Oh too tis, sullied flesh could melt… if I owned Weiß, but alas I don't… sighs

            Schu: … what the hell is with all this dramatic talk?

            It's because Weiß isn't mine.

            Schu: … moron… it doesn't mean you have to be melodramatic about it

            … fwaps him Anyway… I don't own it… although I'm about to kick a certain character's ass...

            Schu: … Read her story and save me…

Notes: Italics, in this story represent thoughts of a certain coughs ok maybe not those types of thoughts … but thoughts nonetheless.

            "My Lord, are you alright?" Finis asked Ran as he held Omi aloft by the point of his sword.

            Ran ignored the question posed to him by his servant and trustworthy guard and watched Ken. His jaw aching painfully were the blow from his ex lover's punch had landed. That's going to leave a mark, he thought ruefully and pulled himself into a sitting position instead of the undignified one.

            "You're highness," Ledoris spoke up trying to break Ran out of his thoughts. "Do you want us to dispose of these humans for attacking your being?"

            When the young man heard those words, he looked up and blinked. "What was that you said Ledoris?"

            "Wait a minute, Ran, you know these people!?" Ken busted out. "What the hell is going on here and why the hell are you back after all this time!"

            Omi slowly began to scoot over to the older man and laid a friendly hand on his arm. He knew how hard it was for his friend to have gone two whole years without the man he loved so much. He had lived through the spouts of anger that the soccer player would get out of nowhere from the lack of communication, which brought about the feelings of abandonment. It angered the seventeen year old as well but the reasoning behind Ran leaving in the first place was strange.

            Then again the excuse Ran had given was plausible as well, but then sometimes Ran could usually pull a plausible excuse out of nowhere.

            "Ne, Ken-kun." He began to speak softly. "Why don't we just let Ran-Kun explain everything instead of questioning him?"

            "You're damn right he's going to explain." Ken exclaimed hotly. "He'll explain or I'm going to force him to… err not too violently though." He amended quickly as the point of Ledoris' blade came within eye level of the athlete.

            Ran nodded in acceptance, "I will but Kudoh should be here as well. I don't feel like explaining things more than one time. It's too much of a hassle."

            "He's upstairs asleep, Ran-kun." Omi helpfully replied. "Would you like me to go get him?"

            "Go ahead, Omi."

            Ran glanced at his two servants. They still stood combat ready only waiting for word from their lord on what to do. "Put your swords away. They aren't enemies and they don't mean to harm me." He commanded them. "At least I hope they don't." The last was said under his breath.

            After only a few moments of waiting, everyone was soon graced with the presence of Yohji, they all headed to the mission where they sat to listen to Ran's awaited story.

            "Hmmm, where to start…" Ran mused from the only recliner in the room.

            His friends sat opposite of him all lined up on the couch. His two servants sat on the floor on both sides of him, their legs crossed.

            "Why not just start at the beginning?" Yohji yawned.

            "The question of that is which one? Ok fine, I think I know where I can begin." He took a deep breath and glanced at his three friends. "As you probably have already noticed by this time, I'm not exactly a human." He reached up and lightly played with one of his elongated ears.

            "Yes, we've noticed that." Yohji said dryly. He reached over to a table that was right next to the couch and grabbed one of his cigarettes. "So what kind of alien are you?"

            "I'm not an alien either. I'm an elf."

            Yohji doubled over in a fit of coughing when he heard the younger man announced that and quickly shot a glance over at Ken and Omi.

            Omi sat in the middle of the couch. His mouth hung open in an almost perfectly formed O shape. His eyes were bugged out from the astonishment of Ran's revelation.

            Ken's reaction on the other hand was the exact opposite. Instead of being shocked by the disclosure, it served only to increase the anger and resentment he had. The ex soccer player jumped up from his seat and paced the length of the floor for what almost seemed like an eternity before stopping. He looked squarely at the man who had left him cold two years past.

            "So, what you're trying to say is, that all the time we were together, I was being fucked by someone who wasn't even a human and never once thought to tell me until now?"

