Fight

Prologue

Roxas couldn't tell where the screaming was coming from anymore. All around him the bright lights were blinding when he tried to look out through the chain-link walls at the spectators. They appeared to be nothing more than shadows, black against the night with only a glare of light from their eyes visible.

He could feel their gazes on him as he tipped his head to the side, avoiding the straight punch thrown at his face and snaking his own arm around the outstretched one. With a snap of his hips he felt his opponent's elbow snap from the pressure and, continuing to throw his momentum around, slammed the man up against the net in the middle of the court. The man's scream of pain was cut off as Roxas' elbow found it's way into his back, bruising a kidney.

With no emotion showing on his face and only coldness in his eyes, Roxas jumped back, landing softly in a crouched position, blue eyes watching his opponent intently, waiting for whatever was next. He could see the man he was fighting try to push himself up off the net with his good arm to no avail. He tried again with both arms and Roxas heard a distinct snap, much akin to the one he himself had been the cause of earlier. His opponent let out a cry of pain and began coughing. When Roxas saw the droplets of blood splashing heatedly against the cool night ground he stood up, knowing the match was over.

He wiped a hand through his dirty blonde locks and waited for the announcement of his victory, which came moments later when his opponent waved an arm in defeat. Roxas turned on his heel and made his way over to the door of the tennis court. As he exited the arena and began searching for his brother he found himself bombarded with people congratulating him, booing him, trying to touch the smooth skin of his shoulder and back that his wife beater left exposed.

He paid no attention to the people nor to the sounds of pain he could hear his defeated opponent making as the man was escorted out of the arena, probably being led away somewhere to be beaten for his defeat. As Roxas passed the man who was running tonight's fights, his name was Luxord , he plucked the three-hundred from the man's hand – his winning's for the fight.

The cold look never left his eyes until he found the person he was looking for. When he finally came upon a mass of chocolate spikes he began grinning. He reached out a hand to his twin's shoulder, the brunette reacting predictably and spinning around, knocking Roxas' hand off his shoulder and bringing his hands up into a defensive position. Roxas' grin widened.

"Geez Sora, still worked up from your fight?" he asked, leaning in to inspect the boy's swollen lip. "Looks like he got you pretty good little brother, you weren't spacing out again in the middle of a fight were you?"

"Rox…" Sora began whining. "I forgot to eat again, I couldn't focus." Roxas sighed and took in his brothers' scrawny appearance. The two didn't have a lot of money. Actually, Roxas thought, they didn't really have a lot of anything -- money, food, shelter, family…He rolled his eyes at Sora, who smiled that infectious smile of his and latched onto Roxas' arm.

"Sorry I didn't see your fight Rox...but-"

"-you were hungry and you absolutely needed ebi-fry." Roxas finished for Sora. They enjoyed finishing the others' sentences, one of those creepy twin things. "When's your next fight?"

"Uhm, after this one." Sora replied, glancing over at the court.

"Wanna' watch?" Roxas asked. Sora nodded his head vigorously and the two began making their way over to the match. They could see people slightly making way for the two infamous boys. "You know Sor, I think that if you didn't have so much hair you'd damage your brain with all that head shaking you do…"

"Shut up! I would not! Besides, I don't have anything up there to damage!" Sora retorted. Roxas raised an eyebrow at his brother who never caught on to what it was exactly he'd said about himself. By now the two had reached the match and leaned against a lamp to watch.

He watched the two boys intently with jade eyes visible through the shadows of his cloak. He and his partner had been following the boys for a few months now, watching them at their fights while competing a bit themselves. That was the need for the cloak. With his fire-red hair he stood out in even the densest of crowds like a bad tranny in a woman's bathroom. He cringed a bit at his analogy; apparently he had been assigned to too many unusual jobs lately.

Through the chain-link fence surrounding the court he saw the brunette boy move into the court and towards his opponent. The sound of the door slamming shut signaled the start of the match and the audience's cue to scream wildly. Sora. That was the boy's name he recalled, as he cast a quick side-glance to his partner Riku.

"I saw that Axel," his silver-haired counter-part replied with a slight roll of his eyes. It was known between the two that Axel had taken a liking to the blonde twin while Riku found himself intrigued by the brunette now circling his opponent with a happy grin.

"Just making sure you're paying attention to your boyfriend...got it memorized?" Axel shot back with a smirk. Riku raised an eyebrow.

"He's not my boyfriend you pussy, got it memorized?" he slapped his forehead hard in mockery of Axel before slipping his own hood back on and turning his attention to the brunette who was currently side stepping the slow punches his opponent was throwing at him.

Sora was dressed in only a pair of tattered khaki shorts that exposed a tantalizing portion of his tan thighs and a t-shirt that was too large on his lithe frame causing it to ride down around his shoulder every so often. The two older boys had ascertained from their voyeurism that Sora liked to wear clothes that allowed his opponents to see what exactly it was he was doing to them during the match. Apparently he found some strange childish joy from it as was evident by the all ready large smile on face that grew when a strike connected to his opponent's body. His brother, on the other hand, almost always wore baggier pants and some kind of small jacket over his top to hide any subtle changes in weight or strategy. Tonight was warm, which, Axel had guessed, was why the blonde was wearing only a tight top on his torso.

The brunette's current opponent was quickly running out of breath, Riku noticed. His already slow strikes were slowing down as Sora continued to dodge the strikes easily. Finally it seemed the boy had had enough because the next time a punch came in Sora grabbed the man's wrist and pulled the man's weight forward. At the same time he pushed off of the man's arm and propelled himself into the air, kicking his bare foot out, connecting with his opponent's face as the man stumbled forward from the awkward weight shift.

