Hong Kong Warriors

Ying Wu

Ying Wu stretched and yawned. Taking the day off was a good choice—she felt more relaxed already. Walking the streets without a care, she didn't notice she'd gone into the area near Lang Dong Cemetery.

When she did notice, she was close. Uncomfortably close. She swallowed and began to back away, but slipped into an alley as soon as a car pulled up and men began unloading crates of something. Ying Wu noted that they wore the white armbands of the Silver Ghost gang.

"Quick! Bury these bones!"

"Yes sir!"

Bones? Why would they want to bury bones, and not a body? Curiouser and curiouser...

"As soon as we can find the other bones we can sell the whole set at that amateur archaeology convention. We gotta catch that skeleton kid! The rest are with him!"

So the bones belonged to some kind of animated skeleton? Was it evil? But then again, it was a child...It couldn't be too malignant, right?

Whatever. It wasn't her business. Ying Wu quietly headed in the other direction, hoping that it wouldn't become her business.

"Bye!" Boney cheerfully waved when Sijo took his leave.

He went back to his room and retrieved his shovel and dowsing rods.

"Master, I'll go and look for my bones now, okay?"

Shen gave a last, mildly confused nod at Sijo in goodbye, before closing the door with a small frown of thought, one which only left and was replaced by an expression of incredulity as Boney picked up his shovel and other equipment.

“Wait – you're going now– oh... screw it...” Shen mumbled, drawing his hand down his face and heaving a sigh. “Alright, kid. I'll come with you. Just give me a moment to get set up.”

With that, he slipped into the kwoon to retrieve his weaponry.

Boney nodded at Shen happily and set about locating his bones using his dowsing rods.

Holding the shorter side of the L-shaped bones and pointing the longer sides parallel to the ground, he slowly shuffled his feet so that he spun around in a circle.

When he faced the direction of Lang Dong Cemetery, the bones twitched towards one another momentarily.

"Got it," Boney sang happily while waiting for Shen.

The Commissioner took Fong's question into consideration.

"I'll pass it around with our other counterparts. See if there's a lead or two. Otherwise, you may have to do it through chain of command within CID, CIB or OCTB."

He then reminded him.

"One more thing, the Sergeant is only your liaison officer with Special Branch in the meantime, so he'll be in the SB office. If you need assistance or if it's deemed important, he'll come along. Understand?"

Mark listened in on what the Commissioner said.

Shen returned shortly after Boney's proclamation, dressed in a more professional looking suit (barring the slightly crumpled shirt collar) and seeming somewhat more impassive and composed than before. Black leather gloves adorned his wrists, which he adjusted, flicking his dull, now almost glassy stare across the skeleton boy's dowsing rods.

“I assume you're ready then. In that case, we should get going as soon as possible. We don't know if they're going to move them any more,” he stated monotonously. Interestingly, there was no obvious sign of weaponry on his person, and so it must be assumed that his clothing was specially designed and tailored so as to minimize suspicion.

Boney

Boney danced around Shen in wonder, staring up at him.

"Woah! Master looks much nicer and cooler now!" he proclaimed before grabbing Shen's hand with his own cold and somewhat clammy hand. He tugged Shen along, cheerfully chirping a "This way!"

By and by they arrived at Lang Dong Cemetery, where the bones were buried. Boney rushed ahead gleefully and began digging up a spot, pulling up a wooden crate, and throwing the lid wide open. He gingerly took out a small pelvis and absorbed it into himself.

He was about to recover the rest of his bones when...

...he couldn't feel them. Confused, he took out his dowsing rods and found that his bones were scatted in various locations all over Lang Dong Cemetery.

"They're scattered again," he mumbled unhappily. Then he took a step forward and sprang back as if burnt. "Bad place. Scary place. Don't want to go in..."

Boney backed away, shaking his head sadly.

And he ran off, crying.

Boney ran, and ran, and ran. Eventually, he ended up in Hao Ping Park and felt a little better. Still, what was he going to do?

He sniffled a bit and contemplated his options. There weren't any.

Suddenly, he heard a voice beside him!

"Hey, kid! What're you doing here?" a police officer with an unsettling smile barked at him.

"Um—um..." he stuttered.

"You're coming with us," the lady said, and hauled him up by the scruff of his neck.

"Woah, woah. Be gentle with him!" the lady's partner claimed. "He looks fragile."

