Disclaimer: Gundam Wing isn't mine. Duh. And sorry about the wait, everyone!
Warning: I don't actually know dick-all about science. Creative liberties have most certainly been taken.
"Choices are the hinges of destiny." - Pythagoras
Summary: In a world where everything has gone horribly wrong, Duo busies himself with a last-ditch effort to escape – and perhaps prevent. But Duo's last-ditch effort pulls him to a different dimension, and he finds that everything he knew no longer exists.
The Hinge of Destiny
Chapter 4
To Battle
Duo shook his head, because no, they hadn't met, technically, but he couldn't possibly care. "We haven't, man, but it's still good to see you." He swallowed back the lump in his throat, because really, Wufei looked nearly exactly the same, and Duo was so, so glad to see another one of them that he nearly screamed. Nearly cried, which, oh, no. Not happening. "How are you? No, wait. Do you know if Heero's here?"
The man's brows furrowed, and Duo recognized the confusion as opposed to anger, and knew the man's answer before he spoke. "Who?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it." So Heero hadn't joined Preventers, huh? Although, he supposed that wasn't too surprising. After all, Heero had only heard of it through Wufei, and if none of the pilots had ever really met, then how would he have learned about the position? Would Noin or Une have ever even spoken to the man to invite him over? But if Heero wasn't here, then where? Traveling all over the damn world? If so, Duo would never find him in time. He hadn't found the bastard until he'd shown up all of a sudden at Duo's – well, Hilde's – doorstep. That left trying to find Catherine's circus and... well, anywhere in the damn solar system; Heero could have disappeared, for all Duo knew.
Then he remembered just what Noin had been saying and turned back to her desk. Yes, there was a phone. But how to pick it up without the woman simply disconnecting the call? No, it wouldn't be possible; the thing was a freaking landline. And who knew landlines would even exist in buildings with freaking voice-activated elevators? Or maybe it was special, too, somehow, and he wouldn't be able to use it at all without figuring out the new operating system.
He looked at Wufei. "Hey, may I borrow your phone? I need to get in touch with the others."
"Who are the others?" Wufei asked. Oddly enough, his voice did not sound even remotely murderous. It made Duo's shoulders twitch. Wufei should be all over his ass, shouldn't he? Duo was an unknown person stepping into an ongoing investigation as if it was any of his business, and Wufei, Mr. Never-Trusting, was asking him questions like they were sitting down for tea.
"One of the other Gundam pilots and his entourage." Wufei's face did an interesting half-pucker at the word 'entourage.' "Hurry up, man! I need to know if the Maguanacs are there, too! 'Cause that's where Une is, right? Which means you most likely won't need them there? I'm guessing they didn't send any mobile suits, or else you'd have gone, too, right?"
Wufei lifted his chin. "Explain yourself."
And there was the old Wufei he'd known. But even as he thought that, Wufei pulled out his phone and handed it to Duo. Duo stared at it like it might explode. "Um..." He took it. Very, very gingerly took it. "Thanks...?"
Wufei huffed. "Quickly, if you could."
Duo couldn't stop himself from grinning; he'd make jokes about pod people, but really, he was the pod person in this scenario, and everyone else was normal. Hm. Maybe that was a way to think about it – he was the clone, and everyone else was an original.
Of course, that sort of thinking made his brain twist around and start trying to eat itself, so he let it drop and just punched in the other him's number.
"Yo, Junior," the other him answered, and Duo snarled despite himself. "I'm guessing you've heard? Have the Preventers done anything?"
"Their leader is out taking care of it," Duo said. "Tell me the Maguanacs haven't all gallivanted off."
"Just half of them," the other him said. Duo heard Quatre's voice in the background, and then the other him said, "yeah, he's here. He sounds all right. The Preventers haven't eaten him yet." Duo rolled his eyes. "Quatre can probably call at least some of them back if he has to. Right?"
Duo heard Quatre's affirmative. "Yeah, probably call some back." He turned a questioning brow to Wufei. "Une sent more than enough, right? Trying to give a show of power?"
Wufei's brows drew low, and Duo saw him working through things in his mind. "Yes," Wufei said finally. "We can handle it alone."
And that was just the usual Wufei arrogance, so Duo said, "leave a few, if you could; best to be sure. But the rest, yeah, they should probably head over here to Sanc. The embassy and the princess are next, and probably only a few hours away."
"I'm going back for Deathscythe," the other him said. "Quatre and the Maguanacs will meet up with you in Sanc. Do we have permission to revive our buddies?"
Duo turned to Wufei, not Noin, because he didn't really give a rat's ass what that woman wanted. "Do we have permission to use our Gundams?"
Wufei's brows pulled low. He exchanged a look with Noin. Duo didn't even bother checking behind him. "I am not in charge," Wufei said slowly, but Duo just rolled his eyes again.
"You and I both know that Noin is a freaking figurehead. Even if the world's turned topsy-turvy over here, there's no way she would care enough to take such a hand in Preventers or politics. She stays in Sanc for one reason, and it ain't no fealty to the queen. She just likes the older brother."
Wufei covered his mouth. Noin was much less quiet. "So," Wufei said. "You have done quite a bit of... research."
Sure, whatever. "So can we or not? Choose quickly, man; you only have one at the moment."
Wufei sighed. "Yes, you may." Duo relayed the message. "But I demand you turn them and yourselves over to Preventers, at least until we ascertain your motives."
"Motives, shmotives," Duo said, not bothering to inform the other him of the stipulation, since neither he nor they would have any compunction to actually follow it. Though he found it interesting that Wufei had actually agreed. Was that normal for the Wufei of this dimension? Or had Duo's bluff about Noin's power actually worked better than he'd hoped? At least Noin was obsessed with Mr. Lightning-Wind in this dimension, too. Although, really, Noin wouldn't have been Noin otherwise. Five years couldn't change that level of obsession. "We all know the shit's about to hit the fan, and you could use all the help you can get. Maybe you'd already know our motives if anyone had actually bothered to get in touch with everyone else during the damn war, but nooo, let's all just mosey along in our own little universes, refusing to interact with one another. You know what? That's totally not my fault. It's yours, and Qat's, and even Senior's, the twit, but it certainly isn't mine. So now you're going to have to deal with not knowing who we are, even though we are and have always been on the same damn team. Got it?"
Wufei's eyes had narrowed partly through Duo's tirade, but the man merely nodded. "I believe I'm beginning to," he said, and Duo felt a little too uneasy from that statement. A calm Wufei was like a dragon rushing into the winds, gathering the clouds into a storm.
"I'm still on the line, Junior," the other him said and Duo just snapped.
"Then get off it and get your damn Gundam, old man!" And he jammed his finger on the End Call button... belatedly noticing the damn blinking symbol of a microphone. Shit! Voice command options again. Mother sucker.
