Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Chupacabras Synchronicity ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five

It was light. Too damn light! Duo snarled, covering his head with the pillow. Something cold sat across his cheek, thin and soft. Curious, Duo dared the sunlight pouring through the window and tentatively touched the smooth plastic strip. It was connected to his arm, he realised dully. Then he noticed the small, almost empty bag of blood lying beside him.

"Heero, I could have rolled on that!" He snapped, disgusted by the thought.

Duo figured he had better let the rest in, so he didn't remove the needle. He knew he needed all the blood he could get. Especially after that little beast tired to suck it all out of him. Duo couldn't help but smile as he remembered the look on the thing's face when he had suddenly released his powers. It had hovered for a split second before its skin roiled and then splash…it exploded and all Duo could see was red.

Now, however, Duo could hardy see at all. The sunlight was so damn bright! Mumbling, Duo waited uncomfortably as the last dregs of blood flooded him before detaching himself from Heero's makeshift contraption. He fished through his belongings for a school uniform, grabbed his toiletries, and headed for the shower. He needed one. He stank. Worse, he knew it.

The dorm was deserted. Duo realised it was daylight, which meant school had started. He hoped the guys had come up with a good excuse for his absence, as the way he was walking in a strange curvy line down the hallway gave him the impression he was not yet ready to attend.

"Stupid slimy blood sucking lecherous pint-sized monster!" Duo grumbled under his breath, dragging his towel along behind him as the weight of his belongings started to press on him. He stumbled through the bathroom doors, randomly picked a shower and tossed his things in the first half of the cubicle, already exhausted.

"I'll blow you all to pieces you rotten little sorry excuses for scum…" He continued to occupy his mind with the creation of new nicknames for his newest enemy, forcing himself to relax into the routine of having a shower.

Showers never failed to make Duo feel better. They were his escape from the world. In the shower he felt as weightless as if he were caught in his psionic powers, floating in a world without gravity. As a result, most of Duo's clearer and more effective ideas came to him in the shower, along with revelations.

"I'm embarrassed," Duo admitted to himself, forcing the words to make himself admit it. He was embarrassed. Embarrassed he had been unable to stop the thing from biting him in the first place, let alone twice! Embarrassed he had fallen asleep and let it get in the room. Embarrassed he had completely collapsed when Heero had found him. Embarrassed that he had appeared weak in front of his friends. Embarrassed that Heero had had to take care of him like a sick, weak child.

"Coward," Duo hissed at himself, scrubbing at his pale skin, trying to remove the dried flakes of blood, knowing some of it was his own, though not all of it. He had no idea what other things the creature had fed on, only that it had a hunger for blood that seemed insatiable. Duo didn't like it one bit.

Shaking his head, Duo unwound his matted braid and watched the water trickle red down the drain. When at last it was clear he began massaging shampoo into the thick mass, delighting in the feel of fingers on his scalp, even if they were his own. It was not hard for him to imagine they were someone else's.

Conditioner followed. Twice, until Duo could finally force a brush through the thick mess. He did it in the shower, letting most of the water wash down the drain, making less mess. When it was braided and reasonably dry, Duo dressed and left the bathroom.

He felt refreshed and clean, but he was tired. However, he didn't want to sleep. Not yet. He had enough energy for what he needed and he could feel his psionic energy replenishing itself also. Soon he would be back in working order, and in the mean time he would find out everything he needed to know.

He made Heero's bed and wrote a quick note to explain where he could be found in case Heero came back to see how he was. Duo then went to his desk and pulled out a box from the bottom drawer. It was the first thing he had put safely away, and his most valued possession.

They were stored in a sleek ebony box Heero had bought him for his `birthday'. Duo had been furious at the gift, because his birthday present was meant to have been the clock he had torn apart last semester. Duo had only accepted the box when Heero revealed he had bought himself one almost identical, only his was white.

Duo loved the box. Lifting the lid, the inside was lined in black velvet. Nestled in the soft black folds were too sleek silver arm bands the exact size of his wrists. On the left chains were carved into the thick outer casing of the bands. The right was carved with wings.

Duo gently lifted them one by one and snapped them closed around his wrists. The effect was instantaneous. His gifts, which a moment before had been drained and muted more than their usually damaged state, flared to life. He was as powerful as he had ever been before he had destroyed everyone's Psionic gifts.

Duo had made the bands as a present for Heero, to thank him for everything he sacrificed when he let Duo destroy the majority of the world's Psionic frequencies. He had crafted them using a mixture of his own designs and those constructed by Professors J and G. The result was a device that honed your gift, while magnifying it with new frequencies. It was deadly, dangerous…beautiful.

Closing the box, Duo left it on his desk so Heero would know he was wearing them. Duo hoped he would take the hint and put on his own. They were going to need them.

Rolling down his sleeves to cover the devices, Duo locked the dorm door and hurried toward the main building. He encountered no trouble on his journey, sticking to the smaller, lesser used corridors and avoiding places he knew teachers patrolled. He was used to hiding his presence at the college.

Duo slipped into the library like a ghost, sliding up to the main desk with a cheeky grin plastered on his face.

Miss Kaze, the librarian realised a shadow as hanging over her, squealed and nearly fell back off her chair before she realised it was Duo. She frowned at him before she noticed how pale and sickly he looked. Then her frown turned into worry.

"Duo, you look ill! What's wrong? Have you been to the infirmary? You should be in bed…"

Duo laughed, shaking his head and waving his hand flippantly to shrug off the woman's concern.

