Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Falls the Shadow ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

C H A P T E R 8

The first thing Diana noticed was the darkness of a shadow looming to her left. It didn't necessarily have any evil feel to it, but it reeked of the unknown and of dark mystic practices that dated back a couple thousand years. Diana stood directly on the boundary between the shadow and the rest of the dreamscape, feeling the pull that threatened to suck her in and the gravity that kept her out. She realized that everything around her hang in the balance, all depending on which way she swayed.

In front of her stood Quatre. Periodically, the darkness would reach out from its apparent boundary and wrap around him, pulling the small blond closer. But as it seemed ready to suck him in for good, it somehow lost its hold and left Quatre in confusion. After each failed attempt by the darkness to ensnare its prey, Quatre would have some distinct change; a wound in his neck the first time, blood spilling from his left shoulder the second…

Suddenly, Diana reached up and felt over her own shoulder. Her hands returned coated in blood, and she could almost hear Trowa's voice saying, "Looking… at your shoulder. There's something in it." She stared at the crimson stain on her hands, fascinated.

Trowa himself appeared then, walking over to Diana and taking her hand in one of his. He looked her over briefly, stroking her face with the tenderness of a lover's touch, before gently pressing his lips to hers. He gave her hand one last reassuring squeeze before he crossed into the darker half of the dreamscape, still holding Diana's hand as a lifeline. Within an instant, a needle struck his left shoulder and he was torn from her grasp. Diana could do nothing but watch, horrified and, suddenly, extremely lonely.

In the meantime, Duo had come forward. In his casual way, he slung an arm around Diana's shoulders and guided her away from the boundary and the shadows beyond it, smiling slightly. "Don't worry, Diana. I'll protect you from the big, bad Sulegna." With a more serious tone, he added, "Not that you'll need much protecting. You're a strong girl, right?"

Diana never got to answer. At that precise instant a needle flew towards Duo.

* * * * * * * * * *

The brunette figure in the bed flew up suddenly, nearly causing Duo to tumble from his perch on the dresser next to the television set. After righting himself, he noticed the violent tremors coursing through Diana's body as she sat curled up on the bed, so he hopped down and placed himself next to her. "You okay?"

Diana raised a shaky hand to her forehead as she nodded slightly. "I will be." Duo didn't seem convinced. She glanced at the clock, which read 2:46 am. "How come you're still up?"

"Don't shrug this off. What happened? Why are you so worked up?"

"It's nothing… just some stupid dream." Diana rose from the bed and crossed to the chair, where Quatre lay asleep. "Nothing real..." She started looking Quatre over, then turned to Duo. "Any reason you were sitting on the dresser at a quarter till three in the morning?"

Duo sighed, conceding to the fact that, no matter how bothered she really was, Diana wasn't about to admit to anything amiss. "When Trowa said he'd call later, he meant later. I'm starting to worry about him."

"He isn't calling."

"Eh?"

Duo went ignored as Diana reached into the collar of Quatre's nightshirt, feeling for his left shoulder. She felt the pin there, same as her. "Dear Lord, it was true…"

"What was true? Diana, what the hell are you talking about?"

Diana shook her head gently and turned to face Duo. "I… I… had a dream, that's all."

"That's bullshit!" Duo rose and crosses the room to confront her directly. "You don't seem like the type to be so shaken up by a stupid dream if you didn't think there was anything meant by it. Tell me what's wrong with you all of the sudden!"

"There's nothing wrong!"

"Then stop acting like there is!"

Tense silence followed before Diana walked around Duo and picked up a small black messenger bag. From it, she produced a voice recorder, a pad, some papers, and a pen. She whispered into the recorder as the pen flew across the paper. Duo thought he heard the words `item: dream number five,' but he couldn't be sure. At length, after Diana had stopped with the recorder, Duo asked, "What are you doing?"

"I haven't updated my case files for awhile."

Duo sat down across from her, looking over the case files spread across the bed. "This is still just a case to you?"

