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> Adventures in Parodyverse - End of the Reign Part 1
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> Wind whipped rain down Unity Avenue, a couple of streets west of the police station.  Jack Burns ignored it as he sat at a restaurant, but his partner Vicky Cameron watched it through the window with a little concern.  She didn’t like having her medium length blonde hair soaked and plastered to her head, or dripping down her neck.  So naturally she delayed ending their lunch, even if it meant discussing business out of the office.
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> Fortunately Jack could tell she didn’t want to go out into the rain, so he played along.  “How goes that stale arson case I gave you?”
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> “Huh?”  Vicky sat up suddenly.  She was leaning on her arm and stirring her just delivered soup.  “Oh...I made some progress but I’m not sure I want to solve it now.”
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> Jack’s smile disappeared, replaced with a look of confusion.  “What do you mean?”
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> “I learned something about it from Visionary,”  Vicky replied, sounding bored.  She tasted her soup slowly to see if it was still scalding hot.  She looked at Jack uneasily then, and quickly added, “I shouldn’t say anymore though.”
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> “Why not?”  he asked, sounding a little irritated.
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> Vicky showed her sunny smile again.  “Jackie, you’re a by-the-book kinda guy.  Let’s just say I heard some stuff that...a by-the-book guy would be forced to do something I don’t want to be part of.”
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> Jack relented then, and sighed as he gripped his soft drink with both hands.  “A real heartbreaker, eh?”
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> She looked up sadly and nodded.  “Yah,”  she whispered.  “A real heartbreaker.”
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> “You almost done?  We have a long drive ahead.”
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> Vicky looked at the window again.  It was still raining.  “Few more minutes,”  she requested as she slowly started to eat her soup.  “It’s not like Al B Harper is going anywhere in this weather either.”  She referred to the fact that their next stop was to drop by Al B Harper’s cabin to ask him some questions.
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> Al B was a material witness.  Doctors spotted him visiting a Jane Doe burn victim in the hospital years ago repeatedly.  Then the woman vanished, and hadn’t been heard from since.  Being a slow week, Jack decided to try and re-open it as one of his old arson cases.
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> Finally, as her sandwich arrived and she finished it off, Vicky became impatient with the rain delay.  She finally said, “I’m gonna clean up a bit and then we can go.  Hope I don’t get too soaked.”  She slid out of the booth and headed to the restroom, leaving some cash behind to pay for her food.
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> Jack looked at the cash and frowned.  She was sneaky even in making sure he couldn’t argue about her paying for part of the meal.  He shrugged then, and added some money of his own to the stack, before sliding out of the booth, and waiting near the door for Vicky,
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> “Ok, let’s go,”  Vicky urged him as she seemed to return from nowhere.  She walked out of the door ahead of Jack, checked traffic, and then raced diagonally across the street to where the car was parked.  The door clicked unlocked as she arrived - Jack was kind enough to unlock the car from across the street.  She climbed in quickly.
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> Finally Jack got in, dripping wet, and shut the door behind him.  “It amuses me that you’re still young and energetic enough to run to the car.”
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> Vicky scoffed as the car started up.  “You could too, you’re just lazy.”
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> ---
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> The rest of the trip was fairly quiet and uneventful.  Unusual for Vicky, but that was because she knew they were taking a long trip and brought along a book to read on the way.  She had the seat leaned back and her feet crossed on the dashboard as she read.
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> Jack glanced at her once in a while as she read.  Even after working with her for a while he still couldn’t help but wonder just how she made detective.  She was a highly motivated girl to get so far at such a young age.  
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> They arrived at Al B Harper’s cabin after around a half hour of driving.  Fortunately the daytime traffic was fairly clear.  As they drove up, the heavy rain was becoming almost a drizzle.  Still annoying, but not quite as soaking.
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> Vicky exited the car first and walked quickly to the cabin’s door, followed by Jack.  He put one hand on the gun mounted on his belt instinctively, and then noted Vicky’s frown.  She always had such a positive opinion of people.
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> At least until they both heard an explosion inside.  Vicky jumped at the noise, but Jack simply reacted by drawing his gun and bursting in.  Just inside, there was a cloud of grey smoke and a coughing Al B Harper.
