Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ The Game ❯ Items and credit ( Chapter 13 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Arigatomina 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Trigun Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Fantasy / Adventure | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.23.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 259 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Trigun Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Fantasy / Adventure | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.23.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 259 | Status: Work In Progress
Notes: Mitsukake comes from Fushigi Yuugi. Ernest comes from Pilot Candidate (or Candidate for Goddess).
The Game
Part 13: “Items and credit”
After a few hours of browsing through the library, Duo decided it was a lot like watching random home videos featuring people he didn't know. A lot of the scenes didn't even have clear tasks in them. There was one that involved nothing but a boy on a bicycle riding up and down a busy street and a cat walking along a wall. What sort of task was that supposed to be a shot of? Another one featured ten minutes of two gorgeous guys sitting by an ornate fountain and staring at each other. Watching that had made him feel like a voyeur and he still couldn't figure out how it represented a task.
He cricked his neck to the side and picked up a dark purplish gem. It featured a little girl in a black dress chasing after a flying hat until she eventually jumped on it and pinned it down. If that was a task, some of them were really...dumb. He exchanged it for a dark red ball that featured a boy in armor cutting open the underside of a dragonish lizard to get a glowing pink...thing...from its gullet. Now that was a task he could understand being at least a little challenging - if only because it was gross and involved getting sprayed with green dragon-lizard slime.
A warm cup of tea was pressed into his hand. He looked up in surprise. "Hey, thanks."
"Are you feeling better?" asked Heero. He sat down across from him and poured himself a cup from that constantly full refreshment tray.
"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine," Duo said, waving a hand. "There's just a lot of weird stuff here. And I'm not getting anything from it. I think the only thing I've learned is that the tasks in this game range from really stupid and simple, to too complicated to figure out what the point of the scene is. Look at this one."
Heero accepted the pink orb. He immediately raised an eyebrow at the scene it showed. "That's a boy."
"Yeah," Duo nodded.
"Do they not know it's a boy, or is the entire school gay...?"
"Exactly," Duo nodded again. "I told you, there's some weird stuff here. Look at this one."
Heero took one look and choked on his tea. "We won't get that task."
"I hope not," Duo said, in an overly serious tone. "We're missing the proper equipment."
"She blinded it with her pubic hair."
"Yeah."
Heero put the gem in the basket and shook his head. He'd never seen so much of a female's anatomy before and hoped he never did again. He didn't even want to think about the monster the girl had been having sex with. The Game had clearly not been made for minors. He cleared his throat and took a soothing drink of his tea.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," said Heero.
Duo couldn't help but smile at how serious Heero's expression was. "I noticed. You seemed really worried about me. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. You know I can take care of myself, right?"
"I know that," Heero frowned. "It's just-"
"It was kind of nice, too," Duo admitted. Heero closed his mouth again, and Duo gave an ironic smile. "It reminded me of the time you got me out of that base. I was just a burden then, the failed pilot who went and got himself caught. It's probably the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me, but it's kind of funny, too. You'd just as soon have shot me instead of breaking me out. Here you were worried for hours and it's just a game. If I'd actually died, would you have quit the game? Or taken it as a failure and gone ahead to finish the mission without me?"
Heero's face twisted. Duo couldn't tell what emotion it was. Disgust, anger, surprise, hurt? Heero looked insulted. He didn't know what to make of that. It was a simple question, given their history together. He knew for a fact barely a year ago Heero wouldn't have thought twice about completing his mission despite the death of a fellow pilot. He'd all but said just that to Quatre, warning him not to get close to his comrades because he might not be able to function when he lost one of them. It was a matter of principle. Heero's dogma. It was what had made him the best soldier among them.
When Heero spoke, it was in a cool, slightly resentful tone. "If I'd had any idea this game could injure us from the very beginning that way, I wouldn't have agreed to take part in it. I would have talked you out of participating as well. Now, we're both going to defeat it."
"So what does that mean?" asked Duo.
"We're both in this," Heero frowned. "We know what sort of threats we face. I'd defeat this with you or not at all. If something happened to you, of course I'd quit. Why wouldn't I? We're not doing this to save lives or to protect people."
"That's true," Duo winced. "I guess it was a stupid comparison."
"Yes, it was."
