Fic: Asian Tigers, part 1/3

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You can all blame Frito for this one. I got into the Tomb Raider 2 screencaps again this afternoon and was captioning them at her for comedy's sake, when all of a sudden, a narrative started to develop... hence, fic. Illustrated fic, no less. (Yes, that means heavy on the graphics behind the LJ-cut. :)

Set five years or thereabout prior to current game-time, and as you might guess from the icon, Pack-fic.


Asian Tigers
part one of 3

~*~



Domino blinked. Blinked again. And only then found her voice. "Oh, I get it," she said caustically. "You're toying with me."

"What? Come on, Dom. Do I look like I'm toying with you?"

He didn't particularly, Domino had to admit. She had known Nathan Dayspring for long enough now to be able to spot the sadistic glint in those gray eyes - when it was there, which it didn't appear to be at the moment. So, probably not toying with her, even if it sounded too good to be true.

Then again, she could be forgiven for maybe missing the little cues, she thought. Having one's father-figure cum mentor cum object of unrequited lust standing there fresh from having pounded David into the mats sparring and thus looking all sweaty and triumphant and generally like a pin-up from Soldier of Fortune magazine was just a little distracting. Yeah, that was the word.

"You really want me to back you up on this job?" she asked, trying not to sound too eager. Wouldn't do to come across as grateful or anything. He might decide he was actually just yanking her chain after all. "Just me?"

"It's a two-person job." Nathan reached for a towel, grimacing a little as he rotated one shoulder. Domino could see the bruises rising already; David must have gotten in a few good hits. "Look at it as a chance to prove that Madagascar was a fluke."

Domino felt herself turn bright red. And given her skin tone, when she turned bright red it was blazing, crimson, lobster red. "I thought you weren't going to throw that in my face anymore," she complained bitterly. She'd been going on jobs with the Pack for... well, better than a year and a half now. He really ought to stop treating her like a complete rookie.

"No, GW was the one who said that. I was kind of planning to rub your nose in it on a regular basis until I'm convinced you've learned better."

"Bastard," she muttered at his back as he started towards his room. "Fine. I'll come."

"Of course you will."

"Do I get a running critique on my style and technique?" she snarked.

"If you ask nicely."

~*~



#Ready?# Nathan's voice in her head was calm, almost conversational. Just as if this was a perfectly ordinary parachute jump they were doing, rather than a HALO jump. Without the parachute.

Domino adjusted her helmet and glared at him. Ready, she thought back. Not happy, but ready.

#Relax, I've done this before.#

At Mistra?

#Bingo. Admittedly, just with myself...#

If she hadn't been wearing an oxygen mask, she'd have yelled at him. As it was, she was tempted to hit him, especially when he looked at her and she saw the suspicious smile lines around his eyes. Having fun at her expense when he was about to use his TK to bring them to a safe landing from twenty-five thousand feet up? Not cool, jackass.

#Just trying to lighten the mood, tiger.# He rose at a signal from the copilot. #Time to go.#

~*~



They'd landed quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Lush, green, rolling middle-of-nowhere, but still, there wasn't anything resembling civilization to be seen.

"Huh," Domino said, glancing over her shoulder as they walked towards the little stone farmhouse, snug-looking with its slate-tiled roof and cheery - if worn - paint job. "Look, it's the Great Wall of China." It was somewhat more impressive than it was in the pictures, even at a distance.

"Seen it before," was Nathan's somewhat distracted-sounding answer. Domino gave him a sharp look, but he didn't react. In fact, he'd been a little out of it since they'd landed, and she was starting to get a little concerned. Especially given that she'd noticed the abortive nosebleed in those first few minutes they'd spent collecting themselves after touchdown. That generally meant bad things. In fact, it topped the rather lengthy list of 'Things To Watch Out For If You're Ever Off On Your Own With Nate' that GW had given her. David's jokes about GW's mothering tendencies had some basis in reality; she'd learned that years ago.

"Hey, Nate? You sure you're okay?" No point in beating around the bush, she told herself.

Nathan did look at her this time. He mustered a faint smile. "It is harder with two people," he conceded, then looked back at the ground, as if he needed to pay particular attention to where he was putting his feet - because his depth perception was a little off? Would be consistent with overextending his TK, Domino thought a bit dourly.

"Don't see why we couldn't have just used parachutes," she grumbled.

"I didn't want the Zhous to have to hide the parachutes. Just in case anyone tracked us coming in," Nathan said.

"The Zhous? Your contacts?" Domino blinked as the front door of the house opened and a tiny, obviously ancient Chinese woman came scuttling out and headed right for them, yelling in rapid-fire Mandarin at Nathan. "Uh, Nate?" she asked, her hand moving instinctively to her gun.

