DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gundam Wing, if I did, they'd all be doing what they're doing in this story. I suppose they would be, even though I do like the series. But I like my version better.

CHAPTER 1

THE REQUEST OF A NIGHT CREATURE

The rain poured down from the clouds in heavy heaps as lightning flashed across the sky. Thundered crackled in his ears, but he didn't care, he simply pulled the lapels up on his jacket and stalked across the abandoned street. The only sounds that could be heard were the click of his shoes upon the hard pavement and the pitter-patter of the rain as it soon settled. He loved the way the world felt when it rained at night; the smell, the look, the absolute feel, it was as if the world had finally come alive. He walked a few more steps towards his apartment, his feet and the rain not the only sounds he could hear now; he now picked up the sound of another's feet scurrying along. He stopped, looked around and seeing that no one was there blew the noises off as an act of his overactive imagination; however, he still kept his guard up. He finally made it to his apartment building, an old building with faulty wiring in the middle of downtown Philadelphia. He opened the metal gate that loomed over the front entrance of his apartment complex and opened the front door. He walked in, his eyes adjusting to the stale yellow light shining against the even staler dingy walls where the mail cubbies were lined up by room. He would have to get his mail later; he was too tired for anything else. His eyes focused on the flight of stairs that he would have to walk up; he was on the fifth floor and the building was so old that it didn't even have an elevator. Nor would he trust an elevator if they installed it in this building, as shitty as it was. So, as he did every night, he trudged up the filthy red-carpeted steps to his apartment. As he walked he could hear the normal noises of the complex; the loud televisions sets of the people of room 227, the incessant arguing of the married couple in room 314, the crying children in room 424, and finally his next door neighbor and his girl of the week making annoying if not loud love in room 515. He was apartment 516 and he was thankful to see those rusted copper numbers as he slid his key into the door and opened it.

The apartment was a small one-bedroom efficiency with hardly any room for the Edwardian desk that was seated in a corner, and the green leather sofa and television set that was in what seemed to be considered the living room. He walked in, threw his dripping wet jacket onto the sofa and headed straight for the kitchen. Turning on the lights, he heard the same sound that he'd heard on the street, but in addition he saw a few bugs scurry out of view. He would have to talk to the landlord about the bug problems, not that the bastard would listen. He pulled a small glass from the pile of dirty dishes that he'd been meaning to wash for the last three days and cleaned it out with what little bit of dish soap he had left and some water, swishing the water around gingerly. He then reached into the refrigerator, that was filled with three-day-old Chinese food, spoiled milk, rotten cheese, a box of Arm and Hammer baking soda, and a half-gone six pack of beer. He looked down at the cup in his hand that seemed only remotely clean and threw it back into the sink; he supposed he could drink out of a bottle tonight.

Grabbing the beer out of the fridge and stripping out of his wet clothes down to his underwear and undershirt, he walked over to the sofa, grabbed the television remote and turned on the TV. He flipped threw the channels and sipped on his beer; there was never anything on. He then turned on his VCR and started the pornography video where he'd left it on the day before.

"What a tragic existence you lead?" a feminine voice came from somewhere behind him. He dropped his beer to the floor and turned around only to see nothing but darkness. He stood up and grabbed for his coat that was next to him on the sofa and pulled out his knife. He was sure that his imagination wasn't overreacting on him this time. There was no way his mind was playing tricks on him anymore.

"Where are you?" he asked into the wakeful darkness.

"Behind you," he could feel her whisper against his skin. The warmth and sweetness of her breath so close to him. He turned, but there was nothing there.

"Don't play games with me, where are you?" He said, realizing that anyone would think that he was crazy. He ran over to all of the lights in his apartment and turned them on, hoping that they would give them away. There was nothing, not sign of the mysterious person that the voice had belonged to. He dropped the knife in the middle of the room and resolved himself to the fact that he must have just been drunk; he had stopped at the bar after all. He picked up the large kukri knife and placed it back into his jacket pocket and slung himself back onto the sofa and calmly turned on the television trying to get his heart rate back to normal.

