A/N If you have not read my new story, Counting Stars, you do not know that my computer is taking a shit on me. I BARELY uploaded this, in fact it is frozen on my screen on my laptop while I am on my husband's. I can't even write in Word most of the time without it shitting out. So I might not update this for a while until we get my laptop in working condition again. Sorry :( but I do check email and stuff on my husband's laptop, so if you review (wink wink) I will know. Sorry if I don't respond to them, but do know that they are VERY appreciated! I love all of you who have favorited, followed, and reviewed this story :)

Chapter 3: "Kiss My Sass"

Lucky was startled awake again later to a high-pitched, eardrum-shattering scream. With a gasp her eyes flew open, and a few moments later she regained her most recent memories. In front of her the room was now well-lit, the crystal ball had been replaced with a huge screen on the wall behind a creepy throne. On the screen was a brunette girl being cornered by men with blue-tinged skin. Then the scene changed and the girl was running with Botan.

Yusuke stood in front of Suzaku, shaking with visible anger. Her gun was nowhere in sight. Then she caught a glimpse of something held by the foot of the bird perched on Suzaku's shoulder. Her gun! No one had realized she was conscious; a sneak attack would probably work.

She reached into her sneaker and pulled out a round capsule made of a sophisticated plastic. She twisted the two halves and threw it at her captor. It exploded on impact, tearing a chunk out of his leg. He screamed and she dashed to him, slamming her knee into his side to make him lose his balance and yanked her pistol away from the bird, who took off shrieking. Quickly switching feet she roundhouse kicked him in the head next.

"Millions!" Yusuke finally recovered from shock.

Suzaku laughed from his new position on the floor, that annoying, snobby chortling he was so fond of. Lucky pulled back the hammer of her pistol and fired. Instead of the direct hit it should have been, he just hovered enough to dodge. Now Yusuke was in his element, and his fingertip began glowing bright blue. Lucky stared wide-eyed, her lips stretching into a very eager smile.

"Funny thing about hanging in the air, it's really hard to dodge!" he flung his hand in front of him and pointed the pent-up energy at Suzaku. "Spirit Gun!"

Lucky laughed out of excitement. A rush of adrenaline hit her as she witnessed the most amazing thing in her life to date.

And then Suzaku punched the blast out of the way, redirecting it to the ceiling. Rubble and stone fell as the roof became less stable, and Yusuke stood stunned while she danced around the debris.

"Fucking Christ!" she cried. Not only was he fast, he could just hit attacks away like a volleyball! Fuck. It may be time to try out the unstable moves, unless Yusuke had another trick to flip, which she doubted.

Suzaku exchanged some words with his promiscuous bird, and the lightning began to flare up noticeably. The bird-rabbit-thing began giggling and taunting them, sing-songing about their imminent deaths. Annoyance and anger flared up in her, and without even having to look, Lucky pointed the barrel of her gun and shot it. When the holy water hit the stupid squawking thing, she disintegrated into nothing.

Suzaku was momentarily distracted by this. "You killed her!"

"No shit she was fucking annoying," she hissed back through clenched teeth. Immature mocking really got under her skin. "I'm fucking pissed! You're next!"

"I don't think so!" Lightening came down and struck Suzaku, which he reformed into a ball in his hand. "ARE YOU READY?!"

The dumbest thing she could have done at that moment was what she did as he threw the concentrated lightening at her. She swiped her hands over the now numerous cuts on her exposed calves and flung her hands out in front of her, screaming, "Blood Reflection!"

A crimson shield erected out of energy flowing from the blood on her hands. As his attack hit her shield, it bounced back and careened through the air headed for what was left of the ceiling, totally missing him.

"Fuck," she groaned as she hit the ground, out cold.

"What a weakling. She spends more time unconscious than awake."

"She's only human, Hiei." More like she had only been trained by humans, which had its limits.

"Bullshit, Kurama. You heard what Yusuke said she did. Normal humans don't possess that kind of power." Oh shit, she did do that, didn't she?

