DARK SHADOWS

Chapter Thirteen

Dorothy continued staying there, smirking at Duo as she continued to play with Heero's hair like it was her own—like he was her property or something. His face contorted for the umpteenth time as he sat on the chair with his hands cuffed in gundanium.

"Something displeasure's you?" She idly questioned while turning Heero's face to look at her. She smiled and he blankly stared at her before forcing his face into a small smile. It was charming none the less, for a smile upon his face was a rare moment to treasure indeed.

"Yes," he bit out with venom and glared at her. If looks could kill the girl, she'd be laughing her head off at the gates of Hell with Duo dressed in black. He wasn't the self-proclaimed Shinigami for nothing after all. Perhaps Death could add another to his hit list before the war ended, if it ever would.

"Oh," she turned to face him innocently as she shifted on her plush chair and looked around in the ornate room as a fire blazed, making shadows dance across her face. "What is that?"

"You." Duo snapped with another cold glare to follow, "What do you want with Heero anyway?" His only thought to this whole event was one word to describe Romefeller's puppet; 'obsessed'.

Her eyes turned cold as she started back at the braided Gundam pilot with a cold mask now in place. She had been raised by polititions and war hawks since the day she was born, now was not the time to allow an enemy such hospitality and free speech. "I won't allow such a tone of voice from you to me." She used her index finger and placed it under Heero's chin to move it up so she could gaze into his eyes.

Duo couldn't remain silent, not that he ever would around this…bitch with a long awaited appointment to get her eyebrows waxed. "You had better get used to it!" He replied in the same tone. Dorothy shot another 'look' at him before turning back to her object of interest.

"I warned Relena not to get involved with him," she whispered before turning back to Duo with a glance, "Not straight out, but enough for her to notice. His presence is like fire to wood when he enters he gates. A fine hawk such as himself needn't bother himself in the time of a pitiful dove."

"Now wait just a minute!" Duo cried out loudly as he stood up with much energy from his chair as the wooden piece of furniture toppled over and crashed onto the crimson colored rug he was standing on. "Relena and Heero were—"

"Never meant to be." She finished in a cold tone, each word bit out and layered with such coldness Duo almost shivered. She looked at Heero once more, "OZ was a fool, falling for my trick of trying to save him from captivity of the Sanc Kingdom."

"What are you talking about?"

Dorothy smiled coyly as she faced him once more, "OZ was trying to help him. The Gundam pilots are considered allies to them now, or perhaps should I call them the Trieze Faction?" She laughed coldly, "All those times when they attacked in the hospital they hurt him only to ensure his longer stay and delay his departure."

Duo fell to his knees, wide eyes, "What?" He gasped, voice barely audible in the whisper he found himself speaking in.

"I found him in the woods, after I managed to get Romefeller to stage an operation to wound him without killing him." Dorothy began, "That way we would both get our ways in the end."

"Both get our ways? What are you talking about…?"

"Romefeller would have one less Gundam pilot to worry about and I would have him as my own. They would gain a member after the testing was a success on getting him under our…my," she amended with a slow smile, "control." The fire blazed, cackling with her own small evil chuckles as Duo's eye brows furrowed together.

He frowned, "Everything was a set up?"

Dorothy nodded with another laugh at the look on his face. Priceless! "Yes, from the information on the disk to the doctor's in the room working for OZ."

"What about Sally and us? What about Milliardo and everyone else? Were we also part of your little plan to try and get Heero to love you?" He hated the idea of himself being a puppet, and at least it was a little comforting that they didn't make it easy for Dorothy to get what she wanted in the end.

Dorothy stood up and Heero followed in suit, standing by her side like a trained watch dog with very killing abilities. "No." Her cold eyes looked at his body on the floor, chin up as if she was superior to him. He glared up at her, tempting to do a round about kick to swipe her legs out from under her feet. Then he would get the crap beaten out of him by Heero, but it would still be satisfying to see that look on her face. "All the rest of the pawns were simply there for the sake of being there. Nothing you could have done would have stopped me. Either way I would have won."

