Blood Dance Chapter 6: Part 6, a gundam wing/ac fanfic

Blood Dance —
Part 6
by Mina

Standard disclaimers for Gundam Wing (and Rurouni Kenshin) apply. Anita Blake and all subsequent characters (this includes from the Kiss of Shadows and Caress of Twilight books) belong to Laurell K. Hamilton. The only thing I get out of this is a tiny ego boost and a lot of headaches from computer glitches, so suing would most likely get you a bad Xerox copy of my hand flipping you the bird with the words 'Seriamaius Lives!' scrawled in sloppy handwriting with red marker.

Warnings: Okay peoples (and, yes, I put the 'S' there on purpose ;p), this is Part 6. If you don't know what's in this fic by now—where the hell have you been?! And yes, Trowa's a special werewolf, 'cause he gets magic clothes that disappear and reappear on a whim. Why? Because I can, of course.

P.S. This is the third—yes, you read that right, third—attempt at getting this part done. If it doesn't work this time, if my computer eats it again, I'm going to lose what little hold on reality I have. You'll then see my face on America's Most Wanted for holding up ice cream trucks, bookstores, and stealing Pocky from little kids.

Posted: July 2002
Revised: August 2002

The trek back upstairs was rather uneventful. Not that I was complaining, mind you. After the things that had gone on in the last few days, a little uneventfulness was rather nice. It was too bad that Asher couldn't say the same thing; we waved briefly as we made our way past him towards the back of the stage. The Nyan-Nyan twins had told us that the dressing rooms were backstage, and that Shinta's was the last one down the hall. People were still seated out in the audience, some of them with rather vague, disoriented expressions. There was one lady crying over in the corner, and the man that Asher was currently dealing with was laughing one of those low, eerie laughs that sets your hair on end.

Like I said, I didn't envy Asher in the least.

The hallway behind the stage was dimly lit, and dancers milled about, spilling from various rooms. A few flashed wide smiles, sporting canines that still managed to gleam brightly despite the lack of light. I had a feeling that I was supposed to be impressed or frightened. Unfortunately for them, the only emotion I felt was amusement, and I was almost certain that they wouldn't appreciate me laughing in their faces. After having dealt with Jean-Claude, Asher, Damian, and Heero, I just couldn't find it in me to call them scary.

"Hmmm, I think someone's drawing attention again," Wufei murmured.

I glanced at him, wondering what he meant by that. I saw the tiny smile hovering about his lips and snorted. "Why am I the one who always gets blamed for these things?"

"Because Wufei and I look like your average, teenage Shadowkind punks right now," Heero said, fingers tracing down the inside of my arm, latching around my wrist. "You, however, look like dinner…very, very sexy dinner."

"Are you saying that I look easy?"

Wufei snickered. "We'd never imply that, Duo. Just because all we have to do is this—"

I bit back a yelp as his hand found its way inside my shirt, fingers skimming across my belly. The tingling sensation that occurred whenever someone touched me flared to life, a curling fire in the pit of my belly. As Wufei continued to trace his fingers downward, the fire spread from my belly to my groin, and my knees began to buckle. If Heero hadn't wrapped his arm around my waist at the last minute, those gawking dancers would have gotten to see me become intimate with the floor.

"Okay, point proven," I gasped sourly, glaring at both of them as I tried to get my feet back underneath me.

I now know exactly how girls feel when they cross their arms over their chests, roll their eyes, and say "Boys," with a shake of their heads.

I made it the rest of the way to Shinta's dressing room without being molested—and I wasn't sure if I was happy or disappointed by that fact. I knocked twice before opening the door and slipping inside, Heero and Wufei right behind me.

Shinta had changed from his dancing outfit into a simple silk wrap; his hair, released from its confines, spilled over his back and down to the floor like molten lava. He smiled, looking up from the book he'd been leaned over. "Hello, Duo." Then he frowned, looking Wufei and Heero over with narrowed eyes. "And who are your friends?" he asked, voice gone almost deadly soft.

Gotta love the psychopathic relatives.

"Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei, fellow Gundam pilots and my…." I struggled for a word to use. Lovers? Well, Heero had almost been but Quatre had interrupted that. Not that I wasn't determined to rectify the situation if an opportunity presented itself. I might as well go with the safest option available. "And my friends."

Shinta nodded, lips twitching into an almost-smile, as if he knew just what my thoughts had been. "Hajimemashite, Heero-san, Chang-san."

Almost as if they had planned it—and maybe they had, for all I knew—Wufei and Heero bowed at the exact same time. Righting themselves, Wufei smirked. "It's a pleasure to meet such a venerated man as yourself, Shinta-san."

"And finding that you are a relation of our beloved Duo makes it doubly so," Heero added, a light glinting in his eyes that made me wonder if he was serious or being a smart ass.

This time Shinta smiled fully. "Well, they certainly have pretty manners, Duo," he murmured, arching an eyebrow as he glanced at me.

I snorted. "Yeah, when they want to. Most of the time Heero has worse manners than me, and 'Fei? 'Fei's just a stuck up snob at heart. He likes his pretty-pretty manners."

Score a point for me, I thought, when Heero and Wufei made offended noises and shared looks of righteous indignation at my accusations. Shinta laughed, though, and seeing him smile and laugh after the surprise of less than an hour before made our stupid, childish antics seem worth it all.

Shinta sighed, absently returning to inking in his book. "I'm sure than Jean-Claude will send someone to question me soon."

"I don't know… When we left the basement a few minutes ago, he was babbling in French to the Traveler on the phone. And Asher was running crowd control, so it could be awhile before anyone makes their way back here."

Chuckling, Shinta shook his head. "Saitou always said that he hated making a scene, but he never failed to make a big one despite his words. I think there's a little bit of drama queen in him somewhere."

"Sounds like someone else we know," Wufei muttered.

I glared at him. Was it citywide Pick On Duo Night or something? Here Wufei was, getting all huffy with me, when if any one of us should have a reason to be indignant, it was me. I had been ditched by my friends, accosted and glamoured by a psychotic faerie bitch, turned into a black leopard, discovered a lost relative that couldn't die, as well as met his scary vampiric, er, lover. And I'd managed all of this in a little over twenty-four hours.

Deciding to share this little rant of mine aloud, I opened my mouth and drew in a breath, only to have it all leave me as the door to the dressing room was suddenly flung open and a blonde, bombshell vision in crimson stalked into the room, slamming the door behind her.

I blinked in surprise, wondering if I hadn't damaged my vision somehow. It was either that or someone had managed to slip me something somewhere along the way. I had to be hallucinating—I had to be.

I mean, why would Dorothy Catalonia be standing the doorway of Shinta's dressing room wearing red leather hot pants, a lace halter-top, and nothing else?

Not that I was complaining, mind you. Dorothy's rather well built, and she knows it. Large, firm breasts, long slender legs that go on forever, creamy pale skin…. It's something that she manages to carry around with her no matter where she is or what she's wearing. Kind of this 'look at me and know that you're inferior' type of thing.

If I didn't have the world's most fucked up love life at the moment, I would have considered going for her. Maybe.

Her eyes narrowed when they fell on me, her fingers flexing like claws down at her sides. Some tiny corner of my mind noted that her fingernail polish matched her outfit, sparkling with incandescent glitter. "Duo Maxwell."

I couldn't help but smile at the way she hissed my name; she was like a cat that'd had her fur rubbed the wrong way. "Dorothy Catalonia."

She stalked into the room as though she owned it—of course, if you can walk in five-inch stiletto heels, you could pretty much own anything—pale eyes sweeping over Heero, Wufei, and myself, eventually settling on Shinta. Shinta seemed almost oblivious, continuing his tiny, precise inking in his journal. "Relative of yours, Maxwell?" she drawled. "He certainly is pretty enough."

"Maybe." Ah, yes, evasiveness at its best. People really shouldn't underestimate the power of the word 'maybe.' "What do you want, Dorothy? I thought you'd be glued to the Ojousama's side. Stalking us is rather her forte, not yours."

A flash of white teeth—teeth with very prominent eyeteeth, I might add—was my immediate answer. "Oh, I'd love nothing more than to be at Relena-sama's side at the moment. However, there's a slight problem with that."

I arched an eyebrow, glancing at Heero and Wufei. Both of them seemed to be just as lost as I was. I couldn't help but feel a bit smug that I wasn't the only one out of the loop for a brief moment in time. "All right, I'll bite. So what's the problem?"

"Milliardo-sama." The grin became more of a grimace, Dorothy's eyes flashing briefly with amber-green. "It seems he's been using his vacation from the Foundation to brush up on some extra-curricular reading. He managed to put two and two together and get four—this time, anyway. He exposed me to the entire Foundation and OZ. Noin's so clueless that she hasn't even figured out that he knows she a witch, but…" She shrugged, absently brushing her fingers over the red leather. "I have connections, in the world of endless night. I heard just this morning about you, Maxwell. And when the—oh, how shall I put it?"

"Shit hit the fan?" Wufei supplied blandly, sloe eyes bright with amusement.

Dorothy smiled slightly, nodding her head in acknowledgment. "Yes, I believe that fits the bill quite well. I have to admit that Milliardo-sama could do with brushing up on his decorum lessons. He currently does tact with a double-headed battle-axe. We're a dying breed in the first place, and then to expose me on inter-space broadcast like that…. Well, you were the only one I could think of to go to."

