O.k here's the first real chapter. Disclaimer: see chapter 1
Please R/R. Every review appreciated and it will help me to write more faster.
Thankyou
Chapter 2-Lonely Hearts
Fred lay on her bed with her back to the floor and her eyes to the ceiling. She stared at the ceiling intensely: without blinking, without moving; all her energy was gathered in her head, working overtime to try and organize her millions of loose thoughts.
It had been two days and three nights since the great disappearance had occurred and she and Gunn were still desperately trying to hunt them down. She had tried to find where and why they were gone but couldn't ascertain anything from her books, which at least moderately proved that them disappearing was some of some unfulfilled, apocalyptic prophecy (That was never a good thing) Gunn had had no greater success with his 'sources'. They had tried every trick of the book and the street to recover the missing person's whereabouts and today was like waking up to another repetitive day of unfulfillment. To Fred today was the day when all hope seemed lost and it was time to accept that Angel, Cordy and Conner could not be found. It was how almost every search in mankind's history ended.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sudden interruption of he streaming thoughts jarred her awake.
"Come in," She said, knowing that it was Gunn and knowing that he had breakfast on a silver tray. Gunn could often be quite repetitive but she liked the heart warming and comfortable feeling that that gave their relationship.
Gunn opened the door and walked in with a silver tray and smiled as Fred sat up in her bed. He walked over to the bed and put it down on her lap, grateful for the warm smile Fred had across her face.
"Waffles." He announced.
"Mmmmy favourite" She replied, already knowing that they were waffles from the appetising odour that had entered the room with Gunn.
Gunn helped himself to a waffle and then a seat in the near corner of the room, facing Fred. He watched as Fred franticly scoffed down her waffles. 'It was as though she hadn't eaten for weeks' he thought.
"Nice?"
"Mmm..yeah thanks. It's the best breakfast I could hope for."
"How's that?"
"Well, waffles for a start but I also get you" She answered, smiling as romantically as she could. She had cultivated just the right techniques to please Gunn.
Gunn smiled but kept on his cool face.
"Not romanticising on the job are you Fred"
She knew Gunn was being sarcastic but it had slapped everything she had been thinking about minutes ago right back in her mind. She cut out of the conversation they had just been on and changed the tone and mood abruptly.
"What are we going to do today?" She asked in a low, concerned tone.
He paused shortly before answering, "look, FredI'm not really sure there's anything else we can do. We've hit the books, we've hit the streets, and we've looked into every angle possible and got nothing. You tell me, what else can we do?"
Fred took no time to reply, getting quite frustrated with Gunn.
"What, you think we should give up?" She snapped.
Gunn looked a bit shocked for a moment before continuing.
"I'm just saying sooner or later we're gonna have to face facts," he continued trying to avoid Fred's angry glare, " we don't even no if their alive let alone where they are. "He finished on a light, strained tone that seemed to tell Fred that he did care.
"Sorry for snapping at you." Fred apologised sincerely, looking down at the floor. She shifted her post-devoured waffles beside her and looked at Gunn.
"It's just that I don't want to give up yet. I mean it's only been two days. Surely something as useless as going over what we've found a thousand times would be better than just sitting around waiting for something."
Gunn focused his eyes onto the floor, in deep thought. He knew she was right, they had to keep trying. Fred jumped out of bed; "I'm going to call Lorne again." Gunn nodded as she walked past him and out the door. A faint "thanks for the waffles" echoed through the open door.
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Conner had ignored all of Justine's weak and feeble attempts at conversation as they walked swiftly and objectively down the dark, suburban street. Justine was leading the way to the house that Holtz had purchased for training his men. Conner had no interest in conversation at the moment; he had far too much on his mind. Well not just at that moment, Conner had been in deep thought 24 hours a day since they dumped Angel. Their footsteps echoed loudly on the wet pavement, the noise ever magnified by the awkward silence of the night. A pebble could have been dropped at the other end of the street and Conner would have heard it, even minus the enhanced hearing he possessed.
Conner's thoughts were suddenly shattered by an ear-splitting scream of fear. The silent air erupted with the piercing sound. Conner stopped walking abruptly as the sound reached his ears. He tried to pinpoint were the sound had originated and when that failed he followed his innate sense of death. He swore he could smell a vampire from a hundred meters. He set off on a sudden, swift sprint. It took Justine a while to process what was happening but when she did she began to race after him.
