After Dark
Part VII
By Mieren
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
"A… vampire?" Trowa asked slowly. When Heero nodded, he went silent and withdrew slightly. Quatre frowned.
"Are you serious, Heero?" the blond asked. He clenched his teeth when he only received a stiff nod.
"Are you insane?" Wufei sputtered. "There's no such thing, Yuy!"
"He was a quadriplegic only yesterday. You admitted yourself that he didn't seem to care if he was shot. He was jumping off of buildings, over walls and onto trucks. You even witnessed me shooting him in the head and you saw for yourselves that he wasn't even fazed," Heero said calmly, staring the other three pilots down. "What else would you conclude?"
"There's no such thing," Wufei repeated sullenly.
"There is," Heero snapped. "I've been hunting them for years now. I know how to recognize them."
"I can understand hunting them," Trowa murmured. "But why Duo? He's on our side and he doesn't seem dangerous from what Wufei said."
"That will change," Heero growled. "Part of the transformation includes a shift of personalities. He'll become violent."
"This is ludicrous, Yuy," Wufei snapped. "No one at Oz was gnawing on him!"
"What about Wufei?" Quatre asked suddenly, going very pale.
Wufei froze, eyes growing wide. One hand slapped the teeth marks on his neck and he edged away from Heero slightly. Heero glanced at him and shrugged dismissively.
"It's not very easy to turn someone. Usually blood transfusions are needed. If biting someone could do it, there wouldn't be many people left," he said stiffly. Wufei looked at him strangely, cocking his head to the side slightly.
"Then how was he turned?" he asked softly.
"I don't know how or when, but biting you must have triggered his transformation," Heero answered, glaring at the Chinese pilot.
"How long before he's dangerous?" Trowa asked. Quatre elbowed him.
"I don't know," Heero admitted, looking out the window sadly.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Only a few miles down the road, Duo pulled the car he was driving off the road and into the trees, killing the engine once he was out of sight. He sat limply in the driver's seat, draped over the steering wheel as tried to think. Heero had shot him, several times, and he wasn't hurt. His mind drifted back to Oz and the injuries he had accumulated there. He was unable to make sense of the situation and it scared him. He raised his head and flopped back in the seat, staring at the roof of the car as though it would impart some great secret to him. None came.
He had heard Heero's response to the other pilots' inquiries even as he was speeding down the road. The blood transfusion comment had confused him. The only transfusions he had received had been from Quatre's medical staff. Surely they couldn't be to blame. They wouldn't do something like that intentionally and it was unlikely that they had stumbled onto a blood donation from a vampire. His eyes narrowed in sudden understanding and he scowled openly. He was distracted before he could think further on his realization.
For several minutes, he had heard his friends arguing before they fell into silence at Heero's final pronouncement. He was going to go insane. Even without having heard that statement, Duo would have concluded he was going mad just from the mere fact he could hear his friends at this distance from them.
His friends. Duo rolled his head to the side and glanced into the night. Heero had tried to kill him. After what the other three had heard, he didn't doubt that Trowa and Wufei would be willing to kill him as well. He wasn't sure about Quatre. The blond was the most sensitive and innocent of the group, but he was still a gundam pilot. That made him dangerous.
Feeling hollow, Duo got out of the car, wondering what he was supposed to do now. A sudden urge to run rampant through the Oz ranks until someone managed to kill him came to mind. He almost laughed aloud when he realized he was actually considering doing it.
Duo started walking aimlessly, absently rubbing at the dried blood covering him from head to foot. He wondered dryly if the other pilots had started looking for him yet or if they were still talking about him. Realization struck and Duo frowned. He couldn't hear them anymore. He concentrated on the other four pilots, gasping as an image suddenly came to mind.
Quatre was sitting in a rickety old chair, the only one still standing after the battle between Heero and Duo had ended. He was trying very hard to hide the fact that he was crying. Trowa was standing beside him, his visible green eye flickering occasionally out the window. Heero was gathering weapons and finishing splintering the already broken chairs into workable stakes. Wufei was nowhere to be seen.
Irritated, Duo shifted his gaze, reflexively reaching up to scrub his bangs out of his eyes like he did when he was annoyed. A hand came into view and he nearly cried out, barely silencing himself in time. Instead of a shocked bark, a choked noise sounded in the back of his throat. Quatre's gaze seemed to settle on him.
"Are you okay, Wufei?" the blond asked softly, scrubbing at his eyes.
"Fine," Duo answered, hearing Wufei's voice form the words.
"You know it's necessary," Trowa said in a soft voice, wincing slightly when Quatre glared at him angrily, tears clouding his aquamarine eyes.
