Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Wild Wings ❯ Chapter 4

Ask and ye shall receive.

 

--//--

 

Chapter Four

 

Coordinates for a safehouse on the edge of Key West made Duo smile. `You'll be alone' the scientist's encrypted message said, `So lay low and chill for a few weeks. Catch some sun. I'll be in touch.' There was a twist in his chest. Duo wasn't sure why the thought of being alone struck him oddly. He'd been alone before; before OZ and the Gundams, before and after Maxwell church, he was familiar with alone. He could handle it.

 

But the thought still twisted his gut, then it rumbled in hunger and he forgot about the issue. “Damn, I've got another ration bar in here somewhere, right?” He needed a real meal as soon as he was dirt-side. Something with a lot of meat in it.

 

Duo plugged the coordinates he was given into `Scythe's trajectory and finally found that ration bar. A few weeks off wouldn't be so bad all on his own. He'd have time to fix that transistor in `Scythe's leg for good and he'd need at least that long to refuel.

 

He was suddenly struck with the desire to move. To run. He was confined here in this machine with no room to stretch and breathe. It wasn't claustrophobia it was more like… the anxiety after a battle rush. He gripped the chair, tense with no explanation. This wasn't a normal adrenaline high, something was happening to him. Something was very, very wrong and it all started with that dream back in India.

 

The armrests creaked under his grip. Duo panted for air and swallowed a shriek that was half rage and half desperation. In a frantic thought he brought up his external cameras on all vidscreens, a nearly panoramic view of water and sky. It wasn't enough.

 

The need to fly tackled him over the head like a dump truck full of ball peen hammers. His vision went white and the scream of desire deafened him. He came back to himself scrabbling at Deathscythe's hatch like some kind of rabid dog. An alert was shrieking but what did he care for machines and wires? He was a thing of the earth and the air, a creature of power and grace—

 

The hatch finally hissed open among a small chorus of alarms and the wind flooded the small cockpit in a minor explosion of pressure. He pointed his nose at the stream of air and crawled into it, bracing claws in the small overlaps of Gundanium. The world was a wash of purple and blue-in-blue, a perfect blend of power and nature, rather like himself.

 

He used the pressure of the wind to keep himself steady on the machine and crawled carefully from the chest to the shoulder with a series of steps that should have swept him into the ocean like nothing more than an oversized bug. The machine rushed onward. He braced himself on the shoulder, a move that should have been much more difficult than it was, and let his wings fill with air, let his nose take in the smell of the sea.

 

He was power. Like this machine. He controlled the earth and the air, not the other way around. Light burst from his cross and he launched himself into the wind with a mighty pump of wings and a howl he couldn't hear he was moving so fast. He plunged ahead of the machine and circled the staff of the weapon in a soaring loop that dropped his stomach. It made him feel alive. He was unaware of the world but for this soaring moment of freedom. Unaware of impossibility and practicality, or the meanings of such words. This was life.

 

He dipped just behind the Gundam, where the air was thinner and his flight less labored. The glow of his cross dimmed somewhat with his revelry, then further when the Gundam began its automated sequence. The machine slowed, still several miles from shore, and eased itself lower toward the water. He watched the hatch close, lights and alarms still screeching away, then the mecha submerged completely. Within moments even the shadow if it was gone, but by then he was already soaring on the winds toward land. Toward earth.

 

Duo crash landed in the middle of Bayview Park on shaky legs and a shakier idea of reality. The `it was all a dream' excuse was getting thinner by the minute. He stumbled past a picnicker that screamed loud enough to hurt his ears before crashing between a pair of bushes. He collapsed there and just tried to focus on being human again. He pictured himself in his head, chanted it out loud as best he could, and prayed with every ounce of his being.

 

When a good Samaritan pulled the bush aside Duo completely expected to be stabbed, shot, or screamed at. What he heard instead made his eyes pop open. “Look, you see? It's just some homeless kid—“

 

“No, no, it was a monster! It flew down from the tree and tried to attack me!”

 

“Honey—“ The voices were moving away.

 

Duo blinked at the bush. Just some homeless kid? Just some—he was a Gundam pilot thank you very much!

 

Wait.

 

Duo jumped from the bush with a cheerful holler. He was human again! And immediately regretted it. Everyone within a square block turned to look at him. The woman he had terrified with his landing fell in a dead faint.

