Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ For Love of Darkness ❯ Blood Rage ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: I don't own GW or FMA, so don't sue me.

 

Warnings: Past NCS, OOC, AU, crossover, violence, language (*happily slaps warning after warning on*)

 

Pairings: 5x2, 3x4, (No one for Heero yet. DX If anything, it would be 1+(3x4) {Does that even make sense? Heero likes both Quatre and Trowa. Probably.})

 

Author's Notes: Just so some people know, the reason Ed's a little OOC is because I changed just about everything in FMA. There are no homunculi, and Ed's extremely protective of Al.

This is also the longest chapter I've written so far. I'm sorry it's taken so long to write. I hit writer's block so many times in this chapter.

 

Chapter 8

Blood Rage

 

1913, June 29th (AC 201, July 6th)

Wufei woke up slowly. His entire body ached, and his chest wound was a sharp agony in the front of his mind. He felt weak, a classic sign of blood loss. For a Magician especially, losing so much blood left them defenseless against an attack, but Wufei felt confident that he would be allowed to rest in peace for once.

The Chinese soldier looked around the room, and his eyes locked on the sleeping figure next to the bed. He smiled slightly and reached over to run his fingers through the soft chestnut locks. It felt slightly dirty and strangely knotted. He frowned. Duo kept very good care of his hair; only a very serious situation would distract him away from its care.

The look disappeared as the slender Vampire began to stir. His violet eyes blinked open, and he sat up, a look like a child's in his eyes. Recognition and relief flashed through the beautiful indigo eyes when he saw Wufei awake and sitting up. “'Fei!” Duo shouted, nearly throwing himself at his friend. Wufei grunted and moved to avoid being hit in his wounded side. “How ya feeling?” Duo asked. Wufei didn't think that Duo knew he was slipping into his natural L2 accent and style of speaking. The braided young man looked too happy to care.

Wufei shrugged. “Fine, I guess.” His eyes scanned the slender Vampire. Duo was paler than normal, and he was showing signs of starvation. “What about you? Have you been eating like you should?”

Duo grinned. “Yep. I'm good.”

“That's good to know.”

The two continued talking until Roy came in to collect his missing soldier. Duo waved good-bye and followed the Flame Colonel down the hall. Wufei sighed, settled into his nest of pillows, and soon fell asleep.

 

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The woman ran through the dark streets of the city. She could hear the Vampire chasing after her, his footsteps nearly silent in the nearly quiet night.

The footsteps were closer as she ran down 17th Street.

The Vampire was nearly on her when she turned into the alley.

It was panting into her ear when she ran into the dead end.

She screamed as fangs bit down on her vulnerable neck, and she felt blood running across her skin. Then an incredibly blissful feeling, an intense euphoria, swept through her, and she happily fell into the darkness of unconsciousness.

 

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Wufei gasped awake. Something dark had brushed over his weakened senses. He waited for any more waves, but none came. He looked out the window at the nearly full moon. It glowed down on the city almost ominously. He shook off the nagging feeling he had that something was wrong and fell back to sleep.

 

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Wufei listened through the bathroom door as Duo retched into the toilet. He was worried about the Vampire. Wufei had heard of Vampires getting sick, but the diseases were usually light, nothing capable of inducing fits of vomiting.

Roy sat down next to the bed. The Flame Colonel glanced over at the closed door. “What's wrong with him?” he asked the wounded soldier.

Wufei shrugged, sighing. “I don't know. I've never heard of Vampires behaving this way,” he said, turning towards Roy. “What happened after I was hit?”

Roy was silent for a moment. “Maxwell… went insane. That's all that could be said about it. He activated the transmutation circle, which is exactly what those men wanted. The wounded man, Erik I believe you said his name was, tried to attack Maxwell, but he broke both legs and several ribs. We've got him in a secured room; the doctors don't think that he'll ever walk again. After that, Nikolai tried to escape through the Gate. Maxwell ripped one arm completely off. The man got through the Gate, and it seems most of the bloodsuckers disappeared about the same time. Then Maxwell collapsed. We brought both of you here to the hospital. You were taken into surgery, and Maxwell was treated for exhaustion.”

“Has he been eating?”
Roy's eyebrows rose. “Eating? I don't know. I've been busy trying to clean up the mess those bloodsuckers left me. The nurses say that he hasn't left this room to do more than personal hygiene and clean clothes. He's even slept in here.”

