The Investigative Joint Task Force of the Fragrant Harbor city!

by Alsvid

Where can we eat?

May 12, 1984

Hong Kong

Un Chau Street, Sham Sui Po, Sham Sui Po District

12:00 PM

---

Cantonese Restaurants in Hong Kong are cheap, cheerful eateries where people from all walks of life – families, couples, singles, the elderly, not only gather to eat and drink, but to shoot the breeze with friends, sell wares to other patrons, or decompress on the way to work while reading a newspaper and enjoying one of the exquisite, soft, delicately prepared dumplings.

In one of these, a pair of foreigners, young adults in their early 20’s, were eating – or, to be more precise, one of them was eating and looking at her laptop.

---

---

Now, let me take you aside and clarify, dear reader: she was looking at a laptop, but not the sort of laptop you might be familiar with, with a Retina Display, USB, WI-FI, high-fidelity sound, and what have you.

It looked like an outsized dark grey brick, with a floppy disk drive, an Intel 8088, and MS-DOS.

The female foreigner’s fingers were fairly flying over the keyboard.

She only took her hands off to push another absurdly tiny dumpling into her mouth (after soaking it liberally in soy sauce), or swallow some of her tea.

The restaurant is one of the fancy new places that emphasizes eating healthy; consequently, the portions are barely large enough to satiate a slightly peckish ant.

She is a tall, imposing-looking young woman with skin as black as ink; one would make a disastrous mistake thinking she is an ordinary black woman from the Earth, however, as her greenish-blue irises glow faintly, an eerie bio-luminescence, barely detectable except in low-light conditions.

Her night-black hair is also strangely long and straight, pulled back from her head and tied in a severe ponytail.

She is also marginally more muscular and athletic in build than one of her earth-bound compatriots, although the untrained observer might simply think she is an ordinary black woman who does gymnastics or aerobics instruction as a hobby. She has wide hips, thick thighs, long, powerful arms with slender hands and thin, delicate-looking fingers.

She is heavily armed, although a casual observer might not think so.

She is wearing a form-fitting Battle Skin, Mark VI. Manufactured by Flurry’s Armament Company, the blue, catsuit seems as if it’s simply made from some kind of shiny spandex, or perhaps vinyl.

In fact, it is made of crystals.

The outer layers are spun crystal fibers, impossibly light, impossibly strong.

A .50 BMG bullet would plink off it like a paintball.

Underneath, soft, refined crystal gel (touching it reminds one rather of silicone) absorbs the impact – along with punches, kicks, knives, spears, and whatever other weapons one might deploy against her.

Beneath all this is a crystal polymer – in essence, a luxurious, delicate-feeling, synthetic fabric intended for contact against one’s skin.

It is padded with extra gel in places where it would be beneficial to the user, such as around the woman’s knees, her elbows, and her wrists – so.

The Battle Skin’s outer layers behave like a giant heat sink, bleeding off excess heat and keeping her from feeling even remotely warm enough to induce the slightest margin of discomfort, while an internal crystal-powered thermal regulator system ensures she feels comfy even in below-zero temperatures.

The layer of refined crystal gel performs the role of thermal paste for this particular heatsink, facilitating maximum heat transfer from her body to the outer layers, where it is bled off harmlessly.

A nano-sized, photonic crystal integrated circuit system gives her Battle Skin enough computing power to monitor her vital signs – core body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure…even what chemicals are in her system. She can receive and transmit messages, information, and view them on a virtual screen projected upon her retinas, courtesy of a brain-computer interface linking her suit’s smart-systems to her nervous system.

Her fingernails are short and unadorned – you can’t type with long, ostentatious ones, or strike someone with a closed fist, or pull a trigger with a set of the prohibitively expensive, intricately designed, inch-long monstrosities.

What’s more, one can’t scrub one’s skin efficiently with long nails. And this woman is used to scrubbing things off her skin, especially blood. Her skin fairly glows from regular scrubbing; she has rubbed moisturizing lotion into her skin, as well, so she has that dark black wet-look sheen. She smells faintly of lavender perfume, soap, and coconut shampoo. There is a hint of cordite around her, as well.

