Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Sea in I ❯ XVII ( Chapter 17 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Unbeta'dItalics ~ thoughtsWarnings: Angst, MXM goodiness, deathPairings: 1x2/2x1, and the pen dabbles around a bit

Happy Holidays! Thank you guys for reading ^_^ Input/feedback is much appreciated

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Disclaimer: I don't own any of the sexies in Gundam Wing AC, I just love to help them live a little.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

XVII

A hush filled the dwelling. The tumble of rocks echoed wetly in the silence and the fire stones smoldered in the moisture thick air. One figure stood motionlessly in the air above the fire pit. Thick wisps of black smoke drifted around their legs until a breeze from the remnants of the bare window made the smoke cower and fade along the stone floor. Half the dwelling ceiling and some part of the wall now replaced the small window, leaving a large pile of rock and dirt blocking the only other exit from the dwelling.

But that held little meaning to him.

Around the fire pit, several bodies lay strewn across the floor. The figure watched them through his lashes. His eyes settling on one tear streaked face. He watched her chest rise and fall then tilted his head curiously as a smothered sob came from her even in unconscious. He watched the short haired woman’s dirt smudged face for along moment, and then followed a tear track to her eyes.

He thought for a moment she was on the verge of waking, but her eyes remained closed. The tears shimmered, pooling into beads beneath her lashes then escaping along the curve of a lash to roll down to the ridge of her nose. It sat there until another merged with it and dropped off her nose.

He was tempted to make more water flow to match the steady drip from the high ceiling of the dwelling but his ears twitched, the wind carried the mountain’s whispered warning. Someone approached. He could feel the faint vibrations echo through the stone. Lips curling at the corners, dark eyes took on an intense look of concentration as the dwelling rumbled, moving four unconscious bodies through the stone and dirt before the dwelling settled again. The dwelling looked the same with one exception - the collapsed wall had widened. It had spread enough to make the interior darker, partially concealing his position and buried the body closest to it.

Water drizzled throughout the dwelling as the figure remained afloat over the fire pit. He tilted his head back to stare at the black sphere floating above his head and closed his eyes. The absent smile left his face and he became as still as the bodies in the dwelling.

* * *

Heero’s hearing returned first. His body was tense and trying to alert him to something, but all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing. That soon gave way to steady drips resounding in the silent dwelling. He worked open an eye, squinting in the pale light filling the dwelling as his heart thudded wildly in his chest. He tried to recall how he ended up on the floor, looking about with blurred vision, but nothing came to him.

He pushed himself up on hands and knees that threaten to drop him as they shook under his weight. Heero glimpsed bare feet suspended over the faint red glow of the fire stones when he was stunned by a blow to his side. He cringed, trying to block the foot but another came at him from a different direction. Then another.

Heero dropped to his elbow and grabbed one booted foot and heard the snap of bone when he twisted it viciously in his grip. He blocked two kicks to the head and managed to catch another boot as his arm was knocked out from under him, forcing him onto his back. He flipped the soldier when he turned over, spinning the man round to collide with his comrades.

Narrowed eyed, Heero glared at the soldiers he had trained and in turn, trained with. The closest soldier stared back, his eyes locked with Heero’s glowing ones. He was unable to react when Heero rolled over onto his feet and jab him underneath his chin with his own staff. The soldier fell but another took his place kicking the staff from his hands.

Heero’s eyes flitted over the remaining soldiers as he curled into a crouching position and tried to decide what he would do next. The soldiers watched him warily, twitching at the groans from their fallen comrades.

“It’s amusing, really,” the familiar voice made the soldiers tense and move away from him. Heero resisted the urge to check his left side, spitting bloody phlegm in the direction of the remaining soldiers, “that you should come here to your father’s village. Interestingly enough, you’d be surprised that I was happy here… once.”

Heero’s bangs hid the surprise that made his eyes widen as he watched his former mentor give the dwelling a cursory glance and the emotion that entered his face.

Jirrad chuckled, flat eyes distant and caught in memory’s pull. He trailed fingers along the wall above Heero as if he held some intimate knowledge of the dwelling itself. “Your father,” Jirrad withdrew that hand, pulling the sleeve down the arm and rubbing at the faint scar on his forearm. “Your father was a few years younger than you are but he was a bright, persistent child and at times a nuisance. Think, if I had taken him as my own… it would’ve been easy enough.” Jirrad smiled down at him, “He adored us and grieving me… You would have ceased to be.”

