MISSION SPECS 06: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
St. Louis. Hot in summer, cold in winter, with seasons and rain instead of just sun and heat. The man who had just disembarked the plane crinkled his nose distastefully at the wavering heat lines in the air. Why anyone would want to live in this freakish place was beyond the range of his limited comprehension.
Unfortunately, the woman known as Anita Blake did live in this city, and refused to leave it out of paranoia and suspicion.
A damn smart woman, in his opinion.
The man of whom we speak is well over the six foot mark, and noticeably of Asian decent. His messy brown hair hid his blue eyes, aided by dark sunglasses. Pilot oh-one, Heero Yuy, had not believed Duo Maxwell— more appropriately, Duo Peacecraft— when the young man had spoken of necromancy and lycanthropy, of vampires and lost souls remaining tied to Earth. Heero had dismissed those tales as fanciful lies.
Duo was dead now.
Heero was a werewolf. There had to be some irony in that, but Heero was too drained to find it.
"Heero." He turned to face his companion. Chang Wufei held a similar look of contempt for the oppressive heat. The Chinese man laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "The Ulfric out hear will tell us how to find Anita Blake, and we can finally know something about him. What exactly is the Ulfric's name?"
"Richard Zeeman. He's a middle school science teacher." Wufei's eyebrows receded into his hairline. There was no set law prohibiting a lycanthrope from performing a specific job, but modern prejudices and parental anxiety usually kept those who grow fur and fangs away from careers such as teaching and the medical field.
"It's possible that we won't hear what we want to hear, you know that." It was not a question that Wufei directed to Heero, but more of a gentle reprimand— a reminder not to let his hopes get to high. Heero nodded in response.
"I know," Heero muttered, "but if there's the slightest chance that he could possibly forgive us...
"I just want to know the truth."
(Scene Change)
Duo backed away from the approaching figure slowly. "Hey, look, I'm really sorry, okay? I'll make it up to you, I swear. I'm really not looking for trouble at the moment." He tried snorting back a laugh at the situation. For every step he went backwards, the figure crept menacingly forwards. "I'll...I'llllll buy you a new one!"
"A new one? A new freakin' one!" Cherry snarled, "There is no new one. This was a rare Dark Sage card, only three of these were ever printed! It would cost thousands of dollars for a new one, millions maybe!" She was almost at the point of hyperventilating.(SS- I know y'all didn't see that coming!)
Nathaniel coughed slightly. "It's only a little wet, couldn't you, I don't know, iron it or something?" She turned the full force of her glare on him, nostrils flaring furiously. "Just a suggestion!"
Cherry opened her mouth to say something, but was halted when Richard plucked the card from her fingers. He examined it closely, turning it to look at the back.
"This," he declared, "is a fake." The blonde leopard puffed up in outrage.
"What!" Cherry squawked. "That's a lie, I—"
"The kids in my class play this YuGiOh!™ game all the time, I have to confiscate the cards when they think they can get away with playing in class." Richard interrupted. "One wa you can tell if it's real or not is looking at the back. Real cards have the brand Konami™ in the top right corner. Yours," he turned the card over to point, "doesn't have the brand on it."
Cherry deflated, tears welling up in her huge brown eyes. Both Nathaniel and Duo rushed to her, cooing comforting words at her, enveloping her in their strong embrace. They glared at Richard as threateningly as possible, which, in the older male's eyes, was actually quite adorable. They petted her gently, leading her to her room. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks. She whispered, "it's real, it has to be real," brokenly over and over.
Damien, the red-haired vampire who had to live with all this and had been watching this spectacle in silence, turned around, and went back to his basement apartment.
Idiocy and weirdness were obviously contagious, and right now, Damien didn't want to catch either.
(Scene Break)
Was everyone crazy in this damned place?
The Ulfric of St. Louis didn't have a lupa, in standard sense. He did, however, have an extremely powerful vampire that he was boffing. An extremely powerful, male, vampire, who happened to be the second-in-command for the Master of the City. There was something wrong with that in Heero's mind, but what could it be?
Oh yes. An alpha was sleeping with a vampire. An alpha was reduced to coffin bait, and yet, the pack didn't seem to care. They seemed to, dare he say it?, rejoice in it. They had, apparently, seen pretty much everything out here, and since the wolves were the animal to call for the Master of the City, it didn't matter much to them anymore.
Or maybe they were all just on some really good drugs.
