Title: Of Bullets and Barrels Part: three (I think... counts... teaser... one... two... )
Author: Sunday
Warnings: AU!!! "
Disclaimers: The Redstar" is not mine!!!!!!! And seeing that a good ton of the technology is form them, as well as the magic/technology blend, I thought I should put that here. I think everyone should go out and read it, it is AMAZING!!! GW is not mine, it never was, it never will be. I am making NO money of off this, I am poor, and have no money, so please don't sue. No Yaoi yet, and I swear, this is NOT a 1+5. It is a 1+2/2+1, and maybe a lemon later, if I can actually write one. * falls over *
Notes: Well, here we go... more stuff. More writing. Although I must send this one to Brighnasa who has been poking and prodding for a new part. I would also like to thank SteelSong (www.steelsong.com), who has put this story up on her amazing page, thank you!!!! More thanks and hugs go to all the amazing people that commented, and are forcing these parts out. * satisfied sigh* I have written the most annoying part of them all... THIS ONE! Well... I think. Also, the ship design for Deathscythe Hell is up on my page, in the fanart section. If you go there *poke * sign my guest book? So that it does not look so lonely.

Of Bullets and Barrels + Part 3

I was nine. Smart kid. Or at very least, smart enough to put two and two together and get four. Not smart enough to figure out that I was wild.

My identity struck me in the middle of the night, when the alarms on- colony started going off. The blasted things were the only things on L2 that did NOT malfunction, and their sole reason for existing was to protect the populace from the Wilds-menace. Of course, you know that it is as much a load of bullshit as I do. No Wild fries themselves on purpose. By nature, most Wilds are happy with their lives, and relatively optimistic, before they hit maturity, then they just fry themselves.

So back to the wonder of the alarm system. I had just woken from a nasty nightmare, to the sound of the alarms simply blaring. I freaked out, being one of the many sheep who had been indoctrinated with the "Wild = bad" ideal. So I started filing down into the bunkers, I was panicky, and the alarms were blaring louder and louder. They get noisier as the Wild gets unstable.

Some kid from my gang, grabbed my arm, and started pulling me off to the side. Couldn't figure out why the hell he was pulling me from safety, so I panicked more. Now, I dunno, but I was never the hot head, never the one to loose cool in any situation, years on the street do that to a guy. So you can see just how out of character this was for me.

I imagine that is what all the girls who hit puberty, in my mostly male gang, felt like. I mean, they wake up one morning... and hello... what the HELL?

Beside the point.

So this kid pulls me from the streets, and into one of the buildings. Let me rephrase that, he pulls me off the streets, and into a broken-in building, one that he himself had broken into. He throws me into a shower, and starts the water cold.

Freezing cold.

I felt as if my skin was trying to crystallize.

And for the life of my I could not figure out why the Hell the room was steaming up so fast. Why the water was burning his skin off even as it froze mine.

Wild 098 B3A aka. Duo Maxwell.
Class: zero
Mentor: G

+

His eyes opened. The light in the room was as stark as he remembered it, the small prison reeking of his capture, and failure.

Nevertheless, the bindings were gone.

In the end.

It was that which had awoken him.

The feeling of freedom, the thought of death.

He pulled out from beneath the thick covers, allowing his cloth- covered legs to hit the cold floor, standing, he stretched gingerly, listening to the bones in his back pop and crack. Luckily his skin had decided not to follow suit. He smelled of something unfamiliar. A cloying scent of oranges, seemed to radiate from his skin, a salve leaving behind a oily residue. He shuddered involuntarily, as he touched his fingers to his face, and felt the slickness there. The again, he was now able to identify the reason for his skin's rather pleasing behavior.

He needed a shower.

Actually, he needed to eat first.

His stomach was a hard knot somewhere in his middle. And his vision was spinning. Somewhere in front of him he could recognize a door, he headed towards that.

"You aren't going to try to destroy the ship again, are you?"

He stopped, turning slowly to view a man sitting on the chair to his bed's right. How he had not noticed him, he did not know.

He was. Fascinating. Long black hair hung around his shoulders, falling into his pale face, obscuring his flawless skin. And yet, for all of the perfection, he still flaunted the energy signature of a weapon.

A highly unstable one.

Pure wild.

Wufei Chang.

The man before him looked nothing of the boy whose picture had flashed briefly in the black-ops files. Nothing. The buzz cut was gone, as was the gentle smile.

The boy had been diagnosed.

They had hoped to cure him and his wife.

They had failed.

The price of war.

His lips were thin, and his hands were folded over his lap, his entire body covered in thick white leather, blue straps connecting the various sections of the sorcerer's armor. Large blue beads shone dully from beneath a thin layer of the skin on his neck. The ineffective power stabilizers flaunted with a masochistic sense of pride, the collar of the armor sliced open at their location.

