Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own any of the songs or TV shows mentioned.

Chapter Fourteen: Danger!

"Oh God You are my God, and I will ever praise you" quietly sang the happy girl who was slightly weighed down by approximately twenty souvenir bags as she was walking towards her destination. Feeling safe and like nothing could go wrong, Michelle had let her guard down as she carried out her errand.

It's definitely not something that she would have done back home since she knew how to be street smart not only from her interactions with the neighborhood guys, who had learnt a long time ago that the only way to get an advantage over the strawberry blonde was through a surprise attack, but also thanks to her parent's involvement in the government. It always boggled her why her parents knew so much about gang ploys and the like when they were teaching her how to take care of herself, especially since they were both merely top scientists for the government and not actual agents, but she learnt not to dwell on that when they had their little 'safety' discussions. Also, her favorite TV shows, such as Criminal Minds, Law and Order SVU, and other shows that deal with the most depraved criminals on the screen, made her naturally super aware of her surroundings. However, there was something about the fact that she was at a family friendly place and the familiar music that she was listening to, that made her just space out.

That was a mistake.

"She's cute" a rough voice said from behind a short brick wall, completely hidden by the shadows of the nearby building.

"Yeah 'n since her hands are filled with a bunch o' crap 'n she's not aware of nothing around her, she's a perfect target" a lecherous voice replied from the shadows near the other guy.

"And look, no one's in th' area" he continued to his buddy as he motioned to the empty area of the zoo that they were in.

Smiling at each other at the thought of what they were about to do, the two unshaven guys in their early twenties, wearing baggy clothes, and a good six inches taller than their target, walked over to Michelle. Being so lost in her music, the strawberry-blonde didn't notice them walking up to her and flanking her on both sides, leaving her no room to get away.

"Hey there pretty lady, you look like you bought a lot of stuff" the brunette guy on her right said to her, dripping with evil intent.

From the location that guy's voice was coming from, Michelle could tell that he was directly behind her right shoulder and he was either only slightly taller than her, or he was leaning down to talk to her. She looked back to casually evaluate the situation and was surprised at how close the stranger was to her. The female host slightly jolted as she quickly looked at him, then stared straight ahead, gradually increasing her speed and scanning the area from right to left, calculating the best area to run to if worse came to worse. Unfortunately, in the part of the zoo she was in due to her shortcut, there were no places to seek cover because the buildings were all either closed or sealed from this angle.

"Maybe so" she said trying to avoid eye contact and hoping that the guy would get the idea that she wasn't willing to be sociable while inwardly praying that she was overreacting for no reason.

"Maybe we c'n help ya wit' your stuff 'n out uf those clothes?" the other one seethed into her left ear.

Realizing that there was another person walking alongside of her and being completely conscious that she really was in the bad situation she was dreading, Michelle started to walk even faster as she fought back the urge to act as frightened as she was on the inside. Finally catching on that their prey was trying to get away, the guy on her right grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her to a stop, and said,

"I believe my friend asked you a question".

"Yeah I did" the purple haired boy said as he bent down to face the girl that his friend had captured face-to-face, "'N it's rude not ta answer a question".

Being unable to move thanks to the brunette's tight grip on her arm, Michelle quickly looked side to side yet again, hoping that someone had started to walk down the section of the zoo they were in so she could yell out for help. Seeing that there was still no one anywhere in sight, the blue eyed girl inwardly started to worry even more.

"I said, maybe we c'n help ya wi'chur bags 'n then you could help us out" the boy in front of her said agitatedly as he slowly started to trace his coarse fingers across her face, starting from her cheek and moving down to her chin. When he reached her chin, he roughly grabbed it and forced her to look him in the face, "are ya deaf or some'n?" he barked, angry that the serene-faced girl hadn't responded to him either time.

'In every movie and TV show, the survivors of these sort of things caught their attacker off guard by some random reaction' Michelle thought as she refused to show any trace of fear in her sapphire eyes as she stared into the dark and cold brown eyes of her attacker as she rushed to calculate an exit strategy that would save her. Remembering a self-defense video that she had seen years ago, Michelle quickly dropped her bags, stomped the full force of her foot onto the in-step of the brunette's foot, and with a strong right cross, punched the other one square in the jaw. Being shocked that she reacted so quickly and by the surprising amount of pain that was radiating from where she hit them, both thugs released her and reached for the area that was in throbbing in pain.

'God, please help me run fast enough so I can get away from them and to safety' the girl prayed to herself as she ran as fast as her feet could carry her towards the busy area of the zoo that she left her friends in earlier and away from the two guys were now shouting many different obscenities at the strength of the girl that was in their clutches mere moments ago.

