Part 21: Change of Plans

Outside Dark's cell…

Two men stood back, handguns drawn and ready, while the third typed a long code into a digital lock set in the airtight door. They'd been warned that this prisoner would be difficult, but other than his otherworldly appearance, so far there was little evidence to suggest it was really necessary to have three armed special ops guards present just to open the door. The winged oddity had even turned himself in. The only thing that kept the three well-trained men on their toes at this point, besides their orders, was the fact that it had actually been too easy.

A shrill beep sounded, followed by a heavy click, and the man who had entered the code cracked the unsealed door open enough to peek into the room. His sharp intake of breath and the string of curses that followed it made the other two men rush up behind him.

"What is it?" one demanded, unable to see into the room.

"He's not here," the first growled, throwing the heavy door wide for them to see in. All three ran into the room. They moved in formation with guns pointed, just in case. The square cell was barren, save for the steel-framed cot that was in the corner. No phantom thief.

"That's not possible," murmured the third man, giving voice to what all of them were thinking. "There was only one exit, and this door's been guarded all night."

"Tracker says he's still in here," said the second flatly, looking at a handheld device with a small red dot blipping from their exact location. Watching the screen, he made his way over to the cot, and looked under it. A tiny circuit chip lay on the floor, slightly filmed with dried blood. "He found the bug in his arm," the man cursed, standing up and showing the device to the others.

"Should we sound the alarm?"

The leader paused to consider this concept. "No. Keep it low-key. His presence here is classified. We don't want every temp and intern knowing who we've captured." He cursed, throwing the chip to the floor. "Alert Gorudo. Call in the rest of the squad and find the weasel before some temp does," he growled. The other two nodded, already touching the com units that hung next to their ears.

"Wait," the second soldier said, holding a finger up to sustain their attention while he listened to something on his unit. "Someone's seen him. He's in Research."

"Damn. Then send half the squad to the twelfth floor, have the rest cover the stairs and elevators," the leader said quickly.

--oOoOo—

Shira set the telephone receiver back on its perch and looked at it thoughtfully. It was hard to believe what she'd just seen. It was far too fantastical for her logical mind to accept. It was one thing to read about it in her briefing, but quite another to stand in an elevator with a man who was impossibly handsome and had enormous feathered wings, real ones, coming out of his back. Talking with such a creature seemed even more absurd, let alone helping him to find the boy she herself had kidnapped, yet she'd just done it. And now, having called in the sighting, she was at a loss as to what to do next.

She stood up from her chair, tossing her fire-red hair over her shoulder as she made for the door. She was not staying here in this office, that much was sure. She was on her way down the hall, planning to get back on the elevator and leave the floor before Special Ops got there, when she nearly collided with Trap. The man managed to skirt around her as if she were made of electricity as he came around the corner too fast, apparently making a B-line for his office door. He cast her an impatient glance, opening his mouth for some cursory apology. When he recognized her, he seemed to drop the manners and just proceeded to brush past her, pulling out a key to his office and applying it to the knob.

"What's got you worked up?" she asked him suspiciously, not sure why she was bothering with him. Social skills were not the scientist's best feature, but she was itching for a distraction at the moment, and he would do.

"What makes you think I'm worked up?" he said coolly, turning the key. He wasn't looking at her.

"You're worked up," she answered smartly, observing the side of his head as she circled around him. He didn't look at her.

He turned the knob, but kept his hand there without opening it. "I just paid a visit to my test subject," he told her with calculated indifference. The body language was clear; he wanted her to go away so he could open his door.

She cocked her head curiously and stood her ground, wondering what he was up to. "Our test subject," she corrected.

His lips pulled back into a displeased smirk and he gave an unpleasant laugh. "Sure," he said impatiently, opening the door.

She took the liberty of following him into the small office, which was lit by the glow of monitors and LEDs. He didn't comment as she flipped the light switch he'd ignored as he passed in.

"What is it?" Trap asked stiffly.

"You seem frazzled. What's going on with the boy?"

She narrowed her eyes as he ignored her and began checking something on one of his monitors. He was hiding something. What was he… No. He wouldn't have. "You told him about the girl?" she accused in disbelief, watching his reaction warily. He just threw her a challenging glare. "You couldn't really be stupid enough to tell him," she pressed, her voice rising with anger. "I spoke with you in confidence."