"Duo is in the kitchen, if you want to meet him there. He suggested that I check on you. Relena has too much of a knack for obsessions, and the rest of the crew wants to throw you into raw space. You have very few friends here."

"Aa." Heero's voice ran cool in the room. The other man grinned and stood. Surprisingly, he was a full head shorter then Heero. And yet, his power radiated around him, his authority amplifying that which was already natural to his species.

He seemed so much more impossible.

So much more grand.

"The shower is the door to your left, the exit from this room is the door in front. If you attempt anything, I will make sure that Dorothy gets her hands on you before you are executed." A smile flitted over the other's tin lips, as the Chinese man brushed his onyx hair from his face. "I don't know, but you don't seem the type to enjoy her games." With a sharp laugh he exited the room, his robes swishing on the ground.

Heero licked his lips, nervously, walking up to the door of the room. Pressing his hand against the cold metal, he was startled as it pulled back, opening to a brightly lit hallway. He had half believed that man to be lying. He poked his head outside, before stepping into the cold corridor.

"Yuy, take a shower, you stink. Then find the kitchens."

He whipped around to find the Wild leaning against the wall to his right.

"How are you doing that?"

Another sharp laugh, the man shook his head, before heading down the corridor.

"Ask Maxwell, it is his trick."

He swore, before stepping back into the room, and heading for the shower. Chang was correct, he did stink.

+

There are many uses, many protocols that the sorceresses learn, and can use. Specific protocols, such as the Healer protocol, can only be used by specialists, attack protocols by the powerful classes 0- 2. There are no known female class Zero Sorceresses, although, in total approximately three such males exist. They are Heero Yuy, Millardo Peacecraft, and Trowa Barton. Of the three, Heero Yuy, the pupil of Doctor J, has shown most promise. He is currently at the highest recorded hit value, having used the Main Attack protocol over 800 times. This number is unheard of for Sorceresses, let alone their male counterparts. Trowa Barton is no longer capable of the Main Attack mode. The reasons for his inability remain government secrets, and will be released in thirty years. Millardo Peacecraft, the oldest of the three, but also the newest to the field, has not returned to his post since the death of his sister, Relena Peacecraft, upon Heavyarms, in battle 557B4, fought on April 12th of 189.

Captain Q. R. Winner,
Pure Blood Human
Captain of Wing Zero
Engineer: Class Zero

+

He did find the kitchen, eventually. It had taken nearly and hour, but in that time he had seen nothing of exceptional merit within the ship. He found himself uneasy, more often then not, feeling as if his choices were already made, and his directions chosen for him. Infuriated, he had attempted to go against gut instinct, only to find that these nuances in his personality were also accounted for, and he was on his way... somewhere. Twice he had heard the sound of a woman's laughter, both times, he had been alone.

As for the kitchen, because for some reason or other, he knew that it was the kitchen, even before stepping through the nondescript metallic door, it was mundane at best. The counter tops were white and spotless, as were the walls and floors. On one side of a long table sat Shinigami, his hair loosely braided at his back, his nose scrunched up as he poured over information at his laptop. Scrawled- on paper scattered the floor and a sizable part of the table he sat at. He glanced up at Heero, gave him a brief wave, and turned back to his work.

"There is food in the fridge. This is one of one hundred kitchens on this ship, they all look the same, and have the same food. We are out of fresh anything, and are docking in five days, there will be more selection then. Not that it matters, you will be on... " he stopped, his eyes tracking the something on the screen of his laptop.

His body relaxed against the chair, even as Heero walked over to him, silently looking at the information that scrolled across the screen, unable to make sense of the encryption, which Duo read like a second language. "... what kind of shitty name is that anyway? Damn, the ship is called Romafeller 3. God, some people have no creativity. Aaaanyway. That is about it. Having you here with us has been something else, Yuy, I hope never again to have the pleasure."

Heero raised a brow, before walking over to the fridge, and finding something which promised to be meat, but fell short of actually tasting it. He ate it, the food cardboard flavored on his tongue.

Or maybe that was just the anxiety. He turned to watch the braided man again. He had tried to kill him, very nearly succeeded, and the man was cheerfully prattling off damage reports to him.

Damage which he himself had inflicted, but inconsequential at best. Heero sighed, and poked his fork back into the imitation meat, before casting another glance at the Wild, who had since stopped talking, and was watching Heero attempt to eat the meat.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to let me go."

"Right. And what do you want to eat?"

Heero stared at the other, as Duo grinned like mad.

"Something Fresh, I guess."

"Better then a sardine and whipped cream sandwich."

"Hn."

"Relena's choice of nourishment after battle. But then again, the girl is psychotic at best."

