A/N: Chapter has been edited. Not a whole lot in the way of changes. Once more, I own nothing.
HEARTS DESIRE
Chapter Eleven: Bang
A Witch Hunter Robin Fanfic
By Yuriko Tsukino
The man was stealing her bike.
Her bike.
Her ride across town and back home.
Robin approached the thief, who was grinning stupidly to himself as he picked at the lock. He looked up as she advanced.
She stopped in front of him.
She lowered her sunglasses.
And she Glared as she had never Glared before.
And the thief made a run for it, nearly getting run over in the process.
As she peddled away, Robin ginned to herself. Spending all that time pissing Amon off was definitely worth it.
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Amon certainly didn't seem to think so however. When Robin arrived back at the house, he was waiting, throbbing vein and all, wearing the very glare she had tried so hard to imitate just a half hour before.
"Have you completely lost your mind?" he asked.
"I was wearing a disguise," Robin said, trying to defend herself.
"Sunglasses do not count as a disguise. If anything, they make you even more noticeable."
Robin was about to make a cutting retort, but caught herself. For the past week, it felt like all they had done was argue. In the morning, it was over how late she slept. At noon, it was all about her habit of sneaking out and getting out of the bloody house for a change. In the evening, it was over dinner; instant ramen vs. actual food (Robin in favor of the later, having survived on ramen for the better part of a month; Amon argued that if being hiding was supposed to be comfortable, more people would do it. Robin argued that they probably did but no one knew, as they were hiding), and at night it was over whether it was safe to leave the lights on (Amon had arranged to have electricity).
And in between, there were a hundred other little things.
We got along so well at school. What happened? Robin wondered. Instead replying to his cold tone, she dropped her grocery bag on the counter and began making dinner.
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Amon knew exactly what was wrong.
He liked her a little too much.
He wondered at first when she didn't try to defend herself further. Secretly though, he was glad. It was hard enough trying to fight the factory, without fighting Robin, too.
He took a seat in the dinning area, opening his laptop, which he had retrieved from the apartment, along with clothing and some other supplies, while Nagira was at work.
Even though the screen was open, he just couldn't get his mind to focus on the work in front of him. Instead, his eyes kept wandering to the slim figure by the stove.
She had finally gotten her normal clothes back, though at the moment she was wearing leggings and a fitted black shirt, mostly for safety sake since she had been biking.
As she stood there cooking, he felt like an old pervert with a housewife fetish. Here he was, watching a fifteen year old make dinner, and all he could think was that she looked so terribly…domestic, hardly a word he would use to describe Robin Sena, the quiet girl who sat in the back of his classroom and wrote beautiful poetry.
And he couldn't help but find something about her, about the whole situation, to be incredibly sexy.
By the time Robin was spooning dinner onto plates, he still hadn't accomplished a thing.
Except getting a really---well, that wasn't really a conversation appropriate for the dinner table.
He moved his laptop out of the way as Robin set his plate down.
Instant ramen. With pork and a salad.
When he looked up and saw her smile, he decided they needed to compromise more often.
00000
Amon pulled his shirt over his head, searching for the boxers he slept in. He knew he had left them on the lampshade, but for some reason they weren't there.
"Looking for these?"
Amon whipped around. Robin was standing by the closet door, the missing fuchsia boxers hanging from her fingertip. A smile which could only be described as "sultry" curving her lips.
"Robin, what are you doing?"
The girl sashayed up to him, stopping when they were only inches apart. "Waiting for you, what else?"
Amon was about to speak, but found himself unable to as a suddenly very nude Robin pushed him down on the bed and began to—
Amon sat straight up in bed, sweat pouring down his face. A cold shower was in order; yes, it was quite necessary.
But at least it had been a highly unrealistic dream. He always folded his boxers neatly and left them under his pillow, though he probably wouldn't do that with this pair.
And they weren't fuchsia, obviously.
They were magenta.
00000
Amon came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry and wearing a fresh pair of boxers (black this time).
As he passed the blonde couch, he—
Couches don't come in blonde.
Turning, Amon spied Robin, sitting quietly, sipping tea and reading. She glanced up at the same time he turned around, and their eyes met.
Amon raised his eyebrow in question.
Robin replied with the same gesture.
Right…I'd have to explain why I had the sudden urge for a shower at 2:30 in the morning. He decided it was best to just let the subject drop.
Robin (mercifully dressed in a black tee shirt) continued to watch him for a moment, the closed her book, setting it on the coffee table. She stood, taking her tea and going back in the direction of her room.
"Did I wake you?" Amon felt the words slip out of his mouth before he could stop them. His voice seemed unnaturally loud in the silent house.
"No, I was up anyway."
Her voice… he thought. It was once more a whisper, soft and gentle. She was back to being the calm, quiet girl who read poetry and distracted him on his lunch hour.
His eyes trailed back to the coffee table and her book. His book, actually; it was the destroyed copy of his poetry book that she had borrowed, what felt like years ago. He noted that she had taped the pages back together.
