Some Kind of Magic

Chapter 2






Chapter 2

With a wrench Syaoran reared back from where he'd suddenly appeared, eyes blinking
and mouth agape, staring around at his new and sudden surroundings. It seemed
he'd been transported from his training room in his home in China to some other
sort of room in the middle of only gods knew where, and for a purpose he
couldn't even BEGIN to contrive.

As Syaoran's wide eyes flickered here or there throughout the somewhat
spacious room, he discovered that there were no windows or doors at all, no
means of entry or exit whatsoever. It was extremely well- furbished though,
with draperies and wall-tapestries and such hanging about, the hardwood floor
covered with plush persian rugs. There was no apparent light source either,
though the room was brightly lit. And then the only other thing in the room
besides himself was the biggest, most elaborate and beautiful bed he'd ever
seen. It was an enormous four poster, the coverlets a pristine white and the
canopy above made of a filmy and gauzy material in the same shade that draped
and swooped down on all sides in great festoons.

Just as Syaoran began to regain some of his composure and bearings, enough
to where he was able to start trying to puzzle out WHY he'd come to be in this
rather odd place, a loud scream split the air seemingly from directly above
him. Again, the young warrior had no time to thionlyonly to react. His arms
shot out and he snatched the tiny form before it could plummet past and hit the
ground below. He caught it solidly to his chest instead and held on tightly,
accepting the death grip it suddenly got on his neck with a faint grunt.

Then he tilted his head down to see who or what he'd rescued, and then
forgot how to think. His gaze locked and drowned away into a pair of large
dew-green eyes the exact shade of springtime. Those eyes only got wider as they
gaped up into his face, her mouth dropping open with shock.

"Syaoran?"

At the sound of her shaky, trembling and utterly disbelieving voice, Syaoran
released a slight yell of his own and then he promptly dropped her. This forced
the female formerly cradled into his arms to plummet the rest of the way back
to earth and land onto the rug at his feet with a thump and a loud yelp of
pain. Syaoran stumbled back slightly away from her, eyes rounded to their
limits, face white.

"Sakura!" he belted out, voice cracking and nearly accusing in
it's stunned tone. "What in the hell are YOU doing here, Avalon?!"

The girl slowly shoved herself up off the floor with a faint glare and pout
in his general direction.

"Well sheesh, I could ask you the same question, Li," she
muttered, returning the formality of names as she rubbed at her sore backside
and sneered a little. "Thanks for breaking my fall at least."

And then Syaoran couldn't think for a different reason. His widened,
slightly wounded eyes narrowed as he sucked in a hiss of breath, his heart
kicking back as he tried to swallow the huge lump in his throat and failed
dismally. The cute little girl he remembered had somehow managed to turn into a
woman while he'd been away, and Syaoran felt himself overwhelmed with a
timeless sense of betrayal at such unfair weapons used against his male
defenses, completely thrown out of sorts.

Her hair was still that same warm honey-brown, though longer than before
with the tips falling down to her waist. But those two strands at the top of
her head still somehow managed to keep from laying tamely about her
heart-shaped face with the rest of the luxuriant mane. And that face was still
the same, sort of . . . it still had that innocent and innately pure look, too
adorable for anyone to really hate. But . . . there wasn't anything the same
about her body. It was this that made Syaoran suddenly want to shake his fists
at the heavens and demand why the gods seemed so damned intent on making his
life a living, breathing, walking hell.

What had been a somewhat short little girl had turned into a still somewhat
petite, slender but very curvy female frame; showed all the better by the
flimsy little blue silk gown that she currently wore, the hem barely coming to
the middle of her rounded thighs. With another loud swallow Syaoran found his
eyes slowly drifting downward, mentally checking off every detail; long and
slender throat, prominent collar bone, supple arms, full and high breasts with
just the right amount of perk, tiny waist, flat belly, gently curving hips,
those long, long legs and then that pert little rear-end she was currently and
witlessly rubbing in what suddenly seemed to him to be a VERY provocative
manner. Syaoran suddenly wanted to drool, and only stopped himself with the
barest of margins.

