Chapter 11

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 If there is one thing Preventer Milliardo 'Zechs Merquise' Peacecraft hated more than having to kill someone unnecessarily, it was being disturbed while he was having tea, not that it didn't happen often.

But when it did it was rare for the 'disturber' to walk away unscathed.

Then again, when the so-called interrupter was as wet as a drowned rat, and looked like it had seen a walking specter, it was kind of hard to reprimand them without coming off as an asshole.

Zechs Merquise was a tolerant man. So he gave the man an opportunity to give him a reason why he shouldn't have a go at him for interrupting his afternoon tea.

"What, seems to be the problem, Rossum?

Alberti Rossum, 'Rossum the Possum' as some of his comrades had called him (they're all dead) has been a soldier for 20 years and a Preventer for 5. And nothing in a quarter of a century could have prepared him for what was lying at the bottom of that pool. And he had seen things. Colonies decimated by Gundam, plagues, torture chamber survivors, child soldiers, genetic mutations…well, genetic mutations sort of came close to what he had just witnessed, but mutants were usually hanging by a thread, and most were barely able to displace themselves, much less… do what he had just seen that thing do by itself!

"Merquise, there's something evil in the pool."

Zechs was sitting on a wicker chair, his long, firm legs in worn, clean, ironed jeans, crossed at the ankle, downy, charming, well manicured, coiffed, not because he was a vain man, but because he was royalty, ex-royalty maybe but there are certain things drummed in a prince that he never forgets, whether he loses his crown or not.

Poise and serenity were in his nature, not his education, however. A cool head he had acquired from his years as a soldier, a fighter, so …it didn't really make any sense that he should…well…panic at the mention of an enraged, psychotic ex-Gundam pilot on a rampage.

But it certainly did sound worrisome.

Especially since he had been having a bad feeling, a really, terrible gnawing at his stomach that had grown from a single twinge to a massive anxiety ball in the pit of his stomach in the space of half an hour, eating away at his mild mannerism.

"What is he doing?" Zechs barked, the sound of his voice reverberating off the peach colored, wallpapered walls of the vast sitting room that led to his posh bedroom. Sunlight streamed in from large glass double doors that led to a patio that faced the aforementioned pool.

"There is a-a supernatural being in the pool, and it's got Quatre Winner." Rossum stammered.

A sarcastic sneer marred Zech's normally polite face.

"Well, grab a gun and shoot at it."

"I did."

"So what do you need me for?"

"It had no effect."

"Then you obviously didn't aim right. I also doubt being drunk before supper is appropriate, even though we are not here on official business."

Cause the man standing before him did appear to be rather out of it. His pupils appeared dilated, even from a distance. Besides, it would appear to be nothing else than a prank.

Keep telling yourself that, pal…

His head snapped towards the doors, where he could have sworn the voice had streamed from.

"I have a feeling it might be Duo Maxwell."

"Now, while Mr. Maxwell is quite the eccentric character, I doubt there is a need to name call-"

The doors flew open with a loud bang and a shower of shattered glass. Both Zechs and Rossum jumped back. Rossum, a devout catholic, yelped 'Mary Mother of God!' tripping and falling down on the carpet. He then hurriedly crossed himself and scuttled backward a little more, his eyes wider than ever. He also had been repeatedly batting at his neck.

"Merquise: there's something really bad in that pool. It doesn't feel right. It doest feel right! "

A rather repulsive odor slowly wafted from outside. One, not unlike rotten eggs that Zechs recognized almost immediately: Sulfur. Only then did the hair on the back of his neck prickled.


 Hair floated around them in dark waves. The light from the bright sun up above shone in the water, making it seem like blue silicone, it felt like it too, as it pressed against Quatre's face. And he once again felt the loss of oxygen, as bubbles blew rapidly from his mouth, from the effort he put into freeing himself from Duo's grasp. The latter one now had his hands squeezing the top of his thighs, right where the crease of his ass checks now throbbed: Duo seemed to have grown claws as well, and they had dug deep in his flesh. Quatre had made the injury worse trying to propel his body once again to the surface, by kicking against Duo's shoulders. If he kept it up, he might end up severing some muscles he was sure he needed to get out of the water.

Duo's face appeared normal and serene again.

Stop fighting me.

The voice held too much power to be ignored. Partly stupefied, but mostly entranced, Quatre let himself be dragged down. Duo slid him down against his body, his face slowly rubbing up his thighs then nestling in his crotch. Only then did he unsheathe his fingers from Quatre. He winced, his face tilted up, his eyes locked on a sun that appeared to be nothing but a distorted, golden shiny circle above then. The hair fanned around his face, some tips brushing against his body. He couldn't bring himself to look below. The water was cooler than normal, almost freezing, numbing his prickly wounds, but that was the least of his problem.

