“Melissa, get back!” Mat told her. I smiled devilishly. “You will never have her, boy! I’m taking her back even if I have to wipe out everything in my way!” I told him. I would do whatever it took to keep her in my arms, and under my wings. “I’d like to see you try!” Mat countered. Our blades drawn ready to fight to the death, we lunged at one another, matching every slash we took at each other. I would protect my mermaid, and I would keep him away from her. I may of lost the fights to kill him for good the last two times, but not this time. She was mine. He came at me with a spinning slash and I put my guard up, and I moved my sword to throw him off. He leapt into the air to do a dive-bomb move, spinning downward with gravity on his side without a doubt. I jumped out of the way in the nick of time, and all he got was a small crater in the pavement. “M…Mat…” Melissa said. Why was she calling out to Mat. I jerked around and I threw a punch into his stomach, making him cough up blood. I had applied enough force to cause it. He was stunned. Perfect. Now was my chance. I sheathed my sword and ran over to her. “Lelouch….wait…what’s going on? Where are we going?” She asked. “Shhh…don’t worry. He’s not going to hurt you again. We’re going home.” I said, lifting her up into my arms. “Home?” She asked confused. “Yes.” With her in my arms and ran off, and Mat grabbed his sword and chased after us. I gave Mat a surprise when I melted into the shadows with my shadow ability’s. He still pursued though. I entered some ruins and dived into a pool of water. “There’s no way water can hold me back!” He yelled, as he dived in after us. There was a strong undertow dragging us down. I ran in the shadow’s and down. I had reached the bottom of the pool. A gate at the bottom, water flowing into it. “Melissa?” I asked. “huh?” She asked in a daze. She scared me for a moment. “Scared me. Thought you passed out or something. Your zoning in and out on me.” I was running with her in my arms, under the opera house now, in the sewer. I was tiering out, as I ran across the walls of the sewers as a shadow. Mat was noticing to. Stupid aura using basted. A few moments later I burst into my lair. I used magic to put a barrier lock up around the outside of the lair, I then ran into our room, slamming the door behind us with my foot, then locked it with magic. I laid her on the bed. I heard Mat trying to break down the barrier outside the lair. I ignored it and got on my knees and held her face in my hands. “Are you ok, Lelouch?” She asked. “You don’t want to remember any of those memories do you?” I asked her, my grip growing tighter. “You don’t want to have all those painful memories do you?!” “No.” She said. She was almost tearful. My hand still holding her face, I wrapped my other hand her waist and lifted her up. I motivated her to look into my eyes, and stroked her cheek. I lend in towards her and then our lips met in a passionate kiss. She seemed to go into a daze. Her legs didn’t want to hold her up, but I held her up. It was one of those slow, passionate, deep kisses. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she started kissing me back. Just then I heard the door bust open. I looked towards t he door. Mat had used his foot and slammed into into the door, breaking it into pieces. He didn’t seemed pleased that I was trying to suck out her memories with a kiss. I hissed at him. I placed Melissa on the bed. She didn’t need to be in this. I wouldn’t let her get hurt. “You can’t have her! She’s already chosen! She wants me! If she wanted you, she would have left me and come back to you!” Melissa seemed on the verge of passing out where she was dazed from that kiss. “I’m not going to let you drain her of what she has a right to know and remember.” Mat said. “She doesn’t belong in the dark like this! She’s supposed to be in the sunlight! Where she’s healthy! In the water where she’s happy!” We drew our swords and again, and they clashed. “She is happy! Happy with me! I can give her all the things she’ll ever need in life! Besides how would you care fore her when she’s sick or something?! Your always running around on some adventure leaving her alone and defenseless! And you have Aoi!” I told him. We had only both gotten one hit on one another, but then I think I had pushed him to far.
