Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Diablo ❯ This isn't Kansas... ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

"Duo, Duo wake up."


"Hmmmph go away Yuy I'm having a very nice dream." Duo turned away from his room mate. He was dreaming he was sleeping in front of a fire in a cabin with Heero, Heero was holding him and he was warm and safe.


"Baka get up!" Heero said in a louder voice. Duo frowned and rolled on the hard dirt ground he was glad his fur lined sleeping roll was warm, and soft, it's such a bitch to sleep on the ground in full armor.


He sat bolt upright "What the fuck..." he place his palms flat on the chainmail he wore. He slapped his shoulder at the plated skulls that acted as his shoulder guards and gasped at Heero who was standing over him dressed in a long green and black, silver embroidered silk robe that reached his feet. "Huh?" he asked his mind having a problem with what it was trying to process.


"No Duo I have no idea where we are or what we are doing here. We appear to be in a forest clearing near a road heading south towards a town called Tristram." Duo stared at Heero, over the silk robe he wore was a shiny metal brest plate, his hands were sheathed in chain gloves and his feet were in chain boots. Heero also wore a silver circle over his unruly chocolate hair, it had an eye in the center that had a red gemstone in it's center.

He stared at the beautiful spring sky all white clouds and blueness, scraggly fresh grass told him it was mid spring, there was still that cool bite to the air that he could feel even through his wool inner shirt.

Duo looked at himself again, he was wearing the same kind of gloves and boots except his was of darkened or oxidized steel. Heero's was all shiny and silver. On his left was a helm that looked like a skull of the same color as his armor and on his right was a bloody, well used Scythe. The kind people long, long, LONG, ago used for harvesting wheat.


Duo concluded he was dreaming.


"Okay Heero if you say so." He stretched out and suggled back into the warm fur.


"Baka." Heero left Duo alone to wake up and realize he wasn't dreaming. He looked down at his own furred bedding. He remembered waking up missing a soreness on his left arm, he wasn't feeling any pain from a wound he remembered so he thought they might be freezing. Sunshine? He did much the same thing Duo did. He sat bolt upright and assessed his surroundings.


Everything's been altered except the prescence of Duo who slept on a separate sleeping sack snoring, his braid lying in the mud near their spent campfire. So far he has determined that they were headed in the direction of the said town because they were camped right next to the sign that pointed to it. He picked up the staff that lay on the right side of his sack and felt warmth coming from the gnarled twisted wood. There are holes on it's top end where gemstones seemed to have been placed. There's a yellow stone in one of the sockets. A topaz? Heero looked at it closer, he never bothered to learn Gemonology, not a lot of use for that as a soldier.


The baka Duo was still forcing himself to sleep but Heero could tell he was wide awake. He grunted and decided to check the contents of the leather backpack near the head of his sleeping sack. He pulled out an assortment of bottles that had different colored liquids in them, the strange symbols on the sides told him what they are.


Maybe Duo is right... the symbols wasn't Japanese or Chinese or Korean in origin, nor was it Arabic or any other language he could recognize but not read on Earth. He's never seen these symbols before but... he could read them.


The red stuff in the flask is a healing potion, the blue liquid in the square bottle was for regaining mana (mana?) faster. There's an antidote in a black bottle, a bottle of white stamina potion, a cork stoppered test tube filled with yellow thawing potion, and the rare purple bottle of rejuvinating potion. He put them carefully down on his beddings. He heared Duo shift.


"What the helll!" he whined.


"Duo you might as well wake up and check your pack. We will need food and water." Heero said as he pulled out a scroll of parchment tied by a red silk ribbon it was squished and looked used. He unrolled it to find more symbols on it that he could read. It was instructions on how to summon a fireball. The clink of metal against metal told him the other boy had finally risen and was making his way to his side.


"What are these?" Duo said as he picked up the red bottle.


"Potions. I think I'm a sorcerer." Heero said as he scanned the scroll. "Can you read this?" he asked Duo handing him the scroll.


"Nope, it's gobbledegook. Looks like someone put salt on a bunch of earthworms and it did that as they died." he said turning it over "Can you read it."


