Volume 4: Metaphase

Issue 8: Party Girl

Jannette Adrian Churchwell

By Nova

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Note:

This issue comes with a content warning for drug abuse and assault.

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Riding on Wasabi’s board was always terrifying in a way that riding with Ripple and Seraph wasn’t. Both Ripple and Seraph always had a firm grip on you and seemed entirely in control of their flight path. Wasabi, however, did not keep a hand on me. Instead, his hands stretched out beside him—as if he was keeping balance. I had to hug his torso, desperately hoping that I wouldn’t fly off the board as it bumped unnervingly through the sky. Below us San Francisco spun, aglow in nightlife lights.

“S-so where’s this Shimizu place?” I shouted over the wind.

“Down there!” Wasabi shouted back, motioning at the city below us. I had no idea where he was pointing exactly, but I noticed we had begun a spiral toward the ground. I looked around for a landmark, trying to keep my mind off the rapidly approaching surface. For an instant I spied the spires of the cathedral. I ran the city streets through my head…

“Lower Nob?” I asked, a little incredulous.

“Gotta problem?”

I did; Lower Nob lay deep in Yakuza turf. I suppose I should have pieced together that a sketchy place called Shimizu was some sort of Yakuza club, but I was too worried about what was stuffed into my purse. Or what was in the duffel bag thrown over my shoulder.

Or that I was doing what I was doing.

I had changed into something more comfortable for the flight over: a sweater and jeans. Something that didn’t scream “Stitch” if the paparazzi took a picture of me on Wasabi’s board. I certainly looked a lot more like “Jannette” now, but hopefully we had moved to quickly through the sky for any potential photographers to get anything but a blurry image.

And the whole “looking like Jannette” thing wouldn’t last. Hopefully.

Wasabi aimed us toward an alleyway and we swung low into it. Diving behind a dumpster, the surfboard suddenly stopped and I was nearly thrown off it. I bit my tongue, trying to avoid shouting in surprise, and gingerly stepped off the board. It disappeared under Wasabi’s feet and he dropped to the ground. “We’re here,” he said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, let’s make this quick,” I said. My hands shaking, I pulled the clothes I had brought out of the duffle bag. It was a small minidress, with alternating blue and white stripes. A pair of white heels lay at the bottom of the bag. I couldn’t believe that I had bought this outfit—I hadn’t even tried it on yet. I just grabbed the closest thing that said “party dress” to me.

God, I was hopeless.

My hands were shaking badly as I took off my sweater. Wasabi glanced my way. “Want another hit?” he asked.

I groaned and turned my back to him. Just hearing that from him was enough to make me nauseous… “No,” I muttered. “Need to save them for inside.”

“Suit yourself,” Wasabi said and I heard a snort behind me.

I rolled my eyes, but my hands still shook as I slipped out of my shirt and pants. The cold, February air hit me like a truck and my skin rose in countless goosebumps against the slight breeze. I shivered and—hoping that Wasabi wasn’t looking—threw on the minidress and slipped into the heels. I didn’t feel too much warmer and was struck by how… exposed my shoulders, chest, and legs felt. I usually wore stuff that kept me, well, warmer, especially in winter… I took my silver folding mirror out of my purse, to see if I, at the very least, looked good. But I couldn’t get a good look, and just saw glimpses of pale, exposed shoulder and shots at the dress itself. I sighed and quickly checked my makeup. It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. I glanced at Wasabi and was relieved to see that he seemed to be dispassionately staring down the alleyway at the street, looking away from me.

I turned toward him. “Alright, let’s…” I was suddenly struck by how stupid this whole thing was. Not only did I have pounds of illegal drugs in my purse, but I was about to walk into a Yakuza bar with a guy I barely knew. And get drunk—or high or whatever—for the first time.

This was the kind of stupid shit that got teenage girls podcasts made about them.

But… I was here, all dressed up and… ready to go.