“Shit,” Wufei said softly. “See if you can get him some blood. He's exhausted, and he's burning through his reserves. Vampires, or bloodsuckers, need blood like we need food. He's starving, sir. I would give him my own blood normally, but I doubt I'm in any condition to do so.”

Roy paled at the nonchalant way Wufei said that, but he nodded. “I'll see what I can do. Several civilians were injured during the attack, and we're running low on blood.”

Wufei frowned. “That's not good.”

The sounds coming from the bathroom died abruptly. Then the two soldiers heard Duo push himself up, flush the toilet, and turn on the faucet. He washed himself off, getting rid of the stench of vomit. Then he collapsed; the lack of nutrition was too much for him.

Roy got up from his seat. “I'll go get him.” The colonel stood up from his seat. He walked into the bathroom, and he emerged a few minutes later with Duo in a fireman's carry. He put the unconscious Vampire on the other bed in the room and pushed it into Wufei's reach. “I'll leave you two alone.”

With that, Roy left the room. Wufei reached over to hold Duo's limp hand. It was thin, almost skeletal, in his grip. “What's wrong with you, Duo?” he asked the sleeping young man. Silence followed him into unconsciousness.

 

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Ed knelt down next to the woman's body. Her arms were folded over her chest, like in a funeral, and she was fully clothed. She looked like she was sleeping, if one could ignore the bloody puncture wounds in her neck and the fact that she was in the middle of the dark alley. “A bloodsucker,” he muttered to himself.

“Excuse me, sir?” Ed looked at the soldier. Central had sent reinforcements to the Eastern Headquarters after the battle, so none of the new soldiers knew anything about the bloodsuckers. “Did you say bloodsucker?”

Ed nodded. “A bloodsucker did this. He drained all of the blood from here,” he pointed to the wounds on the neck, “but I don't understand why he posed the body like this…”

The new soldier shifted nervously. “Perhaps he felt guilty?”

Ed frowned. “Bloodsuckers don't feel guilt. Don't you know that monsters don't have feelings?”

 

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Wufei woke up when Duo stirred. The braided young man shifted slightly on the other bed before violet eyes flickered open. They settled on Wufei. “…'Fei? Where am I? What am I doing here?” Duo whispered, sounding exhausted.

Concern raced through Wufei's mind. Vampires did not forget anything, unless they were affected by magic. He wouldn't use magic on Duo, so if made him wonder if the still relatively young Vampire was still under Erik's influence.

“You fell asleep. Roy told me you've been working hard. How are you feeling?” It hurt to lie to Duo, but Wufei felt it was necessary.

Duo closed his eyes, and for a second, Wufei thought he'd fallen back asleep. Then Duo sighed. His breath brushed against Wufei's bare chest. “Tired. A little hungry.”

“I asked Roy to get you some blood. Until then, get some sleep.”

“Um… Alright…”

The two curled up and fell back to sleep.

 

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Roy froze when Ed finished his report on the body found earlier in the morning. “What did you say?” he demanded.

Ed glared at his commander. “A bloodsucker, Roy. One of those bastards is alive. Or rather, you let him live as one of us!”

Roy's temper erupted. “What the hell is wrong with you, Ed? Something happened between you and Maxwell last week, and now all you think about is getting revenge on him! I won't have you making any baseless accusations against another State Alchemist! Especially so soon after the battle with Erik and Nikolai! Now get out of my office, and don't talk about this again!”

The two continued glaring at each other for three more minutes before Ed turned and stormed out of the office. Roy sighed and put his head in his hands. He prayed to all the gods he could think of that Duo was not the one responsible for the murder.

 

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1913, July 2nd (AC 198, July 9th)

Wufei climbed out of bed cautiously. Roy offered encouragements, and 10 minutes with Erik, from behind the wheelchair. Wufei stood on unsteady legs and walking the two feet to the chair, gently lowered himself into the seat. He refrained from dropping into the chair only because it could tear the stitches in his stomach. “I used to think showing weakness was unmanly,” Wufei said suddenly.

“Oh?” Roy said as he pushed the Chinese young man out the door. “What changed that?”

“Duo.”

Roy simply smiled. Unlike Ed, he wasn't a homophobe, so as long as the two strangers weren't obvious in their affections to each other, he didn't mind. “Just no sex in the cafeteria,” Roy whispered into Wufei's ear.