Heero took the scroll from him and read it.


Duo raised his brows as Heero began speaking in another language he did not recognize. It sounded nice though, lilting almost musical, kinda like japanese but not japanese. "Heero I did not understand a thing you said." He watched Heero frown at the offending piece of paper.


He stood up and picked up a staff that was as tall as he is. Duo watched as Heero raised his staff and sparks of red surrounded him for a minuite before it was gone. "Whoa cool man!"


"No, I didn't do it right." Heero bent to examine his scroll again then he stood straight and held his staff across his chest lengthwise. He raised it again and following the instructions, focused on summoning a ball of fire. Sparks flew around him again this time though he felt something pull inside of him and a ball of fire erupted from his staff and it blasted away towards the trees on the other side of the road.


"Holy shit!" Duo exclaimed "How'd you that!" The ball of fire exploded on the trees and it began to burn. "O crap. Heero, forest fire. Smokey the bear will be very unhappy with you."


"Hn." He knelt down and read the second paragraph on his scroll then he stood up holding his staff the same way, he focused took a deep breath and did the same thing he did with the fireball except this time his focused summoned something different. Frost sparkled around him as the air froze then a ball of Ice erupted from his staff to douse the flames.


Duo stared with his mouth hanging open. "Okay... where's my pack? Could I do that? Man that was awesome!" Duo ran for the bulky black leather sack beside his bedroll.


He opened it and poured out it's contents. "Food!" he announced "Hard bread, some cheese, blue bottle, red bottle, purple bottle, antidote, exploding potion, fulminating potion, rancid gas potion, ah skill scroll."


"Is that what it's called?" Heero asked.


"Huh?" Duo looked up at him then his face melted into panic "Heero..." Duo whispered "this is freaking me out..."


Heero knelt down besides Duo. He looked at the green potion Duo called a rancid gas potion. Instinctively he understood it was suppose to be thrown at an enemy and a cloud of noxious gas will suffocate or damage said enemy. "Duo, we are dreaming." Heero said simply. "The way things are... it's too much like a dream."


Duo pinched Heero's neck hard.


"Itai!" Heero cried he pushed Duo away who rolled gracefully to one side. Heero rubbed at his neck "What was that for!"


"We are not dreaming." Duo stated calmly his eyes gone dark. "I pinched myself and poked my gunshot wound which by the way isn't there anymore." he stood up.


"Do you have a better explanation for this then?"


"No, God dammit no." He picked up the Scythe on the ground and hefted it over his shoulder, before he swung it in an arc at the air and with all his strength plunged the blade into the earth the ground buckled. "Shit." he muttered as he sat down on the earth and began looking at his scroll.


Heero came closer there was a different set of symbols on Duo's scroll , and he couldn't read it.


Duo looked up at him with a question in his eyes and Heero shook his head in the negative. Duo frowned and for once Heero noted that he was serious "Says here I'm a priest of Rathma, a... Necromancer, this is going to teach me how to raise a skeleton warrior from a fresh or an old corpse. The second paragraph is all about cursing my enemies to increase the amount of damage my skeletons or allies will inflict... guess being a potty mouth works for me after all."


So there we have the two boys scratching their heads at the predicament they found themselves in. They slept in the middle of a Canadian winter wounded, cold, and battle weary then found themselves the next day in the middle of an uncharted territory with unfamilliar things making themselves familliar to them.


Freaky.


Duo stared at his piece of parchment studying the words, forcing the panic he felt to the back of his mind, concentrating on the symbols that told him the beggining arts of necromancy. He looked over at Heero who was examining the rest of the contents of his bag.


"Heero? What now?" he asked.


"It's mid morning as far as I can tell, we should begin walking towards the town we are pointed to."


"Are we going TO the town or are we walking AWAY from it?" Duo asked. but he knew the answer before Heero replied.


"Towards town."


He pulled the dagger from his hip sheath and stopped himself from slicing the bread. "Heero do you have a clean dagger? Mine is poisoned." He said his eyes wide with near panic. He almost poisoned himself, on a dagger he only just saw on his person.


