"Nothing but water," Heero repeated flatly, his fingers curving into claws. "It was a joke all along." Duo, seeing his lover tense, sighed and rested a hand on his shoulder, kneading the hardened steel he found there. Slowly, feeling Heero return to flesh, he pressed gentle kisses to his neck and withdrew.
"It's not a joke, Heero. But it is a game, and we need a plan." He smirked as Heero clutched at his braid in thought, occasionally tugging as an idea came to mind, then was dismissed. "Any ideas yet?"
"No..." Shit. No ideas from Heero was like no bubbles in his Coke; a very very bad sign. "So you think we can really do it?"
"Of course," Duo sighed, pulling Heero into the circle of his arms for a quick kiss. "We've done it before. We make a great team!" Flashing the victory sign at the empty room, he pulled away before their kisses turned into something they couldn't afford to do at that moment in time. "He can't be invincible. Remember when it was us against OZ? They seemed too good to be defeated, and it wasn't true. They had weaknesses. He's got to have an underbelly somewhere." Heero nodded; the logic was appropriate.
"But where? It doesn't matter if he has a weakness if we can't detect it."
A half-baked plan began to form in his muddled, devious mind. "I think I might have an idea. We'd have to mostly play it by ear..."
And in the end, they ran with it. There was really no other choice.
The scythe hummed absently in his hands, barely restrained power ingrained in every fiber of its being. It should not have existed, by all rules of time, space, and reality, yet it was there, disrupting the fabric of being with its presence. Casting one last glance at Heero, seeing the focused determination and the quiet fury, he unconsciously reaffirmed all the reasons he had chosen him as his life partner.
He closed his eyes and slashed twice. *Come. I know you're in here, watching, somewhere.*
Another pass, and a marble pillar wobbled and then fell, sliced neatly into two halves. Smoke and dust rose from its grave. *You're just going to sit back and nap as we destroy your life's work, hm? Guess a new body never really meant that much to you.*
*Or do you think you can just swoop down and take him whenever you want? What if I...?* He tested the edge of the scythe against his thumb; blood beaded along the cut, tanged with the taste of copper and iron. Then, in a movement too swift to follow, he pressed the edge of the blade against Heero's tender, exposed throat.
"Duo? What are you--?" Duo didn't dare think of the implications of their plan failing...or Dominic calling his bluff.
*What if I do it? What if I just slide the blade...like this?* Heero gasped for breath as the point broke the skin and drew a small line of blood. *I'll kill him before I let you have him, you monster.*
He was blown into the wall by a powerful gust of wind. "You win this round," Dominic said softly, hovering above the ground in an ungodly manner, eyes endless pools of blackness that had driven more than one man to insanity. "I win the war. And the to the winner go the spoils."
Duo wiped a trickle of crimson blood from his nose onto the back of his hand and grinned. The plan was working. "You haven't won yet. You'll have to go through me..."
His eyes flickered. "Gladly." His fingers curled into a fist; Duo felt some unseen hand crushing his windpipe, cracking his ribs. He whimpered, mouth working frantically, his air cut off, hands flying to his throat. "Not so brave now, Duo."
"Stop!" Heero held out a hand. "Let him go!"
No, Heero, don't do it...
The Japanese pilot would not meet his eyes as Dominic released him. Duo fell to the ground, lights blinking in his eyes, and passed out, hearing the sound of Heero's breath beside his face.
Don't...
"Just you and I," Heero said softly, pressing the sides of his fists together in front of his chest. As he drew them slowly apart, Dominic looked half astonished, half amused at the silver sword that appeared in his hands. "Duo should never have been involved."
"You know, then."
"I do."
"When?"
Heero hesitated. Would it be prudent to reveal all, in the hopes that when he was dead he would spare Duo's life? No, better to be cautious. "When you showed us the rose. It all made sense, in a way. My whole life, in the context of a rose. Beautiful on the outside. Diseased on the inside." He laughed. "It's too late, isn't it? I can feel it growing, just over my heart. Sometimes it tells me things. But for now, it's just a sentient ball of light."
