-1Slowly and carefully, with his eyes never leaving Dorothy, Trowa set his short sword, bow, and quiver of arrows on the ground. Rising from his crouch, he pulled himself to his full height, glaring at the elf.
"You too," Dorothy instructed, waving her rapier at Quatre. Quatre obeyed immediately, and Trowa nearly cringed as he heard the blonde's scimitars hit the ground. Motioning to the Chinese girl, Dorothy grinned.
"Tie them up," she ordered, her smile wicked. The pigtailed girl spun around, glaring at her.
"I am not your servant! If you want them tied up, do it yourself!" She exclaimed, and Trowa heard a soft giggle from Quatre. The sound was light and airy, completely the opposite of their situation. A small smile graced his features at the sound, though he had no idea why.
Unfortunately, for the two of them, Dorothy heard it as well. Narrowing her eyes at Quatre, she smirked at him.
"Sufras!" Dorothy yelled, and Trowa's eyes widened in shock.
While he should've expected something like that from Dorothy, it was still against the law to use magic to harm another being. All elves learned these spells, but unless an elf was in danger, they were never used.
Staring at the blonde laying on the ground, jerking in pain, Trowa narrowed his eyes. His screams echoed through the forest, burning Trowa ears. Birds flew from their nests, attempting in vain to escape the sounds of another creature in pain. Quatre had no idea how to use his magic, and he had already discarded his weapons.
"Cállate!" Dorothy shouted, her hands covering her ears, and Quatre quieted immediately, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Trowa sincerely hoped that he had only bitten his tongue.
Did she torture Catherine like this as well? Trowa wondered to himself. If Dorothy did, Trowa would kill her.
Trowa called mentally for Middie, watching as Quatre let out a weak, strangled gasp before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Shivers wracked his body, the whites of his eyes gleaming against his red, feverish, skin. His hair fell around him, the clean strands dirtied by dirt, leaves, and sticks.
Trowa averted his gaze from the blonde by another teen walking into their small clearing. He was bloody, stumbling along. He was also Chinese, and he seemed to know the pigtailed girl.
"Meiran! What are you doing here! This isn't a woman's job!" The boy's face was red from rage, and he was dragging himself along, a hand clutching his upper left arm.
Meiran smirked. "I do believe I did better than you, husband dearest. After all, I have my hostages, and you do not. Where is your pride?"
Trowa watched his enemies carefully. Their mutual dislike for each other could be useful to his escape plan. Suddenly, Wufei turned towards him, and held out his hand.
A shimmering white palm glared at him with an angry gleam.
"Despierta!" He yelled, and Trowa didn't even have time to launch a counter spell. The last thing he thought before he fell into a deep, magic induced sleep was:
He's a rider!
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Heero sniffed the air, picking up the strong scent of a human in the forest. His mind recognized it almost instantly as Quatre, the blonde who was part of Duo's traveling group. Taking off at a sprint in that direction, he watched from the corner of his eyes as Duo followed him.
Heero smirked. For a human, running at the speed Duo was traveling at was unheard of, and Heero wondered if it was a side effect of him being a rider, or experiences that allowed him his agility.
Heero half hoped it was because of him being a rider; he did not want to think that Duo had ever been made to run from anyone.
Bursting into a clearing, he nearly tripped over a set of scimitars that were scattered across the ground.
"Hielo," a voice spoke, oddly calm for launching an attack. It was feminine, cold, and laced with pride and just a hint of arrogance. It reminded Heero of Wufei.
Meiran, we meet again.
Heero leapt out of the way, just as ice materialized where he had been standing. Reaching into the familiar part of his mind where he kept his magic, he readied it for use. "Fuego!" Heero shouted, destroying the ice barrier that had formed when the spell activated.
The roaring fire melted her barrier, and she shrieked in pain as a small waterfall rained down upon her. Being half fire spirit, she was nearly as susceptible to water attacks as he was.
"Damn you Heero!" She screamed, drawing heat from the air to dry her soaking clothing and hair.
Using her hair as a sling, she flung water at Heero, glaring as he flipped out of the way into a near tree. His breath rose into steam, and Heero shivered at the Meiran induced cold.
Without heat, he couldn't use any of his magic. He could draw more heat from the air, but the frigid temperatures would kill Meiran and Duo, as well as himself. Since Meiran was half elf, she had no such barriers.
"Pare!" She screamed, and Heero froze, all movement zapped from his body. He couldn't even pull his face into its signature glare.
"Agua," she muttered, grinning victoriously at Heero.
"Watch out!" A voice hoarse voice warned, pushing Heero to the ground and out of the way of the huge flow of water that might have killed him. A few droplets hit him, but they could not harm anyone as strong as him.
