Can't Go Back
Chapter Two-Bastards
Note: I've changed the timeline from when I first started posting this story. In fact, I've changed just about everything from the first time I posted this. I hope you'll reread it, or you'll miss a lot of changes. I figured it would be a good point in their lives to get a bit of adrenaline back in their blood.
I don't own Gundam Wing, which you know and I'm not sure who does. I hope this story gets lots of reviews but I don't have my hopes up too high. I'll try to figure out where I'm going with this before everyone gets mad at me, so, until then, adieu. ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~
Running through the campus, the dashing young man in black waved at friends and professors as he sped past, receiving smiles and kind greetings from everyone he saw. He was late, naturally. His Business Theory (1) test was going to start in less than fifteen minutes, and he had a mile and a half yet to run (cars were frowned upon on campus). However, daunting as that was, he was not afraid.
He wasn't afraid of much.
Whoever thought that it was a good idea to have tests of any kind at 8 o'clock in the morning was seriously mistaken. And his roommate was going to have to watch his back for some truly frightening practical jokes, recompense for unplugging the alarm clock. And they would be frightening, he decided with an abrupt nod. Truly frightening. Perhaps Nads in his shampoo? Nah-that one could come back to haunt him. Hmmm.. Perhaps a sudden theft? He generally prowled the town on Thursday nights and thus needed his car-yet without that car, said running, dashingly handsome roommate would be stuck with his shallow although perfectly friendly company for more time than was perhaps healthy. However.. He pushed his legs harder, hitting the graveled walks with the balls of his feet, barely skimming the earth as he flew to his destination, his hair whipping behind him like a shadow, like the tail of a hawk speeding over the earth, towards his class, towards his prey, towards the Business Theory Classroom like a raging angel of test-taking mastery.
But perhaps if he just roughed him up a bit...? Today was Friday. He hadn't come back to the room last night, so it was likely enough he'd gotten drunk and wouldn't remember anything at all about the night before. It would be a pretty bad shock if he, say, found something both foul and suspicious in the spacious back-seat of his cherished Mercury, something which he had perhaps never had anything to do with, or perhaps would arouse guilt and horror and total nervous paranoia? That was about right. All he'd need was some mayonnaise, a pink leather thong, some tacky perfume and.
He slowed as he reached the building, his good mood once again restored, greeting some kids that sat smoking on the front steps, and they waved and offered him a smoke. He declined and they nodded and shrugged carelessly, forgetting him as they were once again consumed by their nicotine fixation. Bounding up the stairs four at a time, he arrived at his class just as the door was opened and the quirky professor welcomed his students into his much-less-quirky abode.
Breathing quickly but lightly, he drew his arm across his forehead, and shook his head sorrowfully when he saw the thin layer of clean sweat. He was out of shape. Darn.
Shaking his head, he entered the classroom, grinning at his teacher and winking cheekily at the shy girl next to him. She blinked and stuttered and blushed and then did her best to hide behind a veritable wall of dark brown hair, sneaking glances at him through her long, un-mascara-ed eyelashes. Content, he sat down to take his test, confident, relaxed, and totally unlike most of his classmates. They didn't have the vaguest idea of stress. They generally thought he was out of his mind, didn't care about classes, and was retaking all his credits again next semester.
He generally thought they were just wussy.
They thought he couldn't take the pressure, what with his carefully measured carelessness and the fact that he had yet to be seen in a late- night study session in the library. 'He just couldn't handle the stress.'
Try blowing up an Oz base with little or no information, finding out that they have over triple the number of mobile suits they were supposed to and then being suddenly informed that the whole thing was just a setup in the first place. Or how about shooting the bad guy and then realizing that he was the good guy but with a fetish for killing pacifists. Or threatening to kill them more like. Now that was a stressful/embarrassing situation!
