DISCLAIMERS AND WARNINGS: This site and its author have no connection whatsoever with the actual show Xena: Warrior Princess. That show and all its characters are the property of its creators and the appropriate licensed agencies. This site is run for fun by a fan, and no profit is made from it. Gods willing, there is nothing here to sue me over.

This site is subtext friendly, and yes, some of the stories may contain graphic descriptions of sex between two women. Some of the stories may also contain graphic descriptions of sex between men and women. There may also be a certain degree of violence in some of the stories. They may contain all sorts of things. I won't know for sure until they have been written after all. In any event, if this type of content offends you, or if you are under the age of 18, or if this is illegal where you live, please go away.

SPECIFIC TO THIS STORY: The Characters Xena and Gabrielle belong to RenPics et al. I make no claim to their creation. Original characters and situations are mine and no fault of the PTB's. Major Warning for Violence Later in the story, small degree of het content (not our girls of course). Not exactly my usual type of story... darker overtones... but still Uber, more or less.

PROLOGUE

They had the girl down on the ground, so sure of their kill that they could almost taste it. At first they had only meant to intimidate her, to bully her out of any food or valuables she carried. She had refused to give in. They were twelve to her one, and she had taken out six of them with nothing more than an old walking stick. She fought like a wildcat, but it hadn't been enough.

At the end, they had dragged her into the relative shelter of the darkened alleyways behind the abandoned tenements, intent on exacting payment for the fallen. They were predators by nature and only her blood would appease them now. Her death was a certainty, but they were going to play with her for a while first. They didn't get freewomen down in the Burnouts very often.

So intent were they on their game of lust and retribution, they forgot to guard the rear. It would be their last mistake.

CHAPTER ONE

She watched from the shadows, ready to act the moment the Ashers moved. The girl had been nothing at first, a slender bit of blonde fluff who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunate bait for the brutal denizens of the burned out slums. The Ashers were growing braver of late, venturing more often into the City for food and sport. They needed to be curbed and soon. A potential victim was the best draw, and the girl had seemed perfect.

Perfect. Right up until she refused to cower in fear of her attackers, right up until she began to fight. It had hit the watcher like a landslide, the moment her staff began to whirl. 'Gabrielle!' Centuries old grief hammered at the warrior then, battering her hard won control into ruins.

…They had been surrounded at the last, back to back amid the fallen, enemies closing on all sides. They had fought like never before, lashing out desperately, never wavering. She was facing two of them when she felt Gabrielle fall. By the time they were dead, it was too late. The bard had gone at last into the arms of death, the one place she could no longer follow…

The resemblance was unnerving. Her stance, her refusal to be cowed, all the same. It could not be, and yet, somehow it was. She watched, paralyzed by grief as they beat the girl down, followed numbly as they dragged her into the alleyways. Only the sight of them tearing at the unconscious girl's clothing galvanized her to action. Black rage boiled up from the deepest recesses of her soul, snapping her last thin shred of control.

She rose from the darkness without a sound, a vengeful specter bent on destruction. The Ashers didn't stand a chance. She was unstoppable, a leather-clad vision of martial perfection. In the dim light her blue eyes glowed with an icy fury. It was over in seconds.

The moment the last one fell, he was forgotten. The girl had become her first priority; she had to get her clear of the Burnouts before they ran into any more Ashers. This last batch had been weak, fairly low in the pecking order. There would be others, far more dangerous.

The Ashers had earned their name living in the burned out tenements left in the wake of the Uprising at the end of the century. They were a pitiful looking lot, covered in grime and ash, seemingly weak. Appearances were deceptive, even though the past twenty years had not been kind to them. Only the dark and the desperate came down into the Burnouts and stayed. Natural selection being what it was, only the strongest and most vicious survived. There had been bloody battles in the early years, but when the dust finally settled there had been a hierarchy of sorts in place.

It had been the upper echelon of that ranking that the warrior had been seeking, aiming to find and destroy them. If the head were cut off, the snake would flounder and die. The girl had unwittingly destroyed her plan. If she had just let them have what she carried, she would have been fine. They would have roughed her up a little and let her go. Instead, she had fought, forcing the warrior to betray her presence. After she got the girl out, she'd have to come up with a new plan of attack.

