Setting: Just after the AC-195 war. Possibly AU, but it’s worked in so it doesn’t warp the TV storyline.

Pairings: 3x4, 1+2, Kreigan+5, 13x6

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Violence, possible OOC? lemon, angst. No NCS - you’ll see why I had to point that out. Several OCs but they don’t necessarily play a big part.

Disclaimers: The only characters here that I own are any alter egos, Kazimiriel, Machiavel, Sarrow and Malvad and a few other characters that’ll pop up. Characters I don’t own include: Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, Wufei, Zechs, Treize and any other good ones in fact.

Also, I would like to note that I am not Christian - anybody that wants to know why can pick one of two courses of action, either accept the fact that I’m a Mahayanist or email me and prepare for a very complex credo - and I’d like to add that this is just a story. If anything in it offends anyone, I apologize very sincerely.

Rough Peace - Part 8

Wufei was the first to regain consciousness having pretty much taken his cyanide as soon as he got to his room. The ‘get it over and done with’ philosophy had really come in handy round about then.

He sat feeling strangely lightheaded and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that he was in a bed, which was odd enough considering he’d just died. Then he examined the spacious room. ‘I’m in a hospital ward? Well, at least it’s not a rose bush. Where’s Winner?’

Almost on cue Quatre appeared in the room, which was completely deserted except for the two of them. “How are you?” the angel asked kindly, sitting down next to him.

“I’m fine thanks, just a little disorientated,” Wufei yawned. “What is this place?” he asked, looking around inquisitively.

“This is Lymbo. The neutral realm that houses people not fit for either Niravaana or Enfero,” Quatre explained slowly. “Everybody comes here when they die, then they’re assigned to whichever realm’s appropriate. That’s why we’re here.”

There was another flash from across the room and Trowa’s image flickered on the neighboring bed. The angel leapt up and was at his side in less than a second. He kissed the Heavyarms pilot on the cheek and stroked his face. “Trowa?” The gymnast’s eyes fluttered open and he smiled dazedly.

“Did everything work?” Trowa asked, sitting up as Quatre wrapped his arms around him. The angel nodded and went to reply further before Heero and Duo appeared simultaneously. The braided boy was the first to come round and instantly jumped out of bed and sat next to Heero.

A few minutes later, when they were all back to normal, Quatre lead them out of the ward, hand-in-hand with Trowa and down the corridor of the hospital-like building. Their footsteps echoed through the empty, cavernous halls and every breath they took was amplified with the emptiness of the place.

“Where is everyone?” Duo asked, peering in through the doors of each room they passed. The building was completely deserted. Almost like something from a horror movie.

Quatre shook his head anxiously, “No idea, all I know is that this has got something to do with the reason I’ve been called back. Just stay on your guard. I don’t know what we’re up against here.”

As they went out onto the streets, there wasn’t a soul to be seen. The wind whistled through the trees and bushes, the silence throughout the streets was unnerving to say the least and the only sign of life was one lone squirrel sat by the side of the road. Quatre wrapped his hand tightly around Trowa’s as he felt the deafening thudding in his chest return with nerves.

“Man, this is like some kinda ghost town,” Duo said quietly, sticking very close to his lover. “I take it, this place is generally more crowded than this?”

The paving below them was smooth and flat like polished granite, the skies were a perfect azure blue and the sun beat down graciously past cotton wool clouds. If it weren’t for the reason they were there, Duo would have considered this a pretty nice place to be.

For the first time in his life he felt one screaming phrase in his head, “I wanna go home.” This, as appropriate as it was, was hardly a realistic desire. ‘On the bright side, at least I’ve got a home I want to go back to,’ Duo mused as they continued to follow Quatre through the abandoned Lymbo.

“Just for some idea, Winner, where are we going?” Wufei asked a lot more confidently than he felt. He did feel a little put out though, walking through the realm and looking at Trowa with Quatre and Heero with Duo, he began to feel slightly lonely. ‘Maybe all this relationship stuff is better then I thought it was.’