Okay, now he was fed up with her and all her 'better than thou' attitude and it was simply a pain in the ass now. She was like the thorn in her side that never went away no matter how many times he got rid of her, she somehow kept getting back there under his skin and in his flesh. Growling, he slammed his hands down on the floor and positioned his body so he could turn it without problems. Swiftly swiping his leg over hers, it was done in a matter of seconds yet the fall seemed to last forever.

Her hair spilled everywhere, eyes wide as she could feel nothing under her feet and tried to balance herself. Heero reached for her, her outstretched arm slapping him as if to tell him not to catch her. He stopped halfway and she fell in a heap onto the floor.

With her hair hanging over her face and her beret on the ground, Dorothy managed a heated glare at Duo from beneath her flaxen locks. She snarled like a dog and her nails dug into the fleshy part of her palm. The sweetly sick smell of blood reached her nose.

Heero walked over in strides as quick as lightning after his mistress fell to the floor and snarled, picking the prisoner up by the collar and stopped. He was going to send the teen slamming against the wall, over and over again but when he got a look at the youth's face, all thought processing stopped.

Violet eyes stared at him and he jerked back, why did he look familiar? Why were there images of a smiling girl with blonde hair assaulting him. She giggled and held out her hand, whispering words into his ear. He roughly pushed it away but it wouldn't stop coming back at him again and again.

"My names Relena, what's yours?" He took a sharp intake of breath and his eyes were wide, hands holding the sides of his head. Dorothy—his mistress—was yelling at him and the prisoner, Duo his mind supplied, was staring at him with something like an encouraging look. Why was he looking at him like that! What did they want of him!

"Off to fight another battle, Heero?" He heard her sigh as if he was right next to her. He took steps backwards as everything else faded, the memory surfacing with so much force it took over his word and surrounded him with flashes of that girl—Relena's—face. He panted as she continued, "Well I'm off to fight my own battle." She turned away and disappeared.

A giant machine looked at him and he knew that face, the green eyes of the 'monster' boring into his lithe frame. "Wing…" He whispered, knowing his suit by memory. Screams surrounded him, jerking his from his thoughts as his mind reeled once more.

"Those who lay eyes on a Gundam shall not live to see of it." That wasn't his voice, a small wisp of a memory with a teen with hair hanging over one of his eyes, piercing green emerald, stared at him. Why was he wrapped in bandages?

"Space….it's so quiet." The voice was gruff, a long blonde haired man staring at him with an icy glare that could almost match his. The two suits, his and another that looked like an older model of a standard OZ Leo colored white were fighting in snow and icy blizzarding winds. His arm was bleeding, screaming in pain as he was hit blow after blow. A sense of unfairness washed over him but he continued to fight. The suit blew up suddenly in a whole swarm of suits owned by Romefeller and OZ.

"Injustice!" The blurry image of what looked like a Chinese man flashed at him, no other memory strand coming to hit him.

"We shouldn't be fighting!" A blonde screamed at him, eyes holding so much sorrow and pain as four suits, Gundams that looked like his in a way, continued fighting ruthlessly against one another.

"Hey. Why did I even bother rescuing this guy? He hardly speaks, thinks he's Evil Kenevil…" A heavy sigh and then a grin shot at him as he worked on repairs for wing, the same brunette prisoner he almost smashed into the wall!

"I'm not called the God of Death for nothing!" More phrases hit him and he knew he was the first 'comrade' he met on Earth other than that girl calling herself Relena. "Tag along, on my journey into Hell!" A heavy slamming sound was heard from the detonation switch.

Heero saw his Gundam blow up as he pressed the detonation switch after whispering 'Mission accepted'. Pain washed over his body but he…fell to the ground unconscious. Blood was everywhere, leaking from his body and it wouldn't stop…wouldn't stop coming.

Everything faded to black with someone screaming at him, the door slamming open. The faces of the people from his memory met his eyes before one thought registered in his mind, 'They're real…'

He slumped against the floor, body going limp as consciousness left him with Relena rushing over to him. The last thing he felt was something warm and sticky trailing down his neck, staining the wall where he had run into blood red.

TBC

Author's note: One final chapter people!