PART ONE: A MONTH OF SUNDAYS

Neo-Tokyo upper north end, outside of "The Club Raymond" – March 13th, 2603 1:45am.

A mere thirty minutes earlier, the Club Raymond was an elite trendy nightspot located on Neo-Tokyo’s posh upper north-end. It was a place where the wannabes mingled with the scenesters while the actual some-bodies looked down from the balcony above, all for a measly cover of 189,000 yen at the door. Annoying techno house music still pumped out from the speakers above the dance floor even though two of the sub-woofers were blown out; thanks largely to the gaping holes in the side of the monitors caused by the M-37a Pulse Rifle that had been let loose in the room only moments prior. Outside the familiar orange and red flashing of a Neo-Tokyo Police hovercar’s lights cast sinister shadows from the gathering crowd against the club’s shattered front window. The driving acidic rain which had fallen steadily on the city since the official start of the monsoon season a week before, had quickly washed the blood off of the sidewalk.

A tall figure in a ratty old trench coat approached the police barrier that had just been erected and peered over the side. The acidic rain pelted down on the sidewalk, and camera flashes went off in every direction. Like most crime scenes in Neo-Tokyo, the media had arrived well before the police.

One of Neo-Tokyo’s finest approached the dark figure and flashed her badge at him while waving a lighted baton in his face.  ; the officer shouted over the rain.    

The figure looked up and then slowly reached into his coat, pulling out what appeared to be a passport. The cop waved her baton over the document and then read from the display screen embedded in its handle. Her face immediately went from stern to timid and without another word she stepped back as the figure cleared the barrier and entered the club.

Once inside the figure shook the rain from his long hair and then sniffed the air. The scent was still fresh and the hunt had begun without him. He remembered long ago, when he hadn’t been so slow, when time hadn’t caught up to him and he wasn’t so goddamn rusty. It had been much too long and he wondered if he was still up to this sort of task. Hell, he hadn’t even touched his sidearm in seven years. And every one of those seven years was a long time to be out of action. Judging from the looks of the damage leveled on the Club Raymond that night, The Swoo had been busy perfecting his techniques in Advanced Cataclysm while he had been sitting on his ass getting fat.

"Sunday!" a gruff voice called out.

William Holden Sunday, once a Level 9 member of the Order of the Knights Sepulchre, now clad in a ratty old trench coat and dripping from head to toe in acidic rain, looked up into the face of the only person in all of Neo-Tokyo he knew he could still trust. Mostly because he was the only person in Neo-Tokyo he knew who was still alive.

 ; the gruff voice finished.

"Apparently," Sunday replied, while kicking a few pieces of glass on the floor in front of him, "how have you been Taku?” he asked. “Still working for the man I see."

A large arm went around Sunday’s shoulder as Captain Desmond Taku of the Neo-Tokyo Cataclysm Prevention Division embraced his old friend and then with a laugh said, "I can not believe that even after all this time, you still don’t speak Japanese."

Sunday shook his head. Even though he couldn’t speak the language, he understood every word of it and read it perfectly. Most of the citizens of Neo-Tokyo spoke a bastardized half English, half Japanese dialect anyway. He only had trouble communicating in the very ancient parts of the city. Of course, he hadn’t seen any of those parts in over a decade so he could only assume they were even more ancient now.

In the grand scheme of things Sunday hadn’t really been away from Neo-Tokyo for very long, but in that time things had definitely changed. He was still a member of the "fair-skinned minority", the "Westward Ones" as they were called (his ancestors coming from the West before the meteor had wiped the West away). But, as he looked around, he could see that his genetic minority had been busy mixing into the population. The faces around him carried the signs. A few more generations and there would be no more "fair-skinned" ones or "native-ones" either for that matter. There would only be people. It was inevitable. Sunday shuddered at the thought about what that fact would inevitability induce in some, and the consequences that would follow. Change is hard even if it takes a few eons to finish.

Desmond Taku, himself possessing a tiny amount of Westward One blood in his line, stepped back a little and began speaking in English. "You’re wrong by the way, I’m not working for the man. Now, I am the man.” Sunday valiantly tried to smile at his friend’s joke but failed.

Taku continued, “I’m glad you’re here though, I’m going to need your ’expertise’ with this little problem that creeped up tonight."

"Uh huh," Sunday scoffed back sarcastically. "So that’s what you guys classify this as”, he said pointing around the club, “a ‘little problem’?”

Taku could tell his old friend was short on patience. He pulled a notebook from his coat pocket anticipating what was coming next which was going to be straight to the point.

“How many down?" Sunday asked.

"Thirty-four dead, one hundred and seventy-five wounded, fourteen missing."

"Swoo is slipping a little bit, his numbers are down. He must be getting old I guess. Good to know I’m not the only one."

Taku turned and looked his old friend in the face. "This wasn’t Swoo, but I’m sure he was behind it. He doesn’t get his hands this dirty anymore. He’s got help this time, lots of help."

