Ayashi no Yuugi II: Final Sunrise
Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimers Apply.
Warning: This portion of Ayashi no Yuugi contains lots bondage and crude language. If you thought the last chapter was intense, wait till you read this. :snickers: Immortals sure are possessive, and they'll go to great lengths to guard what is theirs, as Duo has demonstrated in the previous chapter, and will do so again…
Chapter 13: Leap of Faith Part I
"Ellie! Ellie answer me!"
The silence that came back to him crept into Michael's heart and made him more afraid than he'd ever been in his life. Had he been too late to save Ellie? Had they killed her because of some stupid technicality? Because he hadn't put the coin back in the casket before sunrise?
Unless it be returned to her before the rising of second sun, there will be death without mercy. The old man's words thundered relentlessly in Michael's head. He'd said, returned to her—her—not returned to the cemetery or even carried to the grave, but returned to her
"Ellie! Jesus, Ellie, answer me!"
If only he'd left for Carlton sooner instead of wasting so much time trying to reach Janet by phone.
"Ellie Marie Savoy, answer me!"
If only he would have driven faster.
"Answer me, baby, please!"
If only he'd have run from the cop and through the woods quicker.
"P-p-please—El—"
Michael felt something large and thick ball up in the middle of his chest. It rolled upward, threatening to smother him, then exploded out of his mouth, voiced in a sob. He fell onto his back, covered his face with his hands and cried, deep racking sobs that lifted his shoulders off the casket.
"Oh, G-God—not my little girl," Michael gasped. "Pl-please, n-not my baby. I'm begging you, take me, please, take me instead!"
The sound of his weeping echoed against the crypt walls and washed back over him again and again until it seemed like a multitude cried with him.
--Grave Intent by Deborah LeBlanc--
((It's a very, very, very good book! Kamui Gaia 07 recommends it!))
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Shinn did not return to the house that night or the next day. Instead, he slept in a suite of apartments beside the underground hanger, accessible only by a hidden door in the hidden study and in the hanger itself. He spent his time working on the Eclipse XD and the Deathscythe Hell and writing up reports in the study. It was three days later before the pilots saw the American pilot again, and by silent agreement, no one made any mention of his absence three days before.
His relationship with Quatre continued on a good note, if a bit strained.
Unknown to any of them, the next mission, a joint investigation between Preventors and the CSA, would make things more than a little strained.
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July 5, 200 AC; 3:45 AM
Colony L2, Asuka Residence
Shinn woke to the quiet beeping of his laptop. Gently disentangling himself from Quatre's embrace, he paused and watched affectionately as Quatre shifted in his sleep and clamped his arms around his pillow, muttering Shinn's name sleepily before falling silent and still once more. Chuckling quietly, Shinn left the bed and quietly padded over to the desk and turned on the laptop. His eyes narrowed and became cold as he read the report for the newest mission.
He leaned back in the chair as he contemplated the new mission, and his eyes fell on Quatre's sleeping form, curled around his pillow. His gaze became soft and affectionate even as his lips curled downward in a thoughtful frown.
Of all of them, Quatre was least suited for the upcoming mission. Shinn knew his blasé reply toward the worries of the other pilots a month ago was only a scratch in the surface of his personality. He doubted that their feeling toward him would remain as they were now at the end of this mission, when they finally saw how far he would and could go in order to complete a mission.
Quatre would most likely be utterly and completely terrified of him before this mission ended, and there would be no way for him to escape the pain, considering that an immortal loves once, and only once. Quatre would be terrified of him, the mere thought of approaching the immortal would render the Arabian helpless with fear, leaving Shinn heartbroken, to forever live with the pain of his beloved's rejection, without death or the severing of the link (Both of which were impossible for an immortal) between them to lessen the pain.
As for the other pilots, they would most likely be disgusted that he would be able to go so far in the process of completing a mission, and they would no longer trust him enough to sleep easily under his roof. He would lose their trust in him before the mission was over, Shinn knew, and though they may trust him to keep them safe on the battlefields; they wouldn't trust him anywhere else.
The mission would test the tolerance and trust between all the pilots, and Shinn had no doubt that he would be the one to be found lacking.
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Admiral Shinn Asuka, First Class, Type Two Unlimited
Your next target is Monique Kingsley, part owner of the Remalna Resort in Budapest, Hungary. She is one of five civilian members of the Nautilus, providing for them what Chairwoman Maria Sloane at Simikiel Academy in Romania provides for the CSA.