Duo wasn't paying attention to them. He was careful to keep the Chinese pilot's face blank of any emotion, but inside he was shocked to the core. He was in control of the raven-haired pilot. It took several moments to compose his mind before he could turn to face Heero, who was on his way out the door.
"Where are you going?" Duo asked.
"After Duo," Heero snarled, glaring at him suspiciously. "I've already told you that!"
"Kisama," Duo snarled, glaring right back. He was worried that he had accidentally tipped off the astute Japanese pilot. "I know that! But WHERE?"
Heero paused to consider, before shrugging. "Deathscythe," he responded. "He's bound to go for his gundam when he calms down."
"You really intend to go through with this, Heero?"
Heero looked at him strangely, considering. Making up his mind, he scowled blackly and stalked over to deck Wufei, knocking out the smaller Chinese pilot. Blackness crept into Duo's vision. The last thing he caught was Heero's angry response.
"He already asked me that, Duo."
Gasping, Duo jerked into awareness, realizing that he was lying on the ground in the middle of the woods. Cursing darkly, he scrambled to his feet and ran for his gundam where it was hidden several miles away. He would be able to cover the distance in the matter of a few minutes and escape with it before Heero could get there.
"Screw them!" Duo hissed, speeding up slightly. "If they don't want to work with me anymore, I'll fight solo! I don't need them!" Despite his tirade, he fervently hoped that Wufei hadn't gotten hurt because of him.
He reached the cave that he had just barely managed to stuff Deathscythe into, scrambling for the cockpit and launching. He flipped on his cloaking abilities and radar blockers, knowing that Heero would try to follow him.
After setting his course and engaging the autopilot, Duo tried to relax into the chair to sleep. He would need to be well rested before the next night when he confronted the purple-haired bastard that had given him that injection of blood plasma.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
"Heero!" Quatre cried out, running to interfere with the larger Japanese pilot when he pointed his gun at Wufei. "What are you doing?"
"Duo has control of him," Heero snapped, shoving the blond away from him. "Wufei never repeats himself. And he's never called me by my first name." Trowa stopped him before he could attempt to fire a second time. "Duo must have unintentionally bonded Wufei when he bit him."
"If that's true, then he'll be fine once you kill Duo," the brunette stated bluntly.
"Trowa!" Quatre wailed. "You can't! Duo didn't ask to be attacked!" Trowa stared at the ground, unable to meet the blonde's azure eyes. "Heero, you can't do this! It's not his fault!"
"A dog's not to blame when it goes rabid," Heero snapped, finally abandoning his efforts to kill the Chinese pilot. "But you still shoot it."
Trowa flinched at Heero's choice of words, but remained silent. Heero suddenly stalked to the window, ignoring Quatre's stuttered protests. He squinted against the darkness and scowled at the small flicker of light he saw vanish into the sky.
"What is it?" Trowa asked.
"He escaped in Deathscythe," Heero spat. "Now he'll be almost impossible to find."
"Good," Quatre said angrily. Heero rounded on him, bristling. "You have no right to kill him, Heero. He hasn't done anything wrong."
"Quatre," Heero started warningly. He was stopped by a groggy question.
"How?"
Heero immediately spun on his toes, gun once again aimed at Wufei's head. Quatre got in the way, glaring into cobalt eyes when the gun wasn't lowered. Unable to stand by silently any longer, Trowa wrapped his hand around the barrel of Heero's gun and pulled it to the side slightly.
"How?" Wufei repeated, oblivious to the transaction taking place in front of him. His eyes remained locked onto some point on the floor only he could see. "How did he do that, Yuy? How did he control me like that?"
"You didn't resist when he bit you," Heero snapped, yanking his gun out of Trowa's grasp impatiently. "That allows him to turn you into his slave if he wishes it."
"But Duo wouldn't…" Quatre started to object, trailing off when Heero glared at him.
"I doubt he even knew what he was doing," Heero snapped. "But it's too late. Wufei is his slave now." All the blood drained from Wufei's face. "The only way to reverse it is to kill Duo."
"You're not killing Duo," Quatre protested.
"I could shoot Wufei instead," Heero hissed. He glanced at the gun still in his hand before returning his gaze to the Chinese pilot on the floor. "He's a liability now."
"Is there any way I could just prevent him from doing that?" Wufei asked, still not looking up. "Can't I fight back?"
"No."
"I want to know how you know all of this," Trowa said quietly. Heero's eyes flashed with anger for an instant before he sighed and nodded.