He looked up to find two very different pairs of eyes staring at him with the exact same expression. He cleared his throat. "So he's going to go get his Gundam," he said, trying to act as if he wasn't embarrassed. He chanced a glance at Wufei, but the man didn't seem pissed off, annoyed, or otherwise frustrated with events. He almost seemed... amused. But it had taken Duo years to pull such a look from the stoic man in his dimension, so he thought he might just be a little lightheaded still. "Where are you going, Wufei? Either both of them can go to the other place, or one of them can back you up. Though, I think Relena's probably the one you'll need more people for. If we lose her, everything crumbles."
Wufei stood up straight. "How do you know about Relena?"
Ah, now Wufei was showing his badass side. "Because it's obvious? She's the one fighting hardest for peaceful unity. Now who in the world would a guy against peaceful unity target?"
Wufei huffed. Noin mumbled something Duo could quite catch. He was fairly positive he could guess the gist, however. "Look, guys, it's great to see you and everything, and I'm tickled pink to find you both here – and thrilled, let me tell you, to not have to deal with Une – but if we're that close to crunch time, then I need to find the other two pilots. Do you have any idea where they are?"
"You think we'll need more than three?" Noin asked, her voice rising.
"Four, technically," Wufei said, and Duo's heart nearly thundered straight out of his chest. He fixed his gaze on Wufei. The man jolted for a second, as if surprised to see Duo's desperation. Vaguely, Duo recalled Wufei insisting that he had what Wufei termed 'puppy dog eyes'. Did this Wufei have that weakness, too? He poured all his hope into his gaze, and yes! Wufei sighed and shook his head. "I do know where another is, but he's not one you'll want to speak with."
That could only be Heero!
"That's great! Where is he?"
But Wufei shook his head. "No. You wouldn't survive an hour in the man's presence." Well, that was what everyone had thought when they'd first seen Heero and Duo together, so it wasn't a surprising reaction. But Duo wanted to strangle Wufei, because the man was only slowing Duo down, and he didn't have enough time left for such nonsense.
But then again, where else could Heero be but here in Sanc? If he was technically an ally, that meant he would be in one of the four known locations. Certainly not up in space, because how could anyone tell that he would stick around and not just hoof off the colonies or something? And not here, obviously, and not in no-man's land on the other side of the world, because again, no one would know. And it suited Heero to hole himself up in Sanc and watch over peace, because the man was freaking OCD about Relena's safety.
He was in Sanc. He was watching over Relena somehow. As one of her bodyguards? Or maybe as some creepy stalker. Both were viable options for one Heero Yuy.
"Okay," Duo said. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay." He glanced at the floor, at the walls. Snuck a peek at Wufei, who seemed to be trying to put Duo together like a Rubik's Cube. "All right, this is how it is. One of the Gundam pilots is super famous and super rich. I'm not joking. Since he agreed to let me come here, I can only assume he's all right with me handing you guys the information. But let me warn you – you screw him over, leak any info you shouldn't, and the Maguanac Corps will fuck you up. Seriously. His name's Quatre Winner." Two wide-eyed looks, and Duo bowled over both of them. "The other's me." Well, him, but not really him, but maybe he shouldn't get into that part? "Name's Duo Maxwell. So's mine, by the way. And the other, the one you're talking about? That must be Heero. Heero Yuy, right?"
Wufei's eyes turned into slits. "I know very well the doctors had all been prepared to send us all out all those years ago, and they only waited because they wanted to design stronger Gundams. They did not need to wait for any of us to hit puberty."
Okay, rude. But Duo could handle that. "Yes, well, maybe I look good for my age. You sure do."
Wufei flushed red-hot. "That is not the point, Maxwell!" he said, and Duo was amazed by how wonderful it sounded. Amazed and a little troubled, because this was not his Wufei, and he was not in his world, and he was the clone in the real world now and he had to acknowledge that the people he'd known were not the people they'd been. Or something like that, anyway. He was still a bit confused on the subject. "You are not the pilot. That is physically impossible. You are too young." Duo opened his mouth to object, but when had Wufei ever let Duo talk when he was fed up with Duo's bullshit? "Yet you do know far more about us than you should. About me, about this organization, about Une, and about what's happening here, to be anything else. So tell me," he asked, and Duo actually backed away a half-step as Wufei stalked toward him, "are you a natural anomaly?"
Duo blinked. Then he blinked again, slowly pulling apart Wufei's question word by word until he could say with certainty that, yes, that was indeed what Wufei was asking. And then he whooped. "Holy shit, 'Fei, I should have known you would figure it out!"
"Figure what out?" Noin asked. "Would either of you mind at least acting as if I'm in the same damn room as you?"
"But that's impossible," Wufei said, as if he hadn't been the one to bring it up. "The very fabric of time denies incongruity. Anomalies like yourself would be rent from – and that doesn't even explain the mode of travel. We haven't found a way to travel reliably even through time, let alone through the strings of universes!"
Duo shrugged, not sure why universes were, in Wufei's mind, strings, but fairly positive it had something to do with string theory, which Duo had never, not once, cared about. "Blame the doctors. It was their time machine."
Noin guffawed. Wufei, on the other hand, seemed to take a deep breath. "The doctors," he said, his voice quiet. He backed down from the antagonistic approach and actually put a finger to his chin. "If anyone could make such a device, it would be them." The man actually spoke of them fondly, and not as if they'd been complete pains in their asses. Well, maybe Wufei's doctor had been like Duo's, and not like Heero's. Because no, really, fuck that guy. "But you said time machine? You aren't from our past."
"No. Another dimension, like you said. And yes, the imbalance in the dimension is trying to get rid of me. Give it another few days, maybe a week or two."
Wufei grimaced. His hand – and gaze – dropped. "My apologies."
Duo nearly clapped a hand on the man's shoulder before remembering that, no, this really was not his Wufei. Even though it really kind of was. "No problem. Seriously." He waved Wufei's reaction away. Then paused. "Um, what happened to Jason?"
Wufei shook his head. Duo watched a very familiar smirk slip up the man's lips. "I sent him away when I arrived. Not very astute, Maxwell."
"Eh. I had other things on my mind." But wow, could that kid move stealthily when he had to. Duo was impressed. How often did he get sent in for the covert ops missions? Probably regularly. Duo wondered where he'd been abandoned. Was he from earth or the colonies? It was so nice to not know, and for the not knowing to be normal.
Then again, it really was something to worry about. Duo was damn good at stealth, too, good enough that he should have been aware of Jason's movements. So either Jason was a stealth god or...
Or Duo was losing it. He touched the ring on his finger with his thumb. "I have to go see him if he's here, 'Fei. I need to find all of you. I – I don't know about you, but the others, the other me and Quatre? They both have suffered from not meeting everyone. And I think maybe you're missing something, too."
