A small figure stealthily crept around a building corner and listened for any danger. It carefully looked around the street for any kind of movement.

The street was slightly wet of a recent rainfall, making everything reflect the moonlight and the few streetlights that still stood. The stores were dark and the windows were either shattered or cracked. One store had a half-eaten corpse hanging out of the front window. Cars were over-turned on the road or severely damaged by the constant rampaging of the orcs and Neos.

A wind picked up and a sudden movement caught the figure's eye. A single piece of paper rolled across the street, its rustling echoing slightly in the silence.

The small figure checked once more that it was okay to walk on the street and silently ran down alleyways and roads. After a few minutes, the pack it was wearing started to slow it down. It stopped and leaned against a building to breathe. As it did so, another figure came out of the darkness and examined it with its large blue eyes.

"Are you okay, Sam?"

"Yeah. The stuff in the pack's starting to weigh me down."

Frodo quietly took some food out of Sam's pack and put it in his own. "You never were that good of a runner.

"Come on. Just one more block."

Even though their Hobbit feet were covered by light running shoes, they were still able to walk with little or no sound. This was why it was usually the Hobbits were sent out for supplies.

They crept along the street until they came to the back door of the warehouse. Sam knocked the password and they were let in.

Inside, the industrial-strength lamps had been turned on and they sat on metal pillars placed around the huge room.

One was near a corner, where Aragorn was installing some upgrades for his car. Legolas' motorcycle reflected the bright light near the Mercedes. This was where Aragorn usually spent his free time, if he wasn't practicing.

Another one was placed near the elevator. To the right of the elevator, they created a basic kitchen. To the left were a couple of couches and a radio to keep in touch with the outside world. It was often tuned to a news station if not a music one.

Two lamps were stationed around the middle of the large warehouse, where a large rectangle was drawn out with tape. This was where most of the action took place. They often sparred in the rectangle and tried out new strategies.

The last lamp was placed near another corner with mechanical equipment cluttering the area. The group had taken some equipment and materials from a nearby welding workshop and reassembled a workstation back at the warehouse. That was where Gimli favored besides the training ground.

Luckily, the electricity was still running in the building. The lamps put out a bright, white light so they painted the windows black so they don't attract attention at night.

At that time, Gandalf was listening to the news on the radio in the rec. area. Merry and Gimli were practicing on the training ground; Merry with better skill than he had ever had before. Aragorn was tinkering with his car again and Pippin had answered the door looking like he was helping him.

"Where's Legolas?" asked Sam as he dropped his pack from his shoulder.

"He's poking around the offices upstairs again," Pippin replied. "Still exploring the old building, I guess."

"He's probably looking for the best way to fight up there if the occasion ever comes along," said Freddie. He started to unload his pack, which was filled with food. Sam also took out all the food from his own pack and started to refill the "pantry".

It had been a month and a half since the Invasion and they were closer to defeating the evilness that lurked the city than they had ever before. During that time, the young boys had to grow up very quickly. They merged their knowledge of battle with the knowledge of their city and its geography to create a very effective way of hiding from the Darkness and launching minute attacks on small groups of orcs. Because of this experience, whenever any one of them stepped outside, their nerves turned into steel and they truly transformed into their old selves when they were hunting.

They had managed to capture a single Orc alive and interrogated him in a small building across town. After their patience grew incredibly thin and they had tried various methods of persuasion, the Orc had told them valuable pieces of information.

"This little invasion that happened was only a test," the Orc had growled. "Master only wanted to see if the Vampire Parasites would be effective. Obviously, it is. Once Master has enough Parasites, he'll use them to take over this pitiful World of Men. You eight will make fine warriors when my Master finds you and makes you his personal attack force and slaves."

"Where is he? Right now?" Gimli asked impatiently. When the Orc refused to answer, he drew out his axe and threatened it. "Tell us! Or you're losing an arm."

The Orc had just laughed evilly at the threat and revealed nothing else. When Gimli came towards it with his axe, it surprised them all by breaking out of its restraints and tried to attack him. Unfortunately for the Orc, Gimli swung his axe a little too quickly for it and he took off its head.

Aragorn stopped working on his car for a moment and leaned on it, deep in thought. Orange sparks flew through the air in the corner across from him. Gimli, it seemed, was at his workplace again. He and Merry had stopped sparring.