Duo was now trailing a soft tongue against his mid-section. Quatre actually felt teeth grazing at his stomach before he tensed. From Duo's mouth he felt…he felt nothingness, a black hole, imploding on itself, its presence like a million suckers. His mouth seemed to want to suck his flesh in, and then… what looked like a flash of light went off behind his eyeballs. He jerked in pain as another one went off in his mind and an alien memory invaded his thought.

Part of his brain told him that what he was seeing was impossible, but it looked and felt so real that for a while he was no longer in the pool. The smell of pine assailed his nostrils and a warm summer breeze blew over his naked body. He felt grass against his back, but could not see a background, only Duo's face, through a red haze, sucking on his stomach, only the suction was a billion time stronger and he watched in horror as what appeared to be his stomach pop like a ripe fruit, pulling and tearing off skin, muscle, then finally allowing Duo to suck his insides out, blood and thicker liquids running and bubbling around his lips, red and dark, sloppy slurping…like a kid on a straw drink.

He screamed.

Water entering his lungs is what brought him back to himself. Unfortunately, he had been underwater for too long. He could feel his body seizing but his mind was fucked. Words and screams confused him and darkness was swimming around his vision, but the undeniable pain between his belly button and pelvic bone finally gave him a last burst of energy, allowing him to yank Duo's face away from his body. Then darkness…


 Duo 'came to' just in time to see , though quite murkily, Quatre's eyes roll in the back of his skull, as his body slowly sank past him. 'Came to' might be too weak of a word, because the last thing he had been aware of was Quatre yelling at him, then he took over. The Voice, the Reflection that seemed to always appear in the most inopportune moments and returned…but this time it had taken over his body. That sensation, Duo had felt it before. The anger, rage, blood thirst... It seemed so familiar. But now, it was gone.

A reflex made him grab Quatre's wrist as his arm floated past his face….floated…what the hell? Duo looked around him as he yanked Quatre's body up.

Where the hell was he?

He tried to look down at Quatre's dangling body but something was pulling at his neck. After jerking a couple of times, and realizing his head was budging, though quite slowly, he finally took a focused look at his environment…and saw hair.

Nothing but goddamn floating hair, then a red haze floated up, from Quatre's body. Then he simultaneously realized five things: One, he was in the Fucking Pool. Two, his hair had grown long enough to fill the whole Fucking Pool. Three, he could breathe. Four, Quatre wasn't breathing. Five, Quatre appeared to be wounded.

No sooner had that last thought left his train of thought that a bullet wheezed past his face, the little vacuum surrounding it tapping his left cheek.


 Rashid hadn't heard Master Quatre cry for help: he was on another colony, carrying out a private mission, but some one else had: a guest of his, a military gent, a certain Captain Rossum.

He must have been on a stroll, if that's what you call it. He might just call it 'binging on cancer-sticks in the bushes', just to be polite…either way he was sort-of enjoying the non-recycled air and the organic gardens, a scenery he was not well accustomed to, what with Earth being so far away and most colonies resorted to using synthetic replicas of vegetation…when they actually did bother…when he unquestionably heard his host calling out for help. Of course, he quickened his pace and ran toward the voice, on a stony little path that led him to a pool.

The thought of whether the man was perhaps drowning went through his head, but it was quickly ejected when he saw what appeared to be a large black mass growing at the bottom of the pool. As he slowed down and got closer he became aware that whatever it was, it had taken over the bottom of the pool and something tightened in his stomach.

The water was emitting a rather unpleasant smell.

Also he couldn't see a thing. He circled the pool, observing in a confused manner the blue of the water slowly losing to the dark mass. Certain he had heard the voice coming from around that area he got closer to the edge. Then his eyes came upon the middle of the pool. He at first did not discern it well, and it was a rather massive pool, but there were bubbles popping on the surface. He removed his leather loafers and unbuttoned his cream jacket. He was an older, roughly built man, around his 50s and though he rarely cared about his appearance, he had followed Merquise, his superior, on this classified mission, which involved him mingling with people of a higher class than he was accustomed to. That jacket had been expensive. If he could avoid ruining it, he was going to.

He had a negative feeling about whatever the hell was happening, for one, it appeared to be some glossy, material overtaking the pool…maybe it was 'leaking' from somewhere…a drain, maybe. Though it appeared to be fibrous…

He then crouched by the water and reached for it. The surface was hot, but once he broke it he got a jolt from the temperature change. It was really cold. Grabbing at the fibers, he brought his hand up to examine it.

