"Alright. I want your money and no trouble. So don't try anything funny and no one'll get hurt."
The weaselly-voiced threat had a pair of blond heads, one golden and the other pure platinum, spinning to face their assailant.
He looked pretty weasel-ish too, Minako decided, her lips tightening in annoyance as the pock-marked, skinny-faced street thief in the baggy leather jacket wagged one very illegal handgun in their faces. Where he'd gotten the hard-to-find firepower was anybody's guess.
She softly clucked her tongue. It was pretty sad state of affairs when a body wasn't secure in their persons and purses from punks looking to make a quick score. Her grip involuntarily tightened on the skinny beaded strap of her stylish designer reticule. She'd be damned if she was giving up her sweet, new, took-her-whole-last-paycheck-and-still-not-yet-paid-off Fellini evening bag to some little creep who reeked of garlic, cheap booze, stale cigarettes and b.o. just because he had a gun.
She gave a quick glance from under her lashes at her companion to gauge his reaction, only to sigh disgustedly at the total lack thereof. Kunzite, recently re-christened Takeo Koichi, was, as ever, stone-faced and unreadable.
His total self-possession annoyed her even more and it showed in her baby-blues as she glowered at him. If he hadn't held her up to act as Mamoru's messenger boy, she'd be inside the nightclub having a fine time instead of standing outside it in a smelly, trash littered alley getting mugged.
"It's not my fault," Koichi calmly stated. "So don't get mad at me, Aino Minako."
"Shut up!" snapped the thief, with a quick agitated look at Koichi and an unsteady wave of his weapon in the man's general direction. "Just shut the hell up. And don't think of trying to play the hero, big boy."
A Hero?
The incongruity of that made Minako giggle suddenly, though she tried to smother the sound behind her hands. She couldn't help it, though, and the sound bubbled out. Really, it was so ludicrous. Here they were: she, a superheroine for justice, and he, arguably the strongest warrior Terra had ever produced (whether on the side of good or evil), and they were both being held up by a common punk who didn't even come up to Koichi's carved granite chin. Yet neither of them could afford to blow their covers by taking care of him. It was completely laughable.
Minako's helpless laughter worried the thief. It wasn't normal. The blonde gal ought to be worried, a bit fearful, maybe even crying in the face of his firepower. But definitely not laughing. He shot another quick look at Koichi, questioning this time.
"Yer girlfriend stupid or something?"
That stopped Minako's laughter. Affronted, her hands dropped to her hips and she scorched the skinny thief with such an indignant look that he ought to have been reduced to cinders on the spot.
"I. Am. Not. STUPID! And he's not my boyfriend either!" She'd contemplated kicking the man but instead stomped one spike-heeled, sandal-clad foot to punctuate her sentences.
The thief, his gaze drawn by her stamping, looked Minako over slowly and intently for the first time, starting from her feet, moving up her shapely bared legs and over her generous curves wrapped in a snug bluebell colored mini-dress. He paused briefly to covet the expensive gold and mandarin garnet necklace decorating her throat, which formed the symbol of her planet, but his gaze then continued upward until he reached the Goddess of Love's stunning, but undeniably petulant-looking face. He let out an involuntary appreciative wolf whistle.
Then, dumbfounded, he turned and blurted out to Koichi, "You ain't with her? What's the matter with you? Ya gay?"
Minako couldn't help the teasing little smirk that twisted her lips at that. "We-ell," she began tauntingly, "there have been rumors…"
Koichi's glacial grey eyes narrowed slightly. His voice, though, was whisper soft and intimately warm as he warned, "Don't you go there. Finish that sentence, Minya love, and I'll have to warm your behind." Then he slowly smiled.
Minako froze. The intense look in his eyes convinced her that he'd both do it AND enjoy it, while the old endearment and the unexpectedly sultry tone of his voice made Minako's breath catch in her throat. His lazy smile made her blood run alternately cold and burning hot. Flustered beyond words, she swallowed hard and veiled her look of confusion behind her lashes.
"I'm not your love," she mumbled softly, feeling her heart tug at the denial.
Perhaps he'd had too much to drink or perhaps it was the flare of wild pheromones in the air, but the smelly little man's fancy had turned from simple armed robbery to something a lot more contemptible.
"Well," he said with a leering grin that turned Minako's stomach, "if she ain't yours, then she can be mine…at least for the night. Right, sweetheart?"
A rough hand landed on her arm and Minako let out a cry of outrage, clawing at it, drawing blood. He made her flesh crawl. "How dare you? Let me go, you stinking cretin!"
"No. She can't," was Koichi's quiet response. "Ever."
Minako's assailant sneered, tightening his grip on her arm painfully to punish her for the scratches now decorating his hand.
"Well me and this gun say otherwise. So just hand over your wallet nice and slow so's I don't have to put a bullet between your eyes and then I'll take this little lady and go have a little…party."
Honey-colored hair whirled as Minako jerked, snarling at Koichi, who reached for his back pocket, "Are you just going to let this pig try and get away with this, you coward?! I knew you weren't reform…aaaah!"
A shocked scream cut off her tirade as Koichi suddenly leapt into motion. With the controlled but lethal he whipped from his pocket not a wallet, but a small telescoping baton that extended with a blindingly quick flick of his wrist, and would retract with another sharp snap. Two quick strikes would do it.
The sound of breaking bone in an alley at night is shockingly loud. As was the agonized howl of Minako's assailant, who had involuntarily dropped his weapon when his wrist and elbow were shattered by the silent silver-haired man. Koichi's booted foot was a blur as he kicked the gun away, sending it skittering across the alley.
