A/N. No, I haven't vanished off the face of the earth, been kidnapped, died, abandoned this story ect. I've just started school again, and for those who would like to know, in the first two weeks, I've had: three papers to write, six tests to take, four games, practice every day and play tryouts. I also jammed most of the fingers on my dominant hand and have therefore not been able to type well. Forgive me for not updating!
No seriously, I'm sorry I haven't managed to finish this story yet! I've got the outline and everything I just haven't...written anything…yet! I'm still gonna finish this and don't doubt it! It just might take a while. *Suddenly remembers what this chapter is about and begins to slink away*
After ages of being silent, you guys are gonna hate me for this chapter…No flames, PLEASE! *Goes behind flame proof glass* Well, here goes! (Disclaimer in previous chapters.)
Train fell into an uneasy sleep that never lasted more than a few minutes. Some small thing would keep waking him up; an itching in his throat or rolling too quickly onto his battered ribs. Every time he did, he would look out onto the destroyed room and sigh in despair. It wasn't everyday that someone died because of him. (Although it sure felt like it.) He was currently sitting propped against a wall, one arm wrapped around his abused middle, the other trapped against his body by Eve's slumbering form. Sven was a few yards away, twirling his miraculously still-intact hat between his restless fingers. Heavy lidded golden eyes swept lazily across the demolished room outside of their cell. Large cracks littered the floor, sometimes accompanied by chunks of stone slanting upwards, which gave the room a labyrinthine feeling. The actual door to the cell was so warped Train was surprised that the two Numbers had managed to force him through the opening.
If they'd snuck a Tao user in, they could probably figure something out. Train had read in a paper somewhere about a young boy -who was apparently very short- who could fix anything by simply clapping his hands together and placing them to the broken object.
But he was getting sidetracked. No boy was about to race in, clap his hands together, fix the horrible wrenched metal door and save them from this mess. Train was kidding himself. As soon as he started chuckling, Sven whipped his head to look at him. The brown-haired sweeper looked on the verge of hysteria. Sven edged towards his partner warily.
"Train, you feeling alright?" He asked, relieved that when gold eyes finally met his, they were free of any insanity, merely filled with despair and jadedness. He snorted in his mind at the incredulity of the statement before listening to Train's response.
"Yeah Sven. I'm fine. Just thinking of something else." At the sound of his scratchy voice, Train flinched and lifted the hand previously resting on his stomach to rub against his raw throat. Seeing the action, Sven grabbed the now-half-empty bucket of water and pulled it over towards Train. The sweeper looked thankfully at his partner before dunking one bandage-covered palm into the cool water so that he could use the soaked bandages to soothe his throat. Once that was done, the two partners settled to wait for the next horror the world was going to throw at them.
They didn't have to wait long.
Clanging sounds echoed from the stairwell and both men turned to look with wary eyes. Out came Four and Eight, the latter of which was fiddling with something in his hand. The confusing thing for the two captives was that there wasn't a third person for Train to fight. The brown haired sweeper cocked his head as he gently shook Eve awake. Blonde hair swished in front of her magenta eyes as she blinked hazily up at Train.
"Wha-?" She asked, but was silenced by a look from Train. Immediately going into a defensive mode, she surged away from Train. The movement jostled him and he barely managed to suppress a whimper of pain. Eight stalked over and wrenched open the door, fighting with the bent metal for a few minutes before it gave. Train grabbed Sven's shoulder and heaved himself up on his feet. Eight stared at the Number with raised eyebrows before grabbing Eve's shoulder and pulling her towards the entrance.
"Hey!" Train roared, lunging forward and out of the cell to catch up with the two. Sven had followed, but the door was slammed in his face. The older sweeper took a few steps back before leaning forward and pressing his face as close to the bars as he could without getting cut by the warped metal. Eight dragged Eve to the middle of the wreckage strewn floor and four had managed to get a firm grip on Train's collar, effectively stopping him from lunging forward and thereby straining his neck.
