Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ The Game ❯ ...or Continue ( Chapter 11 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
The Game
Part 11: “…or continue”
As soon as Setsuna announced their task, Duo had an urge to yell out 'I knew it.' There just had to be a catch. If they failed in the task they wouldn't just lose a 'Light Trip,' one of them would die. As soon as the landscape showed itself he found out which one of them was at risk. He barely bit back a keening cry at the sudden pain.
He was kneeling on the ground when the realm materialized around them. He immediately pitched over onto his side. Everything hurt. It felt as if a mobile suit had stepped on him and then kicked him around for sport. A booted foot flew right past where he'd been kneeling. He could just make out the owner as a blurry woman with blonde hair. She whipped around when she missed her target and appeared to be floating in midair. Duo grimaced and fumbled for his scythe. He shouldn't have. There was something seriously wrong with his right arm. That slight movement made his head pound until he wanted to throw up. What kind of realm had they been put into?
Wolfwood found himself standing at the edge of a small bluff. A paved road was behind him, laid alongside a slight cliff. Two men were fighting in front of him. In the air. One of them was glowing with a golden light and had spiky blonde hair. The other looked more normal, though he, too, was flying, and they were both moving so fast he had trouble following them. The 'normal' one, a slender man with straight black hair to his shoulders, caught the other and slung him to the ground a few yards below. The stricken one stopped glowing when he hit the ground and his hair settled into loose lavender. Wolfwood didn't really stop to wonder at that. Once he was looking down he spotted Duo.
He was suddenly glad to find his weapon had reverted to normal, once more ensconced over his right arm. He leveled the barrel on the blonde woman hovering over Duo's crumpled form. He'd just started to scramble down the steep incline when that black-haired teen appeared in front of him. Was he the enemy they had to defeat, or was it the glowing one?
Heero reacted to the sudden shift in landscape as quickly as Duo had. For some reason he found himself shivering, filled with an alien fear he couldn't understand. He'd never felt fear like that. It wasn't his. He wasn't afraid, either. He was furious. His gaze immediately swept over the road and valley to take stock of the situation.
Wolfwood was blocked by a flying man, who was sending strange looks from him to the valley below. Hiei, who they certainly hadn't imported voluntarily, was crouched about ten feet from Heero. He was surrounded by a purplish black flame and had a strange shadow flickering around in his third eye. He must have been caught in the middle of something because he was scruffed and growling with fury, fury at them, apparently. There was another stranger lying unconscious just below where Wolfwood was standing. And Duo was curled on the ground to their left with a blonde woman, who looked remarkably similar to the black-haired man, hovering over him. She kicked him onto his back and leaned over to get a closer look at him. Heero missed blasting her head off by a few inches. Whatever she was, she was fast enough to see the beam coming and to dodge it without losing more than a few strands of hair.
Heero jumped down the incline. The woman flitted back with a funny look on her face. He heard Wolfwood open fire on the black-haired man who'd blocked his path, but he didn't look to see if he'd managed to hit him. What was with this task? Keep their comrade from dying? Duo looked as if he were already dying and they'd just arrived here.
The blonde woman dropped until her feet touched the ground. She stood watching from a few feet away, her arms folded over her chest and her gaze flicking past him. Heero risked a quick look behind him. Duo's face was ashen, but he was moving.
"Duo?"
There was a world of tight anger and concern in that word. Duo was just sorry he couldn't really appreciate it at the moment. He made it as far as his knees and wavered there. He'd been banged up quite a bit as a pilot, but he'd never felt as bad as this. His ribs were probably broken. He could taste blood in his mouth and his voice came out so raspy he barely recognized it. "I'll live."
"Be still," Heero said sharply, turning his full attention back on the woman. "I have this."
Duo felt a faint smile pull at his lips. If that woman took a hit from Heero's cannon at point blank range, there'd be nothing left of her. And Heero sounded very determined to do just that. They didn't even know who she was. Maybe the person Duo had replaced in this realm had deserved to be beaten into a pulp. They couldn't assume she was an enemy just because the game set them up that way. It wasn't like Heero to act before fully understanding the situation. He must have looked every bit as battered as he felt.
"Back away," Heero said to the woman, "or I'll kill you."
She quirked an eyebrow at him and glanced over her shoulder at the black-haired man. Heero could see that he and Wolfwood were no longer fighting, but the stranger was still blocking him from coming any closer.
"How did I end up fighting a couple of kids?" the woman asked, in a tone that was both amused and annoyed at the same time.