The Venusian reacted almost as quickly, lashing out with her heel and elbow, driving the first into the man's instep and the other into his solar plexus. He buckled. She then spun, using a modified judo flip to hurl her gasping attacker face first into the side of the building. There was an ominous crunching sound, most probably from his nose breaking, a broken moan and the man slumped to the ground unconscious.
Minako spotted the gun, gleaming dully in the moonlight. She bent down and picked up the gun, holding it at arm's length in distaste using just the tips of two fingers.
"I hate guns," she sniffed primly, wrinkling up her nose.
Koichi laughed, long and low, until Minako couldn't help but smile wryly and then join in.
"So what do you think I should do with him?" Koichi finally asked, nudging the unconscious criminal experimentally with his toe. The would-be thief didn't so much as twitch.
A frankly evil smile flitted across Minako's lips. "Hold him up so I can kick him?" she suggested hopefully.
"Bloodthirsty little thing, aren't you? I do believe he's suffered enough," mused Koichi thoughtfully, contemplating the blood that had gushed from the man's battered nose and oozed sluggishly from the scrapes on his now swollen face.
Minako let out a mou of clear disagreement, pouting. "Hardly. I at least wanted to destroy the gun. I could do that you know," she said, referencing her planet's power over metal. "He wouldn't be half so tough without his fleece."
"Piece," he corrected. "And I know you can."
It was another infuriating reminder of the past and it made Minako scowl.
He held up a finger. "But I have a better idea. I'm sure he's used that weapon in other crimes. Shame not to let him pay for them."
From his jacket pocket, Koichi withdrew a pair of thin gloves, which he slid on and then a lethal looking balisong. While Minako watched, he flipped open the blade of the butterfly knife, using it to make short work of the man's leather jacket. He cut until he had sliced a more than sufficient number of leather strips to truss the swine-like man up like a pig for the roasting.
"I call that a fine night's work. We just need the cherry to go on top."
He then took a handkerchief from his pocket and the gun from Minako, wiping any possible prints of hers from the weapon before he laced it onto another thin leather thong and hung it around the thief's neck like a baby's pacifier. "And there it is."
Then he pulled out his cell phone and placed a quick anonymous call to the nearest police station. When he had done this, he turned and arched a perfect platinum eyebrow at Minako. "Shall we take our leave before the authorities arrive and we have to answer unpleasant questions?"
Minako appeared to mull the idea over, twining a long taffy colored lock of hair around and around her finger. "I don't know. I came out because I wanted a drink and some fun tonight. Now, after everything that's happened I think I really need that drink and that fun."
Koichi bowed, as if they were at a formal ball, then took her arm and led her out of the alley toward the club. "Allow me, milady."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You're either joking or drunk!" Hino Rei winced and covered the telephone's earpiece as Usagi's voice shrilled upward into super-sonic, weapons-grade levels. "You must've been mistaken!"
"Damp your gain," the quick-tempered priestess muttered into the receiver, wondering if she'd be deaf when this was all over. The short answer was, probably.
When Usagi's squeal died back, she answered, "Of course I'm not mistaken. I saw it with my own eyes. Minako and Kunzite walked into Club Shibuya Love, sat down together in one of the private booths in the back and ordered a couple of drinks. I practically fell off the barstool myself when saw them laughing and toasting something instead of her toasting his backside with one of her attacks."
"But she HATES him," Usagi insisted, trying to wrap her unwilling brain around the very concept of a laughing Kunzite who would go out clubbing. The image just wouldn't gel. "She says it all the time."
"That's true." Rei couldn't deny it.
"She won't give him so much as the time of day and she still swears she's never going to find a true love because of that stupid curse she claims Adonis put on her. And she won't voluntarily spend more than five minutes in Kunzite's presence. You know that. So you had to have been mistaken, Rei-chan."
"Uh, Usagi-chan, how many other six foot, three inch men with long platinum hair do you know who've been chasing after Minako? Seriously?" asked Rei, her tone distinctly dry. She knew who it was she'd seen.
That drew a childish giggle from the future queen. "You have a point. But if it was really them, why didn't you go find out something more for me? Now I'll just be dying of curiosity until I next see her, darn it! It'll be agony."
"Like Luna would say, it'll build your character," Rei assured her, with a snort. "Anyway, even if I'd wanted to spy more…which, for the record, I wouldn't…Jinsei came back just then because our cab had finally shown up and the meter was running and he was saying something about the cops arriving en masse…that I didn't exactly get. But anyway, I had to leave."
"Aw, fudge sauce!" grumbled Usagi, flinging herself down on the bed to kick her legs sulkily and wish she had some fudge sauce…not to mention some sweet vanilla ice cream to go with it to ease the disappointment of not being privy to Minako's secrets. The phone, however, never left her ear as she pondered aloud the delicious idea of her friend and the leader of her dearest Mamo-chan's Shitennou.
"Omigosh…I wonder if Minako-chan's changed her mind. Artemis would up and have kittens. After all, he's none too fond of the Shitennou either, especially Kunzite, and he's totally protective of Minako-chan." She groaned. "Ooooh, this is killing me. I hate secrets when I'm not in on them! I wonder what's going on."
A faint, secretive smile curved Rei's lips as she recalled the sight of the taciturn man, who'd once been their enemy and was now their ally, reaching across the tiny table top to draw her light-hearted Venusian friend into an intimate embrace. She could tell the nosy little odango that Minako's fingers tangling into his hair had convinced her that the passionate kiss that was definitely not of the one-sided variety. And Rei's affinity for all things fiery had told her even at a distance that the chemistry between the Terran and the Venusian burned white hot.
Yes, she thought, she could tell these things, but…some things witnessed were just better left unspoken.
"Usagi-chan, I really have no idea…"
