Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Legend of Shinigami and the Angel of Death ❯ The End of Atlantis ( Chapter 7 )

Title: Legend of Shinigami and the Angel of Death 6/?
Author: Makiko Igami
Archive: http://www.yaoi.rulestheweb.com
http://www.gwaddiction.com/levlair/
http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/src.php?auth=58906
Category: AU, Supernatural
Rating: this chapter... PG? May go up soon...
Pairings: It might take a whole chapter to put all in here... but main: 1x2
Warnings: Yaoi, a bit angst, ... more to come
Spoilers: Since this is AU... none.
Summary: My version of the Legend of Atlantis, mixed with the characters of Gundam Wing. Heero is an ex-slave who is to marry his ex-masters daughter Relena. But one day on the market he meets somebody whom fate sent him...
Notes&Comments: My first try on a AU... I always liked the legend of Atlantis... I kinda make my own one up here, it may not fit into the ones you know... And I don't know exactly what might happen further on...
So... this is the end. Literally. The grand finale. I only have a the epilogue after this. Please enjoy.

"..." spoken words
'...' thoughts
______________________________________________________________ _________

Trowa stared down to where Heero was almost glaring up at Relena and admired the girl for her strength not to flinch the slightest bit at this look.

"Hush, Heero... calm down, please..."

This mysterious blue aura started to shimmer again, while Heero used that new strength to sit up and free himself of the gentle embrace. In the distance Trowa could hear some kind of growling of the earth, as if it was preparing another earthquake.

"Where is Duo?"

"I... don't know..." the girl answered meekly, as she was starting to get a little scared of her ex-fiancé's behavior. She ducked though when his glare intensified, looking at her as if she was supposed to know what was going on when he didn't.

"The royal guards took him, Heero," Trowa interrupted, being the only one who knew about the events on the market just a few moments ago. "They said they wanted to put him into prison for being a threat to the city of Atlantis. I have no idea though where he is now."

"Please, Heero, calm down. I'm sure we will find a way to free him..." Relena pleaded silently from where she was still sitting on the ground.

The green-clad boy in question turned his gaze away again and stared out to the distance as if he was listening out for the wind that was telling him stories about his lost love. And maybe it even was as blue eyes narrowed in grim understanding and made the owner make a step forward.

"I know where he is."

And with that he was gone. From one moment to the next he was out of sight, not seen anymore as if he had fallen to ashes right before Trowa's and Relena's eyes. But even for vanishing like that he was gone faster. One blink ago he had been standing there, right before them but now... he was gone without a trace of his whereabouts. Relena blinked incredulously, rubbing her eyes in disbelief.

"Heero? Heero! HEERO! Where are you??!"

Trowa was just as taken aback, but he didn't bother yelling for his friend. "Unbelievable... Love DOES move mountains..." he gasped as he tried to understand what was going on in front of his own eyes.

"Huh?"

Emerald green eyes fixed on cornflower flue ones that were staring up at him in confusion. "This Duo... he's Heero's life mate. He... has been searching for him for... well, definitely his whole life, but now... it has been four months..." the tall one voiced his thoughts, "I think, this was the day when these strange... things started to happen around him... the day when Duo kissed him unexpectedly on the market..."

This only managed to confuse Relena more, although she now understood Heero's motives better. All this recent emotional display... it had been for this guy. Anybody who managed to do this for Heero deserved her utter respect.

Slowly she moved to stand on her feet once more, willing away the vulnerability of a young woman as she stared into the direction Heero had been staring to before he vanished. To Trowa she looked stronger, wiser even than the girl he used to know.

"Is that so? Well, then... I'm going to help him." With that she started to walk.

.oOo.

Underneath the mountain in the middle of Atlantis, the Shuhan and the High Priest stared at the huge generator that was left there by the gods.

"We've found him... and it's still working..." Treize murmured as he wondered how much of this construction was decoration and how much of it was really needed for it to be working. By the way it was hidden though and how everything seemed to be moving there was probably only a minimum of decoration.

Zechs, who stood out of touching range, nodded thoughtfully before he said, "Maybe it's even safe to bring him here... To make him see what his parents created..."

Finally Treize managed to turn his gaze away from the machine that was fueled by the Tuaoi-Stones ever since the gods had installed them there. "Don't you think that would be too dangerous?"

"I don't know. But it has to be made sure that he really poses a threat to Atlantis before he is going to be executed."

Looking at the religious leader for a while, the Shuhan nodded after a while. "I just hope we're not going to make a grave mistake."