Reports from various Preventor and CSA contacts show that there is a lab hidden somewhere in the extensive properties of the Remalna Resort. Each Contact claims that Kingsley is manufacturing a very deadly strain of viruses for the Nautilus.
You and the other four Gundam Pilots are to go to the Remalna Resort, destroy the lab, and bring Kingsley in for questioning.
Admirals Kaze Haruka and Lucrezia Noin will be in attendance should you require their assistance.
Attached is a file containing all information necessary for the successful completion of the mission.
Triad
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July 12, 200 AC; 5:23 PM
The Meat Market Nightclub, Remalna Resort, Budapest, Hungary
Trowa Barton's face bore his usual cool, impassive expression, but instead of keeping others at a distance, his aloof demeanor seemed to fascinate the people around him. In place of his usual jeans and dark turtleneck, Trowa wore a simple white outfit that literally screamed style and good taste—very expensive good taste—with a thin, dark belt to lend a touch of color to the otherwise pristine ensemble. In the middle of a nightclub filled with people dressed mostly in varieties of black mixed with an occasional flash some other intense color, the overall effect of Trowa's pristine outfit was that of a young man coolly detached from his murky, sordid surroundings. The sense of rampant sensuality, lust, and near-desperation that gripped so many of the club-goers left the brown-haired pilot untouched.
A half-naked woman, her breasts falling out of the ribbon that was her—er—halter top, staggered out of the mad crush of the dance floor. Intoxicated out of her mind, high on drugs, or both, she toppled to the floor at the Latin boy's feet. After the briefest of glances at her, he calmly shifted his feet to the right a few inches as the bouncers scooped the unconscious woman off the floor and carried her away.
Trowa's air of indifference and serenity made him irresistible to people of both sexes. Mostly Trowa's age or just a little older or younger, they were the shy, uncertain ones, hovering around the pilot in hopes of attracting his attention, yet keeping their distance as if afraid of appearing too forward.
As for Quatre, he found himself the uncomfortable recipient of hungry, predatory stares, particularly from the older women and men in the nightclub. Although he hadn't been accosted yet, he had the unhappy feeling that they were just taking their own sweet time before pouncing on him.
Quatre gazed around the crowded nightclub. Since it was beyond anything he'd ever encountered, the blonde pilot found the whole scene eerily fascinating. The club's motif was an unnerving yet intoxicating mixture of gothic eroticism laced with a good dosage of leather and bondage... In Shinn's own words, pure unabashed decadence. The Sandrock pilot had to admit that his lover had not been exaggerating in the least. (In fact, Shinn had done very little, if any, exaggerating since the coming into the open of the Cosmos Star Agency, and the disposal of the mask of constant joviality that they had, during the Wars, come to associate with Duo Maxwell.)
He knew that in a normal city, teenagers would have been barred from such hard-core nightclubs, but this was no ordinary place. The resort complex where he and the other pilots were staying called itself Remalna and liked to advertise itself as the new Sodom and Gomorrah. There were no minimum ages here and the only god was money. If you had the cash, you could play.
So kids barely in their teens and quite possibly younger, danced, drank, and drugged beside the hardened twenty-something club-crawlers who in turn jostled beside middle-aged and even some elderly adults on the prowl for some young and tender flesh. Everyone was looking for excitement or interesting games–all of which were obviously sexual in nature.
The place was not called the "Meat Market" for nothing.
Quatre stiffened as a fat, graying man turned and walked—no, waddled—in his direction and thought, Oh, hell.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone suddenly sat down beside him. The blonde pilot sagged in relief when he realized that the person next to him was Duo. With his features arranged in a composed expression, completely blank of emotion, but exuding a sense of serenity, control and authority and dressed in a white silk dress shirt, with most of the mother-of-pearl buttons undone to show off his toned chest, and a pair of snug black leather pants and ankle boots, the Deathscythe pilot made a striking figure. The Arabian pilot never noticed the riding crop that Shinn laid inconspicuously on the seat beside him.
"I don't like this place, Shinn," Quatre whispered to his lover, well aware that he was whining. "I keep getting the impression that these people are mentally undressing me!"
Shinn's composed expression never faltered. "They most likely are."
"That's really reassuring, Duo!"
Shinn gave a barely detectable shrug. "What do you expect from a place called the 'Meat Market'? Most of these people are here to have 'fun'. In a place like this, that usually involves sex in one form or another. These people will assume that everyone else here wants the same, even if they say 'no'."
