she came face-to-face with an elderly Japanese gentleman.  The old man, in a ratty dark-blue business suit, allowed his slightly graying, yet still mostly black, hair flow in the icy November wind as he looked at Mary with a steely expression... one that Mary returned in kind.

"Yeah?"

The man reached into his breast pocket, and immediately, Mary regretted leaving her revolver back at the penthouse suite.  Preparing a violent kick, she quickly canceled it as soon as the man revealed just what he was reaching for... a badge.  Mary stared at it for a second, with as much concentration as one good eye would let her.

"Detective Washizuka", the man muttered.  "May I come in?"

"Ain't my place", Mary replied with a snarl as she allowed the detective entry into her motel room.  Washizuka took one long look around... and as he did, Mary noticed a scar on the man's cheek, rather similar to the one that overtook the right side of her face, and her eye in the process.

"I've got an appointment tonight, detective, so can we make this quick?"

"If you cooperate, my dear.  If you cooperate.  I'd rather be other places myself.  But when you're investigating murder, that kind of takes precedence.  I'm actually glad I came across you here... I'd hate to embarrass you at such a classy place as the Blue Line."

The Blue Line... just how long has this asshole been trailing me?, Mary wondered.  He knew where I was going tonight...

"Hurry up and talk."

"Such haste... youth should try to slow down and enjoy life.  But regardless..."

Washizuka once again reached into his blazer, and pulled out a small handful of black-and-white crime scene photographs.  Mary recognized the body well, the figure dumped into a dumpster, where Rugal himself must have tried to hide him away.  Leopold Goenitz, several bullet holes ripped into his flowing preacher's robes.  Mary looked at the photographs and started to feel a little sick.  She had done that.  She'd, after all these years of merely being a hired fighter, actually killed a man.

It was a decision she'd gone through a million times in her head... and decided, it was the only decision she could have made.  He was going to kill Shion.  It was either Shion or Goenitz.  Back when she was in love with Shion, mere hours ago, the decision was easier to lay to rest.  But now, feeling what she felt about the seductress, it once again tore at her.

Externally, she tried to hide the signs of this internal struggle.  But Washizuka was as wise as he was perceptive, and the word 'paydirt' came to mind as he calmly scooped up the photographs and went into his spiel.

"A couple of weeks ago, we found the body of one Leopold Goenitz, wanted for murder, attempted murder, assassination, and questioning in conjunction with the terrorist organization, the Hakkushi.  A couple of witnesses have attested to..."

" ... terrorist?"

Washizuka, seasoned as he was, couldn't hold back a slight snicker.  "So they didn't tell you.  Of course, they'd probably treat the newcomer like a mushroom for a while.  Back before Rugal and his company took over, the Church of Orochi was a doomsday cult, responsible for the murders of several respected professional fighters and government employees, in the name of reviving some... fallen messenger.  They corrupted the annual King of Fighters tournament for their own devices back in the mid '90s.  Goenitz, the ringleader of the cult-within-a-cult known as the Hakkushi, was responsible personally... allegedly, at least, but come on... for several assassinations, including one Shinto priestess named Maki Kagura.  Now, personally, I'm glad to see a piece of shit like him off the streets and in the morgue, where he belongs.  But murder's murder."

Mary sighed... as if arguing with the woman she thought she loved wasn't bad enough, now this old man was poking around into her personal business.  She almost felt like beating the shit out of him, but she was feeling nearly as physically drained as emotionally drained, and merely decided on the easiest course of action... the truth.

"My lover and I had gone to a massage parlor..."

"I've seen the place where they dumped the body.  A 'massage' is probably the lease expensive item on the menu."

"You want to hear what fucking happened, or not?"

" ... continue."

Mary sighed as she glanced over Washizuka's shoulder, seeing if Mr. Big had shown up yet.  No such luck.  "My lover and I were at a whorehouse, alright?  But I didn't actually pay anyone for sex, I went there with someone who consented.  That's not a crime, is it?"