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> “No need to panic,”  Al B said between coughs, “It was just one of my experiments.”
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> “Heh, I did that in my high school chemistry class once,”  Vicky beamed.
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> “Oh?”  Al B suddenly took interest.  “Were you working with nitrates?”
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> “Can we skip to the reason we’re here please?”  Jack asked, losing patience with the conversation, partly because he was still shaken by the explosion.  “We have a few questions for you.”
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> “Um...sure.  Okay.”  Al B blasted a strange device he was working on one last time with a fire extinguisher just for good measure.  He put down the extinguisher and gave a now-coughing Jack his full attention.
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> Jack cleared his throat and held his breath to try and stop coughing.  But Vicky beat him to the punch.
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> “There was this badly burned chick in the hospital a few years ago.  Nobody knew who she was, but witnesses say you visited her.”  Vicky said, folding her arms as she spoke.  “And then she vanished.  Know anything about that?”
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> “Yes, um...I was summoned to attempt to accelerate the healing of a burn victim once,”  he said.  “She wasn’t expected to survive without my help.”
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> “We know that,”  Jack finally spoke.  “The important part is we don’t know what happened to her.  She might have been found and killed by whoever set fire to her in the first place.”
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> “Oh no, no, nothing like that--”  Al B Harper realized what he was saying mid-sentence and suddenly fell silent and turned pale.
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> This time it was Jack’s turn to fold his arms and look at the arch-scientist menacingly.  And he was much more intimidating than Vicky.  “Where is she?”  he asked.  When there was no immediate reply, he added, “Or should I haul you downtown and have to ask questions there?”
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> “No, please don’t do that.”  Al B looked down and shook his head.  “I imagine if you do that Yuki will--”  He meant to say that Yuki would come down there and raise hell, but he realized he was giving away too much.  “--I mean, there will be some trouble if--”
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> It was too late.  Vicky picked up on the clue right away.  “Wait a sec.  Yuki Shiro is a cyborg, right?  And she kinda turned up out of nowhere one day.”  She looked at Jack, ignoring the pale and slightly panicked Al B.  “Sounds like a former burn victim to me.  How about you?”
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> “She’s going to kill me,”  Al B Harper whined as he leaned back against one of his workbenches and covered his face.  “Can I get um...some kind of protective custody?”
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> “No,”  Jack replied coldly as he led Vicky out.
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> “How are we going to talk to Yuki?”  Vicky asked as she followed Jack back to the car.
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> Jack smiled.  “I have a few veteran cop tricks up my sleeve.”
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> ---
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> When Jack arrived at the police station, he found a small package on his desk.  The return address label was unusual - it had a post office box, and the name ‘A Masamune’.  “What the heck?”  he asked out loud as he began opening it carefully with a letter opener.
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> Vicky had just entered the office too, and was watching over his shoulder.  She noted the name on the package too, and was quietly curious.
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> Within that package, wrapped in fancy paper, was a few photographs and a handwritten note.  Then note had two simple words on it - Jessie Moore.  The photos were of a woman who seemed familiar, but Jack couldn’t quite place it.  He put the photos on his desk with the note.
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> “She has the same eyes as that burn victim,”  Vicky pointed out.  She remembered seeing the badly burned woman in the case file and feeling nauseated by it.
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> Jack’s eyes widened, and he looked at the photos again.  He  then reached for the phone quickly and dialed.  “Contact the Lair Legion.  Tell them Yuki Shiro is needed to identify a body we found from an old case.”
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> “Oooh, sneaky.”  Vicky cheered him after he hung up the phone.
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> ---
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> Yuki Shiro arrived at police headquarters on her motorcycle.  She actually parked legally, partly because she didn’t want her prized motorbike towed, and partly because she was beginning to understand that as a senior Lair Legion member, she had an example to set.
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> She slipped her leather gloves off as she entered the building, and stopped at the reception desk.  “I’m here to see Detective Jack Burns,”  she said calmly.  “He’s expecting me.”
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> The receptionist nodded and picked up the phone to call Jack.  A moment later she pointed to the elevator and said, “You can head on up.  Take the elevator to--”
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> “I know where he is, thanks.”  Being a quite observant private detective herself, she checked the building’s directory on the way in.  She ignored the exasperated look from the receptionist and took the stairs rather than the elevator.