The door to the dressing room was abruptly thrown open—again—and a slightly out of breath Jason leaned heavily against the frame, blonde hair dripping into his face. "Duo…I heard…the nimir-ra…" His eyes fastened on Dorothy, widening in surprise. "Oh…shit…"

Dorothy laughed, a lush, rolling sound that was all predator. "Hello, Jason. It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

It was obvious that Dorothy was enjoying Jason's fear. Not that it was surprising, mind you. Dorothy enjoys a good mind-fuck; I think that was the biggest reason that she stepped out into the political scene at Relena's side. She's smug about it too, though not without unfounded reason. Dorothy's quite good at what she does.

And while it was all very interesting, and a truly sadistic part of me was enjoying watching Jason fidget despite the fact that I liked the guy, I knew there was a thing or six that I was missing. "Okay, so what exactly is it that Zechs has done this time—you said something about exposing you? Though I don't know why that'd piss you off; you're doing a rather good job of exposing yourself right now. Quit making Jason squirm, Dorothy, and focus, please."

"Ooh, I love a man who likes to take charge," Dorothy said with a little purr, stretching sensually with her arms over her head, exposing quite a bit of creamy flesh and drawing attention to her breasts. Her smile was smug when she saw the way Jason had blushed and turned away, but I simply arched an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Oh, all right, Maxwell. Don't get your tail in a knot," she said with a slight hint of exasperation. "Zechs exposed me as a wereleopard on this afternoon's live broadcast. In exposing me, though, he endangered my entire pard. There are only a dozen or so of us in the first place, and we're good at hiding, but we need patronage…sanctuary."

"Ah, so that is why you are here, ma blonde vixen."

Great. Asher had come to investigate. I caught sight of his golden head out of the corner of my eye, and sighed when I noticed the way his tall frame seemed to take up what little space was left. I was just about to comment on the fact that the dressing room was getting way too cramped when Shinta beat me to the punch.

Scowling, my relative sat as tall in his chair as he could; apparently we'd managed to distract him from his writing. He was wearing nothing more than an ivory wrap and surrounded by the unbound glory of crimson hair, tanzanite eyes still shadowed in makeup—over-all looking decidedly effeminate and delicate—yet he somehow managed to say in a tone that brooked no argument, "Take this outside. Now. Before I am forced to hurt each and every one of you to make you leave."

I looked at the eye pencil he'd reached for and was brandishing in front of him, and I knew I wasn't the only one trying to figure out what kind of damage Shinta could possibly do with kohl. But then I had only to look in his eyes, to note the gold that frosted the lavender, and I was ushering people out the door as fast as I could.

I wasn't in any hurry to find out how efficiently Shinta could murder someone with a makeup pencil. There are some things that are better left unknown and that was one of them.

It was an odd jumble of people that made their way into the basement. Heero had taken point, followed by Jason who kept looking over his shoulder at Dorothy, a grimace constantly on his face. Dorothy was looking smug, her arm laced through mine; somehow I'd ended up with lady-escorting duty, but I wasn't so sure that it was a lady I had on my arm. Wufei was behind me, and I could feel his smirk radiating through my skin—he found the whole thing quite funny—and Asher was walking with him. Apparently Shinta's threat had frightened even Jean-Claude's second-in-command.

I wasn't sure I wanted to take time to ponder that implication.

The first thing I noticed was that it was quiet—Jean-Claude was off the phone. Glancing around, I found him leaning over the arm of one of the ridiculously ornate loveseats—I mean, really, cherry wood and black leather with iron filigree?—deep in conversation with Richard. After a moment, he gestured over his shoulder and the two of them exited the room, going back the way we had come. I felt a brief moment of inquisitiveness—had they not seen us or were they ignoring us?—but it passed when I began to look for my other fellow pilots.

Quatre was sprawled in the corner on the floor, a very large dog in his lap— Okay, scratch that; it wasn't a dog, it was a very large Trowa-werewolf in his lap, tongue lolling from between scary looking teeth as he made tiny whimpers of pleasure while Quatre ran his fingers through the thick ruff of light auburn fur.

I made a mental note that Trowa-werewolf was almost as creepy as Relena.

"Hmmm, that looks like fun," Dorothy purred, following my gaze. She turned her face down to me, expression impish. "Wanna rub my belly, Maxwell?"

I scowled as Wufei began to choke, trying not to laugh. Glancing at Heero, I saw him shake his head with a smile, crossing his arms over his chest. Abruptly I was distracted from Dorothy's flirtatious comment as I watched the see-through material draw taut over his chest. Mmmm, Heero chest…

"What the hell is she doing here?"

Yet again I was distracted at the sharp question, glancing up to find Anita suddenly in the middle of the room, directly in front of us. I felt Dorothy tense beside me, turning my gaze to her as she removed her arm from mine and took a step forward. "I have come to the Master of the City to ask for asylum for my pard, and to seek the sanctuary of the true nimir-raj's power."

I had no idea what Dorothy was talking about, but apparently it was a Big Deal; Heero actually blinked in surprise, Wufei's lips twisted in a thoughtful frown, and Jason paled even more than he already had at Dorothy's appearance.

A bark of laughter escaped Anita's lips, serrated, rusty razors and bitter, winter winds. "You? The defective nimir-ra who collects the world's charity lycanthropes? You have come to us for asylum and sanctuary? What makes you think that you even have the right to exist in the same world as us, let alone have our protection?"

Dorothy's jaw clenched, and she looked away from Anita. "My parley is not with you, Necromancer, but with the Master of the City." Her eyes were narrowed, true amber-green now. "We have nowhere left to go, at present. In case you hadn't heard, the Foundation has exposed myself and several other high-profile lycanthropes on inter-space communication. Half of my people don't even look human, and there's no way that I would be able to hide them all, even with my financial backing. I helped Jean-Claude once, not long ago, and I'm asking him to return the favour."

A sound like a bullwhip cracking echoed through the air as Anita threw her jacket off, revealing daggers sheathed on each forearm. "No way in hell," she growled, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I will not allow such impure filth here, and I will not bother Jean-Claude with your plea."

I blinked. Impure filth? Defect? No right to exist? What the hell was going on—and why was Anita suddenly vying for the Uber Bitch of the Year award?

Glancing back and forth between Anita and Dorothy, seeing the way they were glaring at one another, I wondered if Heero was aware that his Death Glare had competition. "You brought weapons, right?" I muttered, not tearing my gaze away from a potentially volatile situation. I knew that I was armed—I'm paranoid, after all, and I take my gun to bathe—but I wasn't sure about the others.

"Worried?" Wufei asked with a small smirk, tossing his head in the direction of the two women.

"Is Heero suicidal?"

"Not at the moment," Heero said, defending himself with a grin. I found it ironically not funny that I was the one worried this time while they were amused.

"Well, I know I'm not seeing things; those two look like they want to tear each other's throats out," I snapped, glaring at each of them in turn. Maybe I was suffering from a male form of PMS; I was certainly being bitchy enough.

Actually, scrap that. I wasn't being bitchy; everyone else had suddenly decided to develop a personality without memoing me ahead of time. I shouldn't really complain since I was finding Heero's and Wufei's personalities very interesting in certain aspects, but some of those other aspects were getting a bit…annoying.

The staring—excuse me, glaring—contest continued, Anita's hands curling into fists down at her sides while Dorothy's flexed like claws. Then they suddenly started to circle one another, crouched on the balls of their feet like they were preparing to lock in battle at any moment. That wasn't really the part that bothered me though; what bothered me was the fact that they both started to glow—Anita a disconcerting black, Dorothy a pale red—and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

It also pissed me off.

"Knock it the fuck off," I snarled, narrowing my eyes at both of them. What 'it' was, I wasn't exactly sure, but I knew that I wanted it to stop.

"Stay out of this, Duo!" Anita's tone was wintry, and the look she briefly threw my way could have frozen Hell. Her aura continued to grow, little tongues of black fire dancing from her body.

Unfortunately for her, she failed to realise that the Look wouldn't work on someone who was deluded enough to think they were a god of Hell.

Not even thinking, I reached for the Glock holstered at my back, drawing it in one smooth, fast movement, flipping off the safety and firing the first round into the air before pointing the barrel at a point directly between them. "Knock. It. The. Fuck. Off."

Both Anita and Dorothy were staring at me with wide eyes; Dorothy more because the shot had surprised her, Anita more because of the fact that I was pointing a gun in her direction. "There's a hole in the ceiling," Anita said after a few moments of silence. "And you really shouldn't run around with a chambered round."

"I'll apologise to Jean-Claude later," I replied, smirking. I wasn't sure when my cockiness had decided to come back, but I didn't really care either; I was suddenly having a hell of a good time. "And I'm a terrorist, Anita, wanted by nearly-fucking-everyone. Do you really think I'm worried about the handgun laws of the area?"

Dorothy began to laugh, arms crossed beneath her breasts. "Oh, I had forgotten what a delightful breath of fresh air that you are, Duo!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Thanks, I think."

Asher cleared his throat, eyebrows drawn together as he looked at Anita. "If we are quite done with the childish antics, I believe that Jean-Claude would like us all to meet in the boardroom."

I laughed, finding Asher's expression and careful wording funny. "Nice touch of diplomacy there, Asher. Well, I've got nothing better to do. Lead the way, oh blonde Adonis of the Night."