He was suddenly up on his feet, moving past her to close the door. He closed it too hard, rattling the equipment that hung along his wall. He cast her a stern look as he returned to his seat. "The boy and I had an agreement that I would tell him if I knew," he said calmly.

"An 'agreement'? He can't know something like that! How do you expect to have his cooperation if you tell him his girlfriend is dead?" she snapped.

"And whose fault is it that she's dead?" he asked. "I could have lost his cooperation by not telling him." His tone was as collected as ever, but the edges of his mouth tugged downward.

She stared at him in disbelief for several long moments, unable to make heads or tails of his expression. "Well?" she finally asked, "How'd he take it?"

"Very well," Trap responded coldly. "I told him she was alive."

That sent her into a dumb silence. "You lied?"

"A moment ago you were ranting that I shouldn't have told him, and now you're antagonizing me for lying," Trap observed flatly.

"I don't think you should have told him anything about it in the first place. It's unnecessary."

"I wouldn't have promised anything if I'd thought she'd actually be dead," he said with stern composure. "This is my research, and I did what I had to do to keep it running smoothly.

"Sure you did," she crossed her arms leaned back against his door. "If you're getting attached to the kid, you'd better level with me. It's my research as well."

Trap's even gaze tightened angrily. "Then you should understand that it has nothing to do with attachment. What I told him was necessary to obtain these results." He reached for one of his monitors and spun it toward her, showing her a series of lineplot readings that were fluctuating steeply as they fed across the screen in realtime. "That's how he's taking the good news," he told her coldly.

"Those aren't feelings, they're readouts. And I can't read that," she reminded him, a little fascinated to see him angry. The neuroscientist was not the type to show off a lot of emotions.

"They're the same thing. And if you can't read them, you can shut up about "our" research," Trap said icily. "This pattern is new. It brings us inches from completing the data we need to summon the Black Wings."

She threw her arms up paced in a circle around the empty part of the office. She ignored the obvious fact that he wanted her out of the room, and studied him. He had never been so direct with her about the fact that she had no business on this project, though they both knew it well enough. She was a soldier, not a lab tech. "You act like you're the one who offed her," she observed bluntly. "You're acting guilty."

"You have an overactive imagination," Trap told her, seeming genuinely skeptical of her theory. "I need cooperation in order to finish this project. Until the Black Wings is summoned, maintaining his trust in me is pivotal."

Shira scoffed, although it was oddly comforting to see this sign of the usual, calculating Trap. "And what if the Black Wings were already-" she cut herself off. She'd been about to imply what she'd just seen. But these orders came from Gorudo himself. Trap was not to know their 'guest' was here. It bothered her. Why go so far to hide it from him?

"If there's nothing else to cover, I have a lot of work to do," Trap said testingly. "Did you return my reports to Gorudo?"

Shira looked down at her lap and thought about her answer. "He was pleased, though it's not clear he understood any of it," she said, using the flattery as a peace offering. She was lucky he wasn't attending to her closely enough to notice her coverup for what had really happened in Gorudo's office. She needed an excuse to stay here, to be sure Trap didn't learn more than he should while Special Ops went after its escapee.

Trap didn't show any amusement at her comment, but his temper seemed to have sobered again. "Well, I'm going to work."

"You work, I'm going to stay here for a while," she said, making herself at home on a plain couch that was half littered with machinery."

"You're a little distracting," Trap asserted.

"I'm bored. You can do your fancy science things while I loaf," she said tersely, slipping off her heels so she could put her feet up on the arm of the sofa, her legs forming a bridge over his equipment.

"That's expensive," he informed her.

"I'll be very careful," she droned, putting her arms up behind her head.

Trap shook his head and forced his eyes back to his monitor. He was this close to completing the boy's data. He wasn't going to risk incurring an incident report by being seen trying to eject this stubborn woman from his office. There was plenty to think about. He could afford to add ignoring Shira's unexplained clinginess to the list.

--oOoOo--

Dark ran swiftly down the antiseptic hallway of the twelfth story of the Gorudo Building. Unless the woman he'd encountered in the elevator had been misleading him, Daisuke was here, actually here, on this floor. He just had to find him.