A test was slid down to him and he began half-heartedly to fill in the answers in a crooked but legible scrawl. His mind wasn't on Business Theory-he would have been worried if it was. But he was agitated. He felt tense for some reason he couldn't explain, a fact proven by his desire to get back at his roommate. Usually he wouldn't even care about the alarm clock, wouldn't even remember it after the moment, but it just seemed another little thing, another tiny insignificant little detail just a little bit off from the way it ought to be. He was in a box, a box that was getting smaller every day, without explanation or relief. The people here were slow and loose, with tiny problems and quirks that drove him to distraction. His roommate was a total slob, although by civilian standards he was tidy enough. He didn't make his bed and left a trail of candy wrappers and cracker crumbs wherever he went. He spent more time spiking his hair and making what he imagined were suave expressions in the mirror than it took Duo to wash, dress, braid his hair and straighten his side of the room.
As much as he hated to admit it, life had become drab and monotonous. There was no longer any color, any beauty. There was no longer any awe for him in these long lazy days of safe and innocuous civilian activities. He was grateful, of course, that he no longer had to fight and kill, but there had been a sense of purpose underneath the bloodshed, of understanding when all the world was chaos, of acceptance. He had known, then, his purpose; he had recognized death and had stood and watched it with open, unflinching eyes and had gone to meet it when he could. He had been a part of something truly worthy, fighting to give freedom and peace to all the people of the earth and the colonies.
He had never expected to have to deal with peace himself.
They had always said, "when this is all over." but none of them had ever expected to live that long, except maybe Quatre. None of them had had anything really waiting for or dependent on them. And now they were dispersed like smoke on the breeze, like the great things of the past were gone, had never been. And now he was just another college kid, partying and studying for a degree in just another major that he didn't really want. He'd just done it for the kicks, to become integrated back into the system, to have a degree and get on with his life.
His pencil glided over the paper smoothly, but his eyes weren't occupied with the questions. His long lashes half covered his clouded eyes, and his face was relaxed out of its customary grin.
After the detonation of Deathscythe he had hitched a shuttle back to L2 and went to high school for two years. His college classmates would have been surprised to know that he had passed with a full 26 credits in a two-year period. They would have been even further surprised to know it was with a 3.962 GPA (damn that art class!). He had chosen a University on Earth just because Earth seemed the hotspot of everything that occurred with any importance to the human race.
That, and it was more likely he'd meet a few * ahem * colleagues if he remained on the same planet as a certain pacifist kingdom.
But it had been five years. The war was over, the uprisings were infrequent, and the human population seemed to have finally tamed down and embraced the peace that was its inheritance. The war was over.
Trieze was dead, Mariemaia was finished, and Queen Relena was queen only in memory. His friends were gone, his past was gone, and he was just another college student. It had been five years and no one had come looking for him. He didn't relish the idea of an uprising, and it was probably too soon to tell whether it was all over, but he wondered about them none-the- less, where they were, who they were, if they were alive.
Answering the last question with a flourish, he stood and walked down the terraced row to the front of the class and handed his test to the quirky Professor Lubeck, feeling nonthreatening eyes on the back of his neck, feeling his braid swish back and forth like a pendulum. He turned to look at them and a few pairs of friendly, uninterested eyes smiled back at him and returned to their tests. He shook his head and turned to walk out of the room, back to his dorm, or maybe the Student Rec Center for basketball. He noticed the shy girl get up with her test out of the corner of his eye, looking proud of her achievement. She looked him in the eye proudly, her sudden sense of equality making her bold. 'Good for her.'
He walked through the door, down the stairs, down the now-empty front steps and across the lawn towards the Rec. Center. And then he stopped. He didn't really want to play basketball. What he really wanted was to blow something up, the concentration, the suspense, the adrenaline pumping through his blood. he grinned. Maybe not. But then again, he had chemistry later. That could be interesting. Still smiling, he made his way to his dorm room.
* * * * *
The door of his room was open when he got there. 'Well, well, well. Guess the prodigal wildchild of room E23 decided to return. Poor slob, probably so drunk he forgot to shut the door. Ah well, he's probably got a pretty impressive hangover. That's enough punishment for anybody.' He pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked in, taking in the sight of his roomy sprawled across his bed, fully clothed, his collar smeared with an impressive collage of different shades of lipstick. 'Huh. Girls. Don't know what they see in him.' he shook his head, and tried to refrain from laughing.
