DEDICATION: She'll never read it, but hey, I dedicate this fic to Jen, who is a Red Dwarf fan and the one who told me about Quarantine in the first place by quoting it/acting it out.
DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Gundam Wing, Red Dwarf or anything else mentioned in this fic.
SPOILERS: Possibly end of Endless Waltz, but not really.
WARNINGS: Very weird, characters acting OOC but there is a logical explanation for this somewhere and lots of footnotes as I try to explain references to things/cover my back in case people think I'm taking their work and passing it off as my own.
When the orders came through to the Preventers, there didn't seem to be any problems. It was all quite simple really: retrieve an abandoned shuttle that was floating through space like so many trashed mobile suit parts. As Wufei said, not even Duo could mess up this mission.
"I resent that," Duo was still saying when, two hours later, they caught up with the abandoned shuttle.
"You had to make a joke, didn't you, Wufei?" said Heero angrily, as he steered their shuttle towards the abandoned one. "You couldn't just leave well enough alone. We've had to listen to two hours off this baka's incessant chattering and - ."
"Well, the rest of you have done nothing but sit and listen," Duo said. "I didn't hear you complaining before."
"We couldn't get a word in edgeways, so how could we complain?" Wufei snapped.
"If you'd only said something, I'd've stopped, but as you didn't -," Duo was interrupted by Wufei's yell of "we couldn't!"
"I think you could!"
"Couldn't!"
"Could!"
"Yes, we're all sixteen, aren't we?" said Trowa to no one in particular. Duo and Wufei rounded on him, and Quatre, realising how dangerous it was to be on the receiving end of their mingled fury, leapt in quickly.
"Um, why was the shuttle abandoned?" he asked Heero.
"Hn?" Heero had perfected the art of blocking out irritating voices (though Relena had somehow always managed to break through) and it took him a moment to realise Quatre was addressing him. "Nani? Oh, the shuttle. Une didn't say. I got the feeling she didn't know."
"Maybe it was some nutter going on a killer spree, like in those old horror films from the late twentieth century?" said Duo cheerfully. He looked as if he rather liked the idea.
"What? The Scream trilogy and I Know What You Did Last Summer?" said Trowa.
"Yeah, and Silence of the Lambs," said Duo.
"Oh, that was horrible," said Quatre.
"It was fun," said Duo. "'And then I ate his liver - .'"
"Stop!" the yell, surprisingly, came from Wufei not Quatre. Duo looked at him for a moment, then smirked and said, "did he eat the guy's liver with beer or wine?"
"It was wine, but I can't remember which sort," said Trowa.
"Hmm, which wine would go well with human liver?" said Duo.
"I dunno, but we can always find out," said Trowa, doing an uncanny impression of that indescribable noise Hannibal Lector makes after he says the name of the wine.[1]
"We're here," said Heero. "First we have to scan the ship, then board it and check that this isn't some sort of sick joke."
The scan took a matter of minutes. No sign of life, no sign of anything like a booby trap, no sign of anything at all really. It was a bit disappointing.
"We still have to board, right?" said Duo a little glumly. He'd wanted to find … well, he wasn't sure but he'd wanted to find something that he could fight with.
"Of course we do," said Heero. "That's the correct procedure. Haven't you read the rules?"
"Think I've got nothing better to do with my free time? You might enjoy sitting around reading rules and regulations, but I have a life."
"Oh, I forgot, you were always very storm-the-place-and-hope-I-live-through-it, weren't you?"
"Better than follow-the-rules-to-the-letter-even-if-lots-of-people-get-killed-including-me," said Duo. "That was your master plan."
"I'm still alive."
"And why do I get the feeling you wish you'd just died on the way down to Earth?"
"Well, if I'd known I was going to meet you I never would have left the colony," said Heero over his shoulder as he walked into the shuttle.
"Just shut up, Duo, you know Heero's the master of the quick snub," said Trowa. "Now, where'd he go?"
"Off on some mission of his own," said Quatre. "Well, if we go this way we'll soon find out if he did too."
He turned right, and the others followed.
"Yes, he turned left," said Wufei.
"Should we go back?" said Quatre.
"Nah, this way he can search half the ship and we can do the other half," said Duo.