His childhood crush had just managed to blossom into a full-blown, very
adult and VERY desirous fantasy, nearly before his eyes. Instinctual fear the
likes of which he'd never before experienced filled Syaoran to the brim, and he
suddenly knew without a doubt that if he didn't find a way out of this room
soon and get away from her, he was eventually going to make a very big fool of
himself.

~~*~~


Sakura continued to massage the ache out of her rear-end, in no way aware of
what her display was doing to the male staring rather stupidly at her now. Nor
did she notice the brilliant scarlet blush that suddenly flooded the cheeks of
her silent observer either. She didn't get the chance to notice, as he suddenly
spun about and then stalked over to the nearest wall.

Sakura had to straighten slightly and take notice of him when he suddenly
began pounding on the wall with his clenched fist and roaring at the top of his
much deeper voice.

"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE, DAMMIT?! WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT DO YOU
WANT WITH US?!" There was a faint pause, and then a righteously pissed
Syaoran slammed the flat of his fist into the wall and cracked the wood with a
loud snap before continuing with, "ANSWER ME DAMN YOU, OR I SWEAR TO ALL
THE POWERS IN HEAVEN I'LL BRING THIS WHOLE FUCKING PLACE DOWN AROUND YOUR
EARS!"

Sakura jerked then, as this was followed by the distant but still very loud
and nearly vicious din of thunder.

She never did like thunder much.

Finally Syaoran spun back around to face her again, and she explained away
the residual redness in his face to his exertions just now. But right at that
moment, such things suddenly became awfully trivial. Instead Sakura began
noticing things that she hadn't quite got around to noticing before, when she'd
first fallen from seemingly out of the clear blue the sky, then he caught and
dropped her again.

Things like how deliciously tall he'd become, his dark-haired head rising
well over a foot above her own. And like the fact of his lack of a shirt
revealed a very lean and narrow, caramel-bronze tanned torso corded with ropes
of dense muscle trained to utter perfection. His shoulders seemed suddenly
broader than the skyline from her current vantage point too, his arms long and
the large biceps heavily knotted. His stomach was washboard flat, save for
those little faint ridges down the front from well- toned abs and then that
small slit of his naval. He was barefoot, wearing only a pair of faintly worn
black gi pants tied loose and hanging precariously from his narrow hips, and all
of the flesh showing was faintly misted now in a little sweat as if he'd just
come from running a mile or something. And those eyes! Narrowed now with
little-suppressed anger, those flashing amber-brown orbs seemed to pierce right
to her very bones.

Sakura couldn't seem to catch her breath for some reason. Her memories of a
somewhat cute ten year old boy clashed violently with the heart-stoppingly
attractive, faintly dangerous looking man standing in front of her now and
giving her what she could only term as a death-glare.

"All right Sakura," he growled, one hand raking back through his
unruly brown mane of haeforefore he released a heavy sigh and crossed his arms
over his bare chest, legs bracing wide as if he were preparing for an attack.
"What in the hell have you done now?"

And well he SHOULD be preparing for an attack! Sakura's jaw dropped, eyes
widening with shock, then they narrowed again with fury.

"How dare you!" she cried accusingly, feeling her cheeks burn hot
with her anger. "Just why is it that you seem to automatically assume that
everything is always all MY fault?!"

"Maybe because it usually is!" Syaoran snapped back, then sneered.
"I mean, who was the genius who let all the cards loose in the first
place?"

Now she flinched, as if he'd just physically struck her. Unbidden, hot tears
rushed into her eyes and eventually spilled down the sides of hece. ce. She
scowled however, lips pursing and her little chin jutting out stubbornly, never
noticing the faint wince that seemed to flash in her adversary's golden eyes as
his angry expression softened somewhat with remorse.

"Yeah, I made mistakes when I was TEN years old, Li," she stressed
loudly, crossing her arms and doing her best to ignore the wounded tears that
still rolled their course down her cheeks. "Most kids MAKE MISTAKES, it's
NORMAL! But at least I eventually LEARNED from mine, unlike SOME people I could
mention!"