Seeing his roommate that way, he forgot about his revenge. 'He really isn't so bad for a spike-headed slob. I'm actually gettin' to be pretty fond of him. Hope he doesn't throw up. I'd hate to have to hurt him.' He smiled again. He wouldn't really hurt his roommate, but it reminded him of Heero, so casually threatening. his smile faded and he sighed. 'This just isn't my day. Don't know why I'm in such a funk. Nothin' special about today, but it's been five years. I hope they're alive. I wish I could get the news on this crappy television.'
Once again depressed he turned on the TV and plugged in the Nintendo (2), clicking away at buttons, successfully blowing up aliens and enemy spies. 'And they wonder why we get into giant robots and kill people. Duh! We, the innocent children of modern man have become inured to violence through the evil medium that is the media. Because of this game "Evil Space Ninjas From the Planet Zorgog IV I will feel absolutely no remorse the next time I am forced to blow up a mutant ninja who is intent on impregnating the president's daughter. Oh darn.' From the bed, Rick moaned, and Duo paused his game to stare at him, pasting on a cheesy grin just in case. But he didn't move. Shrugging, he went back to the game.
He made it all the way to level five before he started to worry. 'Exactly what did that guy drink?' Pushing Pause again, he walked over to where Rick lay prone on his stomach, and rolled him onto his side. Every idiot knows not to let a drunk man lay on his back. Or was it his stomach? No matter.
Rick didn't look too good. His skin had a yellow tint to it, with gray-red circles around his eyes. And his face was clammy. Grabbing a plastic Taco Noches glass, Duo ran down the hall to the bathroom. Dumping the remains of Doctor Pepper into a sink, he filled it with cool water and ran back again, managing not to dump it down the front of his pants. Taking a paper towel, he wetted it and began dabbing at Rick's forehead. He remembered hearing once that wetting someone's hands woke them quickly; he took Rick's left hand and began dabbing at it with the cool damp paper towel. Rick moaned, and he took that as a good sign.
Reaching for his right hand, Duo paused. Rick was loosely gripping a piece of paper. He pried it out of his fingers, knowing it was probably some poor girl's phone number, and continued to wet his hands and face, satisfied when Rick made a noise. He worked at it for a long time, with no startling improvements, and then he began to worry again.
Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed his cell phone and called the emergency hotline.
"Yeah, my name's Duo, I'm over here at the college and my roommate just got back from a night on the town. Drinking? Yes, I think so. Yes, he's over twenty-one. No, it's not a crime to drink off school grounds. But. look, lady, I think my buddy's really in a bad way, and if you wouldn't mind, I think he should go to the hospital. No, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job. Look, the guy's a funny color and he won't wake up. Do you want to wait until something serious happens? Fine. I'm in Waseta Hall, room E23. Thank you. I'm going now. Yes, alright. I'll be here. Fine. Ok. Goodbye lady." With an incredulous scowl, he pushed end. 'That. that. that.. ARGH!!!'
Then the paper caught his eye, a word was all and it attracted his attention. Snatching it off the nightstand, he pulled it flat and read it quickly.
The world stopped. His eyes widened and he couldn't breathe. Anger made him larger than he was, and he almost snarled. And then he shoved it in his pocket and stood up, and steel (or Gundanium?) became visible in his soft violet eyes. His classmates wouldn't know him now.
With a surge of resolution, he lifted the larger, heavier Ricky off the bed and carried him out of the room, down four flights of stairs and onto the front steps, just as the ambulance whined it's way up the drive. He gave them a nervous smile as they strapped poor Ricky onto the stretcher and politely answered their questions, charming them out of any suspicions they may have had. He shook his head as they sped away and made his way back up to his room.
