A Chaotic Panic Occurs in the Old Tokyo Bazaar

While the Dome claims to be the heart of the rebuilt Tokyo settlement the majority of Neo-Tokyo citizens live outside the Dome in the ruins of Old Tokyo and any slum dweller will tell you that the beating heart of Old Tokyo is its sprawling seedy bazaar. It is this bazaar that serves as the hub of all commerce both mundane and illegal. Some citizens who consider themselves clever call it the "Bizarre Bazaar" as it is said that any rare, weird, and downright disturbing product can be found and purchased in this normally vibrant market. Today as always countless people are running about the market with much energy. Nevertheless, today is no normal day as screams can be heard echoing throughout the numerous alleys leading to the bazaar. Countless merchants and buyers abandon the stalls as they poor through the connecting roads away from the main street in which the bazaar is situated. The cause of their distress is immediately apparent as a flock of strange mutant bat creatures swarms the bazaar, lifting up any goods or small children they can carry. The beasts' wings flap vigorously as they try to keep themselves and their sometimes uncooperative cargo a lift.

Shuffling from one of the alleys, a man with short red hair bound in a straight jacket shambles out. He growls as some bats tug at his clothes. “You... little shits.... FUCK OFF YOU MONGREL SHIT STAINS AND BURN IN HELL!” He seems to struggle against his bindings as sparks begins to form around him. These sparks quickly turn to explosions as he tries to blow the bats around him to hell.

Over 20 bats are incinerated by the young man's bursts of flames and 30 more are severely burned. The remaining unharmed creatures begin to drop to the ground and passionately gorge upon the roasted bodies of their dead broodmates. As they do so they begin to grow chitinous scales upon their bodies and their hair starts falling out in ragged clumps.

“Little... BEASTS! I’ll fucking roast you all into ashes!” More sparks appear around the man, before a feminine hand rests on his shoulder. A tall woman with long black hair steps beside him; her face is stained with tears that constantly stream down her face. She sobs in between words, “Calm down, Rage. We need to find this thing alive. It seems to have potential.” She twists her foot on the ground, causing ice to creep towards the feasting bats in order to immobilize them.

The ice ensnares the feasting bats yet some of them burst free. Those that do appear much larger and stronger than their frozen counterparts and begin to feed on the still alive bats grounded by the ice. As they do so they continue to grow in size and regrow some of their furs. Their talons appear much sharper and the toes on their feet much thinner. The creatures now stand on the tips of their talons when walking on the ground, yet as soon as they finish their meals they once more take to the sky.

The teary-eyed girl tells the bound man, "We need to catch one of those. Disintegrate their wings." She lifts her hand, causing small icicles to form in the air around it. She extends her fingers and ice begins to form around the larger bats' chests. The bound man yells in anger as he attempts to disintegrate the wings of the soon to be frozen bats.

The ice forms irregularly on the bat's torso and quickly falls apart. The more the woman tries to freeze the bats the thicker their fur becomes and less her powers appear to affect it. The young man, on the other hand, has no trouble in burning the larger bat. His flames prove so effective that the creature burns up without a trace. The only thing remaining of the larger bat is a metal collar labeled Mk 4. The remaining bats begin to fly away after seeing one of their more powerful flock members casually burnt to ash.

"The fuck is that, Depression?" She walks over and lifts the collar, noticing the "Mk 4" labeled on it. Her tears begin to pour more profusely. "It seems we aren't the only test subjects in this god-forsaken city..." Rage struggles against his bindings. "FUCK! Fuck fucking fuck! This pisses me off! This means we've got to tell... Him." Even with his anger, he seems a bit worried when mentioning this man. "Let's head backk with our findings, Rage." The two turn and begin heading towards the Dome, leaving the panicking peasants a parting gift of explosions and ice in their wake.

An hour or so after the strangers had left and the bats had flown away, the slum dwellers hesitantly file back into the bazaar. The merchants had to return out of dire necessity to turn some profit on this strange and poor day while the buyers came back as the danger had seemingly passed. Yet after the two psychics had left the bats slowly trickled back into the bazaar. Instead of assaulting it en masse they scavenged what they wanted one at a time. Every half an hour or so a single bat would soar into the bazaar and snatch a piece of fruit or a shiny bauble. While disconcerting the shoppers and merchants were willing to let this pass and occasionally shooed off one of the opportunistic bats. Eventually, when the market was about to close one of the larger mutated bats entered the bazaar and grabbed ahold of young man. The creature flaps its wings and struggles to pull the young man's weight up into the sky.

A well-toned and well fed Caucasian man watches from a distance with a pair of binoculars. He lies completely flat and still against one of the shelters of Old Tokyo, watching the strange bats with diligence. He slowly shakes his head as he see's one of them pick up a young man. He holds his open palm towards the scene at the market, and the flesh on his palm suddenly begins to quiver,then parts revealing a strange mechanical device underneath. Then with pin-point accuracy, a pen-sized red laser extends from it, aimed to cut the strange bats talons off.