"Other than possible public exhibitionism?  Nothing off the top of my head."

"Yeah, well, the Preacher came in, brandished a gun, and tried to shoot my lover.  I picked up a gun and shot him first.  I don't give a fuck if you believe me or not..."

Washizuka held up one hand to silence the Tokyo Shooter.  "Just seeing if your story checked out with what our previous investigations.  So far, it does.  Now, I find terrorism to be just a little more important than organized crime, so what's say I buy your little self-defense story, and be on my merry way?"

Mary chuckled slightly, trying to return to her usually icy demeanor... although getting away with murder... self-defense, technically... still left her shaken.  "Funny, isn't it?  A cop who makes his own judgments on whose life is more important?"

Washizuka merely stood up, giving the customary 15-degree polite bow.  "Not as funny as a Yakuza member who can't bring herself to kill someone.  That woman... Shion, her name was?... must be pretty important to you.  You enjoy your night, Miss Fujibayashi... and when you get to the Blue Line, try the lobster.  It's usually pretty juicy."

Washizuka made his leave, out into the freezing November night.  Mary, against her better judgment, followed, and emerged from her ratty hotel room just as Washizuka was climbing into his car.

"Hey, old man... tell me.  Why are you being so easy on the Church?"

Washizuka merely gave a gruff chuckle.  "In this business, professional fighting, there are two big crime lords.  Rugal Bernstein, and Geese Howard.  Lucky for you, the government is more interested in taking down Geese."

"And when Geese is taken down, and Rugal runs everything?"

"Then that, Miss Fujibayashi, is when you need to start watching your ass.  And by the way... good luck on your wrestling... thing.  My girlfriend Kojiroh Sanada watches it, but I never really got into it.  It's all fake, isn't it?"

Mary sighed, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed under her large chest.  "You have no fucking idea."

"Yeah, well, I usually don't.  That's why I became a detective.  You have a great night."

"Whatever."

Washizuka's police car pulled out of the parking lot, and into the frigid night.  Mary herself, slid into the seat of her Aston Martin, and as the engine heated up, her thoughts slid to this mysterious man she'd met.  Although he was a detective, she actually felt a little bit of respect for him.  It actually seemed like it pained him to work almost alongside the Church of Orochi.  But for now, the greater evil was Geese.

Working with Shion instead of with Frost.  Throwdown instead of Rage.  Rugal instead of Geese.  It seemed like Mary was hitting all the right decisions for once in her life.

So why couldn't she make the most difficult one...

With or without Shion?

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November Has Come: Part Four

It took one heated phone call and one frosty ride for Mary to realize that her would-be date, Mr. Big, was under the impression that the two were going to meet up in the Blue Line parking lot, rather than having him chivalrously pick her up.  The meeting with Washizuka still weighed in on her mind, although it'd gone a lot better than she'd originally expected when he first pulled out that badge.  Hopefully, a night of dinner and sophistication at the Blue Line would help ease her troubled mind.  Then, at the end of the night, she'd decide what to do about Shion... if Shion hadn't already made a decision.

Mary had just, for the first time that night, began to calm down slightly, when she realized that the car behind her had been following her for the last couple of miles.  Washizuka's partners probably wouldn't be dumb enough to tail her after she'd cooperated with him, and definitely not this poorly.  This man was essentially riding her bumper.  To test her theory, Mary took an unsignaled, unexpected left turn.  The car behind her, also without signaling, followed suit.

Fuck, she thought.  Fuck.  As if this night could get any shittier, now some asshole is tailing me.  She couldn't be sure who it was... the police, maybe.  Might be one of Geese's men.  For all she knew, it could be Jack Depp interested in making their little professional 'rivalry' personal, or at least trying to score some smack.  She didn't know, and didn't care as she pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Line.  She just needed the excuse to beat the shit out of someone.

