Eclipse of Dusk

By: Hseru

Warnings: Shounen ai later on 1x2 3x4 5xM (Hey look...he's got someone now ^_^)

Disclaimer: I own not Gundam Wing, but I do own the world the G-boys traverse. Fear my god power

Chapter 29

One rather short tempered Sword's master was now on the hunt for a score of ill fated men.

They could not have gotten, nor gone far in that short amount of time, and Wufei had every intention of catching up with them before something unspeakable befell Meiran.

Both Heero and Quatre were just behind him, the soldier as stealthy as the man he followed, the little mage light enough on his feet to not be noticed.

The tracks in the snow were all but obvious. The men had not even bothered to try and conceal their steps. What ever thoughts ran through their heathen minds, the sword's master was sure that they did not expect to be followed so soon by a vengeful master of the Ni Batou Ryo. His cool anger left only enough room in his head for worry over the health of the warrior maiden, and the urgency in his silent step made that just as clear as his anger.

It took a mere candlemark of following to come suddenly upon the outskirts of a large camp. Far larger than had first been surmised by all in the small group.

A large circle of rather shabby tents made a disheveled ring about a larger, newer seeming tent in the center of the camp. It was apparently the current residence of the leader of this rabble. A number of men were about, some sitting around fires, laughing, others cooking, and others sharpening a menagerie of weaponry probably stolen a piece at a time. All in all, between thirty to forty men, a number doubling the first conjecture of the sword's master.

Wufei cursed under his breath as he crouched past the line of trees, shadowed by the low boughs. Heero kneeled beside him, cobalt eyes sharply taking in the scene that lay before them. As the one inexperienced in such matters, Quatre fell behind the both of them, simply worrying about the state of everyone who was missing from what had so short a time earlier been a full traveling group. They were dwindling down to nothing.

Things were going to get far worse before they would get better though. With Duo in Sarkan's hands, there was nothing to stop the sorcerer from performing his summoning ritual on the eve of the winter solstice...and that was a bare four days away. Everything that could go wrong was doing so, and it was preventing them from their ultimate goal.

Now, Meiran had been taken captive by some rabble band of raiders, and they didn't yet know if she lived, though it was all too possible that she was dragged back to this camp to be...used. It was such a fate they wished to save her from. Things were all too quickly spiraling out of anyone's control save for the sorcerer's. He was playing them like pieces on a chess board.

And he was winning.

Trowa...gods I miss you....

...

Their plan was thought up as quickly as it was to be pulled off.

At a group signal, Heero would take control of every fire kindled in the camp, and start a few new ones for good measure. He would be a key part. While his flames were attacking those that sat passively around the currently subdued fires, Wufei would sweep through with his swords towards the center tent. Their guess, which couldn't be too far off, was that if Meiran was anywhere within the camp, she would be inside that main tent.

Speed and surprise would be their biggest advantage here, for the guards about the camp were slovenly in any sort of watch they kept. It was doubted that they would be able to call the alarm before the entire camp was ablaze.

Taking firm control of the fire, for he did not want to set the center tent aflame, nor catch Wufei, Heero settled cross-legged near the covered base of a low branched tree with Quatre watching him. The soldier would need more concentration than he could get while fighting to control all of the separate fires that were to be at his disposal.

If Quatre necessarily had to, the little mage could cast to protect the both of them while Heero was otherwise occupied, but he was on explicit orders from their leader to not use his magic unless vital to their survival. He had every intention of following those orders, but if one of his comrades was in mortal danger, he would not hesitate to put his life on the line for even one of them.

Wufei had moved to separate himself from the two, lest the direction of his appearance be questioned and searched. From a quarter of the distance around the large camp, he readied himself, both blades already in hand, and gave the signal.

A piercing whistle went up from the outskirts of the camp, and nearly everyone in the camp stopped at the same time to look in the direction from which it had come. What they saw was the not so horrifying image of a single man brandishing twin swords dashing their way. However, a scream went up suddenly as the fires they'd only moments before been sitting around blazed to sudden animated life, forming into blazing creatures of liquid fire that began at once to attack those around them with snaking, burning tentacles.

That was when mass hysteria took over, and no one bothered about the single intruder that flashed past, blades sinking into those not caught by the fire wyrms.