            As soon as Ken said those words, it knocked the youngest boy out of his shock.

            He blushed at this and spoke up, "Ah, Ken-kun, why don't we…"

            He couldn't finish though because Yohji interrupted him.

            "That my dear Kenken was perhaps a bit too much information. We could have lived without the carnal knowledge of you two."

            "Shut up Yohji!" Ken barked. "How would you feel if you found out that the person you were sleeping with for a year or so had lied to you all this time and told you they were the same sex, or hell better yet, you found out they were a different species entirely, perhaps of the animal variety?"

            Omi glanced evilly at the smoker beside him. "Now, Ken-kun, we're not here to talk about any of Yohji's ex girlfriends." That promptly received a glare from the said playboy. "We are here, however, to listen to Ran's story, which is what he was trying to tell us."

            Ken sat back down on the couch, "Fine finish with your rundown and remember it had better be good."

            "Lets see," Ran leaned back in the recliner. "Two years ago, I didn't even know anything about myself being an elf. I had always thought I was human, the same as the rest of you. It was a little over two years ago that something happened." He looked at each one in turn but stayed on Ken the longest. "Do you remember Ken, how out of no where I started to withdraw into myself once more?"

            Ken nodded.

            That time had been difficult for the younger man. All he tried to do to coax his lover back out seemed to fall to pieces around him. In fact, Ran's new lack of stimulation had almost sent Ken into a state of total despair. It was a memory he was never too fond of then again the two whole years that had gone by weren't one of Ken's greatest memories.

            "Well, there was a reason behind all that…" his words were spoken softly.  " Aya was dieing."

            "What?!" The three men's voices cried out in unison.

            "There was nothing the so called doctors could do about it. Her body was giving up even though it was comatose, so it simply started to shut down."

            "I was a wreck when I heard the news. I know I should have told all of you but I didn't want to burden all of you with it. Maybe then if I had told you guys what was going on… we wouldn't be at this cross roads today, but that's already in the past. Anyway, a week or so after I found out the dreadful news, two men came up to me."

            "They told me how they had heard from the doctors what was going on with my sister and brought me offers of help, to keep her from dieing." He held up a hand to forestall any comments from his friends. "Don't get me wrong, I wasn't born yesterday and I know for a fact that no one just walks up to you to give you something without expecting something in return, that and the fact that I didn't trust them very much. The looks were completely off with them. They reminded me of some of our… nightly clientele."

            The three men instantly understood Ran's meaning. They were like the dark beasts that they hunted in the night, oily and sneaky.

            "Anyway, I politely… as politely as I could, turned their offer down and I guess they didn't like it because they had attacked me. Before I could do anything in retaliation to the unprovoked attack these two," He pointed at Ledoris and Finis. "Came to my rescue, the two attackers sadly to say didn't last very long against them."

            "As soon as they were finished they did the oddest thing. They bowed to me and called me your highness. I don't know why they did what they did and was on the verge of leave them when they started to tell me something. It seemed as if they had been looking for me since I was a young child and had just only recently found me, tailing me so to speak, because I was their lost prince. I thought they were crazy. However, they ended up convincing me that they were telling me the truth."

            "Oh so you'd trust those two but not the other men?" Ken interrupted him.

            "I know strange isn't it, but any how, lets just say that I saw things that I at first wasn't prepared to see."

            "Like what Ran?" Omi asked.

            "Magic."

            Yohji started laughing at that.

            "… It's true though… they well… made my ears grow back and I doubt they would have since they tried it out on someone else just to convince me that it was real. Besides, they knew about my birthmark."

            "Oh you mean the one on your …" Ken started to speak.

            Ran blushed. "Yes, Ken, that one. Anyway, that's not what were here to talking about." He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an effort to compose himself. " Like I had said I believed them at that point, I really didn't have any other choice. After I had done that, they offered to guide me back home to my father and mother. It was what they were ordered to do after all. I refused them, I couldn't just abandon Aya, if she was dieing or not."

