Well guys, this took forever to update, and I sincerely apologize. Vicious
is in this chapter and also appears in the next, which is more intense than
this one, so even more action on the way! I thanked the reviewers at the
end, so if you reviewed the last chapter, look for your name!
~~~~~~
"So, Shin, this place looks pretty rundown." I couldn't help but stare skeptically at the near-crumbling warehouse our new 'friend' had led us to. I'd dished out some of my best chicken AND a bowl of ice cream to be led to such a junky building? If there were any answers to where Vicious might currently be, I highly doubted they'd be lurking around this future wrecking zone.
Shin looked appreciatively at his home, smiling. "It's not much, but it is quite suitable. Come inside - I'll get you something to drink, Faye, while I fix Jet's arm."
Ed trailed along behind us, fascinated with all the junk heaped up in the scraggly yard, every now and then exclaiming about something that impressed her. An old tire in a funny shape - a chewed up dog collar. It didn't take much.
I was glad we'd left Ein home.
Jet talked up a storm with Shin as we made our way to his front door, and I couldn't help but resent him for complaining the entire time about what a horrible person Vicious was, about how he had killed Spike. Shin wholeheartedly agreed, because, after all, he had lost his twin brother to Vicious. While glaring at him in hatred though, I had time to realize just how stunningly handsome he was.
I mean, REALLY handsome. Just to be factual. He was younger than me by a few years, I was guessing, and had smooth, creamy skin with a sharp nose and slanted green eyes. His black hair, slicked back and then spiked in some possible style, looked almost carefree. When he smiled, his long face with its high cheekbones seemed to brighten.
He smiled a lot.
"And here it is!" he said proudly, swinging open the door after the painful process of unlocking it with a rusty key. "My humble abode! I'm sure you're used to better, Faye..." He turned to wink at me, obviously insinuating I thought myself too good for him and his current place of occupation.
I said nothing in reply to that comment, venturing slowly in and looking around. "Is it always this messy?"
Shin narrowed his eyes and peered around, slowly nodding. "Usually...but..." He paused and his eyes fixed on something in the corner. I tried to follow his gaze, but saw nothing in the wide, spacious room, cluttered with different areas that resembled various rooms but had no walls. A stove to the left with a sink, an unmade bed off to the far right, and some couches and chairs off to the center with a TV set on the cement floor. I was guessing one of the many doors led to a bathroom. Clothes were strewn everywhere, along with various projects in the works, it looked.
Shin stumbled through the debris to a small dresser and knelt down to pick up a snow globe that fallen to the floor and shattered. "Oh, crap," he breathed, and I only heard him because I was now hovering over him. And then, with widened eyes and a pale face, he turned and screamed, "JET! OUT!"
Jet furrowed his brow and looked unsure, but grabbed hold of Ed and began to turn, just as a bullet whizzed past the girl's shoulder, causing her to cry out in shock.
Shin threw his body heavily to the side and knocked me to the ground, dropping to the floor as well. From his trench coat, he whipped out a revolver and turned to fire off at the enemy, a man standing in the balcony and still shooting. Immediately after Shin's shot, he dropped out of sight, wounded.
More rose up to take his place and I screamed at the top of my lungs, infuriated. This was NOT what I had had in mind when I'd agreed to come to Shin's place. Quickly, I rose onto my hands and knees and began to climb hurriedly around the hard floor, jaw clenched as I scurried about, taking cover behind first the freezer and then a chair. A bullet ripped through my sleeve, the breeze it made whispering against my arm, and I winced. Who in the world would be attacking Shin?
Suddenly, a flash of white caught my eye and my heart leapt. Vicious! It had to be him! Only he had that sort of hair! Of course, I should've guessed. This was a revenge mission on Shin for helping Spike back at the last confrontation between the two enemies. "Vicious!" I cried, and taking a mad gamble, rose to my feet and began to pursue him, dodging bullets as I went.
He must've heard me call his name because suddenly there was a ghost of a man hovering over me, suspended for a moment amidst the battle with a gun in hand and a black trench coat swirling around him like some sort of (to be poetic) mist or cloud. The noise in the background became muffled as I was captivated and horrified by the glaring look his cool gray eyes shot down the bridge of his narrow nose in my direction, by the way he scowled and raised his gun as if to shoot me.
But he didn't. Instead, he lifted his arm a little, purposely shooting over my shoulder, and nearly nailed Shin in the head. Yeah, I felt bad for Shin, but at the same time, a little pleased that Vicious had passed up the chance to kill me.