Quatre gulped and whispered, "Duo…"
Shinn studied the nervous blonde pilot carefully and looked up at the older man, and frowned inwardly. The older man hesitated at the cool amethyst stare Shinn leveled at him, but continued his trek toward the blonde pilot. Shinn's eyes narrowed fractionally and he placed a hand lightly on Quatre's shoulder and drew the young pilot toward him, wrapping his free arm around the Sandrock pilot's slender waist in a protective gesture, never taking his intense violet gaze off the man. Shinn chuckled quietly as he watched the older man's eyes narrow angrily and charged toward them.
"Oh, someone's angry…" Shinn whispered, absently tracing a finger up and down Quatre's neck, making the blonde shiver.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Shinn?"
"Trust me, Quatre, I know what I'm doing," Shinn murmured, dropping a light kiss at the base of the blonde pilot's neck.
The old man stormed up to them and wrenched Quatre out of Shinn's protective grasp and sneered.
"No boy is going to have what's mine," the man snarled.
Heero and Trowa, spotting the trouble, came to the table, and stood wordlessly behind the young man, offering their silent support to the Deathsycthe pilot.
The already dim light in that corner seemed to dim further and the patrons of the club nearest them, sensing a disturbance between dom and dabbler, fell still and silent. Shinn smiled icily and rose to his feet with a lethal grace, his eyes glowing ominously.
"Oh, really?" Shinn's husky voice was low but level, and held a captivating intensity.
The older man gulped, but refused to be cowed, and his grip on the blonde pilot tightened. "Yes, now out of my way before I am forced to teach you a lesson, boy."
Shinn lowered his head so his bangs covered his face and his shoulders began to shake. Slowly, his chuckles rose in volume, and he threw his head back in boisterous laughter which stopped suddenly, and Shinn leveled a cool stare at the man, a familiar maniacal smile on his lips.
"Teach me a lesson? Please, you call yourself a dom? Honestly, do you think your idle threats scare me? Hah!"
The patrons shifted nervously, and Wufei suddenly materialized from the midst of the throng and joined Heero and Trowa, taking up a position behind the Deathscythe pilot. The older man stared at the young man incredulously while the other pilots exchanged amused looks.
It seemed that Duo Maxwell was back. At least temporarily.
Shinn continued to mock and bait the man, until finally, with a roar of anger; the older man flung Quatre aside and charged the immortal. Shinn stepped to the side and spared a glance at Quatre, and nodded to Trowa, who had the blonde cradled protectively in his arms, while leading him over toward the other pilots. Shinn waited until the man was in range and acted with a swift and brutal strike to the man's solar plexus.
As the older man staggered, unable to breathe or even think, the immortal gracefully spun and lashed out with a foot that caught the older man on the buttocks, sending him sprawling onto the table. A cool lilac glance at the audience brought four young women dressed only in strategically placed leather straps forward and they held the older man down in a spread eagle position.
Once he managed to catch his breath, the man started thrashing furiously in the young women's sure grip, letting loose a litany of curses that left Shinn quite unimpressed as he idly picked up his riding crop. A barely detectable flick of the riding crop brought a near naked young man out of the crowd, and he effectively cut the older man's clothes off with several efficient slices, despite his thrashing.
It only took the riding crop coming down with a decisive swish in front of his face to still the struggling man.
In a cool, crisp voice, Shinn said briskly, "Five for the rudeness, five for attacking me, ten for touching what is mine without permission, and ten more for being an arrogant and pompous old fool."
"Oh shit not that come on please--OWWWWW!"
The riding crop whistled and landed neatly across the man's buttocks, raising a red welt, and the crowd roared in approval. After a second, little beads of blood welled up from the raised flesh.
Shinn smiled with a maniacal cheerfulness the other ex-gundam pilots found very familiar and struck again. And again. And again.
The other pilots stared in shock. Duo Maxwell had emerged for a split second, but this person who was caning the poor idiot on the table was by no means the Deathsycthe pilot they had come to know and love during the Wars, or the CSA Admiral with whom they shared a house, and had come to respect and care for.
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At the final stroke, most of the spectators were looking a bit ill, while others watched with cool calculating eyes. Shinn showed no sign of surprise when a tall, voluptuous dark-haired beauty stepped forward and studied the welts on the man's back, running a long, sharp nail down his back, eliciting an agonized groan from the subdued man, counting off the welts. She looked up and smiled cruelly and said, "Quite impressive, young man, thirty distinct marks, and not one overlaying or crossing another."
Shinn gave her an elegant bow. "Why, thank you. You are Monique Kingsley, part owner of the Remalna Resort, I presume?"
"Quite right," Kingsley smiled. "A pleasure, Mr…?"
Shinn gave her a cool smile. "You may call me Maxwell."