---------------- Kyuuketsuki Duo Sanguis Draconis Part XVII ---------------- It was so beautiful, it should have been breathtakingly distracting, and yet it did not allow for such frivolities as aesthetic appreciation. The delicate weave of futures spun out from him like strands of starlight, illuminating all the probabilities before him in fine detail. With every moment, every breath he took, every move his opponent made, threads lit and faded, branches fell away and paths were opened. Heero could easily see how the restless way it shifted could blind a creature and drive him mad with the possibilities. It was pure chaos at first glance, but look at it just -so- and it became clarity. He yielded to Trant's commands with little resistance, eager to explore the bounds of this new weapon at his disposal. No matter that he was disposing of Shinma enemies; someone needed to be sacrificed at the altar of his research, and they would do well enough. In time, Trant himself would fall before the sword of his own forging, as soon as Heero could divine a way to turn the blade against him. Trant was no fool. He had not handed Heero the ultimate weapon without seeing to his own safety. On top of the age-old foundations that had once reined in Heero's power had been built a new set of controls, but their nature was difficult to determine. It was bound up somehow with this thing Trant had introduced to him, but every time he took a closer look, the sparkling patterns drew his attention away in a different direction. He felt his way around the structure carefully as he dealt with the lambs Trant had offered up to the slaughter, captivated by the way his opponents seemed to be telegraphing their moves without so much as a twitch. The matrix in his mind could read their intentions so easily that he could cut them down almost before they even began their first moves against him. Sifting through the possibilities, he experimented, choosing the less direct paths in his inexorable push to victory. At -this- point in time, the creature would overextend itself, leaving him the opportunity to slip inside its guard and slide his shadowscythe through its neck, but only to -this- precise degree, lest the blade be caught on the tough armor protecting its spine. If he shifted his weight to -this- angle, then he would be perfectly balanced to carry out -this- strike against his next target. He chose not to follow that path and blocked its attack instead with a flick of his weapon, and for each of the dying futures that had branched off from its defeat at -that- one moment, dozens more took its place. With everything laid out so clearly and precisely, all he had to do was pick and choose with god-like initiative, and it would come to pass. The golden haze of it all faded from his vision with the last of his foes. The power given to him sensed he was no longer in a situation that fell under its jurisdiction, and it retreated to nothing more than a comforting hum in the back of his mind, ready to spring forth once more when necessary. In the wake of his fallen opponents, his enemy walked onto the stage, only the system that very enemy had installed pulsed forth in a gentle swell to sweep such ideas as 'enemy' from his mind. Trant was his master, and obedience was required of him. A strange doublethink seemed to be in effect, for though Heero could think of Trant with no less enmity than before, he found himself unable to conjure up any powerful notions of rebellion against him. The power structure intervened before he could bring any such thoughts to fruition. Much as it was during battle, his hostility was nullified before it ever came to be. Trant smiled paternally at him, and Heero rode it out with dignity, glad at least that he had been spared any involuntary surges of grovelling delight from having served his master well. Trant wanted a servant, after all, not a mindless, conditioned drone. "Ah, I knew you would not let me down, Heero. It was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it." Accustomed to allowing his ex-former master to ramble on at length, Heero let some of his attention wander. 'I do not like Trant,' he thought, and the energy matrix did not disagree. 'I wish to be free of Trant,' he tried, and once more, the power took no action against him. 'I want to hurt Trant.' Again, no response. 'I will do so by... by...' And because nothing at all happened, Heero could only assume that something had. It was entirely unnatural that he not be able to come up with half a dozen ways to kill or injure something. "Tell me, what was it like?" Such curiosity could have been interpreted as child-like eagerness, if not for the dark gleam in Trant's eyes. Could Heero really put it into words? Did he really have to? It was then that Heero came to a realization. Trant may have been the one to mold the power within his mind, but he did not actually know how it worked. Either he had copied the template from some other author, or he had stolen the basis for it from some creature or another, but whatever the reason, Trant had created something he had little working knowledge of. And he had especially never experienced it for himself. Heero had a moment of grim satisfaction. He doubted that Trant would be able to behold the system in its full glory without going as mad as his previous test subjects had. Walker as well, he judged. They had the single-minded focus necessary, but not the breadth of comprehension. What fools, to dabble with things too powerful for them to wield. Trant demanded an answer, and Heero gave it as best he could. Why not tempt his 'master' with visions of something he could never have? Without really being able to convey the depth of it, he offered his interpretation of what he had 'seen'. Trant's expressions were uncannily