Conner reached the end of the street then swerved instantaneously to the right, following the footpath around the block. Justine followed a few seconds behind. There were a few more screams coming from one of the few houses with lights on across the road. Conner cut off the pathway and ran on a diagonal course across the road, and towards the house. The moonlight shined brightly off the flat surface of the damp road, lighting the street up quite well.
Conner reached the property and cut across the lawn to the house's front steps, still at the same swift pace. Conner didn't even stop as he reached the door; he kicked up his foot and kicked down the door with the ease of a wrecking ball.
Justine reached the wet, glistening lawn as Conner burst into the house.
She watched him disappear into the doorway as she approached the stairs. She smiled this is what she wanted, the only thing she had left, the fight. She knew that she and Conner both strove for one single thing, the kicking of ass. It was the only thing they had in common but it kept them together. They had been hunting vampires since last night, and that's what they had been returning from. She sprinted in through the doorway headfirst, ready to fight.
Conner had rushed into the house exactly what he hoped not to find. A wide patch of thick, red blood tarnished the sandstone carpet; a young lady's corpse rested limply on a chair, blood still running down her neck. The beasts looked up from their second meal, a young child; the slurping noise they had made while feasting continued to echo in Conners brain. The tallest one let go of the child and the poor kid dropped to the floor, limp and lifeless. There were two vampires smiling wickedly at Conner. One was dark haired and wore a messy, blood stained, blue shirt and an undone tie sat loosely under his collar.
He was the taller one, the other wore a business suit that still looked neat and well ironed; that suggested that he had been created new, maybe. The both of them had blood all over their teeth and it was literally dripping off their chins.
A huge hate built up inside Conner, greater than the greatest of hate.
Although he had seen his fair share of blood and death he now knew what it meant to have family and what it meant to loose it and that changed everything. This sudden stare down occurred over a time frame of about 4 seconds.
Conner was the first to act. He charged towards the shorter of the two using as much of the strength from his shoulder as he could to pull back for a punch as he charged. The Vampire didn't seem to know what to do, inexperienced; that's one advantage. The taller vampire jumped back against the left wall, no cooperation; that's advantage 2. The shorter vampire swung a punch at Conner but he avoided it by flicking his head to the side. This caused him to loose all the momentum he had gathered for the punch so he tried something unexpected and kicked the vampire hard in the shins with the point of his hard boots. The vampire leaned down to the side bringing his head level with Conners left shoulder. Meanwhile Conner had pulled back his arm for a strong punch. He punched downwards into the side of the vampires head and the vampire hobbled forward, struggling to keep his balance. The words "It's all about balance" flashed through Conners racing mind as he stepped backward behind the vampire and kicked him sharply in the back of the knee. The vampire fell forwards and landed on his hands and knees. Conner heard a soft, cunning step to his right and ducked millimetres below the punch the tall vampire unleashed. Conner stood up again instantly and jabbed out his elbow sharply to the right. He felt his bone make direct contact with the top of the vampires nose.
"Arghh" The vampire exclaimed sharply as he retreated backwards and fell back against the wall.
It was then that Justine appeared in the doorway. She immediately assessed the situation and responded quickly when Conner gestured with his hand for a stake. She pulled a stake out of her pocket and through it to Conners outstretched hand. It flew over the shorter vampire on all fours just a fraction of a second before he jumped to his feet. Conner caught it and without a moment of hesitation threw it straight back were it came from; only now the short vampire was on his feet and the stake stabbed straight into his heart. Panic rushed straight into the vampires pupils, Conner could see them widen with horror. The vampire quickly looked down at the stake in his chest then up at Conner.
"Shi" The vampire turned to dust without his final word. Ha. Conner really felt like laughing.
Conner's heart began to pump faster as the adrenalin kicked in. Unfortunately he was a little too preoccupied with the other vampire.
The taller vampire landed a powerful punch on Conners right chin.
Conner began to fall backwards but put one of his feet down behind him and jumped around again struggling to get back up. Just as he regained balance Justine kicked the vampire in the side of his stomach with all the strength she had. He was knocked off his feet and crashed through the big glass windows to his left. Justine fell over forwards after her momentum had crashed to a sudden, jarring halt.
