---------------
Kyuuketsuki Duo
Episode 15
Bad Religion
Chapter 9
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	Quatre tensed, not knowing how he could be any more tense than 
he already was, but knowing that something was about to happen.  Darcy 
had stopped mid-sentence, his lips curling upwards slightly in a 
chilling, mocking smirk.  "Wufei," the false reverend spoke to the boy 
by his side.  The youth in question snapped to attention at the quiet, 
commanding authority in the man's low voice.  "Prepare yourself."

	Wufei's hand automatically slipped inside the confines of his 
long coat, as if he were reaching for something hidden inside.  "What is 
it?" he asked tersely, his eyes scanning the area around them alertly.

	"I do believe our demon has come out to play."  Quatre could see 
an unearthly glow in the man's eyes that he was fairly certain was not 
actually there, and it accompanied the smooth, dangerous words in an 
unsettling manner that Wufei seemed not to notice.

	Wufei completed his earlier action, and easily slid a long sword 
out from beneath his coat, holding it at the ready before him.  
"Maxwell!" he shouted into the shadows of the trees, taking a few steps 
forward.  "Show yourself, demon!"

	Nothing responded but a cold breeze that rustled through the 
leaves and made Meiran sneeze softly into the tense quiet.  With 
narrowed eyes, Quatre noticed the cult leader backing slowly away from 
the fringe of trees and towards the fire and his followers.  The 
gathering of civilians had noticed the disturbance in their midst as 
well, and now stood muttering uneasily amongst themselves.

	'Yes,' Quatre heard a harsh hiss in the wind that seemed to be 
speaking directly to his bones.  'Show yourself, Guardian.'

	He had barely enough time to ponder the meaning of the words 
before he felt another prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck, 
and he saw Wufei look sharply towards the shadows to his left.  The 
blonde turned around in time to see the darkness shift angrily, and out 
of the shadows stepped another shadow, this one human in form, with a 
long chestnut braid trailing behind him.

	It was Duo, answering the challenge, but not quite the Duo that 
Quatre was familiar with.  His eyes were hard, as they had been in 
Quatre's visions, a light amethyst edged with diamond that seemed to 
blaze within their dimensionless depths with an icy, raging fire.  The 
boy was clad entirely in a silky black, from the high mandarin collar, 
down to the loose pants that were tucked neatly into the soft, mid-calf 
boots.  Quatre had never seen him in anything but a school uniform, but 
he couldn't help but think that the dark look suited him very well.  On 
his body, anyway.  The dark look on his face was one to be feared.

	Duo focused directly on the leader of the movement, ignoring the 
rest of them.  "It isn't enough that you cause me trouble," he spoke 
directly to the reverend, his soft words carried easily through the 
night air on gentle wings of power, "but you have to subvert my friends 
as well?"

	The tone was deceptively casual, but Quatre involuntarily sensed 
more deeply, and felt the edge behind every flatly uttered word, a 
terrible fury overlying buried pain.  It was confusing, disorienting, 
but the sensation fled quickly and then he realized that Duo had called 
them all 'friend'.  It was obvious that whatever secrets Duo had been 
hiding would come out tonight.  There should have been no further reason 
to keep up his pretense of friendship, unless it was no pretense at all.  
Yet they had betrayed his friendship by showing up here tonight to doubt 
him.  By what right could they still lay claim to such a name?

	"Duo Maxwell," Darcy nearly purred, rolling the name around his 
tongue like a fine wine.  The tension in the air became so thick that 
Quatre found himself almost laboring for every breath.  "That is the 
name you go by, isn't it, demon?"

	Duo's eyes narrowed, his demeanour somehow hardening even more.  
"Why?" he asked softly, although Quatre wasn't quite sure what he was 
questioning.  The calm query was an eerie contrast to his rigid posture.