Heero scowled at him, a low rumbling growl could be heard coming from his throat despite the sour acidic taste at the back of his mouth.

Jirrad chuckled, lip curling on one side of his mouth displaying unnaturally sharp teeth. Heero didn’t back down and Jirrad snorted. “If not for him… you wouldn’t be alive now.” Heero ignored Jirrad’s penetrating look, too used to it to be disgusted. “He left you with me. In my care-”

“You killed them.”

Jirrad waved him off, his mouth quivering for a moment before it was back to normal. “Let’s call it population control.” He smiled, “Can’t have too many Yuyahs running around making more mongrel defects such as you.”

“That’s not true. My family-”

“The truth is subjective. It all depends on the teller you see. I trained you. Raised you and you failed me in so many ways.” Heero shook in place, biting his lip in self hatred at the disappointment Jirrad invoked in him. He turned his thoughts toward his uncle. Fraix was a shoring and unvarying presence for the last five years of his life – there for him whenever Jirrad took out his frustrations on him. He could share things with the other man that he couldn’t impart to Relena in his silence. “But I knew you were good for something boy - besides future parts.”

Heero seethed internally, gritting his teeth against the memory of his family’s eventual slaughter and the grief that attempted to blind him.

Jirrad gave the dark dwelling another once over, before dismissing it and turning back to him. “And you did it here?” He laughed and Heero wondered if this dwelling held far more meaning to the older man than he let on. “Of course Fraix wouldn’t know this place. He was much too young and our clan nomadic by then. Yet, together you managed to figure out the prophecy or else you would surely be dead like all the others that have failed.”

Heero glared at his mentor as Jirrad took pleasure in the death of others. He refused to believe anyone in his group had passed. He wondered if the others had escaped and he had been… left. He took a surreptitious glance at their position in the dwelling. They were closer to the entrance of the dwelling than he remembered being, but the light in the dwelling wasn’t from the outside. He accepted that they had no choice but to leave him since getting to him would risk their capture. Heero looked past Jirrad, scowl firmly in place, to find the source of the glow. His eyes settled on the glowing form hovering over the fire pit yet obscured from view by debris from a collapsed wall.

“Heero.” Jirrad sneered in his face, long white hair falling over one shoulder as he grabbed Heero’s chin and turned him toward him. “You disappoint me. Did you think you could keep Amadahy from me? Where is she?”

Heero blinked up at him, hand on his knee as he shook free of Jirrad’s grip and stood. He was being called but there was no sound or words. He took a step around Jirrad. The pain screaming from various parts of his body and the threatening present of Jirrad was forgotten at the sight that greeted him.

“Heero?” Jirrad frowned, expression bordering on anger and puzzlement, but somehow missing the very source of the light in the dwelling. Heero understood how, though, standing in the light of the dwelling’s entryway made the dwellings interior look dark, nearly black. The figure over the fire pit was so still that no one, not even him, would have noticed them there but he did now. The pull in his chest had him moving, but metal staffs descended upon him, knocking him down and into the wall of rock that had been obscuring the source of the light. Jirrad’s hand was back, shaking him by his jerkin until Heero opened his eyes. But Heero couldn’t stop himself from looking at the figure over his shoulder.

“Where is she…?” Jirrad’s brows arched, noticing that Heero wasn’t looking at him.

Heero saw it when it dawned on Jirrad, the way his eyes roved over the illumination on the arm still holding him. Then Jirrad’s eyebrows twitched a smile blooming on his face, “You’ve…”

Heero grabbed the hand holding him when Jirrad turned to look over his shoulder. He looked himself, staring at the floating figure. Memory came to him then - Duo and Relena had both been floating in the same manner. Awed, the soldiers stood staring along with them. He saw one prone body and then another hidden… buried beneath debris. He swallowed holding onto the flare of hope that the lack of bodies inspired and that maybe some of them had gotten away. The clang of metal on stone, told him some of the soldiers had dropped their weapons and shifted, almost drifting toward the faint pulse of light that hid the figure’s identity from view.

“Ama-” Jirrad jerked in his grasp, scowling down at him and then growling when Heero refused to let him go. Jirrad made a quick grab for his throat, squeezing until Heero’s hand grew slack and throwing him down into the pile of rubble. “Keep him there!” Jirrad snapped and spun away from him.

Heero gasped for breath, recovering enough to block one staff before it could connect with his face, but he couldn’t protect the rest of him. There were four more staffs, one hitting his shoulder before the others were shoved into his stomach and pressed down on it until he was forced to sit, curled up around them.

