Author’s Note: This is an AU fic. It involves two of every pilot. It starts out fairly sketchy but I think you’ll like it. This fic does contain some yaoi implications, as well as a little violence and angst, but, hey, some parts are really kind of funny. There is also a bit of language here and there, sorry, it couldn’t be helped. Relena does, as is usually the case with my fics, get bashed and/or is a total b***h, so this is not for those of you that love her. Just for a change of pace in this fic, Heero will not be paired with Duo. That would just be too obvious.
Please enjoy this fic.
�-� GC �-�
/…../ = inner thoughts
"….." = speech
`…..` = sounds
^-^ _-_ �-� �-� = faces like these will show up repeatedly before and after flashbacks
/blah, blah, blah/ = narrative(must be italicized)
BC(That’s right BC) 1960 (Some place mythical. Just pick a place and watch the fun.)
/He had to keep after the sorcerer. Couldn’t stop, not now. That man had killed more people in one hour than the plague had the year before. And he was going to make that him to pay. Yes, he would pay dearly./
The braided farm boy ran faster, swinging the harvesting scythe he carried for all he was worth. They were deeper into the forest now and it was harder to see the murderer. His bare feet stung as they were pricked by unruly thorns and twigs, but he continued on. That man had destroyed his home, his family, and had almost killed Hilde, his best friend. He would be brought to justice. He almost stopped short at this thought. Damn he hated Wufei sometimes.
`fwapp`
The boy was suddenly pulled from his thoughts to see that the man had fallen to the ground. Instantly, Duo jumped him; pinning his back to the ground even as he struggled. As he pulled back the dark hood that covered the man’s face, Duo’s eyes visibly widened in shock. The crowned prince of Sanq? The very ruler of his own homeland had done this? But… why?
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His hands had worked automatically. He knew he had lost control of his body long ago. Knew he had lost control of his soul along with it. But, he was sure that someway, somehow he would get them back. Yeah, right. Thanks to his stupidity, hundreds of people had just lost their lives. Hundreds more would in the future if he wasn’t stopped. That’s why he had tripped, for he had wanted the boy to catch up. If that boy could only kill or injure him he would never have to take a life again. Never. And he wanted that to happen.
The boy had caught him by now; was crouching down to get a closer look at his captive. Miliardo saw the look of surprise on the boy’s face and smiled inwardly. Maybe he’d have a chance to tell someone his story before she found out he had finished his job. Then the wave of pain that always hit him before he was summoned coursed through his body. /No! This can’t happen now! I have to tell someone. I have to stop her. I…/ Miliardo surrendered himself to the pain of the transfer and, with one last sigh, disappeared.
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"What the hell?! Where… where did he go. I know I didn’t do that. Did he make himself disappear? Can someone do that? Why didn’t he just kill me? He could have easily done that…" Duo continued to rave to himself all the way back to the village.
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"Miliardo, what, might I ask, were you planning to tell that boy?" The cold, metallic voice pierced him to the core---it brought with it everything he had ever feared---, and, almost instantly, any bit of courage he had possessed disappeared. "Do I", continued the voice, "need to bring your friend Lucrezia into this, Miliardo. I’m sure if you won’t talk, she’ll be able to convince you."
/I can’t let her hurt Noin. I’ll just tell her what she wants to hear. Then, perhaps, she’ll shut the hell up and leave them be. / "I … I .. I was going to tell him to kill me, mistress."
"Well, my little puppet, we can’t have that happening, now can we? I wouldn’t want my only brother to get hurt, now would I?" She leaned forward and slapped his face. "You still have so many little towns left to destroy, you know? I can’t have you slacking off."
"Relena, why did I have to have a sadistic bitch like you for a frickin’ sister?! You know if you want the throne I’ll give it to you! Just let them go!"
"Fine. If you can get together a reasonable arsenal within five days, and you can defeat me, I’ll rule Sanq, return your soul, and let your friends go. If not, I’ll rule Sanq, return your soul, and all of you will hang on the front lawn of the palace."
Miliardo felt an odd tingling sensation race through his body, followed by the usual searing pain.
"Remember, Miliardo, five days."
And everything went black.
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"I’m not joking you guys. It was the prince, I swear!" A group of four other boys sat around a fire pit inside Duo’s house---Heero, a pay-to-hire soldier without a present job; Wufei, a local metal-smith with an odd flare when it came to martial arts; Trowa, a local minstrel and a Jack-of-all-trades; and Quatre, a well-mannered boy who only wanted to be a healer, or a sorcerer, or maybe a …, but, no, he had to manage his family fortune---, and not a one of them believed his story.
"Are you sure you didn’t imagine it, Duo? I mean, with the trauma of the moment and all, you could have been hallucinating."
"Quatre, I _am _absolutely _sure _of _what _I…
‘WHAM’
"What the hell!"