"What the fuck?" It was hair floating all up the damn pool. "Jesus Christ, human hair ain't supposed to grow that long-" Wait a minute, didn't that other fag pilot have a large mop on his head?

Out of nowhere a dark voice whispered: "?rzadoitch koi Sephalim ta Morta dem … cepakov nistyoi"

Still kneeling, Rossum turned around, his right hand reaching for his firearm while his left steadied him, gripping the pool's edge.

He saw nothing.

Then he heard the same gibberish uttered again. He was slowly getting impatient. The strangely disembodied voice had a mocking tone...and goose bumps where slowly pushing their way through his epidermis.

There was no one.

He then turned back to the pool…and was met by a snake-like, giant coil of hair, taller than his crouched form, poking through the water, dripping less than a foot from his face.

He blinked.

It seemed to as well, though its movement was more of a shiver, with individual hair slithering around the coil, reptilian. Completely not believing what he was seeing, Rossum slowly lowered his head to his left palm, placing his thumb and index on both eyeballs. He had had some hallucinations during the war. Due to stress, doctors said. His ex-girlfriend was always harping at him to rest more, but he was not one to take naps: once on the move, always on the move. Yet there were times when his mind played such elaborate tricks on him. Those pissed him the hell off.

He looked up.

It was still there.

His right hand tightened around his gun.

Everything seemed to happen at once: He scuttled backwards, trying to propel himself backwards from his crouch, evade whatever the hell that thing was, and shoot at it. Meanwhile, the coil had chosen that specific moment to strike Rossum, like a giant snake, its head uncoiling, lightning-fast, into 5 distinctive wisps, making a seemingly star-like head, though it's function must have been digestive, since the 'thing' smacked, and attached itself to Rossum's neck in a loud, wet sound. He made a loud choking sound and fell backwards on his ass. The impact had been so strong the coil reeled backwards, lifting itself in the hair, and dragging Rossum sideways on his knees. After remembering how to take a fucking breath, he couldn't help but gag at the pungent smell emitted by the silky strands. Stupefied, he half grappled with the coil, which was almost as thick as his head, and tried to steady his gun, which had almost slipped from his hand. He fired a blind shot in the pool.

Suddenly, he felt prickles around his neck that seemed to grow sharper, and then intense pain as millions of needles seemed to penetrate his skin. Only then did he let out a blood curdling scream.


 A shower of bullets was now peppering the pool's surface, driving Duo in a confused rage. What the fucking hell was happening? First he finds himself in the pool, then Quatre is drowning in front of him and he can't do anything about it because after he was shot, it felt like his ginormous hair was being yanked in a specific direction: away from his scalp. Then the first bullet almost imbedded itself in his cheek!

Unpleasantly surprised, Duo had grabbed Quatre and pressed his unconscious body against him. They were still floating vertically at the time, so he did the only thing he could think of: plant his mouth right on Quatre's lips. His hair, or more specifically half the hair on the left side of his head seemed to be caught on something, or tugging something, but there was so much of it now he could not just grab it and pull at it. But he had to get Quatre up.

Now why the hell was he trying to suck his face off? He pulled away from Quatre. The latter one's face was slack, his golden white hair floating eerily from his scalp, his skin, tinged blue, looked gray and his lips were colorless. A frown formed on Duo's face. They had now sunk near the bottom of the pool, which meant they were about 20 feet underwater now. As soon as his feet felt the surface he pushed himself upwards and started making his ascent to the top. However, his hair seemed to disagree with that enterprise because they tangled around him. At first he seemed to free himself from it, as they fluttered away from him, but the higher he got, the more tangled he seemed to be.

Then it suddenly seemed as if the hair itself was attacking him, making a cocoon around his form. It got the point were he could no longer see free water around him, as he could before. Only one of his arms could bat the unwanted hair away as it appeared to constrict around his and Quatre's bodies, since the other one was wrapped around Quatre's form. He tried to 'climb' up the large walls of his 'prison', but it's almost impossible to make any progress when the roots of his hair burned from being constantly yanked, and since he was imprisoned in his own hair which was still attached to his body, he could not move up, away from it. After a minute or two, he gave up his frantic struggles, turning his attention on Quatre. He pulled the unconscious man closer to him and tucked his blond head in the crook of his neck. He felt too cool to the touch. Panic had just wormed its way in his heart.

It was quite obvious something didn't want him out of the water just yet.

Have you given up yet?

"Jesus! Where the fuck was you? This is your fucking doing isn't it! Who the hell are you ANYWAYS?"

First of all, the name is not Jesus. Second, you know just who I am. Third, your friend is dead.

Duo's heart stopped beating.