03-Sep-2000
Title: The Longest Dream, Part 6
Author: Hope of Dawn
Feedback: C&C appreciated!
Archive: GW Addiction
Notes: Hey all--here's the next installment of my Gundam Wing/Xenogears crossover. Thanks bunches and bunches to everyone who responded to the earlier chapters--it's so great hearing what people think about
this pet project o' mine! Thanks lots! And as always, if you can't find the previous chapters for whatever reason, just e-mail me and I'll send 'em to ya, no problem.
Legal stuff: None of these characters are mine. Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and Sotsu Agency, among others--Xenogears belongs to Squaresoft. For time-wasting purposes only and not for profit, so don't sue, 'kay?
Writer's Notes: This story takes certain liberties with the more minor Xenogears characters; giving them abilities, aptitudes, and/or attitudes that were not necessarily described in the original game.
However, their backgrounds and personalities have *not* been changed--simply added to in ways that make sense to me, okay? Also, I apologize for any grammatical discrepancies in Citan's use of Middle English. The purpose here wasn't for complete authenticity, or to imply that Old High Solarian *is* Middle English--it's simply a convention I'm using to express Citan's usage of what has become a very formalized and ceremonial language.
Warnings: slight AU, X-over, shonen-ai, language, violence. All the good stuff! *grin*
(2 A.D., Aveh desert base)
Citan sat back on his heels with a sigh, wiping a dirtied arm against his sweat-slicked forehead. A far cry from his normally meticulous appearance, his hair hung damply around his face, straggling half-out of his ponytail at the nape of his neck. He pushed a finger absentmindedly against the glasses that threatened to fall off the very end of his nose, and stared consideringly at the ancient machine that loomed above him in the repair bay of the Gear hangar.
Eight days.
It had been eight days since they had rescued the five relic survivors. Citan tapped a well-worn wrench against one palm, his brow furrowed in thought. Up until recently, the better part of those eight days had been spent in a near-continuous stream of medical emergencies, giving him little time to think about the implications of their unlikely rescue mission. Instead, the five teens' repeated respiratory failures, heart attacks and hypothermia had challenged every ounce of medical skill and intuition both he and the base doctors could muster. Keeping their five charges alive had proved to be a near-impossible task at times; and Citan was grimly aware that anyone else would have died several times over.
However, the five young men were possessed of truly extraordinary recuperative powers; despite all the built-up hibernation toxins that had confounded the doctors and threatened their lives, their bodies had struggled even more powerfully against them, again and again, rising back toward equilibrium with a stamina unmatched by anything he had ever seen. Not even in the toughest Wels that Solaris had managed to engineer could have ever survived this kind of continuous bodily stress.
Then, after five days spent just a razor's edge away from death, the first of them had broken past his crisis. As his temperature and heartbeat settled into more normal rhythms, the dark-haired young man had fallen into a natural healing sleep for the first time. Almost as if it was a signal, the others had also made breakthroughs to varying degrees; and while none had yet regained consciousness for any length of time, the ship's doctor was now cautiously confident that they were finally starting to improve.
Citan rose to his feet, slapping his hands against his thighs in a vain effort to clean them of dirt and grease. Since he was no longer needed in the sickbay to help care for their young charges, he had turned his interest to a more accessible, if equally mysterious, piece of this puzzle--the Gears they had recovered from the ruins.
Considering their age, they were remarkably intact. The ravages of time and their long entombment had only caused minor structural damage to the more exposed joints and thrusters, along with some superficial scarring on the surface. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell if these 'Gundams' were still operational--despite the mechanics' best efforts, the internal operating systems and cockpit controls remained locked down with mechanical implacability, unresponsive to any access attempts. Without being able to break the ancient Gears' security measures, the only things available to examine (and cautiously, at that) was the outer hull structures and armor. Even given those limitations, Citan had found more than enough to keep him occupied.
The armor itself was extraordinary--he'd never seen such an elegant alloy. It was unbelievably light in relation to its density--and yet remained tougher and more durable than anything he'd seen. To Citan's further fascination, the ancient armor also had several component elements that the computers had flatly refused to identify; seeming to indicate that these mysterious elements were completely different from anything else on the planet.
"Determined to keep our secrets, aren't we....?" Citan mused out loud, leaning affectionately against a giant metal foot.
