*****


	Owaru waved at Amaru sitting alone in the stands as he passed on his
jog around the track to warm up. Well, it was more than to warm up. It
also gave him a chance to discreetly check the competition that was
practicing on the far side of the field. Most didn't earn more than a
glance. But there were a few that were skilled enough to make him take a
second look. Only one earned a third.

	He focused on the girl with the interesting dye job on her hair who was
running a ball up and down this side of the field. He decided he liked
her hair. It was a shoulder length layered mane of silver, each layer
ending in black tips. He wondered how much Hajime would freak if he
copied it. He slowed to pace her. She had some nice footwork. She didn't
look at him but her moves changed and she started showing off. He
realized she was very, very good and grinned. This was going to be fun!

	The coaches divided them into four teams and he was pleased to find
'That Girl' playing in the group that had been set against his. He
wasn't sure how it happened, but she snuck the ball from him as he set
up for a goal with a wink and a laughed, "Not so hot, eh, Hot-shot?", as
she danced it away.

	He was ready for her the next time. Well, he thought he was ready. He
wasn't expecting her to be as determined to take control of the ball as
he was to keep it. They went down in a tangle of legs and flailing arms.
He caught himself on his hands as she went down on the bottom so he
wouldn't squash her too badly.

	"Get off me!" She hissed and shoved him over and off.

	He jumped to his feet, offered his hand to help her up with a grin. It
faded to a concerned frown as he realized she was hurt.

	"You O.K.?" He squatted down beside her as players and coaches
descended on them.

	She was rubbing her left ankle, her eyes shut and scrunched up with
pain.

	"No." She snapped back at him.

	Then he was shoo-ed out of the way as the adults took over. One of the
coaches ordered the players back into position and yelled for another
guy to come and take the girls place as the other coach supported her
hopping off the field and toward the benches. His gaze kept wandering
over to where she was sitting, foot propped up with a bag of ice draped
over it. He felt kind of bad that she had gotten hurt. But he didn't let
it interrupt his focus on the game. Much.

	He was still the best player on the field, distracted or not. And he
was scrupulous not to cheat and use his dragon-born strength or speed
though his stamina was something beyond his control. He got sucked back
into the game and when they had won, looked back over to the bench but
she was gone. He made an unhappy and perplexed expression. He had wanted
to apologize. Well, he could do that on Monday. The coaches informed
them that the cut would be posted on Monday and thanked them all for
coming and dismissed them. Amaru met him half way across the field.

	"When did that girl leave?" He asked his brother.

	"Which girl?" Amaru answered, all innocence.

	"The one with the dye job."

	"The one you knocked down and hurt?" Amaru looked sideways at him, a
scold in his tone.

	"Hey, I didn't knock her down!"

	Amaru raised his eyebrows at him.

	"I didn't! She shouldn't have kept trying to take the ball. If
anything, we knocked each other down."

	Amaru shrugged. "Not too long ago. Why?"

	"I just wanted to make sure she was O.K."

	"Uh-huh." Amaru gave him a sly wink.

	Owaru punched him gently in the arm. "That's all. I'm worried about a
potential team mate."

	"Uh-huh." Amaru giggled and moved out of the way of the next punch.

	"Well, she was kinda' pretty." Owaru grinned.

	"Uh-huh." Amaru answered.

	Owaru felt himself blush and decided he needed to change the subject.
"So, how was school today?"


						***

	Coach Crenshaw was about to call an ambulance, worried that her ankle
was broken. She had talked him out of it, told him she was certain it
was only twisted and needed nothing more than an ice pack and an
ace-bandage and had walked on it a bit to prove it. She didn't think it
was broken, but definitely sprained. She forced herself not to limp too
much on her way to the dressing rooms to change out of her gym shorts
and T-shirt and back into her jeans and shirt. She stuffed the work-out
clothes into her back-pack with her books, shouldered it and headed for
home. The swelling in her ankle had already gone down quite a bit though
it still hurt like hell. That was one of the weird things about her. She
healed really, really fast. There were other weird things, things that
she didn't let anyone else see or know.