Nathan waved a hand at her, shaking his head, and picked up his pace to meet the old woman halfway, his Mandarin just as natural-sounding as hers, no hesitation whatsoever. Domino made a face, somewhat envious. She was doing her best to pick up the 'necessary' languages for the areas of the world the Pack usually worked, but it was the height of irony that, despite having grown up in Hong Kong, she didn't speak a word of Mandarin or Cantonese.

She was fussing at him, Domino thought in amazement, watching the interaction between the two. Scolding him. Who was this little old woman and why was she reading Nate the riot act?

It was kind of funny, actually. By the time the old woman had finished her ranting and hustled them onwards towards the house, Domino was finding herself hard-pressed not to snigger.

"Mrs. Zhou, I presume?" she asked Nathan as the old woman waved in the direction of a long wooden table at the side of the house, already laid out with food. He nodded slowly. "She knows you fairly well, I gather?" She smirked. "You don't usually get the mother-hen act from strangers."

"We met," Nathan said, his voice low. "Years ago." He went right for the pitcher of water, pouring himself a cup, and then just stood there, staring out at the green, rolling hills and the mountains.

Domino flopped down on one of the benches, helping herself to lunch and not-so surreptitiously watching him. "You're being odd," she proclaimed after a few moments of silence. "What's wrong?"

For a minute, she didn't think she was going to get an answer. He didn't turn towards her, even when he did finally respond. "Deja vu," he said softly, his voice barely audible. "It's been four years and it still looks the same."

"Four years since... what?" Domino asked, perplexed.

"My last mission with Mistra," Nathan said, the answer so totally unexpected that Domino gaped at him, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. "This was our staging point, believe it or not."

"Um. We're okay to be here?" She figured the answer was probably yes, or they wouldn't be - Nathan wasn't that incautious.

"Yeah." His voice was quieter again. "We're okay to be here. Everyone else who knew about the Zhous is dead."

~*~



"~Thank you for all your help,~" Nathan said, accepting the shirt from Zhou Mei with a smile. She and her husband were of course being paid well for their help, like all the contacts he had kept from his Mistra years and the new ones he had since developed, but it never hurt to attend to the niceties.

Mei's wrinkled face developed a whole new set of lines as she smiled. Pleasant lines, though. "~It is good to see you so well, Nathan. After the last time.~"

His smile wavered a little at the reminder, and the memory hit him like a fist to the gut, almost literally; he caught himself hunching over a little before he forced himself to straighten, ignoring the throbbing headache and the sudden wave of nausea. But ever since he and Dom had reached the top of that last hill and seen the farmhouse, he'd been fighting it - fighting the memory of stumbling over the hills in the dark, carrying Dawn, the agony in his chest as he coughed and coughed until he was choking on blood only barely a match for the anguish over the friends he'd left behind in that building.

"~Will you be coming back this way?~" Mei asked, concern in her dark eyes as she saw the change in his expression. She was perceptive, one of the reasons he'd maintained the relationship with her when he'd left Mistra. Never hurt to have eyes-and-ears who could watch and listen with some discrimination.

He forced himself to smile back. "~Not likely.~" He leaned over and kissed her weathered cheek gently. "~And not to worry, I'll take the Jeep away so that your grandson isn't tempted.~"

"~Oh, good.~" She beamed at him.

~*~



"So here we are."

"A cave," Domino said skeptically, looking up at where Nathan indicated. "We're meeting our employers in a cave?"

"Representatives of our employers, Dom, yes. And they're Chinese Triad," Nathan reminded her dryly. "They like isolated rural hideaways."

Domino sniffed, adjusting her backpack. "Rustic living," she quipped. "Not my cup of tea. I suppose they probably don't shower, out here?" She rolled her eyes as they headed up the slope to the mouth of the café. Two rather large gentlemen emerged - with guns, she noticed warily. Not that it stopped her from continuing merrily. "I suppose they're probably... aggressive, too. The unwashed usually are." She yelped as Nathan reached out and grabbed her arm, his grip tight enough to hurt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two guards stiffen, their guns coming up. "Nate, what the fuck are you doing?"



"Behave yourself," he said, looking almost incredulously at her, as if she'd done something unbelievable instead of just being a little mouthy. Domino raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm serious," he said more harshly, giving her a little shake. "Drop the smartass act, right here, or you can wait right here while I conduct business inside."

"Oh, no." She wrenched her arm out of his grip. "You are not leaving me out here." She glared up at him. Obviously past bad associations were eating at him today, but this was Just Unacceptable. No one got to manhandle her, least of all Nathan.

"Then keep your fucking mouth shut while we're in there," he growled at her. "I am not in the mood to play clean-up in your wake again."

"Fuck you," she said with a certain amount of righteous indignation. If it hadn't been for the men with guns, she would have hit him. She so hated it when he harped on things. "I can watch what I say."

