Title: The Dark Heart of the City - 4/?

Author: Zoisite NightDragon

Part: 4/who has any idea...

Pairings: 1x4, 2x3x5, there's lots more that escape me right now. Zechs, Treize, and everyone else shows up later.

Status: I'll finish it eventually.

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"How could you have let him just... wander off?" Duo nearly shrieked at the top of his lung, glaring at the still silent Trowa. Leave it to someone like Trowa to drop a bomb like Quatre had vanished and then lapse into silence.

"I told you, Duo. We couldn't take him to the Rebellion meetings. When I got back and you were still... debriefing Hilde, he was gone. Moochie is the one who told me about one of the dark angels grabbing him," Trowa replied in his infuriatingly calm manner as he rose from the seat he had taken on the dumpster lid.

Duo fumed in silent anger, violet snaps within his eyes showing his fury at the thought of any of Treize's scum laying a hand on what he termed 'the perfection of Quatre'. A kid like that wasn't the sort that thrived in the violence of UnderCity, perhaps that being why he appealed to both the streethardened Trowa Barton and Duo Maxwell. It was like finding a beautiful rose growing in a compost heap. "Well what are we gonna do? We can't just... just sit here!"

Gathering up a few blades, Trowa nodded in his same silence. He had no intentions of sitting around and doing nothing. Fate did not bring people back. Action did. Gathering his ragged longcoat about him, he deposited the dark knives about his form in easily reached places. "Moochie didn't tell me which of those monsters it was other than that he was dark haired. Being a he narrows it down. Combine that with dark hair, that leaves us with either Wufei or Heero. The rest are like Zechs and Dorthy, fair haired and skinned. He also said he had batlike wings. Only Wufei and Heero have batwings. Zechs has black feathers edged with silver, making me sure it's not him even if Moochie somehow misjudged the hair. The rest just have dull black or fiery red. So... we go angel hunting."

A expression that could only be termed stunned greeted this calm speech by Trowa. That was more words that Duo had heard his usually silent partner string together at one time. Taking on a dark angel, even with the odds in their favour was incredibly risky. These were creatures from the Heavens for Kami's sake. They had been alive long before any of them and were said to have been furiously bloody opponents. Hopping down, he splashed through a rill of blood running into the stormdrain down the street. Here in UnderCity, it was a common sight, especially when Treize's troops got paid, but it never failed to sicken Duo somewhere deep inside. Deep in a place that he kept hidden from anyone, not wanting to show any sort of weakness around people who killed off what they saw as the weak like a pack of wolves. Humanity wasn't meant to be this way. Even at his young age, Maxwell was sure of it.

The two young males strode down Brand Street. Shops lined both sides of the dirt track street. No car moved down the pathway, nothing approaching an automobile even existing in UnderCity. Even if there had been, gasoline was a vauge memory to even the oldest of the inhabitants. The hulks of what they had been rusted in the darkness, some of the street rats using them as homes. On Brand Street, a person could find nearly anything they wanted. Most of the right side was devoted to drugs, anything from the light to the ones that could fry a person's mind with a single hit. Down beneath the earth, one took their thrills where they could find them.

Storekeepers displayed their goods openly, needles and vials glistening under spotlights, set on turntables as if they were precious gems. Heavily armed guards stood at all the entrances and exits, all too willing to end a junkie's life if they tried to rob the place. Only the foolish robbed any business that bore the 'T' symbol within one of their windows. That meant that they were beneath Treize's and the ruling body's protection. Attempting to break that protection resulted in a very violent execution. The last fool that had tried to rip off one of Treize's whorehouses of a particularly pretty female ended up being shoved naked into a barrel with the nails driven inwards. A horse was tied before it, the rope encompassing the barrel's width and keeping the victim trapped within. After pronouncing sentence, Treize himself had stepped down to apply the whip to the horse's rump to send it into a run, dragging the man with it. Some said there was actually a smile on the ruler of UnderCity's face as he did so. It wasn't a real surprise to those that equated the man to the ancient tales of Satan.

The opposite side of the street was where most of the brothels and saloons stood, sometimes a building being both in one. Within their windows were displayed good as well, most being the mostly or completely bare sort that did what they could to attract customers. As Duo and Trowa walked past one aptly named 'The Climax', a young male with curly black hair winked at Duo, licking the glass and trying to entice him within. Seductive lips coated with a narcotic honey formed a sweetned pout, a flick of his tongue coaxing victims to him. Shaking his head, Duo quickened his steps to Trowa's side, shoving his hands within his own pockets and growling to himself. "I hate this fuckin' place at times, Tro-man."

Trowa nodded shortly, the two of them leaving the business district to move into what was loosely considered the residental. Eyes peered suspiciously out at them, quick fingered children racing by them in packs to try to pickpocket anything that looked as if it might be sold or eaten. Most of the small bodies were bone thin, all of them bearing the corpse pale skin of those that lived in this eternal darkness. It was a heavy sigh that Trowa heaved as Duo stopped, distributing a handful of coins to the youngsters. It was no wonder they never had anything with Duo's constant donations to the poorer people, not to mention his occasional looting of food stores to give away in the dead of night. Most had termed the Shinigami a latter-day Robin Hood. It was also the reason that he was one of the most wanted men by Treize's people in UnderCity. No good deed went unpunished.