"I'm fine. I have been a little sick, but I'm recovering. I thought some light reading would help. Something funny. Have you got anything on aliens?"

Miss Kaze's brows shot up, her eyes wide as she tried not to laugh.

"Something funny, he says," she mused to herself. "There's a whole shelf down next to the occult section. You know where that is; I remember you looking through it last semester."

"Thanks," Duo cut in before she could ask exactly why he had been so interested in the occult section last semester. The truth was, he had been looking for weird scientific theories that were not acceptable in the public yet. Theories he definitely did not want Miss Kaze looking any closer at. Kaze might have been just a librarian, but she was smart, fast and keen. Once her curiosity was piqued there was no stopping her.

He liked the occult section of the library. It was darker, mustier, and just had that spooky `I'm in a Hollywood movie' feel to it. The occult section was also filled with the oldest books. Books with that delicious musty dirty smell that just screamed `I'm old, love me'. And Duo did.

By comparison, the science fiction section looked positively garish, all shiny new zodiacal designs plastered over the glossy covers. He didn't know where to start, so he settled for scanning all the spines, getting a feel for what was there.

"Who reads this shit anyway?" Duo grumbled as he scanned a particular book titled `How Mary was impregnated by aliens; the true consummation.' Duo assumed it probably didn't help that he had been raised by a church. Of course he was going to frown at that!

Near the bottom Duo managed to find a set of dictionaries that were slightly older than most of the other material and he grabbed a few that looked promising. One was an almanac of extraterrestrial activity over the past hundred years. One was a dictionary of superstitions with a barbie-pink cover on it that made him frown and the third was a collection of strange phenomenon that had begun to occur in the last fifty years. Duo had a feeling those `phenomenon' were related to Psionicsm, so he had grabbed the book.

He carried the three books back to Miss Kaze's desk and checked them out, waving to the librarian as he went past so she didn't worry about him disappearing under a pile of books. She had once had to help him deconstruct a wall of books he had unintentionally made while researching an assignment and had never trusted him alone in the library since.

First stop complete, Duo headed for the cafeteria, aware lunch hadn't started yet, but also knowing the cook would give him a sandwich since he was supposed to be `sick'.

As it turned out, lunch was nori rolls and sandwich's anyway. The café mum, as he had nicknamed the serving ladies, placed his in a small plastic dish so that he could eat it outside. She seemed to think sunshine was the best cure for any ailment. Duo wasn't going to tell her only time could replace blood, especially when his next stop was outside anyway.

The walk was eerily familiar. It made his stomach jerk about in protest as memories flooded him. He was filled with fear, and so pushed himself forward.

"Coward," He hissed at himself. "Get over it!"

But Duo could not forget. As he stepped into the clearing the memories of that night flew up to from the deepest reaches of his subconscious to bite him and he wanted to run away. It was only by the greatest force of will that Duo forced himself forward. He climbed the rock and looked around, seeing the ghosts of his friends battling, waking, sending their Psionic gifts against one another. He could feel Quatre's clutches on his brain and it hurt.

"It's over. It can't hurt you," Duo told himself again and again while his mind screamed his age old litany; Run, Hide, Run, Hide…

He lowered himself into what had once been his favourite place. He was instantly calm as he felt the familiar rock against his back, the wind ruffling the top of his head as it passed over the hole. Letting out a contented sigh, Duo grabbed the almanac and began flicking through the pages.

"Little green men, little purple men, little yellow men….where are the little grey men?" Duo glared at the pages as he flicked through, eyes scanning each article, picking out key words and storing them away for future reference. "Big grey men…" He laughed, startled, as he came across an article about abductions by aliens with large, elongated grey faces. Apparently many people had drawn the same image after being abducted. Duo was not surprised. He could stand up there and then, claim to be abducted and do a perfect rendition himself.

Shaking his head Duo continued the search. There was nothing in the first book that warranted his attention, and while a lot of the dictionary of superstitions was interesting, and he planned to read up on a lot of the entries in it, it too was useless. So he turned to the Collection of Phenomenon from the last fifty years.

He was growing bored, getting tired, and felt like sleeping. He almost missed it. Almost.

Flicking through the pages, now ignoring the actual writing and looking only at the pictures, a small figure in the bottom right hand corner of a page caught Duo's attention. Small, black, spiny with huge teeth, it was a picture straight out of a nightmare, and straight out of Duo's memory.

He sat up straight and held the book closer to his face, quickly reading the article, blanching slightly, a thick sneer plastered on his face.

"I hope that face is not for me."

Duo's head snapped up and he stared at Heero in complete surprise. His head caught up and observed the food in Heero's hand. It was lunch time.

"Cook told me you went outside to eat. I guessed you were here."

"I left a note in our room…"

Heero shook his head to say he hadn't been back yet. Knowing that, Duo rolled up his sleeve to show Heero what he was wearing. Heero grinned.

"Good idea. I wondered how you were up and about."

Duo waited until Heero was comfortably seated beside him in the hole before he leant his head on the other boys shoulder and dumped the book in his lap, stabbing the page with his finger.

"That's my new enemy."

Heero looked from Duo's determined, hate filled face to the little black sketch and frowned. Duo knew what he was thinking; `that was what had almost taken Duo's life?

"What is it?"

Duo sneered again. He could tell it made Heero uncomfortable, but he couldn't help it. The leech had got to him, and he was embarrassed, and he wanted revenge.

`So sue me', he wanted to say. He settled for the facts.

"That, lover, is a Chupacabra."

**

Um…this is the picture in the book (of the Chupacabra):