Asher glared at me, sweeping up the stairs silently. Wufei slapped me on the back of the head as I continued to laugh, while Heero grabbed my arm to drag me upstairs. I couldn't explain it, really, but suddenly things seemed absolutely hilarious. Dorothy and Anita getting into a pissing contest like that, me scaring Anita and making Dorothy laugh… I didn't even bother to look and see if Anita and Dorothy were following us, didn't stop to see if they'd started fighting again…didn't really care one way or the other. I was alive, Wufei was shooting me smouldering looks, Heero's fingers were tracing up my back as he led me up the stairs, Quatre was laughing as Trowa yipped happy little werewolf sounds, and I hadn't had to shoot anyone in nearly a week. All in all, it was a rather good day compared to my usual.

By the time we reached the boardroom, I was grinning like an idiot. Heero snorted when he turned and saw my expression. "Behave, Duo," he murmured.

Blinking, I gave him my best innocent expression—which is pretty damn good, if you ask me. "I have no idea what on earth you're talking about, Heero. Really, you'd think I was untrustworthy, the way you and Wufei were hovering around me." And it was true: I could feel Wufei right behind me, fingers flexing as if he were waiting to stop me from doing something stupid, while Heero just continued to look at me.

Heero smiled slightly. "Untrustworthy, no. Unpredictable, yes."

I rolled my eyes, watching everyone else file into the room. Jean-Claude stepped out from a door in the back of the room, Richard right behind him. I frowned as I watched Jean-Claude brush his fingers over Richard's wrist, wondering if it was an absent action or if it was meant to be reassuring. I had often done similar things to Heero and Wufei after particularly bad missions when they weren't exactly…dealing well, with the results of our actions.

"I see that you are all here now," Jean-Claude said. "Please, be seated. I have had some…unsettling news, from the Traveler, and considering the events of the last few days, I wish to bring you all up to speed."

I followed Heero and Wufei to the table. Heero sat closest to Jean-Claude, Wufei next to him, which left me sitting on the end. I was a little bit surprised to see Dorothy take the seat next to me. She smiled tightly, the corners of her eyes pinched with worry that I had only seen on her when Relena was involved; whatever was going on had her really scared.

If it could scare Dorothy, then it was bad.

Jason took up position behind Richard, leaning against the wall. Asher closed the door we had come through and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest in a deceptively relaxed pose. I wasn't sure if it was just me, but everyone seemed on edge.

Pre-battle on edge.

Anita was the last to take a seat, and she didn't even really sit. She leaned against the wall near Jason, a deep crease between her brows, a scowl in permanent residence on her blood red-stained lips.

Jean-Claude first turned his attention to Dorothy, a small smile playing about his face. "Dorothy, so good to see you. How have you been?"

Dorothy sighed, passing a hand in front of her eyes. "I've been better, Jean-Claude. Have you been informed of the reason for my visit?"

"The Traveler said something about being exposed?"

She flashed the tight smile once again. "Yes, it was something like that. Being as I am a high profile figure in interstellar politics, it's a big deal though. And the fact that I am nimir-ra of my pard makes it doubly so; I wouldn't be surprised if the Romefeller Foundation knows that names of over half my people now. And so, I have come to you, my last hope."

"Last hope, Dorothy?"

"You're the only one with enough power to hide us until this all blows over—if this all blows over. You currently have all five Gundam pilots with you, as well, and their protection isn't taken lightly. All I ask is asylum for my pard; I do not ask you to fight my battles, to defend me from my enemies in the outside world, only to give sanctuary to my people."

Jean-Claude steepled his fingers, lips flushed with blood pursing into a thoughtful moue. "Asylum I can provide, Dorothy, but only for a short time. I am sure that you know of the problems we are facing ourselves?"

Dorothy cocked her head to the side. "Only bits and pieces. I know that Miburou is involved, as well as the Sidhe to some extent."

"Yes, well, that is what the Traveler called me about. It seems that the Seelie Court is claiming that Ellinea's actions are entirely independent. However, there have been infractions in Europe with Seelie Court representatives lately that have the Council worried. The King of the Shining Court is refusing all inquiries to meet with a Council Representative, and the fact that they've simply declared Ellinea wanted dead or alive doesn't sit well with what we know of the Sidhe. Life is precious to them, for their birth-rate is low; the last time such cutthroat tactics were employed by either the Shining Court or the Darkling Throng was before Brewster's Law in the early twenty-first century."

I frowned at his words. "Have we even figured out why she targeted me in the first place? I mean, other than the fact I'm drop dead sexy, and all."

Jean-Claude chuckled at my words. "I am afraid not, mon panthère. And even what Shinta was able to tell us about Miburou's visit tonight fails to shed light onto the insanity. I'm beginning to wonder if the events of the plasmababies and Ellinea are even the same problem. Which then makes me wonder which is the worse problem to deal with."

"Well, I know that Miburou said he'd give us information tomorrow night—well, tonight, technically. He'll probably contact Shinta with the information, but I know that I'd like to meet with him."

"As would I," Heero murmured, Wufei nodding in agreement as well.

"Is that safe?" Dorothy asked, glancing sharply at Jean-Claude. "New Kobe's pard isn't exactly the most…stable, of pards. They don't like to share their territory, and if they catch wind of Duo…"

"Huh?" I looked at Dorothy in complete bewilderment. "Forgive me for being clueless, Dorothy, but I'm pretty new to this whole 'I turn into a big black cat' thing."

Dorothy smiled nastily at Anita though her eyes never left my face. "Let me tell you a thing or two about pard politics, Duo—since I know that someone else won't have bothered to tell you."

"Leave it alone, Dorothy," Anita said, her voice hushed. "He doesn't need to know." Dorothy arched an eyebrow. "Doesn't he, Anita?"

"It's not going to affect him—ever."

"You sound so sure of yourself," Dorothy murmured. "But, I'm afraid that I don't believe you. See, I have heard all of the old stories, Anita. The ones about your true powers, about how you share the ardour of your vampire lover, about how you have the ability to call beasts. Forgive me, Jean-Claude, for I mean no affront to you, but I do know my stories quite well—and life's lessons have only proved them to be true."

She smirked, turning to face me completely. "Did she tell you how she really called your beast, Duo? Or did she feed you that line about how she was using Richard's power to do it?"

Confused as to what exactly was going on, I bit my lip, looking between Anita and Dorothy. It seemed as though I'd somehow wound up in the middle of yet another pissing contest, but as to why—and over what—I wasn't certain. "Option two," I said, watching Anita's eyes.

There was a flash there, an amber-green that shouldn't have been, before they subsided into depths of brown. "Stop it now, Dorothy."

Dorothy laughed, crossing her arms beneath her chest. "Or you'll what, Anita? You might be nimir-ra in your own right, but so am I, as well. And even with the power of Jean-Claude and Richard behind you, you're not powerful enough to knock my beast down. That's why your happy little pard's pissed that I and mine are here, aren't they? Oh, Duo may not have run into them yet, but I have—it was quite a chore having to get my claws bloody right after stepping off the plane. They fear us, the evil, defective gene-construct lycanthropes that could knock them down like flies if we so desired."

Pale eyes narrowing, Dorothy curled her lip in distaste. "You had us created, Anita. You and the others like you had us created in the hopes of having strong lycanthropes to flesh out your groups should a fight over Brewster's Law begin. I've even heard rumours of a war."

I was starting to get the picture and it wasn't very pretty. Problems with the Sidhe, problems with the vampires…problems with the lycanthropes… Granted, I didn't really want to piss off Anita, because even if Dorothy could handle her, I wasn't sure that I could. Not to mention the fact that with Jean-Claude and Richard in the room, the odds weren't exactly in my favour.

And I knew, from watching Anita's eyes, that what Dorothy was saying was the truth. It hadn't been Richard's power that had called my beast last night: it had been Anita's and Anita's alone.

Anita sighed, looking away. "What exactly to you want me to say, Dorothy? It seems as though you know the whole story yourself."

"All I want is for Duo to know the truth. I want him to know why the Kobe Pard will most likely be stalking him when he prowls the streets, I want him to know why Ellinea was most likely drawn to him."

"You come into my territory without permission, and you expect me to just submit to your wishes?" Anita was angry, I could tell that just by looking at her with physical senses that she was mentally plotting the various ways to dismember Dorothy.

"Stop this, Anita."

Jean-Claude's softly issued command startled even me, and I found myself turning towards the vampire with an eyebrow arched.

Richard's face was a mask, turned towards Jean-Claude and away from the rest of us. He seemed perfectly at ease, but I wondered why his attention was focused on the vampire rather than the near-fight going on. I hadn't expected him to turn his back to danger.

Then again, maybe Jean-Claude was the more dangerous one at the moment.

Beautiful alabaster face completely neutral, Jean-Claude was giving as close to a glare as I had ever seen him give. "We have no time for this, Anita, and I no longer have the patience for you petty games. I have granted Dorothy and her pard asylum; she is a powerful ally and I would appreciate it if you would stop antagonising her. Also, she is right: you need to tell Duo the truth."

Anita laughed, a bitter ring that sounded like jagged glass. "Tell the truth? That's rich, coming from you!"

Smiling slightly, Jean-Claude murmured, "You may be able to call my body during the day, ma petite, but do not forget which of us has gained in power over the years…and which of us has not."

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. Anita's jaw was clenched so tightly that I was expecting to hear it crack any minute, but Jean-Claude seemed entirely unaffected by her glare. She glanced briefly at Richard, as if looking for support, but Richard continued to stare at Jean-Claude. "If you do not, Anita, then I shall," Jean-Claude said, eyes narrowing as he laid his hand to Richard's shoulder.

