Disclaimer: No I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew.

Five Elements; The American Mews

Chapter 23: Wednesday; Darkness Awakened

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

There was a loud gunshot noise and the alarm clock went silent.

Mew Terra opened her eyes slowly and groaned, right before she realized that she was still transformed. ("I was that tired?") Sitting up, she wanted to know what time it was but she had just blown her clock into tiny little pieces. ("What am I going to do now? Why was I…")

Mew Aero collapsed to her knees, trying to draw in breath faster than normal. "Can…we…please…stop…looking?"

"No." Mew Terra looked out across the city from her perch on the top of one of the taller buildings downtown. "We have to find Walt. If that crazy blue-skinned monster is after him…he might be clever, but that thing was impossibly quick. He won't outsmart it, and therefore he needs our protection…"

She pressed a hand against her forehead. ("Walt…where are you?") Her ears perked up a little as her phone started to ring. Hopping out of bed, she walked downstairs and stretched out her muscles by doing a couple of leg stretches while she was going down the staircase. Then she reached the ringing machine and picked up the receiver, holding it up to her human ear. "Hello?"

"I knew you'd be home." Walt sounded shaky, but somehow he managed to keep that aura of coolness he carried like a suit of armor up while doing so. "Sorry…to have worried you."

"Worried me? You had me scared to death! Where are you?" Her fingers tightened on the phone, and it started to shudder as her super strength began to break its shell. "Walt, I'm going to…" There was a thud on the other end of the line. "What happened?"

"Nothing…just fell over is all…" Walt's voice was strangely calm, yet at the same time she could tell he was trying to mask the fact that he was in pain. "I…I need to go. Enjoy the free time you get since school is closed for the rest of the week. See you soon." Then the phone clicked off.

"Walt!" Snarling, she slammed the phone back in place and ran up to her bathroom. ("I'll hunt you down, you jerk!")

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A single purple fireball came to life within the confines of a dark room. It shuddered and then flared up for a moment to reveal a very angry face. "Those insolent little human-scum…"

A soft snickering could be heard in the background. "What's the matter, Poison? Angry because some blond-haired pretty boy made you look like a fool?"

"Silence!" The Demon Lord snarled, the sound strangely reptilian. "I normally don't like the taste of demonic flesh, but in this case I'll make an exception if you keep pushing me Rage!"

The sound of something heavy being lifted could be heard in the background. "Anytime you want to go, lizard, I'll be happy to accommodate you."

"That's enough, both of you." The sound of shoes on the ground could be heard. "I've sensed a strange and powerful surge of energy…it's strangely dark in nature."

"You wish to have it investigated?" Poison snorted. "Send Rage, so that he can avoid meeting his end at my hands."

"I'm not going on some chase around that disgusting city just to find some vague source of dark energy…"

Seraph's boots crunched right into the stone beneath them. "I did not offer you an option in the matter, now go."

Grumbling angrily, the Demon Lord's shadowed form disappeared into the shadows.

Poison sighed. "It's something powerful. I sensed it before, but I decided not to comment on it until I was sure that I wasn't just sensing some kind of fluke. What do you think it is?"

"I'm not completely sure, but the more I think about it the more I wonder just what makes this city so special. It's filled with these mysterious people who just keep showing up and causing us more and more problems…" Seraph sighed. "It's just too troublesome."

"Indeed."

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Walt placed the phone back on its receiver and started the painful hike down the street, clutching his chest as tightly as he possibly could. He was dirty, tired, hungry, and all in all didn't feel well, those somehow his hair remained in perfect condition regardless of the fact that the rest of him looked like it had been drug through a garbage dump. Yesterday, after the incident involving that monster, he had suddenly felt an almost unstoppable pain right in his chest. It refused to go away, and he had a slinking feeling he knew it was dangerous.

To his senses it felt like something was inside him, and something about it was wrong…

His first reaction had been to tell Alicia and then go to Excelsior's lab, or better yet go home and speak with Ellen. But then that feeling throbbed in strength as those thoughts went through his mind, and he responded by running. There wasn't anywhere he could go, since Ellen lived at his house for now. So he decided to do one of his famous disappearing acts, which when he was a child he had done constantly. ("The only people ever able to catch me were mom and dad. No offense Alicia, you'll never find me unless I wanted to be found.")