The platinum blond head next to him nodded. "Me too."

.oOo.

"What is that supposed to mean? The Shuhan's not in? Where is he? He should take care of his people instead of hiding!"

Relena stared at all the people that had gathered at the palace entrance. People with crying babies in their arms, bleeding people, old people, young people, men, women... just every kind of people that you could imagine. Somehow this made her high spirits sink.

"How am I supposed to make my way past all these people?" Relena wondered out aloud and sighed. Then she took a deep a breath, gathering enough strength to tell herself that she was going to talk to the Shuhan in person about Heero, no matter how impossible it seemed to be.

"This Duo will be freed... For Heero's sake and the sake of Atlantis!"

.oOo.

"Lady Noin... There's somebody who wants to speak with you..."

"Tell them to come back later, I have more important things to attend to," the purple-haired woman said as she tried to make up a list of all the people out there, making up an order that would be okay with everybody. She knew it was a futile thing, but she did it nevertheless.

"But... they say it's important..."

Noin sighed. "Everybody thinks their causes are important. What's their name?"

"It's Lady Relena, milady. She says she knows what angered the spirit of the earth."

This made the short-haired woman look up with here eyes open wide. "What did you say?!"

.oOo.

Duo kicked and complained loudly as he was half carried, half dragged out of his rather comfortable cell by two obviously mute guards.

"Hey! Where are you taking me?! Hey!! HEY!!!"

The braided boy pouted as he didn't get any answer in return. Thus he resumed not saying anything as well, and stopped trying to walk too, because he was getting where he was supposed to be anyways. He just wanted to know why!

The way the guards took was long, very long. And it got steeper and steeper with every moment as they left. Duo felt how the air got hotter too as they left the polished halls of Atlantis and walked into something that looked more like a cave or something. In fact it was something like a cave, a huge lair with a huge stone column in the middle that was adorned by metallic bulges. It was the pillar of Atlantis.

But Duo didn't know this. He just knew that this thing was big, that it looked different to everything he had seen before and that it was scaring him. He didn't know why, he just knew that he wanted to get away from it as fast as he could.

"What's this?! Let me go!! Ouch!"

He pouted as one of the guards practically threw him on the ground non to gently. Rubbing his backside he glared up at the cupboard-like man and scrambled back to his feet.

"Don't throw me around like I'm some kind of plaything!"

"Oh, but you are," a calm voice came from up above him. "You are fate's playtoy, nothing but an instrument in the big wheels of the universe."

Duo whirled around, trying to see who was talking so lowly to him. "What the...?!" He froze as he saw he was talking directly to the Shuhan. "Sh-Shuhan T-Treize?"

"Oh, you've heard of me? Well, an educated mongrel was always my favorite," he said as he took a few steps closer to the rail that separated him from the lower level of the circular lair underneath Atlantis. By looking down on the long-haired young man, he underlined their different status even more. Duo growled, not all liking that the Shuhan was making fun of him, but kept quiet nevertheless. There must be something that he wanted to express by this and Duo was much too nosy of what it was, especially since it seemed to be about him.

"What do you want from me?!" he spat out at last.

"What I want is simple... I want to proof whether you are the lost child of the God Taiyou and the Goddess Hisakata."

Duo snorted. "You think I am the one? I am just a street rat, who isn't able to stay in one place for longer than a month. I may appear like a liar, and am - as you noted so nicely - a mongrel. Don't you think that somebody more... godlike is what you are searching for?"

'Like Heero,' he added in his mind, now more than ever sure that the blue eyed boy was what he had thought him to be in the first place.

"Oh, but you are the only one who fits the description perfectly," Treize all but purred.

"What?! There are no-"

"Yes, there are. Hidden in the temple's library are the only descriptions of the lost child of the God and the Goddess," Treize interrupted Duo's protests. "The High Priest will be delighted to tell you more about it."

A new man came into view, tall and clad entirely in long white robes, with long platinum hair framing his face. Duo couldn't help but think that he looked sad.

"'If the time comes you will recognize my child', Hisakata confided to me, 'by its eye color... it will be that of the sky after the sun put on its nightgown, the color you get when you mix the color of my husband's eye and mine,'" Zechs recited what he read a few weeks ago. "This is a quote from the first High Priest's notes. He was known to be assigned to his duties directly by the God and the Goddess, passing his knowledge forth to the following generations. We know that Hisakata's eyes had the color of the night and that Taiyou's eyes were like burning flames. Red and Blue... Mix them and you'll get violet."

