Duet (rough draft)
A Kingdom Hearts / Gundam Wing crossover fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: While slacking off on a mission, Demyx makes a new friend.
A/N: Written as promotion for KHplatonicLove's Spring 2014 contest on devART~ (Note that this fic is NOT competing! I just wanted to support my own contest. XD)
o.o.o
Now, this was Demyx's sort of world. Warm sun, fresh breeze, beautiful oasis, and no nagging boss. "[Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]," he sang, "[Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]"
He was lounging on the roof of a fancy palace-looking place, strumming his sitar and not doing his mission. Yet. 'I'll get to it later,' he thought lazily. "[Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]-"
Large hands seized him and yanked him to his feet, and his sitar was jerked out of his hands.
"Hey!" Demyx protested.
"Who are you?" rumbled the huge goon who held him captive.
"Uh..."
More men were appearing around them, Arabian-looking guys glaring at Demyx and dubiously eyeing his instrument-weapon.
"Are you with OZ?"
"Who?"
"What's your name? Who do you work for?"
"I'm not working! I'm just singing!"
"How did you get up here?"
Angry men making angry demands, but it was still better than trudging around in the desert heat, looking for a big tough monster to kill. Demyx decided to keep playing along, since he could always step into a dark corridor if things got dangerous or boring. "Didn't you hear the song? I'm a button! I flew!"
"Let's take him to Master Quatre."
"No need to bother Master Quatre with this," said the goon whose huge hands made Demyx's arms look and feel like sticks. "Get rid of him." He shoved Demyx toward some of the other men, who grabbed him before he could slip free.
"Wait!" Demyx cried. "Don't I get any say in this? A lawyer? A phone call? A chance to poll the audience?"
The guy holding Arpeggio accidentally brushed against the strings, and it let out a musical twang.
"Hey, be nice to my sitar," Demyx said.
"Sitar?"
"That's the strangest sitar I've ever seen," one of the other men said dubiously.
"We ought to throw both that thing and its owner off the roof."
"No, wait!" Demyx cried.
The men suddenly went silent when a voice called from below, "Rashid? Where is everyone?"
The men exchanged uneasy looks.
"HELP! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED!" Demyx yelled. "THEY'RE GONNA KILL M-!" He yelped when a hand clapped across his mouth. "Mmphf!"
"Rashid?!"
"We're coming, Master Quatre," the leader of the men called in resignation.
Demyx was dragged down through a window into a sumptuously-furnished office, where he was surprised to see a slim boy waiting for them who looked about Roxas's age. Or maybe it was a girl, with that soft pale hair and those big blue eyes... Did this little princeling really command all these big scary guys?
The Melodious Nocturne and the young Gundam pilot stared at each other for a minute.
"We caught him on the roof, Master Quatre," said Rashid.
"How did you get into this compound?" Quatre asked in perplexity. "It's difficult to find, as well as heavily guarded."
"Well, that's a long story," Demyx said. "If you give me back my sitar, I can sing it to you as a ballad!"
Quatre eyed him as if he was tempted, but said, "Just explain yourself quickly and clearly, please."
"Aww... Well, see, my Grandma Xiggy was sick, reeeeaaallly sick, you know, with malagolintomontorosis, so I went to go visit her and bring her a basket of yummy treats to make her feel better so she can get well and make me some of her apple pie - she won an award for it, you know, it's the best in the world - but then I got lost and so I followed this cat to see if it could sniff its way to Grandma's house, but it went in the desert instead and I walked aaaaaalllllll day and it was sooooo hot, but then this band of desert pirates showed up and let me join their crew, and we sailed on camels all around the seven-"
"We can take him outside to break his neck, Master Quatre."
"Wait!" Demyx squeaked.
"There's no need for you to witness something unpleasant. Though, in all honesty, he ought to be interrogated first-"
"Rashid," Quatre said unhappily.
Demyx shifted his hand in preparation to open a dark corridor.
"What's your name?" Quatre asked.
"Uh...Ryan! My name's Ryan. Hi!"
"Hello. Ryan, do you have any idea what this place is?"
"Nope," Demyx said honestly.
"Do you understand why we're not going to be able to believe you?"
"No one ever believes me. Except Roxas and Xion, but they're getting smarter, so sometimes they don't believe me, either."
"...I wish you hadn't broken in. I don't want to hurt you, but I don't really have a choice."
"You don't have to hurt me! I can do lots of things besides get hurt! I can sing and dance and play the sitar and bake cupcakes and pull awesome pranks-"
Quatre, not for the first time, gave the sitar a longing glance.
Demyx suddenly realized that he was in the presence of a fellow musician. "Hey...hey! Prince Goldilocks! Duet with me!"
"I...I can't, I- What?"
"Come ooooon, I know you want tooooo. What do you play? Guitar, trombone, castanets?"
Quatre smiled a little and made a gesture. Demyx was relieved when the goons released him. Then he followed Quatre over to the piano on one side of the room and watched appreciatively as the other young man set his fingers to the keys and drew forth music. "I play the violin, too," Quatre explained as he played.