To Roy's surprise, Wufei turned to him. “Damn,” he whispered back, a grin on his face. “Now you tell us that?”

Roy ran through the halls, more willing to put up with the shame of being caught racing through the halls rather than listen to the jokes of his blushing. He didn't know that people were already talking.

 

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Erik looked up as the two soldiers burst through the door. “What do you want?” he demanded as regally as he could manage.

Wufei stiffened in his chair. “I want to know if you're still controlling Duo.”

Erik laughed. He couldn't help it. The looks on the soldiers' faces only urged him on. It took a few minutes for his laughter to die down enough to talk. “I lost control the second you were hit. That boy… is not normal… I've never heard about a Vampire who was able to break free of that spell.” Erik sighed. “Realize I never meant to hurt him. I thought he would just open the Gate, and we would go back. I didn't think that Nikolai would try to hurt either of you.”

“Why did you join Nikolai in the first place?” Roy asked.

Erik lay back against the pillows. “Perhaps I was interested in the charismatic young man I met nearly forty years ago. He wasn't the same man as he is now.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” Wufei said softly. “What will you do now?”

Erik shrugged. “Perhaps I'll see if I can go to a new world. Work to make life better there.”

Wufei allowed his eyes to soften. The man wasn't evil, just misled by a friendship gone wrong. “I think you can.”

 

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1913, July 9th (AC 201, July 16th)

Wufei walked into the darkened bedroom. Duo was already in bed, mostly asleep. The Vampire was exhausted, recovering from the incident nearly two weeks ago, but he wasn't starving anymore. Roy had managed to convince the hospital to give him a supply of relatively fresh blood for the Vampire. Wufei was relieved. Even though he wasn't completely at full health, he could feed Duo if he had to.

He was worried about the rumors surrounding the recent string of murders circulating around the base. If there was another Vampire in the city, Duo was particularly vulnerable during this time. The blood lacked the energy needed to perform magic.

He lid under the covers. Duo sighed, curling around Wufei's waist, and fell asleep. Wufei brushed the bangs off of the pale face. “We're going home tomorrow, Duo. We're finally going home.”

 

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“….'Fei. `Fei, wake up.”

Wufei gasped awake, horrified from the nightmare that had gripped him in his sleep. The conservatives were taking Duo away from him for execution and Wufei was helpless to stop them. He had woke up just as the axe fell on his friend's neck.

Black eyes peered up at the white creature on his chest. “…Mokona?” The magical creature had started living with them about a week after they arrived in this world. It looked worried, but it didn't say anything else.

He reached over to touch Duo, to make sure the braided Vampire was still there, but his hand fell on empty sheets. He jerked into a sitting position. `Duo?! Where's Duo?!' his mind screamed at him. He jumped out of bed.

His instincts registered the fact that the window was open, the warm summer wind blowing in. The Chinese man swore violently and rushed to the telephone. He waited until the other answered the phone. “Roy?”

The colonel grumbled into the receiver. “What is it, Chang? It's three in the morning.”

“Duo's disappeared!”

Roy went silent. “What do you mean he disappeared?” he said, his voice dangerously quiet.

Wufei paced the area near the window. “I mean he's gone, and the window's open. Something's wrong with him, sir. He's been exhausted, even though he's been drinking blood. It's not normal.”

“I'll get Ed, and we'll meet you outside your apartment in five minutes.” Just before Roy hung up, Wufei heard him say, “I hope he's not the one we're looking for…”

Wufei threw his clothes on, not caring about his appearance. He grabbed his gun and Duo's knives and ran out to meet Roy and Ed, Mokona on his shoulder.

 

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The first sign that something was wrong was the purse lying in the middle of the sidewalk. The three soldiers got out of the car and rushed to the purse. Wufei knelt down next to it and began drawing a strange circle. “What are you doing?” Ed asked irritably. He did not want to be out at three in the morning looking for the missing Vampire.

“I'm going to cast a spell to find the woman this belonged to. I get the feeling that Duo's nearby.” He completed the circle and pressed his hands against it. It glowed softly before a small Oriental dragon emerged from the light. It twisted slightly, getting used to the foreign environment, and took off down the street. The soldiers raced after it. None of them noticed Mokona bouncing after them.

 

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They found Duo cornering his target in a dead end alleyway. Roy and Ed froze, but Wufei ran half the distance to the Vampire. “Duo! Stop this!” he yelled at the braided young man.