"You give up too easily," the voice was there again. He turned and looked around there she was sitting right next to him on the sofa. He hadn't even noticed her sitting there. He freaked. With a loud, almost feminine scream, his lanky body fell backwards in absolute fright so that his back was against the cool leather of the sofa. She was on top of him, straddling him, trying to calm him down. 

"Shhh. Calm," she said, and just like that he felt calmed by her voice. She kept passing her hand over his face gently and repeating the word and he instantly felt very relaxed. He finally got a good look at her in the orangey light that filtered throughout his apartment. She was a black woman with tawny skin and hazel eyes. Her hair was dark with blatant streaks of light brown, blonde, and a strange orange color flowing throughout. The short tresses seamed silky and he instantly wanted to run his fingers through them. But there was something about her eyes. She was beautiful, mysterious, and almost dangerous and he could faintly pick up the scent of blood on her breath and clothing.

"Who are you?" he asked finally able to gather himself from the earlier scare she'd given him.

"I need your help," she said, a look of utter seriousness showing on her face.

"You should have come to the office, then I would have helped you. I don't like my work interfering with my personal life," he spat out and tried to push her off of him. He then realized that her small body was a lot stronger and able to hold him down without problem.

"You're not human," he said with a slight bit of annoyance.

"No, not quite," she said with a bit of a smile and he could see her fangs glisten in the orange light. That's why he could smell the blood on her breath and her clothing; she'd fed that night and was probably going to feed on him.

"No, I'm not going to feed on you; I've been sent to get you actually," her voice was deep and slow and it sounded like a trance being put on him. He shook his head.

"Come by the office tomorrow, then I can help you," he said.

"Don't mock me, I cannot day walk," she said, getting off of him.

"But your master can," he said getting up from the position on his back. She stood as soon as she was up, the short black velvet dress falling down to more respectful places on her thighs.

"You must come with me, my master wishes to meet you," she said offering a hand that had blood-red nails upon them.

"And is your master just like you?"

"A vampire, you mean?" she asked, he nodded.

"My master is controversial, but he needs your help. You are the Night Hunter, Trowa Barton, aren't you?" she asked.

"Shouldn't you have asked that before you straddled me on my couch?" he asked, not getting a response from her, "yea, I'm the Night Hunter, that's why I'm a little skeptical. If your boss is who I think it is, I'm in big trouble."

"I assure you that you're not. Just trust me, please." He looked skeptically at her hand; in his line of business they were supposed to be enemies not adversaries. It was going to be hard to let down his guard.

"You can take your silly knife if you wish, Night Hunter, but I assure you that you will not need it." He stood and took the knife from his jacket and laid it on the coffee table in front of him.

"You're not a regular vampire, you're a part of a different order. Your senses are too strong."

"You are the Night Hunter, that's impressive. I am from the Calorgian order, the natural vampires. I have the powers to take shape of any form cloaked in darkness, any creature of the night, and I can read your thoughts, but that last power is a personal one, not all Calorgians can read thoughts."

"What is your name?"

"Roddy Adelphia of the Calorgian Vampire Order. I am a priestess."

"A Vampire priestess. I don't know whether to bow or to slit your throat," Trowa chuckled.

"So will you come?" she asked, ignoring his idle threat. She knew that if she wanted to overpower him that it wouldn't be hard.

"Yes, I'll come."

"Good. You will need a change of clothes. We're going into the darkness so you're going to need to be well disguised so that the other night creatures won't kill you," she smiled again at the look on his face, her fangs bared in a simple eloquent laugh. He took her hand, knowing that this was the start of some strange case, but he took it any way. In all of his years, he'd never known of any person to be personally invited to the life of the night creatures, nor had he known any person to return from that fate. He took her hand and they left the apartment.

****

For a priestess she surely did drive fast. Hell, he would have driven fast too if he'd had a car. Especially a car as hell bent as the black Ferrari that she was wheeling down the slippery streets. It was a part of town that he was familiar with; the darkened bowels and nightlife of the night creatures. He'd hunted here before, but never so deep into the underground world.