He ducked to the side and flattened himself into an alcove as a door opened just ahead. A man in a white coat stepped out into the hall and began walking away from Dark's position. The angel waited, straight-faced, in the shadows for the footsteps to fade. He was alert, but composed. After all, this was what he did best. There was no reason to be nervous. Except that this time, he wasn't stealing art. He was retrieving the closest thing he had in this universe to a soulmate. A pang tugged at his chest as he let himself think it. He could pretend all he wanted that he was fine on his own, but something stranded inside him needed to be complete again. He tried not to overthink things as he proceeded down the pallid hallway at an alert sprint.

He took note impatiently of the security cameras that seemed to meet him at every turn. He evaded them mostly by instinct, maneuvering swiftly and gracefully through the minefield of sensors and lenses. The extra precaution caused him to proceed at a slower pace, which was extremely frustrating, knowing how close he was to his goal. But in addition to the fact that it was a point of pride for him as a thief to stay off the radar, he wasn't ready to be on candid camera just yet. Even though he knew his presence there was not a secret.

That had been the other assurance made to him by his acquaintance in the elevator. The moment she reached her desk, she would call security. Probably, this had already been done. He believed her on that, too. Perhaps she had helped him on a whim, but she had not shown the demeanor of a true turncoat. She had some reason to be here, something to lose. Her call to security would ensure her innocence in his escape, and the angel wasn't interested in begrudging her that.

It was alright if he was recaptured, provided that he saw Daisuke first. After their clumsy attempt to confine him last time, Dark really didn't see much threat in submitting to captivity a second time, and after all, his goal was not to simply break Daisuke loose. He could take turns with Gorudo abducting the boy from now till doomsday, but it would never be a real solution. To make Daisuke safe, he needed to either convince Gorudo to lose interest in the boy, or find something the billionaire wanted more.

He ran through his plan meditatively, using it to calm his increasingly agitated nerves as he proceeded to inspect room after room, scrambling keypad locks where he encountered them. The rooms and the equipment in them told him undoubtedly that these were laboratories, and very well financed ones, at that. However, none of the rooms he unlocked contained Daisuke.

He ultimately found himself at the mouth of a new hallway that looked less than half as long as the one he'd just come from. The hall had two doors before it reached a dead end a few yards from where he stood. He was running out of rooms to search. That wasn't good. Backtracking to the elevator in order to explore the other half of the level would almost certainly result in an encounter with Gorudo's men, not to mention take up time. Time he didn't have. Doubt was attacking his thoughts, along with adrenaline that was threatening to verge on panic. Was he in the wrong place? Had the boy already been taken somewhere else? Had he ever been here at all? Had they had some reason to discard his life?

He couldn't trust his reaction to that thought, so he stopped thinking it. He was here; he could only do what he did best. Entering the stub of a hallway, he began rapping his fingers impatiently at a keypad beside the first of its two closed, windowless doors. The sound of a latch opening down the hallway behind him made him glance backward, throwing violet hair out of his eyes. A green light flashed next to the lock he was unscrambling, and a powered latch gave off a sharp clack. The sound drew his attention back to his task. He pressed a large button on the keypad that had just backlit from red to green. With a hiss, the door in front of him slid open.

And the angel froze.

The inside of the room was frigidly white and well lit. It was a large room, full of equipment that was unfamiliar to him. Like second nature, he also noticed a camera near the ceiling that was monitoring the room, probably with a microphone built in. But what dominated his attention like a magnetic field was the figure lying still in the center of the lab. A redheaded boy wearing a long blue medical smock was lying on a half-raised hospital bed, facing away from the door.

"Trap?" Daisuke's voice asked, sounding unexpectedly upbeat. "Did you forget something?"

Dark took a step forward into the room, letting the door hiss shut behind him. The boy was alive, and he was safe. All the wounds and fears of the past week and a half seemed to resolve themselves in a single tight-throated whisper. "Daisuke."

There was silence. It stretched on unbearably. The soft humming of the machines was like an indecent roar above the gravity of the quietness between them.

"Dark?" Daisuke finally asked, audibly mystified.

The word released the angel like he'd been spellbound to his spot by the door. He walked quickly into the room, circling to stand a few feet in front of the boy's bed. Aside from the bandages on his shoulder and leg and the unusual state of dress, Daisuke looked much like Dark remembered him, though it was clear that he was a few years older. He was past that awkward age where the legs and arms didn't seem like quite the right size for the rest of the body. He was a young man now. There was also a faint shadow in his eyes, a willful skepticism that the Angel didn't care for. That was new. But a lot could happen to a teenager in a few years. He couldn't expect the boy to have remained exactly the same. And of course, the kid also looked a bit different with metal sensors taped to his forehead and neck.

