Of Gangs and Groceries
Gwydion and T4

Chapter 13

Dragon came to a full and complete stop across the street from his warehouse. Even from there, he could see men swarming the place.

"Hitomi isn't in there, is she?" Allen asked, concerned while taking his seatbelt off and grabbing his keys from Dragon.

The gang leader’s eyes narrowed as he watched his warehouse teeming with Slayers. Without answering, he threw open the car door, jumped out, and slammed it behind him.

"Be careful!" cried the concerned blonde, eyeing his driver's side door. "But seriously, she can't be in there, right?"

"And if she was?"

Allen looked at him. He could tell that the gang leader thought that Hitomi was indeed inside. His stomach jumped up into his throat, but before his emotions were allowed to run wild, his logic (if that's what you can call it) started working. "Then we have to get her out safely. What should we do?" he asked the more experienced (in this department, at least) man.

Turning to look at Allen, he answered, "My gang comes first. I'm going to help them. I would suggest that if you want to see your precious Hitomi again, you go in and get her. But after that, you'd better beat it." Facing back toward the warehouse, he clenched his fists. "Dilandau is mine, got it?" he growled. Without waiting for a reply, the gang leader took off, heading for the nearest entrance.

"Oh crap!" Allen spit the words out as he glanced a worried look at the building across the street. "Well, here goes nothing." He took a deep breath and ran across the street. Remembering the fire escape and figuring it would be the easiest way in, he decided upon that as his route to... to... well, to Hitomi.

"Dragon!" cried Chid as he punched another Slayer in the face, "Where the heck were you, man!?"

The gang leader fought his way to his comrade's side, knocking out a member of the enemy on the way that had a bright green mohawk. Once they were back to back, he asked "What happened?" over his shoulder while keeping an eye out for an oncoming attacker.

"Well, I think that's pretty obvious!" shouted Chid as he punched a rather round opponant in the gut. "One minute we were all just hanging out, the next we saw the freakin' Slayers swarming the place! Where were you??"

"From the looks of it, we aren't exactly winning," replied Dragon as he blocked another punch. A cruel smirk crossed his face as he looked the enemy in the eyes. "I thought you were all better than that." He quickly punched his adversary square in the nose and watched him fall into another Slayer that was directly behind him.

"I thought you were supposed to be here when we needed you, boss," said Chid wryly.

Dragon's eyes narrowed. "Where is Dilandau?"

As Chid turned his head to motion upstairs to the gang's main room, a fist from the Slayer who had just pealed himself off the ground caught him square in the jaw, causing a bloody tooth to fly across the room. Chid followed his tooth as Dragon tripped the opponent, stepping on him as he made this way to the stairs.

On the other hand, or rather, staircase, Allen was not doing well at all. "Excuse me!" he yelled out yet again as two people seemed to be locked in a battle between two immortals that would last for all eternity. The two opposing gang members looked at him and one kicked him in the gut, causing him to fall back a couple stairs. "Hey!" Allen yelled back as soon as he was on his feet again. He pulled the one and pushed him into the other and the two fell backwards over the pathetic stair rail. Allen cringed when he heard them hit the cement. Fortunately for them he wasn't even at the second story yet. He looked up ahead of him. The fire escape was filled with fighting men. He sighed and continued his way up, excusing himself. Sometimes the fighters would be so confused that they'd just let him pass. Other times, he wasn't so lucky.

"Hey, where do you think you're going, punk?" yelled a random gang member, pierced nose and all. Allen wrinkled his own nose in disgust, wondering when the hoodlum had last brushed, but he didn't have much time to dwell on it as a fist flew straight at his face. He quickly ducked and tried to maneuver past his opponent. Of course, this only caused him to run into yet another gang member. Determined to find Hitomi, he took a deep breath and prepared himself for the inevitable.

Dragon's eyes scanned the second floor room as he ducked away from yet another attack. Where was Dilandau? Surely he wouldn't be in the midst of the brawl, would he? Sure, he liked a good fight as much as the next gang member, but he'd always gotten the feeling that ol' Dilly got a sick pleasure simply from watching. He'd probably be standing out of the way, perhaps against a wall...

"There you are," muttered the gang leader as he knocked another Slayer to the floor.

Despite feeling a little worse for wear after his climb, upon seeing the other leader, he was reminded of the cause of all this. There sat Hitomi, hands tied behind her back, with Dilandau who looked a bit sulky, actually.

"You filthy, son of a..." growled Dragon as he made his way toward the back corner, dodging flying gang members as he went, "I'll teach you once and for all to never mess with me or my gang ever again."

"Why does everything revolve around this stupid warehouse?" Hitomi thought to herself bitterly as she pulled her legs closer so that the gang member Dilandau just punched would fall on the floor instead of her. She made a face of disgust and prayed that she'd make it out safely. If she did, she decided that she would have to make changes, major changes. Until she knew exactly what she had to do, she would have to take Allen up on his offer. Hitomi recognized she just couldn't keep living this way.

"Where is that bushy-haired loser?" Dilandau muttered yet again, angrily flicking his lighter on and off.

Hitomi sighed. At least as bait she was being protected more or less, and since Dragon's gang had nothing to do with her, she could just sit there.

A strand of her hair was making her nose itch. Blowing the strand out of her face, she scrunched her nose trying to make the itching stop. With her face in this weird contortion, eyes squinted, nose scrunched, she made out an all too familiar figure making his way slowly toward her. She loosed the muscles in her face as she watched him creep against the wall toward Dilandau.

"Excuse me," she called to her captor. What was she doing? What was she going to say?

He didn't hear.

"Excuse me!" Why was she bothering to help?

Hearing this time, he looked at her, clearly not in the mood for games. "What, wench?"