Duo turned away from the terrified woman. His eyes had adopted the red cat irises of the blood starved Vampire. Wufei realized that Duo was not thinking normally. Once Vampires reached this state, they were driven only by the bloodlust.

Thinking quickly, Wufei pulled out a knife and waved it to catch Duo's attention. The red eyes tracked it, even in the dim light. Wufei knew that Ed and Roy were behind him, unsure of what he was doing. He lowered the knife to his wrist and gently slid its sharp edge along a small vein. Blood dribbled down his arm. Duo took a couple cautious steps forward. The woman dashed past them. Duo ignored her. Roy and Ed had their guns out, ready to blow Duo away at the first chance.

For the two former pilots, the world had narrowed downed to just the two of them. Wufei was vaguely reminded of when Duo had first drank his blood. “Bite gently, and only enough to satisfy your hunger,” he whispered, knowing Duo would hear him.

Duo bit down on Wufei's arm, and Wufei couldn't help but wince as the sharp fangs broke the skin. Duo lapped eagerly at the crimson liquid. Wufei fell into the familiar euphoric high.

All too soon, the high ended, and Wufei realized that Duo had collapsed against him. He lowered the unconscious Vampire to the ground. Roy and Ed walked over to them. “What just happened?” Ed asked quietly, shocked by the recent events.

“It's the Vampire's bloodlust,” a woman's voice said behind the group. They turned to look at Mokona. It was projecting Yuuko's image from the bead on its head. “He's not at fault for any of his actions.”

“What do you mean?!” Ed snapped. “He's killed seven women and almost killed another!”

Yuuko turned to the diminutive alchemist. “Have you ever starved before, Edward Elric?” she asked him coldly.

Ed frowned. He knew that he had never met this woman; yet she knew his name. “I've had to fend for myself and my brother's sake for a month.”

Yuuko's dead eyes did not change. “Then you know that after a while, you will do anything to relieve that empty feeling. Imagine what it would be like to be able to eat one thing, and only your loved one can supply it and keep you alive. Imagine that your friend could not feed you, and you had to find something to help you through the pain. That's what Duo's had to go through. He can't drink any other human's blood except for Wufei's. That was the deal we made.” Ed remained silent; he was beginning to understand what it must have been like for the braided Vampire. Less than a week after Ed and Al had been abandoned on that island, they had resorted to eating whatever they could catch. The brothers had survived off of a large variety of animals and plants.

Ed lowered his eyes. Humans could eat a wide assortment of foods, but blood-suckers could only eat just what their name said, blood. If this woman and Chang had made a deal like the woman said, Duo would have known that Chang could not feed him. He had been starving for nearly two weeks. “So you do understand,” the woman whispered.

At that moment, Duo stirred. His face was already regaining the customary hint of color, and his eyes lacked the red taint of bloodlust. They drifted lazily from Ed to Roy to Yuuko to Mokona before they landed on Wufei's face. “…Fei?” His voice was soft, almost as if he was waking up from a long rest.

Wufei looked down, and a serene expression settled on the stern Chinese face. “How are you feeling, Duo?” he asked.

“Better.”

“Good,” Yuuko interrupted. “You both are needed back here. Nikolai's already on the move.” Wufei and Duo nodded. Yuuko turned to the two alchemists. “We could use your help as well, Colonel Mustang and Major Elric.”

“If you're fighting bloodsuckers, I'm ready,” Edward said almost eagerly. He wanted revenge against the bloodsuckers for the losses that the alchemists had suffered in the battle almost two weeks ago. Roy nodded his agreement.

“You'll have to pay a price to cross into this world. Are you prepared to do that?” Again Roy and Ed agreed. “Very well. Neither of you can tell anyone about this world, not even your closest friends. You cannot whisper it to a empty room or even write it down. You will have to live the rest of your lives with the experiences you gain from the other world. If you break this deal, your dreams will be gone forever.”

Roy answered for both of them. “If that is the price we need to pay to take down the bastard who killed my men, then I'll gladly pay it.” Ed remained firm next to the colonel.

Yuuko looked between them. “Very well. Mokona. Let's get these two back here.”

The woman's image disappeared. The small white creature jumped up into the air. Large wings grew out of its back as a strange magic circle etched itself into the ground. Mokona opened its mouth. The four soldiers felt themselves being pulled towards the creature.

 

And then, Mokona swallowed them.