A head popped out of a small access hatch near the ancient Gear's cockpit and called inquiringly down. "You say something, Citan?" A mane of green hair hung around and over Emeralda's face, rippling around her face in questing tendrils as she hung upside-down from the hatchway.
"Just thinking out loud, Emeralda. Nothing important," Citan called back. Trust Emeralda and her acute hearing to pick up a mutter from halfway inside a Gear's bowels. "Do you recognize anything yet?"
"Sorry, Citan. I do not know these machines--they not like the ones my Kim made. They not like your Gears--and they not like me, either." She wrinkled her nose in confusion.
"So there are no traces of nanotechnology?" Citan asked.
"No," Emeralda confirmed. "Not at all like me."
"Damn." Citan raked a hand through his already-disheveled hair. "So much for that avenue of inquiry... " He had hoped that this ancient technology would match the advances achieved by the younger, but still-ancient (and extinct) Zeboim civilization. If that were the case, the leftover technical knowledge and bits of lore from that time could be theoretically used to decipher these mysterious Gears' workings. To further that hope, he had recruited Emeralda's assistance--as an artificially-created being from the Zeboim era, made entirely of nanomachines, she stood a better chance of identifying the technology than anyone. Add to that her innate abilities in diagnosing and repairing machinery, regardless of origin or type, and she became an invaluable resource for an undertaking such as this. If even *she* was stumped...
Emeralda watched Citan's distant form from her lofty perch with concern. It was still difficult to understand her friends at times--the emotions and subtleties of everyday social contact that they interpreted without effort were foreign to her young, artificially-created mind. However, these last two years with Fei and the others had helped her to recognize the unspoken expressions of others--and even to her inexperienced eyes, Citan looked tired and worried. Unsure of the appropriate response, she tried to reassure him.
"They no feel dangerous, though, Citan." She patted the armor plate next to her. "They not hurt us."
If anything, that bit of information seemed to heighten his confusion. Citan's brows drew together. "What do you mean, they don't 'feel' dangerous? You mean there is no reactor leakage or anything else harmful seeping from them?"
Emeralda shook her head emphatically. "No--I feel them. They very, very old--feel very strange. Like Fei's Gear--but different. They powerful--but they no hurt us."
Citan absorbed that revelation with a stunned sort of surprise. "You mean you can *talk* to them?! Can you do that with any machine?" Emeralda shook her head again.
"No. Kim no build me to do that. I no 'talk' to them like I 'talk' to you--I just feel them. Other machines no have feelings like this--I only know what's broken. But Fei's Gear is different; feels other things. It listens for Fei--it feels what Fei feels. These do too."
The implications of her statement began to buzz in his brain. The mere idea that the huge Gears, especially with the kind of destructive power a Gear could wield, having 'feelings' on a subject was uniquely... disturbing. "Stars help us if they decided to 'feel' angry... " Citan muttered. He shouted upward once more. "So if they're not dangerous, Emeralda, what are they... feeling?"
Emeralda frowned in concentration, her frame flattening and widening unconsciously as she let more of her body mass get in contact with the Gear she sat on. The communication was odd, and not attuned to her like her own nanomachine-structured Gear, Crescens, was. In addition, the Gear's resonances seemed to be... preoccupied?
She called back down to Citan. "I think they waiting. They listening for something."
Citan drummed his fingers on the metal foot. "I wonder... are they waiting for the... "
"Dr. Uzuki!!"
One of Sigurd's pirate-turned-soldier subordinates ran through the doorway at full speed. He skidded to a stop and panted harshly, hanging onto a nearby pillar for support. "Sir--(gasp)--come quick--(pant,pant) there's trouble--with the strangers!" He controlled his breathing with visible effort. "I think one of 'em's trying to kill Bart!"
"What?! How could they--never mind! Where?"
"Near sickbay, sir!" Citan sprinted out of the hangar almost before the winded man had finished his sentence, Emeralda hard on his heels.
Duo woke up instantly, muscles tensed, as he sensed movement nearby. Eyelids slitted open, he automatically registered the darkened grey metal cell, the soldiers quietly conversing in the background with a red-coated officer, and the glimmer of a knife? a needle? in the hand of the white-clad nurse approaching him.
OZ!