"Uh..." She saw the bagger in his gang paraphernalia close in on Dilandau in a few large strides. Dilandau was about to look away, annoyed, and realizing that she was losing his attention, Hitomi blurted the first thing that came to her mind. "You see, my nose itches. I was wondering if -" She didn't have a chance to finish the sentence because the gang leader had been hit square in the jaw by Dragon.

On the fire escape, Allen was still suffering. Unable to believe how long a staircase could become in such circumstances, he continued to battle his way to the second floor. Unfortunately, he had come across a Slayer and a member of White Dragon's gang, and, for some unknown reason, they had banded together against him. As much as he shouted at them that he didn't want to fight and wasn't their enemies, they wouldn't listen. "Really, guys. I don't want any trouble," he tried again. His eyes grew large as he saw the Slayer's fist come toward his face. Ducking, he kicked the other guy in the knee, easily dislocating it. So, those Anatomy classes had come in helpful after all. The maimed gang member fell down the stairs, letting Allen make it up a few more before the Slayer pulled him back down by his shirt, ripping the bottom of the back in two.

"Please let me go!" Allen pleaded as he took a kick in the back before elbowing the punk over the railing. But, after a few steps up, the gang member flipped himself back over the railing, kicking the blonde in the shoulder. Allen just couldn't seem to shake this guy, and another was coming down to help him.

"You little punk!" cried Dilandau, rubbing his chin as he tried to back away from his opponent. "He's finally here," he thought, "What the heck took him so long?" Finally over the initial shock from the hit, the angered gang leader lunged, determined to get in a few hits of his own.

"You think I'm gonna let you get away with trashin' my place and attacking my guys!?" cried Dragon between punching and dodging. He was furious. There was no way he was going to let this piece of trash get away with it. Grabbing his switchblade, he lunged at Dilandau, just barely missing his chest. But, that didn't stop him as he punched the bagger square in his jaw. Dragon grabbed the fist that just hit him and slashed at Dilandau's arm, causing a fairly deep cut.

Hitomi couldn't watch. As much as she didn't like Dilandau, seeing his intestines sprawled out on the floor was the last thing she wanted. Looking away, she saw two other gang members fighting. The one, taking a large metal pipe, threw it at the other man, hitting him in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Hitomi had an idea.

Until she remembered that her hands were still tied behind her back, that is.

"Great, now I just have to hope that someone is kind enough to untie me," she thought sarcastically.

She looked up suddenly when a cry of pain came from the direction of the two gang leaders. Dilandau had just sharply twisted one of Dragon's arms. Before he could get out of the grip, Hitomi heard a clank as his switchblade hit the floor.

The gang leader made a grab for the knife with his free hand, but before he could get to it, Dilandau had kicked it away.

"Let's make this a fair fight, shall we?" we said with a sinister grin.

Sneering up at him, Dragon twisted his arm free and threw a punch at his opponent's wide open torso. As the two continued going at it, Hitomi looked down at the switchblade which was now a foot in front of her, not believing her uncommonly good luck.

He just got to the second floor and whipped in, planning on going straight to Hitomi. Unfortunately, his plans were changed by unforeseen events. A fist flew towards his middle, and, catching him unawares, knocked the wind out of him. He looked up to see one of Dragon's gang members who had "greeted" him earlier that day by calling him an "arrogant rich boy". Still a bit annoyed at the name calling, Allen rammed into the "skinny creep" (which would have been Allen's comeback earlier, if he hadn't been too worried about Hitomi) like a 30 ton wrecking ball. At least, that was the idea. Unfortunately, the skinny creep was a fast skinny creep. Allen ran into a pole, turned, waited a second for the skinny creep to throw a punch, grabbed his fist, and yanked it around his back.

"Where's the girl?" he hissed.

Skinny creep yelped with pain, but tried to get away.

Allen pulled his arm tighter. "I said, where's the girl?"

Through clenched teeth, he replied, "By the far wall."

Allen looked to see Hitomi sitting on the ground and looking at her hands. Throwing the creep out onto the fire escape, he hurried toward her, through a handful of other, random gang members.

Dilandau grimaced. This fight was not going as he had planned. He had thought that once his opponent was rid of his wretched knife he'd win for sure! I mean, how was it possible for them to be this evenly matched? He had proven in the past that he was stronger than he looked. However, for some reason, he was having a hard time connecting his fist with Dragon's face. The fight was still not fair enough, apparently.

He smirked as the bagger lunged again, only instead of his normal attempt to block, the gang leader ducked out of the way while pulling a gun from his belt. Aiming it, he fired, grazing his opponent's left shoulder.

Dragon cursed. Of course Dilandau had a gun. Why had he been so careless? "It doesn't matter," he thought as he reached for the gun he had taken from the other man's hideout, "I'll just level the playing field a bit."

With a bang Dilandau quickly realized that he was not the only one with a gun. Of course, the bang was also accompanied by a sharp pain in his arm. Cringing, he immediately dropped his gun and grabbed his bloody wound. Dragon quickly kicked his gun away.

He smirked. "Let's keep this a fair fight," he said, pointing the gun at Dilandau's head, "shall we?"

Without warning, Dilandau fell with a clunk, blood oozing from his head.

to be continued...

A/N: Ahh, I'm sorry!! I know this chapter was a long time coming... I hope it was worth the wait. I do enjoy this chapter myself, so I hope you all do. And there wasn't too much to edit as far as Big G/Dilandau was concerned, either, which is always nice for me. I thought I'd have to do some major surgery... But we had only refered to his weight a few times, all of which were easy to fix so that he did not sound overweight, and besides that there was only the occasional word that needed to be edited. So yeah! Although, as always, certain parts aren't as funny because of it... but it just wouldn't have been Dilandau. :sigh: Whatcha gonna do? Anyway, hope you liked it! Only one chapter left!