"Now then," Eight started, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a metallic plate the size of a playing card, "I've always wondered what would happened if we put a bio-weapon against a Number. And then I stumbled along you two and my problem was solved. I could just have the little beauty here," At this, he tightened his grip on Eve's arm and shoved her forward a few steps, "fight the little beast over there and see who comes out on top." Train's breath hitched as he realized what was going to happen.
"That isn't happening. I'm not going to." He strained backwards from the hand grasping his collar like a horse shying away from the starting gate. Four jerked him forward sharply, prodding Train with his dagger. The sweeper hissed softly as the pointed metal dug into his inflamed midsection. Eve watched the scene play out with eerie calm before turning to stare Eight in the eye.
"If you're doing this from a purely scientific perspective, you have too many variables to have a correct outcome." Eight stared at the girl, ignoring Train's faint snickers in the background and the smile peeking from Sven's mouth.
"What?" Eve shrugged as much as she could and turned to eye the battleground.
"The terrain is unsatisfactory, I cannot fight to my full abilities, Train is severely wounded and neither of us have the incentive to battle the other. As I said, your experiment is flawed through and through." At this, Train laughed out right.
"Princess," he gasped, talking past the burning sensation in his throat, "did you just successfully use sarcasm for the first time?"
Eve glared at him.
Eight stared at Eve, the card still flipping idly from one finger to the next.
"No incentive, eh? I think I can change that." Train watched as he slapped the metal plate in between her shoulder blades and stepped away quickly. Bright white light filled the room, taking on the form of sparking electricity as it crackled around the small girl. Train took an involuntary step back, noticing for the first time that a fist wasn't holding him back. Four had vanished from his sight, leaving him to watch as Eve quickly changed from pleasant-enough girl to deadly weapon. Sven shouted in fear for both partners before the electricity halted and everything fell silent.
Eve was still glowing from within, casting her features into shadow and giving her an ethereal aura. Train was hunched in on himself, only just then having realized that the lightning had stopped and he was momentarily safe. Eve looked up as much as Train could tell and knives sprouted where her arms had been. Wicked white wings with razor sharp edges sprouted from her back and she took on a defensive position.
"…Eve?" Train asked hesitantly. Hades clacked as he stepped forward and Eve's head shot up, fire in her eyes.
No warning forewarned the attack.
No signal of any kind signaled the breaking of a friendship.
Not one word was passed as the shattering began.
Eve had apparently forgotten everything she knew as soon as the card hit her skin. She had once again become the killing machine Toreno designed her to be. Train backpedaled as soon as Eve lunged for him, trying to keep from directly attacking the girl. Eve kept coming at him, knives flashing dangerously in the artificial light. One paper-thin weapon slit open a six inch gash along his right forearm, blood immediately spilling from the wound. He gasped as the already abused flesh was injured even more.
Eve leapt again and Train pulled Hades to block the blow. Once the weapon was drawn, Eve howled in rage and her wings swept forward to cut at the stumbling sweeper. Sven shouted uselessly at Eve, trying to get her to calm down. But the girl was already trapped in the hold of the metal plate and she was going all out. Turning one had back to its usual appendage, she tried to stretch out and wrench Train to the ground. The shaggy haired sweeper dodged nimbly and shot behind a particularly large bit of wreckage. Taking the moment to breathe, he leaned his head against the broken stone chunk and glanced over himself.
"Blood…I smell blood on your hands." Train froze, eyes already locked on his lower arms. Oh look…blood. He wiped the red liquid onto the tattered remains of his jacket and tried to shake the disconcerting feeling that came with the words. Eve hadn't spoken like that for years-since the night he saved her in the woods. He shuddered, only to turn the movement into a full body roll when the stone behind him cracked and began to splinter away.
Leaping on top of another, he saw Eve's hand, transformed into a massive hammer, sticking out of the rock.