"Sorry," Duo offered quietly. Heero didn't look completely mollified, but he did look a little less defensive and angry. Duo offered him a wan smile. "But you know, you're really starting to get into the spirit of this sort of game. Making a bond with your partner and all."
"We already had a bond," said Heero. "That's why we're partners."
Duo noticed that Heero was getting better at saying that. He didn't look nearly as stiff, though he still looked away afterward.
Duo gave a wry smile. "Still, back when you broke me out of that cell I never would have imagined you'd end up protecting me like you did earlier. It was really...a nice surprise."
He'd been too dazed to really appreciate it, but he remembered how angry and worried Heero had been. For him. Because of him. Sure, it went along with them being partners, taking care of each other and working as a unit. But it was different, too. They'd watched each other's backs during the war, but Heero had never seemed to really care. To worry.
"I guess we're more friends than partners now," Duo murmured.
Heero blinked and looked almost wary for a second. He hid it a moment later behind an uncertain frown. "Maybe. You're the best friend I've had. For what it's worth."
That was too nice to hear. Duo smirked with a hint of teasing in his eyes, instinctively lightening the mood. "Don't be so modest, Heero. It's worth plenty." He waved a hand in front of him. "That's like a step away from admitting I'm better than-"
His eyes had caught on his wristband. The light was off. He jerked back and snapped wide eyes to Heero. "Quatre! He has no idea we failed that mission. We never had Wolfwood put his band back on. And now ours aren't even reading..."
Heero frowned and looked at his own band. "They must not be able to track us into the 'Light Trip' realms. He did say there were some places he couldn't follow."
"How much do you think his computer reads about our progress?" asked Duo. "He said they were making some sort of map of the known realms, so he can probably tell where we've been. But he wouldn't know if we failed or completed a task unless we tell him, right? That's a really hands-off approach."
"It's not like him," said Heero. "He's a better leader than that. I can see why he'd stay disconnected during that desert realm, but even in the others he only spoke when we did something he didn't like."
"You think it has to do with the last test runs?"
"Possibly," said Heero. "He seems to be waiting for the right chance to give orders. He obviously has an invested interest in this game."
"He wants something from it that he's not telling us about," Duo nodded. "Like if he gets too close and drops his guard, he'll let something slip that he wants to keep a secret."
"That means until he confides in us we can't trust him on face value. We don't know if he's willing to endanger us to achieve his objective as long as we don't know what his goal is."
"I don't know if I'd go that far," Duo winced. "He's hiding something, but that doesn't mean he'd risk us for it. He didn't even want us involved."
"That makes it even more likely that the people he's involving are expendable," said Heero. "He didn't want to involve his friends because that would mean endangering them as well. Until we know more, we should keep a close eye on the orders he gives us."
"But you're not going to quit the game just because you suspect him of hiding something, right?"
Heero blinked in surprise. "I didn't plan to."
"Good," Duo sighed. He gave a weak, almost guilty smile. "Quatre's weird behavior, hidden motives and whatever aside, I really want to know more about this thing. It just wouldn't be the same playing if you cut out early."
The door of the shrine-slash-library opened with a soft snick. Duo grinned and tagged an addendum onto his sentiment. "A self sufficient sniper's handy, too. We get to sit around and chat while he goes off exploring and comes back bearing gifts! What have you got there, Wolfwood?"
Wolfwood raised an eyebrow at Duo's quirky smile. He pulled a chair over to their table and set a tan sack on the table. It was small enough to fit in a person's palm and closed with a drawstring at the top. He pulled the string open so he could reach inside.
"Items," said Wolfwood. "I'm still not sure if our credit gets counted per task, or if the imported characters we pick up and use figure into it, too. But we had a good handful of credit so I stocked up on a few things. They all fit into this one little bag, too. It's really weird."
Duo grinned. "You non-gamers are cute when you're all clueless like that. Item bags in games let you carry your entire inventory without taking up space. Otherwise you'd have to go back and get more constantly. It's just one of those game tricks."
"You would know," Wolfwood shrugged. "First we have elixers. Supposedly if you drink one bottle it'll restore a person to full health."
He pulled out a little capped crystal bottle, roughly the size of a shot glass with a long tapered neck on top. The glass was dark blue and cloudy so they could barely make out the shadowy liquid inside.