	Darcy didn't answer.  Instead, a smug smile flitted briefly over 
his lips, and he spun suddenly towards his followers.  "It is he!" he 
proclaimed loudly at them, his voice ringing with righteousness as he 
pointed his finger accusingly at Duo.  "This is the demon I speak of!  
He has come forth from the shadows this night to test our conviction, to 
tempt us with his dark powers and seductive lies, to feed upon our minds 
and steal our souls!"  The small crowd, up until this point, had spoken 
quietly amongst themselves, each asking him or herself if this delicate, 
fey youth could truly be the evil one they warded themselves against at 
night, but their leader's confident voice swept away their doubts in a 
heartbeat, and there was a sudden shift in their mood as they went from 
uncertain sheep to angry, crusading mob.

	"We must fight this evil!" the false reverend continued to 
incite them.  A few of them moved towards the fire and hefted burning 
brands.  Quatre glanced uneasily at the boy he still considered his 
friend, and saw his elegant fingers clenched whitely at his side, 
trembling minutely from the tight fists.  The pale eyes now wore their 
expression of pain more openly to Quatre's emotively perceptive gaze as 
their owner slowly shook his head, as if trying to deny what was 
transpiring.  "We must vanquish this evil in our midst!  He cannot stand 
against the strength of our faith!  Fight!  Our very souls are at risk!"

	The mob surged forward.  "No," Quatre whispered to himself, his 
eyes going wide as he lost sight of Duo among his attackers.  "No!" he 
repeated, a shout this time.  "Stop this!  This is wrong!"  He took a 
step towards them, but a firm grip on his arm halted him in his tracks.  
He turned angrily, and met a pair of hard, dark eyes.

	"No, Quatre," Wufei ordered sharply, his gaze boring into Quatre 
with a frightful intensity.

	"That's Duo, Wufei!" he shouted back, his eyes involuntarily 
drawn back for a moment over his shoulder at the conflict behind him.  
An uncomfortable pressure began to build in his chest.  "He may not be 
your friend anymore, but he's still mine, and I'm not going to just 
stand here while--"

	"He's not your friend, Quatre!"  Wufei shifted his grip a bit 
and gave him a little shake.  "You saw him!  You saw him walk right out 
of the shadows as if he were born to them.  Couldn't you feel the anger 
radiating from him?  And the --"

	"Wouldn't you be angry if someone accused you of being something 
you weren't?  Especially something like this?"  He tried to shake the 
other boy's hand off, but he couldn't.  The tight grip was beginning to 
become painful.  "Be reasonable, Wufei!"

	"You are the one who needs to wake up, Quatre!  You don't know 
demons like we do.  You have no idea what they are capable of!"  The 
tirade was halted when Trowa's hand came to rest firmly on Wufei's 
wrist, his usually empty eyes filled with an unmistakable warning on his 
impassive face.  Wufei released the smaller boy's arm, taken aback by 
the unprecedented interest the silent boy had taken in the transpiring 
events.

	Quatre blinked as well, but brushed his surprise aside and 
rubbed at his arm absently as he continued to try to talk some sense 
into the other.  "'We'?  Are you referring to the good reverend Darcy?  
If so, then why is he just standing there and watching?  Why isn't he 
leading the charge and fighting for his cause, instead of letting his 
people do all the dirty work?"

	"What?"  Startled, Wufei glanced off to the side, wondering how 
he could have missed that fact.  Indeed, Darcy just stood there, not too 
far from them, observing the small brawl he had whipped up with a tiny, 
mysterious smile on his weathered face.

                              ************

	Every word that the stray spoke against him was like a stinging 
slap to his face.  It wasn't just that he claimed such outrageous lies.  
It was that they all believed it.  It was that he had worked for so many 
long years on humanity's behalf, and now they were accusing him of that 
which he sought to protect them from, accusing him of everything he had 
sworn he would never do.  But the betrayal of strangers didn't hurt him 
nearly as much as the betrayal of his friends.

	Were they right?  He fed on humanity, it was true.  It was as 
essential to him as food was to them.  Did they have proper cause to be 
outraged?  Had he been a fool to think he could be friends with them?

	::Think later, act now!::  The sharp words snapped him out of 
his self-doubting paralysis as Heero swooped in from the shadows in time 
to stand by his love's side before he was overwhelmed by the incoming 
rush of humans.  Heero suggested a quick, rather sketchy, course of 
action to his numb partner, and Duo, still a bit stunned, agreed without 
much thought.  A moment before they would have met the charge, they 
disappeared from beneath the reaching hands and rematerialized about a 
dozen feet away from them and off to the side.

