Kitten's Sunrise

Sequel to 'Kitten's Angel'

By Alexia Goddess

Chapter Two

Circus

Fae, for some reason, never told her mother or cousin Angel what she had overheard on her fourteenth birthday, three weeks previous. However, it was no longer a secret that she knew that her favorite 'uncle' was missing; it was all over the news. The search for Trowa Barton, now publicly known as the former Heavyarms pilot, had been long and harsh, but nothing had been found. The search at the old ranger outpost in Australia had been searched hundreds of times by officials, amateurs, friends, and countless more times by the Gundam Pilots themselves.

Despite being just as worried as everyone else, Fae had forced herself to put on a happy, fun outlook to try and keep everyone else's spirits up. It worked, but only slightly. It was times like when shadows of smiles were visible for only fleeting seconds that Fae was extra grateful for her own personal retreat in life that came in the form of dancing.

Fae stood at the barr, clad in a black leotard, black tights, and the red, sparkling, transparent jacket Cassie had got her tied up in a knot just under her breasts to keep it from getting in the way. Also, it looked quite stylish.

Fae had always refused to put her hair up while dancing; to her the act of pulling it back tightly went against everything dancing was supposed to be; free, smooth, graceful, flowing. But for all her stubbornness on the matter, her dance instructor was just as stubborn, and they'd been forced to make a compromise; Fae could keep her hair down if she cut it. It had been a sacrifice, having her waist long, flawless platinum locks snipped away, but a sacrifice she had been well willing to make.

Now, her eyes closed, she went through the movements of the warmups without hardly thinking about them. From the doorway, her instructor watched her and three other girls in this advanced class with an odd look in his eyes.

The class went by quickly, and Fae, as she slipped on a pair of white jeans, had that familiar, fleeting sense of loss as the sensation of dancing began ebbing from her body. But it was gone as soon as Cassie came bounding into the locker room, a perky look on her face.

"Hey, girl," Fae greeted her.

"Hiya!" Cassie chirped back. "The car's out front. Guess who got roped into doing the chaperoning to the carnival circus thingy?"

"Who?" Fae asked as she clasped her bra at her back then slipped on a form fitting, bright cherry red spaghetti strap top with gold, sparkling filigrees along the bottom and the neckline and up along the straps.

"Aw, c'mon, guess!" Cassie grinned. "It's no fun if you don't!"

"Okay, okay, um…Amy?" Fae slung her dance bag over her shoulder and slammed her locker. Cassie shook he head as Fae locked the locker. "Uh….Davis?"

"No!" Cassie rolled her eyes. "One of your uncles!"

"Oh…" Fae bit her lip, then her eyes widened in horror as they headed for the door. "Oh my god…" She gasped. "Not Duo, right? I love him to death, but him behind the wheel of a car is asking for an early death."

"Luckily, no," Cassie laughed. Fae breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay, then, who?"

"Take a look for yourself," Cassie pushed open the glass door and held it open for Fae, who stepped out into the early afternoon sunlight. Her eyes fell on the driver of the black corvette convertible, and her eyes bulged.

"Wufei?" Fae squeaked. She turned to Cassie and the two girls squealed as they joined hands and rushed to the car. Cassie opened the door and climbed into the back, while Fae jumped over the side and landed in the front passenger seat next to a scowling Wufei.

"You owe me, kid," Wufei scowled as the girls laughed, buckled in, and they drove away.

"Mmmm…level seven cutie, three o'clock," Cassie murmured discreetly, just loud enough so that Fae, by her side, could hear her. Fae glanced casually to the provided direction, and giggled as she tore a strand of bright pink cotton candy from the mound of fluff on a long paper cone.

"Nu-uh, he's an eight, at least." Fae said, using her tongue to lift the strand of cotton candy from her fingers and into her mouth. "Look at those stomach muscles! You can see them right through his shirt!"

"That's probably the idea," Cassie giggled, and Fae laughed out right, throwing her head back. She almost feel backwards off the low brick wall she and Cassie were sitting on. Only her excellent dancer's balance kept her atop the wall. There was a rustle in the bushes behind the wall, and Fae looked sharply over her shoulder, another wisp of cotton candy halfway to her open mouth.

"What is it?" Cassie asked, still scanning the masses of people passing them, playing games, getting off the nearby Ferris wheel, sifting through them with her eyes to find the cutest of them all.

"Nothing," Fae said, turning back to continue looking with Cassie. That was when she felt it, but by then, it was too late. A brick underneath her shifted, and the entire section of wall she'd been sitting on crumbled. She shrieked, knowing frantically that this was going to hurt…

But, surprisingly, the expected fall into thorny bushes and crushing pain of being battered by falling bricks never came. Instead, there sensation of arms around her, protectively… but the embrace was somehow different than those of her father and her uncles, although it was still very decidedly male. She could tell that even before she looked up into the face of the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen. Her breath caught, and had her personality been any less bold, she might have stayed there, staring, a blush on her cheeks, for the rest of the day.