And so, using a piece of wood he had found in the alley he had slept in last night, Walt trudged in the general direction of his personal hide-out. It was a small apartment located downtown, and while it was still a few miles away, maybe he could hitch a ride. Walking it wouldn't have been a problem, but his chest burned like it was on fire, and at this rate he was sure he was going to pass out from all of the walking he was doing.

Twenty minutes later, he reached the other end of the city street and collapsed onto a bus bench, groaning in pain. Yet despite his actions, all of the people passing by paid him very little mind. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet and managed to turn the corner without too much pain.

Then the stick broke, as his continuing weight on it proved to be too much for the rather flimsy piece of wood. Letting out a startled grunt, Walt crashed to the ground and let out a scream of pain despite his best efforts to avoid that. The last thing he needed was people taking pity of him just because he looked like he did.

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Mew Terra downed another glass of milk, nearly slamming it down next to the nineteen other glasses near it. Apparently, because she had stayed in her Mew form for so long, she needed to consume a lot of nourishment to regain all of the energy she burned. And that meant she had to almost literally empty her kitchen of all food it had, because she didn't intend to change back into Alicia today, not until she found out where Walt was. ("The background to his phone call sounded like somewhere downtown, which means that's where I'll find him! Bruce is still in the hospital, and Caitlyn should be in school right now. Therefore, I'm going to have to find him on my own!")

She shot up out of her seat and ran to her front door, throwing her jacket on and hurling the door open. "I'm coming to find you, Walt!"

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Walt sucked in air through between his clenched teeth as he tried to rest his back against the cold stone of the apartment stoop he had stopped under. ("No matter what I do, the pain won't go away. What's the matter with me, and why won't it stop hurting?") Looking up at the sky, he tried to clear the constant blurs that crossed his eyes as memories flashed through his head of his mother's face. ("She would just tell me to stop being a whiny brat and stand up, but the problem is that I can't do that right now. It doesn't just hurt…it incapacitates.")

A strange tingle ran right up his back, and he felt like he was being watched. ("What's was that?") Somehow he managed to sit up and his eyes widened as he realized there was someone standing right next to him. "Hello?"

The person was a teenage boy about the same age as Walt was, with bright fire-red hair and blazing orange-red eyes. Over his shoulder was a giant axe with a head almost longer than he was tall. "You must be the source of the disturbance Seraph talked about. Jeez, how sad is this? I'm an errand boy to find some weakling human who might…might…have some inkling of dark power that we need." Looking down at where Walt had been, he wasn't surprised at all that the boy was gone. ("You plan on getting away?") Snickering, the Demon Lord disappeared into thin air.

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Walt climbed up the fire escape of the building as quickly as he could. His entire body still burned, but considering his life was in danger he managed to live with the pain. ("If I can make it to the roof, I can use that time to call for help.") He stopped halfway up the ladder and took out his phone with one hand. Opening it, he put in the number for Alicia's cell phone…

A flash of pain shot through his body and he nearly dropped from the ladder. Though he managed to latch onto the railings, he watched as his phone dropped twenty feet into a trash dumpster underneath him. ("Damn…") Grunting, he continued to climb anyway.

Right as he reached the top of the ladder and managed to crest over it, he felt that tingling sensation in the air once more. When he landed on the roof of the skyscraper, he wasn't surprised to see Rage standing at the other end of the roof. "You won't leave me alone huh?" Sweat dripped down his red face, showing that he was truly suffering from the pain being cause to him.

Rage tapped his foot a couple of times on the ground and then started a slow approach towards the boy. "Sorry, but I can't do that. Apparently you have some kind of special power that Seraph wants, and as such I'll have to take you with me to meet him. I hope you didn't have much to live for, because if you do have this power then we'll have to kill you to get it. And if you don't, then Seraph will probably just kill you to ease his displeasure."

"He sounds like a real top-notch employer…" Walt stumbled to his feet and tried to run towards the door that would lead into the apartment building, but his legs gave out and he collapsed face-first to the warm rooftop, eyes closed in pain. ("Well, looks like this is where it ends for me. Maybe I should just throw myself off the rooftop and make sure this guy doesn't get what he wants out of me.")

Rage reached out to grab Walt by the collar, but leap back as a huge number of bullet-holes appeared in the ground around where he had been standing. "Who's there?"

A female voice spoke out, the sound seeming to come from all around them. "Allow me to introduce myself…" From the small, almost booth-like entrance that lead into the apartment, a lithe form touched down on the ground. They were facing away from both boys.