This was getting psychotic.
And then Vicious revealed to me a knowing little smirk and he was moving again, dashing away on long, lean legs that ate up the distance as if it was nothing.
"Faye!" Shin swooped by and jerked me to my feet, dragging me hurriedly along towards the door. I ran stiffly and mechanically behind him until his hand slipped from my wrist and he stumbled, tripping over a fallen lamp. At that moment, when I stood dumbfounded and waiting for him to rise, I felt a sharp pang radiate through my leg and immediately my knees buckled, causing me to crash unceremoniously down beside him. I cried out in reaction to the pain and the chaos and then fell silent, confused as to what had happened. A coursing, pulsing, trail of blood was winding its way down my thigh.
Shin scooped me up into his arms, and I was too dizzy to complain. I saw him turn and call to Jet, yelling at him to take Ed and the car, and I vaguely wondered how we where going to escape. I did, however, see Jet running to save his own butt, and even as my mind wondered how he'd do driving with only one arm, I whispered under my fading breath, "Jerk...leaving me behind..."
Yes, I was very close to passing out now, only seeing the shadow of what was happening. Shin bleeding from an angry gash in his forehead, running at top speed with his arms securely cradling my limp body, not slowing him down in the least. And then he was bursting out the back door with armed men right at his heels, diving through some brush and momentarily losing them as he staggered in between some briars and scraggly trees. In a small clearing I spotted our destination - a barely held together motorcycle.
"Shin," I grunted, "tell me that is NOT your escape plan...?"
"I'm sorry to sat it is," he gasped breathlessly, throwing me over the back like a sack of potatoes. I screamed in both anger and pain, feeling the sharp pain come back to my injured leg.
"I was shot, you know!"
"So was I," he said easily. "In a few places." He was straddling the front of the bike, his boot on the gas as he heaved himself up and then gave a pathetic little jump, bringing his foot down heavily on the pedal to get it started. It sputtered, apparently as sick as we, and then gave signs of starting. He did it again, and the machine revved to life, tearing wildly out of the bushes. I barely had enough time to wrap my arms securely around his waist in order to keep from flying off.
"Hold on!" Shin screamed above the wind and gunshots as he swerved hard to the right, so much that I feared the motorcycle would tip over and my ankle near scraped concrete. It got sort of blurry after that, and seeing as how I could never remember the rest of the ride, I guess I passed out.
~~~~~
"Faye, Faye, come on, Faye!"
I awoke to a somewhat annoying mantra of my name and realized that I was walking. Somewhat. Shin had looped my arm around his shoulders and was dragging me along even as he struggled to keep my body upright. I blinked dazedly and fumbled to gather my bearings even as the throbbing in my leg distracted my frazzled mind. "Where are we...?" I tried to ask, but it came out as only a whisper.
"Some cheap motel," he grunted, turning a corner in the hallway and stopping by a door. "I know the owner. I just lost Vicious and didn't want to run the risk of leading him back to Jet or meeting up again on the way there." Quickly, he slid a room key card through the slot and the lock clicked.
"Are you ok?" I asked quietly, trying to stand by myself as he stumbled to open the door and staggered within. He'd been more heavily damaged than I had with a head wound, bullet still embedded in his shoulder, and various cuts on his arms.
"Yes," he answered shortly, gesturing towards the bed. "Sit down."
I did as he said, if only for the reason that I was getting dizzy again.
Shin made his way into the bathroom and took out a first aid kit, making me wonder if he came to the same room often to hide. Why was Vicious after him anyway? Oh yeah. The man's all about revenge. I grimaced at the thought and watched Shin drag a chair over to the bedside.
"Lie down," he said in a voice that spoke of fading strength. Once I had done as he had commanded, he took a wash cloth warm with hot water and sponged around the wound, clearing away the dried blood. He looked pleasantly surprised upon further inspection. "It's a scrape - a deep one, but a scrape all the same."
Well, it certainly didn't FEEL like a scrape. And I really didn't appreciate his making light of my situation, or his having to examine me in the first place. I felt almost stupid lying there with Shin trying to take care of the cut on the outside of my lower thigh.
"You'll be up and walking in no time," he commented happily, cleaning it with some sort of clear liquid - anti-septic, I think - that stung horribly and made me howl in frustration. He chuckled a little, eyes crinkling at the corner.
He had very nice eyes, full of color unlike Vicious' stormy, blank ones.