Quatre looked around the empty streets and kept going straight ahead. “We should head for the gates of Lymbo and then make our way along to Niravaana,” he replied, letting his wings fall down over his shoulders. “It’s a long walk, about four hours, and the pathway’s no picnic. Is everybody up for it?”

“Four hours?” Heero remarked. “Based on what speed?”

“About two miles an hour.”

“So it’s only eight miles? That shouldn’t be too hard,” Trowa said energetically. “We could easily cover that kind of distance in less than two hours, couldn’t we?”

Quatre shrugged and looked at the floor. “We *could* if the ground was solid. It’s made up of a combination of rock, sand and something called nychtocoside, which doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s almost like walking on air.”

It took a few minutes for Quatre to realize that his friends probably hadn’t done that before. Either way, it wasn’t going to be an easy trek. But, Duo thought at least, it was better than walking through this creepy place. He could sense movement from within the houses that told him that there were people around but, for some reason, there was a reason they wanted to stay inside.

Or a reason they were forced to stay inside.

They reached the gates of the realm about half an hour later, during which time they’d stayed deathly silent and kept a watchful eye out for anything dangerous, and each one of the humans looked absolutely awestruck with the sight.

“Whoa!” Duo exclaimed, stepping forward towards the open gates whilst the others seemed to be rooted to the ground. “Now this is just weird! What is this place, Quat?”

‘This is going to sound so implausible but I really should answer the question.’ “Well it’s got a few different names, nothing official. It’s just the space between the three different realms of the eighth dimension. Oblivion basically. But if you think this is weird, why don’t you try living around these places for more than three-hundred and sixty years and then go to Earth.”

Duo shrugged and then nodded, he could see Quatre’s point. “So this is what the whole dimension would look like if Niravaana and those other places weren’t here?”

“Pretty much,” Quatre said casually. “Is everyone ready to go?”

After roughly four hours of extremely slow walking in between the realms, the four human pilots were starting to feel the strain of walking on the bizarre blend of terrains. Quatre could easily have taken to the air and flown the eight miles in no time at all, but he didn’t think it very fair that he should have things so easy when his friends had to struggle.

Duo looked up from the floor he was trying to navigate through and blinked several times before pointing. “Is that it?” he asked in wonderment at the walled city he could see before them.

White marble walls towered above the ground and stretched across the land beyond their line of sight joining in the middle, brought together by huge golden gates and laid behind a border of sand-colored gravel.

Quatre nodded, “That’s it. This feels so strange. I haven’t been home in sixteen years, but not much has changed from what I can te-” he cut himself off with a gasp and stopped dead.

As he looked through the gates, he could see further evidence of what was taking place. The usually light pink-sanded ground was gray, dried-up and broken. He felt a gust of ice-cold air rush from inside the pretty white metropolis and suddenly felt very sickly.

‘Where are the guards?’ There were usually a set of watchmen outside the walls, patrolling the area and making sure that no unnecessary harm came to it’s inhabitants. He began to panic as the smell of blood reached his nose and he heard a deafening crack of thunder, followed closely by sheet lightning through the city.

“Quatre?” Trowa asked kindly, putting his arm around the angel’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

The others had stopped along with Quatre and were staring at the city in dismay. They’d never seen it before, but the intensity of the radiated atmosphere told them something was very, very out of balance. Duo unconsciously grabbed at Heero’s hand, who made no move to pull away, and Wufei stepped forward to comfort a very distressed Sandrock pilot.

“No… no this is all wrong,” Quatre whispered with a gulp. “Niravaana looks so sad. I can hear it screaming.”

“Screaming?” Wufei said curiously. “How can the city scream?”

“The angelic minds are desperate,” Quatre replied. “Niravaana’s essence is made up of all our minds. The people inside are trapped and… they’re crying inside. I don’t know how to help them.”

Duo and Heero stood closer to the other pilots. “What about your brother? Maybe you should go see him,” Duo suggested, trying to offer what advice he could when faced with such an alien situation.

Quatre nodded slowly, “You’re right, Duo. He’ll know something. Since I don’t know who summoned me, I’ll just have to try that.”

Once inside the city, they found utter chaos. The atmosphere was electric with the recent thunderstorms and the ground was wet with rain. Walking through the city was nothing like walking through Lymbo. People were dashing about in a mad panic and the white-walled buildings looked like they’d been turned upside down.