"No, but I need regularity." She put the pad down and sighed heavily, leaning her head back against the bed's headboard. "This isn't a Preventers' case anymore… it stopped being that yesterday. I hate to put it into such terms, but this is a battle for Quatre… hell, for all of us." She looked back at Duo. "And our opponent is some screwy cult that's miles ahead of us, almost like they know our moves before they make them. To make things even worse, we know nothing about them. As we stand now, we're sitting ducks."

"We'll remain that way as long as you keep that attitude. I may not be the smartest person, but I know that much." He picked up a stack of paper and moved it aside, scooting forward to address her more closely. "Listen, I've dealt with odds this bad. Quatre's dealt with odds this bad, and Trowa, too. We used to fight losing battles all the time. And we got out with our heads."

"Did you expect to?"

Duo hesitated. "…That's not the point."

"Didn't think so."

"Okay, so we expected failure. We didn't give up."

"Who said anything about giving up?" Diana got off of the bed and walked to the sink, running some water while looking for a washcloth. Finding one, she placed it in the sink under the water flow and turned back to Duo. "I'm just being realistic. Sure, you've fought your battles, but-and correct me if I'm wrong-you've never fought anything quite like this before. And I, an investigator who gathers facts and makes heads or tails of them, have never dealt with something like this. The Sulegna are familiar with us all and are pretty damn good at using it to their advantage. Our strengths are not adding up to theirs."

Before Duo could respond, a cry cut through the sanctified quiet that the two's conversation had preserved.

"LEINE!!"

Quatre's howl caught them off-guard, and he took advantage of that fact to advance on Diana, seizing her wrist and bending it awkwardly. "What the hell are you doing, Quatre!!" Diana screamed at him, wincing as he proceeded to twist her wrist further in the wrong direction.

"I know about you and Rusaert, Leine. I saw you together!" Quatre shoved Diana back into the wall, forcing an involuntary yelp of pain out of her. "I saw him fuck you! You let him fuck you!!" He held her firmly in place, grabbing her other wrist and pinning her against the wall with his body. "You did, didn't you… didn't you?!"

Diana tried to push Quatre away, to no avail. "I don't know who the fuck you're talking about," she spat. "Rusaert who?!" `Trowa…' Her mind suddenly fell back onto the dream, and she realized another chapter of Leine and Wodahs' story. `Rusaert and Leine… Trowa and I…'

Quatre kicked her in the side of her leg, holding her up by the wrists when her knees buckled beneath her. "Don't ask stupid questions, Leine. I want a confession. Did you or no?"

"I never slept with Trowa." She realized her mistake as soon as the name left her lips.

Infuriated, Quatre flung her to the floor, and, again, Diana cried out from the blow. "Trowa, now?! Who else, Leine?" Diana said nothing, not wanting incriminate herself any further in his mind. Rage danced in Quatre's eyes as he began to advance on her. "Tell me."

Duo jumped in to Diana's rescue. "Dammit, Quatre, what's gotten into you!" He pulled on Quatre's shoulders, trying to pull him away from Diana. Quatre whirled around and struck Duo in the face, nearly knocking him to the floor.

"Xaniel, stay out of this."

Duo steadied himself and glowered at Quatre. "I don't know who you think you're talking to, buddy, but I'm not Xaniel." Duo cracked his knuckles. "Now, I'm going to regret this, but…" Duo threw a punch, but Quatre dodged it and slammed his hand into Duo's shoulder, hitting a pressure point and knocking him out. Within seconds, the braided American was pulled away by a group of Sulegna who appeared out of the shadows of the room.

Duo's attack, no matter how fleeting, had distracted Quatre enough to allow Diana to strike him herself. She lifted the lamp from the nightstand beside her and let it crash down on the blond's head. In the time that Quatre needed to recover from the blow, Diana grabbed her case files, leapt over the bed, and dashed out of the room and down the hall, needing to get as far away from Quatre and the other Sulegna as she could. As she ran, the pathway out of the hotel seemed endless, and Diana cursed the fact that the room was so far away from the nearest stairway. A couple meters short of her destination, however, she realized that she had left Duo behind and stopped, intending on turning back to help him.