"But what if someone attacks him?" Quatre said.
"Quatre, have you ever known anyone attack Heero and live to tell the tale? Apart from us and Zechs of course."
As there was a lot of truth to this, they fell silent, each looking at the ship in their own way as they made their way from room to room. Wufei saw that it was all well built, Quatre saw that it was pretty clean, Trowa noticed the level of security and Duo saw that this shuttle screamed 'we have MONEY' at full volume. They all arrived at the same question: why had this thing been abandoned? It seemed to be in perfect condition, so why had they abandoned it?
They found out as they entered the next room.
It was part of the living quarters, with armchairs and settees laid out on a floor bare except for a large rug and a table with a pack of cards scattered on it. Some flowers were wilting in a bowl beside the cards, and the monitor set in one wall crackled slightly. All of these details were lost on the four former Gundam pilots for the moment, however.
All they could see were the bodies.
A man, a woman and two small boys, not looking as if they had been dead for more than a couple of hours. They were sitting on the settee, as if settling down to watch television or something.
"Shinigami!" said Duo involuntarily, before realising how appropriate this was. The God of Death had been here, that was for sure.
"What killed them?" Quatre said softly. "Those poor children."
"What's this?" Trowa looked down at the table. There was a small note, written in a hand that seemed to lose its strength with each word. It said simply 'watch the tape'.
"Nani? What tape?" Wufei said, his eyes still fixed on the family of bodies.
"This tape," a girl said from behind them. They all whirled round, almost simultaneously. She was a very pretty girl, with coppery curls tumbling to her shoulders and a set of perfect teeth showing in a friendly smile. The one thing that marred her beauty was the red glow around her eyes. Not red as in pupils in a bad photo, nor red as in blood shot, but red as in red from eyebrow to the bottom of her eye, and a red which glowed like a laser. Seeing this, the four boys also saw that her smile held traces of insanity, as did her voice.
"Is - is that the tape?" Quatre asked, pointing to the one she held in her hand.
"Yes," said the girl. "Mum and Dad used a very old fashioned system. A video recorder, I think they called it. I don't know if it'll work. Dad made this tape with his video camera and he was starting to lose his sanity then, so I don't know how coherent it'll be."
"L-lose his sanity?" said Duo.
"Yes, as a result of the insanity virus," said the girl. "We got two bottles, a luck virus and an insanity virus, but we didn't know which was which."
She opened a secret drawer in the table and pulled out two bottles, one holding a red liquid and the other a blue one. Neither of them was labelled.
"Dad opened them both to test them, but the insanity virus is carried as gas so we all caught it," said the girl.
"Don't open the bottles then," said Duo.
"Oh, I don't need to," the girl said. "You can catch it from other people, it's contagious. You've probably got it now - the insanity virus I mean. You'll die soon, just like me. Well, not just like me, I've taken some luck virus too, so I can live for a bit longer."
"It's fatal?" said Quatre.
"Well, duh! It's what killed my parents," the girl said. "Is that all? I have to go to Hartlepool to buy some exploding trousers."[2]
"What?"
"Hartlepool, you know, it's the capital city of Mars, wonderful suburb called London. We live in London."
"Isn't London the capital of England?" said Duo.
"No, that's beep!" the girl emitted a very loud, very high beeping noise.
"What?"
"Beep! Nitwit! Oddment! Tweak!"[3]
"What?"
"I - I love you Auntie Em! I saw Elvis and he was flying past Jupiter in a yellow submarine!" the girl began to sing. "Said he was heading for somewhere over the rainbow."
"Oh, my God," said Duo, as the boys began to walk away from the girl, who was starting to skip.
"No, don't leave!" she screamed. "You can't leave! I - I won't let you leave. You'll be mine forever, I love you all."
"You only just met us!" Wufei protested, dodging as the girl lunged at him.
"And why you'd be interested in Justice Boy over there is anyone's guess," said Duo.
"I know we only just met, but surely you believe in love at first sight," said the girl, turning to Trowa, hands clasped and held out before her.
"Not with insane girls I've just met I don't," said Trowa, scuttling away.
"Insane? I'm not insane, but you are, to call me such horrid things! I'll scweam and scweam till I'm sick!"[4] the girl stamped her foot. "I'll - I'll kill you all for that."