Heero pulled a shiny silver blade from his ankle sheath and tossed it at Duo who caught it like he's done that a hundred times over. He cut slices of bread and cheese and made 2 sandwitches. Heero came over and sat next to him he placed a fist sized lump of ham in it's parchment covering next to the sandwitches. "It smells okay." Heero said and Duo began cutting slices for their sandwitches. Then Duo reached over to get the leather sack that seems to have water in it.


Heero took the sack from Duo and uncorked it. He smelled the inside "Wine..."


"We have no water?" Duo asked.


"Apparently no." Heero took a sip of the tart new wine. "It's okay."


"Medieval England?" Duo asked.


"Yes and no, with a twist." Heero added.


"We are armed which means there are enemies." Heero nodded in agreement with Duo's observation.


"We have to go to that town something important is in there." Heero said after a while.


"How do we get out of this nightmare?" Duo asked. And they have no answer so they finished what became their brunch in silence.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was almost noon and the freaking town was no where in sight. They've walked for hours, met nobody on the worn path that showed signs of carts wheels and horse hooves as well as tracks of things Heero nor Duo couldn't name. The face plate on Duo's helm acted as a visor that kept the sun away from his tired face. He almost bumped Heero when the sorcerer suddently stopped on his tracks.


"Hey give a guy a warning kay?" he said as he righted himself after staggering a little.


"Shhhh! Listen." Heero stood very still.


"What? I can't-" he whispered then cut himself off as he pulled his helm off. "oh..." he said.


"Screams, battle." Heero took off towards the sounds.


"Hey!" Duo put his helm back on and followed. The sounds was coming from behind a clump of trees and as they came closer the twang of an arrow echoed. It was firing very rapidly it sounded like three archers, when they pushed pass the bushes they came upon a clearing.


Dozens of red skinned short, ugly thingys with swords were attacking a tall white wolf standing on it's hindlegs


No scratch that, a werewolf. The human looking creatures were waist hight to the tall werewolf who slapped them around like dolls. The weird sick part was everytime the wolf slapped one out of the way, the broken twisted body reanimated itself guts hanging and all and resumed attacking.


The twang of bows made them look to the side and they were surprised to see only one bow and one archer. They were even more surprised by who it was.


"Trowa!" They both shouted at once.


Trowa was surrounded by the short ugly humanoid thingys but he was on a tall boulder that kept him away from the rusty looking scimatars and cudgels the creatures were carrying.


Trowa spared them a glance before he resumed firing. "Heero! Duo! Save Quatre! Kill the Carver Shamans at the back they are the ones with the flaming staffs! They're reviving the carvers!" He shouted as he fired into the crowd surrounding the werewolf.


"That's Quatre?!" Duo asked. The carvers around Trowa noticed them then they turned to attack.


"Shit!" Duo cried and he felt a wave of heat pass him as Heero fired a fireball into the 3 attackers. One died and the two ran off screaming.But others were coming. A corpse sans head came flying then and landed at Duo's feet he yelped in surprise.


"Now's your chance Duo." Heero said.


Duo who studied his scroll made an eeeyew face and stood over the corpse he held his hand over it and ran the words in his mind. Heero was firing at the crowd around Quatre. Trowa's red skinned fans decided they wanted a piece of the new guys and headed towards Duo. The head was rolling it's way towards the body on the dirt that was starting to getup on it's hands and knees.


Duo Cursed and he heard his voice echo. The carvers that were about to attack him yelped and began attacking each other while some of them stared into space.


"Good job. Watch your back I'm going after the Shamans." Heero ran off.


"I wasn't cursing I was trying to raise a freaking skeleton!!!" he shouted as he hacked at the confused carvers. "And this wasn't even the curse I was learning!" His blade cut through flesh and bone like butter. He carved his way towards Trowa and his fans and as he neared he cursed them with the same curse he used. They yelped and started running around aimlessly killing each other or staring off into space.