Dominic nodded. "Your child. My body. We fight, then. The actor bows to the challenger." He pulled a sword from thin air, the blade a terrible shade of red that reminded Heero of all the blood its bearer had shed in his quest for a return to godhood.
"The challenger acts in turn." Heero bowed. "And the dance begins." He thrust; Dominic blocked easily. They exchanged blows, moving in a circle, eyes locked. Heero's body seemed to have been possessed, as if some outside force had taken hold of him. The commands bypassed his mind and he simply moved, guided by a force inside of him that had no name but strangely resembled a young woman's voice. *Heero...*
"Wufei..." Quatre sat up, trembling, a tear falling from one pale blue eye. "Heero...he's in trouble...he needs help..."
"Quatre! I don't...wait! No, don't--" He stopped as the blonde collapsed again, head thrown back, neck open to any sudden attacker. "Don't go to sleep," he finished lamely. "Shit!" Seeing a familiar green eye in the doorway, he called, "Trowa! Come and help me carry him!"
The green eyed boy simply took Quatre into his arms and carried him inside the base. "I think Darius wants to have a word with us..."
Damn you, woman! Darius ranted silently. Let me have my body back! You've no idea what you've done, do you? Yalith made a face at the commander. You're ruining everything!
Face it, he said reasonably, trying a different tack, you need my battle expertise. Sarsis is going to come in here any minute and demand that you open a portal to let the soldiers through...and what will you say? Um, okay, let's send our best men to a certain death trap? If Heero succeeds, the Palazzio will be nothing more than dust and rubble by dawn tomorrow.
Shut up, she snapped. I'm trying to think.
You need me, he said persuasively. A truce?
She glared at him. A truce? When I have everything and no reason to give anything to you? I don't think so. Why would I let you have your body back? I have no body to return to, after all.
What if I told you there was a way for you to get a body permanently? You know this form is rejecting your soul.
She froze.
They had just finished merging as Trowa burst in, carrying Quatre in his arms, the blonde's limbs hanging loosely. "Something's wrong with Quatre."
"He said something was wrong with Heero, that Heero needed help. Then he passed out," Wufei added. "I'm getting a very bad feeling, here..."
At that moment, Sarsis burst in, eyes wild. "Pierce says that you need to send all of your troops to the Palazzio at once!" When Darius made no move, he stared. "Aren't you going to do something?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I... We've waited our whole lives for an opportunity to destroy him, and you're just going to sit there?" His voice broke. "You have to help them, at least try! Please!"
"I'm afraid it's all up to Heero now." He turned away to stare out the window blankly. "Have a seat, gentlemen, enjoy the view. It may be the last time you ever see it."
He began to tire quickly; his body was not used to the weight of the sword. Smelling blood in the water, Dominic pressed his attack, drawing first blood across Heero's cheek, a shallow cut. Sweat dripped down his face, into his eyes and the cut, so he closed his eyes and moved by feel, blocking one wild chop with the edge of his sword, sending tremors down his arms. The blade snapped, falling to the ground and bouncing once. It turned to dust in the air. A metallic ring began to sound in Heero's ears.
"You lose," said Dominic flatly. Heero swallowed hard, finding the point of the archaic blade pressed to his heart. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to push forward, cutting past the skin. "Are you prepared to die? Last words?"
"No." Seizing the last of his fading courage, he gripped the edges of the white ghost blade with his hands, wincing as it sliced cleanly across his palms. It would hurt like a motherfucker soon, but he intended to be finished by the time that became a liability.
*Heero...*
It's too late, isn't it?
Heero?!? Yuy? Hey, you there?
No need to speak, my Treize-sama.
Pilot 01 is nothing if not resourceful.
It would be nice for us if he would just die.
Dead as a nail in his coffin.
You lose.
I know my enemy.
Heero! I am right over here so come and kill me!
*Heero.*
The voices crowded out the slow drone of the forever mission-accepting, mission-completing soldier, crying and weeping and screaming, all shouting at the top of their lungs, all begging to be heard. The sounds rose in a terrible cacophony of anger and sorrow, singing a melody that had no name, from a time before the beginning of dark eternity.