familiar, and not from his last time with the Shinma. When he had trained under his tutelage, Trant had always been the one in complete command. No, now he resembled Dr. J, the scientist that had fiddled with him since before his birth. Both meddled in things they did not understand, and both yearned for something beyond their ability to grasp. And just as J had, Trant would ultimately pay the price for that folly at Heero's hands. It appeared that his words were satisfactory in appeasing Trant for now. The Shinma had seen the undeniably positive results of his project. Whether elegant or brutal, that alone would convey its beauty. His eyes alight with the thrill of success, Trant recalled his unwilling pet to the darkness, banishing him to a shadowy limbo as the power matrix was prodded and inspected. Its ways were obscure to look at from the outside, its structure indecipherable, so Heero had little fear that Trant might discover how he had managed to keep his loyalty to his partner. Still, he felt it safer to keep his mental activity to a minimum during this time to keep the net from coming alive and working its magic where Trant could see and possibly interpret something useful. ************ There was a long time of floating in nothingness, and it was surprisingly comfortable. It was warm and welcoming, and even carried a hint of home with it. Eventually, something floated into that nothingness that cradled him. It was just a wisp of a thing, a thought, a voice, a feeling. It patched holes in him that he hadn't even been aware of, filling him with knowledge and power and acceptance and understanding. The thread started as one, then split off into many, enough to weave a tapestry of history for him. It told him of a time of glory, when dragons flew across the skies in a brilliant, untamed horde, separate and free from the power games played by those lesser demons. Some of their number dared the haphazard realm of the humans and established themselves there as entities to be revered, worshipped and feared. Their land was widespread, clothed in the pride of their kind. There were sumptuous palaces and lush gardens, dragons both lazy and fierce lounging about in their leisure. And then one day, there came a powerful dragon, black as the sky on the night of the new moon. He disdained the old ways, prodding his people into joining the great game of the demons and winning the status that was rightfully theirs. Through him, strife was brought upon the dragons, weakening them from within. Against him rose one of their number, resplendent in his greens and reds and golds, wishing to set things right. He had seen many years, and with them had gained wisdom, strength, respect. It was not their way to mingle with the other denizens of this plane. They could not debase themselves so and still remain the dragons they were. Battle was not joined immediately. Sharp words were the first weapons wielded against each other. The great game was neverending, hence there was no rush to resolve the conflict hastily. They gathered their allies to them and played at debates and parleys, each knowing that such formalities would ultimately prove fruitless. One dragon looked upon their failure with exultation, the other with resignation. Inevitably, tensions built until there came a climax, and the black dragon called upon the wise one in challenge. Using the tools at their command, they did fight. The black dragon was mightier, but wisdom could overcome such an advantage. The youthful upstart was lured into the human realm, to lands far from where he had haunted and terrorized, and there the wise dragon employed the services of humans loyal to him to help bind his enemy to the earth. At such distance from his territory, the black dragon was cut off from his power sources, and he was ill-prepared to face the foreign magicks of the humans, having only scorned their weak, frail bodies. Never before had he considered what else a human might do. This unfamiliarity was his downfall, for with the wise dragon's assistance, the humans succeeded in binding him to the earth. Alas, the wards required much of the strength of the wise dragon to remain active, and what little was not invested in them, the dragon channeled into a length of keen steel, that he might always watch over his enemy. All this was shown to Wufei. All this and more. The dragon slept within the blade, keeping silent vigil over the wards, but he was not unaware of the world as it changed around him. A flood of Changs appeared before Wufei's eyes, all of them recognized by the dragon. The parade started with the first human that had helped in the binding, and finished with Wufei's father, and then Wufei himself. Although in this dreamscape, he had no skin to feel with, he felt the dragon's mark tattooed upon his surface. He had been chosen long ago, and Shenlong had not forgotten. The dragon spoke now, his voice starting as a murmur without words and rising to a roar as he bridged the gap between his essence and his power. Finally rejoined, he linked himself with his guardian in a blazing flood of energy and knowledge, then receded until he was only a tingling buzz just a thought away. His body was no more; Wufei's would have to do. The dragon's power was not made his, but it was his to use if he asked it. His eyes opened, and there was a brief wave of disorientation. It took him a little while to recognize that he was lying down on a soft surface. The familiar ceiling overhead indicated that it was the bed in the room he had been occupying during his stay at Shenlong's estate. For a few long moments, he only blinked at the uninformative plane, reacquainting himself with the feel of his body. It was still his, but his limbs felt more confident and sure. Power did not surge through his