Trowa slipped his bow over his chest and pulled out 2 javelins, he began attacking the carvers and soon he and Duo delt with the last one. They turned to see the carvers staying down, Quatre was plowing through the waist high crowd of mangled walking corpses, blood and gore all over his silver white fur, his long nails gleamed metallic on his huge paws and the feral anger in his face was a sight to behold. Duo cursed his crowd and they began to mill around confused.


"Heero!" Trowa shouted they turned in time to see why the carvers was staying down Heero, was attacking the shamans.


Heero ran for the Shamans he summoned a fireball as he approached the nearest one and hit the creature solidly on the chest, it screamed and faced him, then it fired a fireball of it's own. He ducked in time to save himself from getting scorched. He rolled over to one side then summoned an icebolt instead it hit the shaman and froze it. He then smashed it to pieces with his staff. He looked down at the iced pieces then up at 5 more who stared at him with yellow gleaming eyes.


One of them growled and they raised their staves. Heero ran off to one side and five fireballs followed. He ducked and fired an icebolt on one, he could hear Trowa had stopped firing his bow and Duo cursing his way as he hacked at his opponents. The werewolf gave an animal cry of pain and he heard it attacking with renewed fury.


He managed to down 2 more shamans before one of them got him as he tried to dodge. He heared his name yelled just as a fireball with his name on it hit him square on the back and he fell in an exhausted heap. He tried getting up, his arms shook and breathing was very hard. He wasn't burning but it knocked the air out of him. He heared the twang of Trowa's bow and a Shaman yelp. He forced himself to his feet to help Trowa.


Trowa was out of arrows, he pulled two from a carver corpse and notched both to his bow and fired at the shaman who got Heero. The arrows imbeded itself on the shaman's skull. It turned around and fired a ball of fire at him. Before Heero smashed the shaman's head in and finally it toppled over.


It became apparent why the other two weren't bothering them. They were busy raising carvers.


Duo stared at the corpse at his feet. Quatre was handling the confused carvers well, Trowa was helping Heero. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he followed the instructions he remembered and felt within himself for the same power that escaped him whenever he Cursed. He held his hand over the corpse then ran the word in his head. An ugly wet tearing sound made him open his eyes. He cried in surprise then backed up and stumbled to his butt.


The carver's skeleton picked up it's sword and went to help Quatre and his crowd of attackers.


"Wooohoo! I did it! I am Shinigami!!" Duo watched with pride as his bloody, minion began hacking away at the confused carvers. He stood up and raised another, and another, as he raised the fourth one, he fell to his knees exhausted like he ran a 6 minuite mile. He didn't understand why, he breathed hard and watched as his minions went on to help Trowa and Heero take down the last Shaman. The werewolf fell to his knees tounge hanging out panting with exhaustion.


He used his scythe to help him stand and come near the werewolf who looked at him with eyes the color of the skies. "Quatre?" he asked gasping for air.


A high pitched whine of pain came from the werewolf his ears went down flat at the sides of it's head and looking into the beast eye, Duo concluded that beyond a shadow of a doubt this was/is Quatre Reberba Winner. He is wounded. He had many cuts on his hands and legs and feet. Blood soaked and splattered him, blood from him and those of the deceased attackers that littered his immediate surroundings in pieces.


He held his hand out toward the wolf who whined and laid it's giant paws on Duo's arm and laid it's heavy soft furry head on his shoulder. Duo, ran his fingers through Quatre's soft fur "Man, I'll help you but... this will take forever to wax off."


A strangled growl escaped the werewolf and it pulled away to regard Duo cocking it's huge blue eye at him teeth bared tounge still out panting.


"Duo." He heard Trowa say and he heard the wet rustling bones of his minions as they approached him. They stayed a yard away from Duo in a protective perimeter and shook their weapons, shifting and moving alert, a deep red glow burned deep insides thier eye sockets turning this way and that looking for enemies.


"Hey Heero, I did it." Trowa was supporting Heero "Are you alright?" he asked.


"Fine just exhausted." Heero shook of Trowa's arm and leaned heavily on his staff.


"Like you ran a marathon?" Duo asked.