	Almost without having to look to find their prey, the mob spun 
itself around and changed course, heading unerringly in their direction.  
::He's cueing them!:: Duo mentally growled, as they tried the same 
tactic again, and met with the same results.

	::Hn,:: his partner responded, sounding typically unperturbed.  
::Guess he doesn't have to worry about being subtle, anymore.::  They 
had studied the proceedings for a short while when they had arrived, 
before the stray had called them out, and had determined why they had 
had so much trouble finding it, how it had slipped beneath their notice.  
He hadn't been possessing anyone at all.  With well chosen words, and 
maybe a small hint here and a careful nudge there, he had managed to 
steer and influence his followers in exactly the direction he wanted 
them to go, and it was usually a direction in which they were heading in 
the first place.  Of course, now that the guardian had found him, he no 
longer had to bother with slipping beneath his notice.

	::We're going to have to do something about these people, Heero.  
He's going to hide behind them for as long as he can.::  They stopped, 
took up defensive stances, standing so that they were guarding each 
other's back, and met the rush.

	::Any bright ideas?:: Duo asked his partner, blocking a wild 
swing from a burning branch with a sweep of his power.  Dodging it 
entirely would have just allowed it to hit Heero from behind.  ::Geez,:: 
he muttered to himself.  ::At least they don't have pitchforks.::  As an 
afterthought, he reached out with his power and snuffed out the 
makeshift torches altogether, a move that startled the humans and bought 
them a precious second or two before they moved to attack again.

	::Working on it.::

	::Would you be offended if I said 'work faster'?::

	::Hn.::

	Duo shoved back at a big, burly fellow, tossing him back into 
several of his comrades and clearing a small space in front of him.  
Between the milling bodies, he caught a glimpse of his tormentor, 
satisfaction rolling off of him in a thoroughly irritating manner.  "I 
won't fight them!" he called out at the stray angrily.  "I know what you 
want.  You can't make me hurt them!"

	'They're only humans,' the wind whispered seductively into his 
ear.  'And they've turned on you.  What do you care?  Just give in.'

	Duo shook his head sharply and shoved the intrusive voice from 
his thoughts.  "Your little mind tricks won't work on me as they did on 
them," he answered harshly, lashing out with his foot in a cheap, 
numbing shot at a man's kneecap.  He murmured a short apology to the man 
as he went down before continuing his previous thought.  "I'm not so 
easy to turn.  Now call off your pawns and face me yourself!"

	::Oh, like that's going to work.::

	::I can do without your snide comments, thank you very much.::  
It was always worth a shot.  Some of these creatures did respond to 
accusations of cowardice, and luckily for the guardian, their pride 
always led to their downfall.

	"Pawns?" the stray replied mockingly.  "These people are only 
fighting for what they believe in.  I'm not forcing them to do 
anything."

	::Do you mind if I'm unscrupulous?:: Heero asked, an idea 
sparked by the Shinma's taunt.

	::Probably not, so long as you don't hurt them, but how 
unscrupulous are we talking here?::

	::Well, if he's not controlling them, I was just thinking that 
maybe we should.::

	::We are most certainly not going to use them as we just 
suggested he was,:: he responded indignantly, knowing that that was not 
quite what Heero had been suggesting, but still not quite catching on.

	There was that 'we' again, Heero thought.  ::I was thinking 
maybe a little suggestion that they all fall asleep for an hour or 
two.::

	::Oh.::  He barely gave the tree limb that was being wielded 
against him a glance as he burnt it to a fine ash.  The woman swinging 
it fell off balance, and Duo gave her a discreet push away from him with 
his power.  ::I guess that's okay.  Can we do that?::

	::Why don't we find out?::  Duo would have rolled his eyes if it 
hadn't meant taking them off of the men in front of him.  Nevertheless, 
he agreed, and clearing a small space around them for room to work, they 
reached out as one and seized the minds of the cultists, brushing aside 
the stray's slight influence and overwhelming them all with the urge to 
sleep.  Well, Heero did, anyway.  Duo was just a little bit too miffed 
to be so elegant about it, and just knocked his share unconscious.  
Either way, all action ceased as the mob went suddenly silent and 
collapsed.