"I got five of them," said Wolfwood. "I'd have gotten more, but they're really expensive. There was only one girl running all the shops here. I asked her about other healing things, but elixers are all they carry. She said the best item to get are feathers. Phoenix feathers. They're supposed to bring a person back to life, whether it's a player, an import character, or even a random character in the realm. You can't buy those anywhere. The only way to get them is to take the Risk 'Light Trip', or to trade for one while attempting a task. I don't know what you'd trade for them, though. She said it depended on who had the feather and what he wanted for it."
Duo tensed a little and shot a sharp look at Heero. "We need to nab a few of those. I knew there had to be some way around 'death' in this game. Especially if it's supposed to be real outside the game, too."
"Agreed," said Heero.
"Other stuff," Wolfwood muttered, rummaging in the little bag. He pulled out a card with a picture of a rifle on it and the word 'repair' across the front. "They sell weapons in the shape of cards here. You're supposed to be able to turn them into the real thing during fights, but you can't do that in the 'Light Trip' realms. This card is for repairing the weapons we already have. She gave it to me for free, but said it would take up credit each time we use it. She said we'd know when our weapons need to be repaired because they'd start to make us sick when we used them. Weak and tired, like that.
"She was really helpful. I think her name is Aerith, or Aeris, something like that. She's been to seven of the 'Light Trip' spots, so I guess we'll have access to more the further we get in the game. She gave me a few tips about the import characters, too. It doesn't matter how many import characters we use. Each time we import even one into a realm and complete the task there, we get a new 'Light Trip.' So the next time we're offered the chance to...trade out...a player, we should probably do it."
Duo nodded, though he didn't really like the idea of endangering a 'game' character if it were a task like their last one. It seemed like the cowardly way out.
"Another thing," said Wolfwood. "The characters we meet here can be chosen as playable characters once we leave, so a 'Light Trip' is the best place to find new characters without actually completing tasks. The only problem is the number of new people we meet is limited. There are only as many usable characters as you come in with."
"Three of us, three of them?" asked Duo. "So when we get out of here we'll have Ernest, Mitsukake, and that girl you met in our queue. A healer would be really useful..."
"Yeah," nodded Wolfwood. "That's another reason to bring our extra characters into the 'Light Trip' with us. The more we bring in, the more new ones we'll meet. But we can only bring an import character in if he has a star, and we'll have to use him again in a new task afterward to get him a new star."
"So if we keep bringing the same people in over and over, we'll keep meeting new people each time?" asked Duo.
Wolfwood shrugged. "That's about the only thing she didn't know for sure. There might be a limit, or we might meet the same people every time. Like if the three of us came in alone again, we'd end up seeing the three of them until we brought in a new face. She wasn't really sure how that worked."
"It's probably limited," said Duo. "The game's probably set up so we're encouraged to bring different people each time. That way we'll have to use different people in different tasks instead of sticking with our favorites. It'll make things harder, but it'll also keep us from missing out on finding really useful characters. If we learn what each one can do, we know who to use if we get stuck doing another replay later."
Wolfwood put the elixer and the card back into the sack and helped himself to some of the refreshments on the tray. After a while, he let out a sigh. He flashed a frown at Duo.
"I got something else, too," Wolfwood said slowly. "I don't know what to make of it, and I really don't want to believe it, but...that girl was really straightforward about it..."
"What is it?" asked Heero.
"It's about this place," said Wolfwood, "Wanderweb, and the people here. Those travelers? She said they were all...dead. And this is a waystation. She said everyone here was waiting for someone because they all died alone..."
"In the game?" asked Duo.
"That's just it," Wolfwood frowned. "She acted like if we died, we'd end up here, too."
He managed a weak laugh. "She invited me to help her tend one of the shops when I found my way here later."
Duo stared at him. Whatever this girl said must have unnerved him, because Wolfwood was a little paler than usual. He didn't know whether to laugh or shiver.
"So all the characters we meet here are...ghosts?" asked Duo. "And one of them hit on you."
Wolfwood laughed for real this time. "I think she was being more friendly than anything. But, yeah, they're all dead. I didn't know you could shake hands with a ghost, but that's what she said."
"Yeah," Duo sighed. "This place is weird. Good thing it's just a game. I know way too many people I do not want to meet up with as ghosts."