"Eve!" The call did nothing to lessen the violence coming from the little blonde girl. In fact, it seemed to heighten it, leading her to surge forward, hammer morphing into a ridiculously large sword-razor sharp and double edged. Train yelped in surprise and turned to the side in a desperate attempt to evade the weapon. The blade sliced right through the lower half of his jacket, sending the blue cloth fluttering to the ground. Train stared at the scrap of clothing, recognizing how it symbolized his near brush with death and for the first time in his life, he was scared of it.
He'd been around death his whole life and had come to terms with the thought of his leaving this world by the hands of another. But never in his wildest thoughts of most horrifying nightmares had he thought that it would come from the blow of someone who had finally managed to shove past his barriers enough to become a 'friend'. Blonde hair flashed in front of his amber eyes, and he glanced up in time to see Eve whip past him, turning to make another assault while his guard was down.
"Eve…" it wasn't called in surprise this time, nor in a plead to remain alive. Now, it was a broken word whispered by someone who has finally realized the significance of what is happening to him. The constant ethereal light that radiated from Eve seemed to dim a little and something flashed in her eyes.
But then the fire was back, and she lunged forward, the flat edge of her sword-arm slamming forcefully into the side of Train's head. He crumpled immediately, golden eyes flickering closed with a soft frown of confusion marring his features.
As soon as her partner hit the ground, Eve seemed to freeze. Her arm remained raised above the fallen sweeper and the knife-edged wings sprouting from her back remained flared out, giving her the look of an angel of death. Soft footsteps drew both hers and Sven's attentions toward the two Numbers staring awestruck at the girl.
"You just…" He didn't finish the words, for at the moment he spoke Eve had lunged again, fury in her face and death in her eyes.
"You monsters! You evil beast! You do not deserve to live!" She howled, fire flashing across her expression. Four just managed to whip out his golden knife in time to block the deadly arc of her sword, all the while screaming at Eight.
"Grab the remote!" A few seconds of desperate battle followed between the Number and the bio-weapon before Eight pulled out a small remote and pointed it at Eve. She dropped with a scream, clutching at her neck and immediately retracting her sword and wings. Eight kept his finger on the button until Four had recovered and dragged Eve back into the cell, throwing her next to Sven. The shouts of both sweepers died down a little as the button was released and they turned to clamoring for Train's return.
"Bring him back!" Eight stared at the two horror-stricken partners and for a moment considered letting them sweat the trouble out. But then he remembered how clever the Black Cat was and decided it was safer to keep him behind bars.
"Fine." He stalked over to the unconscious former assassin, snagged the collar of his shirt in a death grip, and then hauled his limp for over to the prison. Four kept the warped door open wide enough to allow his partner to shove Train inside before slamming it shut with a clang and a laugh.
"See you soon!" That was perhaps the most foreboding thing they had ever heard from the man but then he was gone, and they were left along in the half light of some broken lights and the fading sun.
A few moments of silence passed before Train groaned and twisted around from his awkward position on the floor. Both of his partners had been too shocked to move him at all, and it was only until he showed signs of waking that they moved. Sven gently turned Train onto his back and called his name.
"Train, wake up. Come on, Train open your eyes!" eve remained silent, frustrated tears falling from her eyes as she reached behind her back and ripped the metal card away. The lights were no longer blinking on it and it looked burned out on the whole. She stared at the cursed card for a few moments before throwing it as far from her as she could and turning back to Train. His eye lids peeled back to reveal dazed golden irises with a pained expression.
"Wha-…how'd I get on the floor? Don't remember falling…" He tried to sit up, but then Eve came into his sights and reached over to help him.
For the first time in his life, Train flinched away from Eve.
A/N. Whoa, sorry if that was really crappy but I've been gone from writing for a month-homework never gives you the chance to keep up your skills. Hopefully from now on I shall be able to update more frequently. No more month long gaps, I promise! Gimme a week or two between chapters before nagging me (by then I will have deserved it).
Oh, and if anyone can guess the reference I was making about the boy who could clap his hands and fix stuff get a virtual cookie! But seriously, I'd love for you guys to guess…it lets me know that you read the unimportant A/Ns…
Thx!
-Shadow