Wufei cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Missing something, am I?"
Duo nodded, trying for serious. "You often called us comrades. Once, you said we were blood brothers. You said the blood we shed on the battlefield was the same."
It had been a very poignant moment, and one Duo couldn't ever forget. Wufei, a bloody gash on his forehead, Duo, panting and trembling from running countless miles for several hours, both of them tired and drained and fighting, still, and Wufei clapping Duo on the shoulder after he made a snarky remark he couldn't half recall, dropping those little verbal bombshells on the ground between them. How much Duo had demanded they both survive that battle. How devastated he was that Wufei and Sally had both been lost to him on the same day.
Wufei's face got serious, too, and he no longer looked like he was only partly accepting Duo's story. "And you say this man – Yuy – is a part of this?" Duo nodded. Wufei actually shook his head. "There must have been quite a few changes in our histories, then."
Duo nodded. Then he shook his head. Then he shrugged and just waved the words away. "Whatever. Even if we're all different, that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try. Is Heero with Relena? He usually is – was, I mean; the man always watched out for her. Is he her bodyguard or something?"
Wufei snorted. "Not hardly. He stays in a small hotel off the edge of Sanc. No one talks to him. I only know him because I've been called out there a few times to..." He took a careful breath. "To stop him."
Duo shook his head, a grin plastered like paste on his face. "Stop him?" he repeated, because curiosity was a horrible, horrible beast.
"He loses control sometimes. Attacks. Fights as if fighting ghosts, or perhaps because he doesn't know how to stop."
And just like that, Duo hurt for him. "I have to find him," he said again. "I knew it; Heero never had that problem before." Not since the war ended. Or even before that – not since the pilots had all grouped together.
"We have other problems," Noin said, but Duo headed to the door.
"Where's the hotel?"
"He will not react well to seeing you." And with a very loud and familiar sigh, Wufei followed him. "I'll go with you. It would be ill advised to lose the mediator," he said as explanation. "But we must hurry. We don't have much time, and I must reach the embassy no later than five o'clock."
Duo checked his watch. Oh, they had nearly four hours. They would be fine. Hopefully. Possibly. Most likely. If he was lucky. "I have to find him. If he's gone so far off the deep end that he's picking fights with people..." The last time he'd been like that, the colonies had turned on them and they'd all been left adrift. Hell, Quatre had lost his damn mind and gone around killing people.
"And you think doing this is going to help us defeat Osiris?"
Best not to tell him that defeating Osiris was pretty much in the bag, and everything Duo was doing was just because he didn't have the time to dick around. "Look, if Heero's going to be fighting Osiris, it would probably be for the best if he knew there were others coming to help out, right? At the very least."
Wufei grunted. He pulled out his phone.
"Hey, keep the number on there in your mind. Whenever you need something, or if you need to plan something, get in touch with them. Whatever reservations anyone has, they're willing to put them on hold until everything's taken care of. And afterward..." They reached the damn elevators, and Duo just wanted to smack Une for being so melodramatic as to put her damn office on the opposite end. They waited a tense few seconds for the stupid thing to arrive – and this time Duo realized they didn't have to hit any up or down button; the thing started coming to them the instant they stood in front of it. When it arrived, Duo entered the elevator and slammed the button, then remembered the damn voice command thing again. He growled. "Afterward, maybe keep in touch with them, anyway?" Duo leaned against the banister and wished Wufei wasn't clever enough to catch just how fully he sagged. "Even if you don't get the blood brothers thing, having each other as allies couldn't hurt."
Wufei was silent for quite a while, and Duo took the opportunity to just breathe. Please, please, just wait a while, he thought to his body. Duo heard the low tone of a phone ringing and looked up. Wufei was calling someone. The other him?
"Sally," he said, and Duo blinked at the informal address. Then his jaw dropped as Wufei gave a soft little smile. "Yes, he's the real thing. You were right." A pause, and Duo felt himself almost startled by the look of the Wufei in front of him. He was, with that softness, absolutely beautiful. Duo had never thought Wufei beautiful before. Handsome, fierce, but never beautiful. This was like looking at what-might-have-beens. He thought he might even be looking at a Wufei who actually hadn't been a Gundam pilot, and he realized Wufei had never actually admitted it. He opened his mouth to ask, but stopped when Wufei smiled again. "Yes. He wants to see Yuy." Duo very easily heard Sally's reaction to that. "Yes, I'm going with him. We'll be careful, Sally."
like Heero was a live explosive. Maybe he was. Maybe Heero had slipped off that deep end he'd seemed to be dipping his toes into when they'd first met. Duo hoped not. He really wanted Heero to be... well, Heero.
He twisted the ring on his finger again. Honestly, a horrible, horrible part of him wanted to substitute this Heero for the other one. The one he'd known. Even though he knew it was impossible, that it wouldn't be quite the same Heero he'd fallen in love with, still he hoped. Because he really, really wanted to see Heero again.
Well, best to dash those hopes upon the rocks of reality, so to speak. And the only way to do that would be to see the man himself.
Wufei hung up and gave Duo another look. "You wanted to ask me something?"
Wufei, actually volunteering to listen to Duo? "So, you are actually a Gundam pilot here, right?"
The man chuckled. "I am."
It didn't fit. Well, Duo should have known it wouldn't fit; nothing seemed to fit in this world. Was it appropriate to ask Wufei why he was so... mellow? Was mellow even an adjective that could be used to describe Wufei? And why was tight-ass Wufei mellow when sweet Quatre was completely destroyed? How was that even possible? What kind of world would create something like that?
The elevator dinged, and Duo forced himself to stand upright.
Whatever work they had waiting for them, neither Sally nor Jason seemed quite ready to return to it. Both waited just outside the elevator. Jason at least tried for inconspicuousness, but Sally just charged right up to them, looking first Wufei up and down, then Duo. She stuck a finger in his face. "You."
Duo blinked. "Me?"
"You're going to see that loose cannon?"
Heero? Loose cannon? Duo's mouth flapped open like a curtain. "I... yes?"
She looked him up and down again. "You won't last a minute."
Well. Not that it wasn't true, but seriously, was there a better way to emasculate a man? "Why, thank you, milady," he drawled, finding himself once more in that awkward almost-familiar stranger stage of his acquaintance with someone here. He didn't know if he should back off and give the woman some time to get to know him – as if they had the time for that – or if he should just keep on keeping on.
Well, who cared? Duo had pissed people off before. It would just be awkward if he didn't do it here at least once. "So can either of you tell me what happened here? With you?" he said, pointing to Wufei. "Where's you put that stick you always had up your ass?"
Wufei looked startled, and there it was – the formation of the infamous Chang anger. But then Sally burst out laughing. "Oh! It's been gone for a while now. Ever since we started dating." And this time, as Sally covered her mouth in an ineffectual attempt to stifle her loud laugh, he saw the glitter of an engagement ring.
