Feral
Rawr It's Kizami

Chapter Two: Splitting Up

"Empty," Wufei murmured in a hushed tone, his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his katana.

Heero, following Trowa out of the shuttle to stand by Wufei in the hangar, remained silent and surveyed the area. Aside from their own vehicle, several other transport shuttles were situated around the large ward, the incandescent lights overhead reflecting off ghostly, white bodies with their noses turned toward the exit. The space traffic control office was vacant with a few discarded coffee cups forgotten on the panel, and at the far left wall was the entrance into the tourist sector of the Lunar Base.

"Wow, it's like everyone just suddenly got up and left," Duo remarked, hopping onto the sleek metal floor and closing the shuttle door behind him. He quickly glanced at Trowa, whose eyes were unfocused and staring at the hangar wall blankly, and added with a small laugh, "It must be break time."

"Idiot," Wufei muttered, following Heero to the door with the other two reluctantly trailing.

This was it. They were about to go in and find out exactly what had happened. Heero and Duo stepped to one side of the door while Trowa and Wufei took their places at the other, each of their weapons gripped readily in their hands. After looking into each of their faces and receiving nods of accordance in return, Heero nodded back and calmly pressed his index finger against the sensor pad.

The door immediately yawned open and Heero promptly directed his gun inside.

Lowering his own gun, Duo scratched the back of his neck puzzledly with one hand. "I don't get it," he said, stepping into the threshold behind Heero, "Everything looks good."

"Hn," Heero grunted in reply, his finger resting against the trigger cautiously. He thought Duo's statement wasn't too far off; the mall looked completely untouched with pristine tiled floors and stores with their doors still open. From where the four of them stopped at the center of the spiraling complex, he could see nothing askew. Still, he knew all too well about deception, about how something so inconspicuous could turn out so insidiously. So he didn't necessarily agree with Duo's comment-everything did decidedly not look 'good'.

"No, not good," Wufei vocalized, drawing a look of confusion from Duo. "The door shouldn't have been unlocked, the stores shouldn't be open, and we shouldn't be here."

"Yeah…" Duo sighed, tightening his grip around the firearm. "Now that you mention it, it's weird. This place is giving me the creeps. Let's find Quatre and get the fuck outta dodge."

At the mention of the blond Arabian, Trowa's eyes visibly narrowed a little. Heero ignored it, but noted that the taller pilot had been more silent than usual. As strange as his behavior was, Heero couldn't let that be his focus and instead maneuvered over to the door directly opposite from the one from which they entered. "We need to get to the research sector," he told them.

"Shouldn't we search the area for survivors?" Wufei asked suddenly, darting his gaze around at the individual shops.

Heero opened the door and, without looking back at the Chinese pilot, said simply, "Our first priority is to reach the control room." He didn't want to tell him that it was hopeless looking for survivors here. The area was completely abandoned from what he could tell, and any survivors would have already left through the adjacent hangar. He started down the hallway. He doubted anyone had escaped.

"Hey, uh, Wu-man's right," Duo added, shrinking back slightly when Heero looked back at him with a glare. "We can't just leave innocents here. This place is creepy enough."

After staring at Duo for a while, Heero turned away. If they wanted to waste their time looking for people who weren't there, it was their choice but he wanted no part of it. It had occurred to him that there were most likely survivors scattered around the base, but he was skeptical about them staying in the mall. The looks on Wufei's and Duo's faces told him they thought otherwise, and the thought of Duo saying "Better safe than sorry" crossed his mind. Rather than wasting precious time by explaining the situation and the consequent bickering, Heero conceded and said, "Fine, search the area then meet us at the control room. Contact us if you find anything."

He heard Duo gulp nervously behind him. Obviously the idea did not sit well with the American.

"We're splitting up?" he questioned, tensely tugging at his braid with his free hand. "Man, I feel like we've just stumbled into the beginning of a bad horror movie. Shit always happens when they split up."

"This isn't a movie, Maxwell, this is real life," Wufei chided. "It's more efficient if we split up."

