Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Dangerous Bonds ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Title- Dangerous Bonds (1/?)
Warning- AU, Past Angst and some bitterness, unnecessarily long past history telling (its more character building, sorry) and shounen-ai , language, and violence in future parts.
Parings- None for this part, will be 1+2+1, 3+4+3 at very least… (other minor pairings may apply later)
Rating- R

Summary- Crossover with the Dark Visions book series by L.J.Smith
Disclaimer- I do not own any part of Gundam Wing or the Dark Visions book series. The following story is being written without profit and for enjoyment of a poor student. Please don't sue me. *insert pleasant, innocent smile here*

Notes: ummm //thinking or telepathy\\ it will probably get confusing later on but that's the fun part ^_~, This Fic was Titled and partly Betad read by my good friend P_M (THANKIES ) By Midgewood58 and Ilyena Sylph (who is soo completely awesome!) Although, any and all spelling and grammar mistakes are still completely my own

Part 1

//It's not everyday I get called out of class and sent to the Main Office. It's more like every other day. It's not enough that I get to be the town's black sheep, I get the prestigious title of Trouble Maker too.\\

Duo blew his hair out of his eyes in a huff as he followed the aide through the cheerfully clinical hallways of the school. //I'm not a trouble maker,\\ Duo thought heatedly, // trouble just seems to follow me around.\\


He still thanked Howard everyday for teaching him to fight; it came in handy all too often. His weird whatever-they-were left him open to verbal and physical attack every time he left his house. //People fear what they don't understand and hate what they fear,\\ he reminded himself jadedly. //Add to that my hair and eyes and its like a beacon to every bully and wanna-be badass in the area. They think they can push me around just because of the way I look. Well, I'm not weak and I'll prove it anytime it needs proving.\\ Still, even after coming out on top of more than his share of fights, scraps and tight spots the bullies didn't take the hint. He had earned a reputation that, oddly enough, made his circumstance worse. Sometimes it still shocked him that they continued to try and “get him.”

He sighed as he tried to figure out what he had done this time. He couldn't think of anything recent enough for all the formality. He was getting apprehensive when he and the aide finally reached the Main Office. Duo entered and stood in front of the head desk waiting for the secretary to tell his what to do. After a while he started to fidget minutely and shifted the weight of the book bag on his shoulder. A small eternity later, the secretary finally looked up at him and waved him off in the direction of the Principal's Office.

//Hmm. Looks like I'm moving up in the world,\\ Duo thought, standing in front of the door. He could hear two voices in a conversation he couldn't make out. One was the all too recognizable voice of the Principal and the other was a voice he didn't know. He suddenly got an odd feeling, one that he couldn't quite place, it made him hesitate before he managed to shake it off and knock politely on the door.

“Come in, Mr. Maxwell,” answered the Principal.

Duo opened the door and took a quick inventory. The Principal, a short elderly woman with beady brown eyes and flaming red hair, was standing off to the left watching him like a hawk as though she expected him to grow horns or sprout leathery wings. The second person was sitting behind the principal's desk looking very relaxed as if she wasn't the only thing out of place. She was considerably younger than the principal and looked friendly enough, something that made him weary. She had long brown hair and eyes that complemented the pleasant smile on her face. There was something familiar about her but Duo couldn't figure it out. He closed the door behind him and waited for one of them to speak.

“Good afternoon Duo, it's nice to see you again. My name is Une, do you remember me?” she asked without losing the smile.

//`See you again?'\\ Duo thought. Then he figured it out. She had come to his school about, six months before with some sort of test. That's how the public school system works - she gave a generous donation to the school and they let her use the student body as guinea pigs for her new program. Typical. //Now what was that test for again…\\

“Oh. You gave that vision test,” He answered after a moment.

“That's right,” she nodded. “Do you remember anything about the test?”

“Um, you took a group of students and stuck us in a dark room with God-awful elevator music and showed us letters on a slide projector that kept getting smaller… So you came back to tell me I have great eye sight.”

“Duo Maxwell,” the Principal snapped, “show some respect!”

He toyed with the idea of turning and saluting the old wench with a few choice words and one choice finger but Une recaptured his attention.

“You're right, you have magnificent sight, but I wasn't testing your eyes.”

“What do you mean?” He asked skeptically.

