Disclaimer: I in no way own Gundam Wing. Don't sue; I'm simply an E5 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.
Note: Dream sequence, Mind Speech in Dream Sequence,Mind Speech in waking world/Spell/
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Trowa looked worriedly over the campfire that early morning, warily reaching for his spit and snatching it away as quickly as his experienced hands could manage.
The boy sitting directly across from him was staring at the fire, its orange flares flickering brilliantly in far-too-shiny black eyes, cackling softly to himself and muttering that 'the voice' was going to get it and 'the voice' was going to pay as soon as he physically showed his face.
Needless to say, this odd behavior from the normally cool and collected Easterner was severely setting his companions on edge.
'To think that Wufei there's the one always known for having the most level head of any of us. This is discomforting,' Trowa thought to himself, slowly munching on his speared pigeon and chewing without thought to the taste. His eyebrow arched as he heard the lithe black-eyed warrior cackle again to no one in particular. 'VERY discomforting.'
Duo, apparently, was thinking along the same lines as the tall acrobat as he stared at Wufei with his fingertips twitching in preparation to throw something, anything to protect them.
Heero seemed completely unperturbed, calmly sharpening his sword.
Wufei just cackled then sharply turned, glowering into the woods behind him. Moments later he hissed quietly, "I know you're there, coward. Show yourself. Come on... oh, you're afraid..."
Duo stared at Trowa as Wufei broke into more deranged, soft laughter.
"Heh. Who'd ever think our buddy would be a mad man? Wonder what the hell they did to him back in Waterdeep to turn him that way."
Trowa just shook his head, his fingers still light in their touch upon his spit and prepared to drop it at a moment's notice to bring forward the dirks he had stuffed in his waistband.
'Our buddy, the mad man, eh? Appropriate.'
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So, were your dreams pleasant last night?
The Eastern boy snarled as he turned and glowered across the decimated field that was littered with the burned remains of flowers. "Leave me be! Or show yourself!"
How many times do I have to tell you that I'll only show myself when the time is right?
"Coward! You're simply afraid, aren't you!"
The voice broke into manic laughter, its cheerful tone accented by the parting of the red skies that hovered throughout the dream image, letting a crack of beautiful bright blue shine through upon the devastation below.
Afraid? Of you, dear boy?
"Otherwise, you'd show yourself."
Heh. You truly wish to see me, neh...?
"Yes! To see you and drive a sword through your intestines!"
Then look behind you.
As that light voice sniggered softly, Wufei cringed. He'd come to fear glancing behind himself - every time he'd ended up screaming or crying upon viewing the sight that was always prepared for him.
Still...
He turned.
Narrowed eyes widened, tears already leaping to their lashes.
"NO!"
Trying to move, he felt himself being held back by strong hands, his feet rooted to the ground by some unseen force.
Panting in desperation, he fought with every measure of strength his frame possessed, trying to break free of the grip that was upon him, trying desperately to race across the burning, decimated field of flowery corpses and muddy tracks to stop the event that was taking place.
He fought vainly, and was rewarded with tightened grips and further paralysis.
He couldn't even close his eyes.
Tears poured uninhibited from his eyes as he stared at the imagery formed before him.
"It's a dream... a lie..."
A memory.
Wufei still attempted to turn away from the sight of the young woman who possessed his heart was torn completely apart by the Tanar'ri who'd just raped her in the squalor that was once their beloved getaway.
Thankfully his sobbing blocked the sound of the huge winged demon's mocking and wild laughter.
"You..."
I am not one of the people in this event. A soft giggle swung around him, caressing every pore of his body. I'm simply showing you who I am not, as to narrow down the playing field.
"BASTARD!"
Ah ha ha, pot calling the kettle black there, Chang.
Growling, the warrior gritted his teeth.
As much as I'd love to continue this wonderful little game, I'm going to have to let it end...
Wufei blinked.
You're about to be attacked.
Shaking himself out of the nightmarish daydream, Wufei set his bloodshot gaze upon the people who sat with him around the fire. Trowa for some odd reason looked almost frightened, meaning he was actually scared out of his mind if such emotion had managed to break the mask of his face. Duo was wiggling his fingers, probably trying to remember some spell that might be effective against him. Heero was... doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Blinking, the warrior grunted, "What?"
Trowa stared. "You alright?"
"Yeah."
"What's bothering you so much, Chang?"
"Nothing."
Emerald and violet eyes stared at him, no shred of belief in their depths.
"Hmph," Wufei grunted, glancing over his shoulder, "So much for that 'attack' prediction."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the campsite burst into wild flames, their intensity far and beyond that of the tiny fire, fueled by magic.
Everyone raised their gazes as soon as the first blast of heat had washed through the campsite. Everyone gasped.
"Ogre mages," Heero grunted, gripping his sword.
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Otto sighed as he trudged through the marshy field, having set his sights upon the mountain range to the North.
He still had no idea where the wily old mage had dumped him, but he knew the ways of the Realms well enough to know that usually civilization could be found at the foothills of forested mountain ranges.
Grunting, he shook his head.
"How am I supposed to convince Elminster the mighty to join Lord VonWinner in the quest to retrieve his son? Hmph. It's almost impossible."
"'Prove to me that he's a danger to the Realms,' hm? Dammit, I can't do that..."
"How's a snoody Lord's son supposed to be a danger to the Realms! He's nothing more than an arrogant little boy."
"How can a boy be dangerous?"
Still, Otto had his mission. He was to recruit Elminster to aid his Lord.
And he had to figure out a way to do it.
Rubbing his forehead, Otto just muttered about this particular mission being more of a pain in the ass than it was worth.