The laser pierces the bat's flesh and its talons fall off dripping green ooze. The bat shrieks in pain and vigorously flaps its wing in an attempt to gain altitude. The man falls and tumbles to the ground beneath him yet appears unharmed.

The Caucasian man mutters under his breath. "Great, I was supposed to be babysitting that little bitch, and I just gave away my position." The man jumps down from his perch, and sprints down a few alleyways, weaving his way closer towards the market, before he climbs another shelter, and takes a look at the situation with his binoculars.

The bat struggles to keep itself in the air. After a moment of vigorous flapping, it drops to the ground and writhes in the dirt howling in pain. Its talons appear to be regenerating but the process seems grisly and slow. The bones of its feet begin to protrude steadily from the cauterized flesh of the wound and new muscle tissue slowly begins to engulf the bony protrusions. The creature's mouth is agape and it breathes heavily. The surrounding slum goers prod and poke the beast yet it seems too preoccupied to pay them much attention.

The man grits his teeth as he watches the scene through his binoculars, and he mutters, "Damn it.. run away you idiots." He slowly slides a phone out of his pocket, and puts it up to his ear.

"Yeah, like I said earlier, some kind of bat-like mutants. My laser was able to cut it, but it appears to be regenerating."

A deep voice answers from the phone, "You have a new mission Grey. Bring me all the information you can find out about these things, but do not, and I repeat, do not bring me one alive. Understood?"

Grey chuckles, "Have a little more faith in me, I wasn't planning on dragging one back to base. I'll see what I can find out." Grey hangs up, and takes a deep breath. He slowly begins to stalk his way towards the marketplace, and as he does, he approaches the slum-goers. He looks down at the creature and then to them, offering an innocent smile, and a thick accent, "What's this thing?"

A panicked-looking Japanese man approached Grey. He looks incredibly stressed by the presence of the unnatural bat-beast and has to repress his gags due to his proximity to it.

"These monsters came down in a vast flock that blotted the sky. 4 hours ago they flooded the bazaar and attempted to drag off much of the food on display... and some of the children..."

The man grows teary-eyed and almost collapses to the ground. He wipes away his tears and looks at the caucasian foreigner hopefully.

"They seemed unstoppable. Several psychics came here and tried to kill them but the monsters simply grew stronger by eating one another. With each attack, they looked as though they changed to resist it. It was not until both psychics attacked in unison that a single of the beasts fell. After that, we thought they had left us for good yet one by one the monsters came to snatch bits of food or precious trinkets. Then one of the larger ones tried to attack that young man"

The Japanese vendor motions to the young man who was only recently in the clutches of the monster.

"This time however it appears to be having difficulty healing. Perhaps it is too tired to regenerate properly?"

The beast's body quivers ever slightly before heaving out liters of green fluid and collapsing on the ground dead. The metallic collar on its neck bears the label Mk 2 and a small red light has begun to blink on and off now that the creature is dead. A similar collar lies in a pile of ashes several feet away and several patches of scorched earth and frozen ground give away the nature of the two psychics who fought these monsters.

Grey cocks a brow, and offers a reassuring smile. "Psychics huh?" He kneels down near the larger bat monster, and pulls out a Swiss army knife, attempting to cut the creature open, inspecting it with a careful eye. "Why don't you tell me a little about them." he says as he pulls out a small vial to take a sample, he glances back and adds, "And please, a little slow, I'm not fluent in Japanese."

"One of the psychics called himself "Rage", the other was a woman, she was referred to as "Depression". The woman could control ice while the man could control flames. Their powers were so fiercesome that I could've sworn they were members of the Seven Devils themselves! The man appeared concerned about the collars on the animals, something about experiments. I'm sorry if this is a little vague, it happened so fast and it was so chaotic it was hard to keep up. After they managed to kill one of the monsters the rest of the flock fled and they left to meet with some "Boss" or authority figure."

The Japanese man relays the information with a little difficulty as his memory of the events is slightly spotty. As he finishes describing what happened he excuses himself and returns to his stall where he gives his grandson a large hug. The vial of organic compounds extracted from the bat froths and foams and the fluid inside appears to be moving on its own.

Unbeknownst to the men around him, Grey's eye snaps multiple pictures of the corpses on the ground, and of the collars as he examines each one in turn. He takes a video feed of the vial in his hand, before emptying the contents, and turning to the vendors. "As soon as your able, gather these parts and burn them. If these things come back, hire bodyguards. Capable ones." He turns, satisfied from his investigation, and stalks out of the market.

The merchants follow Grey's instructions and the attacks on the bazaar end within a few days. Merchants and buyers later report a mysterious man in a strange military garb attending the burnings of the monsters and taking vigorous notes...