Conner heard the thud of sprinting foot steps on concrete from outside the window. Conner jumped into action and Justine had already sprinted back out the front door. Conner picked up the stake from amongst the dust of the felled vampire, stepped over the growing stains of blood on the carpet and avoiding the dead boy, and jumped out the broken window. Fortunately he didn't have to try hard to avoid the remaining glass, the window was pretty high and the vampire had taken out most of the glass. Unfortunately he touched down on his hands, a sharp, piercing pain sprang through his arm but he did his best to ignore it and barrel rolled to his feet.
He was now at the side of the house, it was about three meters wide between the wall and the side fence and the whole area was concreted.
Conner jumped into and effective sprinting position and sprinted. He followed the straight concrete path to the street and chased after the faint glimpse he saw of Justine turned the corner to the next street.
Now that he had little thinking to do he risked a quick peek at his piercing hands. Thick streams of blood ran down his wrist as he did so. His right hand was practically red with blood, if he put his hand against a white wall there would be an almost perfect imprint. His left hand was less cut than his practically shredded right hand; it had only a few small cuts. Blood was still streaming out of the deep glass cuts on his right hand as he picked out some of the embedded glass and dropped it onto the road. He screwed up his face and bit his lip with the excruciating pain. Still he had suffered worse, he just felt fortunate that he hadn't pierced the artery on his wrist.
As he rounded the corner he heard distant and fast approaching sirens.
His last experience with the police hadn't been too agreeable but he had learnt all about them now. Apparently they helped people; at least that's what Angel had said. No. It's Angelus, Conner hated when he accidentally called him that.
Conner's legs began to tire but the distraction of his hand kept exhaustion at bay for a little longer. He continued to sprint though that's one thing that Conner refused to do is to slow to a feeble run or jog, he either sprinted or he stood. He fast approached Justine who had stopped running of exhaustion. He suddenly remembered the sirens that had been so vivid in his thoughts before hand. The noise was now right upon them. Without warning two police cars screeched around the corner of a street to the right of Conner. Just before Conner passed Justine he realised the police were going to act upon them, he supposed he and Justine looked very suspicious.
"Take care of them." He said between light panting. Justine nodded and ran onto the road to get their attention.
With Justine out of his way he could see the vampire turn the next corner. Conner realised that it would be foolish to try and run down the vampire with a test of stamina as he had planned. Vampires need not breathe so there was no cause for exhaustion. Conner could only hope to catch the vampire with speed. He tried to block the gripping pain from his hand as he pumped up his legs with as much rapidity and force as he could muster. He skidded on the wet pavement as he tried a 90-degree turn down to the next street. Something suddenly stopped him. He stood on the corner of the street looking down the long, straight road before him. There was no sign of the vampire.
Conner put his mind to the test trying to think what to do; he figured that the vampire has simply entered someone's property and was currently fence hopping. He heard a gunshot from behind him in the other street.
He hoped Justine was ok but kept it out of his mind.
He sprinted up the road trying to think which garden the vampire would have entered. Suddenly something snagged his vision from the corner of his eye as he ran, a patch of blood on one of the lawns. The blood was black and greatly contrasted to the moist, glistening lawn.
"Yes." He said quietly to himself and began to follow the trail, this was excellent news, not only did he find where the vampire was he knew the vampire had been injured. He stopped himself when he realised he had jumped the gun. The vampire could have easily just cut himself to put Conner on the trail. He paused for a few moments reasoning with himself.
"Screw it," he said, wanting to find something he could sink his teeth into and beat the living shit out of. The pain he felt in his hand was a good motivator to do some serious damage to anything that moves.
He twisted into the garden, sprinting as fast as ever down the side of the house. He didn't slow as he neared the fence; instead he launched himself about 10cm into the air about 2 meters from the fence. With the speed he had gathered he glided just above the ground until his slightly forwarded right foot came in contact with the first horizontal beam on the fence. He pushed off with the right foot and grabbed the top of the fence with his left hand to pull himself up. He made sure it was all in one fluid, curved motion so as not to lose thrust in his wake. His momentum carried him up to the top of fence and he swung his legs over the top and pushed off with his left hand. He landed on his feet and took no delay in resuming his sprint.
Things were a lot harder for Conner because he didn't use his right hand, he also knew that he would have to use it soon and he wasn't looking forward to that. He had kept his right hand in the same open-palmed position since he had looked at, every slight movement of a finger sent a sharp, throbbing sensation through his arm. It's not that his left hand didn't pain him, it did, it's just that it was so dwarfed by the pain from his other hand it was barely acknowledgeable.