The blade of his sword flared with Aura as he struck me. My sword fell to the ground with a loud clang sound, and he left a serious injury with my right shoulder. He took advantage of my injury. “we’re getting you out of her, Mel.” He said. Melissa didn’t want to go though “Lelouch!” She cried. He was carrying her over his shoulder., and started to run, plugging some earphones in so he couldn’t hear her. She tried beating the s**t out of him, but it didn’t work. His aura had flared up too much that it stopped her dead in her attempts. “LELOUCH! LULU!” she cried. I had to save her. I had to keep her away from him. I had to try. My injury hurt badly though. I grabbed my sword, and chased him. Mat kept running. “NO! NO LET ME GO! PUT ME DOWN! LELOUCH, HELP ME!” Melissa cried. She tried beating the s**t out of Mat again. I didn’t care how badly injured I was! I had to get Melissa back. “LELOUCH!” Melissa cried. Just then out of now where that girl Aoi came, and hit me up side the head with a spin-dash. Just as I fell to the ground, and lost consciousness, I heard Melissa scream. “LULU!” one more time. When I next woke up, I was in bed staring at the ceiling to my room. The covers were over me, and my shirt had been removed. I could feel my pants on my legs. Had it all been a dream? A horrible dream? I looked next to me. Melissa wasn’t there. I listened carefully to the sounds around me. There was no sound that indicated Melissa was around. I looked around the room, taking in my surroundings. Melissa wasn’t in the room. “M-Melissa?” I asked. No answer even came. I tried sitting up, and felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder when I tried. It burned. I laid back down in the bed, and held my shoulder. It wasn’t a dream after all. That basted had taken her from me! “NO!” I yelled. Then was I still alive. I should have died from loss of blood. I tried to rack my brain for clues as to why I was here now, and not dead somewhere. I could for some reason remember fading in and out of consciousness for a while, and someone dragging, or helping me somewhere. Who…I wasn’t sure. I knew it couldn’t of been Melissa cause the person didn’t even feel like Melissa’s presence. It felt more like that girl Aoi’s. she wasn’t around now though. I remembered asking repeatedly where Melissa was during that time I was half between unconsciousness and consciousness but though there was someone there they never answered my question. “Damn it!” I said. “He doesn’t know when to quite. Well Mat let this truly be war. A battle to the death. Or if you prefer a battle for her love.” I smiled. I would get her back. “In the end I will be the one that wins. She came to me when she was hurt by another boy, and I won’t let you do the same to her. I won’t let you hurt her like all those other boys did.”
I would save her, and I would protect her from that mangy mutt. No matter what it took. “She’s already chosen and you know it just as well as I do.” I said like I was talking to him. “Think. Who did she go to when she was hurting from what that basted Jordan did to her? Who was there to make everything better for her? And where were you? I’ll tell you. Running around somewhere on an adventure while I was here healing those wounds in her fragile heart. In the end she’s chosen me, and nothing you do or say to her will change that.” I looked around the room. My sword was scabbard and leaning against the wall. “The next time we face each other….I can assure you that sword will run you through, and Melissa will be mine. You will perish under the power of Geass as well as the Phantom. You have no idea the kind of power your dealing with.” I tried to sit up again. I managed to this time, but with a great deal of pain being involved. It felt empty without Melissa here…as it had all the time before she ever came into the caress of the Music of the Night. I didn’t like that empty feeling. I didn’t want to be lonely again. I had worked to hard to find love, and I didn’t want to lose it now. I wouldn’t except defeat. “You want the truth about how she feels about you Mat. I’ll tell you how she feels. She think’s you s**t, and a jerk! Always leaving her alone, and defenseless because your always running off with your sword on an adventure. She hates it when you show off with your extreme sonic speed! You’re nothing to her, and she especially hates you because your considering her weak physically and possibly mentally. She’s not weak in either account. She knows and can do more then you think!”Many people would look at Melissa and consider her weak physically more then mentally. Melissa was intelligent, but was often times confused if you used words she was unfamiliar with. Other wise she was smart. She was sharper then she may of appeared. She could do math depending on how you taught it to her. It was the same with science. English she had no problem with until you started bringing out the big words. Art, and music she had no problem with. The only problem with teaching her music was getting her to understand which each note meant. She could sing the notes, but she didn’t know which note was what. She could listen to a song a few times and pick up on several of instruments, if not all of them, playing the tune and the softness and highness of the voice singing, but she can’t read the notes on a piece of paper, or identify which one is which. Art she did very well. She just had to look at something or picture something then put it to paper and that was it. She knew most of everything in art tint, tone, shades, primary colors, all of it, she didn’t care much for learning about certain artist though. She just liked looking at there works of art. In the physical field Melissa was more or less decent there. She wasn’t very fast, and she wasn’t very slow either. Melissa had a light frame, and bruised easily. Melissa had never had much of a taste for milk so her bones probably strong and all that like milk was supposed to make you. This was most likely only due to the fact that when she was born she was born allergic to milk, and couldn’t drink it. They had given her a shot that would stop the allergic reactions and allow her to drink milk, but she never drank much after words, though, because she never drank much of it where she was allergic, and didn’t have much taste for it. The only time I ever saw her have milk was when she had cereal, and then when she drank it other wise it was just a few sips. Melissa just never had a taste for milk. In strength Melissa didn’t accelerate to much. She could hold her self up on a bar you do pull-ups on for a minute almost, but she couldn’t pull herself up on that bar. She had no problem with push-ups or sit-ups. Sit-ups she could a least manage 24 before she gave up, feeling tired. Melissa wasn’t bad at swordsman ship either. She could actually analyze your moves if she watched you enough, and was on the defense for a while learning your moves, before striking. That’s how Melissa worked in combat. She up served her opponents moves, while in the defensive maneuver, and then she used her observations against the enemy. Melissa was more of the type to enjoy the arts such as music, and art. Melissa wasn’t built for fighting, or any kind of violence.
