Hi! I'm off on vacation to the States next week, so I figured I'd leave you all with a super long chapter to chew on while I'm gone. Don't forget to review!! –Lady PhoenixDagger *//.^*
Warning!!! This chapter is contains graphic violence done to and by children. If you're a bit on the squeamish side, I'd suggest skimming over the really yukky parts. Reader discretion is advised.
By the way, I don't own Gundam Wing (I do own a couple of action figures, though…) Everything else, however, I all mine!!
*****
The first thing Duo noticed when his eyes cleared again was the noise. That, and the violently bright neon lights of the packed coliseum around him. He, Walker and the rest of the group were sitting in the stands, eyes glued to the playing field, a stark, sandy pit.
"Welcome to the Ring." Duo jumped nearly a foot into the air as Darien faded into view next to him, sitting back comfortably against the row of bleachers behind him.
"Glad you could make it," Walker murmured. Darien nodded back to his twin, verdant eyes glinting in the harsh light.
"Our childhood years were spent here." Darien's voice was harshly brittle over the noise of the crowds. "We were bred to be prefect. We were the perfect specimens of humanity, born to be the perfect breeding pair for the procreation of a new species of man. There was only one shot and it was fouled up by Walker's fortunate change in sex. So we were trained and changed into fighters. Walker became the draco erectus and I was given the gift of greater speed and strength." He flicked his fingers, making slender, silvery blades, each almost a foot long burst from the second knuckle of each finger. "Not to mention these babies. Our healing processes were sped up dramatically. As we are now, we can completely heal from a gunshot wound at point blank range in about thirty seconds."
"Lord…" Duo's stomach flip-flopped as he turned the words "draco erectus" over in his mind. "Upright dragon."
"That's me, alright." Tiny, inch long claws like Darien's own shot from Walker's fingertips. The broken skin around them healed immediately. "My canine teeth were filed and made into retractable fangs and poison sacs were implanted into my face. Even as a young child, I could drop a full-grown steer in full gallop with only my front teeth. Ah." The house lights in the coliseum began to dim. "Looks like the match is about to begin."
"LADEEZZE AND GENTLEMENNN!!!!" The loudspeaker boomed, sending its echoes over the crowd. "WELCOME TO THE RING!! HAVE WE EVER GOT A DEATHMATCH FOR YOU TONIGHT!! IN THE LEFT PEN, WEIGHING IN AT SIXTY-SEVEN POUNDS, THE BLACK SHADOW!!!!"
Darien, at the age of four, stepped into the Ring. Only his hands and eyes were visible, the rest of him being swathed in fine silk, though even below the wrapping, his body looked supple and unnaturally strong. He also looked abnormally big for a four-year old. Duo mentioned this.
"Steroids," the adult Darien offered. "We lived on drug cocktails as much as we did on food, so the steroids were a daily thing."
"AND IN THE RIGHT PEN, WEIGHING IN AT SEVENTY-NINE POUNDS, THE RIPPER!!!!
Four-year-old Walker stepped into the Ring. He was shirtless, clad only in a pair of shredded camo-print pants and he wore no shoes. Languidly, he stretched lie a cat, displaying the pair of leathery, batlike wings that protruded from his back and the long, whiplike tail that cracked and snapped at the base of his spine. His feet were clawed and three-toed, covered in smooth, leathery grey skin. A guttural snarl issued from his lips and amplified for the benefit of the spectators was lost immediately in the roar of the crowd.
"ALLLLL RIGHT FOLKS, THE BETS ARE ALL NOW IN!" The announcer paused for dramatic effect. "BEGIN!!!!"
Metal claws flashed in the artificial sun as the tiny warriors charged, gracefully leaping to the kill. Metal screamed on metal, silk tore and the crowd screamed itself into a blood-fed frenzy. Duo's face and the faces of his companions were locked in rictuses of horror as Darien's claws hit home, tearing bloody lines into Walker's naked chest. The two antagonists backed off. With a sickening sound, the red lines closed and the bleeding ceased.