The one-eyed shoot fighter immediately took a parking spot surrounded by a cavalcade of occupied spaces, forcing the tail to move on, and find a dark corner of the lot to park.  Mary, still feeling rather uneasy carrying a firearm with her, slid the pearl-handled revolver that saved Shion's life into the back of her waistband, and untucked her dress shirt to hide it.  If it came to shots, there'd certainly be an incident, but Mary was past the point of caring.  What had started out, in that gym, as a night she was going to make Shion remember, turned into a series of incidents she'd rather forget.

Before getting out of the car, Mary almost debated opening the glove compartment, remembering the pair of pearl earrings she'd hand-picked the night after Shock.  She wasn't sure, in a lesbian relationship, which party was supposed to propose.  Although her chest was far larger than Shion's, though, Mary still considered herself the 'butch' one of the two, so she thought it'd make sense for her to do the deed.  Now those earrings, not Mary's style personally, would have to sit there for another day.  With a heavy sigh, Mary stepped out of the car and made her way to the Blue Line, keeping her eye on the tail that had parked itself in a dark corner.

The old-world brick exterior of the Blue Line belied the elegance inside, and leaning against that old-world exterior, was an old-world man.  Mr. Big, head shined up for the occasion, kept his own eyes on the lot, hidden as always behind a pair of expensive sunglasses.  He whistled to himself the second he recognized the gorgeous shoot fighter making her way towards the club... low enough, of course, that she couldn't overhear and beat the shit out of him.  Which, he was sure, she was perfectly capable of doing.

"Yo, I'm sorry, Mary.  For real, when you called, I was up and..."

"I was followed."

"... cops?"

"No, but I was dealing with one of them as well.  Guy named Washizuka was looking for information on Goenitz.  I just straight up told him what happened."

Mr. Big's veteran face was unreadable, but the muttered "shit" under his breath spoke volumes.

"Big... just what have I gotten myself into?"

"For real, Holmes?  A lot less than you think.  If the pigs are following us around here in the States, they'll probably back off after the elections.  Now in Japan... that's where the real shit goes down.  The Church got it's hands in fucking everything over there, Holmes.  But around here, and the shit we got going on in England... ain't shit.  Loan business, professional fighting, gambling, small shit.  If it wasn't for Geese and his little bitches poking their noses where they didn't belong, we probably wouldn't even need to be strapped."

Mary noticed the sudden look of disgust over Mr. Big's face the moment he said the name 'Geese', and couldn't blame him... in the early 90's, Mr. Big was the closest thing to Gotti that Southtown, the world's most prominent fighting Mecca, had.  Then Geese moved in, built his empire, and Big spent years sleeping on park benches before being taken in by the Church last year.

"Seriously?"

Mr. Big took a long drag of his cigar, knowing it'd be the last one he'd be able to take before walking in.  "Rugal ain't stupid, Holmes.  He ain't gonna spread himself too fucking thin."

"Yeah, well Shion said something about..."

Mary tried to remember the code work for what Shion had talked about earlier.  She wasn't totally the car that trailed her, the one that still hadn't opened it's doors, wasn't the police, or that Washizuka had really dropped off for the night.

"She said something about... 'moving some paperwork'... on a guy named Lee Pai Long."

Mr. Big almost winced... unbeknownst to Mary, Lee was a member of Mr. Big's old syndicate, and a good friend.  "Yeah, well, the guy who was in charge here before Shion took over, hook-nosed Jew by the name of Magaki, let his 'paperwork' pile up, so when she took over, she had to take care of that shit first.  What the fuck was up with you earlier today, going loco?"

"Pent-up frustration.  Reminds me... I really need to call Shion later."

Mr. Big nodded, tossing the remnants of his cigar to the ground as figure finally climbed out of the car that had been tailing Mary for most of her ride to the Blue Line.  Mary looked herself, and an expression of surprise would have washed over her face, if she hadn't been so emotionally drained.

"You go in and get us a table or something.  Reservation's under my birth name.  Mary Edwards."

Mr. Big nodded, giving Mary a reassuring slap on the back before disappearing into the club as the Shooter made her way over to the car, and the figure that emerged from it... a figure that, upon coming face-to-face with Mary, looked sheepishly at the ground as it made it's way over to the driver's side.

