23-Jul-2000
When we last left off, our heroes (forgive the pun) were racing to save their beloved Video Boys from deletion. Can they make it in time? Will Wufei and Noin be able to help them? Stay tuned for the next installment of Video Boys!
Noin shaking her head: I think she was listening to old radio shows last night.
Heero: Hn.
Pern: HEY!
Warnings: slight OOC, 1X2, 3X4 pairing
Disclaimer: I don't own either Gundam Wing or Video Girl Ai.
Duo heard talking. He opened his eyes, but quickly shut them as a bright light blinded him. He tried to move, but found himself held fast by something.
Cursing under his breath, he pulled at his restraints, testing them for weaknesses. There were none. Sagging from exhaustion, he once more opened his eyes.
This time he did it slowly to allow them time to adjust to the light. Looking about, Duo discovered that he was in a room, strapped to a stainless steal table with a big light suspended above him. To the left of him were all sorts of computers and wires. Some of the wires connected to the table and some directly to him. Duo had a very bad feeling about this.
To his right, Quatre stirred. He too was strapped to a table and Duo could see that he wasn't wearing anything. Come to think of it, neither was he.
"Psst. Quatre." Duo hissed. Quatre opened his eyes.
"Duo?"
"Yeah."
"Where are we?"
"I don't know. The last thing I remember are those two guys appearing and picking a fight with us. It looks like we lost." Duo rolled his eyes as he remembered the two tall men, one was wearing a mask and the other had split eyebrows. Something about them was familiar.
"You know, those two guys?" Quatre asked.
"Yeah?"
"I think I've seen them before."
"Me too."
"I think." Quatre broke off. His head suddenly hurt. The more he tried to remember where he'd seen those two men, the more his head ached. "I can't remember." He whispered.
"Neither can I. Listen, I can't get loose from my restraints, can you?" Quatre tried, but failed.
"Nope. Looks like we're stuck." His calm voice betrayed the panic that was rising in him. Duo began looking around the room for anything to cut themselves free with.
"You can't get free." A voice said. A man with short ginger hair and blue eyes appeared. He was tall and was dressed in a fine suit and black boots. Beside him stood the man in the mask. He had long platinum blonde hair that fell nearly to his waist. He wore a dark red suit and black boots. Duo narrowed his eyes.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?! You can't go randomly around kidnapping people, stripping them and then hooking them up to a bunch of wires. We have rights, you know!"
"You have no rights." Treize said smoothly dusting a piece of lint off his blue suit. "You are Video Boys." Duo and Quatre's jaws dropped. "You do not technically exist, therefore you can lay no claim to any sort of right."
"What do you want us for?" Quatre demanded. Treize walked towards the computers and pulled out a stool from amongst the tangles of wires. Sitting done, he straightened his suit jacket out before continuing.
"You two are broken. Something has caused you to deviate from your programming and you have run amuck. As one of the co-owners of OZ Video Rentals, I cannot have faulty merchandise. Both myself and Zechs, the other co-owner, have decided to terminate and replace you." Treize picked up a keyboard. "Video People aren't supposed to have human emotions other than what they were programmed with. Both of you have exhibited a wide range of human emotion and we simply cannot have that. This is nothing personal, just business."
"Yeah, but do we have to be naked when you delete us?" yelled Duo. "I mean I'm totally embarrassed having some old guys looking at me!"
"We're not old." Zechs snarled.
"Could have fooled me!" Duo snapped back. Zechs glared at him through his mask. Duo stuck out his tongue. "BEEEEE-DAAAAA!"
"Duo!" Quatre cried shocked that Duo was egging them on. The last thing they needed was for Treize to hit the delete key before Trowa and Heero rescued them. That's if they realized he and Duo were missing and figured out where they were being held.
"Yes, this is exactly what I mean. This sort of behavior cannot continue." Treize said. "Now, I'm going to start the deleting process, which will take about fifteen minutes to run. There are a lot of corrupted files here."
"Why can't you let us be?" inquired Quatre.
