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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters aside from the ones of my own creation.

Syaoran's Angels

Chapter 2: Never mess with Spinnel

Location: Los Angeles a.k.a. City of Angels, America

Long elegant fingers flew across the many keys typing away madly. The sound of keys being punched at regular intervals filled the whole air accompanied by growls of frustration and whispered curses.

"For god's sake!" Tomoyo screamed at the computer, "WORK!"

"Hmmm... last time I checked the computer doesn't respond to threats otherwise I would have that thing tap-dancing across the room," Meiling told her slightly amused.

Tomoyo gave her glare that would have caused rock to burst into flames and turned back to her computer.

"I don't understand why. Why can't I decrypt it?" Tomoyo sighed, "Whoever encrypted it must have been an expert."

"I gathered that from your earlier screaming," Meiling reminded her.

Tomoyo barely resisted the urge to smash the computer screen in and turned to Meiling instead.

"Want to go out to lunch?" she asked her friend and partner.

"I don't know..."

"My treat."

"Sure."

Tomoyo rolled her eyes.

"Where's Sakura?"

"Dunno, I think she's down at the gym," Meiling pulled her mobile phone out, "Want me to call her?"

"Yeah, may as well drag her along."

Meiling punched in a few buttons and waited somewhat impatiently.

"Hey, Sakura. Me and Tomoyo..."

"Tomoyo and I," her friend corrected her even without noticing it.

"Tomoyo and I," Meiling rolled her eyes, "want to go out to lunch. Want to come?"

"Where?" Meiling look at Tomoyo.

"Hmmm... Mandy's?"

"Mandy's. Meet us at the front door in around," Meiling glanced at her wristwatch, "Twenty minutes.

There was a short pause as Sakura talked to Meiling.

"No. No. No. Maybe..." Meiling blushed, "No Sakura. I'm not going there to check out that cute waiter I saw last time. Yes. Fine. See you in a while."

Meiling shook her head as she turned off her phone.

"Kids..." Meiling muttered from her vantage point of being six months older.

Tomoyo hid a knowing smile as she went off to grab her jacket.

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High above the urban sprawl that was America, aboard a plane relaxing in a first-class sit was the world's most dangerous assassin.

And he was on a new mission.

Eriol Hiragizawa nodded to the air steward as he poured brandy into Eriol's wine flute. His attention was focused mainly on the photo he held in his hands.

Three girls smiled up at him. They were all around twenty-years-old he guessed. One was tall, muscular and had the aura of being a dangerous woman to cross, another was gentler and more playful but Eriol got the distinct feeling she was crafty and smart at the same time.

The third...

She was breathtaking. Intelligent soft lavender eyes, long smoky black hair... she was tall and graceful and unlike many of the beautiful women he knew she had intelligence in her eyes.

As a lover she would be a revelation but as a quarry... she would be a dangerous challenge.

If there was one thing Eriol enjoy it was a challenge.

"Watch out girls," he chuckled, "Eriol is on your tails."

Eriol Hiragizawa, world-renowned assassin, leaned back into his chair and pondered what was to come.

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Two pairs of amused eyes watched their friend as she attempted to order from the waiter without stuttering or blushing. Meiling looked up and glared at them.

"That wasn't funny," she growled.

Sakura blinked at her smiling innocently.

"What wasn't?" the American Angel asked her voice a bit too sweet.

"Ha. Ha."

Tomoyo shook her head with a knowing smile on her face. She looked around the busy café and saw a well-dressed man walk through the glass doors. The man looked around nervously before a waitress came up to her and asked him what he wanted.

"Tomoyo?" Meiling asked shaking her slightly, "Hello? Earth to Tomoyo?"

The Japanese girl blinked in confusion and turned to her friend.

"Sorry, must have drifted off a bit," she stretched her back and yawned, "I'm still tired after sitting in front of the computer for ten hours straight."

Not for the first time she wished that her fellow Angels could learn how to hack and decrypt but both Sakura and Meiling were hopeless at computers. Beyond knowing how to turn it on, they were clueless. Tomoyo hid a smile thinking back to the last time Meiling had tried to use the computer.