"Miss Mary... what a pleasant surprise."

"Fuck are you doing following me here, Adelheid?"

The young German's pale cheeks barely flushed as he blushed nervously.  "I was that obvious, huh?", he muttered as he opened the door... and out slid the boyishly beautiful Shion herself.  No trace of her sacrificial spear, but she could see the tip of her string dart peeking out from inside the sleeve of her Chinese dress.  Shion stood straight, and tried her best to look up at Mary.

"There something you want to say to me, Shion?"

"No... not really."

"Then I'm getting back to my date.  And don't you two fucking trail me like that again.  I was about to run you off the fucking road."

"What a shame."

Any thoughts of reconciling with the cold seductress were dashed at hearing that icy tone as Mary turned away.  Adelheid's whispered voice carried itself on the frigid winds, and all those hopes and fears returned.

"See, I told you we didn't have to follow her.  She's not gonna kill herself."

Mary froze in her tracks as Shion winced, turning her head towards Adelheid.  The young man, realizing he'd done nothing but fuck up the entire day, made himself scarce as the two figures stood frozen in place in the Blue Line parking lot.

"I guess I should feel honored you care that much about me, after what happened today..."

Any sarcastic reply, any hurt thoughts, were cut off violently by the feeling against the small of Mary's back, and the slender arms wrapping themselves around Mary's torso... mostly, though, by the sounds of sobbing into her back, and the tears soaking into her new dress shirt.  Tears that, if Mary had any left to cry, would have been joined by her own down the shirt's front.

"Shion... what are we doing?"

The question, first asked by the Shooter during the most tender of moments days before Mary won her Pride Title and was originally scoffed off by the Chinese seductress, felt like it carried infinitely more weight now.  Like it demanded an answer, the only answer that Shion could give.

"I don't know, sweetheart.  But I know I don't want it to end."

Those three words... three impossible words, in any language, often coming easy only to those who needed them.  They graced Shion's lips first.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Mary would have reached around, hugged Shion right there, but it didn't seem like Shion was going to break her tearful hold anytime soon.  The icy November air whipped around the two, going unnoticed to lovers frozen in time.  After a while, Shion slowly let go, and stood beside her lover... yes, Mary ascertained to herself.  Lover... slowly sliding her arm around Mary's and placing one hand on the Shooter's bicep, holding tightly as if she were some dumb blond trophy, not an intelligent seductress.

"Still up for that date, sweetheart?"

"What about your 'paperwork'?"

"Lee Pai Long and his friends' 'paperwork' has suddenly come up missing.  Let someone else deal with it.  I've been looking forward to this date for a while.  And afterwards... maybe we could make use of that seedy little motel room you rented out for the night?"

Mary snickered, slowly leading Shion towards the front doors of the Blue Line.  "What?  The penthouse isn't enough?"

"I just thought it'd be... kinky."

The Shooter was about to tell Shion that she really didn't do kinky, that she thought a lot more about the emotional aspect of sex than the physical, and that just being with Shion was enough... but something the old Detective  said to her earlier with her stuck with her.

That woman... Shion, her name was?... must be pretty important to you.

Besides... kinky might be fun.

"Yeah... sure.  But let's get inside first, I'm starving.  Haven't had anything since I got back from the gym earlier.  Besides, a friend told me about the lobster here."

The two once-and-again lovers slowly made their way into the elegant, classy nightclub known as the fighter's paradise, the expensive Blue Line, and disappeared behind the French doors.  It would seem that once again, the two star-crossed Yakuza might just make it by after all.  A few minutes later, however, Mary emerged from those same French doors alone, running towards her car and sliding her eager hands into the glove compartment, grabbing those pearl earrings.  Looks like I'll need these after all, she thought.

That's when the figure emerged... someone intent on ending Mary's life, much less her happiness, with a loaded gun, cocked point blank and aimed right at Mary's temple...