That was when he caught her.

Duo jumped out from the closet that she had paused in front of and pulled her inside, wrapping a short rope around her throat to cut off her breathing. Diana tried to fight back against Duo's hold, but his grip was uncharacteristically strong, and she found it harder and harder to fight as her body begged for the air he denied her.

She couldn't keep track of the time in her desperation; minutes seemed like hours, and, finally, Quatre entered with his Sulegna guard. `Not Quatre… not anymore. He's Wodahs now…' she reminded herself, giving the rope around her neck one last weak tug. Quatre nodded at Duo, and the rope was released.

Diana put her hands on her knees and doubled over to catch her breath. Slowly, her gaze rose from the floor to the Sulegna, who had now filled the room on all sides. Her eyes fell on Quatre's and glared.

Quatre, unlike the flaring temper he exhibited before, remained calm; after all, he was in power now. "What do you have to say for yourself now, Leine?"

With slow, calculated movements, Diana stood up straight and held her head high. He couldn't scare her, no matter how hard he tried. "I have nothing to say, milord, except that you are an asshole."

A Sulegna started in on her, preparing to make true an unspoken threat of punishment, but Quatre held up an arm to protest. The Sulegna backed off, and the blond wandered over to her and crossed his arms over his chest, staring smugly at her. "One more chance. What do you have to say?"

Diana spat in his face.

Quatre reared back, horrified and offended, and nodded decisively to the Sulegna behind Diana. Before she knew what was happening, two of them grabbed Diana, each seizing one arm, and pulled her down to the floor. Diana tried to pull her arms away, kicking and screaming, "Let me go! Let me the fuck go!!!" Then Diana caught sight of Quatre in front of her and froze.

He was removing his pants.

`Oh shit… Oh God, not this…' He climbed on top of her and grabbed her hair, yelling something into her ear. The words never registered; they were lost somewhere in the abyss that her mind was quickly becoming as she tried to numb herself to the inevitable. Even so, she couldn't avoid the one sensation she wanted to lose most… the feel. She felt him thrusting in and out of her, she felt him hit her, she felt the bruising grip of the guards as they pinned her to the floor, she felt the anger and shame rising within her, she felt…

He wanted her to cry, to give in. Surely, it wouldn't have lasted so long if she had. But she didn't; she couldn't… no matter what, she wasn't going to let him break her. She couldn't give him the satisfaction of hearing her fear, her pain… so she squeezed her eyes shut, praying to wake up from this nightmare. Her dreams, after all, felt so real… this was one of them. It had to be one of them…

She felt him come inside of her and almost vomited. In the midst of her disgust, she almost missed the one feeling that apologized for everything: a single tear splashing onto her face. Her eyes flew open, and, for the briefest instant, she saw Quatre in those aquamarine eyes, now haunted with guilt. Diana closed her eyes again and turned away, unable to look at him, not wanting to see Quatre disappear within Wodahs again. Within that moment, he got off of her, and the guards who held her down throughout the experience now forced her to sit up.

Diana didn't know what Wodahs used to slit her wrist; she only felt the sharp edge tear across her skin and heard him whisper. "Stay, and we'll send people back here for you. You'll survive." With that, Diana was dropped to the floor and abandoned in the closet.

Trembling uncontrollably, Diana curled up into the fetal position on the floor, not bothering to open her eyes. She didn't want to see reality; she couldn't handle it, not now. In order to keep herself from bleeding to death, she pressed her wounded arm to her stomach. Again, she swallowed the urge to vomit as she wallowed in pain and self-disgust. `I… I…'

The door flew open, and it took all that Diana had to keep from screaming. In the doorway stood a man about her age with unruly brown hair and cobalt blue eyes staring down at her. She couldn't read his expression or intentions, but something unexplained inside her recognized him. Diana surrendered to the other consciousness, eager to escape her own, and gazed up at the stranger with pleading eyes as her vision began to fade around the edges.

"Tirips…" The world went black.