Meiran smirked, taking off into the forest. Heero tried to follow her, but the spell bound him, leaving him temporarily unable to move. Duo's hand was cold against Heero's bare leg, far too cold. He could hear the shiver wracking the boy's body, proof of the blow that he had taken to save Heero's life once again.
Stupid boy, Heero thought, waiting for the effects of Meiran's spell to vanish.
I am supposed to be the one saving his life.
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When Quatre awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he couldn't move his arms. The second sensation that his tired mind registered was pain. There was unbearable pain on every inch of his body. It felt as if stabbing knives had pulverized his legs and arms, and his torso ached as if someone had hit him repeatedly with a sledgehammer.
His mind was clear, but that only allowed him to drown in the pain inflicted to the rest of his body.
Slowly, his eyes came into the focus, adjusting to the weak firelight in the room, and he gasped at what he saw. A skeleton smiled at him from the other side of the room, a large, furry, black spider peering out at him from one eye socket, chunks of rotting flesh inhabited by bugs and a large white rat.
Quatre barfed, the remains of his last meal falling down his shirt and landing at his feet. As the rat and its family scurried towards him, eager to try the new feast, Quatre struggled against the bounds holding his arms and legs holding him in place, several inches above the ground. There were almost no chains, just shackles attached to the wall.
The majority of the weight was on his arms, and Quatre could feel the cold metal of his bonds scraping against his thin wrists.
Where am I? Quatre asked himself, eyes wide from pain and fear. A thin layer of sweat covered his body, a sickly red flush on his cheeks. His clothes clung to him, twisting with him as he frantically tried to escape.
The last thing Quatre could remember was talking with Trowa, and the sound of his heartbeat against his ears.
Where is Trowa? Quatre glanced around, finding the elf nowhere in the room. The rat finished its feast, and apparently still hungry, climbed up his leg. Through his pants, Quatre could feel the rat's claws digging into his shins, and his breath caught in his throat.
Struggling, he attempted to shake the rat off his shin, but it clung onto his pants, continually climbing. Its beady red eyes glinted in the near darkness, almost glowing, and Quatre renewed his struggles, ignoring the pain in his wrists as the shackles chafed his wrists, or the pain running through his body from his continued movement.
Tears of agony threatened to spill from Quatre's eyes, but he held them in, looking up to see if there was any way to escape from them.
Short of chopping off his hands, there wasn't.
He would not cry. Tears were for people who had given up on life. He had cried before, but then he had met Duo and Solo and Iria and Trowa and Middie.
I will escape. I cannot allow myself to forget that. I refuse to be trapped!
As if in response to his internal determination, a part of Quatre's mind seemed to dissolve, allowing his magic to flow through him, empowering him.
"Agua!" Quatre screamed, and water flowed over his body. The rat desperately tried to cling on, but it slammed into the ground. It landed on the stone floor, and Quatre heard a sickening crack as its neck broke. Its family scurried away, Quatre vomit washed clean from the floor.
A sudden feeling of weariness fell upon Quatre, intensified by the pain in his body. Quatre ignored it, glaring at the skeleton across from him, slowly rotting.
"A…" His voice was weak. The flow of magic through his body was still noticeable, though nowhere near as powerful it was a few seconds ago.
"Abra!" Though it was meant as an exclamation, it came out as a hoarse whisper. Quatre was unsure of where the word came from, because he was sure he had never heard it before, but as the weight on his wrists and legs disappeared, and Quatre landed on two unsteady feet, he realized he didn't care.
The chained entrance to his cage creaked open, and Quatre stumbled towards it, leaning against the iron bars for support.
Walking out, he closed the door as quietly as possible. Then he heard footsteps.
Someone must have heard me!
Hiding in a shadowed outcropping created by a disturbing statue of a vampire with its fangs latched onto an innocent woman's neck, Quatre held his breath, waiting for whomever it was to pass.
The seconds stretched into hours as each tap of the man's foot against the cement echoed in his ears. His heart pounded so loudly in his chest that Quatre was sure the man would hear it. Each breath, though stifled by his hand, seemed as loud as a scream to him. His world momentarily turned sideways, but Quatre refused to allow himself to pass out.
The man came into view, and Quatre struggled in vain to become one with the wall. The man was tall, with broad shoulders. He was wearing all black, and his short red hair revealed a cultured, aristocratic features.
The man paused, right by Quatre, and the blonde held his breath. He sniffed the air, and turned towards Quatre. Quatre's eyes widened as the man smiled at him, revealing sharp, vampire teeth.
"Hello, Quatre."
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Duo picked himself up off of Heero, stumbling backwards, shivering. Slowly, Heero picked himself up, slowly wiping dirt off of himself.