Plus, the superpowers that got me here could probably get me out too.

“Let’s get this over with…” I finished.

Wasabi shrugged. “Cool, cool, cool,” he said. We walked out of the alleyway and down the street. “You look good.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Just trying to, I don’t know, keep your spirits up I guess.”

“Well if you want to do that, shut up.”

We arrived at, what I assumed to be, the club: a dingy brick building four stories tall about half a block down from the alleyway. The first floor windows were boarded over and graffiti tagged the walls. I couldn’t decipher them, but I was pretty sure at least a few of those tags demarcated the local Yakuza clan: Sakuma-kai. A few obvious wannabe gangster types, who looked no older than teenagers, hung around the front door of the building—which had no signage of any kind. They were loudly chatting in English as we walked towards them but, as soon as Wasabi stopped in front of the building, they switched to hushed Japanese.

If Wasabi hadn’t stopped, I honestly wouldn’t have guessed there was anything here. A single light flickered above the door, but other than that nothing indicated that this was anything but a shitty apartment building. I glanced around for a bouncer, wondering if there was some sort of secret code or passphrase we needed to be let in. But Wasabi just opened the door as casually as you would any other. It wasn’t locked. Inside was a dingy hallway, with a few doors and empty door frames lining it. At the end of the hall was a dirty looking concrete staircase—Wasabi headed that way.

As we passed by the empty door frames, I glanced through them into darkened rooms. I saw a handful of people, slumped over dirty mattresses or couches, their heads nodding to some silent beat. I turned toward Wasabi. “How do you know this place, anyways?” I whispered.

Wasabi shrugged. “Titans ran an investigation once, ended here. Vortex put me in charge, so I cut the bar some slack in exchange for… uh, a place to hang.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And they don’t know who you… are?”

“Nah, posed as Psion’s intern. They think I keep the Titan’s off their back, in exchange for lettin’ me through the front door.”

“No free drinks?”

“Nah, no reason to push it.”

“Huh.” I was a little surprised. Wasabi never struck me as the kind of guy to not “push it.”

We stopped at a metal door on the third floor. I could faintly hear the soft pounding of music now, but not well enough to catch the beat. Wasabi banged on the door three times. It opened to a crack and a man’s face peered out of it. The music poured out as well, and I could make out the beat clearly now, though I couldn’t identify the song. It was some kind of metal, but the lyrics weren’t in English and sounded Japanese.

“Derrick?” the doorman said to Wasabi. He glanced at me, eyes narrowing. “Who’s the bitch?”

Wasabi, or “Derrick,” didn’t even look back at me. Instead, he stuck his thumb back and simply said, “Lucy, new chick.”

The doorman raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. I tried to keep my expression neutral, but couldn’t deny that “Derrick” was better at this whole “undercover” thing than I was expecting.

“Alright,” the doorman said. He fully opened the door. “Just don’t start shit again.”

“I’ll be a saint,” Derrick said. I followed him through the door and into the club. The doorman towered over us as we entered; he was at least six feet tall and his muscled arms were covered in intricate tattoos. Was he a real member of Sakuma-kai? Or just some Yakuza crony? I looked away from him and cast my gaze around the room. Wasabi’s sketchy club looked better on the inside, but not by much. Smoke filled the air, and—in place of pictures, paintings, or really anything comprehensible—stickers coated the walls of the club, one layered on top of another. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the use of the stickers: I recognized everything from Pokémon to football teams. The bar itself was bare, but its surface was a sicky, greasy black. A handful of dirty tables were scattered around it. The walls to my left and right hosted private little cubbies, with small, plush couches surrounding low tables. A few of these cubbies had curtains drawn over them, maybe hiding a meeting?