Unfortunately, the purple-haired boy quickly shook off the pain from his jaw and saw that the girl was trying to escape from them. In an instant he started to sprint for her and was able to quickly catch up to her due to his longer legs and due to the fact that she didn't injure him in an area that limited his mobility, like his friend. He roughly grabbed both of her arms and pinned her to a nearby wall. After hearing the thud that came from his shoving the smaller girl against the hard concrete and the uncontrolled grunt of pain that she emitted, the pissed off guy turned Michelle around to face him. Ignoring the pain that surged through her body at that moment, the girl stared at the blood that was coming from her attacker's mouth, due to her punch, and knew from his grip on her arms that it would be a real struggle if she ever hoped to free herself. Not wasting any time this time around, she started squirming as much as she could and tried to balance herself on one leg so she could use the free one to kick the rapist as hard as she could. Unfortunately, every time she got into a good position to kick him, her attacker shoved her in such a way that caused her to put her weight on the leg she was freeing. After several moments of that, her attacker somehow managed to place his legs in-between hers, pinning her in a partial spread eagle position, and he started to focus on her squirming arms. Shocked that she was unable to break away from her attacker at all, especially due to her strength and all of her wrestling experience back in America, Michelle attempted to bite one of his hands in hopes that it would give her a second to free one of hers enough to punch him again. However, he saw her reaching down to bite his arm and rapidly shoved the girl into the wall again. This time the back of her head was thrust into the wall with such force that her head started throbbing and her eyes were beginning to see double. The world was getting blurry for her, but she refused to yelp in pain this time. The pain was almost unbearable for the girl, even though she was well used to injuries and had many "battle scars" as she used to call all of her broken bones. Using that moment of stunned pain, her attacker brought both of her arms up and put them into a single-handed vice grip, somehow managing to secure her in one of his hands even though the two of them were sweating from all of the struggling. Finally being in a position that rendered his captive motionless, the purple-haired boy panted from their struggle through an evil grin of victory as he slowly reached down to the bottom of the girl's shirt hem in order to raise it up.

Things did not look good.

The girl's mind was spinning from the pain that was fully radiating from her head, but also it was spinning as she tried to get past the fuzziness in order to calculate an escape strategy,

somehow.

Before she could even pray for help, the strawberry-blonde heard something strange from her right. She could have sworn that she heard the words "bunny-kick" before the guy in front of her mysteriously disappeared, but that made no sense; she just chalked that phrase up to the mild concussion she obviously got from that last impact.

Dropping to her knees when the purple-haired boy who held her up disappeared, Michelle tried to catch her breath before looking up at what was happening. She soon saw a rather large shadow in front of her and panicked, thinking it was one of her assailants again. The girl host woozily shot up and clutched the wall behind her, without turning away from the out of focus silhouette, all while keeping a determined face that refused to show the amount of pain she was in.

The sight she saw was the most welcomed one that she could have prayed for.

Instead of facing one of the thugs that attacked her, Michelle found herself staring at the gigantic profile of Mori. Upon seeing that she was finally safe, the girl slumped back down in order to fully catch her breath. She reached up to wipe away some of the sweat that was now slipping into her eyes and quickly thanked God to herself.

In what felt like a millisecond later, the girl looked up again to see a blurred version of Tamaki rushing over to her. She couldn't see much besides Mori and Tamaki from where she was, due to her now faulty eyesight, but while the two closest hosts were focusing on her, Hunny was off to the left trying to catch the purple-haired thug and the twins were back in the area where Michelle initially was targeted, trying to catch the brunette. Kyouya was merely casually strolling over to the deserted area of the zoo while dialing the zoo's security office.

"Are you ok?"

Tamaki asked in a worried and completely serious voice as he knelt down to put both of his hands on the shoulders of the girl who was sitting on the pavement and leaning against the wall to keep herself upright. It took her a second to respond since it was the first time that Michelle had ever heard the normally flighty blonde sound so serious and it was completely embarrassing to her that his current tone was due to the situation that she was in.

"Yeah, I'm fine"

the blue eyed girl lied as she stared into Tamaki's violet eyes, refusing to show that she was in any pain at all, even though it was hard to get her vision to focus.

"Thanks to you guys" she quickly added.

Mori turned around at that comment, gave a half smile, and nodded as he accepted the gratitude of the disheveled girl. Before Tamaki could ask her anything else, Hunny shuffled over to the trio. He was worried about the girl, but he also had saddened look of disappointment on his little face.

"I couldn't catch him Mi-chan. I'm sorry" the little boy said as he sat next to the girl and across from Tamaki. He leaned against the girl host, causing her to inwardly flinch as he gently placed his tiny hand on an area of her arm that her attacker had grabbed moments before.

"Yeah, neither could we" two voices chimed in from the opposite direction that Hunny came from as they approached the other hosts.

"He was limping pretty badly, but we couldn't grab him" Hikaru and Kaoru said with a look of all-encompassing anger at the person they were trying to catch and at the fact that he slipped away from them.

When they reached their friends, Hikaru stood next to Mori and crossed his arms in front of him in a pouting position. Kaoru just gently kneeled down next to his tono and slowly and delicately reached out to push away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of Michelle's face.

"Are you Ok Mic-" was all Kaoru could say before Tamaki screeched, causing the redhead to swiftly recoil and all of the hosts to jump.

"OHMYGOODNESS! YOU'RE BLEEDING"

he screamed as everyone immediately turned to look at the spot he was pointing at.

