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The Hazards of Magic II

A Gundam W - Ruin Explorers Fusion

By Sefilin

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Chapter 2: Heero

Heero moaned slightly as he came to, finding himself lying on the open hatch of a Gundam that looked quite a bit like Deathscythe Hell. _What_ he was doing there, he failed to recall, and his imagination seemed to have shorted, since it wasn't currently supplying him with possibilities.

A vague sense of uneasiness accompanied his attempts to bring about clarity of mind, and he had a sneaking suspicion he didn't _want_ to know why he was where he was. That was the problem with not remembering - you could never tell for sure whether things would be better off knowing or not. It would be much so easier if you remembered, so you could tell whether you wanted to.

Heero paused.

Wait a minute... did that even make sense?

He ran it through his mind again and came to the conclusion that he'd been spending far too much time with Duo lately.

Which thought had the unhappy effect of bringing everything back. The fight, the attempt at the destruction of Libra by himself, then the actual destruction of Libra by... something coming from Duo's Gundam. The strange silence on the braided baka's part and him catching the other Gundam and setting it down, climbing up to see what was wrong then...

He had a vague impression of a disgustingly cute critter sitting on Duo's seat, wearing a costume and braid just like Duo's. But that couldn't be right. Where would Duo have gotten a chipmunk from at such a time, why would he dress it up like himself and _why_ try to make Heero think it was him? He knew it wasn't April's Fools Day since that dreadful period had passed by while they were still on the Peacemillion.

Then it occurred to Heero that he hadn't moved since waking up, that he was just lying there, staring up at Deathscythe Hell's head silhouetted against the sky. And he noticed that the sky was much darker than it had been, which meant he'd been out for a good few hours.

It was just like Duo to waste his time like that.

He wondered briefly what was happening back up in space, whether Relena and the other pilots were okay. They must be wondering what was happening too, especially after the stunt Duo pulled.

_How_ had he managed to hide that powerful a weapon from the rest of them? Heero knew it hadn't been there when he'd stolen those parts off it right back at the beginning of the war and he'd been over the blueprints of the upgraded Gundam, just in case he had to fly it sometime...

So what was it?

And why hadn't Duo told them?

A frustrated growl emerged from his throat and drew his attention back to his current position, still lying... flat on his... back... staring up... at... the...sky...

"Dammit!" he yelled, jumping to his feet, frustrated with himself.

A strange, yet eerily familiar, sound broke into his thoughts and he turned in the direction of the open hatch of the Gundam, his eyes falling automatically to the - almost - empty seat.

He blinked once, twice, then a third time as he watched the tiny, still disgustingly cute, critter on the seat chitter at him. The braid jumped around, tangling itself up in the tiny striped tail that emerged from the tiny black pants.

This _couldn't_ be happening, he thought to himself, choosing to ignore the _thing_ waving it's arms wildly at him, sounding suspiciously annoyed. So he ignored it and began looking around for any sign of Duo.

He leaned into the cockpit, placing his hand on the seat to balance himself and bent towards the control panels, having decided to playback the last mission log to figure out what had happened. His fingers were busy on the console when he was rudely interrupted.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, lifting smarting fingers to his mouth and glaring down at the culprit, who waved a tiny chipmunk fist at him and danced about on the seat, grinning. Did chipmunks grin?

"Look, you little... chipmunk... leave me alone, okay, I'm trying to do something here."

The chipmunk placed his paws on his hips and began chittering loudly, pointing to itself then gesturing around the cockpit, grabbing a hold of its braid and holding it out to show Heero. Then it glared at him with big chipmunk eyes and Heero found himself on the verge of crying.

Somehow he knew what it was trying to say, had known all along, but did that mean he had to acknowledge the truth? He didn't want this to be happening, he wasn't trained to deal with a situation where most of the laws of physics had been turned upside down.

Still, he had to say it, what with the fascination of the grisly and all that inbuilt through centuries of human conditioning and entertainment.

"Duo?" it came out horribly weak and shaky, and was on the verge of being a whisper, but at least he'd got it out.

The little priestly chipmunk nodded decisively and gestured from himself to Heero, somehow conveying that he wanted to be lifted up.

Tentatively, Heero held out his hand and flexed it convulsively as Duo-chipmunk scampered onto it, causing the strangest sensation to run through his palm and up his arm.

It tickled.

Heero's nose wrinkled at the feeling and he sneezed.

Duo-chipmunk rewarded him with a tiny tap on his thumb, which he had grabbed hold of to keep from falling off. Then he looked up at Heero and gestured towards Wing Zero.

Unwilling to disobey this strange creature hanging onto his thumb, Heero obediently made his way to his own Gundam and powered up, heading for Peacemillion where Duo-chipmunk had directed him to go by jumping up and down on one spot of the space-map he'd bought up on one of his monitors.

Then they were in space and Heero was glad that Quatre, and the other's would be on the Peacemillion 'cause he didn't think he could take much more of this.