Disclaimer found in Chapter 1.

FND: As of JUNE 2010, this is the newly-revised Chapter 2.

Notable Changes for this Chapter: None.

Questions, comments, and opinions are welcome via reviews!

Chapter 2
Ally with an Adversary

"Kellis!"

Groggily, she opened her eyes. A few blinks in the darkness assured her that night had fallen once more. The door to the room she'd chosen was being pounded on furiously. Although 'chosen' was maybe too nice of a word for it. She'd wandered down the hall of the floor below, touching each door until she found one that didn't shock her fingertips. She had always expected the Hunter's resting place to be strictly-warded. Perhaps the Hunter had come to slap on an eviction notice. Her stay was done.

He roared her name again. Good lord, he was pissed. What the hell for? She hadn't even left the room since arriving the night before! Having a vague idea what may have set him in such a mood, Dominique closed her eyes and stretched her senses. She picked up remnants of a vampiric aura from the room above hers and had her hunch confirmed. Oh boy. That had to mean that Satin had visited the previous night. That explained a lot, now didn't it?

"KELLIS!" Trunks bellowed as he kicked the closed door open. The wood splintered with a loud cracking sound as it gave under his foot, leaving the door to hang forlornly by its hinges. The damaged locking mechanism clanked to the floor. Apparently, he'd remembered that this was his house after all. His expression was furious as he approached the bed, glaring down at her.

A low growl of annoyance rose in her throat as her eyes fell on the nuisance looming above her. Just because it was night didn't mean she was ready to wake up just yet—and definitely not so rudely. She eyed him balefully, hair tousled as she propped herself up on one elbow. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she demanded around a yawn.

His azure eyes were almost glowing in the moonlight, but unlike many of her weaker race he'd encountered, Dominique wasn't intimidated by him. He'd yet to draw blood on her and she doubted he'd be able to do it now. He could damn well glare all he wanted; she'd glare right back. But that didn't change the fact that he was absolutely livid. And most likely looking for a target, she reasoned dryly. How lovely… "What is it?"

Trunks scowled darkly at her and caught her by the collar of her shirt, jerking up from the bed in one swift yank.

The vampire stared at him in surprise, hanging tensely in his grip. He was so much taller than her, her feet dangled a few inches from the floor. When she realized he actually had not come to plunge a knife through her heart, her anger flared. Who the hell did he think he was, grabbing her like that? She'd done him no wrong. Her surprised turned to irritation.

"You called your Sister here, didn't you?" he demanded.

Dominique's eyes narrowed into slits. Of course that was what this was about. When wasn't her life complicated horribly by Satin? "She's completely fixated on you, you know. Very interested in you. She'd come even if I don't call her—and believe me, I never have. Besides, did it ever occur to you that I came here to get away from her?" Her fangs flashed in her snarl. "Now I'd suggest you put me down before I punch you."

Trunks dropped her abruptly. Dominique fell heavily back onto the bed, hissing as she struggled to regain her bearings. Oh, what she wouldn't give to live up to her threat and just clock him one. The repercussions from Satin might just be worth the satisfaction. She straightened her shirt and blew an errant lock of hair from her field of vision, glowering at him.

Trunks stared right back, ignoring the palpable rage simmering from her. "You've overstayed your welcome, Kellis. Now get out."

She clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Was I ever really welcome?" she inquired darkly.

"No, but you've overstayed it nonetheless."

She rose with a preternatural grace he found annoying and swept by him without another word. Trunks crossed his arms and followed her, intent on making sure she didn't linger. Dominique glanced over her shoulder at him when she realized she was being followed, and stopped walking. She stood there in the hall, a hand on her hip and an eyebrow cocked. "And you would be wanting... what?"

"I want you to leave."

"I'm leaving, aren't I? Am I not going fast enough for you, Hunter?" she snapped. Dominique frowned at him when he nodded. "You know, I can see now why you don't have that many friends. You're not a nice man, Mr. Briefs. You're what I'd call an asshole."