He turned back to Robin. She was no longer walking to her room, but standing in front of him, watching him, as though waiting to see if he had anything else to say.
Hm, but he never does, Robin thought. She felt herself smile ever so slightly. Neither of us does. That's probably why we argue over nothing; we can't find a way to say the important things. But that needs to change.
Robin set her cup of tea on the counter, drawing up her courage. She took a step closer to Amon.
His eyes narrowed, but it wasn't really a glare, just his habitual expression, one of thought. He's curious.
Another step. The furrows of his brow went a little deeper, his perfect mouth opening ever so slightly. He's confused.
One last step, and they were only a few inches apart. Amons expression had changed yet again, just by a hair. Now his face bore the slightest hint of…fear.
"Good night," Robin said. Then, raising herself to her toes, she placed a quick, light kiss on his cheek.
When she pulled away, Amon's grey eyes were open wider than she had ever seen them. She couldn't read his expression; Amon himself didn't seem to know what he was feeling. Shock seemed to be winning though.
Robin started to turn, thinking she should probably make a quick exit and pray that in the morning he chalked it up to a very strange dream, when he grabbed her wrist and yanked her back around.
His expression was still so surprised that there wasn't room for much else, but when he pulled her close, pressing her lips with a hard, deep kiss, she decided he was definitely happy.
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Robin did not want to get out of bed.
Bed was a good place to be when one spent half the night reliving the most amazing (and, okay, in Robin's case, her first) kiss.
Absently, she rubbed the fingers of her right hand together, remembering the feel of Amons soft, damp hair wound between them. He had pulled her so close that she was almost lifted off the floor; had she been any shorter, she would have.
Robin wasn't really sure how she had expected Amon to taste, but she was sure reality was better. There was the scent of soap and shampoo, the sweet flavor of Amon, tinged with the slightest smoky taste.
And he did this really cool thing with his tongue…
Robin grinned broadly rolling over in bed. Amazing. Simply amazing.
She was very glad she had left the monastery.
00000
On the other side of the wall, Amon was thinking something very different. He hadn't been able to go back to sleep after the kiss, and had instead paced around his room before finally getting dressed (and neatly folding his boxers) and surrendering to the day.
Why did I do that? Amon asked himself, over and over. This is such a mistake. The worst part was that now he had to inform Robin of the mistake.
He really wasn't looking forward to that.
He could hear her stirring in the next room. He walked the length of his own for the thousandth time, then turned and came back to the window before repeating the process. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to find a way to word things that she could grasp, without offending her. As his fingers reached the nape of his neck, however, he paused. That spot, right there at the base of his hairline…Robin had found it without even trying. The same sensitive spot that had taken Touko weeks to find. Just the thought of the light brush of Robin's fingers over his neck was sending shivers down his spine.
Now he could hear her in the kitchen, making herself some breakfast.
He needed to do this now before he lost his nerve.
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Robin poured milk over her cereal. She was up much earlier than usual; probably because her stomach was still doing flip-flops from the night before. She was just about to take a bite when there was an urgent sounding knock on the front door.
Robin's hand froze halfway to her mouth. Amon came out of his room, glancing at her before moving cautiously to the front door. While Robin was armed only with a spoon, Amon had his pistol out and ready. And he seemed somewhat eager to blow the head off of whoever was on the other side of the door.
There weren't any windows near the door, so Amon simply ripped the door open and aimed at the head of their guest.
"AAAAH! Please don't kill me!"
"Michael!"
Leaving her cereal on the counter, Robin ran to the door, ducking under Amon's arm.
Sprawled on the front walk was a terrified looking Michael, papers strewn around him on the ground.
Robin offered him a hand and helped him gather the documents. Amon continued to stand ominously in the doorframe, though he did lower his gun.
"What are you doing here?" Robin asked.
"Well, I found your house that one day, and you never told me how I should get that information to you, and I didn't hear from you again, so I decided to check here," Michael replied nervously, eyeing Amon over Robin's shoulder.
"What information?" Amon asked.
"I asked Michael to get information on the Factory," Robin explained.
Amon silenced her with a look, and ushered them both into the house quickly. "That's not something you can talk about out in the open," Amon said, closing the door firmly behind them. "You can bet Zaizen has people watching us."
"Actually, according to what I found, that isn't really the case," Michael replied, his courage building a little—he was much more confidant with information than with guns. Especially when someone else was holding the latter.
Robin led him to the living area, and motioned for him to take a seat; she took one nearby. Amon remained standing, arms crossed over his chest. This time, he really was glaring, though Robin wasn't sure if it was intended for her or for Michael. Probably both.