"How?" said Duo.
"I have - I have," she paused, grabbing the blue bottle and downing some of the contents. "I have more luck, I can now live a bit longer. I am also now luckier than any of you which means you cannot escape me."
"But we have to go," said Quatre apologetically.
"Fine, go, stupid animal food trough wipers! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was an hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"[5] the girl screeched, her eyes starting to burn. Duo looked at them quizzically, then hurled himself at Quatre as two laser beams shot out of the girl's eyes. The wall on which Quatre had been leaning was dissolved instantly.
"Th - thank you Duo," the blond boy said. "She would have killed me."
"That's cool," said Duo. "Long as you're not toast."
"Toast? A toast! I toast the goodness in life and the wonder of living," the girl said.[6]
"Guys, I have a plan," said Duo.
"A plan? A plan that is as cunning as a fox who's just been made Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?"[2] the girl said. "Let me hear!"
"No," said Wufei.
"I'll cry," said the girl.
"Go ahead," said Wufei.
The girl burst into noisy sobs, and the four boys took the opportunity to huddle quickly.
"That blue stuff is luck virus," said Duo. "If I drink some I'll become lucky and hopefully that'll mean that she'll die."
"It'll kill her," said Quatre.
"That virus is killing her," said Trowa. "And we'd better do this quick or Heero'll turn up and he'll kill her."
"This is more humane," said Wufei.
"Definitely," said Duo, his hand on the bottle cap.
"Are you sure that's the luck virus?" said Trowa. "They're not marked."
"I'm sure," said Duo. "She drank it and if she'd drunk insanity virus she'd be dead now."
He downed some of the sickly sweet blue liquid, then licked his lips, blinking.
"I feel like a trip to Vegas for some reason," he said. "OK, OK, how should this work. I wish for her to die quickly and painlessly, oh great Shinigami."
There was a small gasp and the girl keeled over.
"She's dead," said Wufei.
"No kidding," said Duo. "Come on, let's go."
He pocketed the blue bottle and they left at a run, heading back for where they'd docked their shuttle to this one. They couldn't open the doors of the air lock, being confronted by Heero in an all too familiar pose: pointing his gun straight at someone. More specifically, them.
"Hi Heero, its us," said Duo. "Remember, 02, 03, 04 and 05."
"I know who you are," said Heero. "But I don't know if you're infected or not."
"Infected with what?" said Quatre innocently.
"The insanity virus," said Heero. "What else?"
"How d'you know?" said Trowa suspiciously.
"This," said Heero, holding up a note with the words 'there's a fatal insanity virus on this ship, please stay away' on it. "How d'you know?"
"Um."
"Er."
"Same way as you."
"Psychic."
"You found some bodies, I presume?" said Heero.
"Yes," it was a chorus.
"Any living infected?"
"Yes," another chorus.
"Right, you know what this means, don't you?" said Heero.
"No."
"Quarantine."
"I do not believe this!" Duo roared, punching the wall of the quarantine cell and wincing. They were confined together in a small complex, and would be stuck there for eighty-four days. Heero had herded them into one small cabin on their shuttle and flown back, reporting to Une on the way. As soon as they'd arrived they'd been shoved straight into the quarantine complex.
"Believe it," said Wufei. He was looking round, planning a break out. But it was impossible, even for someone like Duo, who seemed capable of escaping from every cell ever built. Quarantine was air tight, with an unbreakable door lock and no windows except for a double-mirror that was five inches thick and served as a monitoring system. Had they had any of their usual equipment, they might have been able to break the electronic lock, but even the old hair grip Duo kept as a make-do lock pick had been confiscated.
"It's not fair! Why isn't Heero in quarantine?" Duo snarled, flinging himself onto one of the bunks. He knew he was acting like someone ten years younger than he was, but he didn't care. It felt good to vent his feelings in this way.
"Because I wasn't thick enough to go near infected people," said Heero's voice from the other side of the glass. It lit up and they saw him sitting there, legs up on one of the other chairs, a cup of coffee in his hands. He smirked at them.
"You're enjoying this!" said Duo accusingly.
"Moi? Enjoy this? The sight of you lot losing your tempers with each other and fighting? I don't find that a bit amusing," said Heero. None of them were convinced.
