Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.
Warning: language, violence, death
Change is Inevitable
Duo found himself blasted away from Abaddon as death energy slammed into him and flung him backwards. He hit up against a wall harshly and bounced off it, landing on his feet but crumpling onto the ground as he couldn't hold himself up.
What the hell had happened? One minute ago, he was going in for the final blow and the next thing he knew, everything was going crazy. Hell, he had lost his grip on his homemade scythe in all the chaos and right now, he had a good feeling that he had gotten a concussion or something.
"Not bad," he heard as soft footsteps approached him. "No one has ever gotten that close before. I commend you for that."
Forcing his head up, he spat, "And that's suppose to make me feel better or something?"
"Not at all," Abaddon replied. "I was just complimenting you on your combat skills. It's not every day I get a good challenge."
"Good for you," Duo snarled. "Why don't you throw a parade while you're at it?"
"Such a bad attitude," Abaddon commented. "I guess that you'll be continuing to press this 'fight' of yours, won't you."
Duo didn't even dignify that with a response.
"I thought so," Abaddon continued. "You're death is near and once you die, it'll be your other comrades who will follow. Jason, your other blond friend, and last but not least, Solo, who will die on the end of my scythe. And yes, that will be the order in which they die."
"It ain't gonna happen pal," Duo spat, reforming his time knives.
Without warning, Abaddon struck, moving too quickly for Duo to keep track of him until he suddenly stopped. The tip of his scythe was less than an inch from his neck and he could feel the dark, cold dread that emanated from it. In that moment, he felt completely and utterly helpless, as if Abaddon wasn't screwing with his head but actually telling the truth…
"You see?" Abaddon spoke. "I could have ended this a long time ago.
That moment of uncertainty that held him captive ended as quickly as it began and Duo instinctively reacted by forming a wall of frozen time between him and Abaddon. He used it to push the other away but Abaddon began to slash through his paltry defense with ease.
With no other choice, Duo ran.
---
With a blast of unrelenting wind, Jason blew away Pike's statues away, sending them to crash into whatever happened to be in their way. Deciding not to toy around, Jason settled down to business real quickly, forming a ball of ripping wind between the palms of his hands and throwing the attack at Pike. The art freak didn't budge an inch from where he stood, and when Jason's attack came within his reach, he cut the ball in half with one of his clawed hands.
The now half-spherical orbs flew wildly through the air before detonating upon impact on the ground.
"Oh c'mon!" Jason whined. "How the hell did you do that?!"
"Evolution," Pike replied simply. "With every day that passes, my strength grows. You are no match for me, savage."
"We'll see about that," Jason hissed but had to drop off his attack as the earthen statues struck again. Bringing out a wind blade, he blocked a kick and twisted out of the way of another punch, ducking under a second one that was thrown at him and shoving the closest statue away.
The statues took off in opposite directions but Jason couldn't pay attention to that as Pike leapt at him like a jungle cat, his marble claws extended. Jason jumped to a side to dodge but had to duck again as a statue came up from behind and tried to hit him in the back of the head. Forming wind around one leg, he dropped and swung the leg in an arch to kick the statue's feet from underneath it, ignoring its attempts to regain its balance by shooting a blast of wind at Pike who easily tore the attack apart with his claws.
He didn't stop to swear at the maneuver but instead turned his attention back to the statue that was now behind him, the sculpted figure finally regaining its balance. Trading in his wind blades for a more compact wind "glove," a move that coated his hands in nothing but searing wind, he launched a barrage of punches that tore into the statue, taking pieces of it with every blow. The wind that covered his hands protected the appendages from getting much damage from the attack while causing more of it on the statue's torso.
The statue seemed to groan from the chunks of it that were missing and from behind the wind master, he could hear Pike release a high pitched shriek. Pushing the statue before him away with a blast of wind and into a pile of debris in which it broke against, he spun around to catch Pike's lunge.
The pale boy's face was a mask of fury and hatred and his eyes betrayed the fact that he wanted to rend Jason limb from limb. Despite increasing the ferocity of his wind gloves, not a scratch or even a sign of injury marred Pike's skin.