"But what has that got to do with me? My eyes are blue!"

The Shuhan raised his hand, waving his index finger. "Tsktsktsk... Have you never noticed that it's a very odd shade of blue? Not like the ocean or the sky... It's more like the sky of the late evening, just after the sun disappeared behind the horizon..."

Duo staggered back, the words hitting right home. "It can not be..."

Of course he knew that his eyes had an odd color, but most people thought he simply looked exotic and loved him for that... he would have never thought that THIS might lead people to thinking of him as the lost child because of that.

"Listen. I know you think you are the greatest - well, you are, else you wouldn't be the Shuhan and the High Priest - but... What I mean is... you are gravely mistaken! I cannot be the lost child of the-"

He was interrupted by one of the temple's disciples, who all but rushed to the pair of men. He was surprised when a female voice spoke up, but only because of the quick stance and her short hair.

"Shuhan! There's somebody in my office to whom you need to talk immediately!" The woman declared, not at least intimidated by the presence of the two most powerful men of Atlantis. She seemed to be around them quite often for that.

"Noin!" the platinum blond High Priest warned, but was waved off by the Shuhan.

"It's alright, Zechs, let her talk," Treize said calmly, knowing that it must be important if somebody dared to interrupt a meeting of this security level.

"Thank you, my Shuhan," Noin said breathlessly and inclined her head in a sign of subservience before she continued. "My guest claims to know what - or rather who - is the cause for the recent earthquakes. She demands to speak to you immediately and in person."

"My dear woman, I think we already..."

This time it was the Shuhan that was interrupted, but it was not by somebody voicing their thoughts, but by the sudden appearance of a being with large white wings and surrounded by a creepy blue aura that floated just under the roof of the lair. It was wearing a short and ragged looking green tunic with black shorts underneath, its tousled brown hair falling into a none-too-friendly looking face. Prussian blue eyes glared with a light from inside the body of their bearer at the people standing above the level where Duo stood.

"WHERE IS DUO?!"

The voice filled the room, against all laws of physics that Noin knew about, so loud that everybody but the long-haired young man fell to the ground, covering their ears. The ground shook and Noin feared that the cave would collapse any moment. She stared in disbelief at the person she believed she knew, but seemed to be so different now. The woman scrambled to her feet and hurried to the exit. Relena may be able to help them...

Meanwhile Heero was still floating in the air, sending his death glare to the people he believed that were responsible for his pain for taking Duo away from him. He was so enraged that he didn't even notice that the one he was searching for was standing right under him, staring up in disbelief.

"Hee... Heero? Is that you?"

The unnatural being blinked and its eyes became more human as they recognized the voice that just spoke to him. Heero - who was a lot like himself again - looked down and slowly floated towards the long-haired young man.

"...Duo? Duo."

Said one smiled and held his arms up, wide-open as an invite for Heero to land there. The other's gaze softened, a smile coming from his eyes as he wrapped his arms around the long-haired one in return, holding him tight. "I found you... I knew I would..."

"Yes, you did, Heero... Thank you..."

.oOo.

"Relena! You need to-"

"What happened?! Another earthquake-"

"You'll understand when you follow me! Come!"

Noin grabbed Relena's hand and guided her downstairs, deep under the surface of Atlantis, to where the happy reunion of a pair of young men took place...

"Heero! Oh my... Heero! You're alive!" The blonde exclaimed, happy tears filling her eyes. She ran forward until she was stopped by the rail, completely ignoring the Shuhan, who was giving orders to the guards and the High Priest, who stared at the whole scene in disbelief. "Heero!"

Duo looked up, blinking as he recognized the girl that had claimed Heero as her fiancé when they had met two days ago. He wondered briefly how she managed to get down here, but then he realized that she must be the one the other woman had talked about. He was about to open his mouth and say something when he suddenly felt two strong hands on his waist that pulled him away forcefully from his soul mate.

"Hey! Let me down!!! Hey!!!!!!"

"Don't let him go!" Treize shouted. "He is without doubt the son of the God and the Goddess. And don't let the other get near him as well! He's the planet's core and is very dangerous!"

Only then Duo noticed that the other guard was holding back Heero, keeping him in a steel-like grip, no matter how hard the other struggled. Somehow he knew that this wouldn't end prettily...

"What are you doing?!" Relena demanded after she whirled around to the Shuhan, sending him one of her own glares as she could feel the ground under her feet shaking once more. "Can't you see that these two need each other?!"