"Awesome. Sitar, man!" Demyx gestured imperiously, and when the goons were slow to respond, he magically summoned Arpeggio into his grasp.
The piano music came to an abrupt halt, and everyone in the room stared at him in astonishment.
'Recon notes for this world:' Demyx thought, 'no magic.'
Then he was pounced on. Goons were grabbing him, ripping Arpeggio away again ("Nooo, don't scratch heeeer!"), shouting, demanding to know who he worked for and what sort of technology allowed him to transfer matter like that-
"What is this?" Rashid demanded, inspecting the paper he'd just found in one of Demyx's pockets.
"Hey, that's my mission br-! Oops."
Rashid handed the assignment to his master, who read it with a frown.
Quatre raised his lovely but now cold blue eyes to meet Demyx's and said, "So you are on a mission."
"Yeah, but I'm slacking off! And I'm not your enemy, dude! I don't even know who you work for!"
"What is a 'Heartless'?"
"You know. Those black monster things that suck out people's hearts because they don't have any of their own?"
Quatre gasped, and the other men shifted. "Those shadow creatures!"
"Yeah, yeah! I'm supposed to find a big one and fight it, but it's hard and I don't want to. I want to just chill and play my sitar instead."
"You're here to slay the desert beast?! You know what the shadow creatures are and have the means to defeat them?!"
"I guess, yeah?" Demyx wriggled in the grip of his captors. "Give me my sitar! Pleeeeaaaase!"
Quatre carefully took the instrument and strummed a chord with gentle fingers. The sitar practically purred under his touch.
"Hey! Bad Arpeggio! I'm your master, not him!"
"This isn't just a musical instrument, is it," Quatre said quietly.
"I suck at keeping secrets, don't I..."
"Could I defeat the desert beast with this?" Quatre asked in a murmur, coaxing a low, sweet tune from Arpeggio's strings.
"Come on, man, there's only one Melodious Nocturne, and it's me! Don't go stepping on my territory...!"
Quatre smiled a little and held out the instrument to its proper master. The Maganacs reluctantly released Demyx, who pouted as he reclaimed his sitar. "I know what it's like to be the only true partner of an extraordinary weapon."
"A weapon?" Rashid said in alarm. Seeing the way the men were now looking at Arpeggio, Demyx hugged it protectively.
"Ryan," Quatre said, "will you come with me? My men have been keeping an eye on the desert beast, and I would very much appreciate your help in eliminating the threat it poses."
"Man, I knew I'd have to work if I kept hanging out with you guys..." Meeting Quatre's eyes again, Demyx found that he suddenly didn't mind as much as he thought. He smiled and clasped Quatre's hand. "Fine. Work first, duet and snacks after, okay?"
"Agreed."
Quatre Raberba Winner might have no magic, but what he did have was reeeeaaaallly really cool. "AWESOME~!" Demyx yelled as they entered the MS hangar and Quatre gracefully made his way up to the hatch of the most impressive machine in the place. "That's yours?! Why can't the Org have giant robots?! So cool, man!"
The Gundam's green eyes glowed to life and its massive form shifted, the arm lowering until Demyx could reach its outstretched palm.
"Come, Ryan," Quatre said through the speakers. "Let's join together to face this threat."
"So cool so cool so cool so cooooool, I wish Xiggy was here..."
Demyx, hood up to shield him from the blazing sun and stinging winds, rode on Sandrock's shoulder as Quatre set out in search of the giant Heartless, with several Maganacs following behind in their own mobile suits.
"What need do you have for secrecy," Quatre asked conversationally, "when you oppose the same shadow creatures the rest of us do?"
"I dunno, man, I don't make the rules..."
"So it's not personal conviction that keeps you loyal to your organization?"
"It's not like I have anywhere else to go," Demyx mumbled. "If I...if I ever want my heart back, I..." 'Except I do already have my heart back, I know I do, otherwise I wouldn't be able to feel all this stuff. Sadness, pain, loneliness, fear...so, so much fear...' Such as fear of Axel, or whoever would get sent to destroy him if he ever tried to escape the Organization.
"Your heart?"
"Never mind."
"Ryan, I-"
"That's not my name," Demyx said abruptly.
"..."
"Just...just call me 'Nine' for now, okay?"
"...Heh."
"What?"
"I'm 04."
"Huh?"
"My code number. I have one, too."
Demyx smiled a little. "Another thing we have in common..."
"Master Quatre! The desert beast approaches!"
"Ry- I mean, Nine!" Quatre shouted. "Can you get down quickly? I can't attack with you there!"
"On it!" Demyx corridored down to the ground and watched in admiration as Sandrock whipped out a couple of giant curved sword thingies and slashed them at the Heartless. "Holy flying ice cream, that's a lot of HP..." So, so, sooooooooo cool. It ought to be a rule that all Org members assigned to giant Heartless missions should have Gundams as partners - Demyx barely needed to do anything, it was great.
"[Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]" Geysers of icy water shot out of the ground in response, distracting and slowing the Heartless so that it barely defended itself when Sandrock peppered it with bullets. "Yeah! Go Quatre! [Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]..."