            "So what did you do then? Have them magically conjure up Aya so they could heal her?" Yohji sarcastically asked.

            "Did anyone ever tell you that you're an idiot Yohji? No, they didn't do that. They did offer their own assistance since they had other and better means to cure a person than what our modern technology had. I agreed with it, but on one condition, they came here instead of us going there. If they could do that I told them I would consider going back with them."

            "And then it happened," Ken said a sneer forming on his lips. "… So far this isn't a good enough excuse and unbelievable as it is. Why don't you try something else… say something a little less fantasy and more reality."

            "I for one happen to agree with Kenken on that. I mean come on Ran, pointed ears, elves, and princes. This isn't a fairytale. I'm surprised there's no evil dragon flying about the land, torching it to the ground with its fiery breath bent on destroying the countryside or someone plotting to overthrow the kingdom. By the way is the kingdom you're from called fairy land?" Yohji said.

            When the playboy had said that Ran and the other two elves began to squirm in their seats, all were thinking about how near to the mark Yohji had known what was going on.

            Finally, Ledoris jumped up, his face full of anger as he spoke to his lord, "I told you we shouldn't have come here! Humans are worthless beings that should have never even evolved. They should have stayed as the primates they originally were." He had all but growled that last sentence then turned his attention to the now chain smoking man. "And for your information, human, dragons are not evil nor are they just what you would call a myth. They're real and by far wiser then any of you will ever be."

            "Ledoris, please, calm down. Kudoh has always been a bit skeptical about things it's his nature. Either that or, it has to do with all the women he's been with. I heard they say that constant sex with multiple partners tends to rot the mind, or in his case, what little mind he had to begin with."

            "Oh my God! The ice princess cracked a joke!" Yohji remarked. "I think hell has just frozen over."

            "Whatever, Kudoh. Anyway, Yohji was right at one part."

            "Which part was that, Ran-kun?" Omi asked, his bright blue eyes widening in feigned innocence. "The part where he said hell had frozen over."

            A dullness glazed Ran's eyes as he looked at the young man. "No, the part about someone trying to conquer my father's kingdom."

            Yohji groaned aloud. "Great, just great, one of the most widely used clichés in fantasy has just dropped it's self right down on laps." His gaze homed in on Ran. "Let me guess… you want us to come help you out right?"

            "Never knew Yohji could read… much less fantasy books," Omi murmured half to himself. "I thought he only read Play Boy."

            "Who reads Playboy, Omi? People only get it for the nude women." Ken commented, having over heard his friend.

            Yohji glared at the two.

            Ran shook his head. He had a feeling in the beginning that this was going to take all day to explain and it was going in that direction. "I had another reason as well. I wanted to come get Ken."

            Yohji snickered. "And there goes cliché number two 'returning to a loved one'. Who here wants to bet that he wants to get away from his father because he's planning an arranged marriage?"

            "Yohji…" Ran growled out before anyone could take him up on the bet. "Would you just shut the hell up?"

            "AHAHAHAHA! I'm right!"

            "I don't want to know…" Ken said.

            "I swear Ken, he's only trying to do it for the political side of things, not because I want to do it."

            "Man, screw the politics. If she's good looking, over eighteen and great in bed, I say go for it in full force." Yohji busted out saying.

            "You would." Omi said dryly.

            "Yohji! Are those things the only things you can EVER think about?" Ken admonished him. "Seriously you're worse than a cat in heat!"

            "I would say he is one." Omi pointed out.

            "You two wound me."

            "Anyway, I'm not going to marry her. I'm gay, not straight and my father's going to have to accept that fact." Ran said firmly.

            "Just keep saying that Ran. However, you just want to scream out, 'Go gay pride' when you hear someone like Ran say that sort of thing." Yohji made a dramatic show of wiping a nonexistent tear from his right eye. "It's just so beautiful."

            "Hn…"

            Omi stood up and stretched. They had been there for hours listening to Ran's story and he was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger. "I'm getting hungry. Why don't we all take a break and eat something?"