Holy shit.
Duo held up his hand. He couldn't take much more of it all. His head spun. Would this have been Wufei if he'd just been given more time with Sally? Would this have been the result? It was something he didn't want to think about, because it hurt. The loss was even worse when he thought about the futures lost. Wufei could have had this. After the destruction of his home, he'd struggled to find a sense of purpose, of belonging. To think he could have found both here, with Preventers. With Sally.
He beamed the two of them a smile. "Congratulations." Usually, he would have cracked a joke about Sally being saddled with Wufei, but he let it slide. They really didn't know each other that well, and he wanted them to know how glad he really was. "Really, this is great. At least something good's come of all this change."
Sally's brows furrowed, though she smiled at the compliment. Wufei just watched him, and he figured he would have to answer the usual questions in a minute.
Jason came up then, saving Duo from anything more awkward than trying to congratulate strangers on an engagement he'd joked about them needing to get for years. "Where are you headed? The embassy? Or Sanc?"
"Sanc first," Duo said, "but not to fight. Not yet."
Jason nodded. "I'm to go to the embassy. A few people will remain here, to protect Preventers, if it's attacked." It almost certainly would be, and Duo was glad Jason wasn't going to be there, because, unless they managed to find Trowa, they might have to leave Preventers HQ to any mobile suits that might be sent to it. "Is there anyone I should look out for?"
"A slightly taller, more scarred, much more obnoxious version of myself," he said, and waved Jason off as he hurried to the door. Nothing like being reminded of the battles already started to remember just how little time he had. He had to find Heero, then Trowa, wherever he may be, and this Osiris fucker wasn't giving him the chance. He rubbed his chest. He also didn't think he'd be able to walk around unimpeded for much longer, and that would just suck.
"'Version of yourself'? You have a brother?" Jason asked.
"No, not really. Oh, but call him Senior. He's really picky about that." Duo flashed the man a short grin. "I gotta go. If you see him, tell him Duo sent you. He'll give you better work during this than these guys."
Jason looked a little confused, but he nodded. Wufei caught up with him, Sally close on his heels. They left like a little procession, some follow the leader thing. Duo turned to Wufei. "I take it you've got a car?"
"Of course I have a car."
"Sweet. We'll take it; Heero would most likely recognize it. It wouldn't put him off so much to have someone he knows coming up to him." Obviously, or why else cart Wufei around? Unless the man actually thought Duo needed protection, which, in any circumstance other than going and picking a potential fight with Heero, would be exceedingly insulting. But Wufei didn't argue, just turned to Sally and quirked his head in Duo's direction, a blatant 'I have to go with him; I'll see you later' gesture that made Duo's gut clench. Wufei hadn't made those moves in his dimension; he'd never had occasion to with Sally by the time they got that close; she was going everywhere with them, and then she got sick, and Wufei didn't leave her side very often. And not at all, there at the end.
And thank goodness, but Duo just realized that Wufei had loved Sally in both dimensions, and was that normal, or was the other-him-loves-Hilde thing normal? Not that it mattered; Duo had no reason to worry about it one way or the other. It had taken him and the other Heero months, over a year, to even admit there might be an attraction between them. He'd be long dead before they would ever get anywhere.
As if they would get anywhere now; within two weeks, he'd be dead, and Heero would still be stuck in that 'shove him away' phase.
Yup. Well. Maybe. He had to remember that this was not his Heero, but, oh, it was hard, with Wufei and Sally giving each other a simple nod in parting – they had done that before, several times – and Wufei jogging up to Duo, wearing that old weary look on his face, as if he was being dragged along completely against his will, forced to put up with Duo once again. It was all too familiar to be brand new. And yet Wufei had never paused beside Sally for that long, and Sally had never given Wufei that 'you'd better come back safe' look, and... and it was all different, even though it was the same, and once again, Duo felt his brain breaking with the effort of keeping everything straight.
He rubbed his chest as they made their way through the Preventer parking lot. Duo was unsurprised to see Wufei's car was a sleek black piece, the only one in the parking lot that looked brand spanking new. Trust little OCD 'Fei for that one.
Wufei unlocked the thing, and Duo nearly fell into it, barely pulling the door closed before something wracked up his arm and down his spine, shooting off every single axon along his nerves as it did. He arched his body a bit, in too much pain to want to move, and finally slumped as it passed. Wufei, the door to the driver's side still open, watched from beside him, his face impassive. When Duo finally calmed, panting a bit despite himself, he spoke. "Perhaps less than a week," the man said quietly.
Duo scrubbed his face. "Yeah," he said. The whatever-it-was – like some sort of eel slithering through his nerves, stretching the passage almost too wide – snaked its way up his arms and down his back, then up to his neck. It cued the newest throbbing migraine. "Probably."
Only a few more days. The embassy and the princess would both be attacked by tonight or tomorrow. That left him, what? Two more days? Three? The battle would last longer than that. He huffed. He wanted to help fight, but could he? If he started failing in the middle of a battle, he would become a liability. He would get anyone depending on him, or trying to help him, killed. He couldn't let that happen. His death had been inevitable before he'd even come to this dimension. Dragging others down with him would be... would be blasphemy against what he and his fellow pilots had stood for.
But trying to find Trowa in all that fighting would be like running through some no-man's land to grab a stuffed animal for a kid. And leaving this place would mean leaving those four idiots to sort out this whole camaraderie thing on their own, and considering their stellar work history thus far, he was going to hang out a big, fat 'no' sign on that idea.
He would just have to try to find Trowa from where he was. How hard could it be? He just had to find the circus. Somehow. If Mr. Clown Boy hadn't already left it.
Wufei started the car up, thank goodness, so Duo didn't have to beg the man to get on with it. He wondered how it looked – some random man jumping into your life, telling you to join up with others you never bothered getting to know before, telling you how great the friendship would be – could be – had been? And then don't forget that this particular person was younger than you, had somehow fought in the same war as you despite the time incongruencies, and, oh, yeah – was slowly breaking apart atom by atom and dying.
Yeah, that might be a bit confusing. A little, tiny bit earth shattering.
But then again, Wufei seemed to be taking it rather well. That was nice, because Heero would almost certainly not.
The feel of that eel multiplied as if the thing was giving birth, and the frisson left him tense, teeth gritted, as Wufei left the Preventers parking lot and headed out. The feel jolted each nerve ending. The sensation split, for an instant, into pain, making his arm jerk, then his legs and back. He hissed. Wufei cast Duo a glance. "Are you all right?"
A dumb question, but Duo grinned for it, because if anyone would make some stupid understated query, it would be Wufei. "Yeah," he said. "Well, you know. Not enough to want to stop."
Wufei's hands clenched and unclenched around the wheel as he drove. "You believe this worth dying for? Worth spending your last days achieving?"