It had taken her a month to get back everything Meiling had erased by accident.

"Either way I'm glad we're going to Paris," Sakura told them, "It would be fun."

Meiling glared at her.

"We'll be there on a mission not to sight-see."

Sakura opened her mouth to retort Meiling as the whole café went silent.

"What the?" Meiling, who had her back to the front door, turned around.

"BANG!"

The nervous looking (but well dressed) man that Tomoyo had spotted by the door earlier had pulled out a gun, hence the silence, and had now pulled the trigger.

And of course the barrel was aimed straight at the three Angels.

Years of training kicked in as Meiling leapt from her chair hit the ground and rolled. Sakura and Tomoyo both leaned back casually as the bullet shot past and shattered a picture frame hanging on the wall.

All three Angels moved into action.

"I'm hungry and I don't like getting shot at before I eat!" Sakura growled.

She leapt up and skilfully kicked her chair up into the air. Grasping it with both hands, she hurled the chair at their attacker.

Their attacker shot at the incoming chair in desperation but the bullets missed it completely. The metal chair smacked into his chest and sent him stumbling backwards.

"Ooooo... sharp," Meiling picked up on the knives from their table and inspected it closely before hurling it at their attacker.

He somehow managed to dodge it as the knife spun through the air and hit the wall.

"Get the gun off him!" Tomoyo yelled.

"Will do!"

The rest of the café was now starting to panic as Sakura leapt up onto their table and leapt off performing a quick serious of flips towards their attacker. In mid-flip, she tucked herself into a ball before straightening out kicking the man heavily in the chest.

The gun flew from his grip as Sakura grabbed it and hurled it back at Tomoyo who caught it and dumped it onto the ground.

The man crashed through the front door thanks to Sakura's kick and picked himself up unsteadily. His eyes widened in shock seeing the three Angels charging towards him, he let out a curse and sprinted down the street.

"After him!" Meiling roared.

Tomoyo yanked a handful of notes from her pocket and jammed it down onto their table.

"Sorry about the damage," she told a stunned waiter as she ran past him and out of the door.

Meiling spotted the man running down the straight as he ploughed his way through the busy street.

"Sorry!" Sakura cried as she pushed a man aside, "Excuse me. Sorry."

Meiling didn't even bother as anybody who got in her way was sent crashing down onto the pavement.

"Watch it!"

"That hurt!"

"Young people these days..."

Curses and protests were hurled at Meiling but she ignored it as Tomoyo followed her.

"You know I forgot how fast Sakura actually is," Meiling muttered to Tomoyo.

Tomoyo nodded spotting Sakura who was about ten metres in front of them. She was closing in on the man who was throwing terrified glances back at the auburn haired Angel.

Meiling and Tomoyo put on extra spurts of speed as they rushed to catch up with their friend.

"GOT YA!" Sakura crowed as she grabbed the man's shoulder and yanked him to her.

Several people turned to stare at the girl as they walked past; by now she was holding the man by the tie and shaking him like a dirty rag.

"Who are you?" Sakura dragged the man close to her and whispered into his ear, "Why did you want to kill us?"

"I can't... they'll... they'll... they'll... kill me!"

Meiling and Tomoyo appeared beside Sakura flanking their partner.

"Listen, I'll kill you if you don't tell us," Meiling cracked her knuckles to emphasis her point.

"Spinnel..." the man began looking around with a terrified look in his eyes, "I'm as good as dead."

From the corner of Tomoyo's eye she caught something gold flying towards them and before anybody could react she grabbed her friends and yanked them down onto the pavement.

"Tomoyo!" Sakura scowled angrily.

The Japanese computer genius merely pointed at the man's neck in silent shock, sticking out from his neck was a golden dart gleaming in the sunlight. The man gave a choked scream and clutched his neck trying to pull the dart out. He collapsed to the ground convulsing madly and looked up at the girls as if pleading for them to help him.

Two seconds ticked past and man gave a last twitch before his body went limp.

