Through the Vortex
Bane's Desire
Part 4 - Understanding Falls Like a Brick

"Duwan." There was yet another voice trying to coax me out of my drug-induced sleep, and this time it was a feminine one and, once again, familiar. I remember trying to wake up, but just couldn't seem to manage the simple task of opening my eyes. "Wake up, Duwan." After a Herculean effort, I managed to blink my eyelids open and was rewarded by seeing Hilde's pixie-like face, framed by her short black hair, hovering over me. Her smile was soft as she gazed down on me with obvious fondness. "You have been through a frightening ordeal," she said with a great deal of sympathy. "Tell me how you feel." Sweet Hilde, I thought. She's a great friend.

"Like I'm on the biggest dope trip you could ever imagine, Hil," I answered, still feeling woozy. "What are ya doing dirtside? Thought you said you were too busy to come down and visit 'til Christmas." I was silently hoping she hadn't hocked something important in order to fly down from L-2 to visit my sorry ass. It was damn expensive flying on shuttles to or from the colonies.

Her cool hand stroked my cheek. "I'm your Chooser, Duwan. Who else would be here to take you to my abode?"

I blinked up at her as I realized that my trippy nightmare was ongoing. Taking a good look at her, I noticed that, like Sally, Hilde was dressed in an all red outfit, looking something like Wufei's traditional dress clothes. She wore a long tunic and loose pants that I thought looked pretty good on her slender figure except for the fact that it was a darker shade of red than what looked good against her pale skin and it made her chest look flat. It was nothing that one of those Wonder Bras I'd seen advertised couldn't fix, I mused to myself at the time, feeling rather dopey. I was finding it difficult at the time to center my wandering thoughts, to bring them back to figuring out what in the blazes was going on. "You say you're my chooser? What have you chosen me for?"

Hilde's smile faded and a look of concern flashed in her eyes that suddenly looked more purple than blue. Funny, I never noticed that before. "Sallah disclosed to me you had been injured and were confused. Are you expressing now that you have no remembrance of being my Chosen?"

"Like I asked before, Hil, what the hell is a Chosen? It better not be what I'm beginning to think it is because the only person choosing me is Heero and dammit, where the hell is he?" I became increasing agitated by the confusing situation.

I was startled speechless when my face was grabbed roughly in a vice-like grip between the hands of that petite woman. She brought her face within inches of my own and in a steely voice Hilde sternly said, "I do not know what was done to you, Duwan, but believe my words when I say that you are my Chosen. Though your bonds have somehow been removed from your body during your... misadventure, it does not signify that your contract has been made null or that you are allowed to be disrespectful to me or any one of the red or blue ranks. Do you comprehend my speaking?"

Despite the grip on my jaw I managed to nod my head. With an exasperated sigh, Hilde removed her bruising fingers from my aching face. I looked up at her while rubbing my sore jaw to see a disapproving expression on her smooth, flawless face, a look that seemed so out of character for my good friend. "Honest, Hilde," I said in my most sincere voice. "I don't know what's going on here. Everyone keeps speaking weird and using names I'm unfamiliar with and acting strange."

"My name is not Hilde or Hil," the black-haired woman snapped. "I am your Chooser, Mistra Hildah."

"Hildah?" I moved my fingers from my jaw to rub my aching temple with my fingertips. "When did you change your name?"

"I have not changed it, Duwan. You are obviously having some difficulty remembering yourself, your rank and mine."

I tried to straighten out the mush swirling around in my mind for a moment before speaking. "Am I really awake or just having some sort of weird nightmare?"

"I assure you that you are fully cognizant and behaving in a most unreasonable manner."

That old bastard fear began creeping up on me again as my confusion mounted. "Where's Heero? Why isn't he here?"

"Heero? " the petite woman asked, looking puzzled. "Do you mean Herron? Relna's Chosen?"

Now that was too much of a coincidence to be anything but weird, and suddenly my temper bristled at the images the title Chosen brought to mind when associated with Heero and Relena. I'll be damned before I let my lover within a ten foot radius of his former stalker if she thinks she's chosen him for anything other than being the friend she'd agreed to be. Damn, I was pretty sure we'd dealt with the "Relena problem" after the war and that it was an over and done deal. At least I thought it was... until that moment.

Throwing back the blankets, I moved to get off the bed and stood up, determined to get out of that room and find Heero. I'd somehow pushed aside my suspicions regarding Heero and Trowa, and focused instead on Relena, thinking that if she'd been keeping him from coming to me in the hospital, she had just earned herself more trouble than she'd bargained for. I was so caught up in my need to seek out Heero that I'd forgotten about all the damage that had been done to my body while in the vortex. The moment my feet hit the floor the purplish walls of the room began to spin. Reacting instinctively, I reached out to grab for anything to steady myself with as my knees threatened to buckle. I found myself clinging to Hilde... or rather Hildah's body for support.

"What are you doing?" she snapped at me, alarmed, her arms struggling to support my near dead-weight body.

"If Heero won't come to me, then I'll go to him," I gasped as the room spun wildly around me. I quickly closed my eyes. "Dammit," I ground out. "It's bad enough that he's fooling around with Trowa, but I'll make him eat shit before I'll let little Ms. I-Can't-Get-A-Friggin'-Clue Peacecraft get her hooks into him. I'm not going through all of the crap drama she pulled last time."

