Heading towards the end. Only a couple more chapters and an epilogue to go.
Part 12 of 15?
Shinigami ran to Nataku. Grimly he pushed aside all thoughts of what he had done and what the consequences would probably be. With one move he had saved his love's life, but more than likely destroyed his own. Kami-sama was not going to take his actions lightly, and the punishment would probably be severe. However, as long as he knew Duo was safe, he could and would deal with the results of his actions. *After* Duo was safe.
The first priority was to get an antidote to the poison eating away at his priest. Luckily, Thanatos himself had given him the answer to that one. Without the name of the poison, the God of Death would have had to go to a major Healing God, describe the symptoms, then wait around while they figured out what it might be and how to counteract it. Not to mention all the kowtowing and bargaining he would have had to do. With the information given to him he was able to ask a minor god who owed him a favor to get the antidote. There was also a smaller chance of Kami-sama being able to get hold of him in the time he spent at the Healing temple.
The next question was whether the other pilots should go with him. His first thought was no, it was too dangerous for mortals. Then he reconsidered. There was no doubt in his mind that he could take Thanatos; finding him might be more of a problem. He couldn't use any of his major powers without advertising his location and Thanatos would have his place blocked against anything less. He also wasn't exactly sure where Thanatos' home was and without access to the computer system...
Shinigami made up his mind quickly. It took a very frustrating couple of hours to gather everything he thought he would need. Somehow or other, he had never considered that he'd have to use his infiltration skills as a Gundam pilot in Heaven.
Finally he was as ready as he could get. Nataku took him back to Earth. Taking a deep breath, Wufei Chang walked into the safe house.
"Wufei!" Quatre called out as soon as he saw him. "What's going on? Where's Duo? What's happening with Death? The world's going crazy! Nobody's dying, so a lot of people are just trying to kill each other and you've got people just hanging around with these awful wounds!" He shuddered.
The other two pilots had come running at Quatre's call of the fifth pilot's name. "Where's Duo?" asked Heero as soon as Quatre stopped to take a breath.
"I'm not sure," Wufei admitted. "I need your help."
"You have it," Trowa answered immediately.
Wufei glanced around and got a nod from Heero and an "Of course," from Quatre. Bending down, he opened the bag he brought in with him. The first thing he pulled out was a laptop. He handed it to Heero. "This has an Ethernet connection to our main computer system, unfortunately my password isn't working right now. All we need is coordinates to Thanatos' home. Think you can do it?"
Heero took the laptop. "Mission accepted."
"If you have trouble, look for a guy in cyberspace who calls himself the CyberLord. He's a techno god with a real soft spot for hackers. He'll probably help, simply because no mortal has ever hacked Heaven's system." Heero nodded absently, already deep in his work.
Wufei turned to look at Quatre. "Once we get there I might be able to help you focus your space heart to actually find Duo. The problem is that Thanatos is a god of both pain and death and he enjoys them both immensely. It's not going to be a nice place for an empath."
Quatre's gaze was steady. "I'll do what is necessary to save Duo."
Wufei smiled slightly. He had expected nothing less. He bent down to the bag again. He pulled out three guns.
"I know you'd prefer your own weapons, but the minions Thanatos has are already dead, so normal guns won't work on them. The bullets in these should work on anything that isn't a god or major demon." He handed them out.
"Once we get to Duo, I'll take care of Thanatos. Heero, Quatre, you two will run interference for both Trowa and me. I can take Thanatos, but I'd prefer to do it without being distracted by others."
"And me?" Trowa asked.
In answer, Wufei very gently pulled out a vial from inside his jacket. He handed it to Trowa, who took it just as gently. "Once we get there, I need you to get this to Duo. It's the antidote for the poison." He pulled out another vial with a slightly glowing golden liquid inside and handed that over as well. "That's a healing draught. It should heal the damage the poison left. But you've got to give him the antidote first. The healing draught would heal the damage, but without the antidote, the poison would still be in his system and would start doing damage again."