“Where is she?” Heero saw the white hair whip around Jirrad’s head and then his wild eyes fasten on him as he strode over to him.

“D-!” …Duo. Heero felt his heart speed up in his understanding and the need to be at Duo’s side made his eyes lose focus. He stared at his floating bonded through the fall of his bangs. He couldn’t look away. He wouldn’t say his name, and have Jirrad know it.

Jirrad grabbed his face and pulled him forward. Heero gritted his teeth, shakily gripping the hand that tightened on his jaw while he tried to ease the pressure of staffs pushing down on his stomach. “I see you succeeded but not without casualties.” Jirrad hissed in a disparaging tone, “Where is Lady Relena?”

At Heero’s tight lipped expression, Jirrad shook him before pushing him back. The added pressure from the staffs made Heero’s head crack painfully against the dwelling wall. Jirrad scrutinized his soldiers, catching sight of a short haired blonde struggling to his feet. He nodded, sending two of soldiers who quickly bound the disorientated youth’s hands behind his back. He snapped his fingers and a tall soldier disengaged from a group just inside the entryway. The soldier’s hair was dusted with grit, slicked in a swoop over one eye and distinctive, blank green eyes set in a familiar face stepped forward.

The tour’s conditioning? Heero’s jaw clenched, swallowing down bloody spit at the sight of the unreadable face. It was the explanation he had and kept him from full string of betrayal.

“This is all that remains of your group?”

“Yes.” Heero glared at the one bang traitor. Tamien stared back at him flatly, none of the friend he knew and grew up with recognizable in the man standing before him.

“And that boy?” Jirrad’s head dipped in Quatre’s direction. Quatre shook his head, blinking like there was something wrong with his eyes. His head rolled on his shoulders, fair hair and fey features partially hidden by the dirt and grime from the dwelling. “What happened to Relena and her brother?”

“A guide. He’s the son of a merchant from the market who often traverses the great sands. He even has helped us locate an errant street rat. The One, she may be dead. She was alone when we found her traveling toward the mountains.” Heero saw Jirrad nod his acceptance. Heero kept his silence, commending the traitor on his quick thinking. Identifying Quatre as a merchant’s son meant he could be released or sold back to his supposed merchant father relatively undamaged. He was pushed back down again when he tried to move and Tamien continued to reweave the events of their journey to Jirrad. “I am uncertain of Millardo, but when I came too it is as you see - no trace of our two comrades or the One.”

Heero glanced over at the blonde who was currently struggling in his bonds. One guard left Quatre’s side to venture cautiously closer to Duo. Heero wondered if he had heard Tamien and if he would play along. He knew he hadn’t when Quatre kicked his one remaining guard’s feet out from under him. The petite blonde surged to his feet in a run, but his steps faltered. He spotted Tamien standing unencumbered with his enemy.

“Tamien?” Quatre glanced around, noting Heero’s position, the soldiers and then Jirrad. He glared at the white haired man, and then turned to Tamien. “Tamien. Wha-?” Quatre stopped his own question. A bitter and betrayed expression darkened his face.

The green eyed brunette said nothing, his focus solely on his superior.

Jirrad looked on in interest, a corner of his mouth curling slightly as he turned to examine the collapsed wall. Thoughtful eyes skittered over a bulky gray skinned arm and half bent leg where the clothes were soaked through, resembling a half empty sleeve. “There was a window here that we made for her when she grew too weak to leave our home and see the sunrise…” He tapped the mass of wall and powdered rock peppered through the dwelling and along cracks the ceiling. “Trowa, take some of the men and go out toward the back… they could’ve escaped through here before… this occurred. Find the Lady and we find her brother. They can’t have gone far.”

“Trowa? No,” Heero watched Quatre’s eyes lose focus for just a moment then the soft puzzlement disappeared from his cherub face and shock took its place. “I don’t believe this…” he mumbled, large aquamarine eyes staring pleadingly at Trowa. “I-I… this …it wasn’t… Tamien!? Tam-mmm!” Quatre blinked down at the gloved hand over his mouth, deaf to the laughter around him. Quatre bit the hand covering his mouth and drove his elbow into the stomach of the soldier holding him from behind. Quatre ducked under an out stretched arm, preparing to lunge forward but he was yanked backwards by another soldier who had caught his restraints.

“No!” Anger colored Quatre’s face and his eyes grew cold as he was forced to a half kneeling position by the soldier twisting his hands toward the middle of his back. “Let me go!” Quatre’s voice boomed throughout the dwelling.