"Yes, it is a bit troubling. The items we found on her are also cause for concern. They're very high-tech weapons, not something the average civilian would be carrying around." Ah crap they found them. She was going to be interrogated.

"They're weapons?"

"Yes, these little balls are explosives. I can smell it. They're also very unstable, so I've wrapped them in leaves of a plant from the Makai to diffuse them. It's a miracle they didn't go off while they were in her shoe. And both her gun and ammo are so precise that if she did indeed smith them herself she has quite the abnormal talent." You don't even know about the extent of her talents, demon.

"So you're telling me we have a spy on your bed? You can stop pretending to be asleep, girl. We noticed your breathing pattern changed."

Lucky opened her eyes. She was in a bedroom, which she had gathered as she listened to their conversation. Kurama's bedroom, presumably. The main thing she noticed was the overwhelming scent of grass and woods.

She opened her mouth to ask a question.

"The others are all okay. Yusuke defeated Suzaku and almost died doing it, but Kuwabara loaned him enough life energy to stabilize. Boton and Keiko also survived their predicament. I also fixed up your arm, as there was a sizable chunk missing out of it that was haphazardly stitched back up with skill that falls quite short of a medical professional. Would you mind telling me what that self-inflicted injury was from?" She shook her head, taking interest in said injury wrapping, and poked at the herbal pack he had tucked in the bandages. He sighed and continued, "Now I must warn you that we intend on turning you over to Koenma, since you obviously know more than you let on. Would you like to come clean?"

"Not really." Kurama and Hiei exchanged a look, Hiei's turning into a scoff.

"I don't intend on turning her over to any sort of authority, Kurama. I refuse to do anything outside of the agreement to help those bastards. You're on your own." He walked to the window and disappeared in a flitting sound a moment later.

"He's a little ray of sunshine, isn't he?" she questioned. Kurama didn't respond but his eyes were hard. "Okay then. I'll be going…" His look changed from serious to downright frightening as he informed her he would be taking her to Spirit World.

"Over my dead body," was her response as she took off out the window, sans shoes, into the night. His bedroom, while on the 2nd floor, was not of so great a height that she couldn't army roll as she hit the soft lawn. Thank God for parkour.

Suddenly vines shot out from the lawn and ensnared her from the hips down. Kurama appeared at her side the next second. "I advise you come quietly. Whatever psychic talent you possess will not help you, and I was ordered to bring you in alive or not." She cursed. He pulled out a compact and contacted Boton.

Instead of Boton arriving a few minutes later, she was apprehended by Spirit World Special Defense Force. They shoved her through a portal and she came out in front of the doors to Koenma's office. Once escorted inside, she was left alone with the infant prince of the Spirit World.

"Hello, I'm Koenma and you have some explaining to do, young lady."

"I hardly think you're one to call me young," she retorted, eyeing the pacifier. He narrowed his eyes at her, her response to the situation was startling. Even Yusuke, dead, had more of a reaction to him and the situation than this girl.

"Let's get down to business," he offered, shoving the feeling of unease aside. "Can you tell me how it is you know what you know? We have searched for your name and basic information in our database, and nothing comes up. It's akin to not existing. Why is that? I know you know." Most people would have squirmed under his gaze, which was honed with hundreds of years of existence despite his childish physical features, but her bored expression remained.

"I don't know."

"If you cooperate, I'll grant you immunity. We have to know how you came across this knowledge. It's a huge breech in security. If every human knew about the demon and spiritual worlds more than they already guess at, if they knew how to channel their innate ability like you have—although I'm not entirely clear what your powers are—it'll incite many problems and a worldwide epidemic of chaos"

"I don't know."

With that, Koenma got frustrated. He jabbed at a button on his intercom. "Miss Millions needs a time out! Ogre, take her to a holding cell!" He turned back to Lucky. "You are going to be imprisoned so you can think about what you've done. Until you're ready to tell the truth, that's where you'll stay." Recognition finally struck in her.

