| Disclaimer: I don't own any gundam stuff in any way, shape or form! Death Warmed Over Lifting the dying scientist in DeathScythe�s arms, Duo Maxwell turned to look for the nearest available exit from the enemy base. �Stop!� The scientist screamed from torn lungs. �You have to listen to me!� Duo lowered him back to the floor and exited his gundam to come near. �Listen Duo, I don�t have much time� he said, coughing up blood on the floor. �Take this, you have to find the ultimate weapon and free it. There�s too few of us to finish this war, and OZ isn�t going to stop until every one of us is dead. Only you can enter the lab to retrieve it, and you must do it soon.� He gasped, his eyes glazing over �The asteroid field from the third colony, second largest rock�.� He gasped as he died. �Damn� Duo swore, biting his lip till it bled. He had failed. His mission to rescue the scientist had failed. Shaking his head numbly in disbelief, he slowly climbed back into his gundam. Heero would know he had failed as soon as he left the station. He couldn�t stand to even think of Heero thinking of him as a failure. �Heero doesn�t care about me anyway, it doesn�t matter what he thinks� but it did. �I have to do it, I have to bring back that weapon.. it�s the only way to save us� the only way he could face Heero. �Damn it!� Duo screamed as the blasted through the walls into outer space. �I won�t come back unless I can save you all!� unless I can save Heero. Half the distance to the third colony, Duo was having second thoughts. �There are so few people left in the resistance.. and so few people who can defend what�s left.. only us five, and Ms. Noin have suits that can hold up to the new mobile dolls, and by leaving I�ve weakened their defense terribly. But Heero can make up for the difference, he�s an army all by himself.� Duo said, hardening his resolve. �He won�t even notice I�m missing till the next battle.� He noted bitterly, not having to keep up his happy go lucky fa�ade while alone. �Hmmm, almost there.. this had damn well better be worth it, or I�m going to be the fool that deserted his friends for no reason.� The asteroid field the scientist had been talking about was Huge, containing rocks the size of small planets. Dodging and weaving, he made his way through it, looking for the largest one. Finally finding it, he looked around trying to decide which one was second largest. �They could have made it a bit easier to find� Duo growled. Suddenly laughing at himself, he realized that making it easy would have defeated the purpose of hiding it in the first place. Looking closely, he notices a deep opening in the side of the one he had determined was closest in size to the big one. �Here goes nothing,� he said as he took his gundam in. Several miles deep into the crevice, he noticed strange-looking devices attached to the walls. Like decorations made of volcanic glass they shone in multicolored �light?? �Where is that light coming from?� Duo wondered, looking around for a source. Moving closer to one of the decorations, the light suddenly started intensifying, and a crack formed in the middle of the design. �What the�.� Duo looked on in amazement as a gundam size opening appeared showing through to a strangely shadowed interior. Just as he was about to enter, a voice came through to him. �Scanning� DNA analysis complete� The strangely metallic voice announced. �Identity confirmed. Dr. Maxwell, welcome back.� �What the hell??� Duo was shocked. He was no longer in control of DeathScythe.. Pulled into the strange room, he looked around in amazement. Technology he had no name for surrounded him. Suddenly bright light flooded the area and the gundam came to rest on a platform that seemed made for it. The strange voice came to him again. �Stand by for atmospheric flood. Please stand by. 10�9�8�7�6�5�4�3�2�1.� The lights dimmed to a more tolerable level, and air flooded into the bay. �You may now exit your vehicle. You may now exit your vehicle.� As Duo left his gundam, he was assaulted by strange smells, the smell of stale air, the smell of metal, and more that he couldn�t put a name to. It all contrived to make him feel sick. Sides heaving, Duo went down the only path available through the strange machines, until he came to a door. �DNA scan confirmed. Access confirmed for all levels. Repeat, access confirmed for all levels. Please enter and choose level.� The voice grated in his ear. The door opened before him, and he stepped inside. �Please choose a level� The voice said while a large map suddenly self-illuminated to his right. �Um, lab area� Duo said sweating. �Duo, you know Heero would laugh at you being scared in an elevator.� Duo said, trying to reassure himself. The elevator suddenly stopped moving, but the doors did not immediately open. �Lab defenses disarmed. Please enter� a speaker blared to his right, as three sets of doors opened before him. Stepping through he was confronted with a long hallway, scented with the musty smell of old chemicals. Lights suddenly came up from all sides, revealing doors evenly spaced along the corridor. Still feeling ill from the strange atmosphere, Duo staggered down the hall to peer into the windows in each of the doors. Some of the rooms held what appeared to be gundams in various stages of completion. Some of them held weapons. All of them held strange machines. At the end of the hall, a large door loomed with the sign �Lab area 2� posted over it. Examining it closely, Duo found a place with a handprint outlined in a green light. �I have to go through with this� Duo gasped while trying to keep his stomach contents where they should be. Slapping his palm up against the wall, he sagged against the door, which promptly opened to leave him collapsed on the floor. Gasping, Duo looked up and around him. The first thing he saw was.. himself. A huge glass-like screen filled his vision with an unmoving picture of himself in it, an older version, but definitely Duo Maxwell. �Oh man.. this is too weird for me. I gotta get outta here!