Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ On a Pale Horse ❯ Moonlit Silhouette ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer: As far as Mobile Suit Gundam Wing goes: Bandai has rights. Sunrise has rights. Sotsu Agency has rights. Rally does not have rights; she just likes to play with the characters. It's so much fun. As far as the world of Valdemar and Velgarth go: Mercedes Lackey has rights. DAW books have rights. Rally (again) does not have rights; she just loves dropping confused bishies in and waiting to see how long it'll take them to swim. (Again) it's just so much fun!

A/N: "Italics" is Duo speaking in Standard. "No italics" mean he's speaking Valdemaren. :Colons and Italics: indicate Mindspeech.

On A Pale Horse
-Moonlit Silhouette-

"Right here?" Duo pointed to the remains of a cobble pathway that had gone around what was once a pretty impressive temple. The cobbles sported a stain that, in the moonlight, appeared as a black circle, nearly three feet in diameter.

Onette stepped toward Duo and gave the area a long look. :Yes,: she replied, dancing back away from the stain.

Duo braced himself on the wall, took a moment to regain his balance and then crouched down. The walk across Companion's Field had winded him and worn his legs to about the consistency of finger gelatin. It just went to prove that he hadn't fully recovered from his injuries, yet. One-handed, he fished the flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on. The stain remained solid black in the yellowish beam of light and even after several passes of the light it still refused to give him any clues as to the why or how of his situation. He edged a bit closer to get a better look and was hit by a heaviness that pressed down and grew stronger until it almost became a physical weight. Waving it off as simple fatigue from the trek across the field, he took a deep breath and rested a moment before moving onto the stain itself to get closer to the center. The weight compounded as if gravity had suddenly increased tenfold. He staggered to the side, unable to hold himself up and then caught himself with one hand on the ground.

As soon as his hand touched blackened cobbles, the stain flashed a deep, ominous red and the world heaved up, turned over and then fell away. He could Hear Onette's frantic cry, but even that fell away with the Earth.

His world became an encompassing, swirling maelstrom of that red light, fear and pain. After a few seconds the red became a mist and then the mist became images of human faces. The faces were all contorted visages, pleading, desperate and begging for something. Over and over, begging and pleading. Their voices were lost in the cyclone of agony for what seemed like an eternity. Duo clamped his eyes shut against the churning images, shutting him off from the suffering. That was when one voice broke through.

"Please," the voice begged and the word rose up, repeating from a hundred—no, a thousand—of those red-mist faces at once. "Please."

"Please!"

"Please, stop!"

"Please, no more!"

"Please! Please! Please!"

Duo clapped his hands over his ears. It did nothing to block out the sound. "Please, let me die!"

"You shall." This was a new voice, a voice that sounded strangely familiar, but dripping with uncharacteristic cruelty. This voice had never been so cold. "You shall," it repeated, "When I allow it and only when I allow it."

"Please, stop!" he cried as something latched onto his arm and pulled him backward. He struggled against his captor but only managed to flail uselessly.

:Duo!: came a bright voice as his arm was released. :Duo, damn it, wake up!:

He scrambled up, trying to get to his feet but only achieving a squat. He lashed around and finally succeeded in focusing on reality. "Onette?"

:Yes, Onette,: she snapped, before she got control of her panic. :What happened?: she asked anxiously.

His eyes flashed around and he realized that he was still at the ruins. It had apparently only been a few moments since he had fallen. Onette rushed to his side when his legs faltered again and he grabbed her leg for support. With that contact, all the fear and pain passed out of Duo in a single burst and he allowed the strength in his legs to collapse fully. He dropped back into the grass and for a few precious moments just allowed his pounding heart to steady. One hand, the one that had made contact with the black cobbles, moved of its own will up, backlighting itself in the pale beams the crescent moon. "I don't know," he admitted, examining the moonlit silhouette and flexing his fingers. "It was like what happened this morning, only completely different."

:Well, that explains everything,: scoffed the Companion. She settled down next to his head took the liberty of softly nuzzling his hair in a comforting gesture. :Different, how? And what, exactly, did happen this morning anyway.:

Duo sighed and mentally tried to distance himself from the waking dream—both of the waking dreams. They disturbed him on levels that he wasn't comfortable dealing with. Dreams were just dreams and didn't warrant any type of acknowledgement. Still, he found himself telling the story in as few words as possible. "This morning when I touched that kid, it was like I had been transported to the future or something. I was myself and I was on the Palace grounds, but everything was burning. I stepped into the flames and they parted and when I looked up..."

:When you looked up,: Onette prompted, when he didn't continue for several moments.

When he looked up the 'Scythe had tried to kill him. He dropped his hand to his chest and then rolled onto his side to face the Companion. "I'm not sure how much of it you'll understand."

:Tell me as if I will,: she suggested. : If it's necessary, you can give me the details later.:

Duo nodded. "It was the DeathScythe. The 'Scythe was burning and destroying everything. I told it to stop, not that I thought it would do any good, but for some reason it did stop, but only so that it could attack me. I shouted for it to stop again and that was when I woke up. It was like a scene playing out, but one that I could participate in. What just happened here was, I don't know. It just was. It was feelings and pictures and words, all swirling together. It was just a bunch of faces, a bunch of people pleading in agony to die."

Onette didn't say anything immediately. She just lay in silence for a minute before asking, :Was that all?:

"No, there was one voice that was clearer than the others, different from the others. It told them that they would die only when he allowed them to die."

:He? Do you know who it was?:

Duo shook his head. "I'm not sure. It sounded like someone I should recognize, but I couldn't place it.:

:And was there anything else that might help?:

Duo replayed the experience once again, trying to remember as much as he could, but there wasn't anything else he could come up with until he tried cross-examining it with his dream from that morning. They had only one thing in common other than that they were both about destruction and death. His hand. He had touched both Alaen and the weird black stain.