Katya paused in her action and scrambled up to see the woman behind her cowering behind the child that had come out with them. She looked around to see where the bullet had hit from the gun that had misfired. She let out a sigh of relief as there appeared to be nothing wrong. Her friend had just cried out on reflex and nothing had actually happened to her. She angrily turned towards Touya who met her gaze with one of his own, albeit guilty. It wasn't a picture perfect plan, nor was it even a plan but they had no idea of the fact that she was even in this warehouse until now. But now six gang members were involved along with deadly weapons. She had barely anytime to react when a body flew right past her head and slammed into the wall behind her. She quickly stood up to see Quedell gripping one man by the throat and lifting him up, the other held onto his legs in a feeble attempt to…maybe stop him, it wasn't working one bit. Quedell passed her a wild grin as he threw the man in his grip over the platform onto the floor below. Maybe she didn't mind their help, she slid forward and tackled a man coming up behind Quedell and toppled him over after which she proceeded to pummel his face in. As she was about to react to a kick coming from right she realized she was back up against the platform rails and had no way dodge. She slammed into the wall from the kick momentarily losing her bearings. Someone had gripped her by her shirt and lifted her up. She opened her eyes and blearily saw the scarred face of a man.
"Xander…you do realize this is a Forest Snakes property," he said in his same squeaky voice.
Katya wanted to say yes but she was more about figuring out how to break out of the man's grip without possibly ripping her shirt and also wondering how on earth the man had such a squeaky voice, it didn't sound normal.
"Wing won't let you get away with this," he continued.
"What Wing does is the least of my concern," she gasped out as she twisted his pinky, the result was a loud screech by the man amplified by the fact that his voice came out in high pitches. She landed back on top of the rails and front kicked the man in the face, a mistake as she considered it after because she tipped backwards and fell.
"Gah…damn!" she exclaimed as she tried to balance.
She saw Quedell reaching for her and saw Kriti about to shout out her real name, she made a half shake of her head towards her even as she overbalanced backwards, saying to her to not shout out her real name and with that she fell back. She was fully expecting the sharp pain in her head and any of the aftereffects that may follow but none of that occurred as she landed on something slightly more cushy than the floor. She immediately flipped off to see what she had landed on to see Touya lying.
"Ow…" he groaned as he struggled up. "You hit me in the ribs."
That much was true, she had felt the back of her head make contact with some bone or other.
"Thank you," she said standing up and then proceeded to pull him back onto his feet.
"You're welcome," he said shakily but that grin was back on his face again.
She looked above to see another body flying down and her eyes widened as she saw the target it would fall on. She tackled Touya out of the way as the scarred man landed with a thump, face first on the floor.
"Wh…why?" he asked as he looked down at her lying on top of him. "Me…?"
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"No…but I…I will be," he said wheezing.
She looked at him and he appeared to have come around as he now gazed at her with focused eyes.
"Uh…" she started to speak but suddenly it appeared she had forgotten words or what she was about to say.
One thing she could say is despite his annoying tendencies, he had a decent face…and now she was focusing on it for a little too long.
"Touya!" a call came from behind her which managed to snap her out of whatever she was in, she quickly rolled off him.
Looking behind she saw his two friend, Ly and Kyler running to them.
"Damn it Quedell," called Ly upwards. "Watch where you throw stuff."
"Sorry…" called out Quedell from above.
Ly passed a look at Katya with a frown and then looked at Touya who appeared to lying there dazed.
***
Touya had no idea what had happened. He was tackled out of the way by Xander and then he looked into her face and then just proceeded to freeze. His heart was beating a little too fast and adrenaline as he choked it up to wasn't the root cause, he could feel. He felt strangely uncomfortable again as before. Then he saw Ly's face appear in his vision and whatever strangeness he was undergoing swiftly vanished.
"Touya, are you alright?" Ly asked.
"Apart from being a little sore, yes," he said as he raised his arm and latched into Ly's and pulled it up.
He then proceeded to sent a glare towards Quedell who shrugged before proceeding to let out an innocent smile. He then looked towards Katya and his eyes widened as he again felt that strangely uncomfortable feeling in the pits of his stomach. He cursed himself, there had to be something wrong with him at this point, some sort of illness perhaps. He gritted his teeth and breathed in to calm himself down.
