A/N: Yes, I know I'm horrible at updating, Blah, Blah, Blah. But it would be nice if everyone would Read & Review to encourage me to write more sooner!
Disclaimer: All unoriginal characters are not mine; if you sue me the only thing you will receive is a bunch of debt.
Chapter 2: Demon in the Night
The car pulled up in front of the grungy apartment building that matched the street address Duo had given them and Quatre flung the car door open and stepped out, before turning to look at his surroundings.
//Is this really where Duo lives? He really should invest some of that money from OZ into a decent apartment.// Quatre thought to himself as Trowa helped Eris out of the car behind him.
The trio walked up the stairs to Duo's third-floor apartment, where Trowa bent and quickly picked the lock before opening the door and gesturing for Quatre and Eris to precede him into the room. Quatre entered warily, unsure of what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised to find the apartment to be very tidy, and without any of the booby traps which he had been expecting. Eris walked over to the window and stared out morosely as Quatre and Trowa quietly discussed the situation at the kitchen table.
"Trowa, we really need to get her cleaned up before she meets Une, Une's already going to want to flay Wufei and Duo alive for what happened at the airport, that is why they were there after all."
"Quatre," Trowa's soft baritone broke through into Quatre's train of thought as the taller boy spoke up, "I don't think that Une expected any physical acts of violence to trigger Eris's training. Eris is an unknown; nobody could have anticipated what happened. We were there to protect civilians in case something set her off without warning. It may have been a gruesome scene, but hopefully because of what Eris did nobody else was injured." At this last word, Quatre's head snapped upward in realization; they hadn't even bothered to check and see if Eris had been hit by any of the bullets. His chair made a flinch-inducing shriek as he pushed it away from the table and slowly approached Eris and turned her towards him.
"Eris? Were you hit by any of the bullets?" At her returning silence, Quatre physically began to try and look for any open wounds, which was extremely difficult due to all of the blood which covered her liberally, which was slowly starting to drip onto the cement floor by Duo's window. Trowa disappeared and returned a few short minutes later with a small tub of water, some wash rags, and the first-aid kit. Eris simply stood there and let them wipe most of the blood off of her arms, face, and legs and then let them examine her for any injuries.
Once finished doctoring the light bullet grazes on her upper right arm and cheekbone, Trowa and Quatre turned to take care of the medical supplies, but stopped when Eris spoke, whispered in such a voice, neither had been sure they had heard it at first. "I'm sorry for causing so much trouble for you, it was a very dishonorable thing for me to do, and it is worse because you worried for me afterward. I will accept any punishment you see fit."
Quatre smiled and shook his head in an exasperated manner before speaking, "We're not going to punish you for something you couldn't control, Eris. The fact is that you probably saved a lot of lives at the airport."
"Only after I endangered them. The shooters were after me."
Trowa broke in with a soft, "That's not necessarily true, there are plenty of people who still hold grudges against the Gundam pilots and four out of the five of us were there today."
"They were after me," Eris reaffirmed this, looking up into Trowa's one visible, vibrant green eye. "You didn't look into their eyes and see the recognition and fear when they looked at me. It was me they were after, and it is shameful of me to endanger you further by staying here with you." Eris turned toward the door, completely intending to leave, but found the two exasperated Gundam pilots barring the way out. "You need to move," she pointed out fruitlessly.
"We can't let you leave, Eris, you're a ward of the Preventers now. We can't let you go out unless Une releases you, as unfortunate as that may be."
Eris's entire body stiffened, but the hardest part of her body was her eyes, like pools of liquid steel mixed with cobalt. "So I go from one prison to another, is that it?"
Quatre knew that the tenuous relationship and trust which had developed between Eris and him was crumbling before his eyes, he could feel her anger radiating from halfway across the room. "No, Eris," he tried to soothe. "You just can't wander off."
"Which is the same thing as a prison!" she hissed back at him vehemently. "It just might be a little more spacious than my last cell." She fell silent as her thoughts were dragged back to the hell-hole on L1 which had been her home until recently. She sank to her knees, tears starting to drip down her face. Quatre stepped forward but Eris just scooted back a step, she didn't want to be touched. Trowa knelt down onto the floor from where he stood and waited until he had Eris's attention. "Eris," he said quietly, "There's a full shower/bath combo down the hall on the right, if you go clean up it might make you feel better." Quatre didn't know what kind of cosmic connection Trowa had made with Eris, but Eris simply nodded and climbed slowly to her feet before heading off towards the bathroom. Once the water was safely running and they heard the shower turn on, Trowa turned back to Quatre and said plainly what Quatre's empathic gift had begun hinting at for him. "She has no control over her emotions, she changes as quickly as the blink of an eye; anger to sadness to contentment, she has no control over it."
"Trowa, I'm scared for her. I don't know what's going to happen when Une gets a hold on her. With the state she's in, she could be turned into a ruthless soldier or it might be possible to rehabilitate her and assimilate her into society. Her 'training,' if you want to call it that has screwed with her emotional responses along with who knows what else. I'm almost scared that Une will set her off and then we'll have at least one funeral to attend, if not two."
***
"What is your name?"
"You know my name; it is 518919, for the last time. It's tattooed into my neck; it's pretty hard to miss, Colonel Une."
"That is not your name. What is your real name, or don't you remember your real name?"