Reassurance? Protection? Again, I wondered at the gesture, and wondered what was going on amidst the happy little ménage trois.

Anita glared at Jean-Claude's hand, and I wondered if there was something in that subtle touch that was particularly infuriating; the last time I'd seen such a look of loathing, anger, fear, betrayal, and pain on someone's face was when Quatre had watched the replay of his father's and sister's death after the whole Wing Gundam ZERO/Trowa lost in space fiasco.

"Fine!" she snapped, turning her head away. She pushed away from the wall and began to stalk around the room, staying as far away from us as possible. Stopping, she turned to me, her eyes still spitting fire. "You want to know the truth? Can you handle the fucking truth, Duo Maxwell?"

I sensed both Wufei and Heero's anger at her sharp words toward me—yeah, something about Jean-Claude and Richard had pissed her off royally—but I motioned for them to stay back with a shake of my head. Standing up, I pushed away from the table and looked her straight in the face. "I'm a sixteen-year-old Gundam pilot who's survived artificial plagues, air raids, Mobile Suit attacks, attempted self-destruction and suicide, as well as Quatre's home-brewed flu fighting concoctions. I am the self-professed Shinigami, also known as Maxwell's Demon for more than one reason. I run, I hide, but I never lie to anyone other than myself. Can I handle the "fucking" truth?" I grinned, putting my hand on my hip in a position that I knew was just cocky enough to piss her off even further. "Lady, I've fucked the truth and the truth's fucked me. If you want to scare someone, go try the Sanq Kingdom, but don't try it with me. I am scary, Anita, probably scarier than you if I put my mind to it."

From her expression, I was right that I was going to piss her off. However, she also seemed quite surprised by my words, and I mentally buffed my fingers and patted myself on the back. Hey, it wasn't every day that you got one up on a nearly all-powerful uber-bitch.

"The truth is that all of you were made into what you are," she said softly, gaze dropping away from mine. "Well, nearly all of you—we had nothing to do with Quatre and Wufei, at least. You, Heero, Trowa, Dorothy, and Middie Une were all created through years of careful planning. However, Une became mentally imbalanced as a child and we sent her to foster with a family having ties to Jean-Claude, hoping it would help her find her centre again."

Obviously she'd been wrong, I thought, glancing at Wufei and Heero to find that they both had similar looks of bemusement on their faces.

"Heero…we lost track of Heero not long after his project was begun. He was stolen from the lab, right out from underneath our noses. Trowa…we didn't get a hold of Trowa until he was about ten or so, and then it was a matter of infecting someone already a genetic Newtype with lycanthropy. Dorothy has always been on her own after she was created, raised by first her father, then grandfather, into what she is now. And you…you were my pet project, that special creature that was going to link everything together."

She scowled, lips thin slashes of crimson in a pale white visage. "I didn't count on the Long Clan and the Khushrenadas figuring things out early, but they did and nearly ruined everything. They were the ones who stole you away and deposited you on L-2, the Long Clan's witches stealing your memories from before that point. Though you were a gene construct, Duo, I was having you raised with the utmost care. A child of a Newtype and a lycanthrope, gifted with the ability to hide himself from anyone, to become invisible to both physical and psychic senses…you were everything we wanted in our new lycanthropes, everything we would need to fight Brewster's Law. I had tried so long and so hard to create something akin to you, failing time and time again. It's those failures that Dorothy hides within her pard, you know."

I frowned, arching an eyebrow. "You know, Anita, if it weren't for the fact that you're being perfectly calm while you tell me this, I'd think you were a sociopathic megalomaniac."

Wufei snorted, tossing his head. "Think?" he hissed. "She is a sociopathic megalomaniac, Duo; there's no way around that fact at this point."

Grinning tightly, I muttered at him, "I know that, Wufei, but I was trying to avoid notifying her of that. Valuing my miserable life, and all."

I sighed, taking my seat again. "Okay, so I'm beginning to get the picture. It's fucked up and ugly as all hell, but I'm beginning to see the whole thing, I think." Things were really tense in the room and I was currently wishing that I was elsewhere. There was a lot of information to process now, and after glancing at Quatre, who was tight-lipped and hanging on to Trowa's collar with a death-grip, I decided that it would probably be best for us to talk things over amongst ourselves before talking with Anita or Jean-Claude more.

Plus, at the moment, I wasn't sure that Anita could be talked to. Her sudden irrationalities had me more than a little bit disturbed.

"Well," I yawned, stretching my arms over my head, "we should probably get going. Today was wild, tomorrow's probably going to be wilder, and I'm starving!"

It was quiet in the room after my admission, and I looked around to find that everyone was staring at me with varying looks of dismay or bemusement. "What?"

"You're actually hungry after all of this?" Richard asked. It was the first time I'd heard him speak since leaving for Shinta's dressing room, and the exhaustion conveyed in his voice again had me wondering if we knew the whole story.

"I'm a growing boy. Of course I'm hungry!" 'Ch, why is it that everyone states the obvious around me? Has there ever been a time when I'm not hungry? Okay, when Heero died and all that shit, but other than that… I can't think of a single bloody time, so why was everyone looking at me like I'd just announced I was off to sleep with the Khushrenada himself?

Sighing, I stood up and looked over at Trowa-werewolf. Trowa was usually the one guy I could count on to feed me—not to mention the one guy I could count on to listen to me rant and rave and actually give me sound advice afterwards. "Oi, Trowa, wanna go outside while the Panic Crew sits and chitchats some more?"

Trowa sat up, looking at Quatre and nuzzling his hand. Quatre shook his head and laughed, raking fingers through the defiant fur. "Oh, all right. Keep him out of trouble."

I bounded from the room, Trowa-werewolf on my heels. I wondered briefly who Quatre had been talking to, but I was pretty sure he'd been talking to Trowa. Why was it that everyone thought I was out to cause trouble? Why was I continually being forced to ask myself these stupid, self-reflective questions? Just because I like to blow things up… I mean, sheesh, you'd think I had a reputation as a God of Destruction or something.

…Oh, wait, I did.

Giggling at my own thoughts, I careened through the hallways like hell on legs, completely ignoring the people I bumped into, grinning as I heard Trowa yelping behind me. I didn't stop running until I'd reached the stairs, and then I simply collapsed and attempted to remember how to breathe.

The Trowa that collapsed at my feet moments later was a human Trowa, whose green t-shirt was untucked and almost looked like it was on sidewise, and who glared up at me through the faint sheen of sweat that dusted his face. "Care to tell me what that was all about? You haven't led me on a chase like that in months."

I sighed, propping my chin up on my hands. "I don't know. I guess…I guess I'm just feeling frustrated, antsy, you know?"

Trowa nodded, sitting up and leaning against the wall beside me. I was glad that no-one had come along to interrupt us, and I was hoping it would continue that way. I wanted someone to give me my daily dose of sanity-check, and since it hadn't been done yesterday, I figured I was way overdue.

"Well, you seem to be adjusting remarkably well."

"That's what I think too," I said with a smirk.

"You also seem to be recovering your usual snarky persona quite well."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with being snarky. I'm American…somewhere, in my genes, at least. And I'm told that, since we're descended from the British, who are the original snarky ones, that that makes us snarky upstarts. So, if you put it in that perspective, I'm perfectly normal!"

Boy, I love my thought processes.

Trowa arched an eyebrow, but his eyes flashed with amusement—which meant I was in the clear. "You know, Duo, you'd think after two years that I would know all of your thought processes by heart. However, I think this is the first time I've heard that particular one."

"I should hope so," I muttered. "It was rather spontaneous on my part, you know."

We fell into silence for a few moments, the only sounds being that of faint voices filtering down the hallways towards us.

"What's really wrong, Duo?"

I groaned, slumping forward over my knees. "Would you believe me if I said I don't know? Because—seriously—I'm not really sure. Well, other than the fact that this glamour that the faerie bitch put on me makes absolutely no sense. Okay, I understand Quatre's theory and all, but I don't really buy it. Not completely, anyway. And I'm pretty goddamn sure that there's something sinister going on underneath all of this, that no-one knows the whole story, and that we're all getting played like fucking marionettes once again!" I growled, finally getting angry. "You know how much I hate being used like a puppet? That's all they think we are, you know—puppets, who dance to the cues of our master's finger twitches. I'm tellin' ya, the first chance I get, those fingers are coming off."

Trowa nodded. "Yeah, I understand. I know…I know exactly what you're talking about. Finding out that you're being manipulated like that…" He looked over at me, eyes such a dark green that they rivalled pines at midnight. "Quatre's the only thing that helps me to pull my own strings, you know. And even if we don't know completely what the glamour is doing to you, I'm certain that your bond to Heero and Wufei will do the same for you."

I smiled humourlessly. "And what bond would that be, hmmm? I mean, shit, Tro, I didn't even know that Wufei was attracted to me until yesterday. Yeah, he was my friend before that, and Heero too, but now there's something more there, and I'm getting really confused… My brain keeps telling me that this is all very weird, but my heart and body keep telling me that this is right, that this is the way things are supposed to be. …Well, for the most part, at least."

Trowa laughed at that. "Somehow, Duo, you always manage to capture the most difficult and complicated of situations in the most simple and succinct of ways."

"That's me, a man of simple words. Lots of words, but simple words."