"I'm sorry," he said to her. "I didn't realize you had a plan."
She proceeded to shrug, "I didn't, I just planned to rush in and beat them up but there were some problems with lighting apparently, I heard it when I came in, they were trying to turn it on to find out who broke in and you just had terrible timing to have come in when they finally figured out that conundrum."
"Wait…what?" asked Ly, there were coincidences and then there complete and utter ridiculous happenstances, Touya agreed with Ly as well.
Xander had snuck in under the cover of the darkness but they had been caught.
"It doesn't really matter does it?" asked Quedell coming down, oblivious to the fact that there was still someone clinging to his leg. "We got what we came here for."
"Are you going to do something about that?" asked Kyler suddenly appearing next to Quedell whose breathe got caught in his throat at the sudden appearance of the invisible man.
"Dam-seriously Kyler, stop doing that," he said rubbing his chest. "And what are you talking about?"
"That thing attached to your leg moron," said Ly motioning towards the man on his leg.
"Huh…oh."
He looked down and spotted the man holding on for dear life and it was astounding how Quedell had not felt it at all…or maybe he had and just didn't care. He grabbed the man by the back of his neck and slammed him into the ground putting him to sleep. Touya suddenly noticed the woman and the child coming down the stairs, Xander's friend he supposed…maybe more, he looked between Xander and the woman and for some reason suddenly felt annoyed as Xander moved towards them. He sighed and shook his head and his trademark grin was back on his face. He pushed past Xander to beautiful woman.
"Hi…Touya," he said introducing himself. "Nice to meet you."
"Uh…hi," she said with a raised eyebrow which was either to intone 'what are you doing here?' or 'who exactly are you supposed to be?'.
"I'm his friend," said Touya putting his arm around Xander who pulled out immediately.
"He's not," Xander said stoically. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine," said Kriti but then turned towards the boy and it was at this point Touya was paying attention to the boy who appeared to be a younger version of Kyler…his face was as blank.
"Who is this?" asked Xander asking the question on Touya's mind.
"This is Jin," Kriti introduced the boy who just looked on blankly turning now towards Kyler as they appeared to be now in a staring contest.
"So…what's he doing here?" asked Touya cutting across Xander and looking at the boy who was by now very deep into the staring match.
Kriti paused for a moment and looked at Xander who appeared to nod before answering Touya's question.
"He's one of my patient's relative…the patient has now unfortunately passed away but I'm curious about some things so I came to get him and then well, I got caught by these people," she spoke as she kicked the scarred man.
"This warehouse belongs to the Forest Snakes," said Ly. "Perhaps we should get out of here before we have an in-dept conversation.
"Who are you?" asked Kriti turning to the source of the voice.
"I'm Ly Binh Quan, a doctor and this guy's friend," he replied tapping Touya who let out a grin.
"Oh…I'm a doctor as well," she said and he nodded.
"Yes, I figured as much when you said patient," he said with a smile. "What's your specialization or are you GP?"
"Oh…oh no, I'm a psychiatrist," she said. "Kriti Ramachandran."
"Ah…yes well nice to meet you but as I was saying perhaps we should get out of here first," said Ly. "Before we continue this conversation."
"We?" Xander raised an eyebrow as he questioned.
"Yes…Xander," said Touya putting his arm around Xander again. "We, you dragged us into this didn't you?"
"Dragged…what-?" Xander tried to protest.
"Shhh," said Touya putting a finger across those lips and his heart started beating at an abnormal rate again as he felt Xander's lips under his index finger.
He grit his teeth and quickly pulled his finger back, his trademark grin had slipped a little. 'I need to see someone, a psychiatrist maybe' he thought looking at Kriti. Those strange feelings just kept recurring for some reason and it had started today, he appeared to be fine before all this.
He cleared his throat and looked around at all of them, "Let's take Ly's suggestion and move on out before someone happens upon us, we didn't exactly enter this building the conventional way."
He felt Xander trying to duck out of his grasp but with foolhardy grin he pulled him closer. He dropped his grin and looked at the gang leader seriously.
"Stick around, I have some questions and then you need to do some stuff for me."
With that he dragged an 'unwilling to be attached' Xander along with him as he moved out of the warehouse.