Why did I do that? Duo asked, wrapping himself with his arms. His braid was limp and dripping, and the cold air didn't help.
Watching as Heero plucked a leaf from his hopelessly messed hair, he stumbled backwards, confused at a sudden onslaught of emotions far too familiar. They were emotions he had only felt around Hilde.
Duo yelped as he tumbled to the ground, a gash in his ankle. Cringing, Duo looked at what had caused him to fall. A pair of gleaming silver scimitars, curved into an 's' caught his eyes. They were Quatre's blades.
Shivering and transfixed on the scimitars, Duo didn't notice as Heero examined his ankle. He barely felt a blanket of warmth cover him as Heero started a fire with two sticks; using the warmth it generated to dry him. He barely noticed the cool, tingling feeling in his ankle as Heero healed it.
All he could see were those scimitars. Had they taken Quatre? Was… Was Quatre dead?
The image of Hilde, dead in his arms, superimposed itself over the scimitars. Duo didn't notice anything, not even the single tear that spilled from his eye.
He did notice, however, the large red eyes of Solo. "Solo," he gasped, tumbling into a clumsy embrace with his dragon's neck.
'It's OK Duo,' the dragon told him in a soothing mental voice.
'They're not dead, Duo, they've just been captured.' Duo felt a wave of relief spill over him at that fact, and an even bigger one as a small dragon licked his face.
"Iria!" He started, hugging the dragon as it clung to him. If Iria was okay, than he was sure, no, positive, that Quatre was fine.
'Quatre, Trowa, and Middie have been taken to a small castle west of here,' Solo informed them.
"Then we have to go save them!" Duo balled his left hand into a fist, punching the air with it.
Suddenly, a hand on his shoulder stopped him. "The two of us alone, untrained, will have no hope of going there and surviving."
Not questioning how Heero knew what he was planning, Duo pulled away from him. "What are you talking about? It's not just us! We have Solo here, if you haven't noticed! I doubt they have any dragons!"
"Wufei is a rider," Heero stated, deadly calm. "Besides that, he has far more training than you, and every single creature we will encounter in that castle will be as strong, if not stronger than me."
Duo paused, a sense of dread filling him, replacing the relief that had inhabited his heart seconds ago.
"We can't just abandon them!" Duo shouted, smacking Heero's hand away.
"And you won't have to," a familiar voice told him. Duo turned his head, instantly recognizing the redheaded Sally. The cat that Duo had seen her with before leapt from her shoulder, transforming into a woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Meet Relena Peacecraft, the last of the Peacecraft family."
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Quatre burst into movement. Pushing the man with all the strength that remained in his pained and weakened body, Quatre sprinted past him. The room spun in front of his eyes, and before he knew what was happening, the world had twisted sideways.
Coming to his senses, Quatre rolled as he hit the stone floor. An ache ricocheted through his right shoulder, but it was better than his head. Pushing himself off the ground with bleeding hands, Quatre made it three steps before the man pulled him into a deadly embrace.
Arms clamped around his mid section, pinning his arms to his side. Hot breath tickled his neck while sharp fangs teased his veins. Quatre froze, not listening to the part of him that said to struggle. If he moved even a hair's width in the wrong direction, those fangs would puncture his neck, and he would either die of end up like the one who bit him.
Neither option appealed to Quatre. An arm grabbed his, lifting it to his neck. He felt something hot and wet lick his chaffed wrist, and he suddenly felt the need to vomit hit him as he realized that the older man was licking him.
The tongue pulled away, and that same hot breath invaded his ear.
"You have delicious blood, Mr. Winner. I only wish that I could enjoy more of it. Pare."
The man pulled away, but Quatre found that he was unable to move from his position, even to run. Is he going to kill me?
Quatre stood, his arm still raised to his throat, barely brushing it. He could still feel the dampness of his clothes as they stuck to him, and the pain all over his body, though weaker, still radiated though every muscle in his body. He just could not move.
"Do you know who I am, Quatre?" Quatre's name rolled off the stranger's tongue in a way that would have made Quatre shiver, had he any way to shiver.
"My name is Treize Khushrenada, the leader of el Talon del Diablo." Where had he heard that name before? The assassin! The assassin that had been sent to kill him worked for that group!
"You might be wondering why you're still alive, but worry not. I was curious when I discovered that there was still a Winner around. I was friends with the family before I became this." Stepping in front of Quatre, he waved to signify his obviously appearance.
"Never mind that." He stepped closer to Quatre, looking him over. "I can see and smell that you're in dire need of a bath and a fresh change of clothing." With a wave of his hand, Quatre found himself with the ability to move again. Instead of bolting as he thought he would, Quatre stood there, shivering in the hallway of the dungeons.
"Zechs, why don't you show our guest, Mr. Winner, to the bathing area." It was a demand, cleverly hidden as a request.