I had fun snickering at my own joke, but ended up stopping when I noticed Trowa's eyes unfocus for a moment. "Um, what's up, Tro?"

"Quatre and everyone else are waiting for us upstairs. Wufei and Heero are out at the jeep, and Quatre's waiting for me at the front desk."

I was momentarily creeped out by the fact that Quatre could talk to Trowa in his head, but that thought was overruled by a more pressing one. "Food!" I jumped to my feet, gesturing for Trowa to do the same. "Well, come on, let's go!" I was suddenly in the mood for tacos as we headed up the stairs. I nudged Trowa, grinning. "Feel like celebrating your inner Mexican?" I asked.

Trowa stared at me blankly for a moment before smiling in return. "My inner Mexican? Are you trying to say you're hungry for tacos, of all things, Duo?"

I grimaced, clasping both hands to my stomach. "Aw, come on, man! I haven't had anything to eat since lunch yesterday—and conflict always make me hungry. So, whadda ya say?"

He shook his head, continuing to smile. "I'm game."

"Yatta!" Grinning, I said, "Then you go make kissy faces at Bachan Quatre and I'll go work on Tweedle Suicide and Tweedle Homicide."

Trowa arched an eyebrow. "Kissy faces? And what's up with calling Quatre "Bachan," hmmm?"

"You'll have to ask him about that one."

"And do Heero and Wufei know about your pet names for them?"

I winked, bounding the rest of the way up the steps. "If they don't by now, there's no hope for them!

It took a bit of work on my part, but I managed to convince everyone to drive to the nearest open Mexican place. It wasn't located in the best part of town, and it was rather small in size. The red and green paint on the sign was peeling in large chunks, and the neon sign advertising "Mama's Yosi's" kept flickering as if the socket connection were bad. Now most people would say that that doesn't exactly bode well for the food being served, but I know better. When you get food from the little Mexican restaurants, it's typically extremely authentic and extremely well made.

"Food, food, food, food, food, food, food!"

"Well, at least he's slow enough in his chanting that you can hear the commas in between," Heero muttered.

"And that's a good thing?" Wufei asked.

I rounded on them, hands on my hips as I stood outside the door. "All right, both of you, knock it off. I'm hungry, I don't understand why you aren't, but since we're here already, we are going to eat, and we are going to enjoy ourselves. Understand?"

Quatre snickered, leaning heavily against Trowa. Our little blonde princeling was a lot more tired that he was letting on; anyone else looking at him would just think he was being overly friendly with his boyfriend, but I'd known Quatre too long to buy that. "Oh, come on, guys. Let's indulge Duo and get back to the safehouse. It's been a long day, and I'm sure tomorrow's going to be just as long."

"Well, this is all well and good, I suppose, but I'm still not sure why exactly I had to come along," Dorothy snapped. She was standing in the shadows, arms crossed over her stomach as she scowled. It was really tempting to say something about her face freezing that way if she held the expression too long, but I managed to restrain myself.

"Where else were you going to stay?" I said, opening the door and ushering everyone in.

Look at that, ladies and gentlemen: Duo Maxwell does have manners.

"Anita's probably killing things indiscriminately right now—we pissed her off pretty good, ya know—and we're pretty much the only other choice you had, other than staying there," I continued. "Besides, we have a spare bedroom if Wufei moves his shit into Heero's and mine."

I ignored Wufei's grumbling about how his precious belongings weren't "shit". In my dictionary, if it wasn't edible and it had resale value of some sort, it was shit.

The lighting was low and somewhat cliché, candles flickering behind red-tinted glass globes and hanging from iron-filigree posts on the walls. We crowded around one of the corner tables, laughing as we noticed how we all were avoiding having our backs to the windows or doors.

"Hmmm, paranoid, boys?" Dorothy drawled, resting her chin her hand.

"Just a little bit," I said, holding my hands as far apart as they could get.

The woman who came out from the kitchens had skin darker than Wufei's, her salt-and-pepper hair piled untidily atop her head with smoky wisps escaping and framing her lined face. The apron secured around her ample middle was old and grease-spattered, and flour clung to her hands and cheeks. I even noticed bits of tomato and meat underneath her fingernails.

"What do a nice set of boys like you want at this hour? Eh? Ah, and the young miss as well." She smiled, flashing a set of somewhat yellowed teeth, but the light in her dark brown eyes made her seem years younger as she placed her hands on her hips and waited for us to answer.

It was odd, looking at someone so obviously having come from another part of the world at some point, and hearing them speak perfect Japanese. Hell, I think her Japanese was better than mine!

"We'll take anything and everything," I replied with a grin.

She arched an eyebrow. "Anything and everything, young sir? Ah, are you sure you can handle Mama Yosi's cookin'? It's good to be sure, but it'll bite you if you're not careful."

Just the way I liked it. "Yep!"

"All right. I'll make you my house specials, young sir. Six of you eating tonight?"

"No thank you," Dorothy said. "I'd love a glass of water though."

"Water for the young lady. I'll send out Matthias with your drink in a moment."

She turned and headed back towards the kitchens and I rubbed my mental hands together with glee. I opened my mouth to start chanting again, but found I couldn't—Heero had slapped his hand over my mouth and was glaring.

"No "food" chanting."

"Spoil sport," I managed to grumble around his hand, settling for pouting. Why was it that everyone was out to ruin my fun tonight?

I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. A kid about our age was walking towards us, a waiter's tray balanced on one hand with a red glass atop it: he must have been the Matthias Mama Yosi had spoken of. As he drew closer, I took back my age assessment; though he was on the small side, he was probably closer to Zechs in age. Thick black hair was pulled back at his neck, and sloe eyes looked at me impassively from a café au lait face.

"Someone requested water?"

His voice was soft and like liquid silk, the kind of husky voice that people would kill to perfect for its seductive value.

God, I needed to get this glamour removed soon, I thought, crossing my legs and hunching over the table. I was getting horny based on a total stranger's voice. …Not that it hadn't happened before, mind you, but it usually wasn't this bad.

"Water?" Dorothy said, raising her hand as she looked up from the table. "That would be—you!" She jumped up from the table, lunging forward to grab the guy's shirt collar. The tray went flying, water spilling everywhere as the glass clattered to the floor.

Instincts kicking in, I dove to the side as something solid and black came flying at me, hitting the chair I'd been in mere seconds before and knocking it over. When I looked up, I found a large black cat sitting atop it, lips peeled back in a snarl, tail lashing.

"What the fuck is going on?" I snapped, lunging to my feet. The sound of splintering wood and shattering glass echoed through the room as I scrambled towards Wufei, who'd just landed a kick to another big cat that was making the creature shake its head. I had no idea where our assailants had come from, but my quick glance around the room showed that they'd shattered the front windows as they'd come in.

"I think the local pard's come to pay its respects," Wufei said, settling into a fighting stance.

A shriek of pain had me looking in the other direction. Trowa was in wolf form, locked tooth and claw with a true-coloured leopard. Quatre was muttering something, hands moving in rapid-fire sequence in front of him, and I almost thought I saw the shadows around him moving as well. Heero, true to his nature of 'nothing should be done the easy way,' was straddling a wereleopard and attempting to strangle it. I noticed that there were bleeding claw and teeth marks on his face and arms, but given the expression of almost euphoria on his face, I figured he hadn't noticed—and didn't care. Far be it for me to ruin my psychopathic love's fun.

Dorothy, however, wasn't doing quite so well—mostly because she'd been cornered by a cat and Matthias. There was blood on her hands and claws—claws?—and I could see her baring her teeth in warning—though she was in human form, she was reacting to the attack as a panther. Matthias had a set of bleeding scratches on his arm, but seemed to be relatively unaffected.

"Does Anita know you're here?" she spat, crouching down. "Does she know what you're doing?"

Matthias shrugged. "Our nimir-ra knows what we do. Maybe not at this moment, but she knows."

"So much for the asylum Jean-Claude promised. What is it you want?"

He tipped his dark head to the side. "Want? Why, simply to talk, Dorothy. I heard that there was another here as well."

Not thinking, I reached for the Glock at my back. "Okay, whoever the hell you are, back away from Dorothy before I decide you'd look better with a bullet hole."

Turning, Matthias looked at me. I shuddered as he smiled, wondering what I'd let myself in for. "Ah, you must be the other. Duo Maxwell, I believe I heard your name was."

"So? Names are easy enough to come by."

That made him smile more. "Yes, but you're special from what we hear. A special kitty, with special kitty abilities."

What the hell had Anita done to her pard to make this guy so nutty? "Maybe," I hedged, tipping my head to the side slightly. I couldn't afford to take my eyes completely off the guy, but I was trying to figure out where exactly everyone else was.

Quatre appeared to be so wrapped up in what he was doing that he hadn't noticed Trowa was being hedged in at his feet, moving closer and closer to where Quatre was doing his…whatever. I caught a flash of fire, an odour of sulphur, and saw Wufei sink his fingers into the throat of a wereleopard with a sickening squelch, followed by the scent of burning flesh and the pained screams of the creature.

"Duo!"

My finger clenched around the trigger by reflex when Dorothy screamed, firing the chambered round. I'd barely heard it hit flesh when I found myself on my back, a bleeding, snarling Matthias on top of me, trying to wrap clawed hands around my throat.

I lost the gun in the impact, grabbing Matthias' wrists to try and pry his hands away. His eyes were feral amber and slit-pupiled, teeth elongated like a cat's a he hissed obscenities.