                              ************

	Meiran gasped as the cultists all fell to the ground abruptly.  
"Are they...?"

	Quatre shook his head, watching intently as the unearthly boy 
extracted himself smoothly from the middle of the fallen bodies.  "No," 
he answered confidently, the knowledge springing out at him unbidden.  
"They're just unconscious.  Or sleeping.  Or something."

	"Well," Duo said calmly, as if he not just fought off a small 
crowd of unorganized violence.  "Now that that ugly business is done 
with, shall we get on with it?"  He still directed his words exclusively 
to Darcy.  Quatre found it a trifle disturbing, the way he acted as if 
they weren't even there.  He knew that the black-clad teen was aware of 
their being here.  Did he find their presence just so betraying that he 
couldn't stand to look at them?  Quatre didn't blame him.  He didn't 
think he would be able to look Duo in his unfamiliar eyes and not flinch 
himself.

	Wufei stood clearly on the man's side, and Meiran hovered near 
the boy, though her eyes were still filled with uncertainty.  "You.  I 
recognize you," Wufei declared.  Quatre followed his gaze past the boy, 
and noticed, to his surprise, another figure standing in the middle of 
the fallen.  Quatre had missed him altogether.  He was about a head 
taller than the blonde, and shrouded in a robe of deepest ebony.  A cowl 
covered his head, and a fine white mask obscured his face, its snowy 
blankness disturbed by two dark blue 'eyes' and what looked like 
teardrops, if only one wept with blood.  The silent figure ignored them, 
its attention focused on the confrontation before them.

	"Why are you doing this?" Duo asked the older man evenly.

	"Because of who and what you are, of course," the cult leader 
answered easily.  Quatre noticed that he never spared a moment's concern 
for his collapsed followers.  "I wish to rid this land of your 
influence.  I want you to stop interfering in our affairs."

	"Sorry," Duo apologized flippantly.  "That's my job.  And I do 
it well."  His voice dropped suddenly to a low, dangerous tone.  "So do 
trust me when I say, you won't have to worry about me interfering in 
your affairs for much longer."

	Quatre's eyes widened as a dark mist began to collect around the 
boy, coalescing into ethereal ribbons of power that stirred the air 
currents around him before settling restlessly at his feet.  The air 
between Duo and the strange man seemed to crackle with the potential for 
violence.

	The strange pressure that had been building quietly inside his 
chest had migrated to that spot right behind his eyes.  He pressed a 
hand to his throbbing temple and tried to shake off the sudden pain, but 
it reached out instead and swallowed him whole.  In the blink of an eye, 
his perceptions went awry, just as Duo began his attack.  In his 
disoriented state, he dimly felt a concerned hand come to rest upon his 
shoulder, but to his surprise, he couldn't turn his head to see whose it 
was.  He was no longer in control.

                              ************

	With a look on his face that spoke of painful death, Duo stood 
across from the reverend, prepared to do battle.  Wufei understood that 
this was their battle, and he stepped back to give them room, but he 
didn't lower his guard.  If Darcy failed to meet the demon's challenge, 
then it would be up to him to take up the task of fighting it.

	Without warning, Duo flung his hand forward, his fingers, in 
their swift path, dipping into the crackling energy around him and 
gathering it into a glowing sphere with small sizzles of violet 
lightning running over its surface.  It flew across the space between 
them almost faster than the human eye could track towards his stationary 
opponent.  Wufei's shout of warning died in his throat as the speeding 
energies were dispersed about a foot in front of the man by a protective 
shield, the power dissipating unspent around the smirking figure.

	Darcy laughed aloud as Duo's amethyst eyes widened.  The boy's 
lips moved in silent cursing as his cold gaze swung sharply towards 
Quatre.  Wufei turned that direction himself, in time to see the taller 
boy standing behind the blonde shoved harshly away from him by an unseen 
force.  Trowa stumbled, fell to the dirt, and didn't get up.