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Heero neatly parried the sword that was swinging down towards the ground, thrusting as soon as the heavy ogre's weapon was deflected, finding that his foe had startling agility as it leapt out of harm's way.
Still, while he'd not scored the hit he'd wanted, he'd managed in his secondary mission. Glancing down, he swiftly yanked Duo to his feet.
"They're a bit beyond you, baka. Don't think your spells are going to be much use."
"Shaddup!" the violet eyed mage snarled, before clasping his hands together and uttering a quiet arcane phrase. Eyes flickering with white flashes of energy, he unfolded his hands from the entwined fist they'd made and spread his fingers towards the solemn warrior before him. "Protection from Evil!" he finished, clapping his hands sharply. With a nod, he jogged over to the warrior's side.
"Duo! What are you..." Heero began, before staring in amazement.
The ogre had backed away, shielding its eyes and hissing.
"Good job..." Heero breathlessly finished, staring at the braided boy at his side.
Duo was grinning like mad. At least, he was grinning like mad until the lightning bolt cast by the rather irate ogre ripped right between himself and his partner.
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Wufei, meanwhile, was not having the grandest of times.
For some odd reason, their enemies had decided that he was a far grander danger and necessitated elimination far more than the rest of his companions. Meaning that out of the five that had descended upon them, three of the ogre mages had selected him as their target.
'Blasted voice probably had something to do with this,' Wufei bitterly thought as he thrust at the mage before him, shielding his face as the hot flares of the /Burning Hands/ spell washed over him.
To your left!
Obeying without question, he blinked in shock as his enchanted katana sank into flesh and the scream of a disembowled ogre mage met his ears, gargling upon the last word of a now incomplete /Death Fog/ spell.
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Trowa hopped quickly to the next tree within reach as the magically created bolts of light raced towards him.
To his shock, they changed direction, chasing him down.
He leapt down and pointed them out to Duo, interrupting the mage in his run.
"MAGIC MISSILES!" Duo screeched, even as he slammed face first into the ground.
Trowa fell flat on his back as both the force of the /Magic Missiles/ and the /Cone of Cold/ Duo had hit the forest floor to avoid slammed fully into his thin frame.
As he stared at the sky above, watching as its magnificent blue slowly faded to black, he barely noticed the visage of Heero standing protectively over him, growling at the mage who'd attacked him.
"That's enough," Trowa vaguely heard.
"Now it's time to get serious," the warrior snarled.
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Wufei spun sharply on his heel, swinging his blade in a beautiful bright arch before him. The ogre smartly brought its weapon to bear, abandoning its spell in favor of the blade.
Smirking, the Eastern warrior slipped his weapon neatly under the hastily lifted barrier, cutting the wretched monster's legs out from under it.
Flicking blood from his weapon as the creature wailed and howled, he observed the rest of the battlefield.
One ogre mage lay dead at Heero's feet, and its companion appeared to be soon following, having just had a dagger sank into its flesh and charged with Duo's most prominent spell, the electrical /Magic Missiles/ enchantment.
Trowa was slowly regaining consciousness, his injuries being less severe than they appeared, apparently.
They were going to make it.
Wufei cringed as he heard snapping in the woods around him.
Turning, he gasped as he spotted ten pairs of large eyes in the shadows that surrounded them.
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They'd fought bravely, but in vain.
Duo was hiding in the bushes as Heero had instructed him to do so, his spells exhausted and his dagger lost in the carcass of the last creature he'd been forced to fight by hand against.
Heero was fending off two creatures who stood nearly double his height, being pounded every few minutes by the flat of a blade. So battered and bruised was the warrior that he could hardly lift his arms anymore to bring his bracer to bear as a shield or heft his sword into usage.
Wufei stood upon a veritable mountain of corpses, but still fought valiantly, his supply of monstrous foes nowhere near its end.
And Trowa attacked from the shadows as effectively as he could.
Unfortunately, he soon found it to be veritably impossible to do such when the woods are choked full of foes still pushing and shoving to get at the foes who resided in the clearing that served now as a battlefield instead of a campsite.
He crumpled neatly under the knobbed, thick end of a well-wielded club.
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Wufei, Heero and Duo all stared as Trowa fell.
And they continued to stare as every ogre, mage or not, who was attacking them suddenly grasped their skulls, screaming with agony and unrivaled pain. Several collapsed, their eyes rolling into their skulls and their hands twitching and clenching so tightly as to cut the flesh of their palms as they foamed from their sharply toothed mouths blood-laced saliva. The rest raced down the only beaten path that lead from the clearing to the main road, screaming and crying.
The flash of a silver arc swiftly disposed of every monster who was desperately vying for escape.
Duo lightly laid a hand upon Trowa's shoulder, having walked over to him as he noticed him stirring, and helped him upright.
All eyes rested upon the black-cloaked figure that walked silently and easily into their carcass-littered camp.
"Well, that was certainly exciting, wasn't it?" the shadow-enshrouded form said before mightily yawning, lifting a slender and pale hand free from the interior of the billowing cloak to cover a mouth made invisible by the darkness cast upon it by the hood drawn over its face.
Trowa blinked with a start. 'That voice...'
Wufei's eyes narrowed. 'That scimitar...'
He watched as the shadows of feathery wings burst into being on either side of the young woman who stood amongst the gentle flowers, and stared as once more that gleaming curved scimitar whistled as it swung downward, tearing through her body, ripping it into delicately shredded paper scraps that floated upon an ethereal breeze.
The warrior shivered as the image coursed over his eyes, even as the acrobat staggered to his feet, only one word being uttered from his lips:
"You...!"
tbc...