"How should I know?" the black-haired man snorted.
The woman turned back and Heero tensed when she lifted an arm in a slow careless sort of way. He didn't know what she was going to do, but he had every intention of firing on her before she could finish. He didn't get a chance to. There was a waft of heat on his face, a resounding crack right in front of him, and two explosions. One fell to the side of where Duo was kneeling, tossing bits rock and dirt over them both, and the other impact raised a plume of dust a few yards to their left.
The woman pulled herself out of the groove she'd dug in the rocky ground. A faint bruise colored one side of her face and she looked as shocked as Heero. She clutched the injury with wide eyes. "My face!"
Heero blinked at Hiei, who was standing in front of him with his fist still raised from where he'd struck the woman aside. That strange black fire around him and the fury in his too dark eyes made him look far more threatening than the woman had.
"You meddling humans," Hiei growled at Heero. "Send me back. Now. If they die while I'm stuck here with you, I'll kill you myself."
The blonde woman was on her feet and staring at Hiei in outrage. "He hit me!"
"And you didn't even see him coming," the black-haired man smirked. "Serves you right for wasting time picking off kids. Let's go. If they're going to challenge each other instead of us, there's no point hanging around here."
The pair took to the sky, watching them from a distance. Heero spared them one look - they appeared to be bickering with each other for the moment, the woman gesturing toward them angrily and the man watching her with amusement - then he turned his gaze back to Hiei. He gave him a sharp nod and moved back to Duo.
"You should be sent back soon," Heero said to Hiei. "Our task is to keep Duo alive. As long as they're not threatening us, we should have completed the task."
He put an arm around Duo's shoulders so he was leaning on him rather than supporting himself. "Is there internal damage?"
"Yeah," Duo muttered, grimacing at the taste in his mouth. "But I'll live. Shit. I knew there had to be some catch. You fail a task and no matter what you pick, you'll end up risking someone. Dangerous. Quatre wasn't kidding..."
Hiei glared darker and stepped aside so Wolfwood could crouch beside them. "If I get rid of the threat, I'll be sent back?"
"Probably," said Wolfwood. "But you can't kill them when they're not doing anything."
"Watch me," growled Hiei.
"Wait!" Duo grimaced. "We don't even know if-"
Hiei took two steps toward the bickering pair overhead, and everything changed. Duo almost greeted the familiar sight of Setsuna's fire with relief. He would have, except his injuries hadn't changed at all. Somehow he'd thought they would disappear along with the realm as soon as the task was completed. Heero must have thought the same thing because he looked even angrier than before.
"Congratulations on completing the task," said Setsuna.
"What is this?" demanded Hiei. "Why am I still with you?" He rounded on Heero. "Send me back!"
"Can we?" Duo asked Setsuna.
"Of course." As soon as she said it, Hiei disappeared. In his place was their 'Import Queue', complete with three new sections and a star next to Hiei's name. "You have acquired a second 'Light Trip', as well as your 'Replay' portal for when you choose to attempt the failed realm again."
A gray doorway now stood across the fire from them. Heero barely spared it a glance. Duo seemed determined to stand up and he was occupied trying to keep him as immobile as possible.
"How do we heal this?" asked Heero.
"You have acquired two 'Light Trips,'" said Setsuna. "Do you wish to use one?"
"Will one of these 'Light Trips' heal me?" asked Duo.
"Yes."
"And we have two," said Duo. "How do we get a new one?"
"You require a 'Light Trip' each time you use import characters to successfully complete a task," said Setsuna. "Do you wish to use one now?"
Duo had the idea they shouldn't be quick to jump into decisions, but he wasn't going to make it though another task the way he was. He sent a guilty smile at Heero and Wolfwood. "At least we'll still have one left."
"We'll use one now," Heero said to Setsuna.
"You have options for the 'Light Trip,'" Setsuna explained. "Any of your import characters with a star may join you on the trip. Do you wish to bring an import character with you?"
"No," said Heero. He assumed there was some reason they might want to bring import characters with them, but now wasn't the time to experiment.
"For your 'Light Trip', you currently have four locations available to you. All players will be refreshed regardless of the location you choose." She waved a hand at the wall behind them and a new portal appeared.
"Eden," and here the portal shifted to show a view of a garden setting, pools, hotsprings, flowers, some sort of natural landscape. "There no people in Eden.