Derrick didn’t seem to find the décor—or the drawn curtains—off-putting. He strode toward the bar, ignoring the leers we were getting from the club’s patrons. All sorts were here, from teenagers dressed like gangsters in movies—trying to look big—to older men in sharp, clean suits—who looked entirely out of place at a bar like this. Some held drinks in their hands, others held cigarettes; plenty held both. A few, however, held crack pipes, or leaned over a line of white powder. One guy, curled up in the corner, held a syringe between trembling fingers. The only unifying factor between them, I supposed, was that they were people who were Yakuza-aligned in one way or another…

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Fortunately, we didn’t seem interesting enough to warrant further study from them. By the time Derrick made it to the bar and was ordering drinks, most of the patrons had turned back to their conversations, drinks, and drugs. Still, I began to wonder just what kind of place I’d been dragged to. I’d fought the Yakuza. They knew me. And here I was, in the dragon’s den… The one bright side was that a place like this was clearly too shitty for someone like Sukeban or Shinigami to make an appearance. No, if any villains walked through those doors it’d be someone lower on the totem pole, like Bōsō or Odachi.

“Here.” Derrick shoved a drink into my face, shaking me out of my train of thought. “Snort some coke then, like, drink this, should be enough, even for you. Least for a couple of minutes.”

I took it with a trembling hand. He led me toward one of the dirty tables in front of the bar. Sitting down, I pulled one of the white bags out of my purse. Derrick took out a knife then cut into it, pouring out four messy lines in front of me. Using a credit card, he tightened them, then leaned back. “Ladies first, man,” he said. “I’ll go after you.”

I leaned forward, my movement awkward and uncertain. “I…” I started, but I trailed off. There wasn’t really anything to say, was there?

I inhaled, sharply.

Almost instantly, my nose burned. I jerked back but, as I did, I felt a slight euphoric rush. The world took on a… sharper quality. I glanced around, my eyes wide, the music pounding in my ears. “W-whoa…” I rubbed my fingers together, marveling at the sensation…

Then it faded, almost immediately. My power leaped upon the foreign chemicals and, one by one, stripped the molecules down to their atoms. I took a deep breath. “You good?” Derrick asked, making a line for himself.

“Y-yeah,” I said. “Just weird.”

“I bet you need more than that.” He laughed.

I nodded and leaned back over the table. As quick as I could, I inhaled again, once over each line. My nose burned and my eyes watered, but as I jerked back into my chair I felt the rush again. The music seemed louder, clearer. The bar, more vibrant. That same euphoria hit me again as my heart raced into overdrive. I exhaled, deeply, marveling at the sensation of air leaving my body.

Marveling at a sensation that my power was playing catch-up on. Too much foreign chemicals in my body, too much for it to quickly handle. I felt it stripping away molecules, atoms… but not fast enough.

I heard a sharp snort from across the table. Wasabi leaned back, quickly, rolling his head back. Barely looking at me, he motioned at my drink. “D-don’t forget… man.”

“O-oh!” I grabbed the glass and drained it, like I would a cup of water on a hot day. The liquid burned at my throat, and I sputtered on it, holding back a cough. It hit my stomach like a freight train, and threatened to come back up, but—shuddering—I held it in. I slammed the empty glass into the table.

“Whoa, big girl!” Derrick said, his head jerking up to face me.

I gasped for breath. “Y-yeah.”

He snatched at my purse. “Wanna move up?” he asked. He pulled out a bag of multicolored tablets. They looked like candies, but I remembered that Wasabi identified it as ecstasy. I just nodded.

“Alright,” Derrick said. He popped one then shoved a handful into my hand. I chomped on them, their taste was bitter and powdery, and I almost gagged. “Whoah, what the fuck you doin’, sister?” Derrick asked.

“‘M jmust tamgking-” I said, my mouth full.

“Alright, well like fucking don’t.” He filled my glass with the bottle of clear alcohol. “Wash it down with this shit.”

I swished my mouth like I would with mouthwash. It did not swallow easily, the sharp tablets digging into my throat. But I managed to get it down and, with a gasp, felt a series of tingles across my fingers. “Better…” I almost whispered.