Opening the paper he read it one more time:
"Dear Mr. Maxwell, congratulations on escaping justice for the last five years. We sincerely hope they've been enjoyable, and that you have adequately cleared your conscience before meeting your maker. But you don't believe in that, correct? Feel free to run, and hide, and even lie if you think it will help you. It won't. We're watching, and don't particularly like what we see. See you soon."
Shaking with fury he crumpled it up and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing it with relish. 'Don't like what you see, huh?' He was tempted to open the window and moon whoever was "watching." 'Bastards. Just a lot of bastards. Can't I live in peace? Can't you just get it in your heads, you lost? I'm the good guy, can't you figure that out? Threaten me, will you. You bastards.' Swallowing, he continued to swear in his head, actually enjoying the feeling of energy that rushed through his body. 'Bastards. I'm just a kid trying to get a good education. What's so wrong in that? There are lots of former soldiers in college; why do you gotta go pick on me? Bastards.'
Tossing his hair over his shoulder, he dragged his emergency cash supply out from under the lining of his dresser, tossing black clothes in a heap. Over ten thousand dollars in hundred and fifty dollar bills, all at the generous expense of Oz. Lady Une never did find out what happened to it. Probably assumed it was put to some good use or other. But that's bureaucracy for you. He put the money in his shoes and rolled it up into the thick plaits of his hair, even tucked some into the loose lining of his spring jacket. It was thick enough that it didn't crackle when he moved.
Now he was ready. Now he could up and split at any time without a problem. But he didn't want to. 'Nope. No can do sirree. This is my college, and that is my roommate that you just poisoned. If I run now the cops'll think I had something to do with it, no doubt about it. And I really would hate for Ricky to have to get a new roommate so late in the year. But don't think I'm gonna make it easy for you bastards. You want to pick a fight with Duo Maxwell, be ready to face the God of Death.'
Notes: (1) I am not in college and I have absolutely no idea what one would take their third year of college. I'm thinking Duo is a business major because it's not a hard major and he's a genius anyway and can succeed no matter what he does or what he majors in. Those are my reasons. I think you understand.
(2) I don't know what will be modern in this era, but let's just say Duo has the top of the line Video Game entertainment system.
Chapter Two-Bastards
Note: I've changed the timeline from when I first started posting this story. In fact, I've changed just about everything from the first time I posted this. I hope you'll reread it, or you'll miss a lot of changes. I figured it would be a good point in their lives to get a bit of adrenaline back in their blood.
I don't own Gundam Wing, which you know and I'm not sure who does. I hope this story gets lots of reviews but I don't have my hopes up too high. I'll try to figure out where I'm going with this before everyone gets mad at me, so, until then, adieu. ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~
Running through the campus, the dashing young man in black waved at friends and professors as he sped past, receiving smiles and kind greetings from everyone he saw. He was late, naturally. His Business Theory (1) test was going to start in less than fifteen minutes, and he had a mile and a half yet to run (cars were frowned upon on campus). However, daunting as that was, he was not afraid.
He wasn't afraid of much.
Whoever thought that it was a good idea to have tests of any kind at 8 o'clock in the morning was seriously mistaken. And his roommate was going to have to watch his back for some truly frightening practical jokes, recompense for unplugging the alarm clock. And they would be frightening, he decided with an abrupt nod. Truly frightening. Perhaps Nads in his shampoo? Nah-that one could come back to haunt him. Hmmm.. Perhaps a sudden theft? He generally prowled the town on Thursday nights and thus needed his car-yet without that car, said running, dashingly handsome roommate would be stuck with his shallow although perfectly friendly company for more time than was perhaps healthy. However.. He pushed his legs harder, hitting the graveled walks with the balls of his feet, barely skimming the earth as he flew to his destination, his hair whipping behind him like a shadow, like the tail of a hawk speeding over the earth, towards his class, towards his prey, towards the Business Theory Classroom like a raging angel of test-taking mastery.
But perhaps if he just roughed him up a bit...? Today was Friday. He hadn't come back to the room last night, so it was likely enough he'd gotten drunk and wouldn't remember anything at all about the night before. It would be a pretty bad shock if he, say, found something both foul and suspicious in the spacious back-seat of his cherished Mercury, something which he had perhaps never had anything to do with, or perhaps would arouse guilt and horror and total nervous paranoia? That was about right. All he'd need was some mayonnaise, a pink leather thong, some tacky perfume and.