"I no more have a 'real name' than most of the Gundam pilots. Why are you questioning me again? I have done nothing except survive hell warmed over. Let me go back to Trowa and Quatre. I have done nothing at all in the past three months since I've been on here to warrant such interrogations as you have with me. You give me medications which do nothing and then ask me the same questions over and over again, and I still do not have any satisfactory answers for you. That is not going to change."
"Eris, to use your code name, I cannot allow you to go back to Trowa and Quatre's house. Quatre and Trowa were called away to the colonies three weeks ago. You will continue to stay here at headquarters indefinately, until we can decide what to do with you and how to repress your training. We can't just let you out into society the way you are; you're much too dangerous and unpredictable for that.
"Who was it that trained you, Eris?"
"I've told you all the answers I have. I don't know any names. I have only the faces in my memory. Please, just let me go to my cell, or room if you prefer, if that is to be my fate." Une could see the tears welling up in the girl's eyes and so called a guard to escort Eris to her new room. Une apparently did not realize that, while Eris may not have control over her emotions, she had complete control over her mind and was currently formulating an escape plan.
***
Eris took her time escaping from Preventer Headquarters; it wouldn't do to be caught from carelessness. Quatre and Trowa were gone now and her one friend from training, soldier 8551815, had been gone for longer than she cared to remember; everyone left her eventually. But now it was her turn, her turn to leave those who did not care for her except for her training and abilities. Eris turned and clung to the outside of the building and slowly began to scale her way down, taking extra care to avoid being spotted through any windows. The security in this place was a joke; they should have caught her while she was climbing out the window. This was easier than breaking into a Cracker Jack box. Her bare feet slapped down onto solid pavement and she turned outwards to the city, taking it all in in one fell swoop. She could disappear here, without any problems. She would overcome the difficulties which resulted from her training all on her own.
Eris strode purposefully down the street, her trousers and loose, tunic-style shirt giving her the look of a very clean vagrant. She wandered for hours, unwittingly wandering into Lightfinger territory. Of course, Eris didn't know who the Lightfingers were, but anyone else in the city would have been able to warn her away from the rough-and-tumble gang of thieves.
"Lookie what we have here, Jaxson! Fresh meat!" The man who spoke grabbed Eris's arm roughly and she was barely able to restrain the automatic response to kill, or at least maim, him, she hadn't even heard him come up before he spoke. The other one, Jaxson, was bigger than the first; neither were dainty men.
Eris turned her steely gaze upon the man holding her arm and said, "Let me go." in a tone of voice which would have warned most intelligent people away. However, not much can be said for all brawn and no brains, except that they are not very smart, obviously.
"Hold her tight, Mel, and we'll take tariff off in flesh. Of the most pleasant kind, if you get my meaning." Jaxson raised his left eyebrow and smiled suggestively, only to have the expression mirrored back by Mel.
Oh great, Eris thought to herself, Dicks with muscles, lovely. Eris turned and deftly broke Mel's hold on her arm and then broke his wrist. What she wasn't expecting was for Jaxson to back off and give a shrill whistle. Immediately musclemen, as well as many smaller, lither young men, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She put up a valiant fight, but she wasn't quite ready to kill any of them to get away, though if they tried to rape her, several would find themselves fondly missing the ability to breathe ever again. They didn't try anything like that, though most found incredible amusement in beating her to a pulp. She couldn't help the tears which slid down her cheeks as she was grabbed and held up by two of the burliest men in the bunch so the others could continue to beat her. Nobody came out of their houses to help, no one even acknowledged what was happening. Vagrants and beggars didn't live long in Lightfinger territory and everyone knew it.
Another fist connected solidly with Eris's body and the conscious world slipped away from her, so she didn't hear an authoritative voice call from the edge of the circle, "That will be enough!" Immediately Eris's body was dropped to the ground as the name "Demon" flashed like lightning through the group. Demon never participated in the "festivities" as most of the Lightfingers referred to their clandestine activities. Eris came back to consciousness and tears began sliding down her face again as she tried to lever herself up into a sitting position, leaning on her hands and outstretched arms to support herself. She tried to wipe away her tears, but they just came more fiercely. Demon came through the crowd without any problems, the thieves parted for the lithe young man as if Moses was parting the Red Sea. Demon turned towards Mel who was cradling his arm against his bulky chest. "What. Is. Going. On. Here?" The tone was dangerous and everyone knew better than to lie to the Demon, he could smell someone thinking a lie. Jaxson answered promptly from behind Mel, "This one came into our territory like she owned it, didn't even bother with the tariff box just down the street. Everyone in the city knows the Lightfinger tax."
"I see. Let me see her." Demon turned and moved through the crowd toward the Eris and crouched down until he was eye level with her. He looked into her eyes and she looked right back at him, her mettle gleaming through the tears that ran unchecked from those blue-grey orbs. Demon recognized the look of determination and pride in her eyes. He turned to the surrounding men, "She's going back to base with me. Mel you need to get down to the hospital and get Sugar to look at that, it looks like a pretty clean break." Demon turned back to Eris and without even asking whether or not she could walk, let alone stand, he gathered her into his arms and headed back the way he had come. Pausing at the end of the street he turned and threw one more comment back to the men who stood rooted to their places, "Next time you are told there are to be no 'festivities' it is meant with the utmost sincerity. I hope you all realize that I will be informing Solo."