[00] Hotel

[Belle Hibiki]

Belle, for once, had few things to complain about. Sure, the place was a little bit fancier than he generally liked, and sure, the television woman's eyes unnervingly seemed to follow him wherever he went, but on the whole, he couldn't imagine a better place to warm up before a tournament.

He'd been at the staging area for a little over three hours, and he was still having trouble processing everything he had seen in the gym. If only he had those machines on the Maiden's Dream, he reflected, he wouldn't ever have to complain about training equipment ever again. They had had everything he could have wanted, and even a few things that he would have never thought of.

Belle shifted as his stomach let out a low, burly growl. The "gravity simulator" on display in the gym had more than piqued his interest, but his hunger would just have to be sated first.

Striding into the nearby restaurant, Belle cast his eyes around and noticed with a jolt that there were some women scattered around the nearby tables. Ordering his food to go, Belle beat a hasty retreat, a paper bag that positively reeked of frying oil and the promise of high calories in hand.

Not a big fan of books, Belle bypassed the library and headed towards the hotel. This turned out to be a bad decision. Women were here, too; and not just any women. [i}Scarlet[/i] women. One of them eyed him as he came through the door. He guessed that she was pretty. Bronzed skin; long, lustrous dark hair to her shoulderblades; and wearing a kind of diaphonous clothing that was obviously not suited to keeping her warm.

Women for money. Hangars, he thought they were called.

He felt his bile rise at the thought, though that might have just been the smell of the food. Changing direction in mid-step, he practically ran towards a softer lit chamber off to the side.

Well, this is different, Belle thought. Instead of the brightly lit, white-washed walls that he had seen nearly everywhere else, the bar of the hotel was warmly furnished with dark, polished wood and navy upholstery so dark as to almost be black. A row of partitioned booths ran along one side of the room, and a wide array of bottles glimmered faintly on several shelf racks that had been arrayed above and behind the bar counter.

Women here, too, though they at least seemed to be gathered in one pack. He'd have to be careful; they were more dangerous in numbers. Like hyenas.

He was just starting to turn towards an empty booth when he stopped. His ear twitched. It couldn't be...

Taking a long arc around the gathered people in the bar, Belle stopped and took a hesitant step inward. Squinted. "... Hey! Hey, Kaden!"

The courier that had been slumped at the bar seemed to stiffen in his seat and then slowly, very slowly, turn his head. Both girls were looking in Belle's direction, too, but he was trying to ignore that. "Belle?" Kaden asked, sounding unsure.

"I thought it was you! Long time no see, huh?"

Kaden grimaced. "I don't think it's even been a week."

"You know him?" one of the girls - the short haired blonde - asked.

"Uh. Kind of," Kaden said slowly, looking as if he was unsure whether he wanted to talk about it or not. He took a deep breath. "I helped him out in Central City about a week ago."

Belle opened his mouth to object and say that they'd helped each other out, but then remembered that he had been really the only one that had gotten anything out of it in the end. Two Dragonballs... Just five more to go... "Er. Yeah. Yeah, he did." He stepped closer. Then, eying the two women closely, he leaned closer to Kaden and whispered, bringing his hand up to mask his lips. "Uh. Kaden?"

"Yeah?"

"You know these - " his eyes flickered to Sage and Sophia " - are girls, right?"

" ... Yeah?" Kaden sighed softly. "And?"

Belle stared at him. Didn't he realize the kind of danger he was in? "Aren't they... kind of close?"

"Close for what?" Sage suddenly spoke from behind him.

"YEAGH?!"

Belle jumped back so fast that he lost his balance and fell, toppling over and right into the woman behind him. Sage let out a soft squeak as the two of them went down in a tangle of limbs, and the edge of something hard - maybe a tabletop - beaned Belle's temple before he hit ground.. His bag slipped from his fingers and skipped across the ground, spilling warm fries out the open top and all over the carpet.

Ears ringing, wondering why it was so dark, Belle realized that he'd landed face first into the floor. Funny, he thought; the floor was awful warm. And soft.

Bringing up his hands, Belle gripped the suddenly surprisingly pliable floor in his calloused fingers and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Blurs swam in front of his eyes. He closed them and shook his head, and when he opened them again, his vision was clear. And that's when he stopped dead, paralyzed with shock at what he saw.

Sage was looking up at him with an expression of sheer terror plastered on her face. It wasn't surprising, with where Belle's hands had ended up. "UH-!" Belle started. He couldn't move. Why couldn't he move? He wanted to let go, but he couldn't. His body refused to move and just trembled on the spot. His hands weren't supposed to be on those things! "UHM-!" He finally managed to get his hands off her chest. He waved them in front of him, feeling his cheeks burn hot as a stovetop. "IT'S NOT - !"

The slap was so fast that Belle didn't even have a chance to react before he was suddenly flipping along the floor like a tossed doll, coming to a stop only when he finally slammed into a set of tables and chairs. There was a deafening crash as the whole mess collapsed top of him, then silence.

"Yeah, that's Belle," Kaden groaned and knocked for a refill of his drink - intentionally, this time.