Duo huffed rebelliously, but Heero knew that as brash as he was, Deathscythe's ex-pilot would never disobey a direct order. Especially if it was the right choice-which Heero knew it was.

"Shit's gonna go down, I just know it," Duo muttered, glancing away from the door.

"How do we get to the control room from here?" Wufei asked, ignoring Duo's paranoid mumbling and holding his hand against the doorframe before it could automatically shut behind Heero and Trowa.

"Go all the way down this hallway," Heero replied without stopping.

Wufei pursed his lips in annoyance but released the door anyway. Heero's 'I'm-the-perfect-soldier-holier-than-thou' attitude really ground on his nerves. Even if the area was empty, they should at least put in the effort to look. Since when was Heero psychic anyway? The last time Wufei checked, the ZERO system caused mild insanity, not clairvoyance.

"Looks like it's just you and me, Wuffers," Duo said behind him.

Wufei sighed sharply. Thanks to his big mouth he was now stuck with the self-proclaimed God of Death, who was scared of an empty mall. Ignoring Duo's use of his unsavory nickname, he walked past the braided man and said, "Let's start looking around the first floor."

He could almost feel Duo's immense sigh of relief. Just because they weren't splitting up didn't mean Wufei didn't want to, something-he didn't want to call it 'intuition' or a 'vibe' as Duo did-told him they should stick together.

They walked into the first store in silence, Duo with the trigger tickling his fingertips and Wufei with his hand gripped readily around the hilt of his katana. Nothing looked out of place. It was just an everyday clothing store; the various printed shirts were all hanging casually on their hangers and the small jeans, a fashion item neither of them really understood nor wanted to, were carefully folded on their displays. The neon wall paint reminiscent of color vomit made Wufei shudder and visibly squint his eyes through the brightness, but under normal circumstances he would have just assumed business was slow.

Duo hesitantly moved toward the door to the back room. "There's always something in the back…" he groaned, to which Wufei rolled his eyes. "But a man's gotta do what a man's got-"

A tremendous crash exploded from outside, cutting off Duo in mid-sentence. The two Preventers stared wide-eyed at each other for a fraction of a second before dashing back out into the atrium. With the safety off and the blade unsheathed, Duo and Wufei stood back to back in the center of the tower, their eyes darting around aimlessly.

"What the hell was that?" Duo panted, unsure of where to aim his gun.

"Sounded like glass breaking," Wufei answered, equally as unsure as to where he should be focusing.

He heard Duo swallow nervously behind him and looked over his shoulder to see the slightly taller man point an uncertain finger at the second floor. "Kind of like someone breaking in?" Duo suggested.

Without replying, Wufei ran past Duo and raced up the stairs. He could hear his current partner's footsteps falling behind him after a while, but he paid it no mind. What was important was that there was in fact someone still here. He knew he was right. Once he reached the shattered remains of the tempered glass door, Wufei snuck a cursory glance at the store name and nearly slapped a hand to his forehead in disbelief. Gee's Candy, he thought as Duo stopped next to him, Is this what the scientist did when he wasn't making suits?

"Huh, well whuddya know," Duo breathed jovially, momentarily forgetting about the problem at hand, "He wasn't kidding when he said he liked candy."

Using his free hand to massage his temple, Wufei shook his head tiredly and then promptly smacked Duo in the back of the head. Duo, feigning an expression of deep offense, held his hand over his heart and whispered, "And I thought we were really getting somewhere, Wuffie."

"Focus, Maxwell!" Wufei chastised despite knowing full well that was how Duo handled pressure. He held his sword with both hands. "I'll go in first, cover me."

Duo, regaining his composure, nodded and carefully aimed his gun around the inside of store as Wufei stepped inside first. He immediately followed once he cleared the area (he didn't think it was too hard, they could see everything from outside) and stepped next to Wufei, whose nose was crinkled in an intense expression of disgust.

Wufei held his arm out to the side, barring Duo from going any further. "Do you smell that?" he whispered, his eyes glued to the door to the back.

