Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Night ❯ Shield & Sword ( Chapter 4 )

Author Notes:

I am very sorry this took so long to get out. Finals came up and then my grandfather dies. After that, I got the dreaded case of writers block…*sigh* But hopefully I will be once more on schedule. BTW, I love getting reviews…Thank you! Just to let you know, Faye is suppose to be Rei and Sahara is Minako. Also, I hope no one is offended by Darien's little "bathroom" scene… Also, there is two obscenities. For those who are offended by them, gomen ne. I understand, I would never actually say it out loud myself, but some of the characters in this fic are going to swear.

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Children of the Night

Chapter 4- Shield & Sword

By: Hime

hime@alloymail.com

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"To serve & protect."

-Police Officer Motto

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"Have fun on your date?" A snide voice called out from the darkness of the living room.

Darien Mamoru Shields stubbed his toe in surprise. Hopping on one foot, he fumbled for the light switch on the lamp. "Don't do that." He scolded the brunette sitting on the couch, sharpening her silver knife. She was always sharpening her knives; a high silver content caused them to dull quickly.

The girl's green eye's glanced up slyly at him, her hand stilling on the blade. "You came home pretty early…"

"You came home pretty early." He mumbled snidely under his breath. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did have a fun time. In fact we're planning on going out again tomorrow."

At that, the girl lost her smile. "We are here on a mission, not so you can make out with some local girl. You don't have time to have fun. We have to find her."

"I know how important this mission is-"

"Do you? Do you really? You only just started to help us out. You don't know anything." A second girl walked out from the

shadow-filled hallway. Her short blue hair was tousled from her hands constantly running through it. "You're family is still alive-they weren't torn apart by werewolves or eaten by vampire's." Her silver cross glittered in the light. Her eyes were hard blue coins that showed no feelings, no emotions, except a cold fury. "We are here to stop him, not for you to find yourself a girlfriend."

Darien stood straight, looking at both girls, unflinching. "No, my family is still alive. But I was raised, knowing that I had a mission to help stop the evil that would eat us whole." Darien almost winced as he realized how corny that sounded but caught himself in time and plunged on with his impromptu speech. "Since I have known you two, I've never shirked my duties. I've always been there and I've saved your life once or twice now. Do not treat me like an idiot or a fool." With that, he turned and walked to his room, aware of their eyes on his back. Without turning back, he said, "Don't you dare throw that knife at me or you'll get it back in a way you won't like." The brunette sank back down onto the couch and began to sharpen her blade once more as if she hadn't been about to do anything wrong.

As Darien shut his room door, he mentally slapped himself. What the hell was he doing with these two bitter, young women? But he knew that answer. Darien unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it over the one chair in his room. He sat on his bed, unlaced his shoes and pushed them off his feet. Still in his pants, he slid down on his mattress, arms cushioning his head and stared at the picture of his parents sitting on his nightstand. His mother was short compared to his father. His father was dressed in his Navy uniform, looking crisp and neat. Based in Japan, Lieutenant Daniel Shields met Hikari Tenshiro at her father's Shinto shrine. Almost immediately, they fell in love and when it was time for Lieutenant Shields to leave, he was taking with him his new bride.

When Darien first started to see "ghosts" at the age of 6, Hikari listened to him and believed what he was telling her. Her upbringing allowed her an open mind. She actually knew what he had-an inherited "gift" passed down from her side of the family. She knew then that her son had to be schooled this power or who knew what would happen. She managed to always find a spiritual teacher wherever they went. A shaman here, an actual Shinto priest there. He even once studied with a witch doctor in New Orleans. His father didn't know of course-he was unnerved by talk of spirits and magic. Thinking of his father, Darien sighed. His father didn't approve of his 26-year-old son traveling around the country with two girls. Every time they talked, Darien's father always asked when he was going to finish medical school. How could Darien tell his father that stopping rogue vampires and were-creatures were more important than becoming a doctor at the moment. He would never understand. 'Then again he doesn't know, does he?' a voice whispered in his head.

A year before, Darien had just finished his second year of med school. He had been with his friends the entire night, getting drunk off their asses. This was the first time he had ever went binging like that, but he figured he deserved it after putting up with five years of no fun. Who would know that by once chance meeting, he would be here today in New York with these people?

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It wasn't the feeling of nausea that got to Darien-it was the constant urge to pee.

"Dammit." Darien mumbled under his breathe as he got up for what seemed like the 100th time that night to make his way to the men's lavatory.