"Well, what are we gonna do for eighty-four days?" said Quatre.
"Well, I don't really know," said Heero, drinking some of the coffee and putting his head on one side as if to consider this question. "There are some videos in that cupboard over there. And in that cupboard there are some other activities."
The boys threw themselves at the cupboards. Heero watched over the rim of his cup, fighting to keep his grin under control. He lost complete control as he heard Duo's yell of "knitting" followed closely by Wufei's "Teletubbies and Tweenies".[7]
"Oh, dear, is it not to your liking?" said Heero innocently.
"No it is not!" even Trowa yelled angrily.
"Shame," said Heero. "That's all there is, I'm afraid. I'm in charge of your quarantine - Lady Une's special orders - and I can't risk opening the seal to bring you better videos now, can I?"
"Ooh, when I get out of here I'm going to kill you," said Duo.
"If you get out of there," said Heero. "Don't worry, I'm sure the meals will be more to your liking. Its spaghetti tonight, and tomorrow there's - well, spaghetti forms every meal."
"But that stuff makes me throw up," said Wufei.
"Does it? Oh dear, all we've got I'm afraid," said Heero.
"I'm killing him, Maxwell, and you'd better not get in my way," said Wufei.
"Or what?"
"I'll kill you!"
"Well, I see you've found an activity you can all enjoy," said Heero. "Bye."
The glass went black again, and Trowa and Quatre turned from it to watch as Duo and Wufei started to fight. In seconds they were both yelling in pain, because Wufei had grabbed Duo's plait and Duo had gripped onto Wufei's ponytail and they were both tugging hard.
"Guys, stop it," said Quatre, as Trowa put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at the truly bizarre sight of his fellow pilots doubled up, neither willing to let go of the other. "Guys, we shouldn't fight, it's not right."
"Yeah, Quatre's right," said Duo, releasing Wufei, only for the Chinese boy to flip him with his plait. Duo crashed into one of the bunks and bounced, slamming into the wall.
"Oops, sorry," mumbled Wufei, unable to hide a self-satisfied smirk.
"Did you say I was right, Duo?" said Quatre.
"Yeah," said Duo. "Look guys, Heero wants us to fight. He's gonna enjoy seeing us tear each other into little bits. So, I say, don't give him the satisfaction, lets not fight. It should be possible when you consider that we survived the war together. Come on, eighty-four days without arguing, we can do it."
"Yeah, no fighting," the others said with conviction.
Duo put a cross on the chart he'd drawn, counting down the days to their release from quarantine. They were on day five, and he idly changed the cross into a full fill-in of the block. Anything to pass the time.
"The pen's squeaking," said Quatre accusingly.
"Well, excuse me," said Duo, turning around. Quatre and Trowa were sitting on either side of the room, Quatre holding a handkerchief to his bleeding nose and Trowa cradling his right arm. Duo grinned at their injuries, then flinched as his cut lip gave a tinge of pain. He had a black eye to contend with as well. Their vow not to fight had lasted all of half an hour, and it was a miracle they were all alive, what with the physical violence and the sharpness of some of the verbal retorts.
Wufei stormed in from the small kitchen unit they had - they didn't know why, because they weren't allowed to cook for themselves - and stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, the image of fury and injured pride.
"It took me two hours, but I finally got my head out of the bin," he declared.
"New record," said Duo, sitting down on his bunk and pulling a copy of Five on a Treasure Island towards him. He was reading his way through the ancient children's books Heero had kindly provided them with, anything to pass the time. "It took you three hours yesterday."
"You're getting better, Wufei," said Trowa lazily.
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," said Wufei huffily.
"Thank you," said Duo, "Maybe you can shut up and stop whining for five minutes."
"Maxwell, I do not whine," snapped Wufei.
Duo made a disbelieving noise, laying his book aside and blowing upwards through his fringe before saying, "right, so how would you define the whole 'I'm too weak to pilot you, Nataku, I'm not worthy' thing then? Strategic grumbling? It was a whine, Wufie."
"Don't call me Wufie!"
"Sorry, Wu-chan."
"Don't call me that either!"
"How do you feel about Wu-man?"
"Just call me Wufei!"