After he had bandaged the cut, I rolled my head around on the pillow and watched with heavily-lidded eyes as he treated himself, taking a pair of tweezers and gouging them around in his shoulder wound in a pathetic attempt to rid himself of the bullet embedded there, but it was too far up along for him to successfully see. After several painful and gory attempts, which brought him near to tears, I tired of watching his strained expression and seeing how hard he bit down on his lower lip.
"Come here," I demanded grouchily, "and I will get it out for you."
Shin was obviously at his wit's end for he obediently moved over beside me and handed over the tweezers. I sat up, found I had no balance whatsoever, and placed a hand on his opposite, unwounded shoulder, leaning delicately against his chest. Tired as I was, I found strength to raise my arm and carefully extract the bullet. It did help that Shin had a good grip on my upper arms and was helping keep them steady.
The aggravating little slug fell to the wooden floor with a clatter and the tweezers soon followed. It was then that I realized how truly late it was. Probably around ten or eleven. I yawned loudly, jaw stretching farther than I knew it could, and I felt Shin gently lay me back down and return to bandaging himself. When he had finished (I was near asleep, watching from the corner of my gaze), he climbed into the bed and lay down next to me, face down.
We were both out before I could even complain.
~~~~~
There you go! I promise to get the next chapter out a heck of a lot faster!
Kaelin77: Glad it was worth the wait! Hope you like this chapter too!
Hikari88: Sorry this took a little while....lol Keep reviewing!
AnimeAngel707: Thank you so much! Keep reviewing, please!
Midnight Scribbler: I know, I know! My updates take forever! lol The next one will come faster!
Psycho-CJ: Hey, that's a great idea! Sure, he'll have a little crush on her. Aww, I just love Shin!
ClassicElfRyoko: Sorry I made you wait! I'm just so lazy...
A-chan5: Well, thank you! Review again!
Ohayominnasan: ^.^
Hydrokitty: I know I love my bad guys! I'll be kind to him - cross my heart!
Zithromax: Yay! *dances around* Thank you so much! I'll try my best to keep it getting better and better too! Keep reviewing! ~_^
Volk Zyta: Shin doesn't get near enough attention! He really should be in more fanfiction!
Smut bunny princess: Voila! I have continued!
Pink Pooglie: I'm trying not to rush! Vicious will be in the next chapter as well ^_^
DJ Destiny: Actually, Shin did get hurt...sorry. But he's ok!
Thank you to all who reviewed! I love ya' all!
Review this chapter as well if you love me! Haha...
~~~~~~
"So, Shin, this place looks pretty rundown." I couldn't help but stare skeptically at the near-crumbling warehouse our new 'friend' had led us to. I'd dished out some of my best chicken AND a bowl of ice cream to be led to such a junky building? If there were any answers to where Vicious might currently be, I highly doubted they'd be lurking around this future wrecking zone.
Shin looked appreciatively at his home, smiling. "It's not much, but it is quite suitable. Come inside - I'll get you something to drink, Faye, while I fix Jet's arm."
Ed trailed along behind us, fascinated with all the junk heaped up in the scraggly yard, every now and then exclaiming about something that impressed her. An old tire in a funny shape - a chewed up dog collar. It didn't take much.
I was glad we'd left Ein home.
Jet talked up a storm with Shin as we made our way to his front door, and I couldn't help but resent him for complaining the entire time about what a horrible person Vicious was, about how he had killed Spike. Shin wholeheartedly agreed, because, after all, he had lost his twin brother to Vicious. While glaring at him in hatred though, I had time to realize just how stunningly handsome he was.
I mean, REALLY handsome. Just to be factual. He was younger than me by a few years, I was guessing, and had smooth, creamy skin with a sharp nose and slanted green eyes. His black hair, slicked back and then spiked in some possible style, looked almost carefree. When he smiled, his long face with its high cheekbones seemed to brighten.
He smiled a lot.
"And here it is!" he said proudly, swinging open the door after the painful process of unlocking it with a rusty key. "My humble abode! I'm sure you're used to better, Faye..." He turned to wink at me, obviously insinuating I thought myself too good for him and his current place of occupation.
I said nothing in reply to that comment, venturing slowly in and looking around. "Is it always this messy?"
Shin narrowed his eyes and peered around, slowly nodding. "Usually...but..." He paused and his eyes fixed on something in the corner. I tried to follow his gaze, but saw nothing in the wide, spacious room, cluttered with different areas that resembled various rooms but had no walls. A stove to the left with a sink, an unmade bed off to the far right, and some couches and chairs off to the center with a TV set on the cement floor. I was guessing one of the many doors led to a bathroom. Clothes were strewn everywhere, along with various projects in the works, it looked.