Then he received a blunt force against the side of his head and the grapple that he had held Pike in was broken, leaving him defenseless against Pike's wrath. It had seemed that he had forgotten about the second earthen statue and it had snuck up on him while he had been engaged with its master.
Now that he was wide open, Pike acted with phenomenal reflexes and speed, snatching Jason by his neck and letting his claws loose into his body, cutting through the clothes on his body and digging into the skin beneath. Immediately, blood began to stain his raggedy clothes but that would be the least of his worries.
Pike was merciless as he clawed at his face, tore up his legs, and when he didn't use his claws, pummeled his body with his fists. Pike wasn't physically strong to begin with and had never been, but due to his "evolution," his hands had hardened and become as unforgiving as his marble claws. Basically, every punch felt like a sledgehammer and when it wasn't Pike who was striking at him, it was his statue that picked up the slack, throwing him about here and there.
Not to say that he was taking this all laying down, mind you. He did get up to his knees and block a few strikes here and there but as soon as he blocked one of his assailants, the other would get him from behind, fucking double-teaming him.
But the creepiest part of it was the look that Pike was giving him. It looked like he was savoring each and every bit of pain inflicted on him and after one particularly hard punch, Jason fell onto his stomach, his control of the wind leaving him. Gasping for breath through pain wracked pants, he glared up at Pike who seemed to have called off the assault.
"Fucking sadist," he spat. "You…enjoying this?"
"I always enjoy creating a work of art," Pike replied, flexing his fingers.
"And beating me up…is art for you?" Jason demanded.
"Anything can be art," Pike said, his voice creepily soft. "It doesn't have to be marble sculptures or oil paintings; it can be anything from dance and athletics to torture…and war. Everyday life in and of itself is art, Jason. It's not my fault that you can appreciate such…beauty."
"Man are you fucked up," Jason said, looking at Pike in disgust. "This is art? Like hell it is!"
"Your ignorance is suffocating," Pike retorted, not in the least offended but tired of going through the motions. The time for talk and insults had passed long ago; it was time to put an end to this.
Noticing something behind Pike, he turned his full attention on the other, hoping that he hadn't given away anything. "You know what was…" he started but then passed, trying to find the right word to say.
"What was what?" Pike asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Inevitable!" Jason blurted out. "You know what was inevitable, do you?"
"What was?" Pike asked, giving him a queer look.
"When art was first started," Jason said, trying not to look behind Pike. "You know what came soon after?"
"What?" Pike demanded, his patience unusually short.
"The art critic," a cold voice that wasn't Jason's answered.
Eyes widening, Pike spun around only to face the barrel of a shotgun just a second before it blasted his head into pieces.
And like that, everything that Pike had created and imbued with his powers froze up and crumbled. That meant that the earthen statue that he had been tag teaming with broke down into the pile of dirt that it had started as. Meanwhile, blood and bits of brain littered Jason's body and he had to raise an arm to cover his face from getting any of it.
"You had to make a mess, didn't you?" he snapped, glaring up at his rescuer.
"Sorry, Princess," a dirtied Quatre snapped back, shotgun resting on his shoulder now. "Having to beat one of my own men to death with a tire iron was not the most enjoyable thing I've had to do today so you can take your prissiness and shove it up your ass! I still need you alive to lead me to where that bastard Xavien's hiding and I'll be damned if I let the only person who knows the way back die this early."
"And I thought you cared," Jason grumbled as he began to swipe the bits of Pike on him off.
---
It wasn't the first time Duo had run from a fight and he was sure it wouldn't be the last but that didn't mean that he wasn't ashamed of his actions. Sure he had done a similar actions when fighting the lightning twins…in the same Goddamn town…oh crap, there really was no excuse for this was there.
Unlike the twins who just chased after him, Abaddon was taking a more proactive role in stalling him, zombies erupting from the ground and each and every one of them with a hunger for his flesh. It was a good thing he hadn't dispelled his time knives; they came in handy when reducing those walking corpses to dust.