"Not even Wu?" said Duo, struggling to control an evil grin. "Or you could ditch the name and just have a symbol, like a seriously annoyed dragon."
"MAXWELL! KISAMA!" Wufei roared.
"Oh dear, have I upset you?" said Duo innocently.
"Just ignore him, Duo, he's tetchy," said Trowa.
"Don't call me that!" said Wufei, turning from Duo to glare at Trowa. "You know I hate being called tetchy almost as much as I hate being called weak."
"Tetchy," said Trowa. "You are tetchy, Wufei, Wufei is tetchy. Tetchy, tetchy, tetchy."
"BARTON! KISAMA!"
"Is that all you can say when you get tetchy, Wufie?" said Trowa, who was evidently suffering from cabin fever.
"Stop it!" Wufei yelled, his hands over his ears as Trowa chanted 'tetchy, tetchy, tetchy'. Quatre watched in stupefied amazement as the normally staid Trowa ran to Duo's chart, unpinned it and scrawled 'TETCHY' across the back in large letters. He then ran back and held it up to Wufei's face, smirking as he continued to chant.
"THAT IS IT!" Wufei finally snapped. "I'm playing the tape."
"NO!" the other three all yelled in a horrified chorus.
"Yes," said Wufei, getting a tape from the cupboard and holding it aloft. The others fell back, as if he was waving an atomic bomb around.
"Now, Wufei, don't do anything hasty," said Duo. "I'm sure you don't want to make us watch that."
"Yes, Wufei, you're not sadistic, you're a nice person," said Quatre.
"I'm really sorry, Wufei, please don't play the tape," said Trowa, hiding the chart behind his back and smiling at Wufei. "Please."
Wufei slowly lowered the copy of Highlights of the Orville the Duck Show - Extended Version[8] and eyed Trowa doubtfully.
"Is that a sincere apology?" he demanded.
"Of course," said Trowa.
"Very well," said Wufei. "I will refrain from playing this tape on the condition that I am not called 'tetchy' and that you call me Wufei and nothing else. Understood?"
"Mission accepted," the other three said in a thankful chorus. Quatre sank down on his bed again, removing the handkerchief from his nose and gingerly checking if there was anymore blood. Duo sat down on the floor, hugging his knees as he watched Wufei put the tape away. Trowa returned the chart to its old place on the wall, then surveyed it with his head on one side.
"Duo," he said, "why didn't you tell me we'd been here five days?"
"I did," said the braided pilot, "this morning, remember? I said we had seventy-nine days left, and you said that I should shut up if I wanted to see the time when there were seventy-eight days left."
"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," said Trowa. "I'm suffering from cabin fever I think. Anyway, we've been here five days."
"What's your point?" Duo asked.
"Well, after five days we can have another test to see if we have any signs of the disease," said Trowa. "And if we're clean, we can go, the eighty-four days is only for people who contract the virus. It says so in the rule book."
"Yeah, but Heero's never going to let us be retested," said Duo. "For the simple reason that he's having too much fun watching us cope in quarantine."
"We're not coping," observed Quatre.
"Exactly," said Duo darkly.
"But he has to let us be retested, because its one of the rules," said Trowa. "In the manual and everything. Heero follows orders."
"Very interesting," Heero said from the other side of the double-mirror, "but unfortunately I have higher orders which override those."
"Heero? How long have you been listening?" asked Duo, getting to his feet and facing the mirror, which was still black.
"Oh, two or three hours," said Heero in a monotone.
The glass suddenly lit up, and they saw him and nearly fell over from the shock.
Heero - Heero 'the perfect soldier' Yuy - was sitting there, staring blandly at them, his hands clasped lightly in his lap and a mildly mad glint in his all ready creepy eyes. His face was completely straight, though the other four didn't see how it could be when he was wearing - wearing -
"Anything amiss, gentlemen?" Heero inquired.
"Amiss? What could possibly be amiss?" said Quatre, trying to humour him.
"I'm sitting here in a red checked gingham dress and army boots, with a hat to match the dress that has yellow pigtails attached, and you say nothing's amiss?" said Heero.[9]
"I was - I was just trying to humour you," said Quatre, looking to the others for support and finding that they were as lost as he was.