He reacted instinctively. Lashing out with one foot, he kicked the nurse away from him even as he chopped down on her wrist, forcing her to drop the weapon. She gave a startled cry of pain as she was kicked into the wall and sagged down against it, cradling her broken wrist. The soldiers to the rear turned in surprise, reaching for their weapons--but he was already moving.
Rolling off the bed into a low crouch (noticing in passing that he was wearing nothing more than a light pair of drawstring pants), he swept the feet out from under one of the surprised guards. The man toppled with a surprised yell, alerting his comrades. The other two tried to tackle him clumsily--a strike to the back of the neck and a neat punch to the other's temple, and they were out of the equation. Which only left the officer as a threat.
Even as he dived low at the one-eyed officer's knees, a small, analytical portion of his mind couldn't help but wonder about what sort of changes had occurred in OZ . After all, since when was a *whip* an officer's weapon? However there was no time to ponder this as he grappled with the young blonde. The blonde officer was good--fast and flexible, and obviously trained in how to throw a man. But Duo was better--and unlike the officer, who seemed to be trying to simply immobilize him--more ruthless. A quick snatch at his opponent's belt, and the whip was his--it was a simple matter from there to wrap it around the vulnerable neck and choke the red-coated officer down with it. Duo began to wrench the officer's head sideways, preparatory to snapping the neck--then hesitated as rational thought shouldered its way up past the blur of trained instincts. The man pinned under him wasn't wearing an OZ uniform like he had thought, but a red leather jacket. The odd clothing under it was also not a uniform of any kind, and there was absolutely nothing to indicate rank or position. The civilian style of dress, not to mention the whip, brought him to an undeniable conclusion. This stranger--whoever he was, wasn't OZ.
And yet--Duo trusted his instincts, honed through years of war and the Preventers. His attitude, the way the soldiers deferred to him--this guy was an officer of *some* kind, and therefore valuable. A quick look around also brought Duo to another, somewhat-belated realization. He had no idea where he was, or where the others were.
Terrorist Rule #1: When in doubt, take a hostage.
He tugged the limp officer to his feet, snagging a gun from one of the unconscious guards along the way. He loosened the slack on his makeshift garrote just enough to allow talking, and poked the gun warningly into the officer's back.
"Hey! Where are the others?"
The blonde man (who, on closer inspection, looked to be about Duo's age) choked and wheezed as his air returned. After struggling briefly, only to get clocked on the head by the butt of the gun, he spat out a phrase in a language Duo didn't recognize.
"Ie khe't indirsitd luein!"
Duo tightened the whip warningly. "Yeah, I know--your mother and all that jazz. Okay... you don't understand English Standard. Howzabout Japanese? No? Arabic?" Duo rattled through several languages with no success, the blonde officer responding only with confusion and obvious profanity. "Okay--then we do this the nonverbal way. March!" He prodded the red-jacketed man with the gun and shoved him forward. They moved slowly out of the room-- only to freeze as they came face to face with another, older man leading a small group down the hallway. This one was clad in white and blue, also with one eye missing, and startling silver hair.
"bart!" It seemed to be a name of some sort--or an exclamation. It was difficult to tell.
"What is this, the Cyclops Club?" Duo muttered. The older officer (damn, they were popping up everywhere!) took an tentative step forward. "Freeze, cottontop!" He made the gun visible, holding it unerringly at his captive's temple. "Just back away!"
The silver-haired stranger froze obligingly, hands out at his sides. The people at his back--a motley bunch that certainly didn't act like soldiers--rustled uneasily. Another young, brown-ponytailed and muscular young man tried to step forward, his face angry. He stopped at a sharp command from the older officer; though it was obvious he didn't like it.
"Where... Are... My... Friends?" Duo didn't think this guy would understand him any more than his hostage did, but it was worth a shot. The older officer watched him assessingly--then slowly and carefully moved over to a small computer panel recessed into the steel wall, hands still palm up and away from his sides. Duo watched warily as he clicked a switch and spoke into what appeared to be an intercom--there was a brief conversation that clicked off after a few words.
"Oookay... either you're gonna get my friends, or I'm gonna get my ass shot off by the cavalry." At this point Duo was starting to think either would be an improvement, as his knees trembled from the unaccustomed exertion. He'd apparently been out for some time, and even through the adrenaline, his body was giving notice to quit. He stilled the fine tremors that had begun to shake his gun hand through sheer effort of will, but it was a stopgap measure at best. Worse, he had a feeling that that blue-and-white garbed officer had noticed it--that single amethyst eye didn't seem to miss much.