� Duo said, hauling himself up. As he stood facing it, the screen came to life. �If you�re here, then you have to be a genetic duplicate of me, which means I have succeeded in getting the scientists to complete their part of the task. There probably isn�t much time, so I�ll be brief. When I became a scientist, I stumbled across a strange radio signal coming from far off in outer space. I decoded it, and found it to be a message from a member of an alien race to ours. The woman in the message responded to me, and came here to earth so we could learn about each other. She was the foremost scientist of her race, and her people feared she had defected. Determined that our race must be destroyed before she could make us into a match for their weapons, they slowly started mobilizing their forces to start a war of annihilation. Vah and I fell in love during our preparations for war, and she did everything possible to arm us for the upcoming battle. She took her ship she brought with her and fought her people in the front lines. Unfortunately, her people killed her in one of the first battles. Satisfied by her death, they left us in peace. I have made a duplicate of her, and before she died I transferred her consciousness into the new body I had created. The formerly unthinking body that was to be the ultimate weapon.� She is the ultimate weapon, and I love her too much to let her die. You must activate the switches at back of this room in descending order. For I know if you are desperate enough to come in search of this place, her people must have returned. Dr. Maxwell out.� Duo stared at the suddenly still face in the screen before him, His face, ravaged by grief. Why? What? And especially How? Were running through his head. Numb and in shock, Duo staggered over to the back of the room, to see a panel of controls and a vault-like door in front of him. �I, I can�t.� Duo muttered. �She�s probably dead in there anyway, it would be like violating a tomb.� Duo�s body and mind weren�t paying much attention to his words as he read the directions to bonding with the ultimate weapon. Unnoticed by him, his hands busied themselves with locating and activating the switches one by one in descending order. What he was doing didn�t catch up to him until the great vault doors opened before him, unleashing a view of one of the strangest and most beautiful sights he�d ever seen. Sliver hair floated like a cloud around an angular face with tilted eyebrows and thin lips. A graceful, long neck trailed down to sloping shoulders, which in turn led to slender arms, with fine, six-fingered hands resting up against the glass in which she was encased. She was wearing some sort of black armor, that molded to her thin figure, with the slightest perceptible curves softening the angles of her chest and hips. She looked as lifeless as a marble statue. Finishing activating the last of the switches, Duo re-read the last lines of the instructions. �To bond with the ultimate weapon, place both hands to where your fingers touch those of the body through the glass. �Oh god, Heero save me� Duo whispered, as without him willing it his hands slid into the designated places. �Ahhhh! Duo screamed as sudden pain lashed his body as the eyes in front of him opened. �I bond with you, Duo.� A beautiful, low-pitched feminine voice resounded in his head. A horrible tearing shot through Duo�s body, as the glass between them melted away. Suddenly, the pain was over, and there was a strange awareness of the woman in front of him in its place. Scattered memories shot through his mind, as read as though they were his own. Vah kissing him.. her hand in his as they walked through the base. Love.. so much love there.. then suddenly all he could feel was grief. A horrible, stunning grief. He looked up into her colorless eyes. �You� you�re not my Duo�� She mouthed, as she tried a voice never used before. �I bonded to you, and you�re not my Duo.� �No, I�m not�.� Duo whispered as he struggled through her grief. He felt like a part of her soul must be lodged somewhere inside of him. �No matter� She said, suddenly turning cold and distant. �I feel your fear for the one that you love. I don�t think we have much time. Where is the enemy?� She said, releasing his hands to walk quickly towards some cabinets in another part of the room. �They�re quite a distance from here. I can take you there, if you have ship�.� He said, still feeling her torment in the back of his mind. �Yes, I have a ship, go back through the base. Ask for docking bay six at the elevator. Your mobile suit is there.� She said, while pulling gear out of another hidden cabinet. �I will meet you in the corridor for the base. You will find armor that will fit you in your suit. I suggest you put it on and use it.� She turned and walked out a formerly hidden door. Duo felt her slowly gaining control of her grief, and the rise of unspeakable anger. Even though he didn�t know anything about the base, he could feel where she was as he ran down the halls that suddenly felt extremely familiar and comforting. Upon reaching the docking bay, he was struck with panic. The machines that were lifeless before moved and worked� on Deathscythe! Running up to his gundam, the first thing the noticed was that is no longer looked the same.. it had been resurfaced in black on every area. Designs of star clusters were everywhere.. effectively rendering it invisible while in space. It gleamed with new equipment, multi-headed scythes is it�s hands, and every edge looking polished and sharp. A large weapon was holstered on it�s back, between it�s infamous wings. Suddenly the machines opened the cockpit, and left a suit of strange black material near the seat. Finishing that task, they retreated to the other side of the room and went dormant again. �The guys are never going to believe this.