Trowa nodded his understanding and carefully put away the vials.
Quatre and Trowa settled down on the couch as Wufei started pacing. They all knew there was nothing they could do until Heero managed to get them a location for their mission objective. The idea that Heero might fail was quickly shoved away.
"Will you answer some questions?" Quatre asked the pacing god softly.
Wufei turned to look at him. "Ask," he replied shortly.
"What happened to Death?" the blond asked, repeating one of the questions that had been pushed aside earlier.
Wufei sank into a chair and sighed. "I stopped it." He looked up at the other pilots. "I knew there was no way I could stop Thanatos from where I was, so I stopped Death. All of it."
"And Kami-sama let you?"
Wufei shrugged. "I didn't exactly ask for permission. I know he's not exactly happy about it though. Why do you think I can't use any of my major powers or even my password?"
"But... he's Kami-sama," somehow Quatre managed to imply with that statement that Kami-sama was supposed to be all knowing.
"He is," Wufei answered gently. "But he's also the All Father. He understands what I'm doing, and as long as I don't do something that the other high hierarchy gods can track, he'll let me finish what I started. As long as it doesn't take too long. He's got to worry about the humans as well, you know."
"So you're not really in trouble?" Quatre asked hopefully.
"I'm very much in trouble," Wufei answered sadly. "Regardless of why I did it, what I did was forbidden. Mortals are suffering because of my actions. Once we find Duo, I'm going to have to return to Heaven."
Looking into his eyes, Quatre didn't even need his space heart to read the ancient pain looking back at him. He gasped in sympathy and understanding. "You... you won't be coming back from that will you? But... but what about Duo?"
Wufei sighed, noticing the others were looking at him sharply. Even Heero had raised his head from the laptop. "Only Kami-sama knows."
Silence hung over the room for a long moment. Finally Trowa broke it. "Are you going to kill Thanatos?"
Wufei looked up from his contemplation. "Hmm? No, unfortunately it's forbidden to kill a god, and that's one law that Kami-sama would not overlook. He will be punished though, once I pass sentence on him, only Kami-sama would be able to break it. I'm just not sure what to do with him yet."
"I've got a few ideas," Heero muttered, proving that he could indeed hear things while on the computer.
"Don't forget, he's a god of pain, painful tortures wouldn't work on him too well, and I'm not allowed to take him from his job either. I need something that would humiliate him as well as torture him. Like having to watch Barney 24 hours a day."
"Make him wear pink," Quatre suggested, giggling. "He'd be a lot less scary that way."
"Make him paint the walls of his castle with cute little scenes," was Trowa's suggestion.
"Make him sing 'I'm a Little Teapot' with the motions whenever he goes to torture someone," Heero threw in.
Everyone turned to stare at him, then shook their heads and went back to what they were doing.
"Ooh, ooh, I know! Use the Ultimate Torture! Give him exactly what he wanted, heal Duo up, make sure Thanatos can't hurt him and leave him there for a week!" Quatre bounced up in his seat, grinning.
"Wouldn't that count as cruel and unusual punishment?" Heero smirked.
"It would be 'Justice'," Trowa suggested with a hint of a grin at using Wufei's pet phrase. "And I have little doubt that he'd be returned the minute Thanatos was allowed to."
Wufei glared at the other pilots, hiding the twinkle in his eyes. "Are you saying there's something wrong with my boyfriend?" he growled. "And Quatre, that's no where near the Ultimate Torture."
Quatre started to pout.
"The Ultimate Torture would be leaving Duo there for a week with an unlimited supply of double espresso and pixie sticks."
Eyes went wide as the other pilots tried to imagine that, and even Heero shuddered in horror. A pissed off Duo on a permanent caffeine and sugar high? Quatre whimpered and snuggled deeper into Trowa's arms.
Into the horrified silence, Heero's words dropped. "I've found him."