Boney was being hauled off to the local police station in full view of the public, who were either uninterested in his plight, scared off by the lady's threats, or too spooked by his appearance to help him.

He remembered his knife, but these people were so much stronger than him and he didn't want it to get broken. So he kept quiet while being marched, a hand grabbing the back of his funeral robes.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Aug 9th 2018 at 6:38:11 AM

"Honestly, it's going to be important basically every time." Fong said with a small smile. "You may as well tag along whenever I head out but I think for now we've got a lot of digging to do." He pulled up the files he had on Wolfang and Lugh. "Let's get all we can on these guys. If they've got international priors then hell, maybe Interpol will help get all this info passed around. I'll get my clerks to make you some copies."

Police Station Entrance

"We're here, kid, now get inside," Officer Yeoh said, pushing Boney in front of her.

"But my bones," Boney protested. "Can you help get them for me?"

"Enough!" the lady snarled, and grabbed Boney by the back of his collar. "You've been whining about that all the way here! You magical weirdos all need to jump in a ditch and die!"

"I'm already dead!" was Boney's exclamation as Officer Liu started helping to manhandle him inside the station.

Boney had grabbed onto the door frame and the two were on the inside trying to pull him inside with no success so far.

<"Understood.">

Mark replied to Fong as he got the files when he spoke Cantonese to him.

<"SB will start local, then we'll go and expand our reach overseas.">

As Mark left the office, the Commissioner spoke to Fong. "I'll be in my office. Carry on."

The British expat subsequently left.

Sijo was on his way to the next Feng Shui hotspot when he passed near the police headquarters and the commotion at the entrance drew his attention.

.*What the...? The undead kid?*

The "kid" probably got himself in trouble. And the police likely would not be able to handle him.

He sighed. His first impulse was to ignore it. But the whole thing could turn into a mess. And he could hear the Korean Sorcerers chastising him already.

OK, he needed a plan. They were never going to believe that the kid was basically a zombie. He needed a cover story.

He headed to wards the station.

"Ah, there you are! Officers, that's Bon Ey, son a friend of mine. He's new in town and likely got lost. I hope he didn't cause any trouble."

He then showed them his Korean passport.

Officer Yeoh didn't buy Sijo's story one bit.

"What, you mean, this little freak's your friend?" she spat out, trying to yank Boney into the police station by his feet. Officer Liu was helping her, but it was hard because Boney's grip on the door frame was solid.

"Look, just leave, OK?" Officer Liu entreated. "Yeoh's in one of her moods..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"N-nothing..."

Boney, busy keeping himself from being pulled into the police station, only responded with a half-cheerful, half-panicked "Hiiiiiiiii!"

.*Darnit they are not buying it*

"Look, I'll prove it. Let me talk to him in Korean"

However, Sijo did not speak in Korean, but in the Tongue of the Dead:

"Kid, if you have any Supernatural Powers, use them now. We need a distraction so we can get away."

Boney frantically said, "Listen to him, what he's saying is true—" before a particularly forceful tug from both officers dislodged him from the door frame.

The door slammed shut like a coffin lid.

Behind Sijo were several half-buried dog skeletons that weren't there before.

Wolfang

The Dark Angel watched the goings on with the silver ghost group, specifically what was happening with their leader. He grinned - things were going well. That little assembled thing was collecting itself well enough, and the Sacrifice was going to develop further.

"Lugh..."

The dark noble's spot in their little den included - of course - a tea set, after all, Lugh was still a Englishman. "Tea for the evening's entertainment?"

"...yeah, you know what, that works just fine for me." Wolfang walked over, considering the progress so far.

Soon, the entire city would know the weight of calamity...

Police Station

Ying Wu walked right past the main doorway just as Boney came barreling out with the bone knife clasped in one clammy hand.

Officer Yeoh charged out of the door with a bleeding cut on her cheek. "GET BACK HERE, YOU WHINY LITTLE BASTARD!"

Meanwhile, Officer Liu's voice came from inside the building. "Ow! The little guy cut me! I didn't know he had that in him."

Boney hid behind Ying Wu, who didn't want to be dragged into this kerfuffle, but was now embroiled in it anyways.

"Hey there, er, bone spirit!" Ying Wu began awkwardly as Yeoh ran back inside the police station to fuss over Liu's cut. "Do you want to come with me to Red Flower Restaurant? It's where I live, and you can have some food if you're hungry."

"Okay! Just don't let those baddies get me!" Boney said fearfully.

