Author's note: Good day to you, dear reader! Welcome to the world of sword fighting, brotherhood and adventure of our four favorite heroes. However, you might notice that there are guns instead of muskets, cars for horses and politicians to protect instead of kings. In short, this is my first modern AU (I'm so excited!). I really hope you enjoy the tale. Please let me know what you think in the comment section below!

Trigger warning: Please expect swearing, graphic violence, mentions of torture and some very bad jokes.

Disclaimer: I borrowed the protagonists and a good deal of dialogue. All rights to BBC.


Fight it like you mean it

Chapter 1

There's something creepy about the beginning of November. Maybe it's all those forgotten pumpkins sitting on people's porches, their faces warped with rot. Or it might be the cold that creeps into every home like a foreboding shadow of winter. The months were certainly colored in a dark gray hue, especially here in the city of Kiel in northern Germany, where ice cold drizzle and sudden bone-cutting gusts of wind seemed to be the only available weather. Right now, one of these storm explosions was tearing at the old spruces outside like a riptide. Aramis could not smell the salty scent of sea water, but he knew it would penetrate everything once they returned outside.

In stark contrast, the light inside the villa turned art gallery and politician meet and greet was shining warmly. Off to his right, a high end Bose sound system played soothing violin music that was ignored by the elegantly clothed pack of rich pricks. The echoes of Chopin and chitchat were lost somewhere between high wooden rafters and classy white stucco of the 1920s. Champagne that probably cost more than Aramis made in a year was sipped and often discarded like stale water. Aramis shook his head in incomprehension but silently let it go and saved the information away in the 'useless file' right next to the rotting pumpkins outside.

While the VIPs around him continued with their ceaseless chatter, he fiddled a little with the golden cuffs of his black suit. Condemned to yet another evening of idleness, Aramis let his mind wander. They'd been on this trip for a fortnight, city hopping from Berlin to Köln to Munich and then back north to Hamburg and now Kiel, a smaller sailing city on the east coast of Germany. Porthos and him had been visible bodyguards for the French Minister's wife Anne, whereas Athos with his flawless etiquette was playing the foreign dignitary and followed their Lady like a shadow during their whole voyage. Right now, they were conversing with some Arabian nobles, Anne radiant in her understated turquoise gown with Athos only a step behind in a navy suit that must have been extremely uncomfortable, judging from his colleague's sour expression. Then again, Athos hadn't looked happy in a while, equally bored as his two friends. He carried shadows wherever he went these days. Shadows, rain and salt. Boy, I'll be glad when this trip is finally over.

Security was more relaxed now that the official meetings were over and only two more appointments were on the schedule before the highly anticipated return flight to Paris and some much needed rest. All three other bodyguards in the hall seemed to have similar things in mind, an air of boredom penetrating their stances. If I were a criminal, now would be the time to act, Aramis concluded with a wry smile. Nevertheless, he resharpened his attention like a sword after too much use.

Perhaps that was why he was the only one to react in time when all of a sudden, six flashbangs sailed through the window like stones thrown by careless children. Aramis counted them and calculated their trajectory in the split second the sudden rise of adrenaline in his blood froze him on the spot, rendering everything surreal yet impossibly detailed. Then his heartbeat picked up the pace as he threw himself into Porthos to land behind a delicate wooden bar, shielding himself and his friend from the worst of the light. The sound was deafening even though Aramis had been marginally prepared for it and had his hands clapped over his ears. In the afterglow, screams erupted from the mighty men and women of Europe who ran for the nearest exits like headless chickens.

Aramis calmly pulled his black Glock 17 out of his shoulder holster and didn't bat an eye as a group of hostiles swung through the already shattered windows. Ski masks, dark green uniforms, heavy combat boots and large German rifles. As soon as they landed and detached themselves from their rappelling gear, shots erupted, not much louder than popping balloons to his damaged ears yet a thousand times more deadly. Most of them embedded themselves harmlessly in the stucco above their heads, but some were zipping right through the running crowd. Two bodyguards were hit and immediately dead on the floor and the third had abandoned his station, leaving only the Musketeers to defend the assembly. Both Porthos and Aramis waited for the right opportunity to strike back, acutely aware that they were not on native ground and a single civilian casualty could have disastrous consequences for themselves and France.