Trunks did not waver or rise to the bait. She could call him whatever the hell she wanted, as long as she did it from far away. "Stop stalling and leave," he said coldly.

"I did not call Satin here!" she protested. "If you're going to be pissed off at me about something, can't it at least be something I did for once?"

"I don't care whether you did or not. I want you out of my house." Trunks once again took her elbow and began to pull her towards the door. If she wouldn't leave on her own power, then she'd leave by his.

Enraged, Dominique drove her other elbow backwards and up, sending it flying right into the demi-Saiyan's face. Trunks released her with a curse and just as quickly, managed to capture her again. He ducked the flying fist and swept Dominique's feet from under her. They scrambled, rolled, tumbled through the warded door of the room at the end of the hall. They grappled for the upper hand on the carpeted floor of the dusty sitting room. Finally, Trunks sat heavily on top of Dominique and pinned her arms to her side, ending the struggle effectively.

Blood surged down his face from his nose. "You bitch," he hissed furiously to the woman struggling beneath his iron-clad grip. In the time it took for the blood to drip down to his chin, the injury had already healed, but that didn't make him any less infuriated about it.

Dominique didn't bother struggling anymore; it'd obviously be pointless. "I'm getting really sick and tired of you manhandling me all the goddamn time," she spit at him, showing him that her fangs had lengthened considerably. Her green eyes had shifted to a flaring, electrifying blue. "If I didn't think Satin would be absolutely furious with me, I'd drain you dry myself, you arrogant little bastard!"

"Liar," Trunks snapped, keeping his hold tight on her. "You haven't murdered a single human as long as I've had the misfortune to know you exist. I'd suppose you'd lost your nerve, or were just a fucking coward from the beginning."

"Nerve?" Her voice dipped low until it was mocking, taunting. "Are you telling me that the immortals can possess emotions? That we could actually be people capable of real feelings? Oh my goodness, why, I had no idea."

Trunks gave her a shake and was darkly rewarded with a stifled cry as her head snapped back against the unyielding floor. "Don't you play with me, Kellis, or I'll slit your throat right here and now!"

Dominique's fangs gleamed in the moonlight as she smiled coldly. There was no humor in that wicked grin of hers. "Now, see, I'd be so afraid of you, Hunter—if you hadn't left your sword back in your room."

Trunks was seething with hatred. By God, he'd been a fool to even speak with her, let alone allow her into his place of residence. He never learned; that was his problem. "I'll be very happy to see you burn in Hell, Kellis," he breathed angrily.

She stared at him blankly for a minute, her icy grin fading. "Seems we're both damned for eternity, hmm?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" he growled. Trunks did not like that look she was giving him. It was almost like...sympathy. It made his stomach clench. It is a trap, another trick, another ploy she's learned from her Sister, the Hunter in him reasoned over the unease.

The sharp blue of Dominique's eyes dimmed back into green. "What are you going to do once you've destroyed all of them?"

It was obvious what she meant. There was dark sarcasm in his tone when he decided, "I don't know, live happily ever after probably."

"That's not funny." Her brow furrowed into a scowl. "You'll be alone," she reminded him. "There are barely enough humans left to continue the race, never mind that they hate you anyway. The vampires will be completely extinct. You're no better than those Androids."

He shook her again, more violently this time. A grimace of pain flickered across her face but she didn't cry out. "Shut up!" he ordered.

Dominique continued defiantly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Briefs. You've cheerfully murdered my kind to the point of total annihilation." Her eyes were locked with his, intense. "Isn't that what those machines did to yours?"

Trunks' fingers locked themselves around her throat, even though a distant part of him knew he could never kill her that way. Her hands flew up to curl around his wrist, to break his hold. At the moment, he didn't care. He didn't want to kill her just now, wasn't thinking straight enough to realize that. All he knew was that he just wanted her to shut up, just wanted her to stop talking. It sounded like something he'd once asked himself. It sounded just too close to the truth. It was hard enough to hear it from himself.

