[ Contents | 10. Unharnessed | 11. Battle Plans | 12. Truth Hurts ]

Yamucha's Student

By Dragoness Eclectic

Chapter 11. Battle Plans

Tao Pie Pie searched the corridor briefly with his eyes. Damn! The prisoner was nowhere in sight, and Pie Pie could not sense his presence. He hesitated for a moment; should he pursue the escapee, or give Soliere his instructions?

The assassin frowned and turned back. He had better things to do than play hide-and-seek; let Mist and Haze's thugs run the prisoners to ground, then he would deal with them. For now, he had his orders: prepare the battle plan and get Soliere started on the monsters.

What went wrong? Pie Pie had the youth right where he wanted him--on the edge of desperation, starting to realize that Tao Pie Pie was toying with him, and then the assassin had struck the unexpected blow, wounding the boy just when he thought he had safely blocked the deadly strike. The youth should have hesitated as he realized the awful truth, he should have been hit by despair--<.IT and he should have given Pie Pie an> opening!

Instead, the boy ignored the wound like it was nothing, and had actually struck Tao Pie Pie in the moment that should have been Pie Pie's victory! And then, he added insult to injury by doing it again! It was almost as if the boy fought better after taking that painful slash across his belly. Madness!

Puar and the twin kami pressed their noses up against the ventilator grill, trying to see out the narrow slits.

"...prepare Gojira, Barugon and Rodan for their mission. They must be ready by six tonight!"

Puar gasped and quickly covered her mouth with a forepaw. "Oh, no!"

"What is it?" whispered the little goddesses.

Puar whimpered. "That's Tao Pie Pie--he's strong and very evil. I thought he was dead; Goku beat him a long time ago. And... I don't see Yamucha anywhere!"

"But what are they doing now?" wondered the twins as they peered through the ventilator grill.

Tao Pie Pie was issuing orders over the phone. "Haze! Get one of your squads down here and find the prisoners. Do not--I repeat, do not--try to capture Yamucha or the other one yourself; tell me or Mist when you've found them.... No, do not shoot to kill--I will deal with them myself."

Soliere frowned as he looked around the lab. "I suppose I might as well prep the monsters--my latest subjects have escaped." He shook his head. "I don't understand how he got loose; the harness was working when he left the lab," he said petulantly.

"Left the lab?" Pie Pie turned abruptly, back toward the doctor.

"Yes--all these changes in plans, hurry this timetable up, stop that, do this instead--Jerome wanted to use Yamucha in his new plan, so I had to switch to working on him, instead of the young man." The brown-haired doctor sniffed. "I fitted him with a restraint harness and had him transferred to a cell. He should not have been able to do anything."

Tao Pie Pie flexed his cybernetic hand. "That young man does quite a few things he should not be able to do," he said thoughtfully. "Never mind, Soliere--just have the monsters ready to attack the Northern Republic capital by this evening." With that, Pie Pie turned abruptly on his heel and left.

Puar and the twin kami looked at each other with wide eyes. "Yamucha's escaped!" the cat exclaimed at last.

"They're using our monsters!" the goddesses said in dismay. "We must stop them!"

Puar shivered. "I'm not strong enough to stop Tao Pie Pie--we have to find Yamucha!"

Tao Pie Pie was not happy. First, Dark's mercenary thugs had allowed Soliere's two experimental subjects to escape, along with the Kyojin-shima kami and Yamucha's talking cat. The talking cat was trivial, but the twin kami and Yamucha himself could cause trouble--especially with the new battle plan. They had to be recaptured or neutralised. Second, Colonel Dark and Mistress Lunch were "indisposed" and absolutely not to be disturbed until further notice, which meant that the new battle plan could not be presented or acted on yet. Finally, he, Tao Pie Pie had actually failed to kill a target, and worse, had been struck himself! Not much more than his dignity had been injured, but that was enough.

Tao Pie Pie frowned to himself as he climbed the stairs to Level X. Furthermore, what was Soliere's problem with the monsters? All previous tests had shown them to be completely under control, even that oversize shrimp; why was Soliere waffling now and babbling about re-calibrating for unexpected brainwave variants? As Tao Pie Pie understood it, Soliere was using technology originally developed by Dr. Wheelo for controlling his android monsters. It seemed to work just as well on natural monsters.

Unfortunately, Colonel Dark's scavengers hadn't managed to recover Wheelo's android creation technology as well--building perfectly loyal monsters to order would have been far more effective than harnessing the unruly beasts as they could find them. The ice-bound base had been almost completely destroyed in some catastrophe just a few years before Dr. Gero was killed and his lab destroyed--costing the Dark Ribbon Army its most powerful ally.