"What makes you so much better than us, little puta?" he snapped, teeth narrowly missing my nose. "Why does she favour you?"

"Hell if I know!" I gasped, wriggling to try and dislodge him. I'd managed to keep him from choking off my air, but I wasn't sure how long I was going to hold out. This guy really wanted to kill me, answers or no.

Sounds were blending together, screams and shrieks, human and animal, pain and anger and animal lust. Smells were thick in my nose, blood and gunpowder, fear and adrenaline, char and sulphur and something that smelled primal and of the night.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to block things out, feeling overwhelmed. If I didn't do something, I was screwed.

And then I felt it: Matthias' hand in my hair, stroking it as his other hand with its feline nails bit into my skin. "Such pretty hair, such a pretty whore. Is this why? Is this why she chose you?" Blood welled from the nail pricks; I could feel it slowly seeping, slowly dripping. But that wasn't what I was focused on, that wasn't what had grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go. It was his stupid, fucking hand in my precious hair.

He—had—dared—to—touch—my—hair.

My eyes snapped open as I felt claws form from underneath my fingernails, like bone extensions sliding from skin to dig into the soft flesh of Matthias' wrists. I grinned as I dug through tendons and ligaments to bone, twisting them about my nails and tearing them with glee, pressing harder through muscles and nerves as he cried out in pain. "No-one touches my hair," I hissed, feeling teeth indent into my lip. His eyes were wide now, with pain, with surprise. He really hadn't expected me to fight back—to be able to fight back.

I growled, feeling angry at his supposition. I wrenched as hard as I could, feeling as well as hearing the crack of bone beneath my hands. When Matthias began to scream, I bunched my knees up underneath me and shoved him off to the side, jumping to my feet.

Bone glistened in the candlelight, protruding from the inside of Matthias' arms. I pursed my lips, a little surprised; I hadn't exactly meant to do that, but… Oh well. Ignoring the bits of flesh stuck to my nails, I crouched over him, smiling as I smelled the fear rolling off him, licked my lips to see if I could taste it as well.

"Go home, Matthias," I said. I wasn't surprised to feel a tail lashing against my legs, though I briefly wondered if the hole in my pants was going to be permanent. It was a deceptively lazy twitching that only people who studied cats would know meant I was waiting to strike. I was sure that if I looked in a mirror I'd have the slightly-rounded ears to go with it, but that wasn't really my concern at the moment.

"Go home, Matthias, and tell Anita she needs to take better care of her pard."

"What would you know of our pard?" he spat, hatred clear in his guttural voice and in his eyes. "Anita is the best thing that ever happened to us, so how dare you say such a thing?"

I recoiled at that. If Anita was the best thing that had happened to them, then what had they been like before? I took another step back, feeling confused. Things were getting way out of hand… Why would Anita's pard attack me—hate me?

A cold wind began to stir, distracting me. "Duo, hurry!"

I looked over my shoulder at Quatre. A large, shadowy portal was behind him, Wufei disappearing through it. Sweat ran freely down Quatre's face, his brows drawn together in concentration; I noticed this his eyes were oddly layered in colour and glowing, but pushed that thought to the back of my mind. Heero, Dorothy, and Trowa were already gone, assumedly through the portal. "Come on, Duo, I can't hold it much longer!"

I nodded, turning back to Matthias. He'd managed to struggle to a crouched position, looking like he was about to launch himself at me for one last attack. "Sorry, I don't think so," I said with a smile, sweeping my leg around to crack him in the temple with my heel. I didn't wait for him to go down; I sprinted towards Quatre and threw myself through the portal.

The landing made me wince, hard wood slamming into my shoulder as I rolled to my feet. I didn't even have time to gain my bearings before I was wrapped in two pairs of arms that seemed determined to cut off my ability to breathe.

I almost laughed. After all of that, I was going to be hugged to death.

"Duo, you're an idiot."

"Thanks, 'Fei," I muttered into Heero's chest, smiling slightly.

"A really, really big idiot."

"Thanks, Heero," I said, pulling back. I kissed them both, grinning when Wufei wrinkled his nose. "It's nice to know I'm loved."

Stepping back, I found Dorothy leaning heavily against the wall of our safehouse—apparently that was where Quatre's portal had taken us—one hand clasped to her upper arm where blood was slowly dripping free. Quatre had collapsed on the couch, one hand thrown over his eyes. Trowa was holding his other hand and speaking to him too softly for me to hear, but I could tell that he was worried.

I sighed. We looked like shit, to put it plainly. Quatre appeared to have escaped unbloody, but the rest of us were bleeding from various places. My shirt had been torn, as had Heero, Wufei's, and Trowa's. Tro's pants were looking a little worse for wear as well. Plus there was the fact that— I glanced over my shoulder and grimaced. Yep, my tail was still there, which meant there was still a hole in my pretty leather pants. Wufei even had soot streaking his cheek. I was curious as to how that had happened, but I wasn't in any hurry to ask right now. "Hey, Dorothy?"

She looked up at me, smiling faintly; it was nice to see she could tolerate pain so well. "Yes, oh mighty Duo?"

Rolling my eyes, I said, "There's antiseptic and gauze in the bathroom to your right if you want to get your arm cleaned up."

She inclined her head, smile becoming less sneering and more genuine. "Thanks, Duo. By the way, you're still fuzzy."

"Believe me, I know."

I felt a tug on my tail, and I turned with a snarl, grabbing the appendage away from Heero. "No playing with my tail," I said, smoothing the velvety fur.

Wufei snickered, casting a sly look at Heero. "Did you hear that? He won't let us play with his tail."

"You can play with my tail," Heero deadpanned.

I smacked them both. "'Fei, you're a dork. Let's get your stuff moved before you come up with any more awful hentai humour."

Heero, Wufei, and I quickly packed together Wufei's belongings and carted them to Heero's and my room. "I can't believe I'm going to have to live with a neat freak and a pig," Wufei muttered, glaring at my whirlwind mess and Heero's neat stacks of mission reports and clothing.

"Hey, watch the name calling, or you'll be sleeping alone," Heero said with a laugh.

"Yeah, what Tweedle Suicide said," I added with a grin, ducking to avoid the fist Heero had aimed my way.

We headed back towards the main room. I was being a pest, begging Heero for a piggy back ride and making faces at Wufei, when we heard a soft knock on the front door that made us pause in the alcove.

"Who on earth could be here?" Dorothy asked, poking her head out of the bathroom with a frown.

"Got me." I shrugged, looking at Wufei and Heero. Neither of them seemed to have an answer. I sighed and reached for the small of my back, grimacing as I found nothing and remembered that I'd lost my Glock in the fight at Mama Yosi's. I hated having to get replacement weapons.

"I've got it covered," Wufei said, giving me an understanding smile. "Go ahead and get the door."

"Yeah, but should I be opening the door looking like this?" I said, pointing at my head.

"You look fine to me." Heero leered at me.

I flipped him off. "Seriously, you guys."

"We can always explain it as an early Halloween gag," Wufei said. "So hurry it up."

This was one of those times when I wished that our door had one of those little peep holes, but, alas, we weren't that lucky. I stood to the right of the door, and opened it slowly, waiting a moment before peering out onto the landing.

Shinigami, I wish I hadn't looked.

Relena Darlian-Peacecraft stood just outside, a pleasant smile plastered on her innocently pretty face. She wasn't in pink this time, at least. I wasn't sure my sanity could have taken a Vision in Pink right now. Instead, she was wearing a rather nice looking periwinkle pantsuit, just a few shades lighter than her eyes. A cream-coloured purse hung off her shoulder, and I noticed that one hand kept hovering over the pocket.

"Why, hello, Ojousama!" I said, grinning so tightly that I thought my face was going to crack. Inside I was repeatedly muttering, Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!

She nodded in greeting. "Hello, Duo. Might I come inside?"

Okay, I was getting tired of feeling confused. She didn't even seemed fazed by the ears and twitching tail. And since when did Relena ask to come inside? She was supposed to ask for Heero, get told he wasn't there, and leave with a sad, wistful expression on her face. I really wish people would quit changing the rules of engagement on me!

"Um, yeah, sure. Come on in." I threw the door open, sweeping her a low and somewhat over-exaggerated bow. Hey, I can attempt pretend chivalry if I want.

"Thank you."

I felt myself frowning as I closed the door and watched her enter the living room. She hadn't even looked at Heero, who was still standing beside Wufei at the hallway entrance. She hadn't looked at Dorothy either, and Dorothy wasn't exactly easy to miss, even if you didn't know her.

Following her into the room, I saw that Trowa and Quatre were gone; I was hoping that Tro had taken the princeling and put him to bed.

"So, Ojousama, what's up?" I asked.

Relena removed the purse from her shoulder, clutching it in front of her. She turned to me, and I saw that she had one hand inside of it, as if she were about to pull something out to show me.

"You are Duo, correct?" she asked.

Not only did her words throw me off, but the way she phrased the question did too. I'd never heard Relena so…blank, so…emotionless, so…

How the fuck could she not know who I was?!

I took a closer look at her, and noticed that her pupils were mere pinpricks in her cornflower eyes, that her smile never wavered, that she never blinked. I took a step closer, slowly raising my hand. "What do you mean, Relena? You know I'm Duo—"

I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence; Relena yanked her hand out of the purse and pointed a small handgun at me, hand locked on her wrist in a perfect, unwavering firing pose.