As Duo finished, grinning like a fool and waving to the dirtied children, he caught back up to the other boy, offering him a sheepish grin in reply to the frown. "Couldn't help it, Tro-man. Those pennies will buy them bread and rice for a couple of days, maybe keep some from starving. You saw how sickly they were..."

A rolling of emerald eyes answered him as the taller boy stalked on, gathering one of his blades into his hand for throwing. It was a dead man walking that thought he could get past Trowa and his knives. If they somehow managed, Duo always had a silenced gun on him somewhere. Owning such a weapon unless you were lisenced was highly illegal, enough to earn both of them a good long haul in the mines or immediate execution. The law lay in the hands of whoever first discovered a breaker usually.

Moving past the crumbling apartment building, Duo's purple eyes crept over the structures. Most would have been condemned if they had been on the surface, something he didn't know. Neither Duo or Trowa had ever seen the light of the sun. Both had been born in UnderCity and lived their entire lives here, told only the story of a great war that had swept the surface world resulting in everything being scorched, the land turned unforgiving, and the air unbreathable. According to legend, the great Treize had risen up to lead all the survivors down here to safety, establishing a new world for them where the rich didn't rule over them. In Duo's mind, what had happened was that new rich people had come and pushed everyone else back into the gutter. The places where most of the population lived were full of holes and weak structures. Hearing about a fire killing dozens or a roof collapsing and destroying families was a common occurance.

Trowa's outflung arm stopped him and dragged him out of his thoughts, the Latin boy crouching down as he pointed up the hill towards a grouping of mansions. In the castoff light from the streets, the looked like huge masoleums, crypts of bones waiting for a fool to enter them and see the horrors. Shuddering, he drew closer to Trowa, taking some comfort from the other's presence. "Which one?" he asked in a whisper.

A slim finger pointed at one that was near the end, a softly glimmering white and ebony structure. Dragons curled about the massive pillars that supported the roof, their eyes seeming alive as they stared endlessly. Everything about the place spoke of coldness, even the reptilian forms that were carved into the walls. Whoever owned this place was obsessed with dragons. Duo squinted up at the pillars, a symbol on them catching his attention. "What's that mean?"

"Nataku... an ancient goddess of Justice. Popular in China. I've seen it in a book somewhere."

Duo nodded, swallowing thickly against the lump that wanted to cut off his breathing, his heart thudding away in his chest already. "Which one's house is that?"

Trowa's fingers spread beneath his chin, the other hand loosely turning the knife within it. "That one is Wufei's home. The lights are off, the creature probably sleeping. That one over there is Heero's."

The self proclaimed god of Death twisted the end of his braid through his fingers as Trowa did with his knife, gazing to the opposite side at the huge house that was pointed out to him. This one was all sharp angles, lacking the cleaness of Wufei's home. Heero's appeared to be more out of some Gothic horror story with the spiring towers and castlelike exterior. The stone making up this one wasn't white like the others that the angels lived within. This one was a dead black, almost like a void in a space of stars. Lights burned in the upper room, the flickering candlelight creating weird shadows upon the sheer curtians that the two boys on the street could see. A shadow moved across that light, Duo's breath catching in his throat once more. Heero was home. "Which one first?"

Sharp eyes of jade studied first one, then the other. There were no real paths up to where the celestials lived, no road needed for those that could fly. Sharp cliffs rose all about them, almost as if the dark angels themselves had fashioned the very rocky land on which their homes stood to keep intruders out. Nodding toward the white one, Trowa's lips pulled tightly. "Wufei's first. It's dark there. He's either out or asleep. If he's asleep, we jump on him, wound him bad enough to knock the fight out of him, and then find Quatre. Kill him and leave. If he's not home, then we wait and then land on him. If he doesn't have Quatre, then Heero does. We use Wufei as a lever with Heero to get Quatre back, then try to kill them both."

Duo nodded as he followed the other boy, a grappeling hook produced from within the Latino's longcoat. Flicking the spiked ends out on it, they tossed it upwards, catching the railing of Wufei's balcony. The small clatter it made brought a wince to both of them. In silence, they began to climb upwards.

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In a dark upper room of Wufei's mansion, a pair of eyes flicked open. The scents of sandlewood and cherries lingered in the air, sakura blossoms strewn over water with a burner floating in it lending an air of serenity. From beneath ebony lashes, eyes that were complete pools of darkness peered about him. He needed no light to see. If anything, brightness hurt his eyes, the entire surface of them looking as if they were coated with oil. A tendril of black hair slid across his forehead, a contrast to his coppery skin, the same scents of the Orient flavouring his flesh.

Keeping from the windows, he rose in a soundless motion, fluid like a cat. Batlike wings folded at his back, their shade matching his hair in their shadowy colour. Sniffing the air, he was vaugely surprised to discover the scent of humans drifting towards him. Two of them, male if he guessed right. Leaping onto the banister and pulling himself into a shadowed alcove, his eyes roved the gloom of his white marble floored living room. The only furniture was a low table and a futon, perfect for his Spartan needs. Wufei was patient, a cat waiting for the mice to enter.

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TBC... and no, I haven't forgotten about Heero and Quatre *grins*
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