Out of the shadows, a tall man stepped towards him. A long mane of hair flowed down his back, but a huge metallic mask covered his face. The only feature that Quatre could make out were sharp blue eyes and pointed ears.
"Come with me," the man commanded, his voice flat. Treize smiled, and vanished into the shadows.
Quatre followed the man obediently through the dungeon, his gaze on the walls, searching for a way escape.
"If you attempt another poorly planned excuse, believe me when I tell you I will make it impossible for you to ever walk out of this building." The threat was delivered with an air of deadly calm surrounding it. Quatre knew without question that Zechs was serious.
"Do you know where Trowa is?" Quatre asked, worried for his friend.
"Your friend is fine. You should learn that in this place, the only person you worry for is yourself."
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Trowa awoke with a yawn, stretching. Catherine? Where is Catherine?
Trowa gazed around the room he was in, sighing in relief when he saw Catherine in the chair by his bed.
"Hello sleepyhead," she told him, her face lined with stress. Trowa looked around the room, noting that he was lying on a hard bad. The room was small, with no furniture and two doors. One led to the outside, the other probably led to a closet.
"Are you OK?" Trowa asked her. Catherine glared at him.
"I'm doing just fine, you idiot! I cannot believe you surrendered for me! Didn't those five numbskull elders teach you anything? You're a rider, which makes you more important than my safety! Why did you surrender?"
She poked him to emphasis each word, and Trowa was sure there was going to be a bruise there in the morning. Trowa hung his head, ashamed.
"You better be ashamed. This would have never happened if you hadn't left the village in the first place. You should really leave the fighting to someone else! I don't want to lose my baby brother."
"I'm sorry Catherine," he muttered, refusing to look her in the eyes.
"You better be!" She yelled, and Trowa felt lucky that she didn't have her throwing knives with her. Elves may be able to heal quickly, but Trowa didn't feel that confident in his natural healing abilities.
"And that other boy they got! He was just a child Trowa! He probably was a good person as well. I know I wouldn't surrender myself for a complete stranger."
Quatre!
Trowa's head filled with memories of the blonde and his cheery blue eyes. The smile that played against his gentle features…
"He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself," Trowa interrupted, frowning.
"Don't be so sure," Catherine told him. "When they brought him here, he couldn't stop jerking. The spell Dorothy put on him wasn't meant to be used against humans. They're a fragile species, Trowa, and there could be permanent damage."
Her eyes lowered, and she played with the hem of her shirt. "They took him to the dungeons Trowa. I've never seen anyone who's gone down there come back."
Why didn't they take me? Trowa wondered.
"The nasty lady, Une, sent him down there. Mr. Khushrenada was mad when he heard." Khushrenada? THE Khushrenada? It took all of his self-control to stop Trowa from allowing his eyes to widen.
A knock sounded on the door, and Meiran stepped into the room. "Mr. Khushrenada requests his presence," she explained to them.
"Where's Wufei, doesn't he usually bring the messages?" Catherine asked.
Wufei, is that the rider? Trowa wondered, looking at Meiran.
"Yes, well, he's being punished for failing his mission. The only reason he's not being treated like the other failures is because he's a big bad rider!" Trowa noticed this part was spoken vehemently.
"He wasn't supposed to be the rider. Everyone was sure it was going to be me! He's not even good at it! He hasn't even named his dragon yet!" She stopped, glaring at Trowa as if she had just realized she was there.
"I'm Nataku, and I'll take you to Treize." Trowa nodded, summoning his magic so he could use it quickly if needed. Nothing happened.
"Oh," she told him, "those golden rings on your wrist will stop you from communicating with your dragon or using magic. There's no way to escape this place, but Treize is a kind master, as long as you follow he rules, you'll be allowed to live."
If Trowa were one to show facial expressions, the one he would be using at that moment would be dubious. If this man were such a good 'master,' then why would he chain his people? The rings were on Meiran's, or Nataku's, wrists as well, and Trowa realized that they must only work in the castle.
"Just a warning, lady Une will be there as well, and she's not the nicest lady. Beware not to offend her; after all, this is her castle…" Meiran trailed off as she opened the door into a darkened space.
There, in the darkness, were three figures. The first, a red headed vampire, smiled at him, displaying deadly fangs. The second was a stern looking woman with her hair in two braided buns and circular glasses covering her eyes. The final figure, with golden band around his wrist, was clothed in a pure white outfit that mad him look simply angelic, even though Trowa knew better. Though he looked tired and a bit battered, he was definitely alive. Quatre smiled at him as he entered the room, and Trowa suddenly felt immensely relieved.
Slowly he sat down in the spare seat, and waited to see what Treize wanted.
