Something's VERY wrong.

It was just then that I noticed that Akari seemed to have a panicked expression on her face and was approaching the front of the line with much more urgency than I would have otherwise expected. She was in fact actively elbowing people out of the way.

"Woah, Woah!" I stepped forward. My instincts told me that something was going on and she was actively looking for help. It was just then that I realized that she NEVER flew solo.

"Mariko!" She nearly shouted, looking up from her near panic. Her gorgeous eyes took on a soft tone as she looked up at me. The panic seemed to flow from her as she looked at me, and her face took on a calculating look. After one second, her face took on a much more composed look. Her makeup was perfect, I noticed, with an elegant circuitry design along the right side of her face that was slightly marred by a few rivulets of sweat.

I tried to make a mental picture of the wing gals that Akari usually came in with. I recalled the most common one was a Rockabilly gal who looked like she'd stepped out of a Tokyo revival of Grease. She was also very big for a Japanese woman, and there were quite a few rumours about Mariko and Akari. Of course that had always led a lot late night imaginings of the two of them in my bed.

"What's going on?" I asked calmly. I gestured to my Co-worker and gave the "Take Over" hand signal. The line could wait, and taking care of incidents was the priority of my job.

"Mariko's Ex showed up with a couple of his buddies." She spoke rapidly, glancing over her shoulder. "Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but there's three of them and there was only two of us. We need to hurry."

"You left her with them?" I asked to her back. She had already started walking back in the direction she had come from. Clearly she intended for me to follow her.

This was bad. Three on one was never a good situation to walk into. I could grab a couple more of the bouncers, but that would take a bit of time, and Akari clearly wasn't going to wait. Of course, I could always play hero, and hope that these guys were more bark than bite.