Shin stumbled through the debris to a small dresser and knelt down to pick up a snow globe that fallen to the floor and shattered. "Oh, crap," he breathed, and I only heard him because I was now hovering over him. And then, with widened eyes and a pale face, he turned and screamed, "JET! OUT!"
Jet furrowed his brow and looked unsure, but grabbed hold of Ed and began to turn, just as a bullet whizzed past the girl's shoulder, causing her to cry out in shock.
Shin threw his body heavily to the side and knocked me to the ground, dropping to the floor as well. From his trench coat, he whipped out a revolver and turned to fire off at the enemy, a man standing in the balcony and still shooting. Immediately after Shin's shot, he dropped out of sight, wounded.
More rose up to take his place and I screamed at the top of my lungs, infuriated. This was NOT what I had had in mind when I'd agreed to come to Shin's place. Quickly, I rose onto my hands and knees and began to climb hurriedly around the hard floor, jaw clenched as I scurried about, taking cover behind first the freezer and then a chair. A bullet ripped through my sleeve, the breeze it made whispering against my arm, and I winced. Who in the world would be attacking Shin?
Suddenly, a flash of white caught my eye and my heart leapt. Vicious! It had to be him! Only he had that sort of hair! Of course, I should've guessed. This was a revenge mission on Shin for helping Spike back at the last confrontation between the two enemies. "Vicious!" I cried, and taking a mad gamble, rose to my feet and began to pursue him, dodging bullets as I went.
He must've heard me call his name because suddenly there was a ghost of a man hovering over me, suspended for a moment amidst the battle with a gun in hand and a black trench coat swirling around him like some sort of (to be poetic) mist or cloud. The noise in the background became muffled as I was captivated and horrified by the glaring look his cool gray eyes shot down the bridge of his narrow nose in my direction, by the way he scowled and raised his gun as if to shoot me.
But he didn't. Instead, he lifted his arm a little, purposely shooting over my shoulder, and nearly nailed Shin in the head. Yeah, I felt bad for Shin, but at the same time, a little pleased that Vicious had passed up the chance to kill me.
This was getting psychotic.
And then Vicious revealed to me a knowing little smirk and he was moving again, dashing away on long, lean legs that ate up the distance as if it was nothing.
"Faye!" Shin swooped by and jerked me to my feet, dragging me hurriedly along towards the door. I ran stiffly and mechanically behind him until his hand slipped from my wrist and he stumbled, tripping over a fallen lamp. At that moment, when I stood dumbfounded and waiting for him to rise, I felt a sharp pang radiate through my leg and immediately my knees buckled, causing me to crash unceremoniously down beside him. I cried out in reaction to the pain and the chaos and then fell silent, confused as to what had happened. A coursing, pulsing, trail of blood was winding its way down my thigh.
Shin scooped me up into his arms, and I was too dizzy to complain. I saw him turn and call to Jet, yelling at him to take Ed and the car, and I vaguely wondered how we where going to escape. I did, however, see Jet running to save his own butt, and even as my mind wondered how he'd do driving with only one arm, I whispered under my fading breath, "Jerk...leaving me behind..."
Yes, I was very close to passing out now, only seeing the shadow of what was happening. Shin bleeding from an angry gash in his forehead, running at top speed with his arms securely cradling my limp body, not slowing him down in the least. And then he was bursting out the back door with armed men right at his heels, diving through some brush and momentarily losing them as he staggered in between some briars and scraggly trees. In a small clearing I spotted our destination - a barely held together motorcycle.
"Shin," I grunted, "tell me that is NOT your escape plan...?"
"I'm sorry to sat it is," he gasped breathlessly, throwing me over the back like a sack of potatoes. I screamed in both anger and pain, feeling the sharp pain come back to my injured leg.
"I was shot, you know!"
"So was I," he said easily. "In a few places." He was straddling the front of the bike, his boot on the gas as he heaved himself up and then gave a pathetic little jump, bringing his foot down heavily on the pedal to get it started. It sputtered, apparently as sick as we, and then gave signs of starting. He did it again, and the machine revved to life, tearing wildly out of the bushes. I barely had enough time to wrap my arms securely around his waist in order to keep from flying off.
"Hold on!" Shin screamed above the wind and gunshots as he swerved hard to the right, so much that I feared the motorcycle would tip over and my ankle near scraped concrete. It got sort of blurry after that, and seeing as how I could never remember the rest of the ride, I guess I passed out.
