Hey everybody! Ah, I was able to make it within the bounds of a month. As usual, thank you to demonbarber14, Plainsong30, and Nova Sinfonia for your lovely reviews. They are quite invaluable to a fledgling such as myself. I must confess that I spit my coffee all over the screen at Plainsong's "kinky and scary" bit XD Oh well, as long as it's scary, too... :)

Here we goooooo~!

She would have laughed at the fact that she was being led along by knifepoint, if she wasn't so terrified. She was trying her hardest not to look at Alex.

Not to think about what was going to happen next.

Ahead of them, the dim lights of single shop reached in the distance. She could tell, after squinting a bit, that it was Melodia. It occurred to her that it was only the other day that she was hiding away in the listening booth. She was bored. She would know better than to complain about anything, verbally or mentally, if she lived through all of this.

Alex stared off at the lights of Melodia as if he was recalling an absent thought. He suddenly looked up at Ira, eyes alight with curiosity.

"What doest thou slooshy to?" he asked, adopting a tone of curiosity and conversation.

Her flinch at the sudden break in silence did not go unnoticed, however well hidden it was intended to be. He smiled.

She turned her head ever so slightly, "You…what?"

"I am asking thou what lovely, lovely music fills thy gulliver, little sister."

She made a face; it was only when she looked over at Melodia again that his question registered. She frowned. She was determined not to speak to him anymore than she had to. Utterly recalcitrant silence could be just as dangerous, though, as it was.

"Why?" she asked. She idly wondered if he would do something psychotic, like go in and smash all her favorite records within the store upon hearing her answer.

"I must govoreet that thou are far less oomny than I messeled, malenky Ira," he said, "What sort of baddiwad vesches does thou think thy Uncle Alex is going to do with thy dobby music?"

I'm sure you could think of a few. She thought, fighting the urge to roll her eyes, "Do you request all music preferences when holding people at knife point?"

He gave her an unreadable consideration, stopping for a moment. He strode on with a predatory grace.

"Be very, very careful, malenky Ira." He warned.

"Listen…" she started to plead, out of breath, and quickly ditched it to play his game, "Okay. I listen to, you know…Hollies… Bowie… Armstrong… Krupa… a bit of the classical stuff from time to time…"

"And what might some of this 'classical stuff' vesche be?" he asked. She could have sworn that she saw a glitter in his eyes. It set her on edge far more than it should have.

"I, uhm… well…" She fumbled for words. She wasn't sure what she was thinking; nobody admitted to 'slooshying' to the likes of Verdi and company to these types and lived, it seemed, "Tchaikovsky… Puccini…"

"So, sladky Ira fancies the great, bolshy lubbilubbing types, then. " He said, still pleasant for the time being, "What say you… to Ludwig Van?"

She tensed.

"Opera's more of my thing. I tried to stick with Fidelio, but… I lean towards the Mozart side of things." She replied after a pause, cringing internally. She had never, ever listened to Fidelio in actuality; she avoided Beethoven altogether for reasons she preferred to remain withheld.

"Ah, Wolfgang." He continued to stride along leisurely, thankfully showing little evidence of even hearing what she had just said, "Then Itty-bitty Ira should be real droog like with Don Giovanni…"

She suddenly noticed that they were in the middle of a seemingly abandoned lot some forty feet away from an apartment building. There were only orange street lamps and rubbish and some tires strewn about the place. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

"Itty-bitty Ira should also know… what happens to Donna Anna."

She turned towards him rapidly, eyes wide.

"Alex… please. It's late. Just leave me alone." She said breathlessly, wavering slightly, trying her level best not to let her voice spiral into total pleading and desperation. Her heart was thumping. He only smirked at her cruelly.

"Gloopy, gloopy Ira. Leave thou 'alone,' after the malenky eegra thou fillied with my droogs? Leave thou 'alone' after thou tolchocked my britva and govoreeted to thy poor Uncle Alex so rudely?" He said, stepping closer, "Thou messeled that you could simply itty on back to thy domy this nochy, after thou did all of those merzky, baddiwad vesches? So very wrong, my malenky one."

