Author Notes:
I am very sorry this took so
long to get out. Finals came up and
then my grandfather dies. After that, I
got the dreaded case of writers block…*sigh* But hopefully I will be once more
on schedule. BTW, I love getting
reviews…Thank you! Just to let you
know, Faye is suppose to be Rei and Sahara is Minako. Also, I hope no one is offended by Darien's little "bathroom"
scene… Also, there is two obscenities. For those who are offended by them, gomen
ne. I understand, I would never actually
say it out loud myself, but some of the characters in this fic are going to
swear.
~*~*~*~
Chapter 4- Shield & Sword
By: Hime
~*~*~*~
"To serve & protect."
-Police Officer Motto
~*~*~*~
"Have fun on
your date?" A snide voice
called out from the darkness of the living room.
Darien Mamoru Shields stubbed his toe in surprise. Hopping on one foot, he fumbled for the light switch on the lamp. "Don't do that." He scolded the brunette sitting on the couch, sharpening her silver knife. She was always sharpening her knives; a high silver content caused them to dull quickly.
The girl's green eye's glanced up slyly
at him, her hand stilling on the blade. "You came home pretty early…"
"You came home pretty early." He
mumbled snidely under his breath. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did have a fun time. In fact we're planning on going out again
tomorrow."
At that, the girl lost her smile. "We are here on a mission, not so you can
make out with some local girl. You
don't have time to have fun. We have to
find her."
"I know how important this mission is—"
"Do you? Do you really? You only
just started to help us out. You don't
know anything." A second girl walked
out from the
shadow-filled
hallway. Her short blue hair was
tousled from her hands constantly running through it. "You're family is still alive—they weren't torn apart by
werewolves or eaten by vampire's." Her
silver cross glittered in the light. Her eyes were hard blue coins that showed no feelings, no emotions,
except a cold fury. "We are here to
stop him, not for you to find yourself a girlfriend."
Darien stood straight, looking at both girls,
unflinching. "No, my family is still
alive. But I was raised, knowing that I
had a mission to help stop the evil that would eat us whole." Darien almost winced as he realized how
corny that sounded but caught himself in time and plunged on with his impromptu
speech. "Since I have known you two,
I've never shirked my duties. I've
always been there and I've saved your life once or twice now. Do not treat me like an idiot or a fool." With that, he turned and walked to his room,
aware of their eyes on his back. Without
turning back, he said, "Don't you dare throw that knife at me or you'll get it
back in a way you won't like." The
brunette sank back down onto the couch and began to sharpen her blade once more
as if she hadn't been about to do anything wrong.
As Darien shut his room door, he mentally slapped
himself. What the hell was he doing
with these two bitter, young women? But he knew that answer. Darien
unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it over the one chair in his room. He sat on his bed, unlaced his shoes and
pushed them off his feet. Still in his
pants, he slid down on his mattress, arms cushioning his head and stared at the
picture of his parents sitting on his nightstand. His mother was short compared to his father. His father was dressed in his Navy uniform,
looking crisp and neat. Based in Japan,
Lieutenant Daniel Shields met Hikari Tenshiro at her father's Shinto
shrine. Almost immediately, they fell
in love and when it was time for Lieutenant Shields to leave, he was taking
with him his new bride.
When Darien first started to see "ghosts" at the age of
6, Hikari listened to him and believed what he was telling her. Her upbringing allowed her an open
mind. She actually knew what he had—an
inherited "gift" passed down from her side of the family. She knew then that her son had to be
schooled this power or who knew what would happen. She managed to always find a spiritual teacher wherever they
went. A shaman here, an actual Shinto
priest there. He even once studied with
a witch doctor in New Orleans. His
father didn't know of course—he was unnerved by talk of spirits and magic. Thinking of his father, Darien sighed. His father didn't approve of his 26-year-old
son traveling around the country with two girls. Every time they talked, Darien's father always asked when he was
going to finish medical school. How
could Darien tell his father that stopping rogue vampires and were-creatures
were more important than becoming a doctor at the moment. He would never understand. 'Then again he doesn't know, does he?' a
voice whispered in his head.
A year before, Darien had just finished his second year
of med school. He had been with his
friends the entire night, getting drunk off their asses. This was the first time he had ever went
binging like that, but he figured he deserved it after putting up with five
years of no fun. Who would know that by
once chance meeting, he would be here today in New York with these people?
~*~*~*~
It wasn't the feeling of nausea that got to Darien—it was
the constant urge to pee.
"Dammit." Darien mumbled under his breathe as he got up
for what seemed like the 100th time that night to make his way to
the men's lavatory.