His fingers flexed strongly. Dominique's windpipe made a quick crunch sound as it was crushed and she tried to gasp at the searing agony, her eyes widening as her back arched. She would heal in a matter of seconds, but that didn't mean she was immune to the pain. Dominique's eyes were half-closed, burned blue again by the pain as her hands fell limply to the floor. Her breath was a rattling hiss. "It's...true," she managed.

Trunks' hands fell from her throat, but she didn't get up. He suspected he'd maybe caused some real damage. "You still won't shut up." His voice was startlingly normal, calm.

"And still...you don't listen." Dominique's healing powers were taking effect. She could draw breath again, however painful it was. "You...you've lost everyone you've ever loved. Well, that makes two of us."

Trunks glowered down at her, but made no move to further restrain her. She wasn't about to go anywhere; another good minute or so of healing was necessary. "You've got your demonic Sister. Isn't that enough for you? You have someone."

Dominique's lips curled in an angry snarl. "You have no idea, do you? I hate Satin with everything I have, and I'd gladly go to hell if I knew I'd meet her there."

He squinted down at her. This... this was a new tactic. "Bullshit," he declared.

"It's true." Dominique's fangs were slowly melding into normal teeth. "She destroyed my family, my friends, forced vampirism on me... I want to hurt her, I want to kill her, and she knows it. But I just can't..." In her eyes flickered pain and sadness so raw, so human, that Trunks nearly averted his gaze. "I'm not strong enough; Satin's centuries older than I am, and that gives her powers you can't even comprehend."

"Why should I believe anything you tell me?" Trunks asked, frowning. Dominique had never played this sort of game before; it was more her Sister's forte to use emotions, to lure in, torment, and trap with feelings. It had never been Dominique's way, but who knew what she'd learned at Satin's right hand?

Dominique closed her eyes as if weary. "Because we both want Satin dead. Because we both want to avenge our loved ones." Her lashes fluttered as her lids parted, revealing a film of tears over her eyes. Her eyes searched his tan face. "You can go ahead and doubt me all you want," she whispered. "But I'll show you what she did. Then you can tell me that it's bullshit."

Trunks opened his mouth to protest, to scream 'No!', but Dominique was already working. She had opened a channel between their minds and her thoughts were surging into his at an alarming rate. He'd been too surprised to throw up his mental defenses. Trunks clutched his skull, yanking his hair against pain, his eyes clenched shut against the images flaring to life in his mind's eye.

Bending over the body of a fallen woman, sobbing. So terrified, absolutely terrified. The blood, there was so much blood. Beyond the blood, the woman had the same facial structure as the child. A family member, slain as a pig for the slaughter.

A lone figure hovering behind her, laughing. The only one standing, the cause of this destruction. A beautiful goddess surrounded by ugly death. She had the voice of an angel, a voice that called her name now, softly, sweetly. It would mean the child's death. She could not fight her, could not flee. She was trapped, trapped until she herself died.

Years of abuse, torture, sick mind games. Raised at the right hand of evil, fighting the contamination of the angel's tainted darkness at every turn. Oh, the angel with the golden eyes was something like the plague: spreading death and decimation wherever she went, starting wars, destroying lives as the wind blows out flame. Those people. Those families. It nearly drove her mad. Cannot be broken, willnot be broken.

Rebellion led to pain, to hours locked up and beaten. It was all about learning to play the game, to hide the hatred and the fear, to do what was demanded without sacrificing her life or her beliefs. No longer a child now, but a young woman.

And then, suddenly, what felt like mortal death. Pain. Unbearable pain. An agonized scream. No, no, no, it was to be taken from her, her one and only chance at freedom. Her death. She would never die now, would always live at the angel's side. Eternal servitude beneath the hands of a murderer. A permanent player in this horrible game of a life. She was trapped—and now there was truly no escape.

Trunks trembled and let out a shuddering cry, panting heavily. His eyes were wide open and at the moment sightless. The connection broke, and the darkness of the night returned, the visions fading slowly. He could still hear the screams. Despite the overwhelming dizziness, he was dimly aware of the female vampire beneath him. He couldn't risk forgetting her existence, no matter how disoriented he was. He knew little of Dominique's past; he hadn't cared enough to know more than her former name and that Satin had sired her. Her existence only meant she was destined to die like the rest of them.