In the middle of the spacious room, the chandelier crashed to the ground from the dark brown rafters. Glass shattered and skipped across the mahogany floorboards like the spilled pearls in Cinderella. Aramis considered a counterattack, then froze as the automatic gunfire broke off simultaneously. The intruders had spread strategically around the space and were now blocking the exits.

"Nobody move! Keine Bewegung!"

Professionals? While the ringing in his ears slowly receded, Porthos tapped him on the shoulder, pointing out Athos on the other side of the mountain of broken glass. The third of their trio was shielding their Lady and hid her from view with his body. One hand was unobtrusively turned behind his back and Aramis wondered whether their leader was handling a phone to inform the authorities or whether he was gripping a weapon. Aramis nodded to the giant next to him, then quickly retreated out of sight as the men pulled out small dark blue garbage bags.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a robbery. Put your valuables in here and nobody else will get hurt."

"Nobody else?", shrieked their host, a fat German merchant named Richter. He waddled forward in his finery with chubby fists balled. "You have no right..."

He didn't get the chance to finish. Nor did he get the chance to ever do anything else stupid ever again, because the leader of the robbers ruthlessly put a bullet right between his eyes. Next to Aramis, Porthos inhaled sharply.

"Move?", he hissed, referring to Aramis, who was caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, their Lady was relatively safe with Athos and concealed by the crowd's number of bodies. On the other hand, the criminals had proven that they didn't care whether they wasted life. Six men against two of them. Athos might be able to take down the hostile next to him, but that was far from guaranteed since he wouldn't endanger their charge under any circumstances.

"It's too many for a frontal assault. I could take a couple out from here...", he whispered back.

"Your necklace! Now!", the leader meanwhile barked at one of the women and when she didn't comply fast enough, he hit her with a vicious backhand. As the Musketeer heard multiple hostages shift and the robber next to him curse quietly, he used the temporary diversion to quickly reply "Yep, move!" and burst into motion.

Heading straight for the nearest opponent, he chose a swift finger punch to the adam's apple, which would render the man mute and thus provide an incapacitated body shield. However, his lightning fast fingers only met empty air where vulnerable flesh should have been. The bandit had ducked just in time, but Aramis managed to grab his wrist and turn it painfully so that the man was forced to release his weapon. However, the Musketeer was surprised as his opponent used the grip on him to propel their bodies into each other. Off balance, unsteady feet didn't provide enough leverage to avoid the elbow to the ribs and the knee to the groin chasing it.

"Fuck!" A groan escaped him as Aramis fought to stay upright, countering with an uppercut that was expertly blocked and turned aside. Damn, that guy was quick! Aramis danced to the side as the robber himself tried to put the pressure on Aramis with a flurry of only slightly sloppy strikes. Knowing the interaction was taking far too long and yet unable to overpower this agile young man, Aramis threw pride and technique overboard and lunged at the man with his full weight, thus crashing him against the wall. He felt something crack beneath him and used his advantage to push the chest sideways and pull out the robber's legs from under him. Finally, the tenacious little shit went down.

"Aramis!" Athos' urgent voice spurred Aramis to pivot and stare right into the mouths of three guns that were pointed at him.

"Err… Parley?", Aramis said and slowly put up his hands. The man on the ground behind him actually chuckled at the Pirates of the Caribbean reference before he moaned loudly and held his ribs. Aramis' own bones twitched in sympathy, then his face drained of color as one man smacked him forcefully with the butt of his automatic rifle. Stars burst across his vision and he swayed like the spruces outside.

"Hast du gesehen, was er mit Charlie gemacht hat?"

"Bringen wir ihn um!"

Aramis didn't know that much German, but he guessed from the tone of voice that things weren't going in his favor. Behind them, the politicians were all gaping at the scene like fish on land, except Porthos, who was on his knees in front of another robber. Next to the pair was a dead intruder with a broken neck.