	She had learned to hide these things at a very young age. Abilities
like hers scared people and scared people where violent and nasty
creatures. She mentally flinched and put the lid back on those memories
as she turned the corner. She cussed softly as she saw the knot of young
men loitering by the graffitied mailbox and mutilated remains of the bus
stop bench half way up the block. Figured that the White Tigers would
choose to prowl one of the streets on her route home today. Like most of
the kids in the area, she went out of her way to avoid them. She should
turn around and take the round-about way but her ankle hurt and that was
an extra fifteen minutes walk. Surely if she just crossed the street
they would do nothing more than jeer at her, if they even noticed her at
all.

	She wasn't so lucky. She kept her eyes down and tried to keep as much
of the limp out of her stride as possible as she went up the opposing
sidewalk. The wolf whistle was picked up by the others, devolving into a
variety of lewd noises and suggestions as she approached their position
on the other side. She felt a small flicker of anxiety as they came
across the street. They trailed her, goading each other on as they made
cracks about her hair and wondered if it was the same on other parts of
her anatomy.

	She cussed that boy who had made her sprain her ankle. Normally she
would just take off, sure in the knowledge she could outrun them. But
not now. Well, they would get tired of the game soon as long as she kept
her mouth closed and eyes down. One of them came around her and started
walking backwards in front of her. She studied the sidewalk.

	"You ignoring us, beautiful?"

	She pressed her lips together as a variety of responses danced on the
tip of her tongue. *Don't piss them off, just keep walking...*

	"She is ignoring us!" The Tiger in front called to his friends.

	"That's not very nice, you know." One of the Tigers behind answered.

	She readied herself to try to run anyway as she felt the atmosphere
around her change from obnoxiously playful to something else. Something
feral and dangerous.

	"We don't like being ignored." The Tiger in front stopped. "It hurts
our feelings!"

	A variety of agreements came from behind her as she tried to step
sideways and around the Tiger that blocked her path, her heart
fluttering with real fear now as she realized how close the mouth of
that alley was.

	"And we don't like having our feelings hurt, do we?"

 	It happened so fast. She cussed herself for being stupid and not
taking the extra fifteen minutes as hands grabbed the straps of her pack
and pulled her off balance and sideways towards the alley. She fought
back, elbowed up and back toward one of the ones who had her pack and
heard a satisfying crunch as she connected. She got in a few good
punches before something hit the side of her head.

	*Wow, you really do see stars...*


						***


	Owaru was suggesting some ideas for Amaru's upcoming science fair
project when he saw the guy leaning against the side of the alley
entrance half-way up the block. He was wearing a black leather jacket
with the white tiger that was the symbol of the local gang. *Standing
guard...huum...* As they got a closer he could see the guy was pressing
a blood stained piece of fabric against his nose. Whoever was in that
alley had fought back. He moved so that he would be between his brother
and the alley as they neared.

	"Stay out of the way, Amaru." He warned in a whisper as he shrugged his
pack off his shoulder and handed it to his brother.

	Amaru nodded as he took it.

	Owaru stopped and tried to look in the alley. The guy stepped in front
of him.

	"What do you think you're looking at, punk?"

	"Well, you at the moment." Owaru answered with a friendly grin. "Would
you mind moving?" He leaned to try to see around the guy.

	The guy grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up onto
his toes.

	"You really don't want to do that," Owaru warned.

	"Oh, and what are you going to do about it, pretty boy?" The guy
sneered, then tried to snort up the blood that leaked out of his nose.

	Owaru's response was a punch in the stomach followed by an open handed
strike under the guys chin. The guy ached backwards into the alley with
a broken jaw to accompany his broken nose.

	"I did warn you," Owaru muttered as he stalked in.

	The White Tigers were in a tight knot farther down the alley. Whoever
they had was down. He made a guesstament as gang-member's heads swiveled
in his direction. Around ten. Owaru cracked his knuckles and grinned.

	"Oi! Lets play!"