"Home, Sweet Home." He said, opening the door of the bathroom and doffing his imaginary hat. He looked up to see two men standing in front of the urinals, politely clapping. "Dammit," he muttered again and turned away. Walking back to the front of the bar, he passed his friends who were still drinking and laughing loudly. "How come no one else has to pee?" he all but whined as he made his way to the front door. Next to the bar was a convenient alley and Darien was so drunk and in need of taking a leak badly enough to get over his fears of such laws as "Indecent Exposure" and "Petty Vandalism".

The air was cold and brisk on his face, clearing his system of his alcohol-induced fog. He had left his jacket inside the bar and he wondered if it would be too "girly" to hug his arms to his chest for warmth. "Should I go back in…?" he mumbled to himself as stood right outside the door, shivering slightly in the cold air. But the pressure was too much so he turned into the alley and walked into a shadow-filled corner. Looking around for anything suspicious, he relaxed his guard a bit when he didn't see anything. Unzipping his jeans, he then pulled out little Darien and gave a sigh as he unloaded. He was about to zip up his pants once more when a large blur flew into the alleyway. Stunned, Darien stood there, rooted as the blur landed, showing it to be the largest wolf he had ever seen outside a Zoo. The wolf righted itself and snarled. It never looked toward Darien once, and he was very glad for this.

"Poor little wolfie. Did I hurt you? Good." A girl-no a young woman stepped into the alleyway, her eyes glancing briefly at Darien before locking onto her target. Her hair was…black? It was too dark to make out properly, but it was held back from her face, imprisoned in a tight braid. Silver crosses studded her ears; the only jewelry she wore. Her black clothing fit well, tailored to her tall, structured frame.

"Bitch."

Darien looked at the wolf in shock. It sounded like it had actually spoken. But the woman wasn't frightened or surprised. She looked amused.

"A bitch? I don't think so. I'm not a female dog you can fuck with." She sneered, bearing her fangs at the wolf who was doing the same.

With a snarl, the wolf leapt toward her, going for the throat. Darien gasped at how fast the creature moved, powerful muscles lifting it into the air, toward her. She stood there, as if frozen, just like Darien was; helpless to protect herself, to runaway. Then suddenly she was not. Not frozen that is. At the last possible moment, when the jaws of the beast were inches away from her face, her hand slashed before her, the silver glinted in the shadowed alleyway before being stained by a flow of blood. By letting the wolf go after her throat, the wolf's own throat became vulnerable to her fang. Even wounded, the animal was graceful. The same moment it's throat was slashed, it turned a somersault, using its hind legs to kick off of her chest so it could get away. The woman in black fell against the wall. I saw her wince at the impact, but when she looked at her fallen prey, only a smile was on her face. She flicked the blood off her blade and walked toward the huddled wolf.

"You won't ever kill another human being again. I'll skin you, make you into a rug, something I can wipe my feet when I get home." Again, she said this with a sneer. The wolf was silent. Probably dead. She had slashed its throat; nothing could survive that. But still she approached with caution, wary of the broken creature in front of her. She reached out to it, knife first.

Darien never saw it coming. As he watched the knife clatter to the floor, he wondered if the girl had time to regret losing her knife before the big wolf jumped her. As the two rolled over and over, Darien raced for the knife. His hand on the hilt he turned around and saw the two were still. The wolf shuddered once and then fell over to its left, another blade sticking out from its chest. Panting, the sound of her harsh gasping of air was the only thing that broke the silence. Then she rolled onto her knee by the wolf and pulled her knife from its body. She spat on the dead wolf and then said in a low murmur, "For a creature with fangs, you forgot easily that there are always two of them." She wiped the bloody knife on its pelt, and stood up, slowly, as if she wasn't sure she could and then with more confidence as her knees took her weight. She finally turned to look at him again, a half smile on her face as she flipped her knife up into the air to catch it one handed. But Darien's attention wasn't on the girl and her amazing flipping knife. It was on the corpse of the man who had just been a wolf. Darien normally didn't swear, he was brought up to well mannered to do so, but he decided to make an exception that night,

"What the fuck just happened here?"

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Author's Notes: I was actually going to make this longer but since I know there were some of you out there who really wanted me to give you another chapter, I decided to cut it short. Sorry, I had to cut out what Darien's powers truly are, but that's okay as it adds a bit more mystery to the fic, ne? Hope you enjoyed & please remember to review!

Hime