� And his comment was answered with a faint sense of amusement in the depths of his soul. He peeled off his space uniform, and donned the black armor left for him. It fit him perfectly. Looking down he realized how much it resembled the armor she had been wearing. �Warning, pressure release beginning, stay inside your vehicle. Repeat, stay inside your vehicle� the annoying, familiar voice echoed through the bay. As Duo left, he looked back to see the strange design closing behind him, sealing up like it had never opened in the first place. He felt Vah draw up near him, but it took him a few moments to visually locate her. Her suit was built extremely differently than any suit he�d ever seen before. It was built like a ballerina, graceful, thin, and fragile looking, with carefully concealed strength. It was also Extremely hard to make out, blending in with whatever happened to be nearby. �Wow, what do you call her?� Duo asked through the communications relay. �Ne-Vah� the answer seemed to float through him. �You do not need to speak aloud with me. We are bonded. I shall tell you more of what that means while we head towards your enemy� she communicated directly to his mind. �Heero, I�m coming� he whispered as they blasted off. �No, we are coming, Duo� She corrected him, and a tiny feeling of happiness seemed to shine through her anger and grief for one intangible second. �Where the hell is Duo!� Quatre yelled as he was hit by another blast from the masses of mobile dolls. �Heero, you were closest to the base, where did he go to?� �Hn. I don�t know. He blasted off after punching through the walls of the station� screaming my name Heero thought with a feeling of pain inside. �I found the scientist he was supposed to save dead on the floor. I think he left because he failed his mission.� �That was days age, he should have come back by now, he knows we need him!� Quatre said in anger. Heero just grunted, thinking. If he doesn�t come back, it�s because he can�t face me. He doesn�t know I�d forgive him anything, he doesn�t even know I care, because I�ve been too stupid to tell him. Too afraid of rejection.. Snapping back into reality, Heero hardened back into the perfect soldier. �Well I don�t know where he is, but we still have a mission to accomplish.� He told Quatre in no uncertain terms. �Keep fighting.� Only a few minutes later, in one of those strange moments of stillness that happen in every battle, the ranks of mobile dolls were suddenly decimated from an attack on the flank. �Heero!� A male and a female voice said in unison. � We�re here!� Duo-Vah blew through the ranks like they were made of tin. One mind in two Gundams, they complimented each other�s moves perfectly. Taking heart, the 4 other gundam pilots fought with renewed strength and hope, marveling at the way the other two suddenly took out the battleship controlling the mobile dolls, rendering them motionless. Wiping out the remaining Virgos and Aries was simple, and suddenly the battle was over. As Duo and Vah came near the other gundam pilots Duo was forced to admit something to himself. After being a part of Vah, knowing her as no one else could, he had to admit that he loved her. And at that thought, the grief that was hers inside of him, slowly loosened it�s hold, and evaporated. .An intimate warmth, slowly spread through him, that was her. He also know, that by being a part of him, she had come to love Heero as much as he did. �I think we can work something out� was her thought on the subject. �I don�t know how� was his thought back. �Trust me.� She said, amused. As they all landed on the suddenly danger-free colony, Vah giggled in Duo�s head. �Watch this� she murmured in his thoughts. Getting out of her suit and jumping to the ground with feline grace, she approached Heero as soon as he had gotten to the ground. �Heero Yuy, you are the ultimate soldier. I am the ultimate weapon. It is fitting that you bond to me.� She commanded, holding up her six-fingered hands. Duo looked over to them as shock, while Heero, without noticing he was doing so, but his fingers up to hers. �We are all one� She announced, as pain ripped through Heero, Duo and Vah. The pain of souls parting, joining, reforming. Suddenly Duo found himself with a place is his soul that was Heero, and felt the long concealed love Heero bore for him. �Heero stared in shock, then fell to the ground with the pain and confusion of having a sense of Duo thrust upon him. Feeling the love he had never dared ask for, and wondering at the love he found from the woman he did not know, but was a part of him. Watching Heero collapse upon touching the strange creature in front of him, and Seeing Duo in the same strange armor as she wore, Wufei,, Quatre and Trowa all drew their weapons and trained them on the oddly dressed couple. �What did you do to him?!?!� Quatre yelled, while running towards the collapsed Heero, and the smiling alien. �No,� Heero said, standing back up �It�s ok.� Suddenly laughing, Heero hugged the woman in front of him and gazed yearningly to Duo, who came over and joined in the hug. �I think things will be okay from now on� he said with an un-Heerolike smile. �Come on Guys, we have a lot of work to do.� Remaining very close, Duo, Heero and Vah talked through the night with the other gundam pilots, making plans for re-opening the old lab, and finding ways to strike back. Though the other three gundam pilots didn�t understand why, they accepted the sudden change in the happiness Heero displayed, and the Love that bound them at the heart. The rest is another story. |