“For the first part of the test it was just as you said, however,” she paused. He could see she was getting excited about what she was about to reveal. She was looking forward to his reaction, that alone was making him worried. “However,” she repeated, “the letters continued to get smaller until they were nothing more than dots.”

“Wait a minute. That's not true, I saw them. I kept writing till the end, I remember that!”

“I know Duo, that's why I'm here. You were the only one to finish and you got them all right.”

“… You're full of it,” He winced slightly after the words left his mouth. He could feel the waves of displeasure rolling off the old woman behind him. //Oh well, I'm in it now, might as well finish pissing her off.\\ He ran fingers through his bangs and continued, “You just said there were no letters. How—”

She put a hand up to stop him, “There was a volunteer behind the screen concentrating on cue cards with letters on them, the letters you were seeing.”

Duo stood completely still trying to absorb what she was telling him. “But…”

She smiled gently, “Sit down Duo.” He did so with out even realizing it, too caught up in the thoughts running though his head. “What you did is called remote viewing. Picking up images from other people or things… not unlike your visions.”

That snapped him out of his thought pattern, “What do you know about my visions?” Duo asked suddenly on the defensive.

“It started to develop when you were five years old—” She continued on but he really didn't hear her after that. The year he was five, that was the year his life literally fell apart.

His mother and his father had known each other forever; that's the way things are in a small town. They grew up together along with his mother's best friend. His parents had decided to stay while his mother's friend went off to college. It hadn't lasted long, her friend returned without a degree but with a fiancé instead. His parents and their friends had gotten married in a beautiful double ceremony; it was lovely from what he had heard. The two couples did everything together including buying neighboring houses. When the girls had even gotten pregnant at the same time it had been such a happy time for everyone. They named the children after each other: Solo and Duo. He grew up with Solo just as his parents had grown up together; he was like a big brother.

However, happily ever after just didn't last. Solo caught a bad cold, pneumonia, it was sudden and the doctors couldn't do anything about it so he died. It seemed like everyone cried forever, so much sadness. Even at five Duo had known that's not what his `brother' would have wanted but when he told them they just thought he didn't understand. That's why his parents left him with another close friend of theirs, Howard, when they went to the funeral, the funeral they never came back from.

The police say that the roads were slick and the car spun out into a ditch, but that's not what happened at all. It was a head-on, he knew because he saw it as it happened. It scared him then and still did even to this day if he thought about it. Howard had come to put Duo to sleep after getting tired of waiting for his parents to return, he expected to find the boy playing or drawing a picture for his parents, but he found something completely different.

Duo had pulled two lamps together and was staring at them with tears running down his cheeks. The last thing his parents saw were the headlights of the on coming truck, the two lamps were the only thing around that blocked out the headlights of the truck only he could see. He tried to tell people but they just wouldn't believe the devastated child.

People had good reason not to trust his judgment besides the fact that he was a child. He had started to talk about things he shouldn't know. Things that happened across town, things that hadn't happen yet; it only served to distance him from people when he needed their support most. Howard was the only one who never abandoned him.

Duo was pulled out of his miserable stroll down memory lane when Une touched his shoulder. “Duo,” she said softly, looking at him with concern.

The boy swallowed hard and forced himself back to the present “Yeah. Ok, so you know my whole sob story. I still don't see what any of this has to do with you,” he said coolly trying desperately to regain his composure.

“He also has an attitude problem. He's constantly acting combative or standoffish,” the Principal sounded completely unmoved by Duo's life story. She had heard the whole thing many times before and it had no effect on her. The older woman genuinely did not like the young man sitting in her office; he had caused more trouble than she felt he was worth and if she were lucky this Une woman would take him off her hands. Still, she felt it was necessary to warn the woman of what she would be in for. “He's unruly and stubborn and he does not cooperate with others—”

Une drew her attention away from Duo for the first time since he had stepped in the room. She looked at the principal and smiled politely again, “Would you please excuse us.”

The principal heard a hint of steel in the tone that made her turn pale. She quickly excused herself and left her own office as silently as she could, shutting the door behind her.

Duo was so completely glad to see her go he almost sighed in relief. He had really wanted to show her just how combative his bad attitude could be. He turned to Une to thank he but she beat him to the punch.

“You do not have an attitude problem, it's just that no one here understands you. You have a very rare gift. Do you know how rare?” She could see the confusion in his eyes so she continued, “We searched the whole world and only found four other boys with your level of talent.”