"Because." Zechs told him. Quatre bit the bottom of his lip. "Come on Treize. Let's get this started. The sooner we're done the sooner we can get back to our suite."
"Indeed." Treize said.
"NO!" Quatre cried. "You can't do this! We're practically human again!" Duo turned his head to look at Quatre. What did he mean 'human again'? They'd always been Video Boys. Hadn't they? He began to think back, back before he'd met Heero. His head ached, but he forced himself past the pain. He needed to, there was something important that he had to remember.
Suddenly it hit Duo like a ton of bricks. He remembered how when he had first met Quatre in the kitchen, they thought they recognized each other. The reason they'd thought this was because they had met each other. Forty years ago they were friends at a private all boys' school. The health teacher had decided that since there were films on how to properly brush your teeth that there needed to be some on proper dating procedures. He, Quatre and several other boys had volunteered to make the films. While looking in the drama department they'd discovered an old camera and decided to use it. Unbeknownst to them there was a curse on the camera and it had sucked them into it the film. They were now part of the film reliving their segments over and over again. Each of their separate segments had originally been on one film, but then had been divided up into two when they went from film to video. And the people who had owned the original movie camera that had started this were named Kushrenada and Merquise. The two men before them were the sons of the boys who'd locked them in that camera!
Treize raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, really. Come now. Video People were never human. You're just from the old movies our fathers made with that enchanted camera."
"More like a cursed camera!" Duo yelled. "Your father's trapped us on film then later on video. Dammit! We had lives once!" Treize yawned.
"Treize, just hit the delete button." Zechs said.
Treize nodded and pressed the key. Electricity shot through the wires and Duo could feel himself begin to slip away.
"Kuso." Quatre whimpered. "KUSO! We were so close Duo. If they'd just left us we could have broken completely free from our prison. We would have been human again."
"I know." Duo replied. "And just as we remember too. This totally bites."
"I didn't even get to say good bye to Heero."
"I didn't say good bye to Trowa. I'm going to miss him."
"KISAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
A voice declared as the door to the room was kicked open and a Chinese boy holding a sword appeared in the room. Behind him was a woman with a large gun, Heero and Trowa. Noin took one look at what was going on and who was doing it and narrowed her eyes.
"Treize, you will stop this immediately." She ordered.
"I have already begun. There is no stopping the process." He replied standing.
"Omae o korosu." Heero growled aiming straight at Zechs.
"Zechs, Treize. Stop this injustice." Wufei snarled striding towards them.
"My little dragon, why do you care? They're just Video Boys. Besides you know what happens when you go against me." Wufei lowered his sword. "That's right. That's a good little dragon."
"What's wrong with him?" whispered Trowa to Noin.
"He and Treize have been dating. Any time Wufei does something Treize doesn't like, he gets to sleep on the couch, if you know what I mean." Trowa nodded. "And I'm almost in the same boat with Zechs, but at this point I don't care. This is wrong."
"Let Duo go." Heero ordered.
"No." replied Zechs.
"Hey! Is the Chinese boy dating Treize?" Duo called.
"Hai." Replied Noin.
"Then maybe he should know that he and the blonde showed up in our room last night wearing only their pajamas and kept calling each other Zechsy-bunny and Mistress Treize." Both older men turned red. Duo smiled evilly. "Not only that, I swear I smelled rose scented massage oil and there was this musky smell to them both."
"TWO TIMER!" Both Wufei and Noin screamed. They launched themselves at their significant others and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of them. In the mean time, Trowa and Heero ran over to the computer and quickly began hacking into to it to turn off the deletion process. Time was running out.
Glancing over at the two Video Boys, Heero noticed that they were beginning to fade. No! He couldn't let them disappear. He still had so much to tell Duo and he knew Trowa felt the same about Quatre. He couldn't let them go. Heero's fingers flew across the keys while Trowa tried to remove the wires from them.
Unfortunately, every time he did, he was shocked. The clock was ticking and Heero was getting no where. Cursing mentally, he hit control, alt, delete, but nothing happened. Shit, we're almost out of time. Suddenly the computers went dead. Heero and Trowa looked at each other then over at the four combatants.