I climbed out of the bed, and went for something to eat in the kitchen. Melissa wasn’t anywhere. It pained me to be alone again. That empty feeling creeping up inside me again. That locket my mother gave me. The lockets inscription burning in my head. I didn’t want to be lonely. Not again. I grabbed an apple to eat, not really that hungry now. Why was Mat trying to make me miserable like this. Was it wrong to want love, and to be loved? Who did he think he was? He had not lived the life I’d lived. Alone, miserable, bent on that lockets inscription to live like I did. He had not been abandoned by his parents like I had been. At least he had friends, loved ones, connections. All I had was my music, and my angel, who he had snatched away from me. And he most certainly hadn’t lived the life Melissa had either. He wasn’t waited on hand and foot. He wasn’t nearly rapped, or hurt and rejected by boys thousands of times like her. Isolated because of how life had treated her. He had no right to do what he did. I laid in the bed thinking of my angel. I wanted her back. I would get her back. I wasn’t going to let this pest stop me from having my love. I ate my apple, and then went back to sleep. I dreamt of my mermaid. She was in my arms smiling, and Mat was at our feet beaten, and on the verge of death. He had a look of hate in his eyes that brought to mind the phrase “if looks could kill”, but he was no threat at that point. He was beaten, weak and miserable. He’d lost, and Melissa was mine. I raised my sword to finish him off, but I never got to see the kill because I woke up. I didn’t wake up from fright. Something else had triggered it. A presence in my opera house. A very…familiar presence. I could hear glass breaking as someone walked across the area where the opera’s used to be performed, then I heard heels clapping against the aged wooden stage. Heels. It had to be a girl in the opera house if it were heels I was hearing. The presence felt much like Melissa’s. It had to be Melissa no one else would dare come into this abandoned opera house, especially when they knew it was ‘haunted’. I jerked up from the pain, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and dressed quickly. Melissa! She’d gotten away from Mat, and was coming for me! Though I still felt weak from my injury, I ignored it and the dizziness, and kept running. I ran into the banisters above the stage, by means of a secret passage, and looked down on the stage. It was her! Melissa had come back to me! I felt Mat’s presence to. I saw him at the door to the room watching Melissa cautiously. As if he were watching for me to appear and try to grab her away from them. Melissa was playing a tune on the piano I had heard her play once before. It was very peaceful. Melissa had noticed him but ignored him. I wanted her to know I was here, and ready to take her back under my wing away from Mat. My voice sounded tearful when I spoke. “Sing with me once again our strange duet. My power over you grows stronger yet, and though you’d turn from me the Phantom of the Opera is there…inside your mine.” I said. Melissa smiled softly. Mat had caught on to what Melissa was up to then, and he reacted immediately off of instinct. He lunged forward, and Melissa got frightened, acting like she had just noticed him, and jerked around. He leaped and jumped over the broken chandelier and onto the stage, and in one jump! SHOW OFF! Melissa fell backwards out of her seat from fright. I had to get her now! I jumped down from the banisters. But before I could grab her, Mat did, as Melissa tried to reach out to me. He ran for it, jumping over the chandelier pieces again, her in his arms. As he ran out the door, I held my injury it hurt if I tried to do to much right now. “NO, LULU!” Melissa cried. “LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LULU!” Damn it! He’d snatched her away from me again! “Enjoy her why you can, beast! When I’m healed, I’ll come for her, and I’ll take her back. I will get myself and her ride of you! If it’s the last thing I do!” I said. I would make it happen. Something told me things would fall into place. Things that would give me back my angel.
To be continued in chapter 59...