"Home,
Sweet Home." He said, opening the door of the bathroom and doffing his
imaginary hat. He looked up to see two
men standing in front of the urinals, politely clapping. "Dammit," he muttered again and turned away. Walking back to the front of the bar, he
passed his friends who were still drinking and laughing loudly. "How come no one else has to pee?" he all
but whined as he made his way to the front door. Next to the bar was a convenient alley and Darien was so drunk
and in need of taking a leak badly enough to get over his fears of such laws as
"Indecent Exposure" and "Petty Vandalism".
The air was cold and brisk on his face, clearing his
system of his alcohol-induced fog. He
had left his jacket inside the bar and he wondered if it would be too "girly"
to hug his arms to his chest for warmth. "Should I go back in…?" he mumbled to himself as stood right outside the
door, shivering slightly in the cold air. But the pressure was too much so he turned into the alley and walked
into a shadow-filled corner. Looking
around for anything suspicious, he relaxed his guard a bit when he didn't see
anything. Unzipping his jeans, he then
pulled out little Darien and gave a sigh as he unloaded. He was about to zip up his pants once more
when a large blur flew into the alleyway. Stunned, Darien stood there, rooted as the blur landed, showing it to be
the largest wolf he had ever seen outside a Zoo. The wolf righted itself and snarled. It never looked toward Darien once, and he was very glad for
this.
"Poor little wolfie. Did I hurt you? Good." A girl—no a young woman stepped into
the alleyway, her eyes glancing briefly at Darien before locking onto her
target. Her hair was…black? It was too dark to make out properly, but it
was held back from her face, imprisoned in a tight braid. Silver crosses studded her ears; the only
jewelry she wore. Her black clothing
fit well, tailored to her tall, structured frame.
"Bitch."
Darien looked at the wolf in shock. It sounded like it had actually spoken. But the woman wasn't frightened or
surprised. She looked amused.
"A bitch? I don't think so. I'm not a female dog you can
fuck with." She sneered, bearing her fangs at the wolf who was doing the same.
With a snarl, the wolf leapt toward her, going for the
throat. Darien gasped at how fast the
creature moved, powerful muscles lifting it into the air, toward her. She stood there, as if frozen, just like
Darien was; helpless to protect herself, to runaway. Then suddenly she was not. Not frozen that is. At the last
possible moment, when the jaws of the beast were inches away from her face, her
hand slashed before her, the silver glinted in the shadowed alleyway before
being stained by a flow of blood. By
letting the wolf go after her throat, the wolf's own throat became vulnerable
to her fang. Even wounded, the animal was graceful. The same moment it's throat was slashed, it turned a somersault,
using its hind legs to kick off of her chest so it could get away. The woman in black fell against the
wall. I saw her wince at the impact,
but when she looked at her fallen prey, only a smile was on her face. She flicked the blood off her blade and
walked toward the huddled wolf.
"You won't ever kill another human being again. I'll skin you, make you into a rug,
something I can wipe my feet when I get home." Again, she said this with a
sneer. The wolf was silent. Probably dead. She had slashed its throat; nothing could survive that. But still she approached with caution, wary
of the broken creature in front of her. She reached out to it, knife first.
Darien never saw it coming. As he watched the knife clatter to the floor, he wondered if the
girl had time to regret losing her knife before the big wolf jumped her. As the two rolled over and over, Darien
raced for the knife. His hand on the
hilt he turned around and saw the two were still. The wolf shuddered once and then fell over to its left, another
blade sticking out from its chest. Panting, the sound of her harsh gasping of air was the only thing that
broke the silence. Then she rolled
onto her knee by the wolf and pulled her knife from its body. She spat on the dead wolf and then said in
a low murmur, "For a creature with fangs, you forgot easily that there are
always two of them." She wiped the
bloody knife on its pelt, and stood up, slowly, as if she wasn't sure she could
and then with more confidence as her knees took her weight. She finally turned to look at him again, a
half smile on her face as she flipped her knife up into the air to catch it one
handed. But Darien's attention wasn't
on the girl and her amazing flipping knife. It was on the corpse of the man who had just been a wolf. Darien normally didn't swear, he was brought
up to well mannered to do so, but he decided to make an exception that night,
"What the fuck just happened here?"
~*~*~*~
Author's Notes: I was actually going to make this longer but
since I know there were some of you out there who really wanted me to give you
another chapter, I decided to cut it short. Sorry, I had to cut out what Darien's powers truly are, but that's okay
as it adds a bit more mystery to the fic, ne? Hope you enjoyed & please remember to review!
Hime