The anger came back at that, fierce and hot.

"Just what in the hell are you trying to say?" he demanded in a
growl and she let loose a loud bark of laughter.

"I'm not the one who's locked myself up into my dojo and become little
better than a HERMIT, Syaoran! Look to thine own ass first!"

His expression went black at that, and filled with such rage and threatening
inten to to make Sakura gasp with shock. Eyes wide, she stumbled back a little
when he suddenly prowled forward, towering over her. He jabbed an accusing
finger in her face, nearly trembling with anger.

"Don't you EVER judge me again," he snarled, deep voice rough, and
Sakura had the fleeting impression that this wasn't her Syaoran. HER Syaoran
would never make her afraid like this. Merciless, his flashing gold eyes burned
imaginary holes through her skull as he continto gto glare and then spoke
again, his tone soft and even more deadly than his loudest shouts. "You
don't know anything about me, Avalon, and it's best you keep your nose out of
what you'll never understand."

~~*~~


"Well that went beautifully," Ruby Moon drawled sarcastically,
crossing her arms and shooting an amused look to her Master from where she
leaned against his desk on a hip. Eli returned the look with a sour frown, then
both turned back to the full-length mirror propped in the corner of his lavish
study.

The magical viewer showed the full picture of the room in which Eli had
transported his two friends. It also revealed to him that they were now, after
arguing, standing on separate sides of the room, glaring in the opposite
directions and not even looking in the other's direction. Eli scowled,
adjusting the thin wire-frame glasses on his nose with a loud sigh. He absently
shoved his loosely tied, extremely long blue ponytail over his shoulder,
allowing the tips to brush at the seat of his chair before he motioned angrily
with the other.

"I don't get it," he burst out, exasperated and confused.
"They should be going at it like rabbits by now!"

Ruby just snorted with a loud sigh of her own, rolling her eyes.

"Men. THIS is their idea of matchmaking? I bet you agree with him, eh
Suppi?" Ruby shot a look over to the small black cat-like creature who
lounged on the far side of the room, a book unfolded before him. He never once
looked up from the pages as he flipped one, expression bland like always.

"I'm doing my utmost to stay OUT of this fiasco, thank-you,"
Spinel Sun returned flippantly, tone flat.

"Well what do YOU suggest then, Ruby?" Eli questioned, with only
the faintest hint of bitterness to his sweet and debonair tone. Ruby just
frowned.

"What do I suggest? I SUGGEST you stop meddling in everyone else's love
lives and start worrying about your own! That's what I suggest!"

Eli felt his face heat, glancing down guiltily at the magazine laying out
before him on his desk. It was the latest issue of "Photographers
Weekly," not that Eli Moon cared for the particular subject much. It was
only that this month's issue featured one Madison Taylor as it's newest and
upcoming camera-person, and had a lovely 8x12 glossy picture of her on the
cover . . . looking absolutely breathtaking as usual. Eli scowled however, blue
eyes glinting as he snatched the magazine off the desk and then stuffed it in a
drawer, slamming said shuttle closed again right after.

"That's none of your business, Ruby," he snapped uncomfortably,
looking flustered and sounding it too.

"Oh-ho!" Ruby crowed, grinning. "And it's YOUR business what
happens with Syaoran and Sakura is it? When did you become so high and
mighty?" Eli scowled.

"It BECAME my business when it became obvious to me that the both of
them were perfectly miserable without each other."

"And you're so sure they'll be perfectly happy together?" Ruby
demanded imperviously. "Doesn't look like it to me." Both turned to
look back at the mirror at that, and stared at the scene that hadn't changed.
"Looks to me like they want to rip each other's heads off."

"They're just being hard-headed and difficult," Eli assured
confidently, when he felt no such sensation in reality. He nodded his head sagely
however, a few stray tendrils of his long hair sliding down into his blue eyes.
"They'll come around," he murmured, praying to whomever was listening
that his predictions would come true.

If not . . . Eli shuddered, gulping again. He didn't even want to THINK of
the alternatives.