"I do not like this... I *really* do not like this . ." Duo muttered, eyeing the crowded hallway nervously. There was no way he'd be able to kill them all before someone took him down. He whirled at the sound of running feet coming from behind him, dragging the blonde officer with him, and pointing the gun at the new arrival. "Hold it!"
The man skidded to a halt, instinctively raising his hands as he saw the gun. Duo's assessing gaze flickered over the disheveled, grease-stained new arrival, missing nothing. His lean face and posture were peaceable and non-threatening--almost too much so. Duo knew that mask--he'd used it often enough himself, and recognized the small telltales that gave it away. There was an assessing intelligence in those dark eyes and a balanced poise to the posture that did not match the 'I am harmless' act. From the way this man moved on the balls of his feet, Duo would be willing to bet he was some sort of martial artist. He also wasn't alone--a young teenage girl with a startling head of green hair was peering out from behind the older man. Her gaze was level and almost eerily neutral--but still unnervingly intense.
His hostage made an abortive jerk against the garrote. "Si--" Duo controlled the movement deftly, cutting off his breathing long enough to get the warning across.
"Talk about your Mexican standoffs... " he muttered. Now *both* sides of the hallway were blocked. This was bad. Very bad. He slumped slightly, flinching back as the dark-haired stranger in green took a step forward.
"Prithee release our friend, young one. We mean thee no harm." The man's phrasing was peculiar, and the accents oddly placed--but understandable. Communication!
"So you can speak English Standard. .?" Duo asked, watching him intently. The man nodded.
"To a limited fashion, yes. If thou wouldst please release Bart (Duo made a mental note--yup, definitely a proper name), perhaps we can discuss it, thou and I?"
Duo ignored the request. "Where am I? Who are you? And where are my friends?"
"I am called Citan, Citan Uzuki. Thy friends are safe, as are thou; they are resting still. If thee wouldst surrender thy weapon, and release Bart, I wouldst take thou to them."
Duo flickered his gaze back and forth between the green-clad spokesman and the angry group to the other side. "I'm not sure that's such a great idea, dude...sounds nice in theory, but I have this nasty suspicion I'm going to get jumped the minute I try it."
The green-clad man appeared puzzled. Duo tried again. "I think they're gonna attack me." The man's expression cleared.
"Perhaps then if thou would come with me to see thy friends? Thou may keep thy weapons if it please thee--simply release young Bart from thy grasp to show thy goodwill."
Duo chewed on his lip and thought frantically. "Damn... I still don't like this... but I don't think I'm gonna get a better offer," he muttered. He considered the tensed soldiers around him, and calculated his odds on breaking out of here. Not good.
"I hope I don't regret this." In one swift movement he released the whip around his hostage's neck and gave the man a sharp push to the small of the back, sending him staggering towards his friends. The blonde man stumbled forward into his blue-and-white fellow officer's supporting arm--then whirled, teeth bared, on his former captor. Duo put his back to the wall, bracing his shaky legs as he kept the gun trained steadily on the one they had called Bart. "Don't even *think* about it." Bart snarled, and began to step forward--only to run headlong into the older eye-patched man's arm. A short, sharp conversation, and the younger man subsided, still angry.
"Man, I hate not knowing what people are saying. . " Duo switched his wary gaze back to the green-clad spokesman. "I filled my end of the bargain. Take me to my friends."
"For a certainty. If thou wouldst be pleased to follow me... ?" Duo followed at a safe distance, uneasily watching both his guide and the small group following at his back. They made a motley and oddly cautious kind of parade as they progressed down twisting metal hallways, and Duo did not miss how the other soldiers scrambled out of their way. It confirmed his first impression. Whoever these people were--they were the ones in charge. The green-clad man stopped before a hatchway door, and opened it easily, gesturing inside. "Thy friends are here."
Duo slanted an assessing glance inside, never letting the strangers out of the periphery of his vision. The room certainly did not *look* like a cell... more like a medical facility. There were rows of beds, medical supplies, a white-coated doctor--and a cluster of four sleeping forms in white hospital beds along the far wall.
The green-clad spokesman's voice was smooth and reassuring. "It is as I have said--thy friends are well... albeit still recovering. As are thou. Perhaps... " His voice trailed off as he noticed the young braided teen was no longer paying attention.