"You can't do that! I have a life!"

"Will you give me the information I want?"

"I can't do that." Koenma sighed and ordered the ogre to take some of her blood for testing. She submitted her uninjured arm without complaint, knowing they won't find anything but the reside of prescription narcotics.

Subsequently she was dragged to the holding cell. It was the absolute epitome of a jail cell: a metal bed frame with a thin mattress, a sink, and a toilet but no window. The door was metal with a tiny window. She laid face down on the bed and began thinking over this mess.

Hours and a long nap later, her cell door opened to reveal Hiei. She squinted at him groggily, wondering why him after he had declared not to help "those bastards."

"Get up. I'm taking you to Koenma."

She groaned and rolled over, facing the wall. "No thanks, I already did that." Next thing she knew he was dragging her by the scruff of her shirt out into the hallway. After a bit of stumbling, she got on her feet and reluctantly followed him.

In the office, which was becoming far too familiar for her liking, Koenma tried again. "Who are you working for?"

"No one."

"Your blood was unable to be analyzed. Someone has tampered with it, and it has an unusual makeup."

"I know."

"We took pictures of your irises. They didn't match any in our database of humans. And you're not going to tell me how that happened?"

She shook her head. "I would have thought the all-knowing Sprit World would know this. Aren't you always watching, like Big Brother? Apparently your intelligence department isn't what it says it is, assuming you even have such a department. I'm surprised the Human World hasn't had its apocalypse yet with the way you run things."

He glared at her. "Hiei, read her mind."

Her head swiveled so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. "You can't do that—"

"Watch me." He tore his bandana off and his Jagan opened. Lucky looked into it, and had a seizure causing her to black out. It was a normal reaction to looking into the Jagan, so they left her unconscious.

Hiei pulled back a few seconds later. "There are black splotches in her memory; someone did a shitty job of tampering with her mind. I did see some scenes of military personnel training her. From her emotion imprints on these memories she has very little left of any sort of feelings other than contempt for others. There was also a more interesting flash of what seemed to be an operating room, and something like electro therapy. I thought humans had outlawed that decades ago."

Koenma's face was grim. "So she's a lab rat for the military? Who knows what kind of unstable powers she has. If she uses blood as her psychic attack, she's probably teetering on the brink of self-destruction. But now that we know who she's affiliated with, we can hack their system and find out what she's not telling us."

A few minutes of sophisticated hacking later brought Koenma to the information he needed, or at least most of it. Lucky finally came to, and reoriented herself and resumed her seat on the chair across from him, trying to recover from the lack of dignity of being left sprawled out on the floor.

She scanned his face, looking for what he was thinking. She needn't have wondered, for he was about to tell her.

"So you removed the tracking chip in your right arm, causing the injury Kurama treated."

Her poker face didn't waver. "Very good, you know how to hack the US Military database. Get to the point."

"I am going to make you an offer."

"I'm listening."

Koenma was honestly taken aback a little bit, and suspicion immediately flared. "What prompted this change of heart?"

"You know who I was and who I'm hiding from. They've terminated my status as spy—I've gone rogue, as I'm sure you see my status—but I can't hide from both them and you. I need an ally, and from what I've learned from training for my initial mission, you're the stronger side. I generally stay away from alliances, because depending on others is foolish when the only person you can trust is yourself, and with my mind the way it is I can't even trust myself."

"I'm kind of lost. We didn't find all the answers we were looking for. They've tampered with your memory, your blood, and your DNA."

"No shit. But I can't tell you everything, I don't even know most of it. They wiped out my memory to prevent exactly what is happening right now."

"She's telling the truth," Hiei cut in. "The details are smeared. Her mission was to infiltrate the supernatural in Japan. Their government is so bent on figuring out a way to outdo all other countries' offenses and remain the world's superpower that they're messing with orphans' bodies to cultivate some race of super human to back their army up in case Japan unleashes a paranormal attack. It's called 'Project Paranormal.'"