Duo tried to shrug, but that squeezed the little baby eels too tight, so he decided not to. "Maybe not for you? Maybe just selfishly. Maybe I just want to see you all. I don't really know. Things here are really confusing. You and Sally, which is the same as in my world, only further along here than there. The two of you had only barely started acknowledging your feelings for each other. And Quatre, who's all kinds of fucked up over here, when he was the calmest, most rational, friendliest guy in the system in mine. And Heero, who's way more out of control over here than his worst times over in mine, if the way you guys are all acting is accurate. And then there's the other me, who's actually in love with someone I was never in love with." He sighed, and caught Wufei watching him out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone. And then at other times I feel like I'm with my old friends again. It's like I'm being split apart – in more ways than just, you know. Physically." He made to move his arm and winced, finally going silent again.
Wufei was silent for a time, contemplating the road ahead like one might a treasure map. Duo stewed in eely silence and stared straight ahead, endeavoring to not move so much as a muscle. The effort was so great, it actually tensed him up and made him twitch. And that hurt so much he then endeavored to instead ignore the discomforting pain for fear of making it all worse.
"I cannot imagine," Wufei said, sounding as if he'd somehow failed some sort of test. Duo didn't bother turning his head or lifting a brow; even if he felt well enough to do so, he thought he recognized the tone of voice Wufei used when he felt too ashamed to make eye contact. "Coming to a new world, only to find oneself dying. Losing friends, only to see their echoes in the men around you."
Echoes. Duo sighed as the word settled into place in his mind. It was perfect.
"Yeah." Duo chanced a slight shift. It hurt, zinged all the way up and down his body, but he managed to turn a little more toward Wufei. He'd been right; the man wasn't turned to him at all. But Duo's move at least made them seem less like strangers in a damn taxi cab. "I think I might've said it before, man, but I'm really happy for you."
Wufei actually shifted in his seat. And then he cleared his throat. If they were the old them – if Wufei was the Wufei Duo had known – Duo would never have let him live the show of emotional constipation down. "Thank you."
Duo nodded very, very slightly and tried to relax as the eels grew in size and pressed their suddenly spiky flesh into his skin. There was nothing more to say with Wufei, and he was running out of time.
He had to get to Heero.
When Wufei finally stopped the car, it took a few moments for Duo to believe it. Not only had Wufei stopped a mere fifteen minutes after having started, he also pulled up in a run-down, still-being-reconstructed piece of the Sanq city.
Well, to be frank, the place was a dilapidated wreck.
Duo stared. And stared some more, because the eels hadn't left. He was getting the sinking feeling that they weren't going to.
Brown. Brown, he decided, and nodded slightly to himself as he forced himself to move. The discomfort morphed and spread into a long, crunching line of pain, like crinkling foam. He managed to get out of the car under his own weight, but propped himself against the hood as his entire body shook from the effort. He'd thought maybe the car window had somehow tinted his vision, but no. Everything really was a different shade of brown. The dirt road? Tannish-brown. The buildings? Cream-brown. The roofs? Dark brown. The dead grass? Gray-brown.
Ugh. How the hell did Heero do it?
Wufei came around the car, looking Duo up and down and back up, his face furrowing slightly as he did. Duo managed a little grin. "Hey. He lives here?"
"I don't know that 'lives' is the proper term." But Wufei looked over to one of the poor, depressed little buildings – the one right in front of them, obviously better cared for than the rest simply because it didn't have large holes in its roof – and nodded. "But yes, he stays here. I'm sure he keeps his Gundam nearby. I've seen it once."
Once. Just once? And when? Why? But Duo didn't ask those questions, because they weren't what mattered at the moment. If Heero was here, then he most certainly knew of their arrival. Duo could almost feel the prickling sensation of those eyes upon him. It actually made him shudder. "Okay. So he's here. What does he do?"
"Keep to himself, if he knows what's good for him," Wufei muttered, and Duo just stood blinking for a moment.
So. No love lost there, then.
Duo looked back to Heero's building. He wouldn't be in it. As soon as Wufei's car pulled up around the building, Heero would have been out. Ready to kill them? He really hoped not. He didn't think he was in much shape to fight.
Duo sensed it like a lost limb, and he ducked and rolled before giving a single thought to the slimy things slithering through his veins. He cried out, nearly tumbling stupidly to the ground as his veins nearly seemed to burst. He looked behind him to find Wufei on the ground, too, only with over a hundred fifty pounds of werecat on top of him.
"Heero!" Duo said, and got the sudden, full-force effect of that glare. He froze. He hadn't seen Heero like that since he'd had a gun trained on an innocent blonde. "Don't kill Wufei; he's just here because I asked him to bring me."
And there was the gun. Duo hadn't blinked this time. He was certain that hand had slipped into the back of those tight spandex shorts. Which meant... cock gun? Ass sheath? Duo's eyes nearly crossed. "Who are you?"
"Name's Duo Maxwell." He raised his hands in a form of surrender, even though it meant pulling those damn veins tight again. He had his bone knife up his sleeve. Could he throw quickly enough, accurately enough, to keep himself alive? Probably not, unless the Heero of this dimension somehow sucked so much more than the one he'd known. "I run and I hide, but I never tell a lie." He quirked a grin. "It's my motto."
Heero pulled on the trigger. Wufei tensed.
"Don't! We're here to help you stop Sloan. Don't shoot us until that's done, at least."
Heero glared so hard, Duo couldn't see the man's heart inside those deep eyes of his. Duo couldn't believe how very dark they were. But at least Heero put down his gun.
"Good. Great. Thanks. Um..." He looked down at Wufei. Wufei's black eyes were glittering like gunsmoke up at Heero. Heero still had him on the ground, his legs pinned beneath Heero's and one hand just south of Wufei's neck. "Could you maybe get off of Wufei?" Another dark glare. "Or not. Okay, that's fine. He's comfortable down there." Wufei snarled. "Okay! We'll talk out here, then, shall we?"
Heero raised that gun of his all over again. "The attack has already started. You're in my way."
This was Heero from that very first time. The psycho Heero who had shot at Duo and, in seeing the battle might take too long, had decided to jump onto torpedoes and launch them. The same one who ripped his hand free of leather bindings and jumped off a cliff to die, just so that he couldn't be tortured into giving away information. The Heero who didn't know Duo, who ignored him and belittled him. His Heero truly was gone, and it stung, stung so much more than the wounds and slimy eels and shredded biology. Duo huffed a tight breath. His lungs were starting to seize up again. "We aren't here to get in your way, but to coordinate. You'll want to protect Relena, right? That's fine." Heero almost seemed to jolt at that. "I know you'll protect her just fine. But we have allies. Someone can go with you while another watches over the Embassy and another the Preventers."