"Do you believe me now?" she whispered. She had remained still, exerting her powers through him, gauging his reaction. The reliving of the past had softened her expression into something sad, almost vulnerable.

"That..." He took a moment to find his voice, struggling to gather his thoughts into a sensible order. "That was Chryssatin." It wasn't a question. He stared down intently at Dominique with a shadow of the horrors he'd seen in his eyes.

"Yes." Her eyes flickered blue and a low, angry growl rose in her throat at the thought of Satin. "She came for me when I was a child."

"How old were you?" he wanted to know, slowly regaining his composure.

"Could we continue this conversation when we're not so... horizontal?" Dominique inquired without mischievousness. She wasn't flirting or playing the cynic now; she was utterly serious and sober.

Slowly, willing himself not to stumble, Trunks rose to his feet and sat gingerly down upon a nearby couch. His body ached as if he'd fallen from a very high distance, the price of journeying back so deeply into one's memories. He watched Dominique get up, dust herself off, and remain standing before him.

"Six," she told him finally, folding her arms around her body. "I had just turned six years old when Satin came. It was Christmas."

"And... your family never made it...did they?" His voice was steadier, without the shaky tremble it'd had moments before. He'd gotten good at recovering himself after being faced with such things. "She eradicated them, took you."

Dominique turned her head away, glaring almost hatefully at the full moon that shone outside the window. Trunks needed no verbal answer. Her tense silence was enough to tell him that all she held dear had not survived that fateful night. "How long ago was it?"

"A few centuries." She ran her hand up and down her arm, almost as if she were cold. "I'm not that old, you know."

"I could tell."

She raised her brows enigmatically but didn't face him. It was an interesting factor if he really could tell... It would mean he was rather sensitive for someone without sorcerer's blood. "Is my power that slight that you can tell how old I am?"

Was she offended? Trunks wondered, and startled himself by realizing who he was worrying about. This was Dominique Kellis, vampire! Why should he give a royal damn how she was feeling?

His conscience, long dormant, resurfaced in the back of his mind. Because, you idiot, it shouted, you know what it's like to lose the people you love!

He snapped out of his thoughts and become conscious of the fact that Dominique was watching him again. By the intense look on her face, he could tell she was reading his thoughts, something she rarely did and only when he confused her. That didn't make it any less irritating at this point in time. "I really need a keep-out sign for my mind," he decided flatly.

She stared at him long and hard, her expression expertly blank. "Feeling sorry for me, are you?"

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Trunks demanded, exasperated and frustrated. He couldn't stand the feelings seeing her past had stirred in him. The Hunter in him argued back logically that she could have made up those memories to get just this reaction from him. His gut reminded him that that was not Kellis' way. "You wanted me to feel bad for you."

"No. I wanted your help, not your damned sympathy." Dominique turned back towards the window, her mouth twisting grimly. "If all you're going to do is pity me, then I'll challenge Satin on my own. I don't fucking need you."

Trunks said nothing for a moment, only watching her. When he spoke, it was quietly, logically. "You'd die, you know. If not, then you would've gotten rid of her ages ago and done the whole world a favor. You can't do it, and you know it."

There in the white moonlight, with her eyes gleaming full of angry despair, Trunks was struck with a memory. How many times had he returned home to find his mother that way, gazing out the window with that hopeless look on her face after the Androids had destroyed another city? How many times had he watched her, wishing he could do something to ease her pain and loneliness?

"Oh, but isn't this a surprise?" a voice murmured. "My two favorite people."

Trunks jerked to his feet, alarmed, and Dominique whirled around, eyes wide and blue with surprise.

Satin stood at the threshold of the room and favored them with a slow, predatory smile.

FND: There's not that many changes in this chapter, just a bit of a literary evolution. :) Once again, guys, let me know what you think! Better? Worse? Confused? I'm all ears!