"Cephiro," the scene shifted to what looked like a resort or a spa, with servants pampering guests, others lounging and talking, among a quiet atmosphere. "There are importable characters in Cephiro, but the treatments available will reduce your credit.
"Wanderweb," a small village with buildings that looked a lot like the inns they'd stayed in during their first task. "There are importable characters in Wanderweb as well as shops and a library of hints. The library is free for unlimited use, but using the shops will reduce your credit.
"And lastly, Risk," which looked like a congested city, narrow lanes filled with street vendors and a medley of suspicious looking people. "Like all 'Light Trips,' players will be refreshed upon entering Risk. But you may be injured again before your time is up, depending on your actions. Risk deals in trade, and is the only place to acquire rare items without completing a task."
"Which destination do you choose?" asked Setsuna.
"Give us a minute," Duo said quickly, with a weak grin. "That Risk sounds like the most rewarding one."
"Too dangerous," said Heero.
"Yeah," Duo sighed, "at least right now. Wanderweb might be good - if the hints are about the game, maybe we can find out where we screwed up in that one realm. It has shops, too. If the items are like other games, we can probably find something to heal us without having to waste a 'Light Trip' each time."
"Eden sounds like a better place to rest, though," said Wolfwood. "No people there. Getting pampered by a well-trained staff wouldn't be a bad thing, either"
Heero agreed with him, but didn't say anything. Duo wouldn't accept a trip that didn't gain anything for them. He was probably angry with himself for setting them back, even though it was through no fault of his own. It could easily have been any of them who'd ended up injured, depending on how the game replaced the original characters. But it wasn't like the injuries were permanent. Because it wasn't real. All they had to do was walk through a doorway and everything would be healed. Right? So it didn't really matter where they chose to go.
Duo was smirking at Wolfwood. "I don't know about you, mister 'I think I'm straight,' but as fun as the idea of a bunch of scantily dressed girls rubbing oil on me sounds, I'd rather check out the hints in that library. We can stop by the wetdream world another time."
"I was thinking about what would be most comfortable for you," Wolfwood drawled, his eyebrow twitching.
"Sure you were," said Duo. "Wanderweb it is, then. Right?"
Heero nodded. They turned to find Setsuna smiling at them.
"A 'Light Trip' to any world but Risk lasts for one of your real-time days. Enjoy your stay."
.-.
TBC
Part 11: “…or continue”
As soon as Setsuna announced their task, Duo had an urge to yell out 'I knew it.' There just had to be a catch. If they failed in the task they wouldn't just lose a 'Light Trip,' one of them would die. As soon as the landscape showed itself he found out which one of them was at risk. He barely bit back a keening cry at the sudden pain.
He was kneeling on the ground when the realm materialized around them. He immediately pitched over onto his side. Everything hurt. It felt as if a mobile suit had stepped on him and then kicked him around for sport. A booted foot flew right past where he'd been kneeling. He could just make out the owner as a blurry woman with blonde hair. She whipped around when she missed her target and appeared to be floating in midair. Duo grimaced and fumbled for his scythe. He shouldn't have. There was something seriously wrong with his right arm. That slight movement made his head pound until he wanted to throw up. What kind of realm had they been put into?
Wolfwood found himself standing at the edge of a small bluff. A paved road was behind him, laid alongside a slight cliff. Two men were fighting in front of him. In the air. One of them was glowing with a golden light and had spiky blonde hair. The other looked more normal, though he, too, was flying, and they were both moving so fast he had trouble following them. The 'normal' one, a slender man with straight black hair to his shoulders, caught the other and slung him to the ground a few yards below. The stricken one stopped glowing when he hit the ground and his hair settled into loose lavender. Wolfwood didn't really stop to wonder at that. Once he was looking down he spotted Duo.
He was suddenly glad to find his weapon had reverted to normal, once more ensconced over his right arm. He leveled the barrel on the blonde woman hovering over Duo's crumpled form. He'd just started to scramble down the steep incline when that black-haired teen appeared in front of him. Was he the enemy they had to defeat, or was it the glowing one?
Heero reacted to the sudden shift in landscape as quickly as Duo had. For some reason he found himself shivering, filled with an alien fear he couldn't understand. He'd never felt fear like that. It wasn't his. He wasn't afraid, either. He was furious. His gaze immediately swept over the road and valley to take stock of the situation.