"It's a place that not even you have been," Roddy said keeping her eyes on the road. He noticed how her skin shined in the moonlight that was beaming into the moon roof of the; the pearly radiance illuminating her face a soft, milky brown. He lips were the color of pure blood: crimson and thick and her eyes shined yellow and cat-like in the passing glare of the light. He found her radiant; it wasn't the first vampire that he found beautiful, but radiant was a different case.

"Radiant? You're the first man to ever bestow that title upon me," she smiled for the first time, the sharp canine shining a seductive pearly white. It was so beautiful, so sexy, that it almost frightened Trowa.

"I won't be the last," he said with a dry smirk and turned his attentions away from her and back to the activity outside of the window. He wanted to remember every turn, every corner, every brick building that she passed. He could see now that vampires and night creatures were standing outside. Some humans had joined them, no doubt, unknowing of the dangers that awaited them.

He was lucky; the average human couldn't recognize a night creature. They looked like humans, smelled like humans; they even tasted like humans, with one fatal difference, they ate humans. The few night creatures that could day walk, the Liches, Oracles, and Vampyres (the human/vampire mutt), were barely detectable, but it was simple for Trowa to tell; it was like he had a sense.  He leaned his head back against the leather and memorized that tactile way the car moved down the streets, the turns; one left, then a right, then straight for approximately 10 feet, then another left, and a small bumpy street (probably cobblestone), then a right.

"We're here," she said almost cheerfully, and he opened his eyes to see an old abandoned house on the outskirts of the city. He noticed that when she turned off the lights in the car that she and the car were cloaked in darkness. All he could see were her glowing yellow cat eyes.

"Take my hand, you won't be able to see after this point. The darkness is too thick for mortals," she explained and she grabbed his hands because he couldn't see it in the night.  The only thing that he could make out was the rickety house in the distance, shaded by what looked like a silhouette of trees. The tallest story jutted out from over the tops of the trees and Trowa could see remarkably well that there was a light on. He turned to look down as they neared the house, the darkness slightly fading as they neared the lights of the house. He glanced back up to the point he'd looked at earlier and his eyes caught a figure. He couldn't tell if the figure was male or female because it disappeared so quickly that he couldn't make out the sex.

"My master has been expecting you," she said, breaking his revelry. He noticed that they'd quickly made it to the front door of the house. It was a large oak door with a rather large, rusted knocker on the front. Roddy grabbed the knocker and used it, the sound of the knocker hitting the wood resounding and echoing through the shallow wood. There was a shuffle, and the door opened of it's own volition, a red light almost blinding, blaring from the door so brightly that Trowa had to close his eyes. The woods lit up the red color and Roddy pulled him in quickly. The door closed behind them and the red light stopped.

"Open your eyes," she said calmly and he obeyed. The room they stood in was strange, it seemed as if the walls were moving. They actually were. It was if the house was alive and beating like a heart. He could hear the vibration of the walls as it contracted and expanded in a timed beat. The walls were a strange red, not bright, but just strange. It was like nothing that he'd ever seen before. He reached over to touch the wall but she stopped him by quickly grabbing his wrists.

"You don't want to do that. This house is alive; there are only some places where you're allowed to touch the walls. Especially since you're a human." She said sternly. He wretched his hand from her grip and followed her lead as she led down a long, narrow passageway. The sound of the front room echoed louder in this wind passage and he could now see that the house was indeed alive, well almost. The walls were made of moving souls, swimming along the current of the wall as if they were blood vessels traveling down veins. The beating was the sound of the current of the wall, ironically ebbing and flowing the current.

"These are the souls of the dead undead. This is where every fallen Vampire comes. Like the sea of Hades they swim forever."

"Is that what you have to look forward to?" Trowa asked, noticing that they'd arrived at a rather tall, red, velvet-covered door.

"I don't plan on dying," she said soberly, her eyes dulling a bit to a strange limey color. She pushed open the door without any effort and waved her hand in front of her bidding Trowa to go ahead. He looked at her cautiously and entered the room, the door closed behind him and he was left in total darkness.