"FIRST BLOOD GOES TO THE SHADOW!!!" The announcer crowed, caught up in the bloodlust. The sound of groans and whoops of capitalist joy overtook the arena as money changed hands and the fight resumed.
"When will it end?" Quatre whispered, horrorstruck, his eyes riveted to the blood spattering over the sand of the arena.
"When one of us dies." Walker's voice was bitter. He spat on the ground by the spectator in front of him, a scientist still in her white lab coat. She didn't move. "They cloned us and made us into expendable playthings. Only one can be truly alive at a time, but they're still relatively easy to create. We've already uncovered and destroyed at least three thousand of them so far."
Heads whipped back as a screaming roar filled the arena. Young Darien stood as the victor, triumphant and wraithlike, his silks shredded and falling from his body, his tiny hands caked in fresh blood. Walker lay in a heap at his feet, wings torn to shreds, lying in a rapidly spreading pool of his own lifeblood. Darien's face –now free of its silken wrappings- revealed nothing. With very little movement, he tossed something to the ground and walked slowly from the Ring. Squinting, Duo tried to make out what it was from where he sat. Whatever it was, it was tiny and stained brilliant red from the blood on Darien's petite hands. It almost looked like…
"Oh, lord…" Duo clapped his hands over his mouth and fought the urge to retch. The small red object was a child's heart, viciously torn from Walker's chest. It lay there on the sand, small and forlorn.
A sudden strong hand clapped onto Duo shoulder, causing him to whirl around. Before him, Darien's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I know. I know the horror. I remember these fights in my dreams. The hot blood, the feeling of muscle tearing beneath my hand, the sound of the very same bloodthirsty scientists that created us screaming for our deaths just to fulfil a damned bet." Darien spat at the mere mention of his creators, as did Walker. "But the worst part," Darien continued, "was the apathy. I felt these things and I heard the screams, but…I felt…lord, I felt…nothing."
Walker put his hand on his brother's shoulder and the scenery blurred and changed to that of a small clearing in a lush forest setting. "We were toys to these mutilators, and they played horrid games with our bodies, thinking up new long, slow, painful ways for us to die." Gently, Walker took the throwing knife from the sheath at Cathy's wrist under her sleeve. Cathy did not protest. "There was one small problem, however…" With this, Walker plunged the slim dagger through his palm. Relena screamed, Trowa winced and Quatre's face turned a pallid shade of grey, "…we heal too quickly. Also, pain holds very little sway on us. Outwardly, anyway." Calmly, Walker gripped the hilt of the knife and carefully slid it from the wound. He held up the bleeding hand.
"Watch."
Duo desperately wanted to look away, but he could not help but watch in wonder as the tear in Walker's hand was bridged by tiny red muscle fibre after tiny red muscle fibre. The bleeding staunched its flow abruptly and the wound quickly closed up behind itself. The whole process took less than thirty seconds.
"Son of a bitch…" Wufei breathed. "Son of a bitch…"
"Indeed," Darien said, smiling slightly. "One of Black Hood's little 'death romps' took us somewhere close to this very place, not more than a kilometre from where we now live. The cause of death was to be exposure to the elements. We were stripped to the skin and left to freeze in an exceptionally cruel winter storm. Our dad found us and took us home with him." Darien's slight smile widened into a full grin and was joined by Walker's as they remembered. "He got quite a scare when Walker suddenly reverted to draco form in his arms and tried to fly away, but after serving in Alaryan's Keep for so many years, it didn't get to him so much that he was willing to let Walker go so easily. Ria and Tama were four and two and our mom was just about to learn that she was pregnant with Misty at the time. We were six years old. Dulcet was already living in the Keep, and with his help, we became fully functioning members of society. Walker was found to be an incredibly powerful mage and I was taught the ways of controlling the elements."
"So your lives were made better?" Relena asked hopefully. "You were finally happy?"
"For a time," Darien said slowly. Beside him, Walker sighed and slowly began to fade away. Duo made to grab him, but Quatre stayed his hand.