veins, but it could if he called upon it. His senses were alive but not aflame, conscious of the dragon's power standing by in the wings of his mind. He flexed the fingers on his right hand, and they were nimble and ready. He turned his attention to his left hand, and his fingers ran into something that did not belong. Lifting his head slightly and turning it to the side, he caught sight of Meiran, stirring quickly from her doze to full wakefulness when prodded unexpectedly by the fingers next to her head. She wasted a breath or two silently cursing the twinge in her muscles from sleeping on the floor, leaning against the bed with her head set comfortingly close to her friend. Then she realized just what it was that had woke her, and she bolted upright. "Wufei!" she cried softly, so glad in her relief in seeing him awake that she forgot to blush at being caught in a mildly compromising position. He made a neutral sound of acknowledgment and sat up slowly. Meiran knew better than to help him, and took advantage of the time to stand up herself and work out the kinks in her neck. "How long have I been out?" Despite the energy bestowed upon him by the dragon, there was still that faint undercurrent of lethargy that came from lying abed far too long, and his voice sounded hoarse. She counted the hours in her head, and checked her watch to confirm the time. "Two days now." He paused in his self-analysis. So long? Well, that was typically the way of these things, wasn't it? "So...," Meiran started tentatively. "Did everything go... okay?" He nodded gravely. "Shenlong has been successfully reconnected with his power." "So... does that mean he's been resurrected or what?" She looked around reflexively, as if she expected to see a newly reborn dragon lurking in the shadows of the room. "No. When the wards on Epyon were completed, Shenlong did not have the power to maintain his body. He gave it up and entered the sword instead, so it is long since gone. Now he has chosen me as his vessel in its place." She was happy that their quest for the dragon's power had finished successfully, but she had to admit, somewhere deep inside her where she would never think the thoughts aloud, that she had hoped Shenlong would come back as fiercesome and powerful a dragon as ever to do battle with his ancient foe, and leave the rest of them out of it. Wufei swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "What happened while I was out?" Meiran shook off her thoughts to answer. "Uh, well, nothing much, I guess. Mostly we've just been waiting. We all felt it when you, hmm, made first contact. This whole place has felt just a little different since that happened. So we knew things were alright. We just had to wait for you to wake up before we could tell what exactly had happened. The rest of the dragons have left us alone so far." He pinned her with a look. "And you? What were you doing...?" He gestured vaguely at the bed, where her head had lain only a few minutes before. She met his gaze evenly. "...Waiting. I was waiting." He snorted softly to himself, but could not fault the answer. It was by his own request that nothing more be said. He pushed himself off the bed and took a deep, cleansing breath. "Come. We must gather the others." Haoxian was the first, lazily sunning himself outside in light that seemed brighter than it once was. One of his eyes popped open and inspected Wufei, and when the other eye joined its mate, there was a gleam of satisfaction. He uncurled himself and stretched before bobbing his head in what could have been interpreted as a show of respect. Then he drifted over to settle himself upon Meiran's shoulders, for Wufei's were now occupied by another dragon, and off they went to locate the others. Quatre had the unusual ability to engage Trowa in conversation, and he made good use of that skill as they spoke quietly in another courtyard. When the others approached he jumped lightly off the railing on which he sat and greeted them happily. "Wufei, you're awake," he said, perhaps unnecessarily, before looking over him with an eye attuned to the power. His aura glowed more crisply, with a few new undertones lighting its depths. "And so is Shenlong, I see. Did he speak to you in your sleep?" Wufei nodded for him. "He showed me many things. About the dragons, about the past, about my family." The spiritualist took that in and digested it. Time enough for the details later. For now, on to the more important questions. "Given all that, what do you think our chances are? Do you think you have the power to defeat Epyon?" Although his initial impulse was to answer confidently and positively, Wufei gave the question careful consideration. "Not head-to-head. Epyon has amassed a significant amount of power. We will need a plan." It was about what they had all expected, but Shenlong was not the only weapon they had at their disposal. "We should talk to the other dragons again. Perhaps now they will be more inclined to help us." Wufei looked at their number, and noticed two missing. "Where is Duo?" Quatre shrugged helplessly. "Ask Hilde. She's camped outside his room. She said he's in there and doesn't want to be disturbed. I wouldn't know. We haven't seen him for a while. He could have taken off, for all we know." "He's in there," Trowa affirmed quietly. "Oh. Okay." He didn't know how or why Trowa would know that, but he accepted it as fact. Wufei shook his head curtly. "Very well. We don't need him right now. Haoxian, call your brothers. It is time we spoke with them again." ----- you know what i like best about writing wufei and meiran? i can use he and she and not have to worry about vague pronoun references. _________________________________________ 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 : 10/25/2004 22:44:46 PST