He chuckled to himself. "At least Gimli can keep himself occupied in this dark time," he said silently to himself.

Gandalf looked over at the brooding teen and turned off the radio. With some effort, he got up from the couch and went over to him.

"Too many thoughts, Aragorn?"

He looked up at Gandalf from wiping his hands free of motor oil. "Yeah. Can't work on my car because of them."

"Thinking about what we have to do?"

He slowly shook his head. "For once, no. Thinking about something that already happened."

Gandalf looked at him with wise eyes. Aragorn could see so many ages and pieces of wisdom locked behind those eyes. He knew what he was thinking about before he said anything.

"Your family?"

"Yeah," he sighed. After a pause, he spoke up again. "They all think that we're dead and they didn't even come looking for us. I doubt they even bothered to wait for me if they were actually fast enough to avoid the Invasion. I know that Dad probably didn't even think about my survival." A bitter tone penetrated his usual calmness in his last sentence.

"I'm sure that if your parents could come looking for you, they would," Gandalf comforted.

"No," he replied icily. "I seriously doubt that mine or Legolas' parents would come back for us. Our dads have branches of their company all over the world. They would just need to relocate their head office and their new lives would start.

"That's the way it's always been!" He finally exploded and released some of his pent-up rage. "Our family has always been about him and his stupid company. It was always 'not now, Aaron, Mommy and Daddy are working on a very important deal right now,' or, 'maybe next time, Aaron. We're too busy to play with you right now.'"

He didn't realize how loud he'd gotten and everybody was looking at him with mixed emotions. Pity, sympathy, and even familiarity were mingled with shock at his sudden loss of control and sad story. He looked around and fought to hold back his tears.

"Every day, my parents would grow more and more distant from me." He couldn't seem to stop pouring out his secrets. It seemed like a dam had burst from inside of him. "Legolas and I often supported each other by ourselves. Each time we were brought together to play, we felt like it was the only human compassion we could have. We both knew we were sort of special than other kids because there was always a barrier between us and the rest of the world. That barrier was even strong enough to keep us apart from out families. So far apart that one year..."

The elevator had dinged in the middle of Aragorn's speech and Legolas had come out, dragging a couple of large, heavy crates. Everybody was listening to Aragorn to notice him and he had just caught the last part of what he was saying before he broke off.

Aragorn turned his back to the others, ashamed because he was crying. Gandalf patted his shoulder in a fatherly way.

"What happened?" Merry asked with concern.

"One year," continued Legolas. He picked up his sad story with a heavy heart. "His parents forgot him completely. It was his fifteenth birthday and he was really looking forward to it because he finally made some good friends at school; you guys. His parents had been talking about some party for a while before that and he had thought that it was for him. Turned out that the party was for some partners of the company. They forgot about his birthday completely."

"That's so sad," murmured Merry. He looked at Aragorn with renewed appreciation.

"Yeah, I know. My own parents were kind of obsessed with the company like that, too. But, every now and then, they'd at least spend some good time with me and buy me things every so often. They'd always remember my birthday, too, sometimes without my reminder." He chuckled grimly at some memories of the past.

"I knew that my parents loved me, even if it wasn't with all their hearts. Aragorn didn't. He wasn't completely sure until his birthday. At that time, he knew that they didn't. Even when they tried to buy him back with that Mercedes, he could see that they were putting up a façade to make sure their own son wouldn't mess their public image. Even I could see the coldness his parents had for him.

"It's sad, isn't it? For the past year, he's been spending more time at my house than his own."

With tears in his eyes, Frodo went across the room and hugged Aragorn from behind.

"Forget them," said Frodo from just below Aragorn's shoulder. "You have us now and you know that we'll never be able to forget you. We couldn't even if we wanted to."

Aragorn smiled weakly and hugged him back.

Seeing that he was better, Legolas decided to try to make him feel better with a friendly joke. "Aragorn, you should know by now that we can't get rid of each other, even if we tried. Trust me; I know because I've tried." He grinned to let him know he was joking.

Aragorn chuckled at his joke and made a small gesture at Legolas, which lightened the mood as much as it possibly could.