Duo fought against the sudden weariness and relief that crashed down on him at the sight of the others safe. Hanging precariously off of walls and beds, he stumbled his way to the far bed and staggered to a less that graceful stop, sinking gratefully to his knees. Duo let the gun fall to one side, unheeding of the audience as he pressed his forehead gently against the bed next to Heero's sleeping face. "Thank God... "
Brilliant dark blue eyes opened, blinking and sharpening rapidly into his partner's usual focused intensity. Instinctively, Heero reached out and intertwined his fingers with Duo's trembling ones. "Duo..." There was a wealth of emotion in the word. Heero's gaze flicked to the tense, huddled people in the doorway, then to the gun lying loose and forgotten in Duo's hand. He rested the backs of his fingers of his other hand gently against Duo's drawn features. "It's all right, Duo... they've been helping us."
"Ah..." The last of the adrenaline-spurred tension faded from Duo's wiry frame. "S'good--'cause I don't think I'm up to breaking you guys out of here right now... " He gave the other pilot a tired copy of his usual grin, treasuring the answering quirk of Heero's lips.
Then he turned back to the group of strangers-turned-benefactors. Clicking the safety on, he slowly and carefully placed the gun on the floor, then sent it skidding at the feet of the man in green. The man glanced down at it inquiringly, but made no move to pick it up. Duo smiled wanly.
"If Heero says you're okay, that's good enough for me." His gaze flickered over the other beds, noting Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre's peacefully sleeping faces. "Sorry about earlier--maybe we should start over. The name's Duo. Duo Maxwell." He grinned slightly. "This guy's Heero Yuy, in case he hasn't bothered to mention it."
The man in green nodded in comprehension, picking up the gun and handing it back to one of the others. "I understand. As earlier, I am called Citan Uzuki--I was one of those who helped revive thou. The young one thou hast defeated is called Bartholomew Fatima, or Bart." The red-jacketed blond shifted and glared at him. "The white-haired one to his left is called Sigurd, and the young one clad in blue to the rear is Billy." The silver-haired officer nodded in acknowledgement, while the short-haired young man smiled warmly at Heero and Duo, unfazed by Bart's animosity. "Behind me is Emeralda--" the young girl peered through the door at the sound of her name, "--and lastly, this young man is called Fei Fong Wong." A muscular young man with hair that almost rivaled Duo's own in length bowed slightly without lowering his gaze.
Duo was struck by the ancient pain in that gaze--eyes far too old to peer out of such a young face. He had seen eyes like that before--in his own mirror, and in the faces of his fellow Gundam pilots. They spoke of too many battles won and lost, and the wounds that had remained to scar the soul no matter the outcome. To see such an oddly familiar expression from a stranger was unnerving on levels the exhausted pilot did not want to think about.
Heero sat up shakily, supporting Duo's slumped shoulders, and stared challengingly at Citan. "Duo needs to rest."
Citan nodded. "We are in agreement then--if thou canst convince thy friend to cooperate...?" Heero snorted, and nudged Duo with an impatient knuckle.
"Duo--you need to rest. Let them help."
Duo stood up shakily, using the bed as a crutch. "Yeah, yeah... you're such a mother hen, Yuy. But I gotta do something first." He forced himself upright, and faced the still-fuming Bart. A shaft of afternoon sunlight fell across his face, comforting in its warmth. "Hey, Bart?"
The young man's head jerked up at his name. Duo continued. "I know ya can't understand me but--sorry. Didn't mean to hurt ya."
Listening to his former captor's incomprehensible words, Bart fumed. Beaten by a half-dead boy--and used as a hostage! His gaze rose back to the shakily standing braided youth, mouth opening to deliver a scathing verbal attack. What made this little punk think that a simple apology was going to make him forget what--
The words stopped in his throat as he saw the boy's apologetic gaze--and the shaft of sunlight that fell across Duo's eyes, firing them into an impossibly brilliant sapphire hue. Bart froze in utter shock, staring wordlessly.
His voice, when it decided to return, was a decidedly unmanly squeak. "Holy Sophia! Sigurd... his eyes!"
From behind him, Sigurd's stunned whisper was barely audible.
" ...the Fatima Jasper... " --
End Part Six
(:./hope/dream6)