"Indeed?" said Heero, still in that slightly disjointed monotone.
"Look, Heero," said Duo, regaining his senses, "you have to let us out to be retested. It's in the rules."
"But as I said, I have higher orders which override that," said Heero.
"Yeah, and what are they?" said Duo, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at Heero.
"The King of the Potato People wants to keep you here," said Heero, still with a completely straight face.
"What?" Duo felt his jaw drop, and was fairly sure the other three were in the same state. The King of the Potato People...?
"But, we can't stay here," said Wufei. "We deserve freedom!"
"You think I don't know that?" said Heero, no emotion in his voice. "I went to him and I begged for your freedom. I wept, I got down on my hands and knees and grovelled and pleaded, but he was adamant. You are to remain here for ten years."
"Can we see him?" Quatre asked, desperately trying to think of a way out of this situation.
"Who?" said Heero.
"The King," said Quatre.
"Do you have a magic carpet?" said Heero.
"Yeah, room for all four of us," said Trowa.
"So, let me get this straight," said Heero. "You want to fly on a magic carpet to see the King of the Potato People, and beg for your freedom? And you expect me to believe that you're perfectly sane? Well, I think this warrants two hours W.O.O."
"W.O.O.?"
"With Out Oxygen!" said Heero, as the glass went black.
"He wouldn't," said Duo doubtfully.
"He would," said Trowa seriously.
There was a grating noise in the vicinity of the air vents.
"He did," said Wufei. "I reckon we've got about half an hour."
"Heero's got the insanity virus," said Trowa. "He must've met that girl before we did. She didn't get too close to us, but if she got close to Heero - "
"She'd have died instantly," said Duo. "No, wait, he never killed Relena. Ch, what is it with him and innocent looking people."
"Girls," Wufei corrected.
"He never killed me and I'm innocent looking and I'm not a girl," said Duo.
"Despite the hair," Wufei muttered, earning a glare from Duo.
"Isn't there anyway out?" said Quatre, trying to stop an argument that would waste time and oxygen.
"This is quarantine, Quatre," Trowa pointed out. "Nothing can get in or out, not even a microbe."
"Unless -," said Duo.
"Unless what?" said the others.
"Well, would the luck virus be of any use?"
"Yes," said Trowa. "We could use the luck to figure out the combination on the lock and break out, but we don't have any of the virus with us!"
"Don't we?" Duo asked, producing a small, thin bottle from the inside of his boot. "I managed to sneak this in but I wasn't sure if it'd be of any use."
"It will," said Trowa. "Quick, Duo, drink it and open the door!"
Duo obeyed, punching in any number he felt like on the door lock, and, miraculously, the door slid open.
"Right," said Wufei, "find a weapon, find Yuy, use said weapon to kill Yuy."
"Not if I get there first," Duo said, barging past him and sprinting away down the corridor. Wufei swore, then took off after him. Quatre and Trowa exchanged worried glances, then set off after their fellow pilots. Heero was insane, Duo and Wufei were homicidal and Quatre and Trowa realised that this could all end in one hell of a blood bath.
Quatre and Trowa caught up with the other two in a deserted corridor. The Quarantine block was set miles away from civilisation, in a vast underground complex with tunnels that formed a labyrinth that would have made Daedalus jealous.
"Guys, this is not the way to deal with the situation," Quatre argued, falling into step with Wufei and Duo, who were jogging.
"I think it's an absolutely brilliant solution to our problem," Duo said.
"For once, I agree with Maxwell," said Wufei.
"A minor victory," said Duo. "Now if we can just - "
"And where are you going, gentlemen?" a voice asked from behind them. They whirled round and were treated to another sight of Heero in that outfit. This time, however, he had accessorised with a - they blinked to make sure they were right - penguin glove puppet. He held it on his right hand, raised to shoulder level, and acted as if this was perfectly normal behaviour. It was, for someone who'd completely flipped their lid.
"Look, Mr Flibbles," Heero said, addressing the puppet, "they've been naughty and escaped. What happens next?"
The puppet turned to face him, and Heero did a very bad ventriloquist impression, moving the puppet's mouth, "Uncle Heero fries them with his laser vision."
"Um - like that girl had?" Duo said to the others.
"Yes," they said.