It's weird, when you think about it, how something important, something earth-shaking, life-changing important, will play out in front of you like a slow-motion sports replay—how you seem to know exactly what's going to happen but are absolutely powerless to stop it.

I hate things like that.

The gun fired, a sharp retort that cracked into the silent room like lightning. I could only stare in disbelief, wondering if I'd somehow ended up in an alternate universe—I mean, Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, carrying a gun? Not only carrying a gun, but shooting at me? I think I would have laughed had I not been in shock. Someone yelled my name, and I felt a bemused smile cross my face, but still I couldn't move.

So Heero made me move.

When the impact of Heero's body slammed me into the wall, things sped up once again, sending the world crashing down around me. The breath was knocked from me, and as I gasped, I saw the bullet impact into Heero's shoulder, half-spinning him and sending him stumbling into Dorothy and Wufei.

Mere seconds later, Quatre came racing through the doorway, Trowa at his heels. "What the hell's going on?" he asked, glancing at all of us in turn. He looked half-awake, somewhat dishevelled, and completely pissed.

Relena was staring in disbelief at the gun in her hands, arms shaking so badly that there was absolutely no way she'd be able to fire a second round and hit her intended target. "Wh-where…where am I?" she asked, cornflower blue eyes wide as she looked up, blinking rapidly.

Wufei was fussing over Heero—well, as much as Wufei ever fusses, at least—examining the bullet wound. "You're in the living room of our safehouse, apparently out to kill someone," he snapped, looking up from Heero's shoulder long enough to glare.

Dorothy was too busy staring at Relena in surprise to be of any help—I think she was more in shock than I was—Heero and Wufei had devolved into quiet arguing, and Relena didn't have a clue. That meant that it was up to me to try and explain things, and I didn't really know much more than the others—not to mention that fact that breathing was still difficult; I'd have to remember to tell Heero to check the otherworldly strength next time he decided to shove me into a wall. I might be a Newtype wereleopard, but I had a feeling I was going to feel my pulled muscles in the morning.

I slumped down to the floor, drawing my knees up to my chest as I tried to breath normally again. "So is this the plasmababies, the vampires, Anita's fucked up pard, or the Sidhe?" I asked. I wasn't sure if I expected an answer or not; if I did, I wondered who I was expecting it to come from.

Relena blinked again, slowly shaking her head. "I…I don't know…" She turned to Dorothy, the gun finally clattering to the floor as her shaking hands refused to hold it any longer. "I…Dorothy?"

I winced at her tone, so lost, so afraid. Relena really was such an innocent person when you got right down to it. Oh, maybe not mentally—the girl probably had the tactical ability and ruthlessness of a four-star general if the situation called, and I didn't believe for a moment that she was as sexually innocent as everyone else seemed to think—but in her heart, Relena has that untarnished, ever-shining goodness in her.

Sometimes I wistfully wish I could be the same. Not often mind you, and usually in very brief, very minute quantities, but sometimes…sometimes it would be nice to dream of sugar plum faeries rather than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you know?

Dorothy smiled, for once looking comforting rather than sneering; when I thought about it, the expression really didn't look that out of place on her face. She looked at Relena like that often, which made me smirk. Dorothy apparently had it bad for our little Sanq Kingdom princess.

"It's all right, Relena-sama. You'll be okay now," she murmured, slowly walking forward. It was kind of like watching someone try to approach a wild animal, trying to keep them from bolting.

She needn't have worried: as soon as Dorothy got within five feet of Relena, the princess was throwing herself at her and sobbing her eyes out.

I sighed, dropping my gaze to the gun. It was a rather small model, easy to hide in a lady's purse as Relena had. I crawled forward and popped the clip out, clearing the bullet from the chamber as well. Slipping all of the bullets from the clip and into my hand, I scowled as I noticed their odd colouring and the funny little stamp on the shells. "What exactly are these?"

"There's silver in the powder compound," Heero said with a hiss, batting Wufei's hand away. "These bullets were meant for either vampire or lycanthrope, but I'm betting it was the latter."

"Silver?"

"Lycanthropes and vampires are slower to heal from silver than any other metal," Dorothy said softly, arms wrapped around Relena as she cradled the sobbing girl to her. "Whoever sent her, whoever put her under geas, knew exactly who he was sending her after and what they were."

I threw my hands up. "I can't take this. I really can't. D'ya think OZ and Romefeller would get pissed if I ran out and started blowing up random shit to vent?"

"Maybe just a little," Heero said dryly.

"I mean, Anita decided to have split personality disorder, we got attacked by psycho panther boys while I was trying to get my tacos—which I didn't get, and I'm still hungry, incidentally—and now Relena shows up under some wacky spell and tries to put a bullet in me yet ends up nailing Heero. This is getting fucking ridiculous!"

"I agree."

We all looked up at Quatre when he spoke, most of us startled by the hard edge in his voice. Quatre doesn't get that edge often, but when he does, we all listen; it's his 'I'm the commander and if you don't obey I'll flog you myself' voice, after all.

I've seen Quatre with a whip, by the way. He's quite good with the whole wrist action thing.

"Dorothy, why don't you take Relena to the spare bedroom and settle her in? I'll have Trowa bring by some spare blankets in a few minutes as well as some tea that should calm her and help her sleep. Heero, you should probably rest as well to heal that wound. Did it go completely through?"

Heero shook his head. "No, but my body will eject the bullet it as it heals. It's not a big worry right now."

"Right. Duo, Wufei—go ahead and do whatever, but you should probably rest as well. I imagine that Shinta will be calling in a few hours with information on meeting Miburou. Trowa and I will start on figuring out a few contingency plans in case anything else jumps up and bites us in the ass."

Dorothy nodded and led Relena off. Quatre and Trowa headed towards the kitchen while I dragged myself to my feet.

"You all right, Duo?" Heero asked.

I gave him a lopsided grin, arching an eyebrow. "Isn't that my line, Superman? What were you doing, shoving me out of the way like that?"

Heero gave me his 'Stupid Question' Look as a reply.

I stepped forward and tentatively put my arms around him. "You're okay, right?" I murmured, resting my cheek against the curve of his neck.

He hugged me in return, laughing. "Well, I've been shot before, mon petit," he reminded me with a teasing note. "And this wasn't that bad, really. The silver compound just makes it sting a bit more and heal slower. By this time tomorrow I won't even have a scar."

"Hmmm, if you say so." I turned my head and kissed his cheek, smiling when he turned his head just a little too late to catch my kiss on the lips. "As much as I'd love to, Heero, we do need to rest."

"Share a bed with me?"

My breath caught at the offer, heart racing. I knew he really meant just to sleep, and that was all I was up to anyway, given the abuses I'd put my body through, but it was still quite an exciting offer. "L-later," I said, cursing the slight stutter in my voice. Why was it that suave and sophisticated Duo gave way to shy and awkward Duo around Heero and Wufei, hmmm?

Oh well.

"We'll come and tuck you in in a bit," Wufei added. He kissed Heero's cheek as well, something I hadn't seen him do before yet seemed to look so right, then caught my hand. "Let's help the Devious Duo plot for a bit."

"Okay." I smiled at Heero again, covering up my weird nervousness by poking him on the nose. "G'night, Heero-liebchen."

Heero blinked. "Liebchen? Since when do you know German?"

I grinned, tossing over my shoulder. "Everyone needs a hobby. You know French, I know German."

"But what's it mean?" I heard him mutter as he disappeared around the corner, no doubt with eyebrows scrunched together and lips pursed in a half-frown.

"So what does it mean, Duo?" Wufei asked, yanking me down into his lap when he'd taken a seat on the couch.

"It means 'darling,'" I said with a snicker.

"Do you actually know German or just the one word?"

"I know enough to get me by. I'm sure I fuck up tenses and possessives on a regular basis, but I can understand and be understood. I can actually order beer in about, oh, six languages, you know."

Wufei laughed, wrapping his arms around me. I sighed, rubbing my cheek against his as I snuggled down; Wufei was a really nice snuggler, despite his standoffish exterior. The silent minutes ticked by, and I was content to let them go, focused on listening to the sounds of my friends—my family—move about the house on their business. Quatre came into the room after a bit, collapsing onto the other couch with a loud sigh. I cast him a sympathetic glance when I noticed the way he had his eyes scrunched tight, rubbing at his temples. He had another one of his Monster Migraines, and the only thing that got rid of them was about ten hours of sleep.

I couldn't see Quatre finding time to sleep ten hours any time soon.

"I'm not sure I like the way this is turning out," I murmured, shrugging deeper into Wufei's embrace. "Anita had promised that she could protect us, but I think her little pet pard proved her a liar."

"We could take them out easily, you know," he said against my ear, kissing me softly. His finger slowly massaged my scalp, slipping through my hair, trailing over my ears. It felt a little odd to realise that my ears were placed a bit higher on my head in this weird half-and-half form, but it still seemed…right.

"Nah, I think I already pissed off Anita enough for one day—especially when she sees what I did to Matthias, and what the rest of you did to the others. But if they're still giving us problems later…"

"All bets are off?"

I grinned, eyes narrowing. "All bets are off."

There was a sound like tinkling bells mere seconds later, accompanied by the feel of winter wind's kiss. I looked up as Quatre uttered a rather nasty expletive, dashing for the antique mirror hanging on the wall. I arched an eyebrow, glancing at Wufei. Wufei shrugged, however, and gestured for us to get up and investigate.