"Don't." Quatre's eyes were glazed with the effort of reading the now-slight shade of Walker's form. "He hates this memory. The whole place reeks of his pain."
Duo shot him a Look and glanced back, but by this time Walker's form was nothing but a silvery outline melting slowly into the trees, dissolving even as Duo watched.
"We were nine years old when this next event began. The Bhaarliads still call this day the 'Day of Agony'." Darien sat on a nearby stump, head in his hands, face grave. "Black Hood wanted us dead- they still do. We know their secrets: their bases, their plans, their methods, their security codes. Even now they raid the Keep, looking for us and others we've rescued from 'modification'. But I digress. Watch. The memory is beginning."
Heero cocked his head. "Children," he stated. "Laughing."
Nodding, Darien's face remained sober. "Walker and a little Bhaarliad girl named Aria. She was our best friend since we came to the Keep as children. Watch. Here they come."
"C'mon Ari!" a thin, high voice chimed from the trees, coming closer and resulting in a dirty-faced nine-year-old Walker crashing through the underbrush. "Catch me if you can!"
An albino Bhaarliad girl in a lavender dress ran after him, her pebbly diamond skin sparkling in the sun. "No fair! You run too fast!"
"Ah, well." Walker flopped onto the ground by Cathy's feet, staring up at the sky. "I won anyway."
Aria flopped on the ground next to him. "Did not!"
"Did too!" Walker countered.
"Not!"
"Too!"
"Notnotnotnotnotnotnotnot!!"
"Tootootootootootootootoo!!"
"Notno-" Aria suddenly sat up. "You hear something?"
Walker frowned and he, too, sat up. "Feet. Big feet, but not as big as my dad's. Men's feet." He sniffed the air. Suddenly his eyes widened in shock. "Black Hood men! "Run!!"
Without a word, Aria sprang to her feet like a startled doe and bolted.
Straight into the stinking embrace of a huge, burly man.
"Lemme go!" Aria screamed, kicking at him.
The Black Hood's bounty hunter grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. "Now why would I be doing a silly thing like that?" he rasped.
"Let her go!" Walker shouted and was grabbing in mid-spring by another, larger man hoisting him from the wrists. "Aria!! You jerks let her go!" he shouted again. Tiny claws sprung from Walker's fingertips, but he couldn't reach the huge man holding him.
The brute holding Aria grinned wider. "You got it, brat," he spat. He pulled back his hand.
Surprisingly, it was Heero who cried out as the brute's hunting knife tore across Aria's crystal throat. The girl gasped, but staunchly refused to cry out as she dropped to her knees and died.
"There," the first man said, carefully licking the blood from his knife. "I let her go, just like you said."
"BASTARD!!" Walker's eyes burned hellfire and his fangs began to lengthen. Tiny sparks of magic burst from his fingers. "I'LL KILL YOU ALL!!!"
"Oh, no, no, no, darlin'," the man holding Walker drawled. He held the child up as the free-handed man snapped a metal collar around Walker's neck, cutting him of from his magic and strength. "We're gonna kill you. Slowly and painfully."
The other man pulled a thin dagger from his sleeve and waved before the helpless boy's face. "Remember this, boy? The only chemical known to mar that pretty skin of yours. It's called Compound White, but some people know it as-"
"The plague," Walker whimpered, barely able to keep his head up from the draining effects of the collar.
"It's been a pleasure working with you." The man holding Walker let him drop. He whipped out his own knife and smiled a chilling smile. "Enjoy."
And with that, the knife fell.
*****
"No more! Please, no more!" Relena rasped. The scene faded away, but not before the first of many bloody lines was torn into Walker's back.
"It went on like that for hours," Darien said, putting an arm around the sobbing girl's shoulders. "Walker's body is now covered in scars, stained black with Compound White, or the plague. It's the symbiot that came from his chest the night you came." His voice was hollow. "It comes to light in the form of such attacks. Last night was one of the worst."
The scene cleared again, revealing an elementary school playground. Children ran about in aimless herds, laughing and shouting to one another. Next to him, Duo saw Heero's body stiffen as a young girl shot by, screaming a nonsense song at the top of her lungs.