She could hardly believe this boy, talking like everything was her fault, and in that utterly condescending tone to boot. Her chest swelled as she fixed him with an indignant glare, but at the same time her brow creased in fear and frustration. He wasn't going to leave her alone, that was for sure- but she wasn't sure if she could survive another beating. She was dead certain, however, that she wouldn't be able to beat anyone in this state, let alone him. He was the only one in the whole lot of them who had emerged without so much as an aching head. He also didn't seem the type, she noted with a tentative clear of the throat, to be hiding away. But she'd be damned if she let him go through with whatever he was scheming like some obedient schoolgirl.

"I would have gladly abstained from this whole… bitva…" She wrenched out the word as if she was going to throw up, trying to keep her voice steady, "If you lot hadn't so happily agreed to it. But if it's a second bitva that you're after, I guess I'll have to oblige. It wouldn't be the first mistake you've made tonight, I'm sure."

A slight tingling in her scraped knees hit her almost immediately, as if to ask who on this earth she thought she was fooling.

His mouth quivered in disbelieving amusement. He looked like he might laugh; it disturbed her greatly when he only craned his head towards her, eyes ablaze.

"Did I just slooshy thou govoreeting that I am to be making a mistake, malenky Ira?" he said, voice dropping to a near whisper, "Thou wants to have a malenky drat with thy dear old Uncle Alex? It is you, my lovely, who has made a bolshy, bolshy mistake."

She barely had time to react when a blow the equivalent of a sledgehammer smacked against her stomach. She sailed backward, falling to the ground as if she only weighed as much as a feather. She couldn't breathe for at least ten seconds, until she gathered her will and slowly tried to stand up again. He watched her with a glittering mischief in his eyes and walked closer, crouching down to her level.

"Does Itty-bitty Ira still want a drat?" he taunted, lifting her chin to look at him. Her eyes rolled up tiredly to meet his.

"I don't 'want' a drat…wanker…" she breathed, "I'd fight you… even if… you were… thirty bloody stories taller than me… before…"

The sting of a slap. Her head flew back again as she clutched his suspenders for dear life. All of a sudden he was grabbing her, every touch violent, smacking her around. Every hit sent her reeling for her mind. She was coming down from the effects of the milk into her right mind only for Alex to knock her right mind straight out of her.

She wasn't sure if she could even lift an arm at this rate. She could only bounce and buckle like a rag doll under the scrutiny of his fists, which alternated to kicks every so often. He was a goddamned expert, it seemed. Either that or she was completely and utterly useless. She was too tired to even make a sound. At the moment, she was closer to a paper bag than a human being. She gradually resigned herself to his onslaught.

He finally let her fall face first into the dirt. Her forehead scraped against a jagged host of pebbles painfully, although at this point it felt like a mosquito bite by comparison. She willed herself to roll over at roughly the speed of molasses, at which point Alex charitably grabbed her shoulder and helped her to roll all the way. From her view, he was framed by the orange streetlamp like a demon of some kind, his icy eyes making his appearance quite jarring for someone in her current state of mind. He descended towards her.

"Come little sister, where's thy sarky goloss, now?" He growled, grabbing her by the collar and drawing her closer. He slapped her again for good measure.

She struggled to gather her bearings once more as his hand drew back again. Another slap.

"Quite done skazatting, then, right right?"

Slap.

The only image that anchored her was the hypnotic bob of his Adam's apple. A little more power… and I can…

Another slap, far more powerful than the previous dozen. That was it.

She punched him in the throat with everything she had left.

He in turn gripped her by her own throat after spluttering momentarily, shaking her and slapping her senseless. The darkness was starting to creep up gradually from the corners of her eyes; each hit was like a manic drumroll on her being.

Stay awake…

Once he seemed quite sure that she wouldn't strike back again, he softly let go of her collar and let her rest against the street. He panted heavily; the last thing she saw was a perfectly devious smile manifesting itself on his smug face.

"A bolshy mistake, Ira."

She fainted.

...

Not the most fortuitous of times to faint, is it? This chapter was originally gonna be part of what is now chapter 8, but I kinda wanted to make the chapter length a little more even. Oh well.

As a side note with regards to Don Giovanni, the truth of what initially happened to Donna Anna has always been kind of open ended and varies depending on how a particular theater chooses to stage it. I personally see Donna Anna as one of the very first modern heroines of her time, especially in an opera. I know that many people believe that Donna Anna has some sort of secret thing for Don Giovanni, but seeing as he murdered her father and (this can vary depending on the stage choice) pretty much raped/attempted to rape her, I never quite got that vibe. But who knows.

Until Chapter 8!~