“Four…”

“I'm offering you an opportunity to get out of this town and move to a new place where you will not be looked down upon. A chance to develop this gift to—”

“You keep calling this a gift but it's more like a curse… Never mind. Look, Lady…”

“Please, call me Une,” she said, her pleasant smile was unwavering.

“Right, sure thing. Like I was saying, whatever it is you're selling, I'm not buying. No one does anything completely for another's benefit. What are you getting out of this, and why should I even care?

“I work for The Treize Institute. Mr. Treize, the owner, is a great and noble man. He has been studying talents like yours for a long time. He has devoted his entire life to the task of proving the existence of ESP to the scientific community. We are doing this study for the purpose of making his life long work come full circle. We are inviting the five of you to our Lab housing in California for a year-long study. You will finish out your school year in the finest school in the area and we will be doing daily test to—”

“I'm not going to be some lab rat!”

“You misunderstand me,” she looked vaguely horrified that he would suggest such a thing. “Most of the test will resemble things like the “vision” test you took, nothing too out of the ordinary. To finish, at the end of the year, for your participation, you will receive a generous scholarship to attend the school of your choice.”

“Just how generous are we talking?” Duo asked trying to find the catch in the situation she was proposing.

Une slide a slip of paper across the table for Duo to inspect. When he saw it his violet eyes widened with delight and surprise, “This is for all five of us split?”

“No,” Une shook her head; “this is for you, alone.”

Duo nearly choked, “ARE YOU SERIOUS!”

“Completely. This is a important task and we would like you to be a part of it, what do you think?”

“I… I…can't. I can't leave Howard. He needs my help around the shop and yard and I…” Duo wanted to go but he felt so torn, //He's taken care of me for almost as long as I can remember. Adopted me for nothing and taught me everything I know. He's the reason I didn't end up living on the street or dead, I can't just leave, I owe him so much more than that.\\

“Mr. Howard wants what's best for you, he always has. He wouldn't want you to pass up this chance. You should go home and talk this over, I've already spoken with him and he is in favor of this. You have been excused from your classes for the rest of the day.” She stood and gave him a hand up, “Come on, I'll take you home, we can finish this discussion there.”

They left the school building and stepped into the fresh air. It was lunchtime so many of the students were out and about, some eating in the courtyard and other were in a rush to leave and go out for food. Most of the student body knew at least something about Duo and those that saw him took notice. Duo usually ate lunch in the back of the school with the other “weird” kids that didn't mind his presence nearly as much as the “normal” ones did. Seeing him out front in the daylight surprised some of them and the unfamiliar woman walking side him only increased their interest.

Une offered to drive when she noticed all the undue attention they were getting. Duo declined, he wanted to walk so he could sort out all his thoughts. They were halfway down the block when the sound of screeching tires and crunching metal pervaded the entire area.

When Duo turned and saw the mangled car and minivan, he was off before he knew it. Running towards the spot with Une trying to keep up. There was a girl crying and screaming hysterically near by, he forced her to look at him and shook her just enough to get her to stop screaming.

“What happened?!”

The girl was so out of it she didn't even realize who she was talking to. “I saw it! I saw it! He… He was pulling out of the lot, he stopped… then he pulled out and… Oh God this van came out of no where and… Oh God!”

She started to get incoherent again and he let her go. He tried to get closer to the wreck but he saw something that made him stop dead in his place. Une finally caught up to him, slightly winded she asked, “What is it?” When she got no reply she turned to see what he was looking at.

From the force of the accident a little girl in side of the minivan had been thrown against the windshield. The glass had cracked around her head forming little cracks across her face, like a spider web over her still wide-open doe eyes.

Duo's hand slid into his pocket to grip the folded sheet of paper in his fist. “You said you can help me develop this gift,” he said spiting the last word out with distain. “Can you teach me to control it?”

“I can't promise you anything, but that's what we hope to do. That's what we will be working toward.”

“Then I'll do it, I'll go,” he spoke quietly, almost inaudibly above the approaching sirens. He turned away and walked off dropping the now crumpled sheet of paper behind him.

Une picked it up and unfolded it to look at the picture. She carefully refolded the paper and closed her eyes, “Oh Duo.”

~~~~~~~~~~



~Apple
Just smile and nod

 

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