But instead, she –reluctantly, although she did her best to hide it- pulled away and turned to fully face her catcher.

"Thanks," she said, looking him up and down briefly, as if trying to decide if his intentions had been honorable. He had a concerned look on his face as he nodded. He had the brightest golden hair. The shadowed bits of his slightly wavy/curly hair looked like dark molten gold, and his eyes…the shade of brown looked almost red, like rust mud that sparkled with flecks of gold.

"Hey, Fae, you all right, girl?" Cassie asked, hopping off the wall.

"Y-yeah…" Fae glanced at her, then back to the man to-

But he was gone. Fae shivered. She knew her mother believed in magic, but Fae had always been skeptical…

Fae shook herself.

What was she thinking? That magic was real? She frowned. Even if it was, she could get along just fine without it.

"C'mon," Fae said, forgetting her dropped and crushed cotton candy. "I want to go on the roller coaster again!"

Cassie, gathering from this statement that her friend truly was all right, laughed as Fae linked her arm through hers and dragged her towards the roller coaster.

Out of the shadows, two pairs of eyes, the owners of those eyes unaware of each other, watched the platinum blonde haired girl as she laughed and chatted with her friend, every bit the image of a beautiful, healthy, happy, wealthy, fashionable fourteen year old.

The man with the golden-red eyes smiled ever so slightly, almost a smirk, a happy glint in his eyes. Were someone to look at him, their vision would have blurred, and then they would have had the overwhelming sense to look away, that there was nothing of interest there. Were someone to overcome that sensation, one would have spied a sparkling golden figure taking to the sky….

Sitting in the tree with branches that stretched far over the dirt path and shadowed the crumbled brick wall below, the man with hidden within it's thick foliage pulled something small out of his pocket.

"I found her." He said softly, his voice completely, inhumanely emotionless. There was no reply. He clicked it off, and stuck it back in his pocket. He looked down, making sure no one was looking, and in the cover of the thick shadows, he leaped down.

Sticking his hands in his pockets and acquiring a slanky swagger, he began to casually drift towards the roller coaster…

"Ooooooooh….I think I'm gonna be sick….." Cassie exaggerated her swaying and moaning as she lay the back of her hand across her forehead. Fae laughed and shoved at her playfully as she leaned over to retrieve her purse from inside the cubbyhole on the deck beside the currently parked roller coaster carts.

"C'mon; lets go get some corndogs," At that, Cassie seemed to genuinely turn slightly green around the lips. Fae laughed and hooked her arms through her best friends and pulled her down the stairs leading down from the boarding deck just as the next load of riders went whooshing up a hill admist screams of fearful delight.

"Hey, look at that," Cassie pointed to a large crowd gathered around a newly-erected sign plastered to a large piece of plyboard and standing upright on two two-by-fours stuck in the ground.

"Lets go check it out!" Fae grabbed Cassie's elbow and dashed towards it, shrieking Cassie in tow.

"Hey, what's this all about?" Fae tapped a man on the shoulder.

"Ad for the Preventers. Seems they're signing up recruits at an interview tomorrow at the mall." The man looked her up and down with a sneer. "Maybe you could go along as entertainment." He leered and walked away. Fae growled and lunged for him-

Only to be restrained by a hand on her upper arm.

"Lemme go, Cassie!" Fae snarled without looking at her friend. "That punk needs to learn a lesson! Lemme go!" No reply, and the grip on her arm tightened…through her anger, Fae didn't register that the grip was much to strong to be that of a fourteen year old girl's. When her demand wasn't met, and the sneering man had disappeared from her sights, Fae whirled, mouth open to demand why her friend hadn't let her beat the cr-

"Oh, crap." Fae cursed when she came face to face to a tall, lean man with his dark brown hair slicked back. Black wrap around sunglasses were on his eyes –not all that unusual in this sunlight- but what was unusual was the black dress pants and black, long-sleeved turtleneck. Fae looked at the grip he had on her arm. She looked back up into his emotionless, slightly familiar face.

"Hey, dude, let go of me!" Fae tugged her arm, but the grip only tightened. Her elbow and hand started to tingle from lack of circulation.

"Okay, mister you've got the count of three before you find out the hard way why I graduated from karate three years early." Fae promised ferally. The man only turned and pulled her along with him, away from the crowd. Fae, eyes narrowed and flashing, dug her feet into the hard packed dirt and yanked with all her might…his grip didn't even budge, and she found her new sneakers tearing up dirt, leaving deep, gouging tracks. He hadn't even slowed his pace!