"Prove it," was his curt rejoinder as he climbed the side of the hill more quickly, leaving her to trail along behind him.

~*~

"~This is your partner, Dayspring?~" The man who'd introduced himself as Huang, their employer's representative, was a prototypical specimen of his kind, heavily muscled and rather elaborately tattooed. And high on something, Nathan thought with distaste, picking up on the telltale edge to the man's undisciplined thoughts. Great, just great.

"~Yes,~" he responded in Mandarin, sending Dom a brief reassurance - she was picking up on tone and body language, if not what Huang was actually saying, and getting justifiably ruffled. Nathan couldn't blame her, between Huang and the appraising looks she was getting from some of the other members of his group. Although she was really going to need to learn to let that sort of thing roll off her back - or use it, and he couldn't believe he was thinking that. She was nineteen years old and all too well-equipped to play the femme fatale already. "~I vouch for her,~" he said, when Huang laughed at him. "~You think I'd bring someone unqualified to back me up on a job that pays this well?~"

"~No,~" Huang conceded with a sharklike grin. "~Especially when you only get paid the other half of your fee upon completion.~" He handed Nathan an envelope. "~Info on the target.~"

"~Thanks. So why the personal meeting?~" Nathan asked, tucking the envelope inside his jacket. He'd take a look at it later, once they were out of here. The sheer number of men with guns in here was making him a little nervous. Some of the thoughts he was catching were just curious, but more were borderline hostile. And Huang wasn't the only one who'd been indulging in recreational chemicals. This is not impressing me, he thought grimly. Ramirez had warned him once about dealing with the Triads, telling him they weren't as predictable as the Russian mafia, but he hadn't expected that to extend to this level of unprofessionalism.

Huang shrugged. "~My boss didn't want to risk phone calls or emails being intercepted. Besides, you were the one who choose to enter the country this way, remember? We,~" and he made an exaggerated gesture at his men, "~were in the area on another matter. It worked out well, wouldn't you say?~"

"~Right.~" Nathan's eyebrows headed for his hairline, and not over the 'coincidence'. No, Huang had just implied something far more ominous. If someone high enough in a Triad to afford to be able to hire from the Pack was worried about eavesdroppers, it meant only one thing: the Chinese government was just as interested in protecting the target. "~I see,~" he said skeptically. "~And you're positive that this is a two-man job.~"

"~Yes, yes. Well,~" Huang said, leering at Dom, "~one man and one...~" It was not a polite word, what he chose to describe Dom, and Nathan, against all good sense, caught himself bristling at it. Huang didn't seem to notice, or care. "~Sure she wouldn't like to earn a bit of a bonus, while she's here? Although I suppose she's expensive.~"



Nathan gave him a warning look, but didn't take the bait. "~Anything more you need us to know?~" he asked flatly.

"~Pity,~" Huang said with a dismissive wave, apparently tiring of the game. "~And no. Target's in Shanghai, like your initial contact said.~"

"~Best if we get moving, then,~" Nathan said, looking at Dom and jerking his head towards the entrance ot the cave. Her expression cold and her violet eyes boring into him like daggers - yeah, they would need to have a talk once they were back on the road again - she headed in that direction, her chin held high.

One of the other men laughed and made a grab for her as she went past him. Domino sidestepped easily, glaring, and spat something more than moderately offensive in Russian at him.

The man froze, eyes widening in obvious comprehension, and Nathan swore, lunging between them as the man made another, rather more serious attempt to grab her.

"~Bitch!~" the man raved in Mandarin. "~You want to see how small I am, come here and I'll show you!~"

#What is it with you and insulting men's dick size?# Nathan thought at her, exasperated. She hesitated, her eyes going from him to the man he was grappling with, and he hurled a mental curse at her. #Outside, damn it!#

It cost him, that instant of distraction. Easily offended or not, the man he was struggling with wasn't entirely a neophyte in hand to hand. Nathan managed to dodge the kick just enough so that, although it did connect, it didn't dislocate his knee. Still, the hit was enough to knock him off-balance, and the air abruptly exited his lungs as he found himself slammed back against the rock wall of the cave.



His reaction was instinctive, and just a little bit over the top. A wave of telekinetic force exploded outwards, sending his opponent spinning away from him like a rag doll, and flattening every man in the cave. Wincing, Nathan pushed himself back upright, trying to ignore the way his head was spinning - a little too much, on top of the jump already today - and heard distinctly feminine laughter as Domino rushed to his side, grabbing his arm and pulling him along with her.

"Time to leave now!" she caroled gleefully, as they exited to the sound of groans and pained curses. "And by the way, the next time you tell me I'm overreacting, I get to laugh in your face!"