Noin kicked the power cord off her foot, narrowed her eyes and went off on Zechs again.
"Now why didn't we try that earlier?" asked Trowa.
"I don't know." Heero replied.
"Hey, it stopped." Duo said.
"Yeah!" Quatre cried. "Now, could somebody UNTIE ME!" Trowa ran over and quickly began uniting Quatre.
As he did he noticed how transparent Quatre was. Both he and Duo were safe, but they weren't completely themselves.
"Trowa? Are you all right, you're crying?" Quatre asked sitting up. Trowa didn't even realize he was, but he wiped his eyes anyway.
"I'm glad you weren't deleted." Quatre turned a shade of pink.
"Unfortunately, we're a little see-through now and I don't know how to fix it."
"It's all right." Trowa whispered, offering Quatre his hand. Quatre placed his in Trowa's. It felt as weightless as paper. Trowa squeezed it and pulled Quatre down and into his arms. He paused for just a moment then leaned down and caught Quatre's mouth.
The other boy was surprised, his eyes growing wide at Trowa's aggressiveness. He couldn't turn him away though. Quatre caught Trowa's lips just as he broke off and kissed him back. Trowa hugged the featherweight tightly. Quatre was so frail that Trowa was worried that he'd slip right through his fingers. It felt more like he was holding air rather than Quatre.
Heero and Duo weren't paying attention to them. Instead, Heero was handing Duo Treize's coat, which had come off during the fight, to cover himself with.
"Thanks." Duo said. "Not that it does much good since I'm practically invisible as it is." He hopped down. "Still. Thanks for coming after me... ah... us."
"You're welcome." Heero replied.
"So how'd your date with Relena go?"
"Horrible. It started out fine, then when we got back to her house..it fell apart." Duo silently thanked whatever powerful being had been looking after him, then mentioned that it would be nice to be whole.
"Say no more. I still have two days left. I'll think of something to get you two together." Duo said trying to pretend he didn't have feelings for Heero.
"I don't want to get together with her." Duo looked puzzled.
"Then, wh... mmmmmmmm." Heero's kiss silenced the Video Boy. Duo lost hold of the coat, letting it fall to the ground. Heero pulled him closer to him. Duo wrapped his arms around Heero's neck, praying that this would go on forever. But it couldn't. In roughly two and a half days he'd go back to his video and leave Heero. "Heero." he pulled free.
"Duo?" Heero asked unsure why he'd broken off the kiss.
"Heero, I'm a Video Boy. I'll have to go back into my video soon. I don't think I'll ever become human. I have such a limited time to be outside my video." He began to choke on his words. He didn't want to cry, but he knew he was about to.
"Duo!" Heero grabbed both of his hands and held him. "I don't want you to go. EVER. If I have to, I'll buy the damn tape and keep it running day and night, then rewind it and start from the beginning." Duo trembled.
"H... Heero. It wouldn't be fair to you." Duo glanced down at his hands. He could see straight through them. He was still fading! "My hands."
"Duo." Heero said, worry written all over his face. "No, this can't be happening, we stopped that damn thing. NO! You should stay!"
"It's too late, we can't stop it. Heero, Heero look at me." Heero raised his head to look straight into Duo's violet eyes. "I'm just a Video Boy."
"I don't care, I'm in love with you." Duo's face crinkled into a half smile half tearful good-bye.
"I'm sorry Heero, but we can't stop this." He tried not to cry, but a tear rolled down his face. "I'm so horrible at good-byes, but know this. You made my last few days really happy, despite your bad temper... and promise me that you'll take good care of yourself and Trowa." Heero nodded.
"Duo, please. Please don't leave me alone." He whispered. He could barely make Duo out now. He fought the tears welling up as Duo gently caressed his cheek.
"I love you." He said, his voice no more than the whisper of a church mouse, as he vanished.
"NOOOOOOO!" With tears in his eyes, Heero turned to see Trowa fall to his knees. Tears were streaming down his face. "No." Trowa whimpered. "Quatre."
End Part 11
~Tigress Pern
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