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> Yuki walked past the desks of police officers as she approached Jack Burns’ office.  She ignored as they stared at her.  Some of them were simply shocked to see a Lair Legion member there.  Others admired her physically.  It was the same story everywhere she went, and she learned to ignore it.
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> A less than gentle knock on the door of Jack Burns’ office, and she heard him say ‘come in’.  She opened the door and stepped in.  “Detective Jack Burns?”  she asked just to make sure.  
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> She looked at the blonde girl in the office with him who she thought could pass for a teenager, but seemed too much like she belonged there to be one.  “And this is?”  Yuki asked.
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> “Vicky Cameron,”  Vicky replied confidently.  “I’m a detective too.”
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> “I see.”  Yuki nodded.  But rather than socialize further she went straight to the point.  “Where is this body I’m supposed to identify?”
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> “Do you know what this means?”  Jack passed Yuki the note and the photo from the package, but not the wrapping.  Unfortunately Yuki could see the wrapping still sitting on his desk, and she noted who it was from.
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> For just a fleeting moment Yuki seemed shocked.  Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were wide, as she looked at the photo and the name.  But she quickly regained her composure, and convincingly replied, “No, not really.  Why?”
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> It was too late though - Vicky noted Yuki’s first reaction and the pause before her reply.  “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”  she pushed further.
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> Yuki tossed the photo and slip of paper onto Jack’s desk.  “Can I go now?”
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> “Not till you tell me what your connection is with that name,”  Jack replied, folding his arms to try to appear more confident than he was.  In reality he knew Yuki wasn’t just an average person who could easily be intimidated into answering.
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> “No, I think it’s time for me to go,”  Yuki replied forcefully.  “Unless you plan to make it official by arresting me, and then I’ll need a lawyer before I answer any questions.”  She paused for a few seconds to see if anyone would object or move to stop her.
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> Once Jack and Vicky looked at each other, seeming to be at a loss for Yuki’s response, Yuki simply turned around and left, driving her point home once and for all.
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> ---
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> Yuki was through setting examples by that point.  She blasted down street after street through Paradopolis trying to reach her destination as soon as possible at the expense of all safety.
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> A few minutes later she sped her motorcycle into the underground parking garage below an apartment building.  Way at the top, in the penthouse, was where the Psychic Samurai lived.
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> Impatient as she was with the elevator, the stairs would have taken Yuki a lot longer, so she had to deal with it.  Once she reached the top floor she wasted no time pounding on Chiaki’s door.
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> Chiaki opened the door looking slightly disheveled.  It looked as if she was just reading, and managed only to put the book down and race to the door with her sheathed sword in hand to investigate the ruckus.  She still had only socks, but no shoes on her feet.
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> “Oh.  Yuki.”  She said as she bowed slightly.  “I’m sorry, I did not expect you.”
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> “It’s ok, you don’t have to clean up your place for me.”  Yuki joked.  She stepped inside without being asked, and closed the door behind her.  “Your friend Akiko seems to be gathering information on me, and I’m concerned about it.”
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> The Psychic Samurai didn’t reply.  She didn’t even ask what sort of information - either she already knew or didn’t care.
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> Of course, the first possibility made Yuki more suspicious.  She narrowed her eyes and stared at Chiaki, seeming to stare the Asian woman down, as Chiaki’s eyes moved toward the floor while Yuki spoke.  “I’m going to have a talk with Akiko,”  she said.  “Either help me or stay out of my way.  Don’t you dare get in my way.”
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> Chiaki still didn’t say anything as Yuki left and slammed the door behind her.  She figured there was no use speaking - she could see Yuki was obviously shaken by what she learned, and anything Chiaki could have said would be taken as an argument.
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> Meanwhile, she thought to herself, Yuki was about to get herself into trouble.  It was up to her to stop it.  With a deep, saddened sigh, Chiaki straightened her hair and went to look for her shoes.  She had work to do.
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> TO BE CONTINUED?
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> -- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2007 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
> --    reprinted without permission.  
> -- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
> --  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
> --  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin
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