Derrick just nodded and put down a few more lines of white powder. He didn’t partake, just watched as I bent down and snorted them up. My heart was going crazy, my legs bounced to some unheard tune. My power felt distant, weaker, working in a million places against a million toxins, yet too slowly to keep up. A thrill of triumph rolled through me as I realized I was keeping down. Again, Derrick put another few lines in front of me, again I snorted them. Washed down bile with another drink. Again, another handful of tablets, again washed down with a drink. Again, again, again, again…

Somehow I lost track of Derrick. It wasn’t that he was gone or missing, I knew he was in front of me, but somehow I couldn’t focus, my vision blurred. I couldn’t tell where he was. I leaned back into my seat, my eyes traced upwards to see a man staring down at me. He said something. I just nodded. A syringe was proffered. A shaking hand reached out and grabbed it. My hand, I realized. Another hand reached across the table and snatched the syringe from me. I felt a droplet of sweat drip down from my hairline, down my neck, shoulder, back… I could feel every inch as I followed it. The feeling was impossible to ignore, every other sense muted so that I could follow the droplet down my leg, every sense so muted I barely felt the pin prick in my shoulder. A dirty needle, my power weakly informed me. A stream of toxins flooded my system, but my power couldn’t even tell me what they were, instead I felt it focus on regenerating dying heart tissue.

I found myself leaving the table, stumbling toward some private cubby in the wall. Or was I being led? I practically fell onto one of the couches. My body was slick with sweat, and glistened in the dim light of the club. Something else was shoved into my hand, another set of pills. I reached for a drink to wash them down with and found one. I realized, as the tablets went down my throat, there was a crowd around me. I couldn’t tell how many, or who they were, I couldn’t really see any faces. A hand grabbed me as I spilled the drink all over my front. I was lying on my back, I realized, on top of someone’s leg. I coughed weakly, my lungs were full of fluid, I wasn’t breathing right. My power tried to clear the obstruction, while grabbing oxygen from the air around, keeping me from losing consciousness. I shrugged as someone said something to me and reached for another handful of the pills. They made me feel the best and were the easiest.

Another hand grabbed my side, I was hoisted up and onto someone’s lap as I swallowed the pills. I shuddered as another wave of ecstasy hit me, I leaned back into someone’s arms. I felt lips at my neck, and the faint laughter of the crowd around us. Someone said something, I couldn’t even move my mouth. I felt myself on my feet, being carried around the club. I saw Derrick, passed out, under a table. I tried to say something, but all that came out was a dull mumble.

The scenery had changed. The music was gone, I realized, it had been gone for a while. We were in a hallway. I blinked; groaned. I could use my feet again, and felt myself stumbling down the hall. A sudden blast of frigid air hit me. We were outside.

We?

I looked to my side. Holding me by the arm was a man. I still couldn’t see right, but I could tell that he wore the clothes of the shitty, wannabe gangsters I had seen earlier. “W-wh…” I tried to say.

“Shh, babe, don’t worry ‘bout it,” he said, a slight slur in his voice. He must have been drunk too.

“W-who…” I tried to say again, getting further this time.

He suddenly reached behind me, his eyes… hungry. “Don’t worry…” he muttered.

The man grabbed my arm and wrenched it painfully above my head. A shot of fear—of adrenaline—rolled through me, intense and sobering. “G-get away!” I managed to say. I pushed against him, but my feet slipped. He pressed me against the brick wall behind me and leaned in. His face wore a smile, but his eyes were cold. My movements were weak, my body still purging an ungodly amount of toxins from my system. I shrieked—a scream for help that the city around me silently absorbed.