"Somebody was watching us," Meiling growled.

The girls looked around.

"There," Tomoyo whispered.

A red car with tinted windows and no numberplate cruised past them as Meiling growled and prepared to race after it.

"Don't!" Sakura gripped Meiling's shoulder feeling the tension there, "They'll just run you over or shoot you with another dart."

"Holy cow!"

"What happened?"

A crowd was gathering around the girls by now. They looked at each other and nodded.

"Call an ambulance!" a man cried.

Meiling, Tomoyo and Sakura drifted into the crowd and lost themselves amongst the milling people.

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"It seems Spinnel Corporation is retaliating against your raid on them," Syaoran said worry evident in his voice.

"But how did they find out what we look like?" Meiling demanded, "Sakura was in disguise the whole time."

Everybody fell silent as they pondered over the question. Suddenly Tomoyo realised something that made her stomach churn.

"Oh god, outside. I don't think I checked if there were cameras outside. I only disable the inner ones," she gasped feeling like an idiot for not making sure, "They probably spotted Meiling."

Sakura patted her arm reassuringly.

"Don't worry. It's not your fault."

"No, it's not," Syaoran told the upset Angel, "they would have found out eventually. Our top priority now is to decrypt that disk, Angels watch out, Spinnel Corporation would stop at nothing to get that disk back."

"Will do," Sakura told the speaker box cheerfully.

"Goodbye Angels."

"Goodbye Syaoran!"

Tomoyo stood up suddenly.

"Guess I better get to work," she muttered preparing to walk back to the computer lab.

Sakura grabbed her arm.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up over nothing."

Even Meiling joined in.

"Don't worry, we all make mistakes."

Tomoyo nodded and left them.

She sat down at her computer and glared at the screen with renewed energy. She had to decrypt it... now.

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"Thanks for flying on American Airlines," the stewardess told him cheerfully as he left the plane.

Eriol nodded curtly to her and readjusted his glasses. He studied his new surroundings and liked what he saw, so many clueless people so easy to exploit and manipulate. With a small smirk on his face he looked at the photo one more time.

Now for step one: finding his prey.

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Tomoyo continued typing away madly getting more frustrated each time she failed.

She clicked on the file again and the screen flashed and showed her a giant string of numbers, letters and symbols.

She gritted her teeth and kept trying.

She had to do this! She had to decrypt the disk or who knows what evil will occur. They needed information about their enemies and fast.

"Hang on..." Tomoyo blinked and stared at the undecipherable file, "Wait a minute..."

She quickly copied the file onto the computer's hardisk and ejected the disk. Dropping onto the table, she reached into one of the drawers and withdrew another disk. She jammed it into the drive and ran the program, which she had specially created for just this purpose.

"I'm a idiot," she smiled to herself as she quickly typed in something.

"And bingo!"

The numbers, letters and symbols faded away to reveal the now decrypted file.

Tomoyo read quickly and gasped as she stared at the diagrams before her.

"Meiling! Sakura!" she called, "Come here now!"

She stared at the decrypted file and frowned. What on earth was going on?

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The brunette haired woman stared at him. He tired to suppress a shudder as he stared into her dull, blank eyes.

He had dealt with his fair share of assassins, killers, extortionists, con artists and whatnot but this woman scared him. With her creepy empty eyes like that of a shark, she scared him right down to his soul.

"So Ms. Sasaki, will you take the job?" Lilia asked the woman.

Rika Sasaki who had been silent for the whole time, nodded.

Hayden felt a small moment of pity for the girls had who dared cross Spinnel Corporation but that moment passed quickly as he gingerly touched his chin. He was lucky his jaw was broken and damn it, his eyes were still slightly sore from that capsicum spray.

Lilia, his partner smiled at the woman and threw down a photo onto the desk between them.

"Here are their pictures. We managed to track them thanks to our outside surveillance cameras," Lilia smirked.

Honesty how stupid can you be? she thought, disabling the inner ones but not the outer cameras.

Rika looked at the pictures with her blank, empty eyes and nodded every so slightly.