She does not appear to favor makeup, with exquisitely brushed, fluffy eyelashes, dark kohl eye shadow, a muted, earthy red rouge on her cheeks, and faint, barely-there red lipstick upon her large, full, vaguely pouty lips.

Her breasts are astoundingly large, like cantaloupes thrust out before her chest proudly, drawing her blue Battle Skin taut. Her buttocks are similarly sized, round and firm.

She is clearly a Zebra woman. More importantly, she is a Zebra woman called Alsvid.

---

The male foreigner sitting across the table was smoking a vaporizer (one of the fancy, large modded types so popular in Equestria these days, with the rectangular body, the LCD display showing the temperature of the vapor, and the short mouthpiece), chugging the strong tea the restaurant offered, and reading a newspaper.

He, too, appears to be lightly armed, until one notices the red gem half-sunk in the dead centre of his chest.

He’s wearing a leather jacket filled with crystallized ceramic plates, enough armor for him to shrug off mere bullets, and heavy enough to immobilize all but a very strong man.

Strength is certainly not something this man lacks. He has left his jacket open, exposing his broad, muscular chest, rigid with bulging pectorals like another layer of steel plating around his thoracic cavity.

His prominent, iron-hard abdominal muscles jut out proudly along his slender belly, his wide shoulders and protruding neck muscles drawing his leather jacket taut, his sizeable biceps stretching the sleeves of the jacket to what looks like bursting point, powered with thick veins like a network of ropes beneath his smooth skin.

His gigantic quads and enlarged calf muscles give the impression that a mere twitch of their owner’s body would tear his jeans to shreds. He has large, powerful-looking hands with leathery, resilient skin, capable of crushing someone’s windpipe effortlessly, or slaying a person with a single blow.

He has the ephemeral V-shape to his torso considered the pinnacle of masculinity. His hard body seems to ooze pure, dizzying, intoxicating manliness. The air around him seems to be faintly warm, as well, though one cannot sense any heat around him.

Yet, in spite of that, there’s a shimmer around him, like hot asphalt at the peak of July’s hottest day. His eyes are a bright red, like molten lava, glowing fiercely. His face is unlined, youthful, with an straight, pointed nose, black brows, and a mane of messy black hair. He has a swarthy, dark complexion, indicating Mexican heritage.

His expression makes it absolutely clear that this is the sort of man one should cross only if they are armed with their own personal fireteam. There is a sense of barely controlled rage about him, like that of a ravening wolf collecting its energy to spring at its quarry and bury its teeth in its flesh.

Hong Kong’s summers are hot, and in spite of his obvious affinity with fire, the male foreigner is sweating slightly. An occasional rivulet of perspiration rolls down the firm ridges of his muscular chest and belly. There is a scent of cologne, molten metal, and male musk around him.

This foreigner is Leo, a male Earthling human, and he is the actual main character of this story.

---

The rest of the Cantonese restaurant is filled with Asian people, mostly ethnic Chinese. So having foreigners in their space is quite unusual. Their mere presence causes something of a stir.

Quite a few of the male waiters blush and start dropping things around Alsvid, especially when she flutters her eyelashes and grins (in a rather foolish way, or one might even say, a foalish way) at them.

Some even do so when confronted with Leo’s molten-lava gaze and stern tones. The female waitresses turn a furious shade of red and are reduced to quaking jellies of arousal when Leo turns his attention upon them.

The other patrons with clear sightlines of the two forego watching the television or perusing the newspapers to stare at the foreigners.

Alsvid pays very little heed to all of this, thoroughly engrossed in her laptop. She is actually looking at the information projected upon her retinas in concert with the information on the laptop screen.

“So what did the Professor say?” Leo grunted, rustling his newspaper.

Alsvid shook her head, her throat bobbing visibly as she swallowed a mouthful of dumpling. “Nothing yet,” she said, thickly, through another dumpling. “She’s still meeting with the Chief Executive.”

“Who’s that again? Sorry, I’m terrible at keeping the names of these political figures in my head…”

“You don’t like politics?”

Alsvid quirked one of her delicately arched eyebrows, her full lips set in an amused smile.

Leo growled, showing long, sharp white teeth.

“I have my reasons.”