"Duwan!" The woman holding me shouted at me in a stern, reprimanding tone... right in my ear. "You now have one mark against you for this unseemly behavior. If you continue to ignore your training, taking advantage of your bands having been removed, then you will be severely punished when I have them re-applied next cycle."

"Bands? What the hell is that?" I snapped back, falling to my knees and carrying the petite woman with me. "Can someone please tell me what's going on here 'cause I haven't got a clue." I suppose all the confusion, the physical and emotional trauma from being in the vortex was getting the best of me because I'd definitely lost my cool. My head began to ache something fierce again and the room was still spinning, almost as fast as it had inside of the power generated vortex I'd been in earlier. I remember desperately clutching the upper arms of the woman who was bent over and trying to hold onto me. I buried my face into the sweet-smelling red cloth of her jacket as the dizziness threatened to overtake me.

"Sallah!" Hilde's voice called out in alarm for the doctor, and a moment later gentle hands lifted my aching body and carefully placed me back in bed. I kept my eyes closed, still feeling the room spinning and keeping half an ear to Hilde, or rather Hilda's voice, as she conversed in low, concerned tones with Sally. I was so confused, not understanding what was going on and why everyone was acting so weird. A moment later I came to the conclusion that whatever the two women were saying to each other, it wasn't worth the pain and effort it was taking to try and follow their whispered, strangely spoken conversation.

I felt a soft, cool hand come to rest on my forehead and then another joined with it to massage my throbbing temples. I inched my eyes open to see Wufei above me, his eyes pinched with worry.

Relief swept through me in seeing my partner still there. Everything was going to be alright, I told myself, now that Wufei was on the scene. "Thanks, Wufei. That feels good, man," I told him, grateful for his soothing touch.

"I am known as Wudon, not Wufei. Why do you repeatedly refer to me in such a way?" the Asian young man asked with genuine curiosity.

"This is a pretty elaborate joke being played at my expense, Wu," I said wearily. "Am I even in the hospital in Sanq? I don't recognize the decor, but who the hell would paint the wall in a graduated purple other than Relena?"

"Purple is your rank," the other replied. "And being Purple, you are naturally placed in this section of the urgent care unit. You are presently not in a place called Sanq and I have never heard of such a place before. Is Sanq an urban center, land boundary or establishment?"

I frowned as I tried to follow what he was saying, distracted by the persistent pounding in my head that felt similar to a full section of drums in a large marching band, all playing in unison. "Well if I'm not in Sanq, where am I?"

"You are within the perimeters of Sangor and in the higher-ranked medicinal center where you have come for your medicinal assessment, preparatory to insertion."

At that point, my head was spinning. I couldn't make heads nor tails of what he was talking about, but I was beginning to believe that something drastic had happened to me in the vortex. It seemed as if these people knew me... but as someone else. I apparently fit into this strange place... but not as Duo Maxwell. Even the words, that had been spoken to me by the familiar-looking people that I'd come into contact with since waking up, were similar to the words I knew yet they were somewhat unfamiliar in their usage.

Still confused, I looked up to the man standing next to me, and focused on my former war buddy and current Preventer partner. I realized, after a few moments, that there was something decidedly different about him. Not only was his hair shorter than I'd ever seen it, cut to the jaw line, but it was loose and fell like an ironed curtain from the part that began at the left side of his forehead. I realized suddenly that there was a lack of the familiar intensity that I'd always observed Wufei's eyes and that the famous glaring frown that could rattle just about anyone who wasn't a close friend was missing. Studying him more closely, I saw even more changes in him that rattled me to the core. I don't know why I hadn't seen it before, but his skin was pale, not the usual caramel color that denoted his ancestry, nor were his eyes slanted or as dark as I knew them to be. Instead of the darkest of browns, they were definitely a softer shade of that color, with flecks of amber in the iris. "You're not my partner Wufei, are you?" My heart was beating wildly in my chest as the reality of my situation came into focus.

"We are acquaintances," he answered, looking slightly apologetic, "but my only familiar and allegiance is to Mistra Sallah."

Not knowing what else to think or say about the situation, I closed my eyes and tried to get a grip. "Oh, God," I whispered, not knowing who else I could appeal to. "What continent are we on?" I asked, needing to gather more information.

"Continent?"

"Land mass." I opened my eyes again. "Are we even on a planet? You know, the thing that circles the sun."

He looked at me in confusion for a moment before understanding lit up his eyes. "We are on the satellite, Erith. Our ruling boundary on Erith is called Uranth and Sangor is where we abide and it is the center of leadership."

"And my name?"

"Duwan, Chosen of Hildah."

"Oh God," I moaned again, squeezing my eyes tightly shut to block out the reality of this nightmare. I curled up into a miserable and aching ball, clutching my braid in my hands as I began to rock myself, trying to come to terms with the fact that the vortex had somehow transported me to a place that was either a mirror of Earth or a different dimension. All that I had known and everyone I cared about was gone. I was now a stranger in a very strange land, one that I obviously didn't comprehend.

I felt the familiar pressure on my wrist of the painless injection Sallah had given me before, and I welcomed the drug, hoping it would sweep through me quickly and take me into blessed oblivion. My wish was promptly granted.

TBC