Yeah, it had been a scare when one had burst out of the ground in front of him but his gut reaction to chop it in half had been the one thing to save him. Actually pausing to see the horror that was coming out of the ground, he was able to get his primitive fight-or-flight reaction under control and get down to zombie exterminating business.
After the first couple failed to get at him, his confidence had been restored for a time. However, he did notice that the types of zombies were slowly changing from the stumbling sacks of bones to the agile leapers to the sturdy jocks. And from down the debris littered street, he saw Abaddon come into view, calmly strolling as he closed the distance between them.
To give himself some breathing room, he formed a barrier of time, one that was made of sped up time instead of the usual frozen. With it, he reduced all the surrounding zombies to dust and took his large opening to slip into a still standing building, one that had miraculously survive the destruction that had befallen the town the first time.
Surprisingly, the wooden floor had remained intact but each rushed footstep pressed on it caused the floor to groan unnecessarily loud. It was as if the floor would break right underneath him…
He was far from surprised when a jock zombie broke through the wooden floor in front of him but that was easily dealt with with a slice of his knife. As the body fell from sight beneath the floor, Duo whirled around and raised a barrier of frozen time just as a blast of death energy impacted it.
Peering into the ill-lit building, Abaddon caught sight of Duo's dark clad form and shot another blast of death energy. Instead of detonating against the barrier, the energy began to eat at it, slowly making a hole in it, forcing Duo to drop the shield and back further into the building.
"Retreating?" Abaddon said. "You know with every step you take you get closer to your death."
"Suck it, ass!" Duo snapped. "If I'm going to die already, just get it over with!"
"All in good time," Abaddon replied. "These things cannot be rushed."
"We'll see about that," Duo muttered to himself and he twisted his body to strike a zombie that had tried to ambush him from behind. His physical exertions were already taking their toll on him and he knew that he was going to have to put an end to this fight real soon. He didn't want to risk having Abaddon's predictions come true.
Abaddon suddenly stopped in his tracks and whipped his head to a side, frowning. Good, he was distracted! Duo tensed his legs and charged at the other, his knife ready to plunge into the other's body and end him for good. However, he didn't count on Abaddon already having a barrier set up so as he started to throw his arm out, he collided with it and was ricocheted backwards.
It was stupid to have assumed that Abaddon would have left himself defenseless, especially after all the close calls he had had lately. Thus, he was paying for it as his word became nothing but disorientation and he stumbled about, trying to regain his balance and failing miserable.
He had no idea of where exactly he was at this moment in time and everything just seemed to be moving around so much that he failed to realized that he had stumbled into another room, one that had hard walls and tiled floor.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was in a bathroom.
Of course, he didn't figure this out immediately. No, it was after he hit his head against something, turned around on his unsteady feet from the unexpected blow, and fell onto his ass, his back sliding against the tiled wall. By now, things were just starting to right himself and he noticed the swinging mirror that had once been attached to the medicine cabinet was on the floor next to him. Seeing that a corner of it was severely cracked, he figured that he had run into the mirror and that had caused his ungraceful dance to end.
He was slowly coming out of his daze though it took him a minute to realize that a zombie had tromped into the bathroom after him and was within five feet of him, ready to strike. He caught it with a time knife and reduced it to dust before dropping his hand, both of his time knives fading away.
That was the position he was found in as Abaddon entered the small tiled room, his barrier still intact. However, he continued to frown as if something had happened not to his liking.
Cobalt blue eyes glanced up at him. "What now? Aren't you satisfied yet?" the braided one spat.
"It seems Pike has not kept up his end of the battle," Abaddon answered absentmindedly. "Both Jason and that blond are still alive. They shouldn't be."
"Wasn't it suppose to be me who died first?" Duo asked breathlessly.
The frown deepened for a moment before lightening. "Actually, you're right about that. However, Pike wasn't supposed to have died yet. He shouldn't have died at all."
"Looks like even you can be wrong," Duo panted, a hint of a grin curving the corners of his lips.