He'd killed most of them himself. He decided not to mention that, though. Wolfwood didn't seem to know much about their past as Gundam Pilots, and Duo wanted to keep it that way. Besides, it wasn't like he was superstitious. As long as they didn't meet up with anyone who looked like Treize, or one of the doctors, he'd be just fine.
.-.
TBC
The Game
Part 13: “Items and credit”
After a few hours of browsing through the library, Duo decided it was a lot like watching random home videos featuring people he didn't know. A lot of the scenes didn't even have clear tasks in them. There was one that involved nothing but a boy on a bicycle riding up and down a busy street and a cat walking along a wall. What sort of task was that supposed to be a shot of? Another one featured ten minutes of two gorgeous guys sitting by an ornate fountain and staring at each other. Watching that had made him feel like a voyeur and he still couldn't figure out how it represented a task.
He cricked his neck to the side and picked up a dark purplish gem. It featured a little girl in a black dress chasing after a flying hat until she eventually jumped on it and pinned it down. If that was a task, some of them were really...dumb. He exchanged it for a dark red ball that featured a boy in armor cutting open the underside of a dragonish lizard to get a glowing pink...thing...from its gullet. Now that was a task he could understand being at least a little challenging - if only because it was gross and involved getting sprayed with green dragon-lizard slime.
A warm cup of tea was pressed into his hand. He looked up in surprise. "Hey, thanks."
"Are you feeling better?" asked Heero. He sat down across from him and poured himself a cup from that constantly full refreshment tray.
"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine," Duo said, waving a hand. "There's just a lot of weird stuff here. And I'm not getting anything from it. I think the only thing I've learned is that the tasks in this game range from really stupid and simple, to too complicated to figure out what the point of the scene is. Look at this one."
Heero accepted the pink orb. He immediately raised an eyebrow at the scene it showed. "That's a boy."
"Yeah," Duo nodded.
"Do they not know it's a boy, or is the entire school gay...?"
"Exactly," Duo nodded again. "I told you, there's some weird stuff here. Look at this one."
Heero took one look and choked on his tea. "We won't get that task."
"I hope not," Duo said, in an overly serious tone. "We're missing the proper equipment."
"She blinded it with her pubic hair."
"Yeah."
Heero put the gem in the basket and shook his head. He'd never seen so much of a female's anatomy before and hoped he never did again. He didn't even want to think about the monster the girl had been having sex with. The Game had clearly not been made for minors. He cleared his throat and took a soothing drink of his tea.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," said Heero.
Duo couldn't help but smile at how serious Heero's expression was. "I noticed. You seemed really worried about me. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. You know I can take care of myself, right?"
"I know that," Heero frowned. "It's just-"
"It was kind of nice, too," Duo admitted. Heero closed his mouth again, and Duo gave an ironic smile. "It reminded me of the time you got me out of that base. I was just a burden then, the failed pilot who went and got himself caught. It's probably the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me, but it's kind of funny, too. You'd just as soon have shot me instead of breaking me out. Here you were worried for hours and it's just a game. If I'd actually died, would you have quit the game? Or taken it as a failure and gone ahead to finish the mission without me?"
Heero's face twisted. Duo couldn't tell what emotion it was. Disgust, anger, surprise, hurt? Heero looked insulted. He didn't know what to make of that. It was a simple question, given their history together. He knew for a fact barely a year ago Heero wouldn't have thought twice about completing his mission despite the death of a fellow pilot. He'd all but said just that to Quatre, warning him not to get close to his comrades because he might not be able to function when he lost one of them. It was a matter of principle. Heero's dogma. It was what had made him the best soldier among them.
When Heero spoke, it was in a cool, slightly resentful tone. "If I'd had any idea this game could injure us from the very beginning that way, I wouldn't have agreed to take part in it. I would have talked you out of participating as well. Now, we're both going to defeat it."
"So what does that mean?" asked Duo.
"We're both in this," Heero frowned. "We know what sort of threats we face. I'd defeat this with you or not at all. If something happened to you, of course I'd quit. Why wouldn't I? We're not doing this to save lives or to protect people."
"That's true," Duo winced. "I guess it was a stupid comparison."
"Yes, it was."
"Sorry," Duo offered quietly. Heero didn't look completely mollified, but he did look a little less defensive and angry. Duo offered him a wan smile. "But you know, you're really starting to get into the spirit of this sort of game. Making a bond with your partner and all."
"We already had a bond," said Heero. "That's why we're partners."