Wufei practically flew towards the center tent. Different from the sounds of agony and death around him, was the bellow of heated anger that suddenly escaped from the fabric shuttering the inside of the tent. Before Wufei even reached the cloth structure, a man stumbled backwards out of the opening, tripping over the various pieces of armor and cloth bundled just outside the flaps.

Before he could see more, someone took note of the sword master's arrival, and turned his blade on the only normal foe the band faced.

The sword swinging towards him was blocked automatically, the attacker's weapon clanging away uselessly as Wufei drove in, now on the attack himself. One of his swords sliced into the man attacking him, sliding through the gap between his ribs to catch at the vulnerable innards, the man letting loose a horrible wail of agony before collapsing into a shuddering, howling heap as Wufei pulled his sword from the lacerated gut. He moved on without a second thought, now being attacked by more of those who would rather face a real opponent than those wrought by fire demons.

However, before he was put on the offensive again, he spied that which had made the leader of the raiders stumble so fast from his tent.

There stood Meiran, sword in hand, bearing down on the man with a single minded viciousness that spoke of more than words could tell. Her clothes were ripped, not so much as to be indecent, as it seems the man had not quite gotten that far before the warrior maiden again had the upper hand.

The ghost of a smile traced the sword master's lips at her actions, then he turned his attention back to those now surrounding him, the thought that the warrior maiden could now take care with the dispatching of the leader herself, her abilities far above what was needed for such an undertaking.

And the dance once more began.

Swords weaving as if in illusion, Wufei lost himself to the all consuming style of swordsmanship he'd mastered in record time. His mind blanked, thinking of only the strike, and counter; the block and blow of each sword against his own. If one did not understand how he could read every little movement in reference to the next attack, one would have thought that he was predicting his opponents' movements in time to react to them.

Normally, nothing would have been able to break him of this concentration save for the death or maiming of all the opponents he faced, but something did now, throwing him so off, he actually stumbled forward, barely catching the next attack on a backwards thrown block.

Eyes darting around, he saw what had so distracted him, and it made his blood boil.

Again looking towards where Meiran had so earlier held the upper hand, he ground his jaw at the sight of her knocked bodily to the ground by an attack from behind performed by one of the leader's bodyguards. The sword was already gone from her hand, and a sharp crack of a whip held by the guard presented an answer as to how the weapon had been wrested from her. She had cried out involuntarily as she'd hit the ground, which had so broken Wufei's concentration, and now the guard advanced on her with the whip. She struggled to her feet, holding her side as if in pain.

Wufei's vision was blocked by yet another opponent, and he charged to with a will. Only now, he would not be able to quite reach the same plane of thinking as he normally did. He was furious, and being so made him unthinking when he moved. He became, for lack of a better word, reckless.

Each dodge and block was now done with no room to spare, as a few more hardy souls joined in the fight against him. His movements were no less quick, or successful in drawing blood and death, but there was a difference. A slight difference that would not have mattered at any other time.

But he let it go too far.

Nearly clear of opponents, Wufei suddenly felt the cold metal of a blade slice across his side, digging deep, and letting loose a hot flow of blood that had him staggering with pain and astonishment. It was with a disgusted snarl that he finished off his last two opponents, giving a grunt as the moves were accomplished.

The world was beginning to spin and tilt even as he took a few steps forward towards the distant skirmish which was starting to look farther and farther away. The noise around him eventually died until he heard nothing, though he still saw men being burned alive, and running for their lives. It was odd, seeing everything start to slow down.

His hand went to his side, and came back up to his darkening eyes covered with red.

Looking ahead, he saw Meiran again. It was only a few steps he needed to take to aid her, but it looked so far away. He staggered forward, towards the back of the guard plying the whip.

He was lucky that the bodyguard did not see him until it was too late, and Wufei used the last of his strength to gracelessly shove one of his blades -somewhere, he'd dropped the other one, for his hand was empty- into the bodyguard's gut, wrenching it back out with a gasp as the heat of before was replacing with a numbing cold that spread from his side, across his body, and up.

Another step forward, and he fell to his knees, the world narrowing and growing darker until there was only a small tunnel of light with which to see. He didn't feel it when he fell fully to the ground, only suddenly surprised at the dirt he tasted in his mouth.

His lids grew heavy, but he was awake long enough to have the sky replace his close-up view of the ground as someone turned him over. Meiran's face came into view then, tears spilling from her eyes as she saw the state he was in.

Why are you crying? He thought dully. I receive the honorable death of a warrior, and I have saved you. You should be happy.