Heero nodded lightly, watching the other man, finding that he no longer really needed to look at him to see the light scars, the wide eyes, and high cheekbones. His wide grin was etched somewhere within his memory, as were his hands, the long dexterous fingers splayed against the cold counter of the table. Duo Maxwell was ingrained in his memory, and not as a face and body to identify, at least not one to identify for police records. For some reason, the warmth his body radiated, and the aura which poured from his skin, and beat like some sort of invisible organ, all of this was hidden with him most prized memories, the thoughts that made him safe. He had little doubt that the Wild was trained to be this way.

"Don't try to befriend me, seduce me, or gain control over me. You are good, I will grant you that much. But I am not an idiot, and I will not treat you as one."

He watched as the smile disappeared off of Duo's face, and his soft lips bent themselves into a frown, his eyes were hidden beneath the jagged fall of his bangs, only his hands clenched tight against the table gave away the extent of his anger.

"I am what I am Yuy, and if most of that happens to be training, then I guess I was truly the apt pupil."

+

It turned out that I hit a reaction phase. It is one of the lowest for the Wilds. So I was lucky, didn't hit full-blown maturity all at once, and was saved by a kid I thought was dumb as a board (not that I would ever tell him, or anyone else that). The kid kinda freaked me out, he pulled me off colony, and we hid out in a ship for a while. The got caught by G. G was pleased as all hell, simply because I had not only turned up, all pretty and Wild, but I had brought back O's main experiment. Wufei Chang. 17 years of age, and looked 8. Wufei Chang, whose energy stabilizers went ballistic the moment that I hit full maturity. They fried his neck, they fried most of me, and they fried G's face. Then I tried to take care of the rest of the ship all by myself.

I was setting air on fire by then. Starting the rather nasty fusion reaction that Wilds are notorious for.

Well, it turns out that G was expecting a Wild, so he just-so- happened to have a big ass pool of coolant laying around. Which is were `fei and I found ourselves seconds later. His energy stabilizers fell apart, and he hit full maturity right there and then.

It was great.

It was really really bad. I mean, this was the worst bad that you can get without the universe going Apocalypse on you.

We evaporated the coolant.

The poured more on us.

That evaporated before it hit our skin.

Wufei, of all people, managed to stabilize us, about three minutes before we could put a hole in the outer hull of the ship.

I did mention that G is not idiot enough to put a pool like that anywhere close to the hull... right? I did mention that we WERE in the middle of the ship when this started?

Well, anyway, G isn't that big on playing with genetics and machines, so he just taught me how to control what I had in me. He babbled nonsense about it working for normal sorcerers, although they don't go nuts. There was no hope for Wufei who physically went 8 years to17 in about thirty seconds. The stabilizers were blown to hell, so G built me a ship for the hell of it, babbling something about liberating the colonies and getting revenge. I caught the revenge part, anyway. Big ship, lots of I-field generators, and one Wufei Chang later, Deathscythe, was a big bad warship. Well, until it blew up on us (faulty Isolation tube).

Deathscythe Hell, is a bigger badder warship.

Duo Maxwell
Class Zero Sorcerer (unregistered)

+

Heero stared own at his meal, he felt as Duo stood from the table, and walked towards one of the cupboards, could hear the swish of soft cotton pants against the cold marble floor. The sound of bare feet slapping against it as Duo purposely moved with sound, so not to startle him. He was surprised, however, by a glass of orange liquid which found its way onto the table before him.

"Orange juice, closest thing I can come to a fresh fruit. All for you, Yuy. Drink it, and leave me and my devices to hell alone."

"Remember, you started this conversation."

"And I just ended it." He stood stiffly from the table, his fingers grasping at the computer, which he shut with unnecessary force, as he began to walk from the kitchen. He never made it. Heero's hand closed over his wrist, tugging him back to the counter.

"Why did you bother to steal me? Why bother to befriend me?"

Duo looked to the floor, the familiar smile stretching upon his mouth, and yet his eyes remained hidden beneath the fringe of bangs. Heero reached up, smoothing them away from the other's face, gently tucking the longer strands behind his ears.

"That is why, you are not all weapon."

Heero smirked, letting go of the other's hand, allowing his hands to drop back into his lap. "I realize. I realize every time I look in the mirror, and think of those that I kill. A true weapon has no remorse. I do. Maxwell, you underestimate me."

"Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I already know that you are smarter then you let anyone think, maybe I am naïve to it, but it does not change one fact. You are perfect."

Heero took in a deep breath, letting the other man pass, letting him leave the room. He stared at the orange juice sitting in the glass, at the crumbs on the table, and the papers scattered on the floor. He focused on the warmth of the room, which could not permeate the thick shell of ice that had just lodged itself onto his skin, as he shivered.

Perfect.

He exhaled sharply, his breath displacing the crumbs on the counter. The I-field around him flexed once. Twice. Then resided, noting that the rise in body temperature was not due to impending attack.

Perfect.

Two people knew just how perfect he was.

One was dead.

The other sat at a table, imprisoned upon the ship Deathscythe, losing a strategy-game to Death.

[part 2] [part 4] [back to Singles l - z]