 

“Oops... ah… Hey, guys.”

 

He bolted northwest before someone could do something… like call the police. He thanked the Lord that Key West's population was comprised of tourists. No one would want to deal with the crazy homeless kid during their vacation. He hoped.

 

Duo veered further west, away from the navel base a few blocks north and found a fenced property several blocks long directly in his way. Traffic on Olivia Street was gridlocked so he zigzagged between the cars (it was faster than dodging pedestrians) and was honked at for his trouble.

 

He slowed to turn the corner of Elizabeth Street not because he was tired, but a panicked teenager running willy-nilly tended to draw attention.

 

Once the rush of adrenaline subsided enough to let him think Duo realized he was only a few blocks from his den—eyrie—damnit, safehouse.

 

He managed not to think about that little slipup until he found the building (yes, building was a good word). He didn't have the patience for picking the lock so he simply twisted the knob with a jerk and popped it open—a move he didn't think he was strong enough to pull off.

 

He shut the door behind him and just leaned against it for a moment. He caught his breath, let the adrenaline drain away, and closed his eyes for a very long time. When he opened them again his stomach was gnawing on his spine and threatening to go after a kidney next.

 

“Oh, my God, what is the deal?!”

 

He tore open the refrigerator and slapped a steak onto the stove. He threw another one into the oven and when he couldn't stand to wait another moment longer, pulled a third out to tear apart raw.

 

It wasn't until later when he was crawling into bed that he paused to question why a safehouse would be stocked with any meat at all, never mind three full steaks. But before he could really formulate the thought sleep overtook him.

 

--//--

 

Duo half-woke several times during the day only long enough to shift around a bit and find a comfortable spot. At one point he realized it was getting darker but the thought was as fleeting as his decision to curl into a ball. He continued his cat-nap routine through the night and finally, truly awoke at the false-dawn.

 

He stretched, long and hard. Then he groaned. A shower was definitely in order. He hurt everywhere and he stank of the sea. After that he'd start thinking again… if he started too soon he'd probably break down in the middle of the bedroom.

 

He took a short tour of the house to orient himself. There wasn't very much to orient. The kitchen was fully stocked (minus a few steaks), the joined living room had a TV in it and the single doorway fed into the bedroom. From there was another door to the bathroom. It was small, much more elegant that Duo could expect the rest of his dens to be, and there was running water. Who could argue with that?

 

Damnit.

 

Safehouses.

 

“Shit.” Duo threw himself in the shower.

 

Ok, assuming, just for the sake of argument, that this wasn't a twisted, prolonged acid trip, coma dream, whatever; it all started after he got to Earth. This either meant whatever was wrong with him wasn't triggered in space, hadn't matured until last night, or happened to him after he left L2 with the good Professor.

 

It was hard to imagine Professor G would make him transform into a huge, raving, (gloriously free) beast without running every test he could. Duo had been pushed beyond the limit of his endurance as a human, how could the scientist possibly pass up the opportunity to test him as a creature?

 

Although, he wouldn't put it past the man to drop a bomb on him like this just for shits and giggles.

 

And that did explain the steak.

 

But Professor G would have wanted him to know of every advantage he could take, right? Operation Meteor wasn't a child's game in the sand, the Gundams were really the rebels only chance against OZ and G wouldn't mess that up on some prank…

 

Right?

 

Doubts notwithstanding, G was his biggest culprit. One didn't just turn into a beast because the moon was the right shape.

 

…

 

“Oh, fuck.”

 

He had crawled into the moonlight last night. He remembered that clear as day. There was no conscious decision to do it, just a compulsion so strong he couldn't fight it for more than a few seconds. And when he tried to climb out of it the pain had been intense.

 

“Oh, Lord Almighty.”

 

Duo's back hit the tiled shower wall and his sank slowly to the floor. The moon was full last night. He remembered howling at it, soaring under the silver rays as if they were all he needed to live for the rest of his life. The change didn't hit him until after he was in the light… and just because the sun was up, didn't mean the moon wasn't still full.

 

The adrenaline rush of battle probably hadn't helped things.

 

Duo yanked the shower door open and threw on his old clothes. The new ones were in `Scythe and he needed to get to his Gundam anyway. He needed a `net connection and a radio frequency, now.