Heero’s brow twitched, recognizing the shift in the air for what it was. A glance at Trowa told him the green eyed man knew that whatever suppression he had done to seal Quatre’s ability was coming undone. Trowa crossed the short distance separating him from Quatre with stealthy and seemingly lethal intent.

Quatre started to push himself up and ended up coughing as the air rushed out of him. Teary eyed, he looked up and Heero could see the play of emotions across his face when he met cold, dispassionate verdant eyes.

Jirrad’s lips twitched up at the corners when Quatre slumped after taking another hit from Trowa. The soldier holding him up by his restraints let go of them, letting Quatre fall to the stone floor where he curled into a quivering ball. The blonde’s health had been a main concern to his former friend, but seeing him nudge Quatre with his foot and then unleash a brutal kick that had Quatre’s back slamming into a wall, made him wonder when that had changed.

Jirrad chuckled, bringing Heero’s attention back to him. “Enough. I want something to be left for Senjit to question before a healer needs to fix anything.” Jirrad drawled in amusement as he motioned his traitorous friend away from Quatre. Heero kept from wincing at the deep wet cough that came from the crumpled blonde but Trowa didn’t miss a step. He strolled away, signaling for several men to follow him.

Jirrad smiled. A smile Heero knew was tainted as the older man looked to Trowa with pride on his face but Heero couldn’t stop his heart from sinking. With that look, he knew Jirrad felt he had succeeded with Trowa where he had failed with him.

“He’s a spirited one,” Jirrad arched a brow glancing at Quatre with a chuckle, “But a boy still. Take him as a token Trowa. After all he seems so taken with you, and send our condolences to his father for his services.” He said with a dismissive nod toward Quatre, ever watchful flat eyes peering out their corners.

Quatre had managed to get up to his knees. He hunched over them with his head close to the ground while his dirtied blonde locks hid his face from view. Blood dribbled from his mouth in a steady stream that made Heero hope Quatre hadn’t bitten his tongue. Quatre went limp when the soldier behind him yanked cruelly on his restrained arms. Trowa nodded to Jirrad, following the men he had called to him to the entryway.

“After he’s been thoroughly questioned,” gray eyes switched from Quatre to Trowa, assessing his response. Trowa exited without pause. Jirrad graced them all with a full spread of lips and teeth. He gestured with a twist of his wrist toward the fire pit and two soldiers moved instantly, “Bring the One to me.”

The men were five feet in reach of the calmly glowing figure who seemed unaware of the commotion about him when a crackle of light circled his body and shot down into the ground. The crackling light circled at his bare feet before it sent a rippling pulse of energy out shocking everyone in the cave. The two soldiers gave pause at the odd tingling sensation rolling across their skin, making their short hairs stand on end.

Jirrad licked his lips his hands shaking at the feel of the energy coursing through his body. He fisted his hands at the sides of his sweeping robe, hiding them from sight. “Go on,” he bade them and the soldiers approached the still figure staring fixedly at the ceiling and a small black ball above his nose.

Heero peered through one swelling eye at the being Duo had become, awed and afraid at what it meant for Duo. Duo hadn’t moved from where he hovered and Relena, Hilde, Ethan, Fraix and Wu Fei were nowhere to be seen.

Jirrad frowned at the two soldiers’ backs when they stopped moving, “Why are you just standing there?!” Jirrad snarled, irritated. “Bring him-” his order was forgotten when the black ball collapsed in on itself and went inside of Duo’s nose.

Duo’s head dropped forward, eyes open and staring at the ground beneath his feet. Dark lashes lifted higher, revealing dark eyes ringed in shadow that roamed over them all. The quick movements of the orbs in their sockets were marked only by the slight shifts of Duo’s lashes.

It sent an uneasy feeling through Heero when he looked into them. Duo’s eyes were as dark as the orb that had been floating above his head. They stopped on the two soldiers in front of him with a curious curl to his brow. Then the feel of it changed as if he were looking through the two soldiers who had stopped an arm’s length away from him to stare at something else. Heero had thought Duo was looking at him, but even with the strangeness of his eyes, Heero could tell he wasn’t. He was focused on the collapsed wall and Heero wondered what he was trying to say without words. Heero strained until he could see around the mound of rock in front of him. The soldiers allowed minimum movement but he saw it - a large hand on its side, a knee that didn’t look quite right in the wrinkled pant leg and black hair spilling from under slabs of heavy rock.