A small figure sat alone in the shade against the outer wall of the school, his hands curled around a paperback novel. A wide radius of empty space surrounded him. Children running toward him even went as far as to swerve to avoid venturing into the sphere to silence. The boy himself was compact. Blackened scars laced his hands, but his face was hidden beneath the hood of his sweatshirt.
"That's Walker, isn't it?" Cathy said, watching him slowly turn the page. "He looks so sad."
"Mmm." With a quick stride, Darien avoided a badly thrown tennis ball. "We were thirteen, in out last year at St. Joseph's Elementary School. After the Day of Agony, Walker became very quiet and fearful, even a bit paranoid. He practised with the sword day and night until he became a master at the age of twelve, keeping at least seven daggers on his person at a time. Even at rest he was –and still is- deadlier than a springing tiger. But here…" Darien pointed at a knot of boys laughing and sniggering at Walker's almost motionless form. "Here it didn't matter. Children take perverse delight in mocking the outcast and Walker was the perfect candidate.
"Hey, Shit!" One of the boys was hollering at Walker. "Shit!"
"They didn't even bother to learn his name," Darien snarled.
Walker's head tilted slightly up, but he remained silent and his face stayed buried deep in shadow. Carefully he marked his page and closed his book."
"Why don't you answer me when I'm talking to you, Shit?" the boy sniffed in disdain, loudly enough for all his friends assembled nearby to hear. "Oh, yeah. It's 'cause you don't have a tongue!"
Darien's face went stiff. "Those men cut out Walker's tongue. It took him close to a year to grow it back again and even after, it took Walker a long time to bring himself to talk again."
"What happened to the men?" Trowa queried softly.
"The collar failed." The set of Darien's handsome face finished the rest of the thought in everyone's minds. There probably hadn't been enough of the two men to bury.
A piece of paper fluttered to the asphalt ground by Walker's sneakered feet. "I'm having a pool party next Saturday. I invited your brother and my mom's making me invite you." The kid stepped closer. Quickly, Walker dropped his head. "But listen up. You can't touch the guests, you can't share your food and you can't go into the water. You'll contaminate it. No one wants you there, so just fade into the background like usual and no one gets hurt. Got that?"
A nod.
"Good." And with that, the kid turned on his heel and stalked back to his knot of hysterically laughing friends, indignant that he had to venture into Walker's sphere of personal space.
As soon as the kid was out of sight, Walker swooped down on the invitation, snatching it from the ground and staring at it as if afraid it would suddenly grow wings and fly away. Duo felt his heart wrench as the child Walker wiped a tear from his eye with a mangled hand and looked up at the sky as if to say "thank you".
The scene faded again and changed. The happy shouts were still present, but now they were accompanied by splashing and the dull clunk of food hitting plastic plates. Darien was there in green trunks and a skin tight white T-shirt, chatting with a group of starry-eyed girls. Looking at the current Darien, Duo noticed he at least had the decency to blush. Even then he was drop-dead gorgeous, with slender waist and abs one could grate cheese on. Walker was there as well, but in his own quiet way, sitting cross-legged on a deck chair with a book in his hands and a small plate of food at his feet. He still wore the hooded sweatshirt and the long pants, even though the weather was unseasonably warm.
The group watched as Darien would periodically disentangle himself from his fan club and wander over to Walker, who would look up from his book. They would sit in silence for a while, simply looking at each other. ("Walker and I share a mental link," Darien had explained the first time this happened. "Kind of a prenatal ESP, if you will. We can 'talk' to each other and send visual images back and forth. Consider it email of the mind.") Then Darien would take Walker's plate and refill it from the platter across the pool deck, for the kid had said Walker wasn't allowed to touch any food other than his own. When this was done, Darien would bring it back and then resume being admired.
"Quite the heartthrob, weren't you?" Cathy quipped with a sly smirk on her face.
