[Episode 199006] [Episode 199006]‘What I wouldn’t give to live in a world where only the first part was true, instead of looking forward to this nightmare once a month for the rest of my life.’ Then again who in their right mind would want to go riding around in a van all night; rounding up any lunes that either couldn’t make it to a shelter in time, or just stayed outside in complete disregard to the curfew or the safety of the men and women who due to a cruel trick of fate were forced to do such things for a living. After all it didn’t matter where you lived, all barebacks everywhere in the world could only legally work as dog catchers
‘Although at least in the rest of the civilized world people in my position have the luxury of waiting till they turn eighteen to have to do this, not to mention have better legal protection; why did Amaterasu Okami have to also be an okami. At least the Americans forced us to modernize those law codes some after The War, I would hate to have lived back then before the Personal Responsibility laws... not that they did kaa-san much good.’
Akane’s thoughts distracted her when a series of blips detected within Shakujii Park shook brought her back into reality. Although not sensors in the truest sense of the word; the scanners within the catcher’s vans were designed to pick up transmissions from a grid of motion and heat sensors throughout the city, and give each van a read out on any possible lune activity anywhere within a seven kilometer radius. Akane nervously eyed her partner d’jour for the evening Akira ‘Devilman’ Fudo; although the senior catcher was married and had an excellent track record for handling even the most vicious of lunes, he also had a history of violence, and a habit for accidently leaving junior partners stranded while he handled the more nasty ones, leaving his partners vulnerable to attack from more hidden threats.
“Well Tendo what does the scanner say,” Akira conveyed in his usual gruff tone, “Just how many lunes are we looking at?”
Akane glanced back at the scanner in front of her and replied, “This is weird, I read at least four large bogies relatively close together.”
“That’s not too odd,” Akira replied, “That means we have at least a small pack within the park, it’s not much, but it does mean that we’ll need to call in back up. Get on the horn, Asagiri and Kuno should be in the area.”
“I’ll do that,” Akane frowned not only being interrupted, but the prospect of having to work on a round up with Kodachi the resident prima donna of the Northeastern Tokyo branch.
“But as I was saying, we have four large bogies close together, but there are also over two-dozen smaller readings scattered all over the park.”
“What? I doubt that many little kids would be running around a park near dark, better signal for more units, it looks like this will be a busy night!”
*****
Despite Akira’s insistence to central dispatch that they had the makings of a major situation in the making at Shakujii Park, they only received one additional back-up unit aside from Asagiri and Kuno, and thus were forced into a situation that every catcher dreaded on the night of a full moon, they had to split up to case the entire park, in spite of the large amount of developed land that was typical for one of the worlds’s largest cities there was a significant amount of parks and recreational areas. Shakujii Park was one of the largest in Tokyo, with a fair amount of preserved forest to surround the sports fields, shinto shrines, camping areas, and the historic Shakujii Castle to accent the antiquated and calming atmosphere of the area.
At least that was how it was during the day, at night anything could be going on in those woods especially when the moon was full and most of the citizens were furred up, which was perfectly fine as far as Akane was concerned, provided that they were locked indoors at home or at one of the many local shelters. But for those who were caught outside when the sun set on the night of a full-moon, whether on purpose or by accident, the parks became a favorite hunting ground full of all manor of animals to prey upon... such as the dogcatchers like Akane who had to go out and risk their lives to bring them in to the Kennel.
Of course given how large the area was, and the fact that the sensor grid had a fifty-meter margin of error, all of the catchers had to split up to cover as much ground as possible. This was far from an ideal situation since most of the time it took two catchers working in tandem to safely bring in a lune, of course with there being at least four confirmed lunes in the area this made the usual routine impossible.
Akane just knew that if she lived that this was likely going to be one of those nights she was never going to forget, and no sooner did she peer around a nearby hedge than she confirmed that statement... just not in the way she thought.
Indeed this was the oddest sight that Akane had seen during her admittedly short tenure with the Ministry of Lunar Affairs (MLA), an incredibly undersized wolf with a russet coat (about the size of a young German Shepard) was sprawled on its back and playing with what looked like a litter of kittens as the mother cat looked on from nearby. ‘What the hell, I know that some dogs are that friendly around cats, but that has to be a lune, they attack anything that they can. Also since when do lunes have red coats, everyone that I’ve ever seen had sable-black fur, what is this thing.’
Suddenly without warning the mother cat snarled causing all the kittens to abandon their playmate and follow her into the bushes, meanwhile their playmate rolled back over got on its feet and began reared back as it began to snarl. Sensing trouble Akane readied the capture pole when she heard a more familiar growling behind her, carefully the young catcher looked behind her to a more familiar sight a typical adult lune ready to charge from fifteen meters away.
“Today is not my day,” grumbled the youngest of the Tendo sisters. Of course under normal circumstances a situation like this would not be too much of an issue; however this time Akane had three problems elevating the danger considerably: one she didn’t have any back-up with a tranq-gun to dope this brute up, two there was another albeit unusual lune in front of her that she was getting ready to capture which lead to the third problem... the brute behind her, a hundred and thirty kilo male lune, would be on her like flies on garbage before she could bring her capture pole around to handle him.
Akane knew it deep down... she was screwed, still she wasn’t about to give up with out a fight, Akane knew that if she used her pole like a staff she could probably knock the lune to the ground. Of course she would get in trouble for doing so later and the man’s lawyer would likely be by in a few days to sue her and/or the MLA for personal injury and gross misconduct, still she would rather be in trouble and alive than a bloody corpse after being mauled and torn to pieces. So Akane made her move as the lune began to barrel right at her...
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(Posted Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:00)
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