Michelle was in pain from where the thugs grabbed her, the places on her arms that her attacker seized her as he pinned her to the wall, and of course her head was in pain from being shoved into the wall, but she felt no discomfort in any area near the front of her shirt. The blue eyed girl had a puzzled look on her face as she searched on her black and white t-shirt for the stain that freaked her friend out. Sure enough, there were three drops of blood to the right of the lion's mane on her shirt, but they were not from her.

"The guy I punched in the jaw must have bled on me" she said calmly as she lifted the cloth so she could look at it better, annoyed that one of her beloved Disney shirts got damaged in the incident.

Tamaki visibly looked like he was shocked at the fact that the girl seemed so annoyed at the stain, but even more so at the thought that she tried to defend herself and managed to hurt her attacker enough to cause him to bleed. It's true that the tall blonde had a problem with wrapping his head around the idea of a girl being able to defend herself without anyone's help. It wasn't because he was sexist, but because he never met a girl that would be able to protect herself before, at least not to his knowledge.

None of the other hosts were surprised. Even though she never acted that way around them, they could tell that their female friend had a fighting spirit and wouldn't let anyone hurt her without them being hurt as well.

"Did you hit the other one as well?" Kaoru asked as he repositioned himself to sit next to Michelle, just like Hunny was.

"Yeah, I was able to crush his foot before I took off. I should have done the same to the purple haired one, maybe I could have completely gotten away then" the girl said looking down at the ground while she scolded herself for not being smart enough to immobilize both of them.

"That explains why the other jerk was limping" Hikaru muttered, annoyed that she was able to get a punch in, but he wasn't able to.

Before anyone else could say anything, Kyouya finally approached the group as he snapped his cell phone shut.

"The zoo's security guards just picked up the two miscreants and they are handing them over to the local authorities" the grey eyed boy said as he nonchalantly fixed his glasses and stood next to Mori and Hikaru. Closing her eyes with relief, Michelle took a deep breath as she felt totally secure again.

It was over.

Not having to worry about anything again, a thought popped into her head.

"Not that I'm complaining in any way, shape, or form, but what are you guys doing here? I thought you were heading on to the giraffes, or was it the elephants first?" the girl asked as she panned around to look each of her friends in their eyes.

"Tachibana called me when he arrived at the gate and told me that you hadn't gotten there yet" Kyouya coolly answered first as if nothing at all had happened moments ago.

"We were thought that you had gotten lost or that you were ditching your responsibilities, so we all rerouted our tour to come out here" her antagonizer said as he added the last part to make it sound like she owed them for making them change their plans.

The strawberry blonde scoffed at Kyouya's explanation before she thought 'he knew that I wasn't lost, nor that I would I ditch my given job. I wonder why he really did worry about my whereabouts.'

"Don't listen to him Michelle-san" Tamaki said in defense of his best friend's uncaring comment as he wrapped the girl in a smothering hug, "We were just worried about your safety and I'm glad we were!"

"Me to!" chirped Honey as he reached over to hug the two blonde hosts next to him.

"Same!" the twins said as they joined the group hug as well.

Smiling at the amount of love that she was receiving, even though they were hugging her hard enough to cause her to physically wince from all the pain, she knew that she had truly found people who cared about her and her safety. Happy with that thought and at the fact that her eyesight was fixing itself, meaning that she didn't receive a serious head injury, Michelle thanked them all again from the bottom of her heart.

"It's a shame that during the unpleasant situation you went through, you managed to shatter the contents of some of your bags" a cool voice said as he snapped all of the hosts out of their happy and loving hug. Lifting the gift bag that was filled with the items he purchased, Kyouya showed the group the jagged shards of glass and ceramic that were the only remains of his expensive items.

"I'm afraid that I'll have to add the price of these Wedgewood and Iladro pieces to your debt Michelle. But don't worry, I won't charge interest on them since it wasn't entirely your fault" he said with the creepy grin that Kyouya gets when he manipulates people deeper into debt with him.

Merely rolling her eyes at his comment, both because she had expected her antagonizer to say something like that and simply to annoy him by not visually caring about his threat, Michelle slowly, and with help from her friends, even though she didn't need it at that point, got up from the ground and walked with all the hosts to the black limo that was waiting for them at the zoo's entrance.

If she knew them better, she would have thought it was strange that Kyouya didn't make any reference about taking her to a hospital in order to make sure that none of her injuries were dangerous, like he normally would have, nor did any of the other hosts. It's not that they didn't worry about her health, it's just that the girl was doing an excellent job at hiding the pain she was in. Well, except for the cringe during the hug, but they all dismissed that wince of pain as a shudder of shock from being suddenly bull-rushed, or something similar to that.

Once they made it to the limo, they all left the zoo without a second thought. They had seen all of the animals that they really wanted to see, but to put it simply, all of them had had enough excitement for the day.

Hey all! I'm back! Ok, that was a fun chapter to write and I'm sorry it's so long, but it needed to be. Thank you once again for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on and please let me know what you guys think :) I hope you all are enjoying this story as much as I am and I'll See Ya Soon!