"I surrender", Aramis tried, clenching his teeth against the throbbing pain on his left temple. He could feel a small stream of blood trickling down his cheek and would have loved to shake a few long, dark brown strands of hair out of his field of vision, yet he didn't dare breathe wrong.

"Killing an innocent man defies every principle of chivalry", Athos contributed from somewhere in the back of the crowd, thankfully diverting the enemies' focus. The leader laughed humorlessly.

"Chivalry." He spat on the ground. "I'll show you chivalry!" His arm whipped around sent a bullet right into the people that were huddled together. Aramis couldn't see the impact but a man screamed. Moreover, the crowd was close to a panic. He could feel the unbearable tension crackling in the air, could see their wide eyes and too fast breathing. Things were about to go very wrong.

"Please, you have what you came here for. Just go. It's not like we'll be able to stop you. Or follow. The police aren't here yet. You'll get away scot-free." Aramis' head was spinning from the senseless violence and the blow to his face, but he had to reason with them. The four men around him had slowly returned to their original positions, even the injured one after he'd painstakingly collected his weapon. Now they were all watching him.

"Here, take my watch. Take everything you want, just don't hurt anyone else."

"Musketeer scum. Walking around like you own the world, shouting orders. We'll show you how not in control you are."

"You two, take a woman each and execute them outside as payment for Martin's death."

"No, wait…!" Aramis stuttered, dumbfounded by the horror of the situation.

"Quiet now!", one robber kicked him in the stomach, causing Aramis to loose his breath and fall to the floor. He couldn't breathe, lungs wouldn't cooperate, the ground was falling away… there. Gasping, Aramis rolled onto his back and witnessed the two biggest intruders pull women from the party. Neither of them were Anne, but Aramis recognized an old German lady as a kindhearted charity manager. She'd been in Berlin too, and now she was going to die.

Porthos tried to intervene but was pushed back down. Aramis watched, fingers inching towards his still hidden gun. His eyes wandered to the attentive smaller robber he'd fought and the man caught his gaze. I'm on to you, the brown orbs seemed to say, yet the man didn't call out a warning. Instead, he let Aramis continue and turned his head away on purpose, Aramis was sure of it.

Furthermore, the bandit stepped closer to the leader and thereby blocked his sight of the Musketeer. "Hey, boss, I don't know about this..."

"Back to your post!" The ringleader shoved his subordinate in the same instance Aramis' fingers curled around his Glock. Sensing his chance, he targeted one of the executioners to be, took close aim and shot.

It could not have been more than one second, but the other one of the robbers had pulled the German lady in front of him, making it impossible for Aramis to take care of the threat. Even as he heard another shot from Athos' direction, he knew that there were two hostiles plus the small bandit left and he was a sitting duck to the hostage taker that was standing not four meters away from him.

Bracing himself for the pain to come, he was astonished to be hit by a warm spray of blood instead of a freezing bullet. Somewhere to his left, something crashed loudly, but all Aramis could hear was the plink plink plink of shells on the floor. It originated from the middle of the room where the smaller robber stood, arms with the rifle outstretched and chest heaving. His weapon was pointed straight at the dead hostile next to the women.

"How…?"

Suddenly, the gun swung around again as the man stepped back hurriedly. Pointing the weapon at Aramis, Porthos and Athos in turn, he retreated to the broken windows. But where was the final attacker? Aramis couldn't find him and concluded that the leader must have made his getaway in the intense moments he was otherwise engaged. Nonetheless, this left one threat to deal with.

"Put the gun down!", Athos ordered with his best aristocratic expression of disdain. In return, the direction of the robber's rifle settled on him.

"No can do. You'd shoot me or send me to jail", the man replied and Aramis was immediately certain that they were dealing with a very young individual. It was also apparent, though, that the words were laced with determination.

"You could only shoot one of us before we took care of ya", Porthos argued in a deceptively friendly manner. By then, all three Musketeers had their guns pointed at the fleeing form. The man glanced behind him and Aramis remembered the view outside. Rain, storm and a drop too high to even consider jumping. The leader must have taken the rappelling hook as he left, though, because the robber began to inch to his left towards the next broken window.