With a confused look, Duo sniffed the air. The aroma of fresh chocolate and butterscotch temporarily filled his senses, but it soon died out and was replaced by a subtle metallic scent hinting at copper. His violet eyes widened. "Blood…"

Wufei nodded curtly and gripped his blade with two hands again. "It's coming from the back." He looked at Duo with a glint of determination in his obsidian eyes. "Watch this area in case someone else comes."

Duo nodded back and the two of them carefully walked over to the back door where they exchanged quick glances before Wufei cautiously pushed open the swivel door. A wave of the sharp odor washed over them and from the corner of his eye, Wufei saw Duo take a deep breath through his mouth. Gathering up all the tolerance he could muster, the Chinese man carefully stepped inside and allowed the door to swing closed behind him.

In front of him was a metal counter with fresh chocolate pieces already cut up and waiting to be put into the display case. On the wall behind that was a row of stainless steel utensils comprised of ladles, spoons, a pizza cutter, and a set of knives. They were all neatly organized in their place, except for one nook in the block of knives that remained empty.

The smell was overpowering now. Holding his left hand to his nose in an attempt to block out some of the retched stench, he continued his survey of the small kitchenette.

Wufei felt his blood chill when he looked to the wall on his left. He'd found the absent knife; it was lodged in the throat of a young man no older than he, pinning the blood drenched body to the wall. The once white chef's garb was splattered with crimson trails leading from the soaked neckline down to the onyx shoes pooled in a sanguine puddle. The eyes that were probably once a lively shade of green were now dull and glazed orbs adorning a bloody face with the jaw dropped in an eternal scream. Like the utensils on the adjoining wall, the body was hanging off the knife as if it were a wall decoration. It seemed almost ritualistic. Whoever had done this must have had incredible strength.

What surprised Wufei the most were the strange marks dotted around the man's neck. The skin seemed torn and chunks were missing, the carotid artery having been dragged out and was lying flaccidly on the scarlet collarbone like a horrendous, limp straw that was messily sucked dry.

He stepped back. The longer he looked the more nauseous he felt. It was all so… fresh.

Wufei's eyes widened. Too fresh. The amount of time between when they heard the crash to when they arrived at the door wasn't too long, several minutes at most. He felt a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. That meant the victim was probably in there with the killer trying to hide from whatever was happening throughout the rest of the base. Did that mean there were more survivors? And more importantly, was it an inside job?

A slow, creaking sound squeaked behind him and Wufei immediately pivoted and drew a battle stance. It was too late. As soon as his head turned a fuzzy blur tackled him, causing him to release his iron grip on his weapon and knocking both of them back onto the floor. From the sticky warm feeling at the back of his head, Wufei knew he was now wrestling with his attacker in the chocolatier's blood.

A trap. It was all a trap. This thing had seen them come in and concocted a plan to ensnare them. And like the prey they'd become, they fell for it. Wufei bit back a scowl. As ashamed as he was to have fallen for something so ridiculous, he was angrier to not have reacted fast enough. But this thing was fast.

He heard a low, guttural, almost feral growl from above him and reflexively reached one of his hands up against his opponent's throat to push away the looming visage. Was it just adrenaline clouding his judgement, or was this person trying to kiss him? Wufei looked up at the face and almost completely froze from a strange mixture of shock, fear and surprise.

His attacker was a young girl, no older than any of the pilots, with blood-soaked bangs framing her wild face. Her white uniform and name tag were mottled with blood, but the freakiest thing, Wufei thought, was her face. Her wild eyes were completely red as if all the vessels in them had bursted and her pupils were constricted to the point where it seemed she had only irises. But her mouth, Wufei struggled with his legs and managed to knee her in the stomach hard enough to roll her off him, oh God, her mouth.

The bottom half of her face was entirely painted with red. The grisly grin she wore even as she jumped to her feet as though she didn't register the pain showed off the horrifying teeth she bore in her jaw. Before Wufei could leap to his feet, she lunged at him again. Her teeth were stained with blood and at that point Wufei knew what had happened-she killed her co-worker and actually tried to eat him.