"But I'm right about you," Abaddon replied. "Yes, I saw you sitting right there, the same look you have right now on your face and…"
"What?" Duo demanded.
"…my scythe slicing into your chest," Abaddon finished. "And your hand was right there on that floral pattern, just like that. Yes, I saw it clear as day."
"Clear huh?" Duo spoke, a hint of a challenge in his voice. "Tell me something."
"I suppose the condemned should have a final question," Abaddon shrugged as he readied his scythe. "Speak now while you have the chance."
He was feeling a thrill in his blood, one of anticipation. At the moment he could see himself plunging his scythe into that traitor's body and it was just so intoxicating…
"Alright," Duo said as he pushed himself further up against the wall. "Since you can see my death so clearly…can you see yours?"
He had taken note of where one of Duo's hands were but he hadn't seen where the other had been. With a jerk of his arm, Duo pulled into sight a cracked mirror. As he stared at both Duo and the mirror, he could see his reflection and he could see—
Unable to take what he was seeing, his mind descended into chaos.
---
It had become quiet. Not the kind of tense quiet when you knew something horrible was about to happen but a calming kind of quiet, as if you had just done something stupid and dangerous but had come out without a scratch.
It had taken some time for Duo to realize this and the fact that Abaddon was no longer standing. As he sat up straighter, he could see that Abaddon had fallen into a pile with a dazed look on his face and a trail of drool escaping his mouth. Getting up and crawling over to the prone boy, Duo waved a hand in front of the boy's eyes.
No reaction.
There was no sentient life in Abaddon's eyes that Duo could see. This had been something he hadn't expected; the lights were on and nobody was home. Looks like Abaddon couldn't handle seeing his own death.
Duo only paused long enough to look at his hand then back at the catatonic in front of him.
"You know what," he started conversationally, "I'm not really in the mood. Guess you live to see another day, eh?" Getting to his feet, he patted Abaddon's shoulder with a companionate hand and walked away.
There were no zombies about to stop him either.
---
One second it had been hectic and noisy; the next second it was quiet and still. What had once been the town of Boulder was as silent as death itself, a ghost town once more as its former residence were no longer above ground trying to kill everything in sight.
Warily, Dorothy crept out of her hiding place, peering at the quiet surroundings, looking for any kind of movement that signified life. When none was forthcoming, she determined that the battle was over but the question remained on who was the victor. Just because all the zombies were out of commission didn't mean that it had been their side who had won.
The first sign of life that she found had been none other than Duo who was trudging down the broken streets looking as if he had fought with a meat grinder. He looked frayed and frazzled all over but he didn't seem very alert though. She supposed that he would be her best shot in finding out just what had happened thus she stood to her full height and began making her way towards him, creating as much noise as she possibly could so as not to startle him.
"You don't need to do all that," he drawled as he came within hearing range. "I could hear you coming a mile away, hell a deaf man could've heard you coming."
"I didn't want you to think I was sneaking up on you," she huffed. "You'd have killed me if I had tried."
"Not going to argue," Duo sighed. He let his body fall against her, Dorothy acting quickly to grab his suddenly boneless body.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked worriedly.
"Just fine where I am," Duo's muffled voice replied. It was only then that she realized that his face was planted on her breasts…
Rolling her eyes, she let go of him and let him drop to the ground in a heap much to his dissatisfaction. "I was just getting comfy too…" he complained.
"Drool on somebody else," she snapped, wrapping her arms around herself, specifically her chest. "I thought it was Solo who was the pervert."
"What, you miss him?" Duo asked cheekily.
Blushing red, she turned her face away.
"Having a nice chat?" the cynical tone of Quatre Winner spoke. "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."
Eyeing the shotgun that the blond rested lazily on his shoulder, Duo retorted, "Nothing of importance. Surprised you're still around. Didn't look like your buddies did, though."
Stopping before the braided one and the blonde girl, Quatre pulled a scratched up Jason into view. "The loss of the Maguanacs was regrettable but what matters most right now is that Jason here is still alive."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you? Get in a fight with a cat and lose?"