Darien's answering smirk was just as sly, if not more so. "Still am." He pointed to Walker. "He was perfectly content to sit and read, not bugging any one, not even making a sound. But the kids still saw his being here as a threat and they wanted to make him pay. Keep you eye on the kid in the red trunks." Darien sniffed. "He thinks he'll be a hero."
Walker's deckchair was no more than three feet away from the poolside. The kid in red crept up on Walker with an evil smile, already seeming to revel in the popularity he would reap for this attack against the outcast. Crouching under the deckchair, he heaved up suddenly, dumping Walker into the water. Immediately a dozen other boys leapt on him, holding the startled boy down, tearing off his sweatshirt and holding him underwater.
Darien, too absorbed with his little girlfriends, did not even notice.
Frantically, Walker began to thrash, sending wave after wave over the side of the pool. Gurgling, strangled cries barely came above the gleeful shouts of children as Walker's lungs slowly began to fill with water.
Unexpectedly, the crowd of boys drowning Walker began to thin out. Darien had waded in and was throwing boys left and right, hardly caring if they bounced off the hard concrete pool deck. Swearing, he hauled Walker's limp body from the water onto the ground by the food table, pounding on his exposed back, knocking water from his lungs. Vomiting, Walker came to, gasping for precious air.
A cool breeze blew then, ruffling the hair of the ring of children gathered around Walker and Darien. It also cooled the water dripping from Walker's bare back and running in rivulets from the ridges of blackened scar tissue. Noticing he was now naked of his protection, Walker froze under the children's wide-eyed gazes.
One of the girls, a wisp of a thing in a pink two-piece bathing suit, pointed to Walker's mangled back, a triumphant grin on her face. "Freak!" she shrilled. "Black Hood freak!"
The other children, made brave by this girl's first move began to join in, pointing and chanting.
"Freak! Freak! Shit's a Black Hood freak!"
Another girl screamed with laughter, pointing at the boy she had been mooning over not more than a moment ago. "Look at his back! Darien's a freak, too!"
Indeed, Darien's white T-shirt had been soaked through, revealing his muscular back and shoulders. Tattooed across his shoulder blades was a barcode.
"Clone identification purposes," the current Darien murmured. "Walker had one too, but the plague broke down the ink, so it's not visible anymore."
Before them, the kids were still taunting, now having Darien as fresh meat as well. "Freaks! Freaks! Black Hood frea-"
"Enough." Walker's voice, though rusty from years of misuse, silence the crowd. He stood and turned, revealing his ruined face to those before him. His back below the shoulder blades greyed and pushed out, extending into leathery wings and his thick grey tail pushed out from his spine. Feet more suitable for handling the excess weight morphed from Walker's human feet and gripped into the concrete, sending networks of cracks through it. The other children stared in awestruck horror as Walker stood tall, dwarfing those who stood around him with his very presence.
"I am Walker Broman."
The water in the pool began to ripple. More cracks formed in the cement at Walker's feet.
"Not 'Shit'. Not 'Freak'."
The cracks became larger. Tiny waved began to grow in the pool. Duo noticed the sky becoming subtly darker by the second.
"I am the Lord of Alaryan's Keep."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The tiny waves gave birth to bigger waves which lapped at the edges of the pool. Tiny sparks danced on Walker's fingertip and off people's hair. The wind picked up as Walker clenched his fists. Rain began to fall, icy bullet of it that stung to the touch causing the children to scream and run for cover. Lightning flared, cracking into a nearby tree and sending it into a shower of splinters. The wind howled, picking up deckchairs and tables and flinging them about like children's toys. Miniature tidal waves crashed over the cement of the pool deck and the grass beyond, soaking everyone even more, save for Walker. The water simply seemed to part around him.
Walker's yellow eyes suddenly shut and quicker than it had begun, the tumult ended. The sky cleared, the wind died down, the rain stopped.
"I am Walker Broman, Lord of Alaryan's Keep, mage and warrior," whispered Walker, his fiery hair plastered to his face. "I'll hide no longer."
*****
**pant, pant** Fingers…so…sore…
See you after I get back!
Ja!
--L.P.D. *//.^*