Walt just stared at Mew Terra, a huge sweat-drop hanging from the side of his head. ("What is she doing?")

"I am the trickster of the sands…" Mew Terra turned on one heel, twirling both of her revolvers by the trigger-guards around her index fingers. "When evil threatens the things I care about, I draw my guns…" A small wind blew her hat up a little bit, just enough so that she could look Rage right in the eyes. "…I am Mew Terra!" Holstering both weapons at once, she braced her legs and took a stance reminiscent of an old wild west gunslinger. "Now draw!"

Walt coughed a couple of times, and then covered his mouth to conceal the fact these coughs were coming up with blood.

Rage sighed and hefted his titanic axe like it was nothing at all. "Yeah right, that's great. Anyway, let's get this started." He leapt high into the air, the axe held up above his head. "Prepare yourself!" Then he fell within range of her and the giant weapon dropped, the axe tearing right through the small structure she was on like paper.

Mew Terra flashed into existence right behind Rage in a position that showed she was in mid-movement. Her right hand revolver was aimed right at his head, and her eyes were strangely calm. "Your weapon's too slow, regardless of your strength." Then she started to pull the trigger.

Rage's moment of surprise faded and he sneered. "Really? My Apocalypse Axe isn't meant to be fast…" His lips lifted into a dark smile as a fault appeared down the center of the whole apartment building. "It's meant to destroy." Then the entire building split in half, and an upsurge of dirt and stone shot up through the starting to collapse remains that both blinded and struck Mew Terra, stopping her from pulling the trigger of her gun.

Walt held on for dear life as he watched his half of the building approach the next apartment building. ("This is going to suck…") He coughed up some more blood, but at the moment his impairing pain was the last thing on his mind.

Mew Terra threw up her arms to try and protect her face from the stinging chips of stone, and because of that she couldn't do anything to react when Rage forcefully slammed her with the side of the Apocalypse Axe's head, which sent her flying through the sky towards a much taller nearby building.

"Alicia!" Walt screamed as he watched her shooting towards a solid brick wall at the speed of one of her compressed air bullets. ("She'll be killed!") Then he realized that Rage was right in front of him.

"Come on human, take my hand or you'll die with this whole building!" The Demon Lord held out his hand, but was completely surprised when it was smacked away. ("He wants to die?") Growling, he reached out and grabbed Walt by the wrist. Both of them disappeared and then appeared a few buildings away on another roof. "You wanted to die or something?"

Walt wished he could do something, but the pain was still too much for him. He was practically disabled. ("Alicia…please be…")

Rage froze up and slowly turned his head around to look at the other end of the rooftop. "It's you?"

A cold breeze blew through the rooftop then, throwing the cape of the lone figure that stood on the edge of it into a flurry. A pair of emerald eyes locked onto Rage's own orange-red ones. The white-robed swordsman Mirage had appeared once again. And in his arms was a bright red Mew Terra, who still was too much in shock to respond to the fact she was held in the arms of the mysterious man who had saved her yesterday.

Rage spat over the side of the rooftop and got his axe ready like how a baseball player might get their bat ready. "I'll take off your head in one chop, just to prove I'm better than that weakling Poison."

Mirage gently placed Mew Terra on the ground and drew his thin scimitar. "I will not allow you demons to do what you wish, understand?" Then they were standing in the position where the other had been, both in a stance showing they had attacked. Then Mirage sheathed his sword and turned to look at Rage, who was kneeling on the ground and trying to cover the blood wound across his chest. "Surrender now, Demon."

Rage stood up and hefted his axe, ignoring the blood he was losing. "Prepare to die!" Then the shaft of his weapon fell in half, the head of his axe slamming into the rooftop and nearly going through it.

"You have already lost. You are even weaker than the other one." Mirage placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and his eyes flashed with a strange mix of emerald and bright gold light. "And this is where you end!"

Rage gulped loudly. "Screw that!" And then he disappeared into thin air, leaving the head and shaft of his weapon behind in his hurry to avoid getting cut down.

Mew Terra slowly stood up and looked right at Mirage, her face still slightly red. "Ummm….thank you for saving me. I can't believe you came out here just for…" Then she realized that Mirage wasn't even looking at her. He was looking behind him at the hacking Walt. "Huh?"

Mirage drew his sword. "May you find peace in death, dark being." Then the blade started to drop towards the boy's head.

To be continued…

And so the mysterious Mirage has appeared once more. Though his objectives seem different this time…why is he trying to kill Walt?