"Project Paranoid is more like it," Lucky said. "Since you obviously are not affiliated with human government."

"And what made you go rogue?" Koenma pushed.

"Can we get back to the deal? I really do have a life."

"Okay," Koenma agreed, figuring pressing for answers would upset her and put everyone at danger. If her powers were linked to her emotions whatsoever, they would have an Armageddon on their hands. They needed her as an ally, not an enemy. "I will let you return to your life, in exchange for helping my growing team of Spirit Detectives." A light went on in Lucky's eyes.

"You mean that Yusuke kid?" she smirked and stood up. "I'll do it. Now get me the fuck home."

A few weeks after Lucky had returned home, she was out grocery shopping for her babysitting client. She had met the woman the first day moving into the city, while she was in the very same grocery store.

Yuki had two daughters: Jade, who was five, and Sakura, who was two and a half. Grocery shopping with two small children who had a bad influence on each other was near traumatizing. They had started pulling cans off the shelf into the cart while Yuki had her back turned, and she was unraveling from nerves. Lucky stopped by their cart and began distracting the girls, teasing them and telling them "big girls" would help their mother, not upset her. She persuaded them to put the cans back, where they belonged, labels facing out. Then she praised them, and they beamed at her. Love at first sight.

Their mother froze. Her girls respected this foreigner. They obeyed her. They were quiet! She promptly requested Lucky babysit for her. Lucky responded to the introductions stiffly, never meeting Yuki's eyes and avoided looking at her at all. Jade introduced herself and Sakura and Lucky warmed to them immediately.

Now three times a week after school and on the weekends Lucky is in charge of the little girls and does small errands for Yuki. They were nearing the checkout, and Sakura began chanting, "Buy me! Buy me!"

Jade protested, "She can't buy you, Sakura! You can't, Miss Lucky!" So Lucky picked her up and lightly swiped Sakura over the scanner, emitting a high-pitched "beep!" and placed her in the cart next to the groceries. She giggled madly.

Jade's eyes got wide, her mouth fell open—jealousy. She demanded she buy her too, so Lucky grabbed the handheld laser scanner and flashed it over Jade's tummy, emitting the same beep. The cashier was beyond annoyed but Lucky couldn't give a fuck less. The girls were amused and that's all that mattered to her.

Lucky glanced at the computer. "Huh, no price came up. That's cuz you girls are priceless!" They giggled in response. She smiled back and grabbed the long-handled tote bag full of miso ingredients and put it over her shoulder, lifted Sakura out with one arm and placed her on her hip and grabbed Jade's hand with her free one. They turned to leave the store and there stood Hiei, by the door. It startled Lucky, what the hell was he doing in a human grocery store?

"You babysit?" he asked. Her brows furrowed in annoyance and it made him smirk. He could be just as annoying as her.

"I do. Kids are better company than adults. They don't judge."

"I'm Jade!" the older girl said proudly at Hiei. He just stared back in his impartial and "you're-crap-under-my-shoe" way and it prompted Lucky to kick him in the shin, which is when he found out she wore steel-toe boots.

"Be nice," she snarled through gritted teeth. If he hurt the girl's feelings she would jump his shit. She was very protective of kids, partly because they were the only people who she could understand. She was on the same emotional level as them.

"Hiei," he got out through his own clenched jaw.

"He's…my friend," she explained to Jade, using the only descriptive word she would understand at her age for a relationship between two people besides married like mommy and daddy.

She began leaving the store and Hiei followed. "What are you even doing?" she asked.

"Giving you your next mission."

"Next mission? Did I even have an initial mission?"

"Saint Beasts was considered your initial mission."

"Uh, good to know…"

"You need to go to the oaf's house, they're watching the informational video."

"Well I can't leave now. I have other responsibilities. Their mom won't be back until three." It was currently ten am.

"Whatever. I don't care. I did my job." And he disappeared.

"Who was that?" Jade's age was showing. She couldn't remember their exchange a few minutes earlier.

"A jerk."