... here's a little taste of Battle 06: The Great White North.

 While I got some of the big russets out from under the sink,
washed them, and started chopping them for home fries, I thought about
my old friend Logan.
	I first met Logan eight years ago, on my first trip with Rose to
Japan, where I was to learn to handle myself abroad and defend myself
against bladed weapons by spending the summer touring the country
alone and being randomly attacked by ninja.  It was a pain in the ass,
but I can handle a swordsman now, and it did wonders for my ability to
swear in Japanese.  Anyway, I was getting my jusan-sai gaijin butt
kicked in a teahouse in Osaka when one of the guys trying his best to
skewer me knocked over this little hairy guy's tea table.  The little
hairy guy didn't appreciate that, and in expressing his displeasure,
he made one hell of a mess.  Then he bought me some squid.
	Rose turned up for one of her periodic spot checks while we
were eating and didn't seem very pleased, since A, I was supposed to
handle the ninja on my own and B, she apparently knew Logan and didn't
like him.  The feeling seemed to be mutual.  She backed off a little
bit when she discovered that the ninja involved in this altercation
hadn't been part of the Ibuki Clan, with whom Rose's arrangement to
help with my training had been, and that these had, in fact, been
trying to kill me - but she still didn't like Logan.
	That was all right with me; she was welcome to her opinion.
I, on the other hand, liked him quite a bit.  I hung out with him for
the rest of the summer, traveling all over Japan, Okinawa and South
Korea, learning far more than Rose ever thought I would (and in some
respects more than she ever -hoped- I would, but that's another story)
and getting into all manner of trouble.  After a while the Ibuki Clan
didn't need to bother me any more; they could see I was getting quite
enough practice without their help, so they switched to observing and
providing backup where needed.  You may have noticed that there isn't
a ninja crime syndicate in Japan called the Order of the Emerald Dawn
any more.  That's because of Logan and me, eight years ago.
	At the end of the summer I went back to Maine and Logan went
wherever he damn well pleased.  We meet up every few months to eat
teppanyaki, talk about what we've been up to since last time, and, if
we can spare the time and have enough open space, do a little
sparring.  Logan likes to project a tough-guy image and pretend he's
too gruff and nasty to bother with friends, but the truth is he's a
softie.  For the last year or so he's had his wing over Jubilee, a
runaway from a California orphanage who'd been living in a shopping
mall for months when he found her - or maybe she found him.  It's hard
to say who's adopted whom in that relationship.
	Which is why it was so alarming that she'd turned up on my
doorstep without him.  The last I knew they were in Arizona, hiking
the mountains around Flagstaff.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/