Between Demyx's magic and Sandrock's brute strength, the Heartless was easily vanquished. If Vexen's calculations were right, the bulk of the released darkness would reform in Agrabah in about a week or two, weaker than before, enough for Roxas to defeat it properly with the Keyblade. 'Then we'll have more hearts to feed Kingdom Hearts, and we'll be that much closer to getting back the hearts we already have, and maybe maybe maybe the Organization will quit existing and I can go back to living my real life again. A life where I can have a normal, non-painful job with weekends and holidays and time to play for people who actually wanna hear my music and women to fall in love with and break up with so I can write the songs that'll make me famous, or even just songs I actually care about...music that's just music, a sitar that's only a sitar...' To be perfectly honest, he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. He hated fighting, but...he kind of liked he was able to express himself even better as a Nobody than he'd been able to when he was human with no power to make water dance. "Quatre, you rock, man!"
"Rock?"
Quatre was as good as his word. As soon as they got back to his secret base, beautiful women served them yummy things to eat, and Demyx finally got his duet. Quatre played on the piano, watching in a mixture of confusion and amusement as Demyx rocked out on his sitar nearby.
"Yeah!" Demyx yelled along with Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" overture, "Send me to sunny worlds with pretty girls so missions will be fun!"
"I've never participated in a duet quite like this before," Quatre chuckled. He'd been initially taken aback at the older boy's seemingly careless approach to the classical piece, but the skill with which Demyx's instrument harmonized with Quatre's was impressive. The sheer joy Number IX seemed to take in music was uplifting to watch. Quatre even started to make up silly lyrics in Arabic about halfway through, which Demyx cheered on.
"I preferred Trowa's performance," Rashid sighed to himself as he watched, "but Master Quatre looks happy, so..." He smiled a little to see his young friend in such good spirits.
"YES!" Demyx shouted when the song ended. "That was made of awesome!" He held up his hand for a high-five, which Quatre returned after he'd figured out what the gesture meant. "This time let's do Owl City! [Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]...!"
"Owl what? Lightning bugs?"
"[Lyrics censored out because FFN is stupid; please read my fanfiction on a different, much better site. See my profile, there are several to choose from.]"
Quatre laughed as he started picking up on the unfamiliar melody. "You remind me of my friend Duo..."
o.o.o
Author's Notes: YAAAAYYYY, I FINALLY WROTE SOMETHING. 8D
I've been trying sooooooooooo hard to write something to promote this contest of mine on devART, but I have writer's block or something (due to disorganization) - I must have tried, like, fifteen stories before one of them finally let me finish it. 8)
Thank you so much to everyone who gave me drabble ideas when I begged you! XD Ultimately, none of them worked for this purpose, but I do want to write most of them eventually; there were so many good ideas in there. ^^ (One of them is your AkuSai kiriban, Hawk. XD)
Man alive, Gundam Wing is so freaking nostalgic for me. X3 It was nice to dust off that fandom and revisit it. :3 Lol, this was actually my second attempt at a Kingdom Hearts / Gundam Wing crossover. I gave up on the other one when Axel and Duo, IMMEDIATELY upon seeing each other, started talking about religion in a not-very-positive way; and I was like, "Wait, what?! No, that is not the direction I wanted to take this fic!" So then I started again without really putting any thought into it at all, and Demyx & Quatre stepped in and were much more cooperative. ^^ My babies~ *huggles*
This fic was NEVER a "songfic." All I did was briefly quote from certain songs (and credited the songwriters on the other sites where I post), which is allowed under Fair Use. But FFN has shown in the past that I can't trust them or certain users to use common sense, and I've downgraded FFN to a backup site anyway, so I just mangled my own fic in order to keep them off my back. If I wasn't so paranoid, I would leave FFN for good; as it is, I no longer consider FFN to be my main fanfiction site.
"Malagolintomontorosis" is the disease Merlin inflicted Madam Mim with in The Sword and the Stone in order to win their duel. :p
Ryan O'Donohue is the name of Demyx's English voice actor. :)
I'm not really into popular music, so I had to do some research on what artist Demyx would pick at the end. Owl City popped up as the one that struck me as the most suitable, but this isn't my area of expertise, so sorry if it seems like an odd choice. ^^;
OH, hey! To you guys whom I haven't talked to about this! I like to keep my friends and readers informed about what's going on with me and my writing (so that, for example, you guys know why I haven't posted anything in a while, or haven't answered your messages, or if you're curious about a multi-chapter that hasn't been updated in a while, etc.). In the past, I mostly used LiveJournal and deviantART for this, but I've gotten a few complaints about LJ and a LOT of complaints about dA. (As in, the sites are glitchy or choked with advertisements, so that people have trouble viewing my pages.)
I'm in the process of moving my main Web site to WordPress, and I'd like to know if you guys have an easier time viewing my pages and news on WP, as opposed to LJ and especially dA. (So far, the consensus I've gotten is that people on LJ like both WordPress and LJ but hate devART, and that people on FFN and dA totally don't care. X'D)