Wolfwood was blocked by a flying man, who was sending strange looks from him to the valley below. Hiei, who they certainly hadn't imported voluntarily, was crouched about ten feet from Heero. He was surrounded by a purplish black flame and had a strange shadow flickering around in his third eye. He must have been caught in the middle of something because he was scruffed and growling with fury, fury at them, apparently. There was another stranger lying unconscious just below where Wolfwood was standing. And Duo was curled on the ground to their left with a blonde woman, who looked remarkably similar to the black-haired man, hovering over him. She kicked him onto his back and leaned over to get a closer look at him. Heero missed blasting her head off by a few inches. Whatever she was, she was fast enough to see the beam coming and to dodge it without losing more than a few strands of hair.
Heero jumped down the incline. The woman flitted back with a funny look on her face. He heard Wolfwood open fire on the black-haired man who'd blocked his path, but he didn't look to see if he'd managed to hit him. What was with this task? Keep their comrade from dying? Duo looked as if he were already dying and they'd just arrived here.
The blonde woman dropped until her feet touched the ground. She stood watching from a few feet away, her arms folded over her chest and her gaze flicking past him. Heero risked a quick look behind him. Duo's face was ashen, but he was moving.
"Duo?"
There was a world of tight anger and concern in that word. Duo was just sorry he couldn't really appreciate it at the moment. He made it as far as his knees and wavered there. He'd been banged up quite a bit as a pilot, but he'd never felt as bad as this. His ribs were probably broken. He could taste blood in his mouth and his voice came out so raspy he barely recognized it. "I'll live."
"Be still," Heero said sharply, turning his full attention back on the woman. "I have this."
Duo felt a faint smile pull at his lips. If that woman took a hit from Heero's cannon at point blank range, there'd be nothing left of her. And Heero sounded very determined to do just that. They didn't even know who she was. Maybe the person Duo had replaced in this realm had deserved to be beaten into a pulp. They couldn't assume she was an enemy just because the game set them up that way. It wasn't like Heero to act before fully understanding the situation. He must have looked every bit as battered as he felt.
"Back away," Heero said to the woman, "or I'll kill you."
She quirked an eyebrow at him and glanced over her shoulder at the black-haired man. Heero could see that he and Wolfwood were no longer fighting, but the stranger was still blocking him from coming any closer.
"How did I end up fighting a couple of kids?" the woman asked, in a tone that was both amused and annoyed at the same time.
"How should I know?" the black-haired man snorted.
The woman turned back and Heero tensed when she lifted an arm in a slow careless sort of way. He didn't know what she was going to do, but he had every intention of firing on her before she could finish. He didn't get a chance to. There was a waft of heat on his face, a resounding crack right in front of him, and two explosions. One fell to the side of where Duo was kneeling, tossing bits rock and dirt over them both, and the other impact raised a plume of dust a few yards to their left.
The woman pulled herself out of the groove she'd dug in the rocky ground. A faint bruise colored one side of her face and she looked as shocked as Heero. She clutched the injury with wide eyes. "My face!"
Heero blinked at Hiei, who was standing in front of him with his fist still raised from where he'd struck the woman aside. That strange black fire around him and the fury in his too dark eyes made him look far more threatening than the woman had.
"You meddling humans," Hiei growled at Heero. "Send me back. Now. If they die while I'm stuck here with you, I'll kill you myself."
The blonde woman was on her feet and staring at Hiei in outrage. "He hit me!"
"And you didn't even see him coming," the black-haired man smirked. "Serves you right for wasting time picking off kids. Let's go. If they're going to challenge each other instead of us, there's no point hanging around here."
The pair took to the sky, watching them from a distance. Heero spared them one look - they appeared to be bickering with each other for the moment, the woman gesturing toward them angrily and the man watching her with amusement - then he turned his gaze back to Hiei. He gave him a sharp nod and moved back to Duo.
"You should be sent back soon," Heero said to Hiei. "Our task is to keep Duo alive. As long as they're not threatening us, we should have completed the task."
He put an arm around Duo's shoulders so he was leaning on him rather than supporting himself. "Is there internal damage?"
"Yeah," Duo muttered, grimacing at the taste in his mouth. "But I'll live. Shit. I knew there had to be some catch. You fail a task and no matter what you pick, you'll end up risking someone. Dangerous. Quatre wasn't kidding..."
Hiei glared darker and stepped aside so Wolfwood could crouch beside them. "If I get rid of the threat, I'll be sent back?"
"Probably," said Wolfwood. "But you can't kill them when they're not doing anything."
"Watch me," growled Hiei.