About halfway to the next fence he spotted a body scramble over the fence after the next. Conner could tell from the faint glimpse he got that he had seen his target clamber over the fence in an awkward, struggling manner. Before long he had jumped the next fence and was clearing the ground rapidly between him and the now clearly visible vampire ahead.
He stepped swiftly and lightly on the soft grass as he raised his stake in his left hand. The vampire heard him from about 3 metres and did a last ditch dive to the side seconds before Conner brought down the stake. Conner struck thin air as the vampire crashed into the near wall of the house from his dive. He made quite a thud against the rickity weatherboard house. Conner turned, stepped forward and launched a high kick at the vampires head. The heel of Conners boot came into contact with the imbalanced vampires chin. The vampire was blown back powerfully into the wall, sending splinters and dust into the air as he crashed through the wooden wall. The vampire landed on his back but quickly jumped to his feet before Conner could take advantage of that.
Conner stepped through the hole in the wall and stepped towards the vampire taking a second to realise that they were in a rather large kitchen. It only took that one second for the vampire to regain his sences and throw a deadly jab at Conners face. Conner used his right wrist to block the punch instinctively but instantly regretted it as the vibrations stung his hand viciously. Conner bit his lip as hard as he could without drawing blood so as not to alert his oponnent of his deadly weakness. The vampire smiled cunningly at him. 'Shit' Conner said to himself, the vampire knew.
He and the vampire both turned as a sudden stream of light burst into the room. A middle aged man stood in the open doorway shocked at what he saw. His eyes widened with shock. He had probably figured something strange had happened in the kitchen, like a microwave blew up or something what he found was a huge whole in the wall and two strange men in his kitchen.
The light revealed a rack of knives to the corner of Conner's vision.
The vampire made a quick dash for the man, trying to take advantage of him. If he got the man he would no doubt threaten to snap his neck for a cheap escape. Conner grabbed the back of his lose shirt and pulled him backwards forcefully. The vampire almost fell over backwards to the side of Conner but he smacked the vampire in the chin and he he was knocked onto the the shiny silver bench in the center of the room. The vampire slid over the slick benched top and tumbled off the other end, landing on the floor in the corner of the room.
"Get out" Conner said sharply to the man, staring him straight in the eyes.
A breif but fierce growling noise came from the the corner of the room. Conner turned to see the vampire stand up and brush some wooddust from his shirt, his face in full vamp mode. The man was taken aback by the morphed appearance of the vampire. Corner turned back towards the man, "get out!" He yelled at the very top of his voice. Corner was relieved when the man finally sprang into action, he retreated back through the door and Conner heard the reassuring sound of a terrified sprint down the hall.
Conner turned back towards the vampire in just enough time to glimpse the silver frying pan's flat bottom before it slammed straight into his face. Conner grabbed his nose and stumbled back into the steel work bench. He smelt a vivid odour of blood creep up into his nose and felt trickles of it crawling down his nose. His head now began to ache all over and he even got a break from feeling the pain in his hands. Conner awoke from his thoughts suddenly and with just the fleetness required to counter the oncoming attack. He chopped the vampires wrist with the side of his right palm . The impact was swift and great. A jolt of pain sung through Conner's right arm but the vampire released his grip on the frying pan and his arm swung to the right with mighty force. The clatter of the frying pan on the floor rung through Conner's ears as he swiftly reached behind his back and tightened his grip on the handle of what he knew to be a large cutting knife. His whole body shiverd with the pain of his gripped right hand but he took no halt in reaching back infront of him and slicing forwards with the knife blade. The vampire had just flicked back into a standing position when the knife cut straight across his cheek. Although the knife past through him for but a minute moment the blade was harsh and the bearer masterful; it had left a deep gash across his cheek and blood was already gushing out.
The vampire was stunned at the unexpected offensive and Conner used that one second to swing back his stake-bearing arm behind him and bring it up swiftly into the vampire's heart. The vampire looked at him in pure shock and then burst into a cloud of dust.
Conner starred at the floor were the vampire had just been standing and smiled. He turned and walked out of the door in an almost trance-like manner, dropping both the blood stained knife and the stake to either side of him. He kept walking, and smiling. His pain seemed to have been subdued as he built up to a sprint and headed home.
Did he feel happy for the the taste of revenge or was it the taste of blood he was after now? he mused as he licked the top of his lips the taste of the blood from his nose potent within his mouth. The only thing he was certain about was that he hadn't helped anyone that night and in his heart he knew he had never intended to.
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