‘Thumpa, thumpa, thumpa, thumpa, THUMP’
At this point, Duo’s roof decided to break. A darkly clad figure fell through the hole towards the fire, but ultimately landed in Trowa’s lap.
"Uuhhh." The person, because that was definitely what it was, groaned and began to stand, only to collapse onto the floor in front of Trowa. After doing this once more, he finally managed to right himself.
"Thank-you", he muttered to Trowa.
"Excuse me, sir, but can I help you?" Quatre stepped towards the man, and gently removed his cloak. The room was held in silence and then…
"Ha! I told you it was him, but you wouldn’t believe me."
"It can’t be…"
"How…"
"Dear God…"
"…"
Duo mustered all of the courage he had in him for his next question. "Why did you attack our village?"
Miliardo turned to face the boy. "Are you sure you want to know, Duo? Are you sure you want to drag everyone you care for into this war?"
"How … How did you know my name?! What war?! No one’s fighting a war."
"Sir, would it be possible to explain what you mean by that?" asked Quatre.
"Or, you could at least answer our first question." Wufei was growing impatient.
"Very well. I’ll tell you boys everything, even if you regret it.
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Two hours later, the boys were, yet again, in shock. They had just heard the entire story of Miliardo’s life. Of how, when she was only two, his sister, Relena, had been able to change people into pigs. Of how she had "unintentionally" killed their father. Of how she gained more power with each year. Of how he had bartered his soul to save his fianc�e and that of his best friend from her when she wanted them destroyed. And, finally, of how he had been controlled like a marionette and use to destroy their village.
"Don’t worry, Miliardo. We’ll help ya out."
"I don’t know, Duo. If this Relena witch is a strong as he says she is, we will definitely need some heavier machinery."
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AC 196(That’s more like it! ^-^) (All the pilots are in one a Quatre’s mansions repairing their gundams. We see Trowa, oil covered and all around grimy{though still terribly gorgeous}, stepping back to admire his work on Heavyarms.)
/The morning, as usual, had been one where everything happened just like you thought it would: Quatre had been up early making breakfast, though he had hundreds of servants to do it for him; Wufei had gotten pissed-off with Duo by the time he’d had his coffee, so he had gone off to meditate somewhere; Heero had eaten just enough of his breakfast to function, since he hated English muffins and soft-boiled eggs; Trowa, as usual, had altogether skipped breakfast and gone strait to the hanger; and Duo had then left to go "help" Heero(Down hentais. DOWN!). This left Quatre all alone, save the paper, at the breakfast table. Extremely resigned to the thought of eating alone, he hadn’t touched a thing on his plate, but had, instead, gone off to the sunroom to practice his music. This left the one mediator in the house unavailable to solve the many crises that arose, and this, in turn, led to disaster./
"HEEEEEEERROOOOOOOOOO! LET ME ATLEAST HELP YOU, HEERO! COME ON! I PROMISE I WON’T BLOW ANYTHING UP THIS TIME. PLEEEEEAAAAAAAASE?!?!?!?!?!?!? Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, PLEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAASE?!?!?!?!?!?
Trowa noticeably cringed. /Poor Duo. The guy is going to get a serious thrashing from either Heero or Wufei if he doesn’t shut up. Baka./ He decided he’d better go protect Duo from the wrath of the humorless, lest he be the one left to clean the little chunks of the American off of the wall. Placing his tools in the toolbox, he took one last look at Heavyarms, then left, shutting the hanger door behind him. It was going to be a long day.
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/*Twenty-three minutes later* Trowa has taken a well deserved shower and is now going to rescue Duo. Unfortunately for the braided American, Barton will find himself twenty-two minutes too late.(It wouldn’t have taken him that long to take a shower, but Quatre was using it when he got there. I shun those of you who are looking for this to become hentai, because it most certainly will not! Shun! Shun!) I now return you to the fic./
"Ouch! Hey guys! Quit that! HELP! HEERO, MY LEG IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BEND THAT WAY!!"
"Duo, if you had just left me alone, I would not have to do this. If you had just minded your own business, you wouldn’t be in any pain."
"But I was just trying to help you!"
"Well, when you spilled that… that black paint all over Zero’s foot, I looked away, but, this time, you just went to far. Wing looks like something out of a Barbie � catalogue."
"But it looks good in pink, and the paint covers up all the stains! Come on Heero. Untie me. Wufei. Please, make him let me down!"
"There is a pink heart across Nataku’s chest along with a large, butt-naked cherub on its right shoulder. Be glad Yuy got to you before I did. He is a much more forgiving soul when it comes to his suit."
"And this is why he’s bound me up and is hanging me from my ankles and wrists, in my nothing but my boxers, from a meat hook in a giant freezer?!" Duo asked sarcastically, just as Wufei’s katana came up to meet his throat.
"Had it been me, Maxwell, your head would be rolling around the floor of the hanger right now. Be grateful that I would not waste this blade on your throat."