"Run away!" Wufei yelled, doing an uncanny Graham Chapman impression.
They leapt backwards, turning on their heels and sprinting down the corridor. Just in time; Heero sent a red laser beam lancing from his eyes, blasting a hole where they'd just been standing.
"Oh, Mr Flibbles," he said, "a hunt. How fun."
They ended up in the supplies loading yard. They knew they were former-Gundam Pilots and Preventers, but they couldn't help it - they were scared. Heero had the potential to be scary at the best of times, but now…it was like being told they had to face a basilisk and a dragon at once without any weapons.
"So, what now?" Quatre hissed as they hid behind oil drums.
"Well, he's gone insane," Trowa said.
"No shit," Duo muttered.
"And he's got laser vision," Trowa continued.
"We noticed," Wufei said.
"Soon he'll be telekinetic," said Trowa. "Duo, that means - "
"Able to move things with his thoughts, I know," said Duo angrily.
"Right, well, next comes, well, um, er, that is to say," Trowa trailed off.
"Spit it out, Trowa," Duo snapped.
"A feeling of invincibility," said Trowa.
The other three stared at him blankly, then began to speak at once.
"He's all ready got that."
"He is invincible. Blew himself up and survived, drowned and survived, stole parts from Deathscythe and survived."
"You saw how he got out of his Gundam: dropped thirty feet, right onto his head, and was never any the worse for it."
"No, no, no," said Trowa, waving his hands. "I mean, really, really, really invincible. Not just little things like that."
"Since when was self-destruction a 'little thing'?"
"Since Heero will start feeling as if he can get shot between the eyes and live," said Trowa.
"Oh, good, my plan will work," said Wufei.
"No, Wufei, there'll be no point, because once he feels like that he'll be dead pretty quickly. It's the sign that the virus is in it's last stages."
They sat in silence as this news set in. They were so busy thinking about their team mate's imminent death to notice a fire extinguisher lift off the floor, float towards them and smack Trowa round the head. He lurched forward, not cut but hit hard enough for amnesia to set in again.
"Huh? Who - who - who are you people?" he said, blinking up at them dazedly.
"Oh no," Quatre said, his mind going back to that time two years ago when Trowa had lost his memory and it had been his, Quatre's, fault. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to."
"It's not your fault!" Wufei bellowed. "Shimatta, doesn't your conscience have an off switch and - MAXWELL!"
Duo had picked up the fire extinguisher and clouted Trowa round the head with it. He's said, during Trowa's first memory loss, that smacking him hard should get his memory back; after all, it worked in cartoons. But Quatre hadn't let him. He couldn't believe he'd got another chance to test his theory.
He was pleased - and a bit surprised - when it worked.
"Oh, thank you Duo," Trowa said. "Um, where's Heero?"
Mr Flibbles appeared round the corner of the crate to their left, as if on look out duty. Then the crate was burnt away by a laser beam and Heero stood there, complete with penguin.
"We've found them Mr Flibbles, what shall we do?" he asked the puppet. He raised the penguin to his ear, as if it was whispering something to him, then lowered it and gave it a shocked look, "we can't do that!" He turned to the others, "who'd clean up the mess?"
The other four were cornered, stuck between a wall and certain death in the form of a more-insane-than-was-natural-even-for-him Heero.
"We need an antidote," Trowa said.
At that moment, Duo put his foot on a bottle on the floor and fell over backwards. He picked up the bottle, reading the label: Antidote for Insanity Virus.
"Like this?" he said, holding it up.
"Yes," said Trowa.
"But how - ?" Quatre said, helping Duo to his feet.
"The luck virus," said Duo. "Anything else you need, Tro?"
"A dart and a gun," said Trowa.
"Like these?" And Duo picked up a dart and gun from where they lay on top of a nearby box.
"Exactly," said Trowa, taking them from him. He quickly filled the dart with the antidote, loaded the gun and took aim at Heero, who laughed.
"Fool! I am invincible!"
Famous last words.
The dart hit him, he looked down at where it imbedded his chest, glowered at Trowa, and passed out.