Tao Pie Pie shrugged. Or so Colonel Dark thought; Tao Pie Pie was more sanguine. Without obedient android monsters, the Colonel had far more paying work for the best assassin in the world--enough to keep Tao Pie Pie on a very high retainer with lucrative bonuses. In any case, Gero had become a very chancy ally in recent years, increasingly reclusive and obsessed with his own private projects--and more paranoid than ever. Tao Pie Pie's own paranoia (which he thought of as reasonable caution) had kept him from letting Dr. Gero "improve" the cybernetic prosthetics that the doctor had originally built for him. Gero's obsession with control of his creations had worried Tao Pie Pie; what if Gero had decided that the assassin was one of his "creations"?

The appearance of Cell a few years ago had vindicated Tao Pie Pie's caution; Dr. Gero had gone from obsessive to completely insane. Tao Pie Pie was very glad that he had not let Dr. Gero "improve" things wired directly to his brain. The assassin doubted that he would have appreciated the "improvements".

Tao Pie Pie paused with his hand on the conference room door. It really was quite ironic that Gero's own reclusive paranoia and obsessive pride had kept him from accepting Colonel Dark's offer of a technology exchange. Control of his creations had always been a sore point with Gero, and if he'd had Wheelo's controller... The assassin smiled coldly to himself, and pushed open the door.

As he reached for the battle plan, as a matter of habit Tao Pie Pie glanced at the single hair he'd laid across it.

It was gone.

Lieutenant Tsukiev hunched over the communications console, swearing under his breath. Something in the air, static, bad weather or the aura of one of Colonel Dark's monsters was interfering with the radio; the normally error-free channel was noisy and slow just when Tsukiev needed it to be fast and efficient. Finally, after many retries, he managed to make the connection. He leaned back with a sigh; the encrypted transmission was on its way to the Ministry of Intelligence. Nothing could stop it now.

"You're at work early," Tao Pie Pie commented dryly from behind him.

Tsukiev froze for an instant, then turned, forcing a smile and a nod. "Yes, there were some routine matters I'd forgotten, and I wanted to get them taken care of."

"Routine matters?" The cyborg frowned slightly, and one mechanical eye whirred as it shifted focus, looking at the table beside the communications console.

Tsukiev went very cold inside as he turned to look, knowing what he'd see already. The folder--he'd forgotten to hide the battle plan folder!

"I can expla--"

The knife blade caught him right under the breastbone, plunging down and to one side. Tsukiev screamed thinly as Tao Pie Pie worked the blade back and forth, slicing the great arteries in his liver. The assassin pulled his knife hand free with a jerk as blood welled out of the wounds to soak the young man's uniform and chair. Tsukiev's still-twitching body slid off the chair onto the floor, a red pool spreading around him as Tao Pie Pie smirked. The assassin watched intently until he heard Tsukiev's last breath, then glanced at the settings on the communications console. With a curse he whirled and ran for Colonel Dark's private quarters.

Moments later, he pounded on the locked door--no answer. "Damn!" The assassin cursed to himself. Colonel Dark would not be happy if Tao Pie Pie broke down the door; he would be even less happy if the entire People's Revolutionary Army descended on their heads without warning.

Just as the assassin was finally about to kick the door in, it was flung open from inside. Jerome Sebastien Dark stood half-dressed in the doorway, scowling angrily. One hand was clenched at his side, a dim glow shining between the fingers. Behind Dark, a negligee-clad, blonde Lunch peered over his shoulder.

"And your very good reason for disturbing me is...?" Colonel Dark asked in a tight voice, every word carefully enunciated in an aristocratic British accent.

Tao Pie Pie bowed, acknowledging his employer's fury. "You have been betrayed, Colonel. One of your watch officers was a spy; he sent the entire battle plan to his masters in the People's Republic. I caught him at it and dealt with him but moments ago. That's 10 million zenni," the assassin added.

Colonel Dark's eyes narrowed and he nodded in acknowledgement. The glow between his fingers went out abruptly. "So.. they know we have turned against them. Let me see this plan," he said, extending a hand.

Tao Pie Pie bowed and handed the folder to Colonel Dark, who perused it briefly.

"The plan is sound," the leader of the Dark Ribbon said. "Do not wait for Soliere's new subjects; execute it immediately."

Tao Pie Pie smiled coldly. "They will not expect that, Colonel." Pie Pie bowed and retreated, intent on his new assignment.

"Jerome?" Lunch asked, an odd, almost worried look in her bright green eyes. "Exactly what kind of experiments was Doctor Soliere doing with Yamucha?"

"I believe he's adapting the control harness to work on a human. Don't worry about it; when he's done, Yamucha will be perfectly healthy and completely under our control," Colonel Dark said smoothly. "Now, my dear, we have work to do."

[ Contents | 10. Unharnessed | 11. Battle Plans | 12. Truth Hurts ]

Disclaimer: See Credits.

Copyright 2001 by Dragoness Eclectic