BAD ANIME CHAPTER 7: THE END GAME ENDS LAME
By Sidewinder (
aim9snake@hotmail.com), 2008. Special thanks to Stas Bush. (Don't worry, Shroom Man 777; I'll list you in the byline when I introduce the new character.)
***
Linda waltzed with a middle-aged man as an orchestra played one of Tchaikovsky's symphonies. "Mister Ambassador..."
The Russian Ambassador to Japan smiled. "Please, call me Vladimir Ilyich."
The redhead returned the smile. "Mister Vladimir Ilyich, we of the EPF wish to know when your government will release its files on the man who once served the Red Army as General Chertan Krasovich Ognev." The name was derived from the Russian words for devil, red, and flame.
The ambassador's eyes expressed cold anger, one promising to avenge a great insult, although his smile didn't falter. "Ah, Beherit. Please understand, Dear Linda, the KGB destroyed most of those files before, during, or immediately after the unsuccessful coup of 1991. The GRU," Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije, the Russian military's Main Intelligence Directorate, "is attempting to assemble the remainder into a legible file, but it's like using a knife or scissors on cardboard to replace the lost pieces of a jigsaw puzzle."
Linda, no stranger to diplomatic niceties, continued smiling. "So Beherit had no parents, no caretakers at a state-run orphanage, no classmates in OCS?" Officer Candidate School. "He just hatched from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad, with a general's stars already on his shoulders?"
"What files remain are contradictory. The codename Ogon-- Flame-- has been assigned to a genetic engineering or enhancement program, one of many efforts to create a super-soldier; a paranormal entity summoned through a ritual based on those Heinrich Himmler allegedly performed in a desperate effort to reverse Nazi Germany's fortunes; and a mole in the US Army, Navy, Air Force, or the CIA. For all we know, that Vlasovite," traitor, "bastard was hatched from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad."
"And you're certain the Red Legions have no mole in the GRU to warn Beherit of the Russian government's attempt to evict their unruly tenant?" the redhead continued, referring to the "grand duchy" Beherit carved out of Siberia, now a constant source of embarrassment to the government.
The ambassador's smile became cruel-- an expression promising great and terrible consequences for anyone who crossed him. "Any moles who are not double agents under our direct control, are dealt with... in a most effective manner."
'I can imagine.' Linda suppressed her feelings-- a mixture of disgust towards a GRU officer's idea of a most effective manner, sympathy for those subjected to such violence, appreciation of its finality, and envy for the options with which the GRU dealt with traitors-- to let herself enjoy the ball the Russian Embassy hosted to improve relations with a nation that lost many sons and daughters to...
Crash, thump, clatter! "Ahhhh!" someone screamed when the embassy windows shattered. The surprised musicians rose to their feet, dropping the instruments.
The bodyguards instinctively drew GLOCK pistols-- not Makarov or Yarygin pistols, as Russian small arms manufacturers weren't sponsoring the anime-- to target the telephone poles that burst through the bulletproof glass. "How...?"
"Screech!" Vampire bats swarmed through the broken windows and flooded the ballroom, their shrieks drowning out the loudest screams of the panicking men and women. The bodyguards squeezed the triggers, killing multiple bats with each bullet, denying this as evidence their efforts were futile; then the brave men and women fell, their skin covered with bites, their blood burning with "chimera venom"-- the unholy union of genetically engineered virus, neurotoxin, and necromancy.
"Mister Ambassador! Bugger!" Linda cursed as she rolled forwards, a diving bat's wings caressing her hair. 'To hell with diplomacy, I'm never leaving behind my pistol again!' She grabbed a silver platter and a wine bottle from the floor, using them as an improvised shield and club to fight her way to where the ambassador was. "Mister Ambassador!" The man laid upon the floor, now stained with his blood. Linda reversed her grip on the bottle, freeing her index and middle fingers to check the ambassador's pulse.
"Grrrr!"
"Ah!" The sudden attack left Linda lying on the floor, the ambassador-turned-zombie straddling her body and holding down her arms. Venomous saliva dripped from the zombie's mouth, igniting nerves in the redhead's skin as the now inhuman thing prepared to tear out her throat and turn Linda into another...
"Hiss!"
An invisible hand lifted the undead ambassador off the floor, but Linda's relief was short-lived; she realized she was the only human left in the room. The zombies parted to let three individuals with the strength to tear a telephone pole from its mount and then throw the pole like a javelin-- Balthild, Amelie, and Kalila-- enter the room.
Linda's eyes widened. "You...!"
"Good evening, Linda." The dhampire smiled as she approached the redhead; her eyes changed color like a flickering flame, becoming red, blue, and violet again.
"Yaaaa!" Linda threw the platter at Balthild. The dhampire caught the improvised discus; the redhead, who used the attack as a distraction, was already sprinting through the door.
Amelie and Kalila transformed into gargoyles and ran after Linda, but stopped in front of the now burning doorway, as if they feared the wine-fueled fire. Shrieks followed Linda; then the redhead lost the vampires' cries as well.
"Such ingenuity." Balthild smiled-- an expression the vampires shared-- as she approached the door, waved a hand, and psychically extinguished the fire. "I hope she survives her part in our plan; she'll be an excellent addition to my harem."