Disgusted and shaken up, Wufei used his left hand to keep her face at bay while his right scrambled around the floor for a weapon. Any weapon. This girl straddling his stomach and squeezing her hands around his neck, contrary to her small stature, was terribly strong. He felt her blood-caked fingernails digging into his skin and the decaying stench of her breath on his face. When he was sure he was going to puke from nausea, his fingertips skimmed a familiar leathery material. He quickly grabbed it and brought it up to the girl's side, the sharp blade colliding with smooth flesh, before using his other hand to bring a left hook hard against her cheek.

She rolled off again and this time Wufei was quicker to his feet. He stood with his hands tightly gripped around his katana, his throat and nostrils burning.

"Maxwell!" he managed to choke out dryly despite his uncooperative throat.

The door burst open and Duo ran in with his gun ready. "Oh man, this is gross," he remarked, nose crinkling in disgust before his eyes widened to size of saucers as his gaze fell upon the body dangling limply on the wall and then to the dead girl on the floor next to the pool of blood. "What the fuck happened in here?!"

"Sh-She attacked me!" Wufei told him, his hand against his throat tenderly. "Crazy girl."

"More like crazy bitch," Duo corrected, looking away with an uncomfortable expression. He suddenly tapped a rattled Wufei's shoulder, causing the other man to jump at his touch. "She was probably hiding in there," he said, pointing at the open cabinet behind the door.

Wufei grunted. Yeah, great, leave it to him to leave the one place storing the psycho unchecked.

There was a sudden, searing pain in his arm and he let out a yell of anguish. The girl was alive?! Her teeth were locked in the meat of his right arm and before he could react, she had him pinned against the back counter. The burning in his arm was intense and continuous, and he found the only thing he could do in this position was punch at her with his free arm. Her strength kept him in a gridlock, and right when he thought she was going to take a chunk right out of his arm, a roaring bang echoed around the small room.

The girl slumped lifelessly to the blood splattered floor with a bullet lodged safely in her head and Wufei assessed the damage to his arm. He wanted to yell at Duo for taking so long, but he knew it lasted only a matter of seconds.

"I hope you got your tetanus shot, Wuffers," Duo teased, his trademark grin on his face.

Wufei groaned. Duo could cope his way all he wanted, but that didn't mean Wufei had to like it. Scowling from the deep, gashing teethmarks that now adorned his arm, he grabbed a white apron from the wall and tore off a long, thin strip to dress his wound with.

"I wonder what happened here," Duo whispered softly, looking down at the dead eyes of the deceased girl.

Tying his makeshift bandage securely with his teeth, Wufei proceeded to pick his abused katana from the floor and wipe the dirtied blade clean with the rest of the apron. He had to wonder, too; just what had happened on the base?

"We need to tell Yuy," Wufei said, replacing the weapon in its sheath at his waist and pulling out the radio from his pocket.

Duo nodded his agreement as the two of them went back out to the front of the store. He was feeling drained already, and he wasn't even the one who had gotten attacked by a rabid candy girl. Shaking his head to try to get the gruesome images out of his head, his eyes caught sight of the candy display. Well, now is a good time as any, he thought mischievously, reaching a sneaky hand into the case, And chocolate produces endorphins. Win-win! …Kind of.

"Glad to see you can still eat after that," Wufei commented, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he lifted the radio to his mouth.

"I'm an opportunist, Wu-man," Duo retorted, popping the chocolate delight into his mouth. "And this is quite an opportunity."

Wufei rolled his eyes as the walkie-talkie in his hand crackled to life. "Yuy, something happened."

"Yeah," Duo added, finishing his candy and walking over to Wufei, "We got attacked by a psycho bitch! I told you, Hee-chan! We shouldn't have split up! Shit always happens when people split up!"

When Duo finished, the radio crackled again before Heero's voice panted over to their side.

"I've lost Trowa."

-End Chapter Two-

I just picked Gee's Candy because it rhymes with See's Candy (which I don't own, so this is kind of like a blatant advertisement, oops).

And secondly, um… yay, action! Sorry if the action bits aren't written very well. I hope you got a good rush out of it anyway! There's more of it to come, that's for sure