Duo noticed that Heero was getting better at saying that. He didn't look nearly as stiff, though he still looked away afterward.
Duo gave a wry smile. "Still, back when you broke me out of that cell I never would have imagined you'd end up protecting me like you did earlier. It was really...a nice surprise."
He'd been too dazed to really appreciate it, but he remembered how angry and worried Heero had been. For him. Because of him. Sure, it went along with them being partners, taking care of each other and working as a unit. But it was different, too. They'd watched each other's backs during the war, but Heero had never seemed to really care. To worry.
"I guess we're more friends than partners now," Duo murmured.
Heero blinked and looked almost wary for a second. He hid it a moment later behind an uncertain frown. "Maybe. You're the best friend I've had. For what it's worth."
That was too nice to hear. Duo smirked with a hint of teasing in his eyes, instinctively lightening the mood. "Don't be so modest, Heero. It's worth plenty." He waved a hand in front of him. "That's like a step away from admitting I'm better than-"
His eyes had caught on his wristband. The light was off. He jerked back and snapped wide eyes to Heero. "Quatre! He has no idea we failed that mission. We never had Wolfwood put his band back on. And now ours aren't even reading..."
Heero frowned and looked at his own band. "They must not be able to track us into the 'Light Trip' realms. He did say there were some places he couldn't follow."
"How much do you think his computer reads about our progress?" asked Duo. "He said they were making some sort of map of the known realms, so he can probably tell where we've been. But he wouldn't know if we failed or completed a task unless we tell him, right? That's a really hands-off approach."
"It's not like him," said Heero. "He's a better leader than that. I can see why he'd stay disconnected during that desert realm, but even in the others he only spoke when we did something he didn't like."
"You think it has to do with the last test runs?"
"Possibly," said Heero. "He seems to be waiting for the right chance to give orders. He obviously has an invested interest in this game."
"He wants something from it that he's not telling us about," Duo nodded. "Like if he gets too close and drops his guard, he'll let something slip that he wants to keep a secret."
"That means until he confides in us we can't trust him on face value. We don't know if he's willing to endanger us to achieve his objective as long as we don't know what his goal is."
"I don't know if I'd go that far," Duo winced. "He's hiding something, but that doesn't mean he'd risk us for it. He didn't even want us involved."
"That makes it even more likely that the people he's involving are expendable," said Heero. "He didn't want to involve his friends because that would mean endangering them as well. Until we know more, we should keep a close eye on the orders he gives us."
"But you're not going to quit the game just because you suspect him of hiding something, right?"
Heero blinked in surprise. "I didn't plan to."
"Good," Duo sighed. He gave a weak, almost guilty smile. "Quatre's weird behavior, hidden motives and whatever aside, I really want to know more about this thing. It just wouldn't be the same playing if you cut out early."
The door of the shrine-slash-library opened with a soft snick. Duo grinned and tagged an addendum onto his sentiment. "A self sufficient sniper's handy, too. We get to sit around and chat while he goes off exploring and comes back bearing gifts! What have you got there, Wolfwood?"
Wolfwood raised an eyebrow at Duo's quirky smile. He pulled a chair over to their table and set a tan sack on the table. It was small enough to fit in a person's palm and closed with a drawstring at the top. He pulled the string open so he could reach inside.
"Items," said Wolfwood. "I'm still not sure if our credit gets counted per task, or if the imported characters we pick up and use figure into it, too. But we had a good handful of credit so I stocked up on a few things. They all fit into this one little bag, too. It's really weird."
Duo grinned. "You non-gamers are cute when you're all clueless like that. Item bags in games let you carry your entire inventory without taking up space. Otherwise you'd have to go back and get more constantly. It's just one of those game tricks."
"You would know," Wolfwood shrugged. "First we have elixers. Supposedly if you drink one bottle it'll restore a person to full health."
He pulled out a little capped crystal bottle, roughly the size of a shot glass with a long tapered neck on top. The glass was dark blue and cloudy so they could barely make out the shadowy liquid inside.
"I got five of them," said Wolfwood. "I'd have gotten more, but they're really expensive. There was only one girl running all the shops here. I asked her about other healing things, but elixers are all they carry. She said the best item to get are feathers. Phoenix feathers. They're supposed to bring a person back to life, whether it's a player, an import character, or even a random character in the realm. You can't buy those anywhere. The only way to get them is to take the Risk 'Light Trip', or to trade for one while attempting a task. I don't know what you'd trade for them, though. She said it depended on who had the feather and what he wanted for it."