There was little use in worrying about it now she thought as she picked up the battered walking stick. The damage had already been done. Gathering the limp blonde form to her chest, the dark warrior strode resolutely toward the City.

They almost made it. The area where the Burnouts broadened out into the clean streets of the City was within sight when she first heard them: a late night raiding party coming back to their nest for the day. By the sound of things, they'd made a successful night of it. They were far too loud and exuberant to have come up empty handed.

Looking around for someplace to hide was pointless; there was no time. What she needed was a place to make a stand. There! Two charred and crumbled walls met in a tight corner. That would have to do, it would at least shield her back. The Ashers didn't take kindly to armed intrusions into their territory, and she was bound to have a fight on her hands. Not being attacked from all sides would be a definite bonus. Moving quickly, the warrior set her still unconscious burden down gently in the shadows where the walls met. Laying the walking stick within reach, she barely glanced at her before turning away. She'd be safe there for the moment, as safe as it was currently possible to make her anyway.

She shrugged out of her long leather coat, revealing a sword slung over her back. Even in these days of automatic weapons, she still preferred a good blade when the fighting got close. Despite her bias, she also had a gun strapped on her left hip. It was well within her reach, but she would not use it unless she had to. Hand to hand gave her far more satisfaction, especially against these vermin. She stood lightly on the balls of her feet, arms swinging loosely at her sides. No use in letting them know how ready she was to fight before she needed to.

It was unlikely, but maybe she could bullshit her way out before they realized she had an injured companion. The Ashers were a lot like sharks; if they smelled blood, there would be no stopping them. It sounded like these had been out into the City proper, which meant they were definitely not small fry like the last bunch. Judging by the amount of noise the party was making, there were more than a few of them.

She saw them several moments before they saw her. It gave her an unexpected edge, allowing her some few seconds to size them up. This lot was much cleaner and stronger than the last. There were also more of them, at least fifteen. The apparent leader was a huge man, nearly seven feet, and the rest were not much smaller. This was going to be fun. She needed a good fight to clear the shock of the girl's presence from her mind. It was too bad that the girl was still out though, she could have made a run for it before the fight started.

A shout went up as the leader marked her presence. As one the group moved toward her position, fanning out to cover all avenues of escape. A prime demonstration of a pack mentality, she thought to herself as she watched them through narrowed eyes. It was evident that they had no intention of talking. A groan from behind her caught at her attention.

Damn! Of all the possible times for the girl to wake up, this had to be the worst. "Stay down in the shadows. Don't let them see you." The warrior hissed through clenched teeth. There was no further sound from behind. Either the girl had lost consciousness again, or she had heard and understood. There was no time left to worry about it; the raiding party had reached her meager shelter.

Consciousness stabbed through Gwyn's pain ravaged body without warning. Cursing the need that had driven her into the Burnouts, she rapidly took stock. Everything appeared to still be in place; she merely felt like she'd been hit by a train. She'd really taken a beating this time; felt like the damn Ashers had actually broken a few ribs. Memory sliced through the fog of agony; they'd had her down! By all rights, she should be dead, not waking up. What the hell had happened? Holding herself painfully still, she listened closely. There was no sound but the slight crunch of gravel caused by someone shifting their weight from one foot to the other. Cautiously, she opened her eyes and sat up. She was unable to suppress the groan the movement forced from her.

Almost immediately, a rough but distinctly feminine voice barked an order for her to stay out of sight. Teeth gritted against both her pain and the anger at being ordered about like a child; she rose silently to her knees. A darkly silhouetted form blocked most of her line of sight, but she could still see the Ashers closing in. They were under attack, and it was obvious that the stranger had every intention of defending their position. It took Gwyn only an instant to assess the situation. She was evidently not a captive of any sort; she was not tied, and her staff had been placed within inches of her hand. The dark woman in front of her must have already rescued her somehow; there was no other way she would still be alive.

Gwyn didn't hesitate for even a second before rising the rest of the way to her feet. She could not let the other stand alone; it was not in her nature. She had to help if she could. Only years of focused meditation allowed her to distance the pain she felt. As long as the fight was quick, she would be able to last it out. Injured as she was, she'd pay for it later, but that didn't matter. Silently, staff at ready, she moved to flank the other woman. As she moved into position, she glanced up into the other's face.