"Yes."


"Me too. I think we used up our mana." Duo said without thinking "Okay there I go again." he said because they knew what mana is, now that Duo put it in a sentence.


"SO the blue potions will help this." Trowa said. He pulled his pack off his shoulders and rummaged around in it till he found the squarish flask of mana potion. The 4 boys stared at each other.


It suddently occured to them how odd this all was.


There's Duo kneeling in gore surrounded by his 4 skeleton warriors, in front of him is Quatre, a 6 foot tall silver grey werewolf wounded and bloody whining like a dog when it's hurt. Heero was gasping as he leaned on his staff smelling of frost and cold and Trowa holding on to a bottle of blue liquid dressed in thick studded leather armor, he had archers gloves on a woolen shirt and pants that terminated in chain boots.


Questions buzzed in their heads.


"Let's make sure these are taken cared of first." Heero said indicating the corpses at his feet, blood soiled his robes. Trowa nodded and handed him the potion he was holding on to. Heero stared at the bottle uncapped it and took a sip. After a while he took a deeper swalllow and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He passed the bottle to Duo "It works."


Duo sniffed the bottle suspiciously it smelled like... Cherry cola? He drank some and felt it rush refreshingly down his throat. "Hmmmm taste like cola, except there's no bubbles." He drank some more and instantly felt his exhaustion ease away. "Holy cow, it does work." he said looking at the half empty bottle. He recapped it and returned it to Trowa who had taken out a bottle of red potion for Quatre.


Only how is Qutre going to drink it in his present state.


"Was he always....?" Duo asked letting the question hang as he asked Trowa.


"No he went mad when his pet wolf got killed by those carvers, they attacked us and the wolf tried defending him." He knelt besides Quatre "He cried out in anger and changed. He followed two and we found ourselves in their camp. That's when you found us."


"I suggest we find a place where we can regroup away from here before we ask more questions." Heero said, he looked at the camp "I saw gold coins over at that tent there, maybe there are other items we can find that could be useful." Trowa nodded at him.


He handed Duo the health potion "Quatre Duo will keep you company, Heero and I have to reconniter this area." The werewolf nodded. Trowa paused to lay a hand over the wolf's head before he ran off after Heero who was heading for the tent he indicated.


"So you can't talk at all?" Quatre grunted and shook his head. "Do you know how to get back to normal?" he shook his head in the negative. "Duh Duo. If he knew he won't be here moping like this." Another grunt that sounded like a snort came from Quatre. "Hey man what do you say we go over there away from this shit and get you cleaned up hm?" he said pulling at the big arm. The were wolf stood to his full height and looked down at Duo "Hey man your taller than I am! Cool."


He pulled Quatre over to a patch of clean grass and they stood there. The wolf tensed then as his features began shrinking an animal growl escaped him which became a boy's cry as Quatre tumbled to the ground on his hands and knees. He panted in exhaustion blood covered him, he had ugly cuts on the parts his heavy leather armor did not cover, the axe and shield he was holding on to was on the ground covered in gore. Duo could see how Quatre's limbs were quaking from exhaustion. His blond hair was pasted to his face by sweat.


"D-Duo." he gasped out horrified by the blood on his hands. He saw Quatre's eyes go hard as he found his quiet place.


"O hey man you alright?" Duo shook his pack off quickly and searched for the puple potion. He uncorked it and gave it to Quatre.


"Re-rejuvination potion." Quatre said as he took it from Duo. He took a sip then a deep swallow and another. He stopped then and handed Duo back the bottle. He groaned and laid down on the grass. "Hurts." he said as he looked up and saw the question in Duos' face. "Staring to feel better though."


"Quatre... your wounds are healing right before my eyes. It's not suppose to do that." Quatre stared at the 7 inch long gash that went from his knee up to his thigh, his leather breeches were cut open there and he could see how the wound was closing itself getting shallower and shalower until skin formed over the cut. He wiped the blood off and revealed white thin scar tissue.


Quatre looked up at Duo who reflected his bewilderment and fear. "Duo... what's going on?"