"All right, you asked for it," Fae snapped, withdrew her digging heels from the ground, coiled her leg muscles, sprang like a cat, and lashed out with her right foot, her aim perfect…

"What the-" Fae screeched as she suddenly found herself slung over the man's shoulder. Not only was this indecent, embarrassing, but it was not what she had intended to happen! "Let me go you pervert!" She screamed, kicking and smashing her fists into his back and the side of his head with all her might. She felt embarrassingly similar to a child throwing a tantrum, which was apparently many people thought she was, apparently, from the looks she was receiving; a delinquent child that had snuck out to attend the carnival, and her father or brother was dragging her back.

"Let me go now or I swear my father will have your head on a platter!" She yelled, eyes filled with fury. "Let me go!"

"You heard her."

The man whose shoulder she was slung over froze, and Fae took this opportunity to twist, pinch the sensitive skin under the man's arm, causing him to withdraw that arm. She planted her hands on his shoulder to give her leverage, and did a forward flip over his head and landed on the ground behind him. Not wasting time, she lashed out, her foot landing solidly in the small of his back and sending him careening forward. Before he could get a chance to tuck and roll, she hooked his ankle with hers, and yanked her leg back, sending him flying.

"Let's go!" Cried the same voice that had backed up her demand to be set loose. The owner of the voice grabbed her hand and set off in the other direction. Some moved to stop them, but they easy outmaneuvered them. Most, see that maybe the man hadn't been a righteous father or brother, cheered them on. Others were on their cell phones, most likely talking to police, or relaying the events to friends.

Fae knew it would be that easy, though, and she almost wished she had thought it would be; maybe she had jinxed it by knowing it wouldn't be that simple, for as they rounded the Ferris-Wheel, shots from a handheld long-range pistol rang out.

Fae, her hand still in her rescuer's, turned towards the Haunted House. She looked at him, and he nodded in understanding as Fae curbed her shock; it was the same guy that had caught her when that wall she'd been sitting on collapsed!

They shoved past people waiting in line, ignored the ticket-taker, and ducked into the gloomy, dark, be-curtained haunted house; the perfect hiding place. Another shot was heard, and they knew the man in black had seen where they'd gone.

"In here!" The blonde man still holding Fae's hand slammed into a door marked 'costumes and dummies.' The door, having obviously been locked, popped open, and they tumbled inside. Fae kicked it shut, causing no little racket. The blonde man looked at the shattered lock and cursed.

"Hey, no time for finesse," Fae told him. She looked around, and grinned, grabbing something out of a box, looking at it, then tossed it to the blonde man. "Here, quick, put it on," She said at the same time she fished out another costume for herself. They pulled the costumes over their clothes in record time as more shots were heard outside; the guy was shooting at anything that moved.

By the time the door was bashed open a second time, Fae, wearing a molted black wig and a torn, tattered ghost woman's dress, was slumped against the wall, arms out and fingers curled menacingly, eyes blank and dull, although her face was fixed in a hideous expression. The blonde man was slumped haphazardly against a box, a gun in his hand and a sly city-slicker look on his face. His eyes were blank as well.

The man -still wearing those black sunglasses- looked around, barely glancing at the two extra dummies among several others, turned, and left.

They stayed in their positions for a long while after he'd left. But when they did, it took all Fae's nerve to keep from collapsing into tears.

"Are you all right?" The blonde man asked her. Fae took a deep breath, closed her eyes and counted to ten, then nodded.

"I think I'll be fine," She said, opening her eyes. "Once I get a nice cappachino in me, that is." Her attempt at a joke was left dead on her tongue when she looked around to find that, once more, her guardian was gone.

Fae sat in the costume room for a long while, even after she had discarded the wig and dress. Her fingers absently fiddled with one of the torn sleeves of her new, metallic over-jacket in her lap; she'd slipped it off to get the dress on, and was now only in short, hip hugging jean shorts and black ruby red strap tank top.

Her thoughts were in a muddled tangle, and she had long ago given up trying to sort them out; let them unravel themselves, she'd been forced to decide. But even over all her confused thinkings, one particular thought reigned over all.

Someone had tried to kill her.

That thought lead to, 'He'll try again.' Fae swallowed hard, and shut her eyes tight, trying to think of what her uncles, her mother, her father would do if they were in her position.