“Fraix…” Heero gasped out before he could stop himself, the broken sound of his voice incited Duo’s brows to twitch. Heero struggled against his captors, grappling with the staffs pressing him down.

Dark eyes flicked from him to regard them all with a small smile twisting his mouth as if Heero had said something clever and entertaining. The two soldiers in front of Duo were simply gone; their clothing and arms dropping to the stone floor in a plume of dust. Black eyes rolled over them as the smile stretched across his face.

It was empty without any hint of remorse or feeling for the lives that had winked out in front of him. It was the same look Heero remembered seeing on Duo’s face before he had lost consciousness.

Three more soldiers, too stunned to fall back toward the entrance, made gurgling sounds and screamed as their skin bubbled and blacken before their eyes. It blebbed out then shrunk, shriveling until it started to crack open. They stared on in varying degrees of shock and horrified groans at the sight of their skin flaking away. Their weapons clamored loudly in the silence as they fell uselessly from their hands.

A fourth soldier shocked by what was happening to his comrades jerked in place. He blinked, realizing too late how close he was. Heero watched him move toward a group of soldiers, who immediately knock away his outstretched hand with a staff. They covered their mouths and discarded the weapon that touched the helpless man before exiting the dwelling. The soldier stumbled to a stop, bracing himself on his thighs at the sudden need for air and struggled to keep his eyes open.

The soldier groaned, his mouth making the crackling sound of dried parchment when he moved it. He shakily touched one cheek and they all watched it bulge out from beneath his fingers.

“No… no…” The soldier started pushing on the side of his face and anxiously met Heero’s eyes. Heero grimaced and the man kept pushing, but it began to bleb out between his fingers like too much dough in a pie.

Heero heard footsteps approach him but he couldn’t look away. He followed the tortured blue-gray eyes when they swung away from him to Treize, who was the owner of the feet he could see out the corners of his eyes that had stopped near him then to Jirrad.

“My liege!?” the soldier called in a wheezing voice as he began to stumble closer and reach out to Jirrad, “Please... help me?”

Jirrad gave the soldier a pitying glance then smirked with a shake of his head. He stepped aside and gestured Treize toward the suffering soldier. Treize was quickly handed a blade tipped lance by another soldier. He tossed it from hand to hand, his expression contemplative before he gripped it. A flick of his wrist later, the lance whistled through the air and speared the man through his chest. The force of throw picked the soldier off his feet and sent him sailing backwards to burst into a swirling cloud of dust when he hit the stone wall. The lance clacked noisily against the stone wall until the wooden handle dissolved and the metal melted along the floor.

Jirrad laughed. He ignored the fear he smelled on the air and the slowly decreasing number of soldiers inside the dwelling with them. “One, you humble us with such a show of your prowess.”

Heero watched Duo tilt his head to the side, his black eyes tracking Jirrad as he stepped forward confidently. He saw a soldier detached himself from Treize’s side like a shadow and grab him by his jerkin. Heero had only a moment to realize that he had somehow freed himself and was making his way toward Duo, when he was slammed into the wall. He was slammed against the wall again, making pain explode across his chest and something in his chest gave under the pressure.

An involuntary grunt escaped him through the pain and he glared at the man in front of him.

Michal’s brow twitched and he looked away unable to hold Heero’s gaze. Michal scowled at the soldiers instead, who were supposed to be holding him in place. Michal pressed his nose against Heero’s bloody cheek, “I should let you keep walking and see what that thing’ll do to you.”

Heero couldn’t speak left breathless when Duo turned to him then. He stared into eyes so black that the color seemed to have been swallowed by his pupil. No light reflected in those black orbs.

“Aa.” Heero heard Jirrad say, but he couldn’t look away from Duo, because for a moment there had been recognition. Then a discomforting blank and accessing look overtook his face.

Jirrad kept his smile, the thing growing slick when he glanced to him. That look told Heero he had seen that bit of recognition, “They will not be harmed. You have my word as your bonded.”

“No!” Heero shouted, somehow wrestling free of his hold, but Michal drove the hilt of his sword into his stomach and side.

Duo watched impassively.

“Amadahy, you’ve come back to me.” Jirrad whispered reverently. He held out his left hand as he approached Duo with a welcoming smile, “You are my One. Together,” Duo took his hand and another pulse of energy was released. Jirrad shuddered at the feel of it rolling across his skin, making the hairs on his body stand from his skin, “together we’ll remake this world.”

Heero saw the being that was Duo walk past him before Michal’s sword hilt came at him from the corner of his eye and blacken his world with a brief explosion of light.

Tbc…