The two stared at each other for the better part of a minute before Dark spoke. "Long time no see. If that's a fashion experiment, I feel obligated to tell you that "less is more" with the whole electrode-stuck-to-your head thing."

"Dark, what are you-…How did you get here?" Daisuke stammered, ignoring the phantom thief's usual wit.

"Elevator, actually. A rather fancy one, at that."

"But-…How is that possible?" Daisuke pinned the angel under an uneasy stare.

"Well, there's this box with a door on it that connects to a pulley, and it hauls folks up and down a hollow shaft in the-"

"Stop kidding around!" Daisuke halted the angel's explanation. "This isn't funny. You were sealed. How did you get here? Did Trap summon you already?"

The boy's troubled tone made Dark grow serious as well. This was not the reaction he'd been expecting from the boy. "I got here all on my own, kid. Who is this Trap character you keep talking about?"

"He works here. He's...studying me," Daisuke said uncomfortably. "He's also studying you."

Dark raised an eyebrow and laughed thinly. "I don't intend to let anyone hook me up to one of those machines."

"You don't need to. He's studying you through me." Daisuke looked at the angel.

"Through you?" Dark murmured. "You're talking about our link. But it's closed. I lost track of you ten days ago."

Daisuke narrowed his eyes. "No, our link has been closed for two years. All that remains is subconscious. Up until a few days ago, we were completely separate." he said tensely.

"I wasn't," Dark iterated firmly. "Why do you think I'm here? I knew when you got hurt, right before I lost track of you entirely."

"No… No, that's not possible. You couldn't feel me, you were sealed," Daisuke breathed, seeming more and more spooked, less and less rational.

"Will you stop looking at me like I'm some kind of ghost? What's wrong with you?" Dark stared at Daisuke's alarmed expression. "I thought you were killed. I'm not here on an afternoon stroll. Do you get that? I was afraid you were dead, so I broke free to find you."

Daisuke looked down at his feet at the edge of the bed. The bandage covering the bullet wound on his leg hung out below the hem of the medical smock, a reminder of something he'd almost lost sight of: He was a prisoner here.

But now that he'd taken part in Trap's research, there was something he wanted from them here. After coming this far, he wasn't going to leave until it was done.

"Sorry…it's not that it isn't good to see you," Daisuke's voice dropped to a whisper, as if there were others in the room with them. The boy probably knew about the microphone. "It's just that this changes things. Before all this started, I didn't even think we were connected at all anymore. Then Trap told me he has a way to use the link to bring you back to Earth and then put us in separate forms, so I cooperated. But now you're obviously here all on your own, in a separate body…"

Dark relaxed a little. "You're not the only one surprised; not even I knew I could escape that seal. But I'm here, so there's no reason to keep doing this," he said, reaching for the switch on the machine that was connected to Daisuke's sensors.

"Stop!" Daisuke halted the angel in mid-motion. Dark stared at him in confusion. "Trap's been enhancing the strength of the brainwaves we share. If it was a subconscious murmur before, it will be a full-out marching band now. That machine is the only thing keeping our minds separate."

The angel looked stunned, turning from the machine to him. How could the boy be so horrified of being linked to him. "This machine is why I couldn't sense you?"

The hurt in Dark's eyes made Daisuke feel guilty, which frustrated him. "Dark, you have to understand that we can't be like that again. We each need our own lives and our own minds. I need to get back to Riku…and your place is here, with the people that created you."

Dark frowned. "You want me to stay here?"

"Yes. Trap has a way to separate our minds. It's almost ready. If I can help him finish that, we can each live like normal people, in privacy."

"Daisuke, I don't want privacy," Dark almost whispered. He gestured down at the empty body he was, by his estimation, trapped in. "I wasn't made for this."

Daisuke shook his head. "Yes, you were, Dark. You and Krad were meant to be a single, self-sufficient entity. You were going to be a masterpiece, until my family wrecked it. You were never meant to be bound up inside other people's mortal souls. You were made to have your own form. I know it was my ancestors' fault for interrupting the animation ritual, but I can't pay for their mistake for the rest of my life. This is my chance to set things right."

"You call this right? You can't be serious," Dark snapped, the anger finally spilling out of him. "What makes you so sure this crazy scientist's plan will work? That it won't kill or hurt you in the process? Does it look like these people care about peripheral damage?" he gestured fiercely at the boy's bandages. "Set things right? Really, that's the best you can come up with? Exactly what kind of life do you suppose I would live here?"