He slowed as he reached the building, his good mood once again restored, greeting some kids that sat smoking on the front steps, and they waved and offered him a smoke. He declined and they nodded and shrugged carelessly, forgetting him as they were once again consumed by their nicotine fixation. Bounding up the stairs four at a time, he arrived at his class just as the door was opened and the quirky professor welcomed his students into his much-less-quirky abode.
Breathing quickly but lightly, he drew his arm across his forehead, and shook his head sorrowfully when he saw the thin layer of clean sweat. He was out of shape. Darn.
Shaking his head, he entered the classroom, grinning at his teacher and winking cheekily at the shy girl next to him. She blinked and stuttered and blushed and then did her best to hide behind a veritable wall of dark brown hair, sneaking glances at him through her long, un-mascara-ed eyelashes. Content, he sat down to take his test, confident, relaxed, and totally unlike most of his classmates. They didn't have the vaguest idea of stress. They generally thought he was out of his mind, didn't care about classes, and was retaking all his credits again next semester.
He generally thought they were just wussy.
They thought he couldn't take the pressure, what with his carefully measured carelessness and the fact that he had yet to be seen in a late- night study session in the library. 'He just couldn't handle the stress.'
Try blowing up an Oz base with little or no information, finding out that they have over triple the number of mobile suits they were supposed to and then being suddenly informed that the whole thing was just a setup in the first place. Or how about shooting the bad guy and then realizing that he was the good guy but with a fetish for killing pacifists. Or threatening to kill them more like. Now that was a stressful/embarrassing situation!
A test was slid down to him and he began half-heartedly to fill in the answers in a crooked but legible scrawl. His mind wasn't on Business Theory-he would have been worried if it was. But he was agitated. He felt tense for some reason he couldn't explain, a fact proven by his desire to get back at his roommate. Usually he wouldn't even care about the alarm clock, wouldn't even remember it after the moment, but it just seemed another little thing, another tiny insignificant little detail just a little bit off from the way it ought to be. He was in a box, a box that was getting smaller every day, without explanation or relief. The people here were slow and loose, with tiny problems and quirks that drove him to distraction. His roommate was a total slob, although by civilian standards he was tidy enough. He didn't make his bed and left a trail of candy wrappers and cracker crumbs wherever he went. He spent more time spiking his hair and making what he imagined were suave expressions in the mirror than it took Duo to wash, dress, braid his hair and straighten his side of the room.
As much as he hated to admit it, life had become drab and monotonous. There was no longer any color, any beauty. There was no longer any awe for him in these long lazy days of safe and innocuous civilian activities. He was grateful, of course, that he no longer had to fight and kill, but there had been a sense of purpose underneath the bloodshed, of understanding when all the world was chaos, of acceptance. He had known, then, his purpose; he had recognized death and had stood and watched it with open, unflinching eyes and had gone to meet it when he could. He had been a part of something truly worthy, fighting to give freedom and peace to all the people of the earth and the colonies.
He had never expected to have to deal with peace himself.
They had always said, "when this is all over." but none of them had ever expected to live that long, except maybe Quatre. None of them had had anything really waiting for or dependent on them. And now they were dispersed like smoke on the breeze, like the great things of the past were gone, had never been. And now he was just another college kid, partying and studying for a degree in just another major that he didn't really want. He'd just done it for the kicks, to become integrated back into the system, to have a degree and get on with his life.
His pencil glided over the paper smoothly, but his eyes weren't occupied with the questions. His long lashes half covered his clouded eyes, and his face was relaxed out of its customary grin.
After the detonation of Deathscythe he had hitched a shuttle back to L2 and went to high school for two years. His college classmates would have been surprised to know that he had passed with a full 26 credits in a two-year period. They would have been even further surprised to know it was with a 3.962 GPA (damn that art class!). He had chosen a University on Earth just because Earth seemed the hotspot of everything that occurred with any importance to the human race.