	"Quatre," Duo breathed.  He turned back to the reverend with an 
icy glare.  "Release him," he demanded in a menacing growl.  "Don't even 
bother trying to convince me that he's turned against me of his own free 
will.  Just let him go."

	Darcy laughed again.  It was not a sound of sanity.  "Darcy," 
Wufei questioned uncertainly.  "What's going on here?"  Quatre's head 
slowly turned slightly over his shoulder, as if he were trying to get a 
look at the friend he had tumbled to the floor, but was struggling 
against a great resistance.  The angle was enough for Wufei to see the 
expression on his face, however.  He caught a glimpse of wide-eyed 
horror and pain before the head snapped back to the forward position, 
and the blonde moved stiffly to stand between the man and the boy with 
the braid.

	"Now why should I do that?" Darcy drawled, the air still seeming 
to ring with the echoes of his mad laughter.  "Because he's an 
innocent?"  He snorted in disgust at the thought.  "Oh, please.  Spare 
me your human sentimentality."

	"Human...?" Wufei repeated, dumbfounded.  Darcy was calling his 
'demon' a human?  And was he somehow controlling Quatre's body?

	"It's no fair, using a spiritualist," Duo responded to Darcy's 
verbal jab.  The tone attempted to be light and playful, but the words 
were too sharply enunciated.  "This is a battle between you and me.  
Your kind and mine.  As it has always been.  Stop cowering behind these 
humans.  They won't save you."

	"The humans are fair game.  As they have always been, for our 
kind.  If you choose not to take advantage of them, then that is your 
decision," he sneered, making it clear that he thought the decision 
foolish.

	The tall, cowled figure from that night in the park blurred out 
of his peripheral vision.  Wufei's attention snapped to that quadrant, 
but the masked one was gone by the time his eyes reached its previous 
position.  The sound of a high, choking gasp made him turn around again.

	"Meiran!" he cried out.  Darcy was not where he had been 
standing when Wufei looked away.  To have covered the distance between 
him and the girl in so brief an amount of time was inhuman.  Darcy was 
behind her, holding her close with an arm tight around her neck, and 
using her as a shield and a hostage against Duo's companion, who had 
stopped short in his attack.

	"That's low," Duo ground out softly, fury glittering in his 
narrowed eyes.

	Wufei brought his sword to the ready against Darcy.  "Let her 
go, Darcy!"  He had no idea who was on whose side anymore, but for sure, 
Darcy was not who or what he had claimed to be.  He had taken Meiran 
hostage in a battle he was barely even fighting, choosing instead to 
hide behind others like a dishonorable coward.  He was no ally of 
Wufei's.

	The man paid no attention to him, the cold blue eyes focusing 
instead on Duo.  "Fair game," he repeated himself with a chilling smile.  
He tilted Meiran's head back with his hand.  Wufei tightened his grip on 
his sword at her quiet whimper as the man sniffed delicately at her 
exposed neck, his eyes never once leaving his opponent's.  Meiran tried 
to jab her elbows sharply into the man's ribs, but to no effect.  He 
just wrenched her head back farther.  "They're prey.  Even you must feed 
some time, Guardian.  Don't you enjoy a pretty little snack on 
occasion?"

	"Why?" Duo demanded angrily for the third time that night.  "Why 
the elaborate setup?  Why involve all of these people?"

	Darcy took a final teasing nip at Meiran's trembling flesh 
before lifting his head to answer.  "I thought it would be fun."  
Quatre's invisible strings were suddenly jerked, and his hand flew up in 
a gesture reminiscent of Duo's earlier motion.  A blast of energy flew 
from his fingertips, visible only by the distortion it produced in the 
air, like that of heat waves.  With a grunt of surprise, Duo snapped his 
forearms up to cross them at the wrist before him in an automatic 
warding gesture.  He had to retreat a step to steady himself before the 
unexpected attack, but otherwise managed to raise a shield and block the 
energy well enough.