"Fuck you," Jason spat, glaring. "You look like hell yourself, ass."
"And I'm not arguing that," Duo replied. "I'm surprised you're still alive. Last I remember, we were both in that tornado and you were trying to kill me."
"Capture," Jason interrupted.
"Whatever," Duo shrugged. "I thought for sure that you were torn apart."
"I could say the same thing," Jason said, eyes narrowing.
"I'll be sure to rectify that when all this shit's over with," Duo stated.
"Threatening me now, brat?" Jason sneered.
"No, making a promise," Duo retorted. "You separated me from Solo. That's unforgivable."
"What are you, his bitch?" Jason snorted.
"Wanna say that again?" Duo growled, his eyes narrowing as he pushed himself up.
"Oh, are you going to turn me into a pile of dust or something?" Jason snarked. "You forget that you still need me? You can't put a finger on me yet, ass."
"Who said I can't?" Duo asked, an evil smile curling his lips. "I could just cut off an arm, or a leg. You don't need those to lead us back to that base. Hell, you don't even need your dangly bits between your legs. I bet you'll be much more cooperative without those…"
"You wouldn't," Jason paled.
"I don't know, I just might let him," Quatre added, putting his two cents in with an evil smile.
"Men," Dorothy snorted, rolling her eyes.
A loud booming sound interrupted the so very important conversation and all four turned their heads towards the source of the noise. Breaking through a crumbling wall, a very battered, very bruised, and very injured Michael landed with a splat a few feet away from them, his body covered in his own blood.
Not a second after, Solo came into view, landing feet first onto Michael's head and crushing it, splattering blood and brains all over the group. With the exception of Duo, all of them take a step away from the intense look of sadistic glee in the blond's glowing amber eyes and the fact that the blond looked as if he had been enjoying a day on the beach and not beating his opponent to death.
Out of the group, only Duo looked as if he was used to seeing Solo in such a state and was not perturbed in the least. He had seen worse, after all.
"You look like ya seen a ghost or something," Solo commented, his amber eyes fading back into their intense green.
"Ignore them, they're not used to you," Duo answered, ignoring a "Hey!" from Dorothy.
"Okay," the blond shrugged. Looking about, he asked, "Where's da Japanese guy?"
Dorothy automatically said, "He's Chinese."
"And he's dead," Duo added before Solo could reply with his usual "same difference."
"Huh," Solo grunted. "First we lose that China guy and now the one from Japan."
"Other way around, Solo," Duo corrected.
"Same difference," Solo waved the matter away. "We're losing Asians wherever we go. Now, who's that guy over there and why is Jason still here? Speak now before I pound them into da ground."
"Not very tactful, is he?" Quatre commented. "And I thought I already told you who I am and what I'm doing here."
"Sorry, but you're a pretty forgettable person," Solo said, scratching the back of his neck.
Quatre gritted his teeth for a moment before slowly calming down. "That doesn't matter. What does is that I hold the one key to finding Xavien's lair and I know everyone here wants it."
"I don't," Dorothy spoke up.
"Everyone here with a Y chromosome then," Quatre amended. "Look, we all here, except for her," here he stopped to give Dorothy a pointed look, "want to mangle Xavien and all those helping him. What I propose is that we join forces and work together to put an end to this. What say you?"
"It's all fine and dandy, but how do you 'propose' getting us all there?" Duo asked sarcastically. "Last we remember, it's a long way from here."
With a grin, Quatre motioned towards one of the remaining vehicles that hadn't received any damage from the previous battle. "Four wheel drive and it can accommodate all of us except for her. It'll get us where we need to go."
"He has a point," Solo finally spoke after a few minutes. "And it beats running."
"I don't know…" Duo trailed off.
"I have ice cold sodas," Quatre added.
Duo paused. "Bastard," he grumbled as he acquiesced.
"Great," Jason mumbled, unheard by anyone. "We're resorting to bribery now? This is not going to end well."