That, and it was more likely he'd meet a few * ahem * colleagues if he remained on the same planet as a certain pacifist kingdom.
But it had been five years. The war was over, the uprisings were infrequent, and the human population seemed to have finally tamed down and embraced the peace that was its inheritance. The war was over.
Trieze was dead, Mariemaia was finished, and Queen Relena was queen only in memory. His friends were gone, his past was gone, and he was just another college student. It had been five years and no one had come looking for him. He didn't relish the idea of an uprising, and it was probably too soon to tell whether it was all over, but he wondered about them none-the- less, where they were, who they were, if they were alive.
Answering the last question with a flourish, he stood and walked down the terraced row to the front of the class and handed his test to the quirky Professor Lubeck, feeling nonthreatening eyes on the back of his neck, feeling his braid swish back and forth like a pendulum. He turned to look at them and a few pairs of friendly, uninterested eyes smiled back at him and returned to their tests. He shook his head and turned to walk out of the room, back to his dorm, or maybe the Student Rec Center for basketball. He noticed the shy girl get up with her test out of the corner of his eye, looking proud of her achievement. She looked him in the eye proudly, her sudden sense of equality making her bold. 'Good for her.'
He walked through the door, down the stairs, down the now-empty front steps and across the lawn towards the Rec. Center. And then he stopped. He didn't really want to play basketball. What he really wanted was to blow something up, the concentration, the suspense, the adrenaline pumping through his blood. he grinned. Maybe not. But then again, he had chemistry later. That could be interesting. Still smiling, he made his way to his dorm room.
* * * * *
The door of his room was open when he got there. 'Well, well, well. Guess the prodigal wildchild of room E23 decided to return. Poor slob, probably so drunk he forgot to shut the door. Ah well, he's probably got a pretty impressive hangover. That's enough punishment for anybody.' He pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked in, taking in the sight of his roomy sprawled across his bed, fully clothed, his collar smeared with an impressive collage of different shades of lipstick. 'Huh. Girls. Don't know what they see in him.' he shook his head, and tried to refrain from laughing.
Seeing his roommate that way, he forgot about his revenge. 'He really isn't so bad for a spike-headed slob. I'm actually gettin' to be pretty fond of him. Hope he doesn't throw up. I'd hate to have to hurt him.' He smiled again. He wouldn't really hurt his roommate, but it reminded him of Heero, so casually threatening. his smile faded and he sighed. 'This just isn't my day. Don't know why I'm in such a funk. Nothin' special about today, but it's been five years. I hope they're alive. I wish I could get the news on this crappy television.'
Once again depressed he turned on the TV and plugged in the Nintendo (2), clicking away at buttons, successfully blowing up aliens and enemy spies. 'And they wonder why we get into giant robots and kill people. Duh! We, the innocent children of modern man have become inured to violence through the evil medium that is the media. Because of this game "Evil Space Ninjas From the Planet Zorgog IV I will feel absolutely no remorse the next time I am forced to blow up a mutant ninja who is intent on impregnating the president's daughter. Oh darn.' From the bed, Rick moaned, and Duo paused his game to stare at him, pasting on a cheesy grin just in case. But he didn't move. Shrugging, he went back to the game.
He made it all the way to level five before he started to worry. 'Exactly what did that guy drink?' Pushing Pause again, he walked over to where Rick lay prone on his stomach, and rolled him onto his side. Every idiot knows not to let a drunk man lay on his back. Or was it his stomach? No matter.
Rick didn't look too good. His skin had a yellow tint to it, with gray-red circles around his eyes. And his face was clammy. Grabbing a plastic Taco Noches glass, Duo ran down the hall to the bathroom. Dumping the remains of Doctor Pepper into a sink, he filled it with cool water and ran back again, managing not to dump it down the front of his pants. Taking a paper towel, he wetted it and began dabbing at Rick's forehead. He remembered hearing once that wetting someone's hands woke them quickly; he took Rick's left hand and began dabbing at it with the cool damp paper towel. Rick moaned, and he took that as a good sign.