	"I thought it would be interesting to turn them all against you.  
I had heard that they might be a weakness of yours," the creature in 
human form continued.  "I thought it would be lovely for you to die, 
knowing that your precious humans had betrayed you."  Another bolt of 
raw power emanating from Quatre flew forth, and Duo, unscathed, though a 
bit breathless, was forced back a few more steps beneath the onslaught.

	"Quatre!" Duo called out to him, staring searchingly into the 
boy's eyes.  "I know you're in there.  Fight him!"

	Another dark chuckle from the one Wufei had thought his ally 
brought a shiver down his spine.  "Though powerful, this one is 
untrained.  He cannot fight it.  Admittedly, running into him was quite 
a stroke of luck.  And that he turned out to be a friend of yours?  
Amazing.  And sheerest coincidence that my followers met your other 
friend in the first place and brought us all together here.  Thank you 
so very much for that, by the way, Wufei."  He laughed maliciously as 
Wufei flinched, almost violently.  "This confrontation was forced a bit 
sooner than I had really planned, but some things are just too good not 
to take advantage of them."

	Meiran let loose another involuntary cry as Darcy jerked her 
sharply, a warning to Wufei, halting his slow, cautious advance.  He 
stopped, but did not back away.  The man then pulled her in the other 
direction so he could snarl at Duo's silent companion, in case he was 
planning anything.

	Just as a groan came from Trowa's prone form, another surge of 
power came from Quatre.  Duo batted it aside with a flick of his wrist 
and followed it up with a move of his own.  Obsidian shadows leapt up 
from the ground beneath Quatre's feet and encircled the boy's body, 
wrapping him from the neck down in a black cocoon.  The blonde struggled 
physically against the restrictive bindings, and moments later, the 
shadows dissolved and slid off of him.

	"Poor, poor guardian.  Your powers do you little good against 
those of a human and a spiritualist, don't they?"  Another wave of 
nearly invisible force flew through the air towards the mysterious boy 
with the braid.  Duo jumped lightly into the air to avoid it, and hung 
there long enough to return fire with a translucent globe filled with a 
crimson flame.  The sphere brushed past the boy being controlled and 
spilt itself upon the earth behind him.

	Duo landed with a dark scowl on his face.  "Can't bring yourself 
to do it, can you, Guardian?" Darcy mocked.  "After I defeat you, I 
think I shall keep this one.  He will serve me well, don't you think?"

	Wufei was all turned around.  It was obvious now that both Darcy 
and Duo were supernatural creatures, and he had always believed that 
they were all unilaterally evil and had to be destroyed.  But Duo seemed 
to be at least unwilling to harm them, whereas Darcy was clearly 
engaging in those acts he would have expected from demonkind.  And what 
was this guardianship that the false reverend spoke of?

	The air tingled as the untrained spiritualist gathered his power 
unwillingly once more, and Duo readied himself for the counterattack.  
As the assault was about to be launched, Trowa unexpectedly sprang from 
the dust where he lay and broke the attack with a flying tackle, 
twisting mid-fall so that he could shield the boy caught in his arms 
from the brunt of the impact with the unyielding earth.

	Wufei's conflict was brushed aside as Darcy's concentration was 
momentarily disrupted.  Whatever he might decide in the end about Duo, 
Darcy was clearly the greater of two evils, and Wufei took advantage of 
the opening.  Leaping into action, he swiftly covered the distance 
between himself and the person he had foolishly trusted, and snatched 
Meiran from the slackened grasp.

	The others also used the opportunity Trowa had gained them.  The 
masked figure closed in on Darcy the moment the two teens were clear of 
him, and slashed at him with a scythe he had pulled from the shadows.  
The microthin edge made a shallow slice across the man's abdomen as he 
clumsily dodged the dangerous blade and the hunter who wielded it.

	Duo felt the link between the stray and Quatre weaken, and with 
a quick, clean strike of surgical precision, he severed the dark thread 
binding the boy to the Shinma.  He watched just long enough to see 
Quatre's body go limp, finally freed from the stray's rigid control, 
before he disappeared, and rematerialized by his partner's side.

	"Return to your true form, Shinma!" he commanded, letting loose 
a clean wave of the guardian's power that dispelled the human form the 
stray wore and revealed its nature.