~~~~~
"Faye, Faye, come on, Faye!"
I awoke to a somewhat annoying mantra of my name and realized that I was walking. Somewhat. Shin had looped my arm around his shoulders and was dragging me along even as he struggled to keep my body upright. I blinked dazedly and fumbled to gather my bearings even as the throbbing in my leg distracted my frazzled mind. "Where are we...?" I tried to ask, but it came out as only a whisper.
"Some cheap motel," he grunted, turning a corner in the hallway and stopping by a door. "I know the owner. I just lost Vicious and didn't want to run the risk of leading him back to Jet or meeting up again on the way there." Quickly, he slid a room key card through the slot and the lock clicked.
"Are you ok?" I asked quietly, trying to stand by myself as he stumbled to open the door and staggered within. He'd been more heavily damaged than I had with a head wound, bullet still embedded in his shoulder, and various cuts on his arms.
"Yes," he answered shortly, gesturing towards the bed. "Sit down."
I did as he said, if only for the reason that I was getting dizzy again.
Shin made his way into the bathroom and took out a first aid kit, making me wonder if he came to the same room often to hide. Why was Vicious after him anyway? Oh yeah. The man's all about revenge. I grimaced at the thought and watched Shin drag a chair over to the bedside.
"Lie down," he said in a voice that spoke of fading strength. Once I had done as he had commanded, he took a wash cloth warm with hot water and sponged around the wound, clearing away the dried blood. He looked pleasantly surprised upon further inspection. "It's a scrape - a deep one, but a scrape all the same."
Well, it certainly didn't FEEL like a scrape. And I really didn't appreciate his making light of my situation, or his having to examine me in the first place. I felt almost stupid lying there with Shin trying to take care of the cut on the outside of my lower thigh.
"You'll be up and walking in no time," he commented happily, cleaning it with some sort of clear liquid - anti-septic, I think - that stung horribly and made me howl in frustration. He chuckled a little, eyes crinkling at the corner.
He had very nice eyes, full of color unlike Vicious' stormy, blank ones.
After he had bandaged the cut, I rolled my head around on the pillow and watched with heavily-lidded eyes as he treated himself, taking a pair of tweezers and gouging them around in his shoulder wound in a pathetic attempt to rid himself of the bullet embedded there, but it was too far up along for him to successfully see. After several painful and gory attempts, which brought him near to tears, I tired of watching his strained expression and seeing how hard he bit down on his lower lip.
"Come here," I demanded grouchily, "and I will get it out for you."
Shin was obviously at his wit's end for he obediently moved over beside me and handed over the tweezers. I sat up, found I had no balance whatsoever, and placed a hand on his opposite, unwounded shoulder, leaning delicately against his chest. Tired as I was, I found strength to raise my arm and carefully extract the bullet. It did help that Shin had a good grip on my upper arms and was helping keep them steady.
The aggravating little slug fell to the wooden floor with a clatter and the tweezers soon followed. It was then that I realized how truly late it was. Probably around ten or eleven. I yawned loudly, jaw stretching farther than I knew it could, and I felt Shin gently lay me back down and return to bandaging himself. When he had finished (I was near asleep, watching from the corner of my gaze), he climbed into the bed and lay down next to me, face down.
We were both out before I could even complain.
~~~~~
There you go! I promise to get the next chapter out a heck of a lot faster!
Kaelin77: Glad it was worth the wait! Hope you like this chapter too!
Hikari88: Sorry this took a little while....lol Keep reviewing!
AnimeAngel707: Thank you so much! Keep reviewing, please!
Midnight Scribbler: I know, I know! My updates take forever! lol The next one will come faster!
Psycho-CJ: Hey, that's a great idea! Sure, he'll have a little crush on her. Aww, I just love Shin!
ClassicElfRyoko: Sorry I made you wait! I'm just so lazy...
A-chan5: Well, thank you! Review again!
Ohayominnasan: ^.^
Hydrokitty: I know I love my bad guys! I'll be kind to him - cross my heart!
Zithromax: Yay! *dances around* Thank you so much! I'll try my best to keep it getting better and better too! Keep reviewing! ~_^
Volk Zyta: Shin doesn't get near enough attention! He really should be in more fanfiction!
Smut bunny princess: Voila! I have continued!
Pink Pooglie: I'm trying not to rush! Vicious will be in the next chapter as well ^_^
DJ Destiny: Actually, Shin did get hurt...sorry. But he's ok!
Thank you to all who reviewed! I love ya' all!
Review this chapter as well if you love me! Haha...