Quatre looked about frantically, forgetting about his friends’ confusion and desperately needing to find a familiar face. He held onto Trowa’s hand as they hurried through the streets, being run into by a few more nervy angels.

Duo calmed slightly as he felt Heero’s arm link his own and intertwine their fingers. ‘This must be what it was like when cities were invaded by OZ’ he thought comprehensively. ‘Everybody’s terrified because they don’t know what’s happening. This isn’t fear of impending disaster, this is fear of the unknown. Of something even their divinity has no control over.’

Duo felt the fear that the city’s people were feeling. He knew even less about this than they did and he wasn’t used to not knowing things. On Earth he’d been completely in control of his Gundam and every thing that went on immediately around him. More than anything else, it was a scary thought that someone as intelligent as the Gundams couldn’t figure this out.

Quatre whipped around as he heard the sobbing of a little child. Across the street was a little girl sat on the floor, her knees to her chest and her wings wrapped around her legs with tears streaming down her face.

The Sandrock pilot instantly recognized her as a friend’s daughter and went over to her. “Tangwyn?” he asked softly, brushing the hair from her eyes. The little girl looked up through tear welled eyes at her friend.

“Renfredriel?” she asked, with a slightly short-tongued speech. “Where’s my Daddy?”

“Oh come here,” Quatre said, picking her up off the floor and hugging her reassuringly. “I’ll help you find your dad. You just stay here with my friends while I go find him, okay?” He turned to the others and carried her across to them. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” Duo said helpfully, stepping forward to take him off Quatre’s hands while he and Trowa went to look for her father. “What’s your name?”

The little angel blinked and gave a brief flap of her wings. “My name’s Tangwyn,” she said in possibly the most adorable voice Duo had ever heard. “Who are you? Are you a yoo-min?”

Duo smiled, “Yeah I am. I’m Duo and this is Heero and Wufei,” he replied, introducing the pilots in turn.

Tangwyn sniffed as the braided boy dried her eyes, “You’ve got a funny name,” she remarked innocently, pointing at Wufei. “Why’s your hair all pulled back like that? It looks weird.”

Wufei felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “It keeps my hair out of my eyes,” he said slowly. “Don’t you ever have your hair like this?”

The little girl shook her head, “Nobody pulls their hair like that ‘cos it hurts. And if we’re good, we’re not s’pposed to hurt.” It was a curious exchange in the middle of a panicked street like this, but the conversation seemed to be having a calming effect on the kid.

Quatre returned a few minutes later with one very distraught parent. “Tangwyn sweetheart,” the angel whispered lifting her into his arms and hugging his daughter closely. “How could you leave her with these humans!”

Duo was outraged at how ungrateful this man was. “Hey, your little girl was really upset!” he insisted adamantly. “We looked after her for you, the least ya can do is say thank you!”

“Have you got any idea who you’re speaking to!” the man advanced on Duo who stood firm even under the assault to his nerves.

Quatre jumped in between them, “Please Shaiah!” he begged as the taller angel raised his hand. “He didn’t mean any harm my Virtue, he’s new and he doesn’t understand the system.”

Quatre held his breath and screwed his eyes shut, expecting some kind of attack. “Just know your place, heathen. Your brother’s in the western wing of the Dagmar district,” Shaiah snapped, taking his daughter and leaving swiftly.

“Geez Quat, what was that all about?” Duo said quietly. “I’m sorry if I said somethin’ wrong, but I don’t really understand this place.”

Quatre shook his head, “Don’t worry about it. I have a feeling Shaiah has more important things to worry about right now, being part of the Sanhedrin but just be careful about what you say around these people.”

“Don’t speak unless I’m spoken to, got it,” Duo replied as they set off again. After a while he turned to Heero as Trowa, Quatre and Wufei conversed in front of them. “Do you understand this?” he asked, taking his hand again.

Heero shook his head. “No more than you do. It seems like a very cruel place. Maybe we just came on an off day.”

Duo hmphed, “I think that much is pretty obvious.”

TBC…

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