	They just stared at him stupidly for a moment as he continued to walk
towards them, then with a remarkable variety of very impolite words they
came at him. Owaru laughed. He was very gentle with the first three, not
doing much but throwing them out of the way. That was until he saw the
silver hair with black tips through a gap in the attackers and the guy
standing over her. He stopped laughing and got serious.

	The last one that had attacked him had just gone down when Amaru yelled
from the alley mouth, "Owaru! Gun!"

	He whirled, felt the impact against his upper arm, then the burning
pain. The Tiger had moved away from the girl and fired again but Owaru
was already out of the path of the bullet. Before the Tiger could
squeeze the trigger once more Owaru had him. He rammed the Tiger against
the wall and closed one hand around the wrist that held the gun as the
other went to the Tiger's throat. Owaru used that grip to push the Tiger
up the wall until his feet no longer touched the ground. The Tiger
clawed at Owaru's arm, gurgled and started to go red as Owaru wrenched
the gun out of the Tiger's hand.

	"Didn't anyone ever tell you guns were dangerous?" Owaru growled at the
Tiger as he crushed the weapon in his hand until it was nothing but a
crumpled piece of metal.

	The Tiger's eyes bulged out even more and Owaru saw fear in them as he
displayed the remains on his palm. He tightened his grip even more as he
turned his hand over and let the destroyed gun drop to the ground. The
Tiger went from red to bluish purple.

	"Next time, don't pick on girls," he gave the Tiger a shake that
smacked his head up against the wall, hard.

	He let go as the Tiger passed out and watched him slump to the ground
with disgust, then his expression changed to one of worry as he spun and
went back to the girl. He felt himself blush hard but was very relieved
to see that they hadn't gotten as far as he had feared. Her shirt was
ripped and open, the two sides of her bra pushed away, exposing her
breasts. There was a little vertical gash on her sternum. He figured
they had used a knife to cut her bra.  But her jeans were still half on
her hips. They must have been working on getting them down when he
showed up. He knelt down and pulled her shirt together just as Amaru
arrived.

	"Is she all right?"

	"I don't know." He started to look her over more carefully, searching
for any other signs of injury.

	Amaru eyed the blood that streaked his brothers arm and the holes it
originated from. "Are you all right?"

	Owaru shrugged. He would be soon. The bullet had gone all the way
through the muscles of his upper arm but the wound had already stopped
bleeding. He knew that the deep ache accompanied by a horrendous
tingling itch meant that it was healing. In a few hours the holes would
be marked with shiny new scar tissue. By morning all trace of it would
be gone.

	"Ooosh. That's a mess! I'll be back in a sec," Amaru informed him.

	"Don't go far, Amaru-kun," Owaru warned without looking up. He had
discovered a dark stain mixed into the silver of her mane.

	He touched the blood cautiously, parted the soft hair with his fingers
looking for the wound. He heard the sound of tearing fabric from
somewhere behind him and wondered what Amaru was up to as he examined
it. The cut itself was small but there was a good sized bump underneath.
He guessed he'd better get her to a doctor. Her eyes snapped open as he
started to slide his hands under her shoulders and knees to lift her and
she did what ten Tiger's hadn't been able to do. She hit and connected
as she gave a little shriek, then wiggled away. There was enough force
behind her strike to knock him off balance and back onto his rear.

	"Ouch!" Owaru rubbed the side of his throbbing face as he watched her
press herself against the wall. *Man, that girl has some punch!* 

	"Hey! It's O.K. We're not going to hurt you!" Amaru appeared and put
himself between his brother and the girl and gave her his best smile.

	Her gray eyes were huge and wild as she stared at them, one hand
clutching her shirt together and the other pressed against the side of
her head.

	"Promise," Amaru put all his sincerity into that word.

	"Yeah. In fact, I just rescued you," Owaru added from behind him and
sounded aggrieved.

	"I'm Amaru Ryudo," he told her as he stepped away and knelt by Owaru
and started to wrap the length of shirt he'd 'borrowed' from one of the
Tigers around and over the bullet wound, "and this is my brother,
Owaru."