And they were on extremely good terms with the Nimir-Ra and Nimir-Raj of the leopards. Someone, Heero thought his name was Stephan, mentioned that the Nimir-Ra had been their lupa a few years back, but that was just crazy-talk! Everyone knew that you couldn't be a wolf AND a leopard at the same time. It was as impossible as a were being a necromancer at the same time. (Duo- What a moron.)
The meeting at the lupanar had been...different, to say the least. Wufei and Heero had arrived at the meeting suddenly, only to find that it was ending.
(Flashback)
"Fine mess you've gotten us in, Yuy," Wufei wheezed. His windpipe was currently being crushed by a black man with long cornrowed hair. They hadn't even made it fully to the meeting place before they had been accosted; Heero was being held by a powerful alpha with honey-brown hair.
"Who are you?" the black man growled. He exerted the tiniest amount of pressure, but Wufei winced anyways; the man had turned his nails into claws, as some of the more powerful alphas were able to do.
Fuck.
"Heero Yuy, and Wufei Chang," Heero breathed in response. "We request an audience with the Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan." He was promptly dropped to the ground, as was Wufei.
"You're in luck then," the brunet chuckled, "I'm Richard Zeeman, Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan. This is my Skoll, Jamil." The black man nodded at them warily. "What did you need from me?"
"A friend of ours was killed a few years back," Wufei explained hesitantly, "but the body was never found. We'd heard rumor that you knew the Exterminator, and that she was a powerful necromancer..."
"So y'all want Anita to bring this kid back?" Jamil inquired. Heero shook his head vehemently.
"God no! We'd like her to recommend a clairvoyant for us, or a medium," he said hastily. "We'd just like to get in touch with him, make sure he's happy."
(End Flashback)
Richard had told them where Anita's daytime office, said to stop by around three pm. Which is where he and Wufei were waiting right now. The secretary, Mary, waved them down the hall as she finished speaking with Ms. Blake, Wufei coated in pure white, Heero in black and blue.
He felt a strange sense of deja vu at the situation, but couldn't understand why.
The two stood in front of a door reading 'Blake & Blake'. Both could hear two laughing voices inside, one male, one female, but too low to be distinctive. Heero assumed that the female voice was Anita Blake, but who could the other person be? He felt an unexpected wave of anxiety wash over him. This was it. This was the woman who could help them find Duo.
"You'll probably back here tomorrow night when she turns you away," Richard said with a feral grin. "Or you might not be crying. I'll tell you right now, Heero Yuy and Wufei Chang, Anita will be wanting to meet you."
Still trying to puzzle out the cryptic message, Heero nodded to his friend, a tacit acknowledgment to push the door open.
The owners of the voices were faced away from the former Gundam pilots, so the first thing they actually saw was the braid. A thick chestnut rope coiled like a sleeping serpent upon the desk. Heero knew that braid. Had seen it every night in his dreams for the last five years. That braid was supposed to be dead. He could see the shock on Wufei's as well.
So surprised were they to see that braid, that Heero blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, just to be sure that this was real, that this was not some elaborately planned hell designed especially for him. "What is your status oh-two?"
The braid snapped up and back as the head controlling it whipped forward to face his voice. Wide eyes filled with terror became impossibly wider at the sight before him. Oh God, those eyes...
Violet eyes...
Duo's eyes.
"Duo!" Wufei choked out hoarsely, joyously. Duo was alive, dear Gods, Duo was alive! They both took a few steps forward, and Heero knew immediately that that had been a mistake.
A thin keening wail began as Duo scrabbled away from the ghosts of his past, his old tormentors. His eyes were wild as he searched for all possible escape routes. The woman— Heero was now certain that this was Anita Blake— caught Duo in a strong embrace, whispering soft, calming words of comfort at him while she leveled a gun at the former pilots before her.
"I think," she said, her voice slow with a simmering fury, "that you boys need to go back to the reception area and wait for my son and I to calm down, because I will kill you if you don't. These are silver bullets, and I never miss.
"Ever."
MISSION SPECS 06 STATUS: COMPLETE
SS- I'm sorry, I just finished editing. I am betaless, because I don't know quite what a beta does, but it should still be clear.
MISSION SPECS 06B: THE FACE
It's too much sometimes.
Looking at Quatre in the mirror and seeing a face that isn't his. A face that is constantly bruised and scarred, each wound as dark as his violet eyes. Eyes dark with fear and sorrow, but not hatred. Never hatred.
Those who are truly innocent don't understand hate. They know anger, vengeance, the need for whatever caused their anger and loss to be destroyed; hate is simply beyond their comprehension. They don't know the heady rush of power that follows, the enjoyment of causing pain.