"...And that's how I ran into those guys," Boney finished his story through a mouthful of egg noodles.

"I heard some guys talking about how they didn't need the bones for the ritual earlier..." Ying Wu said, trying to break the news to Boney.

"Oh, oh! Happy day! Good day!" Boney clapped at this piece of information.

"...And now they want to sell your bones at an amateur archaeology convention next month," Ying Wu finished, bracing for Boney's reaction.

Boney simultaneously tried to swallow the noodles and spit them out, leading to the long noodles becoming caught in Boney's throat. He choked for a few seconds before finally managing to swallow all of them.

"That's just as bad as burning them! I won't be able to find them again if they do that! And that stupid evil graveyard place moved my bones too!" Boney shouted.

"Shh, shh, you're disturbing the customers," Ying Wu said gently. "How about a song to help you calm down?"

"That would be nice. Thank you. Uh. Food Lady," Boney said.

"My name is Ying Wu."

"I'm called Boney. Nice to meet you, Food Lady."

Ying Wu just sighed and started playing a song on her pipa.

On way back to SB office.

Mark had just a commotion going on outside the Wan Chai station that something or someone had made a fuss with a couple of constables.

<"What the heck happened?"> The SB officer mused as he got near to the office. He had some files pertaining to the raid at the border.

The case won't just sift through itself.

Fong finished more writeups on his end and emerged from his office into the bullpen proper to eye up what the hell that commotion was. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Christ. It felt like Hong Kong was about to explode. He had to find people who could help. Someone to... fuck, he needed some kind of onboarding.

The officer dialed the Red Flower Restaurant. He was going to get himself a full primer on the supernatural from the one person he knew was for real.

Ying Wu answered the ringing phone.

"Hello, this is Red Flower Restaurant. May I help you with something?" she said in a practiced peppy tone.

Sijo had been, for a moment, really worried about how Boney's confrontation with the Hong Kong police would end. Fortunately (or was it? Maybe it was the Tao at work), Ying Wu happened by and dragged him back to her restaurant. He decided to join them there.

"...So you have no memory of who you were? And you are obsessed with finding your missing bones?" he asked the boy, who was too busy eating noodles to answer right away.

Sigh. This boy is going to be nothing but trouble. That other Mystic should have kept a tighter leash on him.

"I can see if any of my contacts know anything about bones being sold in the Black Market" he offered.

Matsuki - Back In Action

Matsuki was basically feeling down the entirety of the day - he was not on the case that he felt he needed to be on, and his thoughts were on his father. The mockery and the playing to some of Matsuki's buttons...

That was when the superiors called him and brought him into some sort of case involving bones and Triad activity. He was relieved to get a new assignment, but disappointed that he couldn't return to the prior case.

The young cop suited up and headed out, deciding to get things in order in his head and then get to work. When he saw one of the advised contacts was the Red Flower, his eyes widened a bit. Sure he was off the case, but that didn't mean he couldn't look into some matters...

"I know I'm dead," Boney said, in between bites of noodles. "But I can't remember who I was when I was alive. And I've been dead for a longer time than I remember, so there's that. And I very much want to find my bones."

"I want to find my bones," he repeated again, in response to the second question.

RHKP Offices

"This is Officer Fong Yu of the RHKP. We met last night and ah..." He leaned back in his chair. "I'm hoping you could help me create a brief overview on magic in Hong Kong for the police department to read. Feng Shui, monsters, conjurations, all of it, we need to be prepared to fight it. You'll be paid. Are you in?"

Red Flower Restaurant

Ying Wu nodded, even though Fong couldn't see her.

"Oh! Yes, I can do that. I'm at work, though. And there's someone here who needs help finding his bones, so if you want to talk to him, you can come over. I think he might know some useful things."

"You can expect the manual ready...oh, I don't know...in a few days."

The SB office was able to process the request on any police records regarding Wolfgang's activities. From what they were told, it'll take a few days to get it. But the prelim records suggested that the man was briefly arrested before he disappeared.

The Metropolitan Police Service had been hunting him for a while, but had no leads.

"Damn..." Mark muttered when he heard the news.

A SB clerk mentioned that there was new evidence being gathered on the raid at the border towards China.

"All right. I'll go and have a look."

Meanwhile

As the events escalated and movements were made, if the leader of the Silver Ghost Triad looked in the mirror, he would find a most curious development.

Whereas he had been in his twenties earlier that day, now he was only around 18.