Reaching for his right hand, Duo paused. Rick was loosely gripping a piece of paper. He pried it out of his fingers, knowing it was probably some poor girl's phone number, and continued to wet his hands and face, satisfied when Rick made a noise. He worked at it for a long time, with no startling improvements, and then he began to worry again.
Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed his cell phone and called the emergency hotline.
"Yeah, my name's Duo, I'm over here at the college and my roommate just got back from a night on the town. Drinking? Yes, I think so. Yes, he's over twenty-one. No, it's not a crime to drink off school grounds. But. look, lady, I think my buddy's really in a bad way, and if you wouldn't mind, I think he should go to the hospital. No, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job. Look, the guy's a funny color and he won't wake up. Do you want to wait until something serious happens? Fine. I'm in Waseta Hall, room E23. Thank you. I'm going now. Yes, alright. I'll be here. Fine. Ok. Goodbye lady." With an incredulous scowl, he pushed end. 'That. that. that.. ARGH!!!'
Then the paper caught his eye, a word was all and it attracted his attention. Snatching it off the nightstand, he pulled it flat and read it quickly.
The world stopped. His eyes widened and he couldn't breathe. Anger made him larger than he was, and he almost snarled. And then he shoved it in his pocket and stood up, and steel (or Gundanium?) became visible in his soft violet eyes. His classmates wouldn't know him now.
With a surge of resolution, he lifted the larger, heavier Ricky off the bed and carried him out of the room, down four flights of stairs and onto the front steps, just as the ambulance whined it's way up the drive. He gave them a nervous smile as they strapped poor Ricky onto the stretcher and politely answered their questions, charming them out of any suspicions they may have had. He shook his head as they sped away and made his way back up to his room.
Opening the paper he read it one more time:
"Dear Mr. Maxwell, congratulations on escaping justice for the last five years. We sincerely hope they've been enjoyable, and that you have adequately cleared your conscience before meeting your maker. But you don't believe in that, correct? Feel free to run, and hide, and even lie if you think it will help you. It won't. We're watching, and don't particularly like what we see. See you soon."
Shaking with fury he crumpled it up and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing it with relish. 'Don't like what you see, huh?' He was tempted to open the window and moon whoever was "watching." 'Bastards. Just a lot of bastards. Can't I live in peace? Can't you just get it in your heads, you lost? I'm the good guy, can't you figure that out? Threaten me, will you. You bastards.' Swallowing, he continued to swear in his head, actually enjoying the feeling of energy that rushed through his body. 'Bastards. I'm just a kid trying to get a good education. What's so wrong in that? There are lots of former soldiers in college; why do you gotta go pick on me? Bastards.'
Tossing his hair over his shoulder, he dragged his emergency cash supply out from under the lining of his dresser, tossing black clothes in a heap. Over ten thousand dollars in hundred and fifty dollar bills, all at the generous expense of Oz. Lady Une never did find out what happened to it. Probably assumed it was put to some good use or other. But that's bureaucracy for you. He put the money in his shoes and rolled it up into the thick plaits of his hair, even tucked some into the loose lining of his spring jacket. It was thick enough that it didn't crackle when he moved.
Now he was ready. Now he could up and split at any time without a problem. But he didn't want to. 'Nope. No can do sirree. This is my college, and that is my roommate that you just poisoned. If I run now the cops'll think I had something to do with it, no doubt about it. And I really would hate for Ricky to have to get a new roommate so late in the year. But don't think I'm gonna make it easy for you bastards. You want to pick a fight with Duo Maxwell, be ready to face the God of Death.'
Notes: (1) I am not in college and I have absolutely no idea what one would take their third year of college. I'm thinking Duo is a business major because it's not a hard major and he's a genius anyway and can succeed no matter what he does or what he majors in. Those are my reasons. I think you understand.
(2) I don't know what will be modern in this era, but let's just say Duo has the top of the line Video Game entertainment system.