Once upon a time, Quatre and I were innocent.
Once upon a time, a boy named Duo Maxwell was tortured, beaten, raped, and sneered at. It never occurred to me that he could have ben the one telling the truth. I only knew that Heero said that he made Quatre cry. I chose to believe that Duo, sweet, smiling, forever laughing Duo, was laughing because of the pain he'd inflicted on Quatre. I couldn't bear it, I hated it, hated him.
I made sure it would always hurt when he smiled. I carved his face, as if I were a master painter and the knife was my brush, so that Duo would always smile, a grim mockery of his smile.
I never actually raped Duo; I just came on his back. Whenever Quatre had finished rubbing salt into his scriptures, we would jack each other off, laughing at the sight of his flaming blood mixed with our essence. It's not that fine of a distinction from rape. I only say that so I can continue to sleep.
Not that I'm sleeping well in any case. The memories under the guise of nightmares make sure of that.
Relena hates us. In fact, anyone who had ties to us during the wars wishes that we had been the ones to die at OZ. Even the good doctors now have reason to despise us, their favored pets.
"What kind of sick freaks are you, that you get your jollies off of someone else's pain. Aren't you supposed to be the good guys! Last I checked, good guys don't go around torturing people for no reason! Absolutely disgusting! Did you even think to listen to him?"
That had been Hilde, after Relena had delivered her the news. To be completely honest, we had listened to him. Scream, shout, curse, explain. We just ignored it.
After all, who would you believe? Duo, who supposedly never lies, but has in truth been lying about everything? Or Heero, the Perfect Soldier, who has no other objective but to accomplish the mission and protect Relena.
If it had surprised us to learn that Zechs and Relena were related, imagine the shock when she told us, including Zechs, that Duo was also her brother. Of course, the ever perfect Zechs wasn't that surprised, oh no; he just mentioned in passing how well we would have done in the OZ ranks. He hadn't meant it as a compliment, nor did we take it as such. In fact, Wufei had tried to punch him before the Vice-Minister threw us out.
If there are any gods out there, they hate us too. To destroy such a perfectly innocent boy like Duo has to be a most heinous offense to them. But haven't we been punished long enough? Quatre cries himself to sleep, commonly to wake up screaming. I know for a fact that on separate occasions, both Heero and Wufei have tried to kill themselves. The only reason why they're actually still alive is because instead of getting eaten, a random lycanthrope infected them with the disease. Both of them transform at will into wolves.
And I? I, who am haunted by his frail frame and broken limbs? I, who look at Quatre while we make love with guilt as I remember that we killed the spirit of a man, and laughed at the time? I, who see night after night, the pain and horror in Catherine's eyes when she realized that yes, I did everything Relena said I had done? Have we been punished enough? Have I been punished enough?
No. Despite what we tell ourselves now, we were, and continue to be, guilty parties.
Once upon a time, Duo Maxwell took a suicidal mission to escape from us.
He succeeded.
MISSION SPECS 06B STATUS: COMPLETE
SS- Okay, I know y'all wanted Wufei to go first, but won't his pain be worth it? I mean, look at what I've done to Trowa, I made him slightly eloquent.
Kali- Holy crap. That's more than Trowa's ever said in a lifetime!
Athena- Seriously, curb your excitement.
SS- In regards to some comments that need to be commented on, we believe Duo over Heero any given day. None of the G-boys had a real reason for hating Duo, but Wufei and Heero are the ones who need to take most of the blame. They did what they did for no reason, but they lied to Quatre and Trowa because it's easier to take someone down four against one.
Review Responses! (Woot!)
Akane The Fox- Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
Miss Macabre- Thank you!
Niharana- Thanks very much!
Inwitari- Thanks a lot! .
ShadoweGoddess- Alrighty...thank you!
The wolf fox hybrid- Sarcasm has no real effect on me. Thank you very much!
Duo- And I'd love to have a new flamethrower. Shini broke my old one.
Yaeko- sorry to disappoint you, but I hope you enjoyed Trowa's POV
Tatsu Satsuki- So glad to hear you liked it! Did I make them bastard-y enough for you. I hate torturing Duo like this, but something similar to revenge will be had soon enough. Thank you for your kindness Tatsu-san!
SS- whoo! Chapter six is done, look out for the next one! Wufei is on the chopping block!
All- Read and Review! Bai-bai-buu!
Shinigami's Sister