"That's up to you, Dark," Daisuke said coolly, meeting the angel's gaze with a withdrawn expression.

Dark just stared at him. The look of crushed outrage on his face wouldn't recede into something more calm and collected, as much as he commanded it to. The boy only frowned back at him. It drove him crazy. If Daisuke could throw that cold barrier of detachment up against him, why couldn't he do the same? He was normally built of emotional self-restraint. But not against Daisuke. Never against Daisuke.

"You careless little bastard," he growled at his former wing host.

At that moment, the door behind them burst open, and a squad of men wearing black uniforms trampled in. Dark spun around just in time to see a tazer pointed at his chest. He started to shout for them to wait, but the device connected, jarring him unconscious. He tumbled backward and fell to the polished floor.

"Wait," Daisuke protested, staring in shock at the angel's fallen form. "He's under control, you don't have to-"

"Stay out of the way, kid," one of the men shot as they surrounded Dark, flipping him onto his stomach and cuffing his wrists behind his back.

"No, listen! He's with me!"

"If you mean he's a prisoner, then you're right," another man said dismissively as they hauled the angel up. One of the men pulled Dark up over his shoulder.

"Stop!" Daisuke reiterated, growing anxious now. He glanced down at the emergency button next to his bed and slammed it.

The men ignored him and swept Dark quickly from the room. Daisuke leaned over the side of his bed to stare back at Dark's giant wings hanging wide behind his carrier's back. His gut felt cold as the airlock sealed behind them.

The boy was left with an empty, confused feeling. "Dark…." He murmured. What had he said to him? Couldn't he have been gentler? But what else could get it through that angel's stubborn skull? He wondered where they were taking him. But once Trap got here, things would be straightened out. Trap knew how to handle this….probably.

---o-O-O-o---

Back in Trap's office, Trap and Shira's heads both jerked up as a loud buzzer sounded off the computer system.

"What the hell is that?" Shira demanded from her place on his couch, clearly startled.

"The kid's hitting the emergency button. Could be an accident," Trap said, standing up and pulling on his lab coat.

Shira's eyes went wide. "I'll check it out. It's probably just a mistake, right? You don't have to waste your time."

"I've got it," the scientist asserted calmly as he opened the door. "You're unusually involved today, Shira," he observed flatly before shutting it behind him.

That froze her to her spot on the sofa. He could sense that she was lingering. If she tried any further to keep him from seeing the Black Wings, it would be far too obvious what she was doing. If she lost his trust, she'd be unable to continue to perform her job. But at this rate, he would almost certainly encounter the strange winged man she'd seen in the elevator. If learning that man was here had any effect on Trap's research, she was looking at some serious consequences, far worse than just being taken off this assignment.

She sprang to her feet and burst out the door after trap, unclipping the holster on her gun.

--oOooOooOo--

To be continued…

Hi guys,

Man, for whatever reason, this chapter was really hard to write. I kept revising and trashing certain parts, but now I'm finally satisfied with it. More on Krad is coming up, as well as the Harada girls' stakeout and some friction between Risa and Satoshi. And of course, Trap gets to meet Dark.

Thank you guys so much for your reviews and for waiting up so long for this chapter! I'm curious to know what you thought of it : )

It seems from the reviews that people are enjoying Krad's little adventure, so I'm really glad about that! As for all your great ideas about how he's going to get out of that mess, I think I will hold off for now on shouting out to you individually about it because I am terrible at keeping surprises and I just know I'll blab it. But at least one of you was on the money with your suggestion, and one of you gave me an idea I hadn't thought of!

A few shout outs –

TheLurkerOnline – I would be so flattered to see your drawing of Hattori if you do end up making one! It is really neat to me when I hear that the OCs are entertaining people; I think fanfiction sometimes gets stagnant if new characters aren't introduced to catalyze the interactions of the main characters.

PrincessofNyx – Yes, you're right, Hikari would have been the better choice there. Good catch! Thanks for the review!

To LeonaWriter, Stormshadow13, Sapphire, Kuchihateru, Dark Rose, and Kihomi-chan: You guys are so wonderful! Thank you very much for your reviews. I really want to comment on them specifically, but I seriously will blab something if I do. I promise more Krad next chapter : )