"And what have you got?" Sunday asked back.

Taku laughed, "Well, I’ve got you of course."

Sunday finally managed a smile. "You’re in a whole shitload of trouble then."

“My word,” Taku gasped, “such language from a man of the cloth.”

Sunday sighed and turned away. “I need a drink,” he said. “How badly did they shoot up the bar?”

Downtown Neo-Tokyo, central offices of the Neo-Tokyo Angel Protect Division - 3:32 am

It was rather dark in the room save for the single brilliant stream of light, coming from a small lamp that illuminated the desk in the far corner - that and the faint flashing of police hovercars on the streets nine stories down. Through the dark shadows you could just make out the shape of a woman, sitting behind the desk, looking out the large window onto the wet street below.

She had only been Chief Seraphim of the Angel Protect Division for eight months but in that rather short period of time, she had succeeded in cleaning up the rampant corruption and scandal that had plagued the APD for decades. She had "cleaned house" so to speak and brought in new agents whose training far exceeded those who had previously served the Neo-Tokyo APD. She had done away with the crude and clumsy Pulse Rifles that the Cataclysm Prevention Division favored, for the more graceful and skilled Sabre-Lance Shield, a weapon equaled only by the Remington Dark-Starr Colt used by the now defunct Order of the Knights Sepulchre.

She had also succeeded in making her fair share of enemies and the "incident" at the Club

Raymond, less than an hour earlier, would prove to be the first daunting task for her new and improved Neo-Tokyo Angel Protect Division.

Neo-Tokyo was both a city and a country at the same time, ruled simultaneously by ancient traditions and new technology. For years, the incredibly difficult duties of protecting its citizenry had been divided up between several safety factions within the government. The Neo-Tokyo Police Force served only to write traffic violations and give the appearance of control to people too ignorant to see the real dangers that surrounded them. Nothing more than figureheads, NTPF officers soon found themselves armed only with lighted stun batons and a uniform completely made of Kevlar armor. Turnover within the department was extremely high as was corruption. A NTPF officer could be purchased for less than 300,000 yen.

The Orwellian titled, Cataclysm Prevention Division; was one part police force, one part army. They held most of the military power and large mobilized armor, but originally were meant only to be used in times of great strife and as a defense force. When it became apparent that the NTPF was rather useless beyond collecting jaywalking fines, the CPD took over most of the investigative duties and became the muscular backbone of the entire domain.

However, above all of it was the Angel Protect Division. The APD was the oldest security force in Neo-Tokyo and so much different from the rest; diplomatic and regal, yet instilled with their own inner defense regiment, named the Virtues. The APD set up as the umbrella that encompassed the entire government of Neo-Tokyo, and also served as the court system. They also differed in style, as the ancient traditions held that only women were allowed to be agents of the APD.

Slowly over time, the APD found itself less and less security oriented, and more and more bogged down in legal disputes and government matters, which allowed the CPD to gain more and more control, eventually implementing a shadowy group known originally as "The Order of the Knights Sepulchre" to work as their covert operations force as a counterbalance to the APD’s Virtues.

In a final blow to the authority of the APD, the CPD decreed that all members of the Knights Sepulchre were to be men. This naturally resulted in a much more masculine approach in the way they handled things. Consequently, Neo-Tokyo’s construction firms and hospitals found themselves booming with a steady stream of fresh business. The Order of the Knights Sepulchre also had been almost entirely made up of men of pure Westward One descent, since their bloodline and genetics were considered more savage. The authorities of the CPD also felt because of the perceived lower intelligence of the Westward One’s bloodline, it made them easier to control. It wasn’t long before the Knights Sepulchre completely took over all of the messy security issues in Neo-Tokyo once handled so elegantly by the APD.

It took almost a half a century for the previous Seraphims to wrestle control of all security issues back from the Knights and it was not a pretty process. Eventually, the Order of the Knights Sepulchre was disbanded altogether and most former Knights found themselves serving lengthy prison sentences. The APD then set about restructuring the CPD, stripping away all of its military power and leaving it only as the investigative wing of the NTPF.

However, that was all in the past. Now, in her eight brief months as Chief Seraphim, Mine Clara-Marie had almost single-handedly resurrected the Angel Protect Division into the mainstay force behind Neo-Tokyo’s daily control. It was now the all-encompassing authority in the domain. The APD controlled the courts and the military, and the CPD and NTPF answered directly to the Chief Seraphim and her agents of the APD. More importantly however, the Order of the Knights Sepulchre were a thing of the past and the power to resurrect anything like them again was gone forever.

But, with the incident at the Club Raymond, Mine Clara-Marie knew the first real threat to that control had surfaced. She had to deal with rogue APD agents and two Ex-Knights.

Clara-Marie turned away from the window, adjusted the collar of her white uniform and looked up into the face of her hand picked lieutenant, the head of the APD Virtues Force, and the one woman she knew she could totally rely on.

; Clara-Marie began, ;