He practically bit into my neck. A shot of pain rolled through me. I lashed out against him, the fear making my strikes primal and uncoordinated. But my body was weak from the drugs. He barely flinched from a punch to the gut. He bared his teeth and looked down at me, anger mixing with hunger. I felt my heart racing, the toxins that flooded my bloodstream being ripped apart, his racing heart…

His racing heart…

My power acted without direction, but followed intent. All my hate and fear poured from me into him with a strike to his neck. In an instant, his heart stopped, lungs ruptured, and neurons fried. I tore through his cells and—withdrawing my hand—watched him crumple to the ground.

I fell next to him, a wave of exhaustion hitting me like none before. I stared at him, his eyes glassy, blood trickling from his mouth. He was alive. Barely.

I reared up, arms shaky, to a rough sitting position. The pavement scratched against my bare legs and I leaned back against the brick and glanced around me. We were in some alleyway, I sat between two dumpsters. A strong smell of alcohol and… something else surrounded me. I couldn’t tell if the smell came from me, the man, or the alley, but it still made me sick.

I suddenly vomited, a stream of bile and blood, onto the front of my dress. My power helpfully informed me that I had no less than six bleeding ulcers on my throat and stomach. I had no idea what drugs could have caused that, but I had certainly taken enough of everything to do it. I put my face into my hands as tears streamed freely from my eyes. Wave after wave of nausea rolled through me, aches and shivers ran through my arms and legs… My power stitched me back together, but slowly; it was overwhelmed and exhausted. Like me.

I heard a whistle from above. “My, my… Aren’t you in quite the state,” a familiar, sing-songy voice said.

No, no, no, no, no, no… Anything but her. I’d take the entire First Way over her right now…

“How’re you doing… Stitch?” Seraph said. She was perched on the building opposite to me. Her wings were folded behind her; she squatted on the edge, looking down on me. I was suddenly struck with the same feeling a mouse must feel when a hawk sees them in an open field.

I didn’t respond. I tried to crawl away, but found my muscles protesting too much. Clearly my power wasn’t done healing me yet.

“Glad to see you’re taking advantage of everything independence has to offer you,” she said. She nodded at the man passed out beside me. “Now what,” she asked, “are you going to do with him.”

“Why do you care.” I coughed. “Why the fuck are you here anyways.”

“Language,” Seraph said, a wide smile on her face. The wind rustled the feathers in her wings as she shifted on her perch, her eyes never leaving me. “I saw you and Wasabi of all people flying through the air during my patrol. After seeing a sight like that, I of course had to follow you to see what you two were doing.” She shrugged. “Can’t say I expected you to go to a Yakuza bar… but here I was thinking it was for some kind of investigation.”

I glared up at her. The helplessness I felt last time I had seen her was gone. In its place was a building rage. “So…” I almost whispered. “You saw… all of that?”

Seraph’s smile faltered, but she rallied and gave me another wide grin. “Turns out you two weren’t investigating anything. And here I never took you for a party girl, Stitch.”

“I could have been…” The word died on my lips.

She looked away for a second, before saying, “You took care of it.”

“I-I can’t believe you right now…”

“Last we met, you wanted me gone. And here I thought you wanted me to let you take care of yourself,” Seraph said, her voice as sing-songy as always.

My breath was unsteady, but I still glared up at her. “Are you fucking serious right now? Are you fucking serious?”

“What? Do you want to recon-” she said, but I cut her off.

“Fuck you,” I spat. I pulled myself to my feet, my legs shaking under me—but steady enough to carry myself a shaky step forward. I leaned against the dumpster, to support my weight, but never broke eye contact with her. “Fuck. You,” I said again.

Seraph seemed to lean back, slightly, at each word. She looked away from me, toward the city, then back down at the alleyway. Her wings fluttered slightly, like a bird testing the breeze. Without looking at me, she stared down at the man on the ground below me, the would-be-rapist, and simply asked, “What’re you going to do with him.” She said it flatly.

I glared up at her. “I’m not going to kill him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

She nodded. Without saying anything, she spread her wings and, with a quiet flap, rose into the dark sky, out of sight.

I collapsed back into the corner, the tears flowing freely again.