So why are you crying?

Slowly, he reached his hand upwards towards her soft face now awash with salty tears. Bloodied fingers nearly brushing against her skin, darkness took him before he could complete the move, and his hand fell limp at his side.

...

The screams of the dying lifted into the air on the wings of the wind, and Heero opened cobalt eyes to the damage he'd wrought without lifting a finger.

Of course, he'd been seeing it all along through the eyes of his fire wyrms, but that was an odd, distorted view of the world at best. Now, as he pushed himself slowly to his feet, he saw the camp in a blaze of fire and blood. Quatre was at his side, silent and pale. Yet there was an odd sort of determination to the set of his small face.

The both of them moved forward, and Heero began to ease back the flames before them. Any men that yet lived were left to pick up their own dead, and to save their own hides. Neither of them made any move to help.

Quatre was the one to first spot the tragedy that lay ahead, and with a small cry, he dashed forward to the pair lying on the ground, either dead or unconscious it could not yet be told.

Heero kneeled next to them, checking both.

It was with a slight sigh of relief that he discovered both to still be alive.

Wufei's pulse was strong and steady, a mystery because he looked to be sorely wounded, what with the amount of blood on him. Meiran's pulse was weaker, and thready, but seemed to be gaining strength even as they watched.

Figuring that it would be better to not move them just yet, Quatre went about checking for visible wounds, while Heero kept watch over the three of them, easily able to defend against anyone deciding they'd rather end up as a pile of ash.

Though there was evidence of a long slicing cut along Wufei's side -even the leather he wore had been scored deeply through- there was not even a mark marring the bronzed skin beneath. In fact, there was not a cut or scratch on him. Anywhere.

Puzzled, the little mage turned to Meiran, who was even now regaining more of her color.

Though there was no outward evidence of her having more than the smallest of cuts, blood welled up from beneath the thick tunic on her side. Slicing through the cloth with a small dagger, Quatre was again surprised, because he found a deep sword cut letting her life blood out at a dangerous rate. Yet even as he watched, the blood flow slowed, and stopped. The raw wound began to close, the ragged edges sealing together, and within a few minutes, there was nothing left to tell that there had ever been w wound save for the blood staining her clothes and skin.

Quatre took a deep breath, letting it all out at once with a puff. This was some sort of magic, he knew, but it didn't seem to be the kind worked with spells and potions. More like natural powers. Inherited from Meiran's lineage perhaps...though exactly what that was, he wasn't quite sure anymore.

"What's their conditions?" Heero suddenly spoke up from behind him, causing him to jump slightly. Turning, the blond met the soldier's eyes with his own aquamarine gaze.

"They're both...fine" He said after a moment's hesitation.

Heero blinked, and stepped over to look with his own eyes.

"Gods..." He murmured.

...

A night and half a day was how long Duo lay in his cell, at one moment experiencing a burning, ceaseless pain, the next a numbing shock of cold that had his senses reeling with more pain.

He was beginning to loose it, and he could tell, even through the haze his mind had been enveloped by. He was shaking horribly, unable to sleep, unable to even sit up. Movement brought pain, and not moving brought more.

Then it ended, so suddenly that he didn't even notice for quite a time. His shuddering convulsions eased gradually, and he began to see, and feel what was happening around him once more.

He was lying on the small cot -how the hell had he gotten there?- and someone was moving in the semi-darkness afforded by the sunlight streaming down from the tunnel opening.

"..W...who's..there?" He whispered, swallowing as he felt the dry harsh rasp of his own voice.

A surprisingly cheerful looking face and figure came into his view.

A young man of middling age, with short, choppy brown hair, and the deepest brown eyes strode over to bend over the braided youth.

He would have been unremarkable save for two things.

The wildcat styled black markings than ran over every visible bit of skin, including his face in a rather beautiful pattern, and the twin feline ears that peeked out from the thick brown hair, twitching back and forth to catch every sound seemingly of their own accord, also patterned to match the young man's skin.

"How ya doing?" He asked jovially, flashing a smile, slightly elongated canines just visible.

"The name's Solo."

-----------------------------------

Weee! I churned out this chapter much faster then the previous...what, four chapters?

I just got a urge to write, and there it is, all pretty and nice, and readable ^_^

Ooooh...just a few more days until shit hits the fan. Excuse the French.

Hope you guys are still enjoying this.

Ciao

-Hseru

Review; Review!!!!?