Treize decided not to scold the woman for her misbehavior as she was young and didn't know it any better. Instead he put his hands on her shoulder, giving her a serious look. "My young lady... I know you are concerned for these two young men, but let me tell you that they have the power to each save or destroy this world as we know it. Now get out of the way, I have a city to sa-"

"Are you blind or what's wrong with you?" Relena blurted out, brushing the hands from her shoulders as he held the Shuhan's gaze. "The ground is shaking every time you separate Duo from Heero, why don't you just let them stay together?"

Despite the fact that Treize was almost openly shocked by that behavior towards him, Zechs was more than impressed. That girl possessed a power that he would never have, even though they were from the same blood. Nobody but Noin knew it, but contrary to popular beliefs Zechs wasn't an only child. Granted, he was an orphan, but he had a baby sister that was adopted by a wealthy family while he was sent to the temple. He smiled lovingly at her before he turned to his disciples.

"Make sure that the child gets to take care of the controls of the shield then imprison the other," he ordered calmly, knowing from a sudden impulse that this was the needed course of action and that there was no way to prevail the doomed future anymore. Of course this caught Relena's attention.

"What in the Gods' names do you think you're doing?! This... this will SURELY be Atlantis' doom-"

"Will it?" Zechs gave back, as calm as a man who was prepared to die. "You will never know until you tried..."

"DUO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A bloodcurdling scream cut the air, the ground shook and everybody fell to his feet. The guard who was carrying Duo to the strange device of the Gods just managed to push him inside and close the door behind him, effectively trapping him from the outside, before he fell to the ground as well, unconscious from the pain that came from his ripped eardrum.

"Heero!"

Duo pounded against the locked door, trying to get through, but of course he failed. After all he was just a simple human being. He could only watch how Heero's wings enfolded once more and how the blue aura returned. The ground shook mercilessly and everybody knew that this would be the end. The beast of the earth had decided.

.oOo.

Quatre pressed himself tighter to Trowa, squeezing his eyes shut as the ground shook and threatened to throw him off his feet. He was glad for the strong arms around his shoulders that led him forth to havens where everybody seemed to be hurrying to. While the inhabitants of Atlantis were fleeing from the city they wondered briefly where their leaders were. Neither the Shuhan nor the High Priest or any of the disciples were to be seen at the havens and several people wondered briefly if their departure wasn't a little too hasty. Maybe this wasn't the end...

All of a sudden though they saw a few people in white robes running to the white ships of the temple that only the most brazen people dared to step upon, escorting the Shuhan and a young blonde woman in their middle. Trowa's eyes widened as he recognized his ex-master and practically danced through the crowd to get to her.

"Relena! Relena!! Over here!"

The blonde head turned around and Trowa was shocked to see tears all over the girl's face. He doubled his efforts to get through to her. "Relena? What...?"

"Don't touch the High Priestess," he heard on of the disciples saying to him, pulling him away quite harshly.

"The what? Relena! What happened?! Where... Is Heero... Is he okay?" Trowa asked after he yanked his arm out of the disciples grip. He was shocked to see the woman shake her head.

"He... he's... dying.... we... we left them there... as the cave started to collapse," Relena choked out between her sobs. Trowa's gaze scrunched up in horror, close to grabbing the girl's shoulders once more to shake her, but refrained from it as the disciples were still too close to him. "But... What's up with the crap of you being the High Priest?!" he demanded, wanting to have his questions answered before he had to leave the place he called home, probably separated from the ones he loved and knew.

"My.... brother... Zechs.... The High Priest.... He was hit by a rock that fell down on him as we ran out of the cave... He.... he passed on his duties to me." Relena was still sobbing, still having the picture of her new-found brother lying underneath that rock, his lower body probably crushed into... she didn't even want to think about it. Too clearly she remembered his touch on her cheek, his smile as he kissed her and told her to pass on the knowledge of the God and the Goddess as the High Priestess at the new home of the Atlanteans.

She also remembered the serene look on Noin's face as she looked at the others while kneeling next to Zechs. The shorthaired woman had decided to die with the one she loved, just like Heero and Duo did...

Taking a deep steadying breath, Relena wiped her tears away and managed to smile at Trowa. "Come on. Let's start a new life and honor those that we love."

And with that she hauled him and Quatre on board of the last ships that left the sinking city of Atlantis.

This was the end, according exactly to the prophecies... The Angel of Death, the Beast of the Earth had risen and was calmed by Shinigami... by death.

The End.
______________________________________________________________ _________

*grabs Akuma's obviously discarded gundanium turtleshell and hides*