"Wait!" Duo grimaced. "We don't even know if-"
Hiei took two steps toward the bickering pair overhead, and everything changed. Duo almost greeted the familiar sight of Setsuna's fire with relief. He would have, except his injuries hadn't changed at all. Somehow he'd thought they would disappear along with the realm as soon as the task was completed. Heero must have thought the same thing because he looked even angrier than before.
"Congratulations on completing the task," said Setsuna.
"What is this?" demanded Hiei. "Why am I still with you?" He rounded on Heero. "Send me back!"
"Can we?" Duo asked Setsuna.
"Of course." As soon as she said it, Hiei disappeared. In his place was their 'Import Queue', complete with three new sections and a star next to Hiei's name. "You have acquired a second 'Light Trip', as well as your 'Replay' portal for when you choose to attempt the failed realm again."
A gray doorway now stood across the fire from them. Heero barely spared it a glance. Duo seemed determined to stand up and he was occupied trying to keep him as immobile as possible.
"How do we heal this?" asked Heero.
"You have acquired two 'Light Trips,'" said Setsuna. "Do you wish to use one?"
"Will one of these 'Light Trips' heal me?" asked Duo.
"Yes."
"And we have two," said Duo. "How do we get a new one?"
"You require a 'Light Trip' each time you use import characters to successfully complete a task," said Setsuna. "Do you wish to use one now?"
Duo had the idea they shouldn't be quick to jump into decisions, but he wasn't going to make it though another task the way he was. He sent a guilty smile at Heero and Wolfwood. "At least we'll still have one left."
"We'll use one now," Heero said to Setsuna.
"You have options for the 'Light Trip,'" Setsuna explained. "Any of your import characters with a star may join you on the trip. Do you wish to bring an import character with you?"
"No," said Heero. He assumed there was some reason they might want to bring import characters with them, but now wasn't the time to experiment.
"For your 'Light Trip', you currently have four locations available to you. All players will be refreshed regardless of the location you choose." She waved a hand at the wall behind them and a new portal appeared.
"Eden," and here the portal shifted to show a view of a garden setting, pools, hotsprings, flowers, some sort of natural landscape. "There no people in Eden.
"Cephiro," the scene shifted to what looked like a resort or a spa, with servants pampering guests, others lounging and talking, among a quiet atmosphere. "There are importable characters in Cephiro, but the treatments available will reduce your credit.
"Wanderweb," a small village with buildings that looked a lot like the inns they'd stayed in during their first task. "There are importable characters in Wanderweb as well as shops and a library of hints. The library is free for unlimited use, but using the shops will reduce your credit.
"And lastly, Risk," which looked like a congested city, narrow lanes filled with street vendors and a medley of suspicious looking people. "Like all 'Light Trips,' players will be refreshed upon entering Risk. But you may be injured again before your time is up, depending on your actions. Risk deals in trade, and is the only place to acquire rare items without completing a task."
"Which destination do you choose?" asked Setsuna.
"Give us a minute," Duo said quickly, with a weak grin. "That Risk sounds like the most rewarding one."
"Too dangerous," said Heero.
"Yeah," Duo sighed, "at least right now. Wanderweb might be good - if the hints are about the game, maybe we can find out where we screwed up in that one realm. It has shops, too. If the items are like other games, we can probably find something to heal us without having to waste a 'Light Trip' each time."
"Eden sounds like a better place to rest, though," said Wolfwood. "No people there. Getting pampered by a well-trained staff wouldn't be a bad thing, either"
Heero agreed with him, but didn't say anything. Duo wouldn't accept a trip that didn't gain anything for them. He was probably angry with himself for setting them back, even though it was through no fault of his own. It could easily have been any of them who'd ended up injured, depending on how the game replaced the original characters. But it wasn't like the injuries were permanent. Because it wasn't real. All they had to do was walk through a doorway and everything would be healed. Right? So it didn't really matter where they chose to go.
Duo was smirking at Wolfwood. "I don't know about you, mister 'I think I'm straight,' but as fun as the idea of a bunch of scantily dressed girls rubbing oil on me sounds, I'd rather check out the hints in that library. We can stop by the wetdream world another time."
"I was thinking about what would be most comfortable for you," Wolfwood drawled, his eyebrow twitching.
"Sure you were," said Duo. "Wanderweb it is, then. Right?"
Heero nodded. They turned to find Setsuna smiling at them.
"A 'Light Trip' to any world but Risk lasts for one of your real-time days. Enjoy your stay."
.-.
TBC