before the sky split [ninjago next generation]

cybernetic perfection, part 3

Alarms blared across the factory floor as the Mechanic swore and jerked his hand away from the safe as he nearly missed live wires that would have short-circuited his arm, or worse to the amateur construction.

"Run!"

The henchmen ran for the doors as blast doors dropped over them, one by one, crashing against the concrete floor. Junko's heart pounded against her ears as she willed her legs to move faster, but the touch of her mechanics hadn't yet made its way beneath her waist. She filled her lungs with burning air as a vapour hissed from the vents and dove for the last blast door. It fell hard, hydraulic and heavy, across her shoulders as Junko kept the door from closing. Her legs strained and she dropped to a knee as her father's henchmen ducked one by one beneath the door. The Mechanic fell and crawled like a snake beneath the door before Junko had to let it go. Her vision swam as her father's thundering footsteps receded into the distance. It was every man for herself, and Junko knew it. She forced her feet to take one step, then another.

Junko's smaller body easily caught stride with her father. She overtook him as he had ordered. The weak are left behind, he had said to her, don't expect anyone to fall behind for your sake.

"Freeze! We have the building surrounded!" the Mechanic swore again as the policeman continued with their rights. He took the pistol from his side as the blast doors opened at one end of the hall and flashing lights pressed in from the night.

"Boss Fujioka, you're under arrest," called the policewoman at the head of the group. Police car headlights glinted menacingly off the mechanical legs of Samurai X's silent automaton.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" grunted the Mechanic. The henchmen overcame their apprehension and reached for pistols with shaking hands.

"Hands in the air! Get on the ground! Now!" Guns on both ends of the hall locked and loaded.

"Now."

Tear gas and smoke bombs erupted simultaneously in the hall. Junko pulled her respirator over her mouth and nose and disappeared into the fray with the plan. Gunfire burst from both sides as she ran. No weapons encumbered her hands as she escaped with one principal lesson from her father in mind: don't expect anyone to fall behind for your sake. Bullets whistled by her ears as she went low. Heavy footsteps fell into the distance as she tore off her mask to breathe in the clean air. The mask tore her headband from her hair, letting down her long braid.

"We have you surrounded! You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say will be taken down and may be used against you in court!"

Junko raised her hands as the smoke began to clear. One, two, three of her father's subordinates lay prone on the ground with guns trained on the backs of their heads. Between the glaring headlights, none of them had a shadow. Samurai X glared down from above with her stoic automaton eyes. Two of the ninja, one dressed in blue and one dressed in green, watched from behind it. Her father scowled up at the mechanical titan as a policeman short-circuited his arm.

"This is all your fault," he growled. Junko watched as he swore at her and went slowly to his knees. Four, five, six guns. More gas. She laced her fingers on top of her head. "I should never have let you come."

"Oi! Get on the ground!"

Junko let her mechanical arms burst into snakes.

She dragged herself back to the dark warehouse, alone. The helicopters had lost interest in her trail after she had jumped into the bay in favour of watching the transportation of her father and his famous criminals. His cursing words swam through her mind as she threw the door open and let it slam closed behind her. The storm-swollen waves had not battered her body as badly as his words tore at her mind. Don't expect anyone to fall behind. If you fall behind, I'll leave you behind. But only the daughter.

Junko stripped from her soaked clothes and dried her face before tears wet it again. She found dry clothes by the prototype prosthetic leg in three pieces on the table that held her things. A cloth covered old blood stains. She sighed shakily as she undid her braid with fingers that could not tremble. Junko went slowly to the floor and crawled back to the corner to which she had spent her childhood condemned. She braided her hair again as she had done to pass the time during all those heists she had been denied.

"You."

She looked up for the source of the unfamiliar voice. Her wrist's torch revealed a figure leaning against the wall of shelves that marked the edge of her room.

"Who are you?" Her voice trembled. "Police? Ninja? Samurai X?"

"None of the above." Overgrown black hair framed a face covered by a black surgical-type mask. A dark trench coat obscured most of their figure, but their posture fell at ease.

"What's your name?"

"I'm still figuring that out," they said. They had to duck to enter beneath the board that only spanned across the shelves to make Junko feel as if she were entitled to a door. The stranger sat on the floor with her and played with something in their pocket. Their legs fell wide like a man, though their form was concealed by a long skirt. "You're Junko?"

She cast her gaze to the cold floor.

"I'm still figuring that out."

"Your father is Boss Fujioka," the stranger pressed, "also known as the Mechanic, no?"

"Yes."

"Hm." The stranger produced a silver lighter from their pocket and continued to fiddle with the safety. "I'm looking for the family of Ronin. I know he had some connections with Boss Fujioka. You smoke?"

"My father didn't let me know about his business. And no." She shuddered. The stranger nodded.

"You were hard to come across. Every other source swore that he didn't have a daughter," said the stranger softly. "He was your biological father?"

"Yeah."

"I see." The stranger nodded. "If I could give you some advice, I'd tell you to stop thinking of him as your father."

They flicked the lighter and watched the flame dance.

"I know a thing or two about how you feel," they muttered bitterly, as if soured by the pain of a lifetime of experience. "Stop being the henchman of some bastard who doesn't give a shit."

They spun the lighter between their fingers as their voice became small.

"Get out of this dump. Pick a new name. He's on his way to Kryptarium by now. You're not his slave anymore." The stranger's amethyst eyes reckoned hard with hers. "Whose slave do you want to be?"

"That sounds like running away."

"Is it 'running away' if it isn't from anything?" asked the stranger. "It's just running. What we all do."

They pointed the lighter at her between two fingers.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"