"You never did listen very well." The other woman ground out.

For just an instant Gwyn found herself drowning in eyes made of pure blue steel. An odd shiver of recognition drove straight through to the depths of her soul, leaving her shaken and somehow wanting. It was an impossible feeling, one of both connection and loss. A sensation so fleeting, it was gone before she could focus. She had no time to analyze it anyway.

A strike from one of the Ashers drew her attention back to the matter at hand, effectively blocking any questions that she might have asked. The leader attacked, coming in with fists flying and Gwyn felt a peculiar calm settle over her as the battle began in earnest. It was one of those moments of perfect clarity, where for one brief second, the whole world makes sense. In that instant Gwyn knew that no matter what happened, she was finally where she belonged; at the side of this strange woman, this dark warrior. She could feel the rightness of it, something like coming home. Even as she wielded her staff with practiced ease, Gwyn wondered if this woman was the key to finding the answers she sought.

The fight seemed interminable, and Gwyn felt herself slipping as the time wore on. If they didn't wrap it up soon, she was going to pass out again. There was nothing she could do to stop it; she'd been operating on adrenaline almost from the start. Nonetheless, she fought with dogged determination, never wavering. She and the warrior were back to back by then, warding off all comers. There were only a couple of them left when she finally ran out of steam. The last thing she heard as she fell and the blackness finally closed in was the dark woman's anguished scream. It was the same sound that had haunted her dreams for months.

She had been angry when the girl first stepped forward to stand beside her, but as they fought she was once more reminded of the bard. Given the blatant similarities between the two, she should have known better. Gabrielle would never have backed down and left her alone either. In an odd way, she had enjoyed the fight all the more because of the girl's presence. It had been so easy to pretend, if only for a few moments, that the past had never been. It had felt so good, so right, not to have to worry about her back. The pleasure was doomed to be unfortunately brief.

They had almost taken them all, there were only two of them left. The giant that faced her and the scrawny little psychopath that faced the girl. The wiry female Asher was intensely annoying, keeping up a stream of insane patter as she fought. She reminded the warrior of someone, an unpleasant someone from long ago. It didn't bother her that she could not remember who or when. She had forgotten many things over the centuries, many faces. At times, she had even forgotten her own name. The lack hadn't harmed her yet. It seemed certain that the girl with the staff could handle the crazy woman and give the warrior time to focus on the huge man facing her. They had just begun to close the gap between them, when she felt the girl at her back slump to the ground.

It resonated too closely with her recent memories of the past, wrenching a scream of denial from deep in her gut. Almost without volition, she pulled the gun from her hip and fired squarely into the man's chest several times in rapid succession. As he fell, she was already spinning to face the crazy woman. She was gone; there was no one there at all. The sound that tore from the warrior’s throat was pure animal rage and frustration; there was no hint of thought or grief behind it. That would come later.

The minute Kayl saw the warrior go for her gun, she had had the good sense to break for cover. The scruffy little blonde hadn’t lived in the same world as anyone else for a very long time, but she was far from stupid. It had taken only a fraction of a second to dive down behind the same walls that the warrior had used earlier to guard her back. As expected, the dark woman did not bother to look for her. She was too concerned with her fallen companion to worry about a single Asher.

Black eyes snapping insanely, she watched from hiding as Morgan went down, with several bullets in his chest. Magnus was going to be really pissed about that; the big man had been one of his favorites. Not that Kayl would miss him. Oh, he'd been her latest in a very long line of protectors, but he’d been a vicious brute; obeyed but never liked, never respected. In short, he was a typical Alpha, prone to psychotic rages and fits of jealous temper.

The Alphas were second only to Magnus among the Ashers. They were his cadre of enforcers, his eyes and ears throughout his desolate little realm. Their whole purpose was intimidation, but beside him they looked like wimps. Magnus kept order in the Burnouts with an iron fist; nobody crossed him, at least not if they wanted to go on breathing.

He'd want to know about this strange warrior and her friend, these women who effortlessly decimated an entire raiding party. He'd want to be ready for them if they came again. It would definitely be worth her while to tell him, if only she could get near him.

Text & Original Images (c) M.C. Sak 2000

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