And the melody became words, sandy sculptures on the beach of his mind, corners softened by the waves, hardening into stone until they stood out, clear in his mind, dazzling as crystal.
He began in a low, dead tone. "With my hands, I created thee."
A flash of silver. Dominic growled low in his throat.
"With my blood, I bound thee."
"With my name, I call thee."
He spoke an unnatural word, never meant to pass by human lips, felt the syllables tear from his throat. He coughed up blood, felt the sword slice cleanly through him.
But it was too late for Dominic. He looked at his hands, at the sword they were both clutching, at the blood streaming from Heero's slashed hands, the skin peeling away. The red liquid began to blow an eerie white, expanding and stretching, forming *something*. It wasn't a man. It wasn't even a creature, it was abstract, it defied knowledge and logic. It simply was, and there was no rational explanation in the universe Heero had witnessed to explain the thing that stood before him, glowing and yet drawing in the light.
It took Dominic into its hold, and the former god, the madman who had destroyed Heero's life and put it back together, scratched and cracked, disappeared from existence. His spark of life, the thing that gave him a mind and a soul, was simply gone. Extinguished. He had been dealt with. He wasn't simply a flower wilted; the plant, the leaves, the soil around it; all had gone.
He felt a great tension seep from his shoulders as he turned towards Duo. "It's over!" he shouted, running towards his lover. Halfway there, the glowing astral figure stopped him and reached out towards the unconscious American, pulling him up short. Duo's long braid hung loosely, switching back and forth like a pendulum as he floated in the air.
"You can't have him," Heero said, tugging with his mind. Duo's body shifted towards him--his eyelashes wavered, as if he was trying to emerge from a deep sleep. "It's not his time. He's mine."
To his dismay, the figure gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and started for the sleeping boy again. It reared back as a streak of flame shot from Heero's fingertips.
"I thought I told you 'No'." Another jet of white hellfire, enveloping the room with its oppressive heat. "I meant it." As the specter tried one last time to take Duo, Heero felt a dam inside him burst. Every hurt, every humiliation and injustice that had branded its soul suddenly came rushing out in a colossal explosion of heat and sound that shook the Palazzio. The ceiling was cracking, falling down, revealing a bit of night sky.
"NO!"
Someone was slapping him.
"Quatre..."
Trowa? It was Trowa... "Wake up, Quatre, something's happening." His hearts flared to life at the sight of the familiar pointed chin and defiantly blank green eyes. Something's happening all right, he thought, sitting up. His stomach muscles protested loudly, screeching about a chiropractor, but he ignored them. A problem for another day.
"What's happening?"
"The sun is rising."
"Oh." Is that all? he thought, almost irritably, before noticing the tightly drawn looks on the faces around him. Even calm, collected Darius seemed deeply disturbed, his wide, generous mouth shortened to a terse slash. "Is there a problem?"
"It's the middle of the night."
Every pore suddenly exploded into flames. It poured out of him like sweat and tears, the heat burning his skin, searing his body and his face until he could peel out of his old skin like paper.
The specter backed up, as if blinded. Heero's mind rapidly calculated how much heat and energy he had to be giving off to light up the entire room. It was not a very comforting number.
Taking a deep breath, he took hold of the power growing inside him, leaking from the small spirit slowly unwinding its soul from above his heart and *pushed* it out, through his arms, down his fingertips, and into the air. Every muscle in his hands cramped in protest as the fire exploded into the air, roaring and crackling. With one last mental scream, the figure disappeared, like it had never been there. Only a trace of brimstone betrayed its being. Heero knew, with some kind of inner sense that pulsed along the lines of flames coursing through his veins, that it wasn't gone.
After all, how could someone like Heero have destroyed something like that figure, knowing its name, knowing the history of its descendents and its children? Once it had been called Yahweh. Now it had no name, only false worshippers and dangerous angels cast from heaven.
He dropped to the floor and fainted, his body draped across Duo's. They'd won. At last, at long last, it was time to rest.
End Book Two
Ariana
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