Heero woke up slowly. His body ached, especially his head. He was on his back on a table, in his Preventers uniform, and for some reason he had a penguin glove puppet on his stomach. He picked it up as he sat up, looking round at the quarantine quarters and then down at the puppet in his hand. He had had a very strange dream, and this puppet had been in it and so had…
"Duo? Guys? Anyone?" he called. "Hey, why am I in quarantine?"
"Because you're sick," Duo's voice said from behind the blacked out glass.
"I am?" Heero asked. Well, that would explain the headache and the dream. He must have had a fever and hallucinated.
"Yes, you are," said Duo, as the glass lit up. He was standing there in - Heero gulped - a red gingham dress and army boots, with his hair in two plaits instead of one.
"Er, Duo, what're you wearing?" Heero said.
Duo looked down at himself, then back up at Heero, "my Preventers uniform."
"No, you're in a gingham dress and army boots!" said Heero.
"Oh dear, you've got worse," said Duo. "Trowa!"
Trowa entered, in a similar outfit to Duo's.
"What?"
"He says I'm in a gingham dress and army boots," said Duo, as if saddened by Heero's condition.
"But, you are and so's Trowa," Heero protested.
"Oh dear, he's got worse," said Trowa. "Quatre, Wufei!"
The other two entered, also dressed in gingham dresses and army boots. Heero slid slowly off the table in shock and hit the floor.
"You're all wearing dresses!" he yelled.
"No we're not," said Quatre.
"Come on, Heero, can you really believe I'd wear a dress? Of my own free will?" Wufei said. He wouldn't, under normal circumstances, but getting revenge on Heero had been a pretty good incentive.
"What's wrong with me?" Heero asked.
"Insanity Virus," said Duo, taking Trowa's clipboard from him. "You've been in here for three days, unconscious, which leaves you with eighty six days. And we're all going to make sure you're stay is as comfortable as possible."
Heero shrank back in the face of the four very evil, very sinister smiles that appeared on their faces, all directed at him.
Lots of footnotes in this, I know, but there are reasons: 1) felt I'd better mention where all the quotations come from in case I get sued, 2) thought I'd better explain in case people were confused by some references, and 3) if you see something and know you know it but can't remember where it's from exactly, the footnotes are to stop you being annoyed with yourself (I do this a lot, especially whilst watching films/TV shows when I sit there going 'what have they been in before?').
[1] OK, I confess, I can't remember. I've never seen Silence of the Lambs (I'm too squeamish; I Know What You Did Last Summer freaked me out, when he carries the dead body by the stomach with the hook…ew!), but I saw those two little fish doing an impression of it on those adverts ITV use between films. Oh, you know what I mean!
[2] Anything marked with this comes from Blackadder Goes Forth, Goodbyeee, the very last episode which is incredibly funny and has a very poignant ending.
[3] This is Harry Potter, well, Dumbledore to be precise, at the start of term feast in Philosopher's Stone. I'm even warping the great texts.
[4] This is Violet Elizabeth Bott from the Just William books by Richmal Crompton. I've always loved this line.
[5] The French Taunter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Love that film! Ni!
[6] I'm sure this is from Ab Fab, although I think I've misquoted it for my own purposes. Patsy says it at some point, but I'm not sure when, maybe in the episode where she talks to Hello magazine and then has a face lift.^-^
[7] The Teletubbies and Tweenies are both little kids' shows over here in Britain. Teletubbies are these fat, weird alien-type things who can't talk properly (lot of fuss over that, thought it would hinder kids' abilities to learn proper English) and Tweenies are like little kids, only they're like muppets: a full body suit for an adult who speaks like a child. Sounds scary, doesn't it? Makes me long for programmes like Postman Pat.
[8] Orville the Duck is a ventriloquist's dummy. He's a fat green bird in a nappy who is extremely annoying. The best reason for his presence that I've been able to find was in Before & After by Matthew Thomas, in which Orville is revealed to be a minor demon who's been having some fun on TV with Young Nick, the name by which Lucifer is known in the book. [9] This isn't me being demented/kinky, this is what Rimmer wears in the Red Dwarf episode and its funny. Everything Heero does from this point on is like Rimmer, though the two have nothing in common in 'real life', though Duo is a bit of a Lister. Hmm, idea for a fic…
Comments always welcome, especially on this one as I think it may be a little too insane/obviously written during a caffeine high.