Duo tensed a little and shot a sharp look at Heero. "We need to nab a few of those. I knew there had to be some way around 'death' in this game. Especially if it's supposed to be real outside the game, too."
"Agreed," said Heero.
"Other stuff," Wolfwood muttered, rummaging in the little bag. He pulled out a card with a picture of a rifle on it and the word 'repair' across the front. "They sell weapons in the shape of cards here. You're supposed to be able to turn them into the real thing during fights, but you can't do that in the 'Light Trip' realms. This card is for repairing the weapons we already have. She gave it to me for free, but said it would take up credit each time we use it. She said we'd know when our weapons need to be repaired because they'd start to make us sick when we used them. Weak and tired, like that.
"She was really helpful. I think her name is Aerith, or Aeris, something like that. She's been to seven of the 'Light Trip' spots, so I guess we'll have access to more the further we get in the game. She gave me a few tips about the import characters, too. It doesn't matter how many import characters we use. Each time we import even one into a realm and complete the task there, we get a new 'Light Trip.' So the next time we're offered the chance to...trade out...a player, we should probably do it."
Duo nodded, though he didn't really like the idea of endangering a 'game' character if it were a task like their last one. It seemed like the cowardly way out.
"Another thing," said Wolfwood. "The characters we meet here can be chosen as playable characters once we leave, so a 'Light Trip' is the best place to find new characters without actually completing tasks. The only problem is the number of new people we meet is limited. There are only as many usable characters as you come in with."
"Three of us, three of them?" asked Duo. "So when we get out of here we'll have Ernest, Mitsukake, and that girl you met in our queue. A healer would be really useful..."
"Yeah," nodded Wolfwood. "That's another reason to bring our extra characters into the 'Light Trip' with us. The more we bring in, the more new ones we'll meet. But we can only bring an import character in if he has a star, and we'll have to use him again in a new task afterward to get him a new star."
"So if we keep bringing the same people in over and over, we'll keep meeting new people each time?" asked Duo.
Wolfwood shrugged. "That's about the only thing she didn't know for sure. There might be a limit, or we might meet the same people every time. Like if the three of us came in alone again, we'd end up seeing the three of them until we brought in a new face. She wasn't really sure how that worked."
"It's probably limited," said Duo. "The game's probably set up so we're encouraged to bring different people each time. That way we'll have to use different people in different tasks instead of sticking with our favorites. It'll make things harder, but it'll also keep us from missing out on finding really useful characters. If we learn what each one can do, we know who to use if we get stuck doing another replay later."
Wolfwood put the elixer and the card back into the sack and helped himself to some of the refreshments on the tray. After a while, he let out a sigh. He flashed a frown at Duo.
"I got something else, too," Wolfwood said slowly. "I don't know what to make of it, and I really don't want to believe it, but...that girl was really straightforward about it..."
"What is it?" asked Heero.
"It's about this place," said Wolfwood, "Wanderweb, and the people here. Those travelers? She said they were all...dead. And this is a waystation. She said everyone here was waiting for someone because they all died alone..."
"In the game?" asked Duo.
"That's just it," Wolfwood frowned. "She acted like if we died, we'd end up here, too."
He managed a weak laugh. "She invited me to help her tend one of the shops when I found my way here later."
Duo stared at him. Whatever this girl said must have unnerved him, because Wolfwood was a little paler than usual. He didn't know whether to laugh or shiver.
"So all the characters we meet here are...ghosts?" asked Duo. "And one of them hit on you."
Wolfwood laughed for real this time. "I think she was being more friendly than anything. But, yeah, they're all dead. I didn't know you could shake hands with a ghost, but that's what she said."
"Yeah," Duo sighed. "This place is weird. Good thing it's just a game. I know way too many people I do not want to meet up with as ghosts."
He'd killed most of them himself. He decided not to mention that, though. Wolfwood didn't seem to know much about their past as Gundam Pilots, and Duo wanted to keep it that way. Besides, it wasn't like he was superstitious. As long as they didn't meet up with anyone who looked like Treize, or one of the doctors, he'd be just fine.
.-.
TBC