            His suggestion was met all around with sounds of approval.

            An hour later passed and the six men sat around in the mission room again, enjoying a cup of tea. Their faces were lit up in smiles. It had been a long time since at least three of them had a decently cooked meal. They were terrible cooks and when Ran had offered to be the chief for them, they were relieved.

            A few moments of comfortable silence passed by before anyone spoke up.

            "Ran-kun, you said you wanted and needed our help. What exactly is going on? How do you want us to help?" Omi asked and set down his just finished teacup.

            "Oh, oh! Let me guess!" Yohji exclaimed. "You have an evil uncle who wants to take the throne from you, am I right?"

            "Not one bit, Yohji." Ran smirked. "Maybe you should read more fantasy. You might find the cliché in there." He glanced over at the other two. "Well, we don't know who it is yet, but when I had went to the palace my father was hearty and in good health, but quickly caught an unknown disease that wasn't curable. I did some investigation on my own and found out that he had been poisoned with something rare and exotic. No one has been able to tell me what it was, but it kind of points to someone trying to take over the throne."

            All three men blinked.

            "How do you figure that?" Kudoh asked.

            "They tried to do it to me a few months later."

            "Well that all makes sense now." Yohji said.

            "Yeah, especially when most of them don't know that I prepare my own food. The person who made it didn't like that fact since I forced him to eat it himself and he flat out died. What I would like you to do is I would like you to help me figure it out, you, Yohji a great asset because of your investigator skills as well as the rest of you. Although Omi, I'm sorry to say we have no computers there. I would do all of this myself, but…" he spread his hands out in a gesture of hopelessness. "My moves are more restrictive then what yours would be."

            "As well as it should be," Ledoris said speaking up for the first time that whole night. "You're too important to go gallivanting about to who knows where to do who knows what."

            "Hn, I don't need guards."

            They left it off at that because they all knew it was a fruitless argument to have.

            Ken waited a few moments before speaking up, "So the whole deal is you want us to go to the places you can't." He tapped his lip thoughtfully.

            "That's right."

            "I don't know about the others but I need to think about it."

            Ran nodded and looked at the other two, who both agreed with Ken. This wasn't a normal mission to them and they knew they didn't have to do it.

            Ken stood up and stretched, before giving a quick glance at the digital clock on the VCR. "I'm going to bed now since it's late." He began to walk towards the stairs.

            "Ken wait!" Ran called out to him. "Could I go with you… to talk?"

            Ken merely nodded and left the room with Ran following him.

            "Well," Yohji said after the two had left. He got up. "I have a date tonight so why don't you show these two fine… elves… where they'll be sleeping tonight chibi."

            "Yohji! Don't call me that."

            Yohji's laughter trailed him as he left the room.

            Omi glared at the man then smiled at the elves, "I'll show you two to Ran-kun's old room. I get the feeling that you two don't want to leave him alone here too much."

            They nodded.

            "Hmmm, just as I thought. Don't worry though he's in one of the few safest places there is."

            Later that night when all were thought to be asleep, one wasn't.

            A shadowy figure tiptoed quietly out of Ran's room and into the darkened hallway. Every few moments he would stop and listen to everything surrounding him. All was quiet and it wouldn't do him any good to make some unwanted noise and be caught this early in the game. He had a feeling anyway that there was more to these three men that they had visited than was shown, so he had to let his master know quickly what was going on.

            He made his way up to the roof as silently as he could.

            A soft whistle fell from his lips calling out to one of the messenger birds he knew was around.

            He held his arm aloft and as soon as it landed, he tied a piece of parchment to its leg. "That's it," he said softly. "Go find our master little one and be quick." He let it go and watched it fly off into the night.

Author's Notes: Well here's chapter 2 done I hope you guys enjoy it. Review if it pleases you.

Schu: what that's it?

Yes… that's it Schu go back to bed you're not needed right now…

Schu: hmph…