Heero merely watched him, nearly unblinking. Duo's skin crawled. He shivered. "I'm not your enemy, Heero. I swear it. We're all Gundam pilots."
He cocked that damn trigger again. "You're not a Gundam pilot."
"I am. Just not from here. Look, we can talk about it later."
"I know the Gundam pilots. You are not one of them."
Of all the damn people to actually look up the other freakin' pilots! "Then you should know I look exactly like one of them! Jesus, you never change, you know that?"
Heero stilled again, looking Duo up and down. Wufei made to move out from underneath Heero. Heero turned his gun on the man. Like a switch had been thrown, Wufei shoved Heero's hand away and flipped Heero onto his back. Heero struck Wufei's chin with the heel of his palm and jumped up, pulling his gun with him. Wufei cursed and got to his feet. "Yuy, put the gun away, or I will be forced to take you into custody."
"You won't."
"Even with this disaster in the works, Yuy, do not doubt my conviction."
"I don't. But you'll fail."
"Oh-kay! Enough of that, then, huh?" And Duo stepped between the two, certain he was going to get a bullet somewhere. "How's about we talk like rational human beings for a second? Truce. Alliance. Yeah?"
The war may have been over for five years in this dimension, but everything about Heero – his tense stance, his grim countenance, his dead, almost aggrieved gaze – said he was still fighting in one. "We don't really have time to go over all of this, but the basics can do us, right? We want to help."
Heero slid his gaze to Wufei.
"Yes, even him. Or else he wouldn't have come. You know Wufei enough for that, right? He's honest. Bluntly honest."
This time both men slid their gazes to Duo.
And Heero once more lowered his gun.
"Great! Thank you."
Gun. Back up. And this time Heero pulled the trigger. With a short, strangled shout, Duo jumped to the ground. Pain seared all up and down his body. The weird eel things finally broke free. His chest froze. He coughed, and all his breath was gone. "Jesus, Heero!" Heero never would have gone so far! What the hell was wrong with him?
"Yuy!" And before Duo could get himself back up, Wufei engaged Heero in battle. It was the Maremaia uprising all over again, only a little bit reversed. But when Duo tried to stand, he found his shoulders and legs in agony, like he'd broken bones. He coughed again. Fucking hell, ow. He scrunched his fingers through the dirt on the damn road and struggled to get up. They didn't have time for whatever bullshit was bouncing around Heero's insane head.
He looked at his shoulders as well as he could, twisting his back into painful contortions. Livid splotches of blue and red dotted up and down his skin. Well, shit. His blood vessels had actually burst. Those would be sensitive probably until he died. And would leave very colorful markings in about an hour.
"Stop it, both of you," Duo said, struggling once more to his feet, but apparently neither of the idiots could hear him over the sound of their massive ego. Duo watched them block one another's blows for an instant, gratified that, though Heero certainly wasn't pulling his punches, he at least seemed to have holstered his gun. Cock gun? Ass sheath? "Hey!" he tried again. Still nothing. For the love of... He reached for his ankle gun and aimed it at the both of them. "I swear to the god of death himself, I will shoot the both of you if you don't quit it!"
Wufei merely sighed, but Heero moved. It was like seeing him jump for those torpedoes all over again; the man was too fast to shoot. Duo didn't even try, because he knew exactly how Heero would respond to it. He did, however, skip back, shooting the ground as Heero came forward. He tried to suck in a breath. His lungs seemed to trip over themselves, but they allowed him a short gasp. Adrenaline, coming to his rescue?
The short lapse of attention quickened the inevitable, and Heero's arm snaked around his already abused shoulders and slammed him to the ground. Duo gasped as his small breath of air left him. By the time he managed to see straight, Heero was glaring down from just inches away. Thank goodness Duo had already lost his breath; Heero would have noticed, otherwise, how quickly his breath would have left him then. "Hi," Duo said, nearly wheezing it out. Heero looked him up and down. One of those glorious hands was on Duo's throat. One good squeeze and Duo would have been in trouble – if he hadn't already lost his damn air. Heero seemed confused by it. He didn't choke him.
"Step away from him."
Heero twisted around, blocking Duo's view. But Duo didn't need to see; he was certain Wufei had pulled his damn gun on the man. This was getting so ridiculous it could be a scene from a damn soap opera. "Let's talk."
He didn't have any more air to speak with, but his words brought Heero's attention back around, anyway. Apparently he'd dismissed Wufei's threat. A foolish person might say it was because of sentiment. Duo knew it was because Heero would just use Duo as his meat shield if he had to. "Hn."
That was his 'I'm reluctantly listening' hn. Duo grinned at it. It took him a few tries, what with his lungs not working properly, but he managed to get a small gasp in and say, "alliance."
Heero glared down at him.
"Truce?"
"Get away from him. I will not ask again."
Wufei was going to get him killed. Heero tensed above him, ready to throw Duo into the line of fire. Duo needed to get some more damn air before the testosterone got too thick. His limbs quivered as he fought against Shinigami's curse. Heero watched. It was as cold and assessing as the day Duo had busted into the Alliance hospital.
Heero picked up Duo's left hand. "What is this?"
Duo opened his mouth, fully prepared to retort with a lesson on human anatomy, when he saw the ring on his middle finger. His mouth slid closed. "A ring," he said, more a movement of lips than words. But then again, Heero had always been able to read lips. "You're wasting time."
Heero's lips pulled back in a snarl. It was the most emotion Duo had seen outside of those damn glares.
But he let Duo go and stood up.
Of course, Duo didn't go anywhere. Because he couldn't breathe. So he just lay there and waved vaguely in Wufei's direction. His shoulders stung, but at least the eels seemed to have left. Scurried out through the holes in his veins, maybe. Wouldn't that be convenient. And gross.
"We'll leave you with the vice minister," Wufei said, most likely in immediate appeasement. Duo didn't think Wufei had yet put his gun down. "I will protect Preventers HQ, and come here once all mobile suits have been dispatched. I believe there are two already at the embassy." Duo knew Wufei was looking at Duo.
"One should come here. The Maguanacs can help Quatre over at the embassy, so the other me should come here," Duo mouthed, hoping either Wufei could read lips or Heero could relay the damn message. It was getting very difficult to see straight. Dammit; not again.
Thankfully, it seemed Wufei wasn't without his skills. "I'll call them, then, shall I?" But Duo knew Wufei wasn't really asking him. He was having a standoff with Heero. A very annoying standoff.
A shrill ring stopped the standoff from becoming anything more. With a curse, Wufei snatched up the sound's perpetrator – his phone – and snapped, "what?"
There was no point going for stealth when Heero already had him in his sights (or ever, really, when it came to Heero), so he didn't bother being sneaky about trying to sit up. Not that it would have worked. He was shaking, feverish, and unable to freaking breathe, so there wasn't going to be any blending into the shadows or anything. A two-bit mugger could take him down at the moment.