	"By the gods...," Wufei breathed, as the stray reverted to a 
dark skeletal form, with eerie ruby eyes glowing in an emaciated 
skull-like face, and black corruption and power dripping off its bones 
like melting flesh.  It screeched in anger and in hate, the emotions 
near tangible in the soundwaves.  Dimly, he heard Quatre cry out weakly 
from the powerful release of pure energy running roughshod over his 
newly awakened senses, Trowa watching over him like a lioness protecting 
her cubs.

	Meiran wriggled out from Wufei's loose hold as he stared in near 
horror at the battle between the otherworldly creatures.  What had he 
allied himself with?  The three combatants engaged in the furious dance 
flickered in and out as they moved more swiftly than his eye could 
easily follow, flashes of pitch black night being hurled against 
brilliant flames and lightnings that lit the sky in an angry 
contrapuntal harmony.  The spectacle being presented this night was more 
awe-inspiring than that displayed the night his own life had been turned 
upside-down.  That had been all crude power and brute force, inelegant, 
if effective.  This was deadly grace and terrifying beauty, the kind 
that could strike a man down without his ever being aware he was in 
danger.

	The dance came to a whirlwind of a conclusion.  The braided one 
and his partner moved as if they were of one mind, each but an extension 
of the other, as they flew in tandem to weave a cage around the Shinma 
in blazing blue and icy indigo flames, an intricate painting in the air.

	The guardian and his silent companion drifted to a halt before 
the raging Shinma, Duo wearing as impassive and distant a mask as his 
partner.  He spoke briefly to the entrapped creature, a few cold words 
inaudible to Wufei that were shortly consumed by the shrieks of mortal 
suffering coming from the evil being.  The glowing prison began to 
rotate, whirling more and more quickly until the burning lines became a 
solid wall of power.  On each revolution, the trap grew tighter, 
gradually constricting its victim until it ate away at the very 
substance of the creature itself, shaving off thin layers, little by 
little, until the power eroded it to oblivion, and dissipated into the 
air.

	The sudden silence left in its wake was deafening, and it was 
many long moments before Duo's attention finally returned to them.  He 
made eye contact with them all in a single sweeping gaze, the expression 
in his deep amethyst eyes no longer distant and cold, but still quite 
unfathomable.

	"Duo...," Quatre started softly, having recovered enough from 
his possession by the Shinma to have witnessed much of the battle, 
though still leaning upon Trowa for support.  The fey youth's eyes 
zeroed in on the blonde's, and Quatre gasped.  The power and intensity 
still flowed strongly through the braided one, and it hurt his raw 
senses to feel.

	A muscle in Duo's jaw tightened, and suddenly the scenery 
flashed crimson and midnight, and half a heartbeat later the four teens 
found themselves back at the edge of town.  They all blinked in 
surprise, and looked around for their erstwhile friend, but he was 
nowhere to be seen.

	"Do you believe me now, Wufei?" Quatre asked quietly, with no 
hint of malice or accusation in his voice.

	Wufei bit back his automatic reaction to ask the same of Quatre, 
and took a deep breath instead.  "I don't know what I believe anymore, 
Quatre," he answered softly, his shoulders slumping beneath a burden 
that had only grown heavier.  How could he have been so wrong?  The 
events of the night revealed to him that he was so obviously inadequate 
for his duty.  He sheathed the sword that he was surprised to find 
himself still clutching, and turned tiredly to trudge in the direction 
of his and Meiran's home.

	Meiran gnawed on her lip for a few moments, then started to 
follow him.  She stopped after a few steps, and turned back over her 
shoulder to look at Quatre and Trowa.  "Call us tomorrow," she whispered 
to them, after reassuring herself that they looked as well as could be 
expected.  Quatre nodded, and mustered up something resembling a smile.  
She smiled weakly in return, then rushed after her departing friend.

	Trowa tugged once on Quatre's sleeve.  Quatre looked up at his 
slightly taller companion, and by mutual, unspoken agreement, they, too, 
started on their way home.

_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
property of the little turnip that could.  
The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 8/23/2001 18:32:00 PST