"Thanks for killing my ego in one blow," muttered Duo in a low, sarcastic, and –hopefully –unheard tone.
"I do it with pleasure, Duo. Anytime you want to feel like the fungus we all know you to be, just come and tell me," answered Wufei in an equally wry voice.
"Come on guys, let him down."
"TROWA! You came to rescue me. Thank you soooo much!"
"Actually, Duo, I just came to tell everyone that lunch is ready. We’re having burgers and fries."
"Trowa," said the, until now, silent pilot of Wing, "I hate to say this, but he put pink paint all over our gundams. I don’t really feel like letting him down right now, even if it is time for lunch."
Suddenly the taller boy’s face became even crueler than Heero’s had been a moment earlier as he had been stringing Duo up by his feet; no color was left in his cheeks, his slight grin at Duo’s predicament was gone, as though a dark shadow had descended about him. He became a block of solid ice with only the burning green flames in his eyes to show that he was still alive. "Did you do anything to Heavy Arms?"
"Well.. I… that is… I… um… it’s not noticeable."
"What’s not noticeable!" For the usually silent boy, merely raising his voice seemed to be a shout load enough to shake the very facility they were in to it’s foundations.
"The large, puckering, pink smiley face on its rear with the words ‘kiss me’ underneath it," said Wufei.
"……"
"Uh… um… surprise."
As if in a trance, Trowa stepped forward to pull of the elastic band holding Duo’s braid, which Duo hated having undone. "Well guys," said Trowa, the iciness still eerily present in his voice, even though his expression was now back to its usual, blank, emotionless state, "let’s all go get some lunch."
"Okay," said Wufei and Heero tandem as they all left the freezer, shutting the door even as they heard Duo screaming.
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AC 196 (The past versions of the G-boys are in the future. Yeah! J Unfortunately, they seem to be in the middle of a blizzard. L )
"This is just great, Trowa! I thought your sister’s spell was supposed to lead us to some warriors! Where are we supposed to find them in this blizzard!" /Damn, it’s cold/. Duo couldn’t feel any of his limbs anymore and was starting to loose the ability to even blink his eyes.� Why had he gotten this idea? Ah, yes, he remembered now.
^-^ _-_ �-� �-� ^-^ _-_ �-� �-� ^-^ _-_ �-� �-� ^-^ _-_ �-� �-� ^-^ _-_ �-� �-� ^-^ _-_ �-� �-�
All the pilots were once again assembled in front of the fire pit. Duo had let Miliardo sleep in his bed, and the five of them were basically the only people in town who were awake.
"So how do we get an entire army together in four days?" Wufei was not in the mood to kill himself any time soon.
"We could recruit villagers," piped Quatre.
"Wouldn’t work." Heero did have a point.
"Trowa, doesn’t your sister know some traveling spells?"
"Yeah, why do you ask?"
"Well, we have better weapons than people did a hundred years ago right?"
"Yeah…"
"If we were to, let’s say, go into the future to find warriors there, they would, theoretically, have much more advanced weaponry, right?" Duo continued without allowing the others to answer. "They might have even created weapons that can destroy an entire building without requiring magic."
"And the point of this lecture is?" asked Heero.
"The point is that these weapons could be used by anyone, and if we got the people from the future to come here, they might be able to recreate them."
"And then," finished an already enthusiastic Quatre, " we could blow Relena into oblivion!"
"Exactly! What do you say, guys? How ‘bout it?"
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/…and we all agreed to come here. So in a way, it’s my own fault that my ass is gonna freeze off. How ironic./ They had walking in what seemed to be a small frozen town of oddly constructed houses for about the past ten minutes. And, apparently, they were in for a surprise.
"H… hey… g… gu… guys," stuttered Quatre, "look ov… over…er there."
"Where?"
"There on that hook. There’s a person hanging from it."
"I’ll go over and check ‘em out, Quatre," said Duo as he ran to inspect the body, which was backwards to him. As he got closer, he realized that the person was actually breathing. Whoever it was seemed to be female , for they had long chestnut locks that fell around them in a sort a curtain. /Of course/ he thought, fingering his own braid as he stepped around the figure /it could be a guy, too…/ and that was when he stopped short. He saw, hanging from the hook, that the small, half frozen figure was not only male, but was himself. Duo started to scream.
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/Damn, it’s cold/. Duo couldn’t feel any of his limbs anymore and was starting to loose the ability to even blink. � /When I get outta here, Heero, Wufei, and Trowa are going to pay! Hey what’s that sound behind me? It’s a voice, kinda like Quatre’s. All right! Q-man’s gonna save me!/ Duo started breathing a little faster. Quatre was getting closer and beginning to walk around to face him. Only, Quatre wasn’t the person who looked at him. He looked back into his own eyes and did the only thing he could think to do. Half frozen, scared, and helpless, Duo Maxwell screamed.
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And it was at that point that, for the first time, one person had their past and future lives scream simultaneously and faint.
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� Can we say irony?