Heero turned until he could watch Duo with one eye. Duo couldn't quite put his finger on just what was different about him, but it seemed so deep. Someone who didn't know every single twitch of the Heero Facial Expressions Mental Pamphlet might not have recognized much of a difference, but it seemed like Heero was... blacker. Darker. There had always been shadows in Heero's eyes, but now it seemed more like an eclipse. Duo searched them until, for the first time in Duo's life, he watched Heero turn away. Heero conceding defeat? Duo's death was near. Well, nearer.
By the time Duo managed to get himself sitting up and his breath whistling in through clenched teeth, Wufei had finished listening to whoever was on the other end and hung up his phone. "They're coming. Merely an hour or so away." Heero was already moving, heading toward the building with the patched roof. "I must return to Preventers. Yuy will take Sanc." But Heero was already inside the building. "You." And Wufei pointed at Duo. Duo blinked. "You must head to the port. Apparently a man named Howard is coming to see you. He'll be bringing your Gundam."
Duo's jaw dropped. "What?"
"I know you can't fight well," Wufei said. "But the other you is apparently going to be late, and this Howard was already on his way in. He merely adjusted his course. By the time the other you arrives here, the battle could well be over. Yuy may need backup."
Almost, Duo snorted. The day Heero needed backup was the day the world collapsed in on itself. But he'd provided Heero backup countless times, whether the man had needed it or not, and maybe if he helped, he could find out just what it was that made Heero so... black.
Duo nodded. "I'll take care of it," he mouthed. Wufei didn't look too sure, but then again, Duo still couldn't talk. Also, the world was starting to spin a bit. Also, it was going a bit black at the edges.
Duo rolled onto his side as Wufei hurried back to his car. No doubt, Heero was already heading toward his Gundam. Which meant he was about to disappear for a moment or eight while he got the thing up and running, and then he would come busting through, heedless of anything or anyone else, and head toward Sanc. Duo needed to at the very least get to where Heero was headed. There wouldn't be much he would be able to do Gundam-less and dying, but he could still take out a few enemies, granted he could hide in the shadows before they arrived.
Wufei had said he should head to the port, but he had no way of knowing how to start up the damn Gundam. These guys seemed to forget that Duo hadn't used the Gundams they had. He didn't know them. AI? What the hell was that? Could he freaking talk to the thing? Would it take over his mind like the Zero system he knew? He could always head to the damn port via one of the princess' cars if he had to, but there was no way he was going to rely on the faulty assumption that he could just waltz into the cockpit and wake the Gundam up or something. (Was there some sort of Gundam alarm clock? Rebooting system? What?)
Of course, then the blackness encroaching on his vision became darker, darker, and far too solid, and the shivering in him crescendoed until, with a ringing echo, it fell silent.
An explosion woke him.
Duo woke to pain all up and down his arms and legs, like he'd been tortured in another Oz cell. It reminded him horribly of the few moments before he'd opened his eyes and found himself in a subway station quite different than the one he'd entered. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see the remains of his shower stall TARDIS. Instead he faced a brown ground, morphing into a short length of brown grass and bumping up against a wall of tan that stretched into a building. A sad, nearly-wrecked building. So much brown. He thought of messy brown hair and forced himself to his feet. Gods, his shoulders and calves were killing him. Stupid Heero. Stupid dimension. Stupid uprising.
Something flew over his head. A mobile suit.
He stared up, only then becoming aware of how brightly lit the sky was. Not from sunlight, but from deep, bright shocks of gunfire and explosions. Something made the ground quake beneath his feet. He kept his balance and twisted his head toward the Sanc building. He couldn't see it; it was too far away. But he heard the sound of engines revving, of a familiar beam rifle. Heero was fighting. The battle had started without him.
Duo ran for the port.
Though the ground still rumbled and the world exploded above him once in a while, it was like distant thunder after only a bit of running. The battle pinpointed around the princess' abode, and, as he neared, the Preventers building. Shit. And he'd given his phone to Wufei like an idiot, so he couldn't get in touch with anyone. Well, by now, Howard would most likely have arrived with 'Scythe. Duo was too late to set up a sort of ambush at the Sanc estate, which left him with no real means of fighting. He was short of breath just running to the damn port. It was pathetic. So he had to just suck it up and try his best to figure out how the hell to get an AI booted up. (Did it need booting up? Would it already be awake when he arrived? Would it squish him, thinking he was an imposter?)
Unless the other him had already arrived, in which case, he would have to turn right back to Sanc, if only to keep Heero from turning his damn beam rifle on Deathscythe.
The port was closed, unsurprisingly, and the guards stationed there were running around and shouting and pointing. They took one look at Duo and scowled. "You!" one shouted, and Duo just didn't have the patience to deal with it.
"Sorry, pal," he said, and ran right up to the man, chopping his neck. He caught the guy as he fell, preventing a horrible bruise (other than the one he'd have on his neck upon awakening), and hurried as others called out for him to stop. He took another one down before the rest pulled their guns on him. He dodged the first few bullets, his breath coming out in pants, his fingers shaking slightly as blackness encroached once more. He didn't have the time to fall unconscious, but it seemed his body was trying for it, anyway.
The port had about a dozen double doors, the building a wide stretch down the block. Duo focused on the two last guards standing between him and the nearest entrance. Both had their guns trained on him, and he didn't want to shoot them. That left dodging. Normally, he could try judging the angle of the bullet by the point of the muzzle. That was a bit harder with his vision fuzzing and the world tilting a bit more than it should. He grabbed for something – his knife, or maybe just something to grab to steady his balance – and one of the men fired. Duo lurched to the side, surprised himself when the bullet missed. The other shot, then, and Duo focused on getting his damn knife. To hell with not hurting these guys. He would just focus on not killing them. That was nice enough, right?
He didn't bother trying to do more than guess where the men might shoot at him. At least those farther off were wasting time either trying to get closer or calling in reinforcements. Duo took a single graze on an already-injured shoulder before he got his knife in hand and got close enough to throw with any hope of accuracy. The first shooter went down with a shout. His friend called his name, but sounds were fuzzy enough now that Duo couldn't decipher it. During the man's short instant of distraction, Duo got close, dropped to one knee, and swept his leg out. The man went down, his finger tightening on the trigger enough to loose a stray bullet into the air. Duo moved to stand to knock the man out and found his knee freezing beneath him. He rolled to the man's head and slammed it roughly against the asphalt. He took the man's gun, too, and retrieved his knife. "Back off!" Duo snapped, shooting another stray round as the encroaching guards. They stilled. Duo ran into the building while they fumbled.