Everything started to go back to normal as Aragorn wiped away his tears and Gandalf further consoled him. Legolas set to his task of opening his locked crates, the hobbits started to cook some dinner and Gimli resumed his work in his little workshop.

After about fifteen minutes, Gimli finished his work with great pride.

"It's finally finished."

He took off all of his gear and held up his project of a whole month.

A long, tapered metal staff shimmered in his hand. He had welded Merry's sword to the end of it and, with Legolas' help, he made soft, Elvish inscriptions along the staff. He had transformed Merry's Elvish sword into an elegant Elvish scythe with some pure metals he had found around the city.

He swung it around in his hands before he presented it to Merry.

"It took a long time, Master Meriadoc, but you are now the proud owner of an improved Elvish weapon."

Merry said nothing but his glee showed through his eyes as he tested it in his hands. He stopped playing with it when he accidentally let go of the scythe and made it go flying across the room, nearly hitting Pippin and Sam in the process.

As he picked up his weapon amid laughter from most of the others, he said dryly, "I think I may need some training before I try using this outside."

Frodo then called everybody for their dinner, Legolas coming last because he was reluctant to eat. He had been attempting to unlock the crates for quite a while with no success.

After dinner, when he was trying to pick the lock with a hairpin he found upstairs, Sam came by and sat next to him.

"Why do you want to open that thing, anyway?"

"Because," Legolas answered distractedly, "I heard a metal-on-metal sound inside when I moved the crate. Thought Gimli could use it or something."

"You're so thoughtful," said Sam, grinning.

"To hell with this," he scoffed. He got up and borrowed Merry's new scythe. "Let's kill two birds with one stone and test this thing by slicing that bastard lock off. I'd move if I were you, Sam," he advised.

Sam quickly got to his feet and moved away from the crate.

After a moment of testing the scythe's weight, Legolas took the lock off with one fluid stroke. He gave back the scythe and finally opened the crate.

"Well," he said after a moment of looking at the contents of the crate. "This makes things a bit easier for us, doesn't it?"

Sam went back to Legolas' side and peered into the crate. When he saw what was in it, he understood why his was grinning.

Inside were at least a dozen or two firearms with plenty of ammunition. Most of them were hand-held pistols mostly made by Glock and Colt, but Legolas recognized a few Magnums in the crate as well.

"Dad had a catalogue in his study," he explained to the surprised faces around him. "When he wasn't home, I'd go in and sneak a look."

"Bad Legolas," Aragorn lightly reprimanded. He picked up the scythe and opened the other crate. His eyes widened at the different kinds of firearms in that crate.

Half a dozen long arms, rifles and snipers were contained inside with enough ammo to take out an army. Some of them were made by Colt, but the others were made by Thompson.

"Wow," he simply said.

"You do realize we won't be able to use these guns too often, right?" Merry said. He picked up one of the Glocks. "The noise these things make would definitely attract some attention to ourselves."

"It'll still make it easier for us to hurt the enemy from farther away," said Legolas. He was already checking out the aim on a Magnum. "Arrows can only go so far, you know."

"And, the playing field has leveled a bit now that we have these," said Gandalf as he himself picked up a handgun. "They may have more beings than us, but we have the benefit of using modern technology. With a few spells, I'm sure I can make these weapons more efficient than they already are."

"But, how do we know they work?" Pippin asked a little nervously. Obviously, the thought of using a defective gun against a group of Orcs had passed through his mind.

Legolas cocked and loaded his gun. "Hope against hope?"

"I'm sure," Gandalf said over the nervous laughter. "That the previous owners of these weapons didn't have them because they're broken."

When Pippin looked at him blankly, Gimli explained it to him.

"Think about it, Pip. This building was abandoned long before the Invasion. We're in an area of downtown where there used to be sirens going off every hour or so. Since Legolas found a couple of boxes full of illegal guns, what do you think this building was used for?"

Pippin's eyes widened when he finally understood that this building was probably used by a gang to keep its supplies.

"It also explains why one area up there smells like crack," Legolas said as he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

They all decided to put the guns back into the crates and that they'd fully examine them the next day.

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A/N: I just thought I'd throw in some more firepower for the Fellowship, seeing as how they don't exactly have a lot at the moment...