Michael pulled out the sheaf of papers and a cd. "I was poking around Zaizen's computer, and I found something strange. I know it's not unusual for teachers and administrators, especially, to have access to the school network at home, but while I was searching his hard drive, I noticed that he had linked two computers to the school server, and they were in completely different locations. I double checked them with a map of the area—" he pulled out an internet map, showing the city. There was a large red star at one point on the map. "The star shows the location of one of the computers. It's in a residential area, and it corresponds with the address listed for Principal Zaizen on the district web page."
The second sheet he pulled out was a satellite image of what appeared to be trees. A building was just visible among the foliage.
"I checked to location of the second computer, and this is what it came up with. There was no address matching the location I found, so when I punched it in, all that came up was a satellite image of the road." He pointed to the building. "This building here isn't supposed to exist."
"That doesn't prove anything," Amon said, though he had his suspicions as to where this was leading.
"It does if you read between the lines. Networks can be used in many ways; For the school, it's mostly to get into specific accounts. Zaizen's computer, however, has access to all school accounts, plus the security cameras. Also, the link between his office computer, his home computer, and the one here is a slightly different kind of network. From what I found, both the home and office computers are specifically linked to information on this one."
"Why would that be important?"
"Well, first of all, when I checked the hard drive of the office computer, I couldn't find anything dealing with STN or the factory or any of the stuff you told me about," Michael continued. He pushed his glasses a little higher on his nose. Excitement was edging into his voice as he got to the major parts of his discovery.
"I actually came across the link to the mystery computer by accident; it had been buried in a bunch of other files, and required a complex password to access.
"That is unusual. Generally networks are intended to make accessing information easier," Amon said. His posture began to relax as he became more intent on what Michael was saying.
"Exactly what I was thinking," Michael replied. "So I hacked into that computer. I managed to download about three percent of the files on that hard drive."
"Only three percent?"
"Well, first of all, there was a lot there," Michael replied. He held out the disk. "But more than that, I got thrown out. And whoever kicked me out aimed a virus at my computer. A killer virus that would have had my hard drive literally smoking if I hadn't updated my firewalls last week."
"So he's rather aggressive about keeping that information confidential."
"To say the least. As it was, my hard drive crashed. I transferred the files I downloaded onto my laptop, and scanned them for viruses. About half of them corrupted immediately, but I managed to salvage some of them. They shouldn't do any harm to your computer, but a few of them are mostly computer-eese—all wingdings and stuff—so I don't know how much you'll be able to get out of them." He handed the disk to Amon.
"I assume you examined the files before burning them?"
Michael grinned misheiviously. "Well, yeah…I mean, going through all that trouble, crashing my computer—I'm still not sure if I'll be able to recover any of my files, by the way—I had to know what it was all about."
"Give me the Cliff's Notes version."
"I'm not one hundred percent on this, but from what I managed to piece together, the factory is the name of that building" he pointed to the satalite photo, "and it is a prison/asylum/science lab, all in one. The prisoners/patients/lab rats are called 'witches.' They are considered dangerous to society, and are arrested by members of STN-J.
"After that, things start to get weird. From what I read, it sounds like most branches of STN take their orders from something or someone named 'Solomon'. I think that those witches are usually killed, but I'm not sure.
"The odd thing is that STN-J doesn't seem to kill the witches, at least not directly. They take them to the factory, where they imprison them.
"There were some files on there that seemed to be research projects and results—genetic experiments, mostly. All of them performed on the captured witches, creating something called orbo."
"What's 'orbo?'" Robin asked.
"I don't know. That wasn't one of the things I was able to recover." Michael swallowed a lump in his throat, casting a sidelong glance at Amon. "I did find something really disturbing though," he continued. He looked over at Robin. "The school…It seems to be an extension of the factory and STN-J. All of the teachers are listed as employees of STN-J. They run the school in order to find young witches, and eliminate them before they come into their 'craft;' whatever it is that makes them so dangerous that they have to be hunted like animals and arrested." Another glance at Amon, who was down giving Michael a look that could easily kill.
He turned his attention back at Robin. "You can't stay here Robin," he said. "Not with him. He's supposed to either kill you or turn you into a bad science experiment."
There was a clicking noise from Amon's direction, the sound of a gun being leveled and cocked.
"Robin, please, you have to get out of here! I put it all together—the weird stuff at school, they way you disappeared, everything! If you don't get out of here he's going to kill you—"
"Amon! No!"
BANG!
A/N: Yes, I am horribly evil.
I hope you all liked this one. The first six pages or so were written in one shot around 4:30 in the morning.
Oh and um, the next chapter is started. But you're going to have to wait, because I'm sadistic like that. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bloopers and typos for this chapter:
"He moved his laptop out of the way as Robin set his plate down.
Instant Robin. He decided they should compromise more often." (That made me giggle. Just add water! The question is, what is she wearing? Sorry; I have a very dirty mind when I'm short on sleep.)
"The quiet girl who sat in his room, reading poetry…" (I decided it would be a good idea to specify classroom, in this case, just because of his train of thought…)
And yes, I laughed my $$ off while writing Amon's dream sequence.