"Uncle Heero would have stood his ground, glared his warning, then shot the guy when he refused to leave him alone…" Fae blinked as her eyes began to sting. "Duo-chan would have made some witty joke and a spectacle. Would have made the guy chase him around in circles and put on a show that would have made the audience laugh." Thinking of this made Fae grin. "Wufei would have challenged him to a duel or something while turning beet red in indignation…" She giggled as the image came to mind. "Trowa would have just looked at him, turned, and walked away, fighting the minimum amount needed to free himself. Quatre would have tried diplomacy…and probably would have succeeded…" Fae smiled slightly. "Mama would have got that flash in her eyes…" Fae closed her eyes and pictured that same flashing, the way she would have so gracefully beaten him with only a few strokes, punches, kicks, and then walked away with a single remark that should be in history books.

Fae found that there was a single tear running down her face, and with a scowl, she rubbed it away angrily. She was raised by the strongest, bravest, best fighters on the planet, and what had she done? Kicked and screamed and waved her fists like a child!

This brought her mind back again to the fact that someone had tried to kill her that day…but why? She somehow knew he'd try again. She was positive. She had to get home, where she'd be safe…

Safe…

She'd always been safe. Maybe that was why she'd been bested so easily today. Sure, she knew the book rules and the moves, but she had no experience. None. At least not with someone that genuinely wanted to hurt her…

Maybe she should run away, give herself some experience… Fae remembered the ad for Preventer recruits on the mini-billboard she'd been looking at when the man in black had grabbed her. But that idea died before it had hardly formed; Fae had too many brains to seriously doing something like that for childish reasons.

Someone had tried to kill her…

Fae couldn't suppress a shudder as again that thought premiered over all others. But this particular time, it lead to a thought she had not had before; not only would he try again, but if he had been willing to do it in broad daylight with so many people around, he would kill her anywhere he found her. And he hadn't seemed reluctantly to do some damage to the blonde guy that had helped her, either. Fae's eyes widened in shock as she realized she wasn't safe anywhere, and neither was anyone near her.

She had to leave… She knew that most likely her Uncles and parents and cousin could protect her easily, but something told her this man would never give up…they'd have to disappear, forever running and fighting and hiding her. She couldn't live like that, at least, not when knowing she was taking away the lives of those she loved most.

She just couldn't…

So going to her family was out, so was Cassie and her other friends…

So where would she go?

Again, Fae remembered the add for Preventer recruits…

For the first time, Fae realized how late it must be. Her face set, Fae picked herself up, and peeked outside. Dark. Not a single sound…they must have shut down the ride hours ago, but she hadn't noticed the lack of sounds affects or creaking of the floorboard above her.

She stepped outside, and felt her way in the darkness to the exit. The door was locked. She pulled her pocket knife, a birthday present for her thirteenth birthday from Trowa, it was silvry-gold and had a porcelain image of a beautiful fairy sitting on the back of a small golden dragon and flying amongst sunset-kissed clouds.

Fae flipped open the main knife, and slipped it between the door and doorframe. It took but a quick few twists and yanks, and the door popped open. She flipped shut the knife, pocketed it once more, and slipped out into the chilly air.

She headed for the mini-billboard, keeping to the shadows once she realized it must be near midnight –judging from the high moon- and the park was closed. She remained wary of security guards as she approached the sign. She found a spot close enough to it that she could read it, but still hidden. She was also very aware that her hunter might still be near…

She quickly scanned the mini-billboard. It stated that recruits were needed to 'protect the peace and prevent war.' It gave a website from which you could download and print out more info, the time, date, and place of the interviews, and an application form. It didn't mention an age limit. Fae didn't doubt that she was probably too young, but she also didn't doubt her ability to look and act old enough.

A twig snapped behind her, and Fae whirled to see a cat standing directly behind her. At least, she was pretty sure it had been a cat; all she had seen was cat-like, slited gold-red eyes before the small creature had turned and ran back into the shadowy bush.

Fae looked back to the bilboard, gnawing on her bottom lip gently. She winced when she accidentally bit it too hard. She sighed softly. No reason she had to make the descion now. Fishing a small, three inch long pocket pen out of her jean's, she quickly scribbled down the web address on the inside of her arm. Capping the pen and sticking it back in her pocket, she threw one last look to the bilboard before slipping further into the shadows and heading for the carnival exit, hoping her parent's hadn't gotten to sending out a search party yet; she was grounded enough as it was.

Not that it would matter by tomorrow…

To Be Continued…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I CANNOT believe it took me this long to update! Argggggggggg……*sigh* my only explaination minna-chans is that I had a MAJOR case of writer's block… Gomen! Besides that, I really don't have much to say, other than I am considering dropping this fic… Kitten was a success, Angel was fun, but I think this might be taking the story too far…*sigh* Oh, well. *hugglez all* Review and tell me if you think this is worth finishing!

Ja!

Smile More, Dream Always,

Alexia Goddess

P.S. My family and I are going to Maui for three weeks starting September 17th, so don't expect any updates till three weeks after that, at least. Ja! -Alexia