"L1 is crawling with them," he answered. "I've been fighting them my entire life." He suddenly grinned nastily. "I'd have thought you of all people would understand, Trowa. After all, L3 is infested with werewolves."
Quatre gasped and stepped away from the brunette, staring at him wide-eyed. Wufei looked up at him wearily, no longer caring if what Heero was insinuating was true. He was still in shock from all that had happened. Trowa stared back impassively, crossing his arms in a direct challenge.
"What of it?" he asked blandly. Quatre moved several paces further away from him, his aquamarine eyes growing wild. "I've killed more of them than I can count. I never said I didn't understand your motives. I was simply unaware of the existence of vampires and I know very little of them beyond a few rumors and legends."
Heero nodded, accepting his answer.
"Kill them with wood," he said quickly, glancing out the window again in the direction he had seen Duo flying. "The sheer amount of damage they can recover from makes most other injuries a waste of your time."
"Silver?" Trowa asked. Heero shook his head.
"Won't do a thing."
"Garlic?" the brunette pilot tried again. Heero actually laughed.
"I'd like to find the idiot that started that rumor and hand them to a vampire. The only way garlic will kill a vampire is if they die laughing at whoever brandishes it at them."
"Crosses? Holy water?"
"If that worked, the cross on Duo's neck would have already killed him."
"Sunlight?" Trowa asked, growing frustrated at how little he knew. He continued to ignore the glares Quatre was issuing both of them. Heero nodded.
"That will work if you can stay alive long enough for the sun to rise," he said. "Fire will work as well. Decapitation is a sure kill." He looked at Trowa curiously. "What about your side? I've never fought a wolf."
"Severe allergy to silver, but it's not a sure kill," Trowa rattled off dryly. "Just inflict a mass amount of damage if you want to kill one. Beheading is usually implemented to ensure a kill. Disembowelment usually works well. Transformation is voluntary. The full moon has nothing to do with it. And it's highly contagious, even from a dead wolf."
Heero nodded stiffly. "That's the same as I've heard before from other sources." He didn't elaborate on his sources and the other pilots knew better than to question him. "Are there any on Earth?"
"If I knew of any, I'd have already responded accordingly," Trowa responded wryly.
Heero nodded again. "Fair enough."
"Duo's mission," Wufei spoke up suddenly, drawing everyone's attention. "We found him nearly dead in a phone booth. He refused to tell us what happened."
"What are you babbling about?" Heero snapped.
"His arm," Wufei said suddenly. "He was given an injection of some sort. That's when it happened. He's going back to confront whoever did it."
"How do you know?" Trowa asked slowly. Heero cursed loudly.
"Duo must have realized it," Heero explained tensely. "His mind is bonded to Wufei's and until Duo learns to block his thoughts, Wufei will hear some of them."
"Great," Wufei groaned.
"Where is he?" Heero asked, oblivious to the dazed pilot's unease.
"Tokyo," Wufei answered immediately. Heero scowled.
"I know that much! We found him there, remember?"
"A small nightclub downtown," Wufei elaborated. His brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to sift through Duo's hectic thoughts. "He's after someone named Xellos."
"Shit!" Heero and Trowa cried in unison. The two pilots exchanged knowing looks while Quatre and Wufei watched them in confusion.
"Xellos," Trowa hissed, starting to pace. He didn't notice how badly he was frightening Quatre by pacing, something he had never done before.
"How in the hell did that baka find him?" Heero ground out. He swore again and punched the wall. Wufei jumped slightly at the sound and looked up from where he was still sitting on the floor.
"G sent Duo to kill him," Wufei said numbly.
"G is a dead man," Heero snapped.
"See if you can help Duo," Trowa said suddenly, heading for the door. "I'll meet you there."
"Where are you going?" Heero asked suspiciously.
"I'm going to contact the mercenaries I traveled with a few years ago," Trowa answered in his usual monotone. "I hunted wolves with them. They'll be useful in a battle like this." Heero nodded stiffly.
"I'll set up a signal for you to home in on," he said.
"Only do it if you have the time. I can find you."
Heero glanced at him warily but didn't voice his thoughts. Grunting, he gathered his weapons and laptop in a matter of seconds before heading for his gundam. Wufei was on his feet and heading for the door on his heels, leaving Quatre alone in the safe house. Sighing, the little blond followed them, hoping he could prevent them from killing Duo while they leveled part of Tokyo.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
To Be Continued…
Okay now… I'm getting mean here and I know it. But things must get worse before they can get better. I'm just evil like that. Oh, and updates are going to slow a bit further. Work and all, you understand… I'll write whenever I can, but it's going to take me awhile. Soothe my poor, broken mind. R&R!