"Good," Lilia closed her briefcase and locked it.

Just because Lilia and Hayden were partners didn't mean they were friends or they even trusted each other either. In fact they were enemies, Lilia had been delighted to hear that Hayden had blotched up and the disk had been stolen, now in the eyes of their boss Lilia was the better worker and that meant more power and more money.

Lilia leaned back into her chair and glanced at Hayden and couldn't help feel pride in her handling of this matter.

Hiring this mysterious Rika Sasaki to eliminate those girls had been a stroke of pure genius, Lilia smiled in satisfaction, once the girls were gone and disk back in the hands of Spinnel Corporation, her promotion to becoming an executive would be instant.

Hayden looked at his partner and knew what she was thinking. He had to thwart her plans and make her look bad. There was no way on earth he was going let her be promoted.

No chance in hell.

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Tomoyo had already e-mailed the decrypted file to Syaoran through a very secure connection. By now all the Angels were sitting on the sofa facing the speaker box ready for their next instructions.

"Angles, it seems you're going to Paris."

Sakura grinned in glee.

"However their scheduled date for their raid on the museum is not until another week. You have approximately five days to prepare."

"For what?" Sakura asked.

"The Corporation plans to steal an ancient artefact from the National Natural Museum in Paris. The museum is protected by state-of-the-art security systems and that means cameras and motion detectors at every corner. I want you girls to steal that artefact before the Corporation does, something tells me that there is something more to this."

Tomoyo nodded.

"The file came with diagrams of the room, in which the artefact is placed. It is criss-crossed with motion detectors and surveillance cameras. I could disable the cameras but I can't tamper with the detectors otherwise they would go off," she explained to her partners.

"So what? One of us has to get in there without triggering the detectors?" Meiling asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Precisely, Meiling," Syaoran told them.

Sakura whistled.

"That's gonna tough to pull off. So who's doing it?"

There was a pause.

"You are, Sakura."

"Me?" Sakura looked shocked, "Why me?"

"Simple," Syaoran explained, "Tomoyo will be too busy hacking in the computers to do it whilst Meiling is a good fighter she doesn't have the same gymnastic abilities you have. I had studied the diagrams, they require a lot of flips, rolls and graceful movements, only you can pull them off."

Sakura stood up.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's go prepare!"

Meiling and Tomoyo stood up as well.

"I'll set up one the training rooms," Tomoyo suggested, "We'll get thread and recreate the beams of the motion detectors. Sakura, you can practice there."

Sakura nodded.

"Wait, if Tomoyo is hacking and Sakura is stealing what am I doing?" Meiling asked.

"Backup in case the Corporation arrives or security guards."

"Alright," Meiling grinned devilishly relishing the thought of a good fight.

"It seems you girls are ready. Good luck, Angels and goodbye."

"Goodbye Syaoran," the girls chorused before they went to begin preparing.

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Rika Sasaki watched the building carefully. According to the Corporation people, this was where the girls lived and worked. Keeping her blank eyes trained on the door, she fitted a pair of gloves onto her hands.

These gloves were made of tough leather but that in itself was not peculiar, what really drew people's attention was the metal claws fixed onto each fingertip.

Rika felt no emotion about killing the girls; in fact she felt no emotion at all to anything. She was a human shell, a perfect killer void of conscience.

She was Rika Sasaki, the perfect assassin.

A new assassin but where is Eriol? Don't worry fans this is an E/T fic but still not sure about S/S yet. But Syaoran will appear (in person of course) in a later chapter and meets Sakura, how and where they will meet is a secret.

You know the drill, review!

Next Chapter:

As Rika makes her first attack on the girls, Eriol begins his campaign against the Angels. How will the girls ever find time to prepare themselves for the raid of Paris's Museum? Find out what happens in... Countdown 'til Paris

A/Note: Rika's (or Rita as she is known in the dub) eyes are like the ones she had when the Sword card possessed her in the show. You know the blank look on her face when she attacked Sakura?

Anyway the storyline is still in question so tell me A or B?