The man groaned in pain and clutched at his broken face as Sora landed lightly. With a devilish gleam in his blue eyes he shot forward and began what he lovingly called his Slapshot Combo – a series of quick punches and open-handed strikes to several pressure points on his opponent's torso.

As hit after hit connected with his opponent's body everything seemed to be going perfectly. But as Sora pulled back his fist in preparation for his final strike to the man's lymph gland on his chest he felt someone grab his wrist and pull his weight back. As he tumbled backwards he saw that which he dreaded most. Blue hat, blue uniform, shiny gold badge…yes, the police had arrived. Sora cursed to himself for being so wrapped up in the fight that he had failed to hear the sirens when they had been approaching minutes earlier.

The brunette rolled backwards and sent his leg shooting up to kick the policeman in the groin. As soon as he felt his foot connect with soft flesh he pressed himself up and turned to run towards toward the entrance to the court. He saw several more officers entering the arena and looked around hurriedly, becoming slightly panicked.

"Sora! Here!" he heard an unfamiliar voice call out and looked over his shoulder to see a black-clad figure balancing precariously on top of the fence, dropping a rope down for him. He turned and ran towards the rope, clutching at it. As soon as he had it in his grasp the black clad figure jumped off of the fence back to the outside, his momentum pulling the light boy up towards freedom. However, his momentum carried him only halfway up the fence. Sora began climbing frantically with the aid of the rope as the figure on the other side held it tight.

Roxas had heard the sirens approaching and tried to reach his brother, but the crowd was too thick for him to get through. It only became worse when everyone began to panic and flee. The flow of bodies continued to push him further and further away from his brother. He cried out, hoping to get the other boy's attention, but Sora was too caught up in his fight.

Finally, Roxas found himself next to a lamp-post and pulled himself up onto it and out of the crowd. From his new place of elevation he could see that the police had all ready arrived and that there were many of them. All around red lights were flashing and he couldn't hear anything but screaming and sirens. Fights were breaking out all around him and he found himself clutching more tightly to the post.

Axel cursed when he heard the police arriving. He turned to Riku but found that his partner had disappeared into the crowd, trying to make his way towards Sora who had failed to notice the sirens. Axel decided to watch out for Roxas and tried to spot the small boy. He was unsuccessful until he saw the boy pull himself out of the panicked crowd onto a lamp-post. Satisfied with the boy's temporary safety Axel pressed himself up against the wall he was leaning on a little more, deciding it would be best to survey the situation for a while longer before taking action.

The first thing that went terribly wrong was when the police, for no apparent reason, began firing their guns into the crowd. Axel saw several people go down fast. The screaming ceased all at once, leaving an eerie silence before it started up again, only now instead of screaming for no reason everyone was screaming in terror. Axel was at a loss as to what was going on and decided to start heading to Roxas, who would be an easy target from his high perch. He stayed low to the ground and began making his way towards the blonde, who appeared to be frozen in shock. He saw an officer take notice of Roxas and aim his gun at the boy. Axel cursed and began pushing through the crowd faster, yelling out the boy's name, knowing that he would never reach him in time.

When Roxas heard the gunshots he found that he couldn't move. He was utterly frozen. Something about the look in the eyes of the officers and the slow way they pulled out their guns to fire into the crowd willed him into immobilization. The screaming and banging that passed through his ears began to sound hollow as he saw an officer looking straight at him. With the hint of a grin the officer pulled out his gun and aimed it at Roxas. He heard his name being shouted from somewhere but found he still couldn't move no matter how loud he screamed at himself in his mind. He flinched as he heard the bang and waited for the piercing bullet to pass through his body.

He felt nothing however and as he opened his eyes he was met with the sight of a wide back covered by blood red clothes. A tattered cape tickled his nose as it swayed in the gentle night wind. Looking up Roxas' blue eyes met with red ones and he let out a slight gasp.

"Vincent!" Roxas cried. He threw his arms around the taller man and took in the familiar musty scent. Peeking around the man's back Roxas saw the officer who had tried to shoot him lying dead on the ground, a bullet hole between his eyes.

"Roxas. Run," was all Vincent said before pushing Roxas forward and disappearing into the crowd. Roxas found he could move his limbs again and charged forward through the thinning crowd, a fleeting worry for Sora passing through his mind. He convinced himself that his twin could take care of himself and continued running, heeding Vincent's orders.

Axel saw Roxas flinch and stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the gunshot go off. What he saw amazed him though, because the bullet that should have plunged itself into Roxas' heart was deflected by another shot. Before the officer could take a step back in shock he saw a flurry of red land in front of Roxas and fire off a shot that landed in the officer's brain.

"Vincent…"

Riku saw the bullet plunge into Sora's shoulder blade. He saw the small hand gripped around the top of the fence so close to freedom loosen. He saw the boy fall back, landing with a sharp thud against the ground. The officers swarmed around him like ants around a dead insect. Riku pushed hard against the fence, clawing at it furiously in a futile attempt to get to Sora. The officers finally took notice of him and they all aimed their guns at him. He felt himself being pushed to the ground and saw nothing but red as the sound of shots being fired deafened his ears.

"Vincent…" he breathed out. Before he could say more he found himself being pulled to his feet and dragged away from the scene. "What about Axel?"

"He's taking care of Roxas. He'll meet with us at the rendezvous point," Vincent said as the sounds of screaming grew more distant. Riku couldn't find his voice to ask about Sora but knew the look on the brunette's face as he fell to the ground would haunt his dreams that night.

Roxas ran and ran until his lungs felt like they would burst. He turned a corner, heading down an alley and found himself only paces from freedom when a sharp pain erupted in the back of his head and he slid down into the darkness.

"Sora…"