"Nu-uh", Aramis tutted and stepped into his path.

"Let me go or I will kill you." It was an empty threat, yet Aramis wondered whether the youth might be desperate enough to commit suicide by forcing the others' hands.

"Shoot him and it's murder." Porthos indicated Athos. The bandit shrugged, but it seemed forced.

"One less Musketeer, who cares?"

"Hold your fire. If I were you, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to die. You still have your whole life in front of you", Aramis reminded him seriously.

"Step back!" As Porthos, Athos and Aramis closed in like sharks, the man's fear was obviously warring with his bravado. The gun in his hands was shaking.

"I will shoot!"

"So do it", Athos answered, his voice dry as if discussing the weather. "Shoot, little criminal. Shoot."

"Don't make me kill you over a mistake! Just let me go", the boy pleaded, his back to the wall. Aramis almost felt sorry for him if it weren't for the lethal danger he emanated like a cornered tiger. Better not step too close, Aramis thought, but of course Athos had other ideas, rushing right up to the bandit until the barrel of the rifle was pressed against his white dress shirt.

"Come on, shoot, damn you!", he shouted. Aramis' groaned inwardly as he saw the distraught boy's finger tighten over the trigger. Out of options, he jumped at him, pushing up the arm just as a shot loosened. They landed in a pile of arms and legs, but while Athos helped his friend back to his feet, Porthos tried to subdue the youth. Unfortunately, as Aramis could tell from experience, the robber was not an easy mark and kicked and slipped out of Porthos' choke hold like an eel. Subsequently, he tried to break loose only to be confronted by a very annoyed Athos.

"Enough!", Athos bellowed and when the boy didn't obey, he struck him down with a well placed right hook. The boy crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut and lay unmoving. Silence descended on the rest of them like vultures after a battle, interrupted only by the womens' crying and the crack of glass beneath Porthos' boots as he efficiently handcuffed the robber.

"Anne?", Aramis asked, searching for her in the sea of faces. She emerged, poise intact.

"I am fine."

"Thank God." He couldn't help himself, he smiled in relief. Her answering smile, although less wide and more polite, caused his heart to flutter slightly.

"You gotta be kidding me", Porthos muttered, prompting Aramis' thoughts to return to the problem at hand. More precisely, the shredded room and the enemy who had been unmasked by Porthos. They all stared at the tanned face wordlessly - the boy couldn't be more than eighteen years old.

"Looks like Aramis got his ass handed to him by a fucking kid", Porthos said. Aramis grinned unashamed.

"Kid's a born fighter."

"The question of course being what we do with him now?", Athos asked. It was a rhetorical question since they all knew what would happen now. Interrogation, trial, jail. However, the fat host's wife advanced on them, tears in her eyes and a long shard of glass in her wildly shaking fist. "He killed my husband. An eye for an eye, I say. I've been a hunter. Give me your gun, Herr Athos, or step aside, and I will do it myself!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nobody's killing anybody", Porthos said, glancing at Anne and Athos. The latter nodded, obviously of the same mind as he surveyed the furious expressions on the politicians' faces.

"We'll be taking him with us. He's in our custody", he declared in a voice that didn't allow any room for argument. To Porthos he said: "Pick him up. We're leaving."

And they did so without any other delays, Aramis flanking Anne behind Athos and Porthos. Behind their back murmurs erupted, but they washed off Aramis like water. His head hurt like Hades, as did his private area, but his bodily concerns were inconsequential compared to the more pressing matters at hand.

Why had the assembly been targeted? Jewelry simply couldn't be enough incentive to risk so much security. Why? And by whose orders? Who was the leader who had gotten away? And why had the young criminal flipped on his comrades? Why did you save my life?, Aramis silently wanted to know, fixing his eyes on the battered form of their captive.


German translations:
Keine Bewegung - Freeze!
Hast du gesehen, was er mit Charlie gemacht hat? - Did you see what he did to Charlie?
Bringen wir ihn um! - Let's kill him!