Quatre laid his fingertips against the glass, leaning forward. "Who summons the mirror?"

I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard Quatre sound so bitchy. I looked over his shoulder, wondering what was going on.

"Greetings, Quatre Raberba Winner, Prince of Darkness, Light, and the Astral Realm. Greetings, Prince of the Darkling Throng, from Morag, Princess of Ice, Princess of the Darkling Throng."

Quatre winced, drawing his fingers across the surface of the mirror. It rippled like water, giving way to an image. A petite, shiningly pale woman was revealed, draped in swaths of green and gold silk. I could see two silhouettes behind her, but they were too far in shadow for me to make out features. Morag leaned forward, silver-white hair spilling over her shoulders to fall far below what was revealed by the mirror. I couldn't help but grin, thinking, And Heero complains about my hair length. Smiling, she winked at Quatre, and I realised that her eyes were a disturbing tri-coloured green. "Hello, Quatre. How've you been?"

Sighing, Quatre stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. "What's this all about, Morag? You know that I'm not to be contacted like this."

Morag snorted. "As if I had a choice in the matter. When the Queen of Flesh and Blood tells you to do something, you do it without question. I wasn't going to remind her of her own command when she was in such a snit. She's pregnant, you know."

Quatre's lips quirked. "No, I didn't know, but that explains things a bit. So, why did she want you to contact me?"

Sitting up a bit straighter, Morag laced her hands together in her lap—it reminded me of someone who hates officialness getting all official. "The Queen of Flesh and Blood requests that the Prince of Darkness, Light, and the Astral Realm escort the sidhe Shinta, last of the first Gods of War, to the court of the Darkling Throng. She further requests the presence of the prince's friends, as well as information on Princess Relena, Maiden of Peace. Her presence in the minds of the Darkling Throng went missing a few days ago."

I didn't exactly understand everything that was going on, but I knew enough myths to know that the Darkling Throng was the Unseelie Court—hey, it was the only way I'd been able to even marginally follow the conversation earlier. "Just out of curiosity, why would the Unseelie Court care about Relena-san?"

Morag blinked; she probably couldn't see me standing behind Quatre, so I imagined the disembodied voice was a bit disturbing. "Why, because she's a member of the Darkling Throng, of course. The fact that our Maiden of Peace simply disappeared like that and has evaded the search of even the Queen's Darkness and Killing Frost has caused her quite a headache. I feel sorry for Morgead; he's had to listen to her for the past hour while I've been trying to contact you."

Relena Darlian-Peacecraft was a maiden of the Darkling Throng? I couldn't help but snicker at the imagery; a polite "princess" who was considered all sunshine, goodness, and all things innocent was a member of the Unseelie Court. All in all, I considered it ironic justice.

"I don't feel too sorry for Morgead; he's enough like his mother that it's pretty much like listening to himself. Anyway, I have a feeling that the Shining Court is involved, Morag," Quatre said. "We currently have Relena in custody, if you wish to pass the news on to the Queen. We can bring her, as well as all the information we have with us to the Underhill."

"How long will it take you to get here?"

"Hmmm, we should be there by this time tomorrow night. We have some things to finish here, and it may take some persuading to bring Shinta with us. I'll call when I know our arrival time for sure."

"You do that, Quatre." Morag smiled, settling back down into the opulent cushions. "I shall be awaiting your call, then. Farewell."

"Farewell."

The image in the mirror faded out, until all that was left was Quatre's own reflection, as well as the fainter reflection of Wufei and myself. "So, what the hell was that all about?" I asked cheerfully. Hey, Quatre's shoulders were drooped and he was exuding enough depressive thoughts for all of OZ. Since there was no way on God's green earth that Wufei was going to manage to be cheerful, I figured that left the job up to me.

Quatre turned, smiling faintly as I made a face at him, leaning heavily against the dresser. "I don't really know, but it looks like I need to get to work. Planning a trip to North America like this…" He shook his head, sighing. "But, the Queen of Flesh and Blood doesn't really care about such petty things—especially not when she's pregnant. I heard enough horror stories in my few times at Court to know that Queen Meredith is not one to piss off when she's expecting."

I frowned. "North America? Anita and Jean-Claude are going to be pissed if we leave suddenly. Jean-Claude will probably be especially pissed if we take Shinta with us." The part I left unsaid was that it would probably be a good idea if we left for a few days. The way things had gone with Anita in the last day didn't bode well at the moment; maybe if we left for a few days then things would quiet down.

"We probably won't be gone for too long. I'm sure the Queen has a good reason for wanting to see Shinta, and I can understand her desire to have Relena returned. There's no telling what it was that the Shining Court's operatives did to her to gain control of her like that. Trying to have the Maiden of Peace injure someone, even if it was only to incapacitate them rather than kill them…"

I leaned against Wufei, thinking out loud. "Well, you know that Dorothy's going to come; there's no way she's going to leave Relena's side now. If you're taking Shinta, I'm going, which means that Wufei and Heero are going. If you're going, that means that Tro's going. That's eight of us right there."

"Yes, I know. And once we tell Jean-Claude where we're headed, he's probably going to want to send at least one of his people with us to parley for help against the uprising of the Plasmababies, the rogue vampires, and the Seelie Court."

"You know, stringing those three things together in the same sentence seems really odd. I mean, the first two make a bit of sense, but I can't for the life of me figure out where the Seelie Court fits in in all of this."

Quatre's head jerked up, aqua eyes boring into mine; it was then that I realised his eyes were the same triple-tone that Morag's had been. "I can," he said grimly. "Do you remember what Jean-Claude was saying when we met right after the Miburou incident, about an incident between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts occurring back in the early twenty-first century?"

"Vaguely. My stomach was gnawing at my back bone at the time, so I was kind of preoccupied."

"I understand completely," he said dryly. "Anyway, during that time, the current king of the Shining Court went a bit…nutty and started to do some really bad things, things that were blamed on the Darkling Throng. It was a bid to try and return Meredith to the Shining Court; however, she had already been declared co-heir to the throne of the Darkling Throng. Eventually, she got pregnant with Morag and was declared Queen."

"So you think it's another fucked up mess like that?"

Quatre shrugged. "I haven't a clue, actually. It's simply speculation based on past events. All I'm saying is that there's precedence for the Shining Court causing problems like this for the Darkling Throng. Also, Ellinea is a member of the Shining Court, so my theory isn't all that wild."

I sighed in defeat. "You're right. But I'm too fucking tired to eat, let alone think, so I'm going to call it a night—well, an early morning."

"That's probably a good idea. Good night, Duo, Wufei."

Quatre turned and wobbled from the room; Trowa appeared like a ghost at his side, slinging an arm around his waist and leading him away.

"He really pushed himself tonight."

Wufei nodded, grabbing my hand and lacing our fingers together as we headed for our own bed. "Yes, he did. But Trowa will make sure that he gets rest when he can, that he doesn't push himself beyond the point of recovery."

"You're right."

Pausing in the doorway, Wufei flashed me a wolfish smile. "Of course I'm right. I'm always right, Duo. It's taken you this long to realise that?"

I laughed, shoving him towards the bed, shucking clothes as I headed for my bag. "Oh, get over yourself, 'Fei." I pulled a clean t-shirt over my head and a pair of boxer shorts. Rummaging around, I managed to find a scrunchie—it was lime green and I briefly wondered where the hell I'd gotten it—and pulled my hair back into a loose ponytail.

Wufei had changed into sweats and a tanktop, as per usual, and was looking down at Heero, arms crossed over his chest. "How can he look so innocent in his sleep?" he asked with a sigh.

"I've been asking that question for two years," I said with a laugh, joining him at Heero-gazing.

Heero was curled over onto his side, bare-chested with the blanket barely covering his waist. One fist was pressed up to his mouth, the other reaching across the bed.

"Qui' starin' at me an' get in here," he muttered sleepily, not opening his eyes.

Wufei and I shared a grin and pounced, giggling like girls as we poked and prodded and tickled until we'd laughed ourselves breathless. I found myself sandwiched between them eventually, Wufei's nose at the back of my neck, his hands on my waist, Heero's forehead against mine, hand clasped around my tail.

"Hey, no tail grabbing," I murmured, eyes fluttering shut as I yawned.

"My tail," Heero whispered.

Sleep was claiming me, my thoughts becoming clumsy and disjointed. I knew there had been something wrong with Heero's statement, something that I should say something about, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

In my dreams, I remembered.

It's my tail.

Whee! Welcome to Mina's Wacky End Notes. Yes, Part 6 seemed to end abruptly. That's because about eight pages became Part 7. This part was waaay too long considering everything that happened.

There were some things mentioned in Pt. 6 that might have seemed odd, either plot changes or character changes that didn't quite mesh. I've revamped the earlier parts to fix this (hopefully), so it's kind of like an updated Blood Dance.

For people wondering how much more I have to write before this fic is done, I'm estimating another five to six parts. I owe Ten lots of 1/2/5 funness (that's my new word, by the way) and Barbara lots of stuff in general.

In Pt. 7, we have the return of Saitou and we find out about the plasmababies. Then we're whisked off to NA for fun with the Darkling Throng. Dorothy gets to slap Zechs around, Duo jumps a few bishie Sidhe and gets into a catfight with Morgead, Relena says a naughty word and reveals shocking information, and Wufei and Heero finally get some action. Yay!

[Part 7]