“Say no more,” Alsvid said, with a knowing wink and a grin. “Anyway, to answer your question: the new Chief Executive, Anna Sung, was voted in last year on a liberal platform. She is on friendly terms with the Equestrian Government and the Princess Celestia. Pro-immigration, pro-equality, and she’s preparing various initiatives to reform the government, protect the environment, improve food safety…”

Leo, who was just about to help himself to one of Alsvid’s dumplings, narrowed his eyes in a suspicious manner.

“Food safety?”

Alsvid waved a dismissive hand. “For food carts. You know they just let anyone run those things. You don’t have to worry about Mr. Tsang’s place.”
She was referring to the Cantonese Restaurant they were currently dining in.

“The old man’s a stickler for cleanliness – as he should be. You don’t get to run one of the most popular restaurants by hiring yokels who don’t wash their hands.”

Leo, who until now had been giving the dumpling a very jaundiced look, cautiously dunked it in soy sauce and ate it.

“Pass the vape, would you?” Alsvid held out her hand.

Leo handed her the vaporizer, and she began puffing away happily. “Ahhhh...nothing like a little nicotine to stir up one’s digestion.”

Leo’s mouth twitched, the ghost of a smile threatening to form. “You’ll need quite a bit more than a little.”

“Are you implying I eat a lot?” Alsvid said, in mock-outrage.

One of the sprightly young waitresses, who happened to be nearby - a Chinese girl in a white qipao, with her black hair tightly bound in twin-tails - burst into laughter.

"Of course that's what he's implying. You're eating us out of house and home, Alsvid!"

"Who asked you?" Alsvid shot back, cheerfully. "Anyway, I don't see you complaining about it, Zhou Wei!"

"You're damn right I'm not complaining," Zhou Wei admitted. "You just keep forking over the tips and we'll keep shoveling it in! It's like feeding a furnace with you! I didn't know foreigners liked to eat so much!"

"I'm much taller than you, sweet cheeks," Alsvid teased, running a hand over the shallow curve of her thigh.

Zhou Wei crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. "Hmmm, quite. I'm surprised you could even get through the door!"

"Yes, that's nice. Are you going to bring me another tea, or what?"

"All right, all right. Keep your hair on." Zhou Wei sauntered off to the kitchen, disappearing between its double doors in a rush of steam and smoke. There was a toothsome smell of food cooking.

---

Alsvid resumed her discussion with Leo.

"We don’t really have a place in her new government, being as she promised to cut down on the use of special operations task forces like ours…”

“Shush,” Leo said, warningly, as a young Chinese family, surrounded by tiny children of all genders, approaches their table.

“Oh, sorry.”

The patriarch of the family– a prim, clean-cut Chinese male in his early 30’s, slim and sharply dressed in a bespoke black suit – insinuates himself at the table, giving Alsvid and Leo an ingratiating smile. “Afternoon, you two. Enjoying your stay in Hong Kong?”

His inflection and tonality suggests a highly intelligent white-collar worker of some sort. He clearly wishes to display his prestige, fearlessness, and influence by engaging these strange foreigners, with his family in close proximity, no less.

Alsvid nods wordlessly around another dumpling in her mouth, eyeing the man’s wife; a round-faced, complacent looking Chinese woman who seemed deeply self-satisfied, surrounded by her tiny children. The children were all staring at Alsvid and Leo with wide eyes and open mouths, as if they could barely believe what they were seeing.

Leo shrugs, raising his massive shoulders (bulwarks of flesh, blood, and bone; he looks as though he could dam a river simply by standing in it).

“It’s all right. We’re from the government and we’re here to help, actually.”

“Ah!” The Chinese man sat down at their table, an ingratiating smile on his face. “And are you here on a diplomatic mission, then? You are from Equestria, then? I love Equestria! It’s great!”

“Just the thing,” Leo said, noncommittally. “I’m not from Equestria. I’m from North America, actually. She’s from Equestria.” He nodded at Alsvid.

“Your wife?” the Chinese businessman asked.

“Something like that,” Leo said, comfortably smoking his vaporizer. Alsvid had handed it back to him, and was crouched back over her laptop.

Author's Note:

Are you excited for the Professor to show up?