There were more guards, of course, but Duo didn't slow down to give them any attention. He let them waste time with their required shouts of "stop!" and "freeze!" and made his way past the main lobby before they could start chasing after him. He shot behind him as he entered the first thin hallway, keeping them from getting close enough to pose a threat. He searched. Howard would leave a sign – right? His Howard would have. For Duo to know where to go, in case the two of them didn't meet up in time. But running all over the damn building trying to find it might end up getting him cornered. That left him going out to the docking space and hoping some sign might have been left there.
Or, he thought, seeing a scorch mark on the wall ahead of him, maybe someone had already run through here. Was that the reason for the extra security, and not the battles? He hadn't seen any evidence of fighting from the front entrance. Had someone gotten partway through the port before getting caught, or had they come in from another ship? Either way, it was most likely an enemy. Sloan? His file hadn't mentioned any real combat experience. One of his henchman? A group of them?
Duo managed another turn, following the marks as they trailed down to the right, the East Wing. Duo touched the scorch mark lightly as he passed, and was somehow unsurprised to see the soot staining his fingers. Someone shouted behind him, and he wasted another bullet keeping them back. Whoever had passed through here, it had only been a short while ago.
The halls thinned even more, and an alarm trilled as he passed the empty inspection line for travelers and passed through one of the metal detectors. The halls suddenly spread wide open when he reached the actual waiting areas. He found even more scorch marks inside, along with several holes where bullets had lodged themselves into the walls. It didn't take a genius to see the obvious track from where Duo stood to the port furthest in the back. Which would be the most obvious place to take something as large and conspicuous as a Gundam.
Duo upped his pace, even as the black dots sparked into a rainbow of colors and his gut clenched in warning. The last corridor leading to the ships on the port was wide enough for only two fat people. He shot behind him once, hoping to clear out anyone getting too close, and heard someone shout. He'd actually hit someone with his blind fire. What the heck. What a waste of good luck.
There were no scorch marks or bullet holes here, but there was a large stain of blood. Had security finally caught the person, or had the person taken down one of his or her pursuers?
The answer came a split second after he made it to the end of the walkway, before he even had a chance to look around. A slick, humming metallic whirr echoed along the empty bay, and as Duo looked down the end of the walkway to the steps that led to the docked ship, he found the bay not only open, but the ship's cargo hatch releasing. He didn't recognize the ship; it was as nondescript as they came, like the one he'd arrived in – but as soon as the hatch opened enough, a shadow shifted within that couldn't be anything other than Deathscythe. He launched himself down the steps, prepared for the hit of zero gravity that started him floating more toward the ship than the floor. Was Deathscythe on some sort of rampage, or was it looking for the other him? Could it even recognize such things? Maybe it was just killing off what it thought to be intruders. Or was it being hijacked by whoever had made it through security? Just what the hell did an AI mobile suit entail? Especially one outfitted with the godsforsaken Zero system.
Whatever it was, Deathscythe still turned to him, its green eyes flashing. Duo would have been overjoyed to see his buddy again if it weren't for the potential demonic possession performed by the Zero system. Or whoever might be inside.
But then the cockpit hatch opened up, and Duo saw the other him step out and wave before reaching out his hand for Duo to grab. "You're late!" the other him called.
Duo leveraged himself off Scythe's chest to more easily grab the other him's hand. He opened his mouth to explain the reason he was late and blinked. It seemed the pain had finally receded. Adrenaline hummed under his skin, muting it enough that the colorful-black sparks in his eyes disappeared, and he could finally hear without cotton balls stuffed in his ears. He grinned. "Yeah. You know me; grand entrances only."
The other him rolled his eyes and looked Duo up and down. Duo knew exactly when the other him caught sight of the bruises along the edges of his shoulders and arms, visible beyond the seams of his shirt. His lips thinned.
Then the other him receded into Deathscythe, sitting in a chair wholly different than Duo had ever seen. He hooked himself into the seat with two X-shaped buckles, dark black against the shining gray-black metal of the chair. Then he slid his hands into metallic gloves, his feet into metallic boots, and as he sat back, it was into a chair that conformed to his specific body type, curling in to his waist and spreading like some sort of cape over his shoulders and down his back. Something snapped slightly as he sat back, and he closed his eyes. "Sit as best you can behind the seat," he said, even though Duo was already moving to do so. He glared at the other him. Not that the asshole could see it, eyes oddly still closed as he revved up Scythe's engines. Somehow.
Duo squished himself behind the chair; there wasn't much room there, and Duo looked around as he got himself situated. It was strange; while he recognized, to the marrow of his bones, the feel of Deathscythe under his feet, the smell of oils and leather – though the seat had far less leather than he was accustomed – and the sound of gears shifting and whirring, he didn't understand anything else that he felt and saw and heard. Firstly, how did the other him even start Deathscythe up? As far as he'd been able to see, the other him had simply sat in Deathscythe, closed his eyes, and... and what? ESP'ed it awake? Did something with the gloves, or the boots, or maybe both the gloves and the boots? Hell, maybe it had something to do with the back of the chair looking like a freaking cape. Or maybe it just needed someone sitting in the seat? Maybe the Zero system had taken over the other him's body somehow, or...
Duo pressed tight against a translucent panel. It glowed with lights; he guessed breaking it open would reveal wires, or perhaps the AI itself? But no, that would be more closely guarded. Then again, the Zero system had been out in the middle of the cockpit for the world to see in Wing Zero... and there, above the paneling, was the emergency ration safe, even smaller than Duo remembered. First aid kit – a complete waste for him at this point – and a small bottle of water, and about three ration bars. A flashlight, usually, though there didn't seem to be spare room for one. Maybe a pen light? Or whatever this world's electronics made an equivalent. He would have opened it to check if the other him hadn't somehow launched Deathscythe into the sky. Without any noticeable buttons or switches in the entire cockpit. Anywhere. At all.
What had his buddy become? Some monster hybrid of some demon system. Like that show where a boy gets some zombie lady's organs transplanted in his and became half-zombie himself. Duo shuddered at the mental image of a zombie 'Scythe running around massacring people.
Of course, that probably wasn't the case. Maybe. Hopefully. And at least his pain had simmered down enough that he didn't feel like he was going to choke on himself and die. And now that the other him was entering the battle, Sanc was probably going to be just fine.
"Drop me off when we get near Sanc," he ordered, glaring up at the back of the strange chair. "I'm not sitting uselessly in here during a fight."
The other him didn't say anything, but Duo thought he saw the other him's lips thin, pulling his cheeks taut from the side. No matter. It wasn't safe for someone to be unlatched during a battle. If the other him wanted him safe, leaving him inside would be about the same as leaving him with all the guards in the spaceport. He would just have to find a way to not be some useless twit standing on the sidelines like some Civil War wife